Crisis of conscience, p.13
Crisis of Conscience, page 13
part #11 of Alexis Parker Series
Sixteen
I exhaled. This was horrible. It was clear from the circumstances there was a spy in our midst, a conniving, scheming son of a bitch who was willing to sacrifice the oath we’d taken, a number of key witnesses, and the integrity of numerous investigations. Unfortunately, Lucca’s intel didn’t provide much useful information that would help identify the mole.
“The data breach was the worst. It’s what tipped off Quantico to the problem,” Lucca said. “If this asshole hadn’t gotten so ballsy, I don’t think we’d even be aware of the problem.”
“So that’s when you transferred into the OIO?” I asked.
“Yep, I was assigned specifically by the Director of the FBI. One of our elite units was breached. It required finesse and a thorough investigation.”
“And you’re the golden boy?” The mockery slipped out before I could stop it. “I mean, you’re young. We’re practically the same age. Shouldn’t he have sent some grizzled, hardened supervisory special agent to head this up?”
“How exactly would that have been covert?” Lucca asked. “Plus, I have dual training. I wasn’t lying to you when I said I had gone through analyst training and field agent training. I did both. I’m capable of doing both, but I didn’t come here to defend my qualifications to you.”
“No, you came here because someone shit the bed, and you were assigned to clean it up.”
“Thanks for the visual.”
“Anytime.” I bit the inside of my cheek, not liking the sinking feeling that I hadn’t been able to shake since reviewing the files. “How far back does this go?”
“The first unexplained incident occurred roughly a year and a half ago. The FBI had surveillance teams and wiretaps set up on a crime boss, and somehow, he got wise to them. He disconnected his phones, hired his own private team of electronic experts to sweep his home and various businesses, and threatened to sue the government if we didn’t cease and desist immediately.”
“It could have been an accident. Our surveillance teams aren’t always covert.”
“He knew where to look for the bugs. He also knew where we were keeping the physical evidence we had to prove he was involved in money laundering.”
“How do you know that?”
“Let’s just say an unfortunate fire broke out inside the specific facility and locker in which those records were being kept less than a week later. No one saw anything. Our footage was wiped, and none of the agents on duty were around when it happened.”
“Did you investigate them?”
“They had been distracted by a large delivery of appropriated firearms from a recent raid. Whoever tipped off our crime boss knew when the weapons would be delivered to the evidence locker.” Lucca held up his hand before I could ask the question. “That information was known by a dozen agents inside the federal building. I checked the phone logs, and a call was made from a desk on the OIO level to a burner phone the same day. However, we’ve been unable to trace the owner of the burner, and the call in question came from an agent’s desk who was working deep cover. I tried getting security cameras from inside the building, but by the time we knew any of this, the hard drives had automatically deleted the footage because it was more than six months old.”
“Fuck.”
“Exactly.”
I licked my lips, picking up another folder that contained additional suspicious occurrences that had led to the collapse of another investigation. “Who was the crime boss?”
“I don’t remember. The name wasn’t important. It was just a single name in the list of criminals who gave us the slip because of one dirty agent.”
“It might matter. Whoever he was, he could be pulling the strings on the rest. Obviously, our dirty agent must have a reason for doing these things. I’d wager his motive is either money or blackmail, so we need to determine his benefactor.”
“Feel free to work that angle,” Lucca said. “I checked through it, but I couldn’t find a connection between the cases. Not to mention, the computer breach didn’t necessarily sacrifice any one case. It sacrificed the identities of our undercover operatives. That reads like our spy is selling favors to the highest bidder. Some of our computer techs at Quantico have been monitoring the dark web and other forums for any activity related to buying the law or buying a federal agent, but so far, we haven’t turned up anything solid.”
“This is bad.” I put the folders down and leaned forward to scan the displayed pages. “This is really bad.”
“Why the hell do you think I’ve been bugging you to get off your ass and help? You should have realized since I was asking for your help, this couldn’t be good.”
“Well, excuse me for thinking you just wanted to bury the hatchet or were told to get me back to work on Jablonsky’s order.” I scrawled out a list of names of victims, suspects, and agents involved in the cases. The answer was here somewhere; we just had to uncover the truth. “How could this have been going on for a year and a half without Director Kendall realizing it?”
“When you take each incident separately, it’s easier to explain them away. Maybe the surveillance teams screwed up. Maybe someone at the AG’s office blabbed. The U.S. Marshals didn’t take custody of the witness fast enough to keep her from running or getting killed.”
“I wonder why the mole took such a big risk to allow a wide-scale computer breach to occur. From the internal investigation, the hacker must have plugged directly into one of our networked machines, gaining access to our intranet and databases. Whose terminal was used?” I hoped the answer would make this much simpler.
“Jablonsky’s.”
“You’re screwing with me.”
“No, that’s actually how I know he’s clean. He fell under a lot of scrutiny after that. He felt responsible for letting it happen. You know how he leaves his office door open most of the time. He apparently forgot to log off his computer, and one thing led to another. Can I tell you a secret?”
I flopped back against the couch, glad to be inside my apartment and not in the midst of the bar where we’d met. It was hard enough to process this without having to worry about putting on an act or watching out for any eavesdroppers. “Shoot.”
“I think that’s why he fought so hard to get you reinstated. He knew he screwed up, and he wanted to make amends.”
“I’m the amends?” That was a ridiculous notion.
“The OIO was hurting. The FBI was hurting. We needed to get as many good people back as possible. Most of our former agents won’t give the government the time of day, and the rest are no longer agents for far more restrictive reasons. Oddly enough, you were the perfect candidate.”
“Even though I told Director Kendall several months prior to this there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d ever come back.”
“Well, I’m glad you did. You deserve to be an agent, and you deserve all the accolades they’ve given you. This city deserves someone like you fighting for them.”
“Dammit, you need to stop watching superhero movies. I’m insubordinate, opinionated, a little unstable, and seriously pissed some asshole manipulated me and everyone inside the FBI to resort to these actions. When we find this shithead, I’m gonna hurt him.”
“Good.” Lucca smiled. “It’s about damn time you get angry. That wounded version of you, being friendly and asking for favors, was rather disconcerting.”
“I thought you liked it.”
“I lied.” Lucca glanced at the time. “I can’t leave this with you. I can’t risk a compromise. You can jot down whatever you want, but keep it locked up safe and never bring it near the federal building or any of our colleagues.”
“Except Jablonsky and Director Kendall?”
Lucca nodded.
“Okay.” I gave the pages another long look, committing as many details to memory as possible. “I’ll attempt to connect our criminals to a specific agent. It has to be someone each one encountered. There must be overlap.” Scribbling down everything in a basic cipher code, I didn’t like where this was headed, but until we had a chance to reconvene or some other breach occurred, this was all the intel we possessed.
“If you come up with something, we’ll meet for another drink,” Lucca said, making sure we had our code words in place. “If not, we won’t discuss any of this for the next two weeks unless something changes. Agreed?”
“It’s your show. I’m just the hired help.”
“Thanks.” He picked up the files, placed them back in their folders, locked them inside a zippered compartment in his computer bag, and headed for my front door. “This goes without saying, but you can’t share any of this with anyone, including your cop friends and your boyfriend.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it.” In fact, I had already told Martin more than I should have, and he’d be curious to know why I had to rush off to meet Lucca. More lies weren’t what we needed right now, so I’d tell him the truth, just not the parts I couldn’t mention. It was a fine line, but that was my burden to bear. “How does your wife handle the secrecy?”
“She thinks I stay behind a desk and run computer analysis. As far as she’s concerned, I’m a glorified techie.”
“So in other words, you completely lie to her.”
“I let her believe I’m safe and sound so she doesn’t worry and I’m not violating any of my duties.”
“Maybe I’ll borrow a page from your book.”
“Just one? You probably should borrow the whole damn book.”
I glared at him, and he let himself out. Giving my sheet a quick glance, I scribbled down the relevant case numbers in the event I needed a refresher on the names. Other than that, I made a few notes on dates of the alleged breaches and incidents. Everything else was in the databases. Staring at the basic alpha-numeric cipher I used, I came up with a more complex code, wrote out a key, and put the first page through the shredder. Great, now I was paranoid on top of everything else.
After checking the time, I took a seat at my desk and accessed the government database, pulling up records on each of the compromised cases. At first glance, Lucca was right to assume there was no overlap. Each case was led by a different primary agent. Hell, some of them were from different specialized branches of the FBI, like the OIO and BAU, and others were part of our drug unit or organized crime. Sure, we all conceivably had access to information, depending on our clearance levels, but asking questions on a completely unrelated case would throw up some red flags. I’d gotten strange looks a time or two when asking about unrelated personal matters, and my intentions had been harmless. Whoever did this either had a lot of friends or owed a lot of favors.
“You better hope I don’t find you,” I warned.
After taking notes on each of the cases and putting them into separate folders, I went into my closet and pulled out a box of old records. Part of the job involved keeping track of any work product in the event the prosecutor’s office hit a snag or a refresher was necessary before testifying in court. Of course, the official information and reports now belonged to the federal government, but I was a visual thinker. Often, I sketched out connections or scribbled notes. Stuffing the newest additions at seemingly random intervals inside my file box, I added my coded notes and cipher code and decided to move this party elsewhere. I knew myself. My sabbatical from life was over, and if I remained alone with these questions and this case, it would consume me.
Hefting the box, I grabbed my keys, giving my apartment the final once-over. Even though O’Connell had dropped by to make sure no one had been snooping around, he wouldn’t necessarily know if something had been touched. Then again, I wasn’t positive where I left my cordless phone or TV remote before leaving the house last time, so I couldn’t be sure they hadn’t been moved. God, this was ridiculous. I’d been shot at twice in the span of eight days, and that wasn’t even my biggest problem.
After loading my car, I dialed Nick, putting the phone on speaker while I drove back to Martin’s house. “I know I sound like a broken record, but are you completely positive Liam Doyle killed himself?” I asked.
“As sure as I can be,” Nick replied. “Look, Alex, you’ve seen the evidence. If this was a crime you were investigating, what would you think?”
“I’d want to know why he did it.”
“He was paranoid. It fits. He had issues with anxiety. He might have been wrongly terminated from his job, which added to a growing distrust of others. He was religious, so maybe he also believed in superstitions. From the suicide note, it sounds almost like he was compelled to act out. Maybe he thought he was possessed.”
“You’re reaching, Detective.”
“No, I’m not.” Despite the words to the contrary, I could hear the slightly amused tone in Nick’s voice. “Did you know the Catholic church routinely performs exorcisms in Poland? They even have a newspaper that names those who have been freed from demonic possession.”
“You’re making that up.”
“Am I? Honest to god, that’s what I’ve heard.”
“I think what you just said was sacrilege.” I blinked a few times, reminding myself to focus on the road. “What about the truck and car? Did you ever figure out how Doyle drove both of them?”
“One at a time,” O’Connell replied.
“Why the hell do I even bother asking?”
“Beats me.” He waited a moment, knowing I had some other reason to call. “Has everything remained quiet?”
“I guess.”
“Parker,” he exaggerated my name, “what do you want from me this time?”
“Nothing. Lucca and I were nearly the victims of a drive-by this morning. The OIO’s investigating, but it looks like a possible gang initiation.”
“Were you in the manufacturing district?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, we’ve had a lot of reports lately. The gangs unit is not happy. After the last turf war, we ended up with a lot less gang members. It appears they’ve been taking new applicants and restocking their numbers.”
“Just what we need.” I shook my head. “All right, I should let you go.”
“Are you sure everything’s okay?”
“It’s fine.”
“If you need something, you know you just have to ask. You’re family. I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, but I’ll be okay.”
Seventeen
I was restless. After hours of twisting and turning, I got out of bed and went downstairs to the kitchen. Flipping on the lights, I brewed a pot of coffee and put my file box on one of the extra chairs. Then I took out my notepad, grabbed the first folder, and poured a cup of coffee.
“Didn’t you give up caffeine?” Martin asked, leaning against the doorway. He nodded at the steaming mug.
“It’s making a comeback.” I actually hadn’t even taken a sip yet, but before I could pick up the mug, Martin confiscated my cup, pouring it and the contents of the pot down the drain. “Was that necessary?” I asked.
“You can’t sleep. Caffeine is the last thing you need, especially since you’ve lost your tolerance for it.” He picked up the kettle, filled it with filtered water, and set it on the stove. “I’ll make you some tea.”
“I don’t like tea.”
“It’s an herbal blend. It tastes like fruit.”
“Then why don’t I just eat a piece of fruit?”
“Do you want fruit?” he asked, moving toward the refrigerator.
“No, it’s four o’clock in the morning. I don’t want fruit.” Dropping my pen, I leaned back. “I want clarity.”
“Sleep might help with that.”
I looked up, finally realizing I was stuck in my own world and oblivious to what was happening around me. “Shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you. I thought I was being quiet.”
“You were. I just notice when you’re not there.” He took a seat, looking at the files on the table. “What’s so important that you can’t sleep? Is this Lucca’s project?” He read the first page of the file. “This dates back over a year ago. Does he need help with a cold case?”
“Cold, hot, there’s not much difference.”
“If it’s cold, why are you worried about it right now?” He put his hand on my arm. “Something happened. You’re different.”
I shrugged, hating how he could pick up on the slightest changes in my personality. “How the hell do you do that? I’ve worked undercover assignments. I’ve even done a few deep cover. I’ve been trained to be unreadable, and yet you read me like a book.”
“It’s because I know you, and I assume it’s because you’re not attempting to be deceptive.” He smirked. “However, maybe I am just that good, and you are trying to change the subject.”
“No, I’m not. I just don’t want to tell you what happened because we’ll fight, and I’m tired of fighting.” He sat up straighter, waiting for me to continue. “After meeting with Lucca, I feel more like myself than I have in the last couple of months. I need to do this. I need to work.”
He rolled his eyes, sighing. “Great.”
“Martin, you of all people understand the compulsion. Don’t pretend that you don’t.”
The kettle whistled, and he went to the stove, removing it from the heat and filling two mugs. He placed one of the mugs beside me and stared at his for a long time. “In that case, can I keep you company while you do whatever the hell it is you’re doing?”
“Sure.” I was reviewing old case work. It was boring and safe, at least compared to the rest of the investigation and what that might entail.
“Good, because if you said no, I was going to take the coffeemaker upstairs to bed.” He winked. “You’re not falling off the wagon on my watch. You’re finally a reformed caffeine addict. A backslide is not allowed.”
I laughed. “You do realize it’s just coffee. Plus, it might be safer to let me have coffee in the morning than expect me to work after being up all night.”
“Maybe you should take a personal day.”
“Are you planning on taking a personal day?” I shot back.
