Mike Lawson - The Payback

‘God, no,’ Emma said. ‘I’m telling you, Bill, these guys are up to something. I can feel it.’

‘Have you talked to the Feebies about this feeling of yours?’

‘Yes. The Bureau assigned two young agents to Whitfield’s murder. The one in charge is not only greener than grass, he’s handling a caseload that would break a donkey’s back. He thinks the likelihood of espionage is pretty far-fetched …’

‘Which you have to agree it is,’ Smith said.

‘… and he says he doesn’t have sufficient probable cause to get warrants to look into these guys’ finances or search their homes.’

‘Probable cause,’ Smith said and made a sound that was half snort, half laugh. In Bill Smith’s normal line of work, probable cause was rarely, if ever, an impediment.

‘And as for Whitfield’s murder, he says they’re starting to think that poor schizophrenic really did it.’

‘Well maybe he did do it.’

‘He didn’t,’ Emma said. Emma, as the old saying went, was sometimes wrong but never uncertain.

‘So what do you want?’ Smith said.

‘I want someone from research to check these people out, particularly Carmody. And I want to borrow a computer guy to tell me how they could trick the shipyard’s IT security. And I need a team, just a small one. I want these guys followed for a while and their houses searched. I particularly want Carmody’s place sniffed for explosives and spyware.’

‘Jesus Christ, Emma. Maybe you’d like a helicopter, too?’

‘I’m serious, Bill. It really makes me nervous that he spends his time on board the ships.’

Smith sighed. Emma was a force of nature. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘the research we can do. You just won’t get priority. The computer stuff, there’s an NSA guy we borrow sometimes when we’re overloaded. Maybe we can convince them to spare him for a conference call. But a team’s out of the question. I’d have to bring guys back from overseas to do what you want. You gotta believe me, Emma: communism was a piece of cake compared to this terrorism stuff.’

‘ Listen to me,’ Emma said. ‘They’re inside a naval shipyard that overhauls nuclear-powered warships!’

‘I hear you, Emma, but I can’t do it. Sorry.’

Emma sat back in her chair.

‘Well in that case, Bill, I’d suggest that you kick this up the line so that when something bad happens, your ass will be covered.’

‘Now that wasn’t called for, Emma.’

Emma reclined on the bed in her motel room, waiting for the phone to ring. She was feeling lonely and grumpy. After Christine went back to D.C. with the symphony, Emma had moved into the same motel where DeMarco was staying in Bremerton. It was clean and functional and conveniently located – and, in Emma’s opinion, only slightly better than a cardboard box. Emma was used to five-star accommodations.

Emma had worked for the DIA for almost thirty years. She never discussed with anyone what she did while working for the agency but in her time she had slept in mountain caves without even a blanket for warmth; she had survived by eating grubs and uncooked bitter roots; she had been bitten on the ear by a scorpion and had once acquired an exotic fungus between her toes. She had suffered these hardships without complaint or self-pity – yet here she was feeling extremely peeved because the water pressure in the motel’s shower was so low it took five minutes to rinse the shampoo from her short hair.

The phone next to the bed rang.

‘Yes,’ Emma said.

‘It’s Peterson in research.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘I’ll start with Norton and Mulherin. They have a history of indebtedness. Their employment records are spotty – lots of supervisor comments about tardiness, insubordination, sloppy work, etc. Before they retired they filed grievances every other month about something: lack of promotion, age discrimination, unfair shift assignments. That sorta whiny crap. Both are divorced and both have kids they don’t support. Neither has a criminal record, unless you count the DUI Mulherin got six years ago. They’re just a couple of fuckups.’

Just a couple of fuckups. That seemed to be the consensus opinion as that was at least the third time that Emma had heard that phrase, or a variation of it, used to describe the pair. So why had Carmody hired them?

‘Is that it?’ Emma said.

‘No. I checked their bank records. Six months ago both men came into some money, a hundred thousand dollars each. This was just before they retired from the yard and started working for Carmody.’

‘What was the source of the hundred thousand?’

‘Carmody’s company. I guess it was some kind of signing bonus.’

Emma snorted. ‘Would you pay these two a signing bonus?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘And where did Carmody get the money from?’

‘He bought a house in San Diego when he was stationed there back in the nineties. He rented the place out when he wasn’t there. Seven months ago he sold the house and used the profit from the sale to start up his consulting company and to pay Norton and Mulherin. But there’s something fishy about the sale. He was paid almost three times what the house was worth. A development company bought the house and I haven’t been able to trace where they get their money from. I could do it eventually, Emma, but they told me I couldn’t spend any more time on this.’

‘Could someone be funneling money through the development company?’

‘Sure. It’s big, it’s global, and it’s got income flows from a dozen different directions. It’d be perfect for funding foreign ops.’

‘You need to find the source of Carmody’s money.’

‘I’m sorry, Emma, I can’t. Not now, and not unless you get something solid.’

Emma was silent for a moment.

‘What about Carmody?’

‘He’s a totally different breed than Mulherin and Norton. He started off as a navy nuc, trained as a reactor operator in Idaho Falls, then served on both attack boats and boomers. His record was spotless. Good fit reps, commendations, fast track for promotion. He was being considered for officer candidate school when he decided to leave the nucs.’

‘What happened?’

‘Nothing happened. He was twenty-four years old – he enlisted at eighteen – and after six years he was tired of submarines and decided he wanted to be a SEAL. The nucs weren’t happy about him leaving but he said if they didn’t transfer him, he’d quit, and he was just too good for the navy to lose. And the SEALs really wanted him, a big young guy with a technical background. He was a dream candidate.’

‘How’d he do in the SEALs?’

‘Great, until right before he quit. He’s one of those guys that has his medals stored in a government lockbox because he can’t tell anyone why he got the medals. Kinda like you, Emma.’

Emma ignored the compliment. ‘What happened before he quit?’

‘He was in … someplace, and … well … something went wrong. One SEAL was killed and Carmody got the blame.’

Emma could tell that Peterson was reading from a report and not telling her everything – or anything.

‘Come on, Peterson,’ she said. ‘What kind of op and what did Carmody do?’

‘Sorry, Emma, I can’t say. The point is, Carmody had to make a decision in the middle of a firefight and he made the wrong decision. In hindsight, that is. You know how it is; you’ve been there before. Anyway, Carmody was the NCMFIC and he took the hit.’

NCMFIC was military-speak for noncommissioned motherfucker in charge.

‘Did they bust him out of the SEALs?’

‘No. This guy was a star. They put a letter in his file and were going to make him repeat some training – basically a slap on the wrist – but he quit before they could.’