“This covert group is planning on taking aim against the Corland administration. Real scorched-earth stuff. By facilitating their plan, whatever that is, World Teleco is going to stir up the wrath of the White House.”
“We may have to take our chances.”
“You definitely don’t want to do that.”
“Why not?”
“The White House could bring down your company’s entire telecommunications empire, Bill. Seriously. Along with your World Teleco stock portfolio, your profit-sharing plan. You get the picture?”
“That’s a bold claim. Outrageous, actually. I need specifics.”
“How about a call from the White House? Would that work for you?”
Bill Cheavers was stunned. He pushed his glass away from him, then he said, “But a breach of contract…”
“Companies do it every day,” Fulsin said. “Have your lawyers find some loophole. That’s what you pay them for.” Then he bent forward and said, “You’ve got to stop this media plan from happening.” After looking at his watch, Fulsin added, “In one hour you’ll get a call from a restricted number. Pick it up. It will be the White House. After that call I think you’ll want to pull the rug out from under this Mountain News Enterprises deal.”
Bill Cheavers didn’t finish his drink. He got up quickly and looked around the bar once more. His last words to the attorney were, “I’ll be waiting for that call.” Then he left.
Allen Fulsin emptied his glass and exited a few minutes later.
That was when another man at the bar, who had been watching the two of them, pulled out his Allfone and dialed a number.
A man answered the phone on the other end and simply announced, “This is the Patriot.”
The man at the bar said, “I’ve just eye-balled the rendezvous between Fulsin and a fellow named Bill Cheavers.”
“Who’s Cheavers?”
“High-ranking executive with World Teleco.”
“Okay. Keep on it. Get the information to me in the usual way.”
“Will do.”
The man at the bar clicked shut his encrypted Allfone, paid his tab, and left.
In downtown Philadelphia, at the police headquarters, John Gallagher was getting tired of waiting. He was supposed to meet with the detective who was going to show him the surveillance footage of the lobby of the corporate building where Roger French worked. But just before Gallagher arrived, the detective was pulled out on another field investigation.
Gallagher glanced at his watch. Man, I’m going to have to ditch my plane reservation. I’ll never make it to New York in time to meet with Miles first thing tomorrow. Maybe there’s a late train I can still catch.
Gallagher called the ticket office for the express train. Yes, he could still catch the last one, which left in ninety minutes. He booked it over the phone.
That was when the detective strode into the video viewing room where Gallagher had been waiting. He had a uniformed cop with him.
He delivered his weary apologies to Gallagher, then turned to his video forensics officer and told him to start running the footage.
Gallagher’s eyes were fixed on the paper-thin flat-screen monitor on the wall.
The time and date were running in the lower right-hand corner of the black-and-white video as the image of an empty corporate building lobby was cast on the screen.
“Sorry they didn’t use color footage. But these building owners always go the cheap route.”
“No, this is better,” Gallagher muttered. “Black-and-white gives you better definition. At least for what I want.”
The tech guy then fast-forwarded the video to the point in time two hours before the estimated time of Roger French’s death. Then he slowed it down only slightly.
Until they saw the image of a man in a suit entering the lobby.
“Stop there!” Gallagher shouted out.
They froze the frame.
A man of medium height. Well dressed. Broad shoulders. Confident strut. But his head was slightly turned away from the camera.
A shiver crawled up Gallagher’s spine.
“Zoom in.”
The tech guy brought the image closer. It blurred a little with magnification.
Gallagher stared at it. He had to know. Was it Atta Zimler?
“Okay,” he said, “roll it, but very slowly, frame-by-frame.”
So the tech did.
The man in the lobby, as he was caught in each sequential, choppy frame, had kept his face turned away.
Then he brought his face back toward the camera.
Gallagher stood up.
“Let me see ya, you stinkin’ scum…show your face!”
The man in the lobby, in the jerky frames, kept looking down, fiddling with the buttons of his suit coat, keeping his face hidden.
“Look at me!” Gallagher shouted out.
And just then, as the man in the lobby was approaching the elevator doors, he gave a side glance toward the watch on his left wrist, revealing about half of his face.
“Stop!” Gallagher yelled out.
The frame froze.
“Bring it in…”
The tech magnified the frame until a face could be partially seen.
Gallagher walked right up to the screen. He touched it with his index finger.
“I know it’s you. I know it!”
Then Gallagher wheeled around. “Can we get an immediate high def JPG image of this emailed to somebody?”
The video forensics officer came out of the control room and looked at the detective, who nodded the okay.
Out of his wallet Gallagher fished an email address for the Facial Identification Unit of the Biometrics Technology Division of the FBI. Then he gave it to the video guy.
“I need this emailed stat,” he said.
On his way to the railroad station, Gallagher called the private home number of Sally Borcheck, the facial ID guru at the Bureau.
She was watching TV. After nine rings she picked up.
“Sally, it’s John Gallagher here.”
“Geez, John, I’m here at home in my pj’s. What’s up?”
“Got a favor to ask. Sorry about this. But it’s real important.”
“Yeah?”
“I’m having an image of a guy being emailed to your office as we speak.”
“Really…can’t this wait?”
“No. It can’t. Truly. Life-or-Death. Pleeease?”
“Oh fine,” she groaned. “What’s the possible match?”
“A guy in our files by the name of Atta Zimler. I need a facial ID match.”
“Where’s the image from?”
“Lobby surveillance footage.”
She groaned again.
“Those are usually pretty lousy.”
“You’re a genius. You can make it unlousy.”
“Okay. Give me about an hour to get down to the Bureau. You owe me big time, Gallagher.”
“You name it.”
“I’ll call you on your cell when I’ve completed the analysis.”
“I’m naming you in my will, Sally, really.”
“Wonderful,” she said. “A one quarter share of nothing is…let me see…”
“I’ll be waiting on pins and needles. See ya.”
Gallagher looked at his watch again. He figured that he just might be able to make that train after all.
In Manhattan, Bill Cheavers, the World Teleco executive was looking at his watch too. He had settled back in his hotel room, but it was getting late. It was one hour since he had met with Allen Fulsin. So, where is that phone call?
He figured that, for whatever reason, his lawyer was lying or exaggerating. Why? He didn’t know. Cheavers was just about to turn off his Allfone for the night when it rang.
He looked on the LCD screen. It said Restricted. Cheavers couldn’t believe it.
When he answered, the person on the other end, a woman, spoke up. “Mr. Cheavers, this is Lana Orvilla. I am chief of staff to vice president Jess
ica Tulrude. How are you this evening?”
“Good. Thanks.”
“Sorry to call so late.”
“Not a problem.”
“The purpose of my call,” she continued, “is because the Corland administration is very concerned about possible antitrust violations being committed.”
“Oh?”
“Yes.”
“What kind of violations?”
“Well, large telecommunications companies like yours, World Teleco, for instance. We are considering whether it might be appropriate for an investigation to be launched into those kinds of allegations. Bring it to the attention of the Department of Justice.”
“I can assure you, that World Teleco has not violated the Sherman Act or anything else.”
“I’m sure you’re right,” she said. “This is just a friendly call asking for your cooperation.”
“What kind of cooperation?”
“Any cooperation that you deem appropriate.”
Cheavers paused. He had to get it nailed down. If he was going to have his company break a contract with Mountain News Enterprises, he had to know for certain that this was what the White House was asking him to do to avoid an antitrust investigation.
“Please know that I would, of course, be happy to cooperate completely—”
But the vice president’s chief of staff interrupted him. “You’re friends with Allen Fulsin, the lawyer, I understand?”
“Yes.”
“He’s a good man. He gives good advice. Don’t you think?”
“Absolutely,” Cheavers said. That was it. There was nothing more to say.
Lana Orvilla thanked him for taking the call so late and then said good-bye.
Cheavers immediately called the voicemail of the corporate legal counsel in the Allfone media transactions department. He left a message. “This is Bill Cheavers. Please give me your best legal avenue first thing tomorrow for a termination of our Allfone contract with Mountain News Enterprises. We are going in a different direction on that. Please make this the very highest priority. And please send an alert to the operations department about the pending deal that I think they were calling AmeriNews. Tell operations that the deal is being permanently cancelled.”
FORTY-SEVEN
John Gallagher finally pulled into Grand Central Station at 7:30 in the morning. The train had been delayed getting out of the Philly station. Then another delay at one of the stops. After grabbing a cup of coffee at a window snack stand, he dashed up the stairs and outside to catch a cab.
His meeting with Miles Zadernack was set for 8:30. With crosstown rush hour, he’d be lucky to be on time.
In the middle of traffic, which was crawling along like a slug, he received a call from Sally Borcheck. She’d finished working on the video image.
“Great timing,” Gallagher said. “I need this for a conference. What’s the bottom line?”
“Oh, no, I’m not giving it to you,” she snapped back. “Not until I go over some preliminaries first.”
In the cab Gallagher pretended to strangle his Allfone with both hands.
He said, “Sally, can’t we skip that stuff? I’m really in a rush.”
“Look, you’re the one who caught me in my comfy pj’s in front of the TV. I was already halfway into the old version of The Detective with Robert Mitchum. I love that movie. And they almost never run that one on television. So back off, John—”
“Give me a break here, Sally—”
“No, you give me a break. I did you a favor. And I know what’s going to happen. You’ll use my analysis as the reason for some Normandy invasion you want to launch somewhere. And if things go bad, who do you think the Bureau’s going to blame?”
“Me, of course,” Gallagher said. “But fine. You win. Give me the drill.”
“Okay,” she began. “Facial ID in biometric matches depends on the quality of the subject image. In this case, that video clip you sent me was not good.”
“But adequate for analysis. Right? Tell me it was minimally adequate?”
Borcheck sighed. “Yeah, minimally adequate. Now there are eighty facial variants we use to create a face print. Skull size, facial measurements, interrelationships between facial structures…”
“Eighty variants. Good. Moving on…”
“Range of certainty on the upper scale is measured from sixty to ninety percent.”
“And how’d you score this one?”
“Remembering the qualifiers I just mentioned—”
“Sure. Right. What’s the score?”
“I rated your video image at a sixty-seven percent certainty that the facial characteristics in the video matched that of the known subject, Atta Zimler.”
“Certainty…I love that word.”
“Yeah, but it’s on the low end of certainty,” Borcheck reminded him.
“But only because of the poor quality of the video and the angle that the guy had with his head partially obscured.”
“True. On the other hand, with better video and a full face shot, who knows, maybe we’d have much less than a sixty-seven percent match…in other words, no match at all.”
But Gallagher didn’t care about the negative possibilities. Right now he had the necessary forensic basis to pursue a full investigation of Atta Zimler’s presence within the United States. He was on a roll.
“Sally, I got what I need,” Gallagher said as he reached over to pay the taxi driver. “You’re brilliant!”
Gallagher rushed his way through security at the Bureau headquarters by 8:35. He was in Miles Zadernack’s office at 8:39.
Miles was dressed in his black suit, pressed white shirt, and plain single-colored tie.
Gallagher was crumpled from the all-night train ride and was sweaty.
“Miles, I’ve got some breaking stuff I need to tell you about,” Gallagher said.
“And I have some things to tell you,” Zadernack said blandly. “Let’s start with my agenda item first.”
“Sure.”
“You are going to have to remove yourself from any further investigation into Atta Zimler.”
Gallagher kept up his grin and nodded his head athletically up and down. He half-expected this. But he figured he now had something he could wedge in the door before his supervisor closed it on him completely.
“Okay, which is what I wanted to talk to you about,” he started to say. But Zadernack cut in. It was clear he had a speech and he was going to make it. “You don’t understand, John. You are being removed from any further investigation. Not just dealing with Atta Zimler, but any fieldwork. For the time being. You’re being placed on desk duty here at headquarters. Meanwhile, I’m arranging for you to take some counseling in Bureau professionalism.”
Gallagher was getting red in the face. “Wait just a minute—”
“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Zadernack said. “Your attitude borders on insubordination—which is a serious problem!”
But Gallagher was going to bull his way through. “I have a facial match between Atta Zimler and a suspect who just tortured and murdered the son-in-law of a former high-ranking Pentagon general. It just happened. Over in Philadelphia. We have a forensic match, Miles. Come on—”
“Our forensics?”
“Yes. Sally Borcheck in biometrics. She did a match from some lobby surveillance video taken at the time of the murder and at the scene of the crime.”
“What level of certainty?”
Now Gallagher had to swallow hard. This was the hard sell. “Sixty-seven percent. But this was from lobby video. Zimler was clearly trying to duck away from the camera. But we’re still within the ranges of certainty we need for an investigation. Enough for probable cause for warrants, wiretaps, you name it.”
Zadernack gave his favorite emotionless, plaster-of-paris expression. He spoke in something just above a monotone. But what he had to say was outrageous. “Okay, John. Take a deep breath. All right? Relax. Here’s the story. We’ve been told that At
ta Zimler is in custody. In Paris.”
“Who took him in?”
“We’re waiting for confirmation, but the attorney general himself has told us to stand down. We don’t want to risk some false identification of innocent persons. Apparently, some foreign diplomat is entering the U.S. and is worried he’ll be flagged as Zimler. That’s all I know.”
Gallagher shut his eyes and shook his head as he spoke. “No, we wouldn’t want that. Sure, maybe a psychopathic terrorist might slip through our fingers and mosey around America slashing, killing, torturing. But the main thing is we treat people nicely—”
“That’s enough!” Zadernack nearly shouted. It was a rare show of emotion. Then he continued. “John, it’s called ‘Bureau professionalism.’ You’ll learn all about it in your counseling sessions. That’s all for now. I’ve got some other matters to attend to. Thank you for your time. Vera, my secretary, will assign you a desk.”
Gallagher felt his brain go numb, like someone had given him a shot of novocaine there but forgot to do the surgery.
He walked out to Vera’s desk. She smiled courteously and led him to a cubicle, not even an office. She pointed to a desk. “This will be your work area,” she said. Then she left.
Gallagher sat down at the desk. He knew then that he was standing on the banks of a Rubicon. A place where, years later, he would look back and realize he needed to make one really smart decision. Something that would make sense, a path that would insure his future.
He would be retiring before long. He had put too much into his work at the Bureau to trash it all now. So there was a serious question pending: Was he going to throw it all away for a mere sixty-seven percent certainty? The more he thought about it the more it didn’t make any sense. Man, sixty-seven percent isn’t even a passing grade. That’s flunking.
Then he drummed his fingers on the naked desk top in front of him. He couldn’t shake another competing thought: On the other hand sixty-seven might be passing after all. Some teachers grade sixty-to-seventy as a D. Right? And then there’s the fact that some teachers grade on a curve…
He propelled himself up on his feet. He walked fast, past Vera’s desk on his way to the elevator.
“Agent Gallagher?” Vera called out toward his quickly moving frame.