VAIL’S SHOOTING STATEMENT took over three hours. He was interviewed by the office legal agent, who made him repeat the story over and over to eliminate any inconsistencies before it was reduced to writing. “Usually shooting reviews can take up to three months before a decision can be made as to whether it was justified or not,” the agent said, his voice as flat as if he were reading him his rights.
Vail laughed. He knew it was a good shooting and there were no witnesses, but what he found amusing was that by the time this decision had worked its way through the hallowed halls of the Hoover Building, he would be back laying bricks. When the agent asked him what was so funny, he waved apologetically and signed the statement without reading it.
Vail was then led to another interview room, where two detectives from the LAPD were waiting. They were given a copy of the statement. After reading it, they interrogated him for two more hours. When they were done, he headed to see Kate. He was thinking about the ride back to the office. Not a word had been spoken after his asking about being surveilled. He decided that he had been too hard on her. Whatever her reason for being angry, she was a more than capable agent, and just as important, she had not once chosen her career over his reckless resistance to all things FBI. And as unaccustomed as he was to giving in to his feelings, he liked her, probably more than he wanted to admit.
Her door was ajar and he knocked twice before walking in. She was on the phone and motioned him to come in and sit down. Behind her in the corner was a newly arrived steel safe, the kind that looked like a filing cabinet except it weighed six hundred pounds and the top drawer had a combination dial embedded in the center of it. The box containing the better part of three million dollars sat on the floor next to it.
He took off his jacket, throwing it onto a chair. There was a newspaper there and he picked it up. The front-page article was about Bertok’s suicide. He started to read it out of habit, but then remembered that between the SAC’s press release and today’s discoveries, none of it was true. He put it down. Kate glanced at him and he pursed his lips deferentially as a peace offering. A thin smile lit her eyes. After another minute she hung up. “How did it go with LAPD?”
“They didn’t say, but it didn’t seem like they were out to get anyone,” he said. “For what it’s worth, I was out of line with some of that stuff in the car.”
“And some of it you weren’t. When you get to the DAD level you become spoiled and don’t think you should be denied anything. It’s just that ever since we sent you to that tunnel to make the drop, I’ve felt like a hypocrite. Giving orders, making things happen, but not really risking anything. You could have been killed, and I was sitting in the major-case room drinking coffee. You’ve got to understand, I don’t want to feel like a phony. And every time you do something like this it makes me feel that way.”
“If there’s one thing I can spot, it’s a phony. Believe me, you’re woefully underqualified. And as far as these situations, when they come up, I never know what’s going to happen. I never have a plan or calculate the odds of surviving or anything else. It just works out. One day it probably won’t. Maybe that’s why I don’t mind being a bricklayer. A surprisingly small number of us get shot. At least not on the job.”
She smiled and took another Glock automatic out of her desk drawer, the same model as the one he had surrendered. She handed it to him. “I went down to the firearms vault and drew this for you.”
“And I didn’t get you anything. How about I buy dinner?”
“You’re on, but it’s probably going to have to be carryout. We got an ID on the guy who spent the last two days shooting at you—Lee Davis Salton. Recent graduate of the Marion Federal Correction Institution. Long list of bank robberies, plus a particularly nasty little kidnapping in which a man hired him to torture and maim his wife without killing her. Wanted her to suffer for a long time, I guess. I don’t know how these people find one another. Plus, just before Salton got out, they liked him for killing an inmate named Michael Vashon, but they couldn’t make the case. The prison is e-mailing photos of his social circle. Hopefully one of them will be your contestant number two.”
“I wish I had gotten a look at him.”
“The names will be a starting point anyway,” she said.
“How’s Kaulcrick reacting to all this?”
“I don’t think he’s had time to feel bad about it. On the one hand, he’s got three million dollars of the Bureau’s money back. On the other hand, it wasn’t him who recovered it. He can’t even claim he directed the operation. So I think he’s attempting to find some redemption in proving Pendaran is involved. They’ve completed a factory trace of that barrel found in Bertok’s Glock. It was part of a shipment that went to a gun shop in Lynwood, California, on April 21 this year. It was sold to an individual named Galvin Gawl.”
Vail could tell by the sway of her speech that the surprise ending she was apparently building up to was going to point to someone known to them. “Who is?”
“Don’t rush my big finish. We checked Bureau indices and there is a Galvin Gawl. Turns out it’s a former undercover identity for Vince Pendaran.” Vail didn’t have any apparent reaction. “Okay, what’s wrong now?”
“What’s Kaulcrick doing with this?”
“Like you said, surveillance, and I’m sure he’s getting search warrants. You’re the guy who came up with Pendaran. Now you don’t think it’s him?”
“Pendaran was not the second guy in the Honda, remember?”
“So maybe he’s part of the group. Is this just you being contrary or is it because an assistant director is calling the shots?”
He smiled. “You read my file. Did it mention anything about me working well with others?”
“Wait a minute. You’re not afraid of Kaulcrick beating you; you’re using Pendaran as a stalking horse.”
“A stalking horse?”
“You want it to look like the FBI is biting on Pendaran so you can look somewhere else.”
“Next time I’m asking for a deputy assistant director who spends more time shoe shopping,” Vail said. “It has to appear to whoever’s left in this gang that the official FBI is buying the Pendaran strategy so we can sneak around and try to figure out who’s who. These people are too smart, too well informed, for us to try and fake that.”
“We? Meaning I’m back to keeping things from my boss.”
“If career is your choice, all you have to do is go see Kaulcrick and tell him that I’m sandbagging him. No hard feelings. It’s your call.”
Kate considered the offer for a moment. “Tell me, what are you going to do next?”
“Sorry, no hedging of bets. With every turn of this, there are fewer people to trust with information. What I need right now is some blind loyalty. Either you’re all the way in, or all the way out.”
Kate sank back in her chair and sighed. “Why not? I’ve probably already been promoted beyond my level of incompetence.” She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to go. Don called a meeting that started five minutes ago. He told me to bring you along if you were done with your statement.”
“Tell him I’m not done yet.”
“And you’ll be—what—here brooding?”
“I like to think of it as post-shoot-out quiet time.”
“You sure you’re all right?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then I should go.”
Vail went over to the small table he used as a desk and picked up his laptop.
“Where are you going?”
“To the hotel. I’m going to reread the entire file.”
“Why?”
“The first time I read it, I was looking for Bertok. It’ll be interesting to see if I can find anything behind all the misdirection.”
Kate said, “You’ve got to admit, it was pretty impressive how they set him up.”
“It was, and it also gave them one very large additional benefit. Five million dollars all in one shot was a lot to expect the Bureau to pay, so they made it look like one of our own took off with two million. Then their request for three million to stop the killings didn’t seem all that unreasonable,” Vail said. “They definitely know what they’re doing. They don’t just come up with a scheme and stick to it. They continually tweak their plan, changing it on the fly. They find a chink in our armor and exploit it in the next step.”