W Griffin - Hunters

"No. He always contacted me."

"But he was known to you?"

"I never saw him before the day he came up to me at the bar at the Petroleum Club. The one in Dallas. Not the one in Midland."

"But how did he know you?"

Kenyon shrugged helplessly.

"I don't know. But he seemed to know all about me and my business. And he said, 'I've heard you might be interested in fifty thousand barrels at thirty-two-point-five.' Hell, of course I was. That was ten dollars under market."

"You say he seemed to know all about your business?" Yung asked.

Doherty gave him a dirty look and held up his hand to silence any reply from Kenyon.

"State your name and occupation and then repeat the question," Doherty ordered.

"Special Agent David W. Yung, Jr., FBI, on assignment to the Office of Operational Analysis," Yung said. "Mr. Kenyon, you say the man, Lionel Cassidy, who came to you seemed to know all about you and your business?"

"Yes, He did."

"I'm going to show you a photograph, Mr. Kenyon, and ask if you can tell me who it is," Yung said.

Kenyon looked at the photograph.

"Yeah, that's Cassidy all right. The sonofabitch who sucked me into this mess."

"This is Inspector Doherty. Special Agent Yung showed Mr. Kenyona five-by-seven-inch clear color photograph of a white male approximately forty-five years of age, approximately five feet eleven inches tall, and weighing approximately one hundred sixty-five pounds. Mr. Kenyon identified the man in the photograph as Lionel Cassidy. The man in the photograph is well known to me, Special Agent Yung, and Colonel Castillo by another name, which we know is his real name. That name is not germane to this interview."

"I'm telling you he told me his name was Cassidy, Lionel Cassidy," Kenyon said, plaintively. "Why should I lie to you about that?"

"No one is suggesting that you're lying, Mr. Kenyon," Doherty said. "So what did you do when Mr. Cassidy offered you fifty thousand barrels of oil at thirty-two dollars and fifty cents per barrel?"

"Well, I was suspicious at first, but…" "And now we turn to the contribution you made to the Aari-Teg mosque," Doherty said, a half hour later. "Why did you do that?"

"Well, I certainly didn't want to," Kenyon said. "And I had no idea-I said this before but I'll say it again-I had no idea there was any kind of a terrorist connection whatever."

"So tell me what happened," Doherty said.

"It was in Cozumel," Kenyon said. "I took the family down there for a little sun and sea, you know. And Cassidy was there."

"Castillo," Castillo interjected. "Where in Cozumel was this, Mr. Kenyon?"

"You mean the hotel?"

Castillo nodded.

"Grand Cozumel Beach and Golf Resort," Kenyon said.

"Go on," Castillo said.

"Well, I saw Cassidy at the beach and at the bar. I know he saw me, but there was no sign of recognition so I left it there. That was fine with me."

"Did you happen to notice anyone with Cassidy?"

"Yeah. He was with a guy, about his age. Talked funny."

"A Russian accent, maybe?" Castillo asked.

"Could be, Charley."

"The interview will be suspended," Castillo said, "for a brief period while Castillo consults a file."

Doherty looked at him with mixed curiosity and annoyance.

Castillo went quickly to the net pouch behind the pilot's chair and retrieved his laptop. He turned it on, hurriedly searched through it, and then carried it to Kenyon and held it in front of him.

"Mr. Kenyon, I show you a computer image of a white male and ask you if this is the man you saw with Cassidy in Cozumel," Castillo said.

Kenyon shook his head. "No. Never saw that guy before."

Castillo held the computer up for Doherty to see it.

"Colonel Castillo has shown me the same computer image just now shown to Mr. Kenyon, that of a white male known to me from other photographs," Doherty said. "This man is not known to Mr. Kenyon. May I go on, Colonel?"

"Please," Castillo said.

"Hold it," Delchamps said, then went on: "Edgar Delchamps, CIA. The interview will be suspended until I can get a photograph to show Mr. Kenyon."

Delchamps dug into his briefcase, took a stack of five-by-seven photographs from it, hurriedly searched through them, selected two, and held them out in front of Kenyon.

"Look familiar?" he asked.

"That's the guy," Kenyon said.

"And this one?"

"Same guy."

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure. Cassidy was talking to him at the bar just before he all of a sudden recognized me, came over, and told me he needed a favor."

"Hold it a second," Doherty said. "Mr. Delchamps has shown two clear five-by-seven photographs, one color, one black-and-white, of a white male approximately forty-five years of age, approximately five feet eight, approximately one hundred ninety pounds, to Mr. Kenyon, who positively stated the photos were of the same man, and that this man was with Cassidy in the hotel. The man is apparently well known to Mr. Delchamps but not to me or Colonel Castillo."

Delchamps turned his back to Kenyon and mouthed the name Sunev.

Doherty looked momentarily confused until he made the connection. Then he smiled. Then he lost the smile.

"What do you think of your good pal now, Castillo?" he asked, almost triumphantly.

"I never said he was a good pal. I just told you I wasn't going to report on him to you," Castillo said. Then he looked at Delchamps and announced: "Bingo!"

"Bingo indeed, Ace," Delchamps said.

Doherty turned back to Kenyon.

"You say Cassidy came and spoke to you at the bar of the hotel?"

"That's right."

"Did the man in the photograph Mr. Delchamps just showed you come with him?"

"No, sir."

"You said he said he needed a favor? What kind of a favor?"

"He said he was having a little cash-flow problem and that he needed to make good on a promise he'd made to a mosque in Philadelphia."

"And he wanted you to wire them two million, more or less, from your accounts in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited?" Delchamps asked.

"He said it would just be temporary," Kenyon said. "I knew he was lying. But what could I do?"

"Indeed. What could you do? If you didn't oblige him, he'd tell the IRS what a bad boy you'd been? Right?"

Kenyon shrugged and nodded.

"And besides, you had forty-six million of oil-for-food money in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited. If the IRS got involved, you'd be liable to lose that, too. Right?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"This interview of Philip J. Kenyon III is terminated, subject to recall, at seven-fifteen p.m. central standard time, 12 August 2005. All parties present at the commencement were present throughout the interview," Doherty said, then reached over and reclaimed his tape recorder from Kenyon's knees.

"Go to the toilet, Tubby," Castillo ordered. "Close the door and sit on it."

"My clothes?"

Castillo pointed to the toilet.

Kenyon got awkwardly to his feet and walked naked down the aisle.

"What do we do with him?" Castillo asked when the toilet door had been closed.

"You're asking me, Colonel?" Doherty asked.

"Why not? You're in the criminal business, I'm in the terrorist business, and whatever else that miserable shit is I don't think he's a terrorist."

"He's a coconspirator," Doherty said. "And an accessory before and after the fact."

"If you say so. So what do you want to do with him?"

"Anybody interested in what I think?" Delchamps asked.

"Not that I know of," Castillo said, seriously.

"Fuck you, Ace," Delchamps said, good-naturedly. "Well, now that you've asked for my opinion: How about Jack coming up with some really good interrogators and finding out what else Tubby knows, with these two"-he nodded toward the Secret Service agents-"suitably briefed, sitting in on it to ask questions of their own."