Sliding the digital recorder toward himself, Dodson listened to the pirated conversation again. "So, Roy," he said when the recording ended. "Think our boy isn't content with a little innocent fraud? That why you asked for this crash meeting? According to you, Mr. Gavallan's joining the big leagues. Premeditated murder is moving up the ladder p.d.q., wouldn't you say?"
"Sir, the Mercury offering is for two billion dollars," answered DiGenovese, leaning across the desk. "Leagues don't get much bigger than that."
"No, son, they do not," said Dodson, rocking in his chair, tapping a pencil on his weathered shipwright's desk, a nineteenth-century antique on loan from the Dodson Family Collection. "Just wish that damned recording didn't make them all sound like robots. Hard to tell if Gavallan's joking or if he's serious."
"Sir, with all due respect, when an associate of a known criminal talks about permanently getting rid of someone, I think that qualifies as serious. Our job is to take a man at his word, not to guess his intentions."
Such fire, mused Dodson, looking at the lean, vital young man seated across the desk. Such drive. His hair was ruffled, his suit wrinkled and in need of a press, but his black eyes were awake and dancing with a mean-spirited ambition. DiGenovese was the kind of agent who wanted to arrest the whole damned world to keep it safe for the police.
"Come now, Roy, we both know that conversation doesn't amount to a hill of beans," he said kindly. "It wouldn't hold a drop in any court in the land. Between you and me, I doubt it would even garner an indictment from so docile a beast as a sitting grand jury. I will grant you one thing, though: It does appear that Mr. Gavallan and Mr. Kirov are closer friends than any of us thought."
Dodson could have added that contrary to DiGenovese's opinion, Kirov was hardly a known criminal, but he didn't want to dampen the boy's enthusiasm. DiGenovese's killer instinct was about all the task force had going for it these days. Truth was, Kirov hadn't ever been charged with a crime, let alone convicted. Not that Dodson didn't think Kirov was dirty. It was just that these days you could label any businessman worth his salt in Russia a suspected criminal. What with all the bribery, extortion, and strong-arming that went on to make the wheels of everyday commerce go round, if you looked closely enough just about anybody was guilty of one infraction or another.
"Now do tell, Roy, what did your team find in Mr. Gavallan's private chambers? Love notes between him and Mr. Kirov? Written promises about how they're going to split the booty? Plans to overthrow the President?"
"No sir," DiGenovese answered without a hint of regret, going on to explain that they hadn't found any documents of an incriminating nature, not with regard to Mercury, Novastar Airlines, or anything else. The bugs were clean too. Only thing they learned was that Gavallan liked to listen to country music. Before going to the ball last night, he'd sat in the bath for half an hour singing along to Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
"Bob Wills, eh?" asked Dodson, cleaning his bifocals with a hankie. "At least Mr. Gavallan has himself some taste. Still, it is a shame. Going to all that trouble for nothing. A damned shame indeed." And though his voice displayed no irritation, he was, in fact, hopping mad. Howell Dodson wanted Kirov more than the headstrong Mr. DiGenovese or Mr. Baranov combined. It wasn't ambition but realism that told him the trajectory of his career depended on it.
Konstantin Kirov had popped onto the Bureau's radar half a year back, when Yuri Baranov had launched an investigation into allegations Kirov was embezzling from Novastar Airlines, the country's recently privatized national carrier. Three months into the case, the Russian authorities had managed to slip an informant into Kirov's head office. Since that time, all he'd unearthed were a few documents relating to some shell companies in Switzerland and Kirov's connection with the Dashamirov brothers, a trio of Chechen warlords-cum-businessmen with whom he held interests in some aluminum smelting factories in Perm and a chain of used-car dealerships. As for Novastar, they hadn't managed to find a thing linking Kirov to the missing $125 million, and Dodson had his doubts as to whether the Russian was involved at all- or, to be honest, whether the money was missing in the first place.
The link to Gavallan came as an adjunct to the Novastar inquiry. Baranov's informant had whispered that Mercury Broadband was being used to launder the funds Kirov had skimmed from Novastar. Hence the surveillance on Gavallan. Hence the "Daisy" taps that monitored every E-mail going into and out of Black Jet securities. So far, the Russian stoolie hadn't provided a shred of evidence to back up his claims, and Dodson had taken to wondering if the scuttlebutt on Mercury's Moscow operations center and its failure to purchase adequate routers and switches for its IP backbone weren't just diversions to justify the informant's five-thousand-dollar monthly retainer, all of which came from Howell Dodson's operational budget.
"Sir, I'd like to bring in Gavallan immediately," suggested DiGenovese. "Rustle his feathers a little, question him about his dealings with Kirov."
"The point being?" asked Dodson, with a little pepper. "Only thing you'd get out of him is an invitation to speak with his lawyer. No, son, we'll bring in Gavallan if and when we charge him with a crime. Right now, let's keep the focus on Mr. Kirov, where it belongs."
"But, sir-"
Dodson cut him short with an icy glare. Like every agent who worked for the FBI, he thought twice these days about whom he did and did not arrest. After Whitewater and the special prosecutor's spending forty million dollars of the public's money for little more than a cum-stained dress and a couple of iffy convictions, the government had become more demanding before allowing its lawyers to get involved. These days, the powers that be were asking for a 90 percent probability of conviction before they'd even look at a case. Law enforcement had become a business. Guys like Howell Dodson had to demonstrate a good ROA if they wanted to move up in the ranks, "ROA" meaning "return on attorneys," not assets. And that "return" was convictions.
"Trouble with you, Roy, is that you've got too much piss and vinegar running through your veins. This isn't some Sunday afternoon raid in downtown Mogadishu. We are conducting a sound and systematic investigation into the alleged wrongdoings of some very sophisticated personalities. Time we slow down, examine the evidence."
"Yes sir."
"Well, amen," sang Dodson. "Finally, we agree on something." And he offered his subordinate an approving nod to let him know there were no hard feelings.
Dodson had come to the Bureau late in life, abandoning a promising career as a CPA with an international accounting firm to help balance the scales of justice. Taxes were his bag, but sometime after his thirtieth birthday he'd undergone a conversion. The private sector wasn't for him, he decided. Helping one bigwig after another whittle down their tax exposure brought scant satisfaction. He certainly didn't need the money. The Dodsons were comfortable, thank you very much, Southern planters who'd moved from corn to tobacco to semiconductors without a backward glance. So on a whim, he quit, joined the FBI, and became a thirty-one-year-old neophyte loping over the O-course at Quantico, acing his criminal justice exams, and taking target practice with an H &K 9mm. Time of his life.
As chairman of the Joint Russo-American Task Force on Organized Crime- or the "ratfuckers," as some wiseacre in forensics had nicknamed it- Howell Dodson's mandate was to corral acts of racketeering associated with business endeavors aimed toward the West. In sixty months of operations they'd jailed crooked oil salesmen, murderous rug merchants, and every type of illegal operator in between.