Patterson, James - Alex Cross 1 - Along Came A Spider

“I'd like to show you all the information we have on agents Devine and Chakely. In return, we must ask for your full cooperation in keeping this matter absolutely confidential. What I'm telling you now... is that we've known about them for a while, Detective. We were running a parallel investigation to your own.”

“You have my cooperation,” I said, trying not to show my surprise at his news. “But I'm going to have to file a report back at the department.”

“I've already spoken to your commanding officer about the matter.” Weithas brushed that little detail aside. He'd already broken my confidence; he absolutely expected me to keep his. “You've been ahead of us a couple of times during the investigation. This time, maybe we're a little ahead of you. Half a step.”

“You have a little bigger staff,” I reminded him.

Scorse took over for Weithas at that point. He hadn't lost his touch for condescension. “We started our investigation of agents Devine and Chakely at the time of the kidnapping,” he said. “They were obvious suspects, though not ones we took seriously. During the course of the investigation a great deal of pressure was placed on both men. Since the Secret Service reports directly to the secretary of the treasury, you can imagine what they were subjected to.”

“I watched most of it firsthand,” I reminded both FBI men.

Scorse nodded, then went on. "On the fourth of January, Agent Charles Chakely resigned from the Service. He stated that he'd been thinking about the move long before the kidnapping, anyway. He said he couldn't handle the innuendos, all the media attention. His resignation was accepted immediately. At about the same time, a small error in the daily logs kept by the agents was discovered by us. A date had been inadvertently reversed. It was nothing major, except that we were checking everything about the case at the time.

“We eventually got nine hundred of our agents directly or indirectly involved,” the deputy director added. I had no idea what his point was yet.

“Other inconsistencies in the agents' logs were eventually discovered,” Scorse continued. “Our technical experts concluded that two of the individual reports had been doctored, that is, rewritten. We ultimately came to believe that what was taken out were references to the teacher Gary Soneji.”

“They had spotted him checking out the Goldberg house in Potomac,” I said. "If Soneji can be believed.

“On this point, I think he can. What you've recently had confirmed corresponds to our findings. We believe that the two agents observed Soneji watching Michael Goldberg and Maggie Rose Dunne. We think one of the agents followed Soneji, and discovered the hiding place in Crisfield, Maryland.”

“You've been watching the two agents ever since?” I asked Gerry Scorse.

He nodded once, just as efficient as ever. “For a couple of months, anyway. We also have good reason to believe they know we're watching. Two weeks after Chakely resigned, Devine also resigned from the Service. He said he and his family couldn't take the pressure associated with what had happened, either. Actually, Devine and his wife are separated.” “I assume Chakely and Devine haven't tried to spend any of the money,” I said.

“To our knowledge, no. As I said before, they know we're suspicious. They aren't dumb. Not at all.”

“It's come down to a rather delicate and intricate waiting game,” Weithas said. “We can't prove anything yet, but we can disrupt their lives. We can sure as hell keep them from spending any of the ransom money ”What about the pilot in Florida? There was no way I could run an investigation down there. Did you ever find out who he was?"

Scorse nodded. The FBI had been withholding a lot from me. From everybody. I wasn't surprised. "He turned out to be a drug runner named Joseph Denyeau. He was known to some of our people in Florida. It's conceivable that Devine knew Denyeau and hired him.

“What happened to this Joseph Denyeau?”

“In case we had any doubts about whether Devine and Chakely play for keeps-they do. Denyeau was murdered in Costa Rica. His throat was cut.. He wasn't supposed to be found.”

“You're not going to bring Devine and Chakely in at this point?” “We don't have any proof, Alex. None. Nothing that will hold up. What you got from Soneji cements it, but won't help in court.”

“What happened to the little girl? What happened to Maggie Rose Dunne?” I asked Weithas.

Weithas didn't say anything. He blew out air over his upper lip. I got the feeling he was having a long day. In a long year.

“We don't know,” Scorse answered. “There's still nothing on Maggie Rose. That's the amazing thing in all this.” “There's another complication,” Weithas said to me. was seated with Scorse on a dark leather sofa. Both I men were leaning over a glass coffee table. An IBM computer and printer sat off to one side.

“I'm sure there are a lot of complications,” I said to the deputy director. Leave it to the FBI to keep most of them to themselves. They could have helped me along the way. Maybe we would have found Maggie Rose if we'd worked together.

Weithas glanced at Agent Scorse, then he looked back at me. “Jezzie Flanagan is the complication,” Weithas said.

I was stunned. I felt as if I'd been punched hard in the stomach. For the last few minutes, I knew something else was coming from them. I just sat there, feeling cold and empty inside, well on my way to feeling nothing.

“We believe she's deeply involved in this with the two men. Has been from the start. Jezzie Flanagan and Mike Devine have been lovers for years.”

Along Came A Spider

CHAPTER 76

T EIRHT-THIRTY that night, Sampson and I walked along New York Avenue. It is in the tenderloin of AD.C.'s ghettos. It's where Sampson and I hang out most nights. It's home.

He had just asked me how I was holding up. “Not too good, thanks. Yourself?” I said.

He knew about Jezzie Flanagan. I'd told him everything I knew. The plot thickened and thickened. I couldn't have felt any worse than I did that night. Scorse and Weithas had laid out a thorough case involving Jezzie. She'd done it. There was no room for doubt. One lie had led to another. She'd told me a hundred if she'd told me one. Never flinched once. She was better at it than Soneji/Murphy. Real smooth and confident.

“You want me to keep my mouth shut? Or talk at you?” Sampson asked me. “I'll do it either way.”

His face was expressionless, as it usually is. Maybe it's the sunglasses that create that impression, but I doubt it. Sampson was like that when he was ten years old.

“I want to talk,” I told John. “I could use a cocktail. d to talk about psychopathic liars.”

“I'll buy us a few drinks,” Sampson said.

We headed toward Faces. It's a bar we've been going to since we first joined the police force. The regulars in Faces don't mind that we're tough-as-nails D.C. detectives. A few of them even admit that we do more good than harrn in the neighborhood. The crowd in Faces is mostly black, but white people come by for the jazz. And to learn how to dance, and dress.

“Jezzie was the one who assigned Devine and Chakely in the first place?” Sampson reviewed the facts as we waited for the stoplight at 5th Street.

A couple of local punks eyed us from their lookout in front of Popeye's Fried Chicken. In times past, the same kind of street trash would have been on the same corner, only without so much money, or guns, in their pockets. “Yo, brothers. ” Sampson winked at the thugs. He fucks with everybody's head. Nobody fucks back.

“Right, that's how it all started. Devine and Chakely were one of the teams assigned to Secretary Goldberg and his family. They worked under Jezzie.”