Dead fall, p.11
Dead Fall, page 11
If they intended to starve her to death, that was fine by her. She just wished they would hurry it up.
Of course, that wasn’t going to happen. They would keep her alive for as long as she served their purposes. Once that had happened, or once they had found a fresh replacement for her, then they would kill her. As far as Anna was concerned, the end couldn’t come soon enough.
In the moments when she was left alone and she was not plagued by nightmares or despair, she dreamed of revenge.
She envisioned locking the doors of the building, setting it on fire, and burning the men alive. It was the worst torture she could think of—for the monsters to know that they were going to die and for their deaths to be racked with as much fear and pain as possible.
Once or twice, she wondered what she might do with the art—how she would go about burning the building to the ground but save the artifacts from destruction. In a way, they were her fellow hostages. If she could escape, didn’t she have an obligation to them as well?
She was losing her mind. Seeing the stolen pieces of art as anything other than inanimate objects without agency was the rambling of a madwoman. Yet she hadn’t been able to shake the thought. And the more she tried to expunge it from her mind, the more firmly it took root.
It began to give her something more powerful than hope; it began to give her purpose. Purpose was a reason to stay alive. She didn’t know that she wanted one.
In fact, she was quite certain that what she truly wanted was for her life to be over. But the more she struggled to push the sense of purpose from her mind, the more insistent it became. It took on a life and a voice all its own and began speaking to her, pushing her, arguing with her.
In her moments of clarity, which were happening less and less often, she grasped that she was having a complete and utter psychotic break, but she had neither the energy nor the will to fight to hold on to what was left of her mind.
Maybe to escape the trauma of her captivity, it was better to go crazy. If she couldn’t escape in body, then why not escape inward, into the boundless expanse of her own mind? There, she could be safe. There, no one could touch her. No one could hurt her. Not anymore.
And so, with her eyes swollen shut, she severed her mental tether to reality and allowed herself to let go.
CHAPTER 10
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The FBI was an around-the-clock operation. Its personnel worked twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred and sixty-five days a year.
That said, Carolan preferred coming in off hours. He wasn’t a big people person and office politics had always bothered him.
The Bureau’s Counterintelligence Division was relatively quiet on the weekends, which was just the way he liked it.
Even better, the Russia Operations section was all but empty. That meant no ringing phones. No useless meetings that could have been handled via email. Nobody popping their head in the door wanting to chat. No distractions.
He needed the silence because he had to get his head wrapped around this case and shake something loose.
The trip to the Commodore Yacht Club hadn’t produced a ton of fruit. The manager, the bartender, and a waitress all confirmed that Burman had been there the previous evening. He had been the guest of one of the members—a former Senator turned lobbyist named Greg Wilson.
Thursdays in D.C. were popular nights to go out and there had also been a junior members’ social function going on. The club had been packed.
Burman and Wilson had had drinks and dinner together. But when Wilson left, Burman stayed behind and had a few more drinks in the bar, chatting up several of the women.
Once he was ready to call it a night, he was way too drunk to drive. He decided instead to call an Uber and left his car behind. The Uber, Carolan learned after reaching out to a contact at the company and arranging to meet the driver, had dropped him at some late-night gyro place a few blocks from his apartment building. He made small talk during the drive, was pretty wasted, and gave the driver a big tip.
The owners of the gyro shop confirmed that he had been there, alone, and had ordered food to go, which he started eating before he had even stepped outside. They didn’t remember anyone hanging around outside, nor did they notice anyone following him.
The CCTV footage the FBI had sourced from buildings in the area showed him walking by himself, eating his food. They had him on camera all the way up to the moment he had entered his apartment building. There was nothing weird. Nothing nefarious.
Carolan was starting to worry that maybe he was trying to hammer a square Russian peg into a totally unrelated round hole.
Burman, according to multiple sources, had unquestionably been drunk. Not only had witnesses served him and seen him consuming alcohol, but he’d also had trouble with his balance and had been slurring his words. Who’s to say he hadn’t gone out onto the terrace of his own accord and, while there, done something stupid like lean too far back against the railing while taking a selfie? Drunk people did dumb stuff every day and every night. Trying to guess what someone in an impaired state was thinking was an exercise in futility.
But what if that was exactly what the Russians had wanted everyone to think? That Burman—whom lots of people had seen drinking—had been drunk and must have either accidentally fallen, or been suffering from suicidal ideation, which, in his stupor, had resulted in his deciding to take his own life by jumping off his rooftop terrace.
Barring some overzealous investigator, it would be an open-and-shut case. While Carolan’s logical brain might have been warning him that he was chasing smoke, his gut was telling him that there was fire. And if there was one thing he had learned over the course of his career, it was that his gut was always right—even if his brain took longer to fit the pieces together and catch up.
Leading with your gut wasn’t always the best way to handle things. Emotions cloud your judgment. Carolan had seen plenty of good agents step in it by not thinking things through. From time to time, even he was guilty of it. The trip to the yacht club was a perfect example.
He didn’t need to take Fields inside with him. Experience had taught him that hanging back and waiting for some members to show up for lunch was the wise play. Hoity-toity places like the Commodore didn’t like it when law enforcement of any kind came sniffing around, especially when there were guests on the premises. They preferred to keep that stuff out of the customers’ view.
As good a tool as it was to put pressure on the manager to elicit fuller and more rapid cooperation, it had cost them time. Once the interviews were over and they had stepped outside, about to hand Burman’s ticket to the valet in order to search his car, they saw D.C. Metro Homicide Detective Greer at the other end of the parking lot with a tow truck. He had served the Tesla dealership with a warrant and they had helped him electronically locate the vehicle.
That’s where Carolan had screwed up. If he had divided the workload with Fields, she could have already gone through the car from top to bottom. She was good and there was no telling what she would have found. Now he was going to have to depend upon professional courtesy from the D.C. Metro police to fill him in.
Any hope he’d had of driving off without an encounter was dashed when Greer noticed the pair and waved them over.
“Let me do the talking,” Carolan had instructed Fields.
When the three met in the center of the parking lot, the detective remarked, “What a coincidence.”
“Half-price oysters,” the FBI man stated. “We never miss Fridays at the Commodore.”
“Bullshit. Even at half price, neither of you could afford this place. What are you doing here?”
“We got a tip.”
“From who?”
“It doesn’t matter. Burman was seen having dinner inside last night. We came to check it out.”
“And when were you going to tell me?” the cop asked.
“Right after we checked it out. I was going to text you from the car.”
Greer wasn’t buying it, but he played along. “And?”
“Burman had a lot to drink. According to the staff, he was pretty intoxicated. Definitely too drunk to drive. He left his car here and took an Uber instead.”
“Who was he the guest of?” Greer asked. “You can’t get in that place unless you’re with a member.”
“Former Senator Greg Wilson.”
“Greg ‘Grab Ass’ Wilson? That former United States Senator?”
Carolan didn’t care for the language, especially in front of Fields, but he nodded anyway. They were talking about the same person.
“Why was Burman having dinner with him?”
The FBI agent shrugged. “Who knows? Wilson’s a lobbyist now. Burman was a rich businessman. They could have been talking about anything.”
“Have you talked to Wilson yet?”
“He wasn’t even on my radar until ten minutes ago.”
“Who do you think the ex-Senator is likely to be more forthcoming with,” Greer asked, “the Bureau or D.C. Homicide?”
Carolan didn’t even need to think about it. “The Bureau,” he replied. “No question.”
“Why?”
“Before he lost his seat, he was assigned to the Select Committee on Intelligence. He’s always had a pretty good relationship with the FBI.”
“I want to know the minute you’re done interviewing him. I also want to be cc’d on your notes.”
“No problem,” said Carolan, who then pointed at the tow truck leaving the lot and asked, “Is that Burman’s vehicle?”
The detective nodded. “We’ll see if there’s any physical evidence inside or if the GPS turns up anything of interest.”
“When were you going to tell me that you had located his vehicle?”
Greer smiled. “Right after we hooked it up. I was just going to text you from my car.”
Touché, the FBI man had thought. This process might end up being collaborative in the end, but there was going to be a lot of push/pull before then. Neither of them was going to hand over leads or evidence without fully kicking the tires on them first. It was unfortunate, but it was just the nature of the game—especially when two different organizations were competing for first prize.
He and Fields had left Greer and the Commodore parking lot to piece together the rest of Burman’s evening.
From the Uber ride, to the gyro restaurant, and finally back to his penthouse, all of his movements were accounted for. Nothing was out of place or unusual, except for the broken CCTV camera at the rear of his building, which could have simply been a coincidence.
Carolan, however, didn’t like coincidences. Without sufficient proof to the contrary, his position would remain that the rear camera had been sabotaged.
Despite a thorough canvassing of the area, there were no additional CCTV cameras with a clear view of the back of Burman’s building. If he had, in fact, been the victim of foul play, his killers couldn’t have hoped for a more favorable scenario.
The missing wallet, the scuffed-up toes of the man’s shoes, the very public nature of his death, his criticisms of the Russian President, and, most importantly, Carolan’s gut, told him that they were looking at a murder. He just needed more proof.
D.C. Metro police had gotten a warrant for Burman’s phone and had turned it over to the FBI in hopes that they could crack the encryption and unlock it. There was no telling how long that would take. The Bureau’s team was excellent, but it was a painstaking process. Too many unsuccessful attempts at unlocking and the phone could self-destruct, destroying any evidence that it might contain.
Carolan wasn’t at a dead end, yet, but he was quickly running out of alleys he could head down. It was the reason he had come into the office this morning. When he got to a point like this in a case, he wasn’t fun to be around. He could be a real short-tempered prick. His wife didn’t deserve that.
He was also a big believer in the old saying that getting things done is a matter of applying the seat of one’s pants to the seat of one’s chair. Being successful in any endeavor, even in the world of criminal investigations, was all about perseverance.
As former Senator Greg Wilson was the only potential lead they had, he had decided to spend the morning digging further into him.
He had hoped to interview Wilson in person yesterday, but when he had called Wilson’s office, he had been informed that Wilson was out of town on business and wouldn’t be available until Monday.
The fact that the former Senator had eaten dinner with the victim the night before and then had left town shortly after the body had been discovered wasn’t exactly a mark in the plus column for him.
Nevertheless, Wilson’s assistant had willingly volunteered that her boss was seeing a client up in New England and that the trip had been on the books for some time. Yet another “coincidence,” Carolan thought to himself, displeased.
Booting up his computer, ready to do a nice, deep dive on the previously embattled Senator, his phone rang.
“Special Agent Carolan,” he said, picking it up.
It was Fields. “Boss, you’re going to want to hop online.”
“Why?” he asked, opening a browser tab.
“That blog in Florida—the one with all the coverage about the supposed killer cannibal Alejandro Diaz.”
“The Public Truth. What about it?”
“Just take a look at the site,” she replied. “I’ll hold on.”
Carolan punched in the address and waited for it to load. Once it had, he was shocked to see photos of himself all over it.
The 50-point headline, bracketed by flashing red sirens, read: MANGLED BODY FOUND ON D.C. SIDEWALK. DIAZ STRIKES AGAIN? FBI LAUNCHES MANHUNT.
The photos ranged from wide shots of the crime scene at Burman’s building to tighter shots of him arriving, stepping into the tent covering the body, and then going upstairs with Fields. They were followed by multiple photos of the Commodore Yacht Club, including Carolan entering and leaving with Fields, as well as standing in the parking lot with Detective Greer while Burman’s black Tesla was being towed away.
Carolan knew, without a doubt, who had taken the photos. It was that dumpy, redheaded guy he had seen outside Burman’s carrying the camera with the long lens.
D.C. Metro’s radio traffic was encrypted, so the man must have had a source inside the department.
A leak inside a law enforcement organization was never a good thing, but one so close to an investigation with massive national security implications was downright dangerous.
He thanked Fields for the tip and told her he would call her back. He wanted to read what The Public Truth was “reporting” about Burman’s death and to see what he could learn, if anything, about the redheaded man with the camera.
His deep dive into Greg Wilson would have to wait.
CHAPTER 11
BAR HARBOR, MAINE
Kyle Paulsen stepped into the kitchen and reached around his wife for the coffeepot. He was a tall, fit man in his mid-seventies. “Is Shit-Kickers here yet?”
“Kyle,” she chastised. “I wish you wouldn’t call Senator Wilson that.”
“First of all, it’s ex-Senator Wilson, and secondly, he works for me. I get to call him whatever I want.”
“If I live to be a hundred, I don’t think I’ll ever understand the pleasure you take in torturing that man.”
“He’s a swamp creature, Elaine. From the moment he emerged from his mother’s womb, he’s had one hand reaching out for payoffs, the other for power, and all the while crying for attention.”
“But still.”
“But nothing. During his two terms in the Senate, did things in this country get better or worse?”
Elaine Paulsen rolled her eyes. “I know a rhetorical question when I hear one.”
“Yes or no?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. You know exactly where I stand on all of this. Morally and culturally, I think we’ve slipped—a lot. That being the case, Gregory Wilson is just one man. He was one out of a hundred Senators. The blame doesn’t rest squarely with him.”
“No, but he’s a good place to start.”
“The voters are another,” she replied. “People get the government they deserve.”
“True,” said Kyle Paulsen. “His replacement is a considerable improvement.”
“Why did you hire Senator Wilson, then?”
“Because swamp creatures prefer to work with their own. If I go down to Capitol Hill, all they see is a big, fat checkbook. They’ll mind their manners, put on an air of false piety, and tell me whatever they think it’ll take to get their hands on my money.
“But when Shit-Kickers goes to the Hill, his fellow Congresscritters see one of their own. Wilson speaks their language. Even out of office, he’s still a comrade in arms to them, a coconspirator who isn’t afraid of getting his hands, or anything else, dirty.”
Elaine paused, trying to come up with something positive about the former Senator. “You have to admit, he has always been quite conversant in the Constitution.”
“That’s always been an act. Boob bait for his rube voters. He used to carry a pocket version with him just in case there was a camera and then, faster than you could say ‘Slick Willy Wilson,’ he’d whip it out. It’s a wonder he never developed a permanent case of bullshit elbow from it. Most transparent person in the Senate. Ever.”
“And yet here he is, pulling into our driveway,” Mrs. Paulsen observed, pointing out the kitchen window.
“I’ll be in my study,” said Mr. Paulsen as he splashed some creamer into his coffee. “Don’t let him talk your ear off at the front door. He thinks he’s a real charmer, that one.”
“I will speak with the Senator for as long as I please. He traveled all the way up here. There should be at least one bright spot in his visit.”
“That’s always been your problem, Elaine. You’re too nice. Especially to the help.”
