Invasion of Privacy: A Novel Read online

  Mary looked closely at Edward Mason, the grave, officious face of the government. She noted the neat gray hair cut an inch above his collar, the steady blue eyes, the crisp button-down shirt and dark necktie. Mason was the Bureau’s number-two man, and he carried the power of office easily. He exuded the steady, reassuring demeanor associated with airline pilots or astronauts, or movie stars charged with carrying out desperate missions in the face of daunting odds. One of Joe’s fellow Marines, judging by his tie clasp. A man’s man. Joe would gladly have followed him into battle.

  And Mary? What about her? She was a good citizen. Loyal. Patriotic. Daughter of a family with a proud naval tradition. Who was she to question the actions of the FBI? Who was she to doubt Edward Mason’s word? To refuse his earnest request?

  And yet…

  “What about what Tank Potter said?” she asked.

  “About the gunshot wounds?”

  Mary nodded.

  “I wouldn’t put much stock in Mr. Potter’s words.”

  “He’s a reporter. It’s his job to get the truth.”

  “Not exactly,” said Mason. “He used to be a reporter.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mr. Potter was arrested two nights ago for driving while intoxicated. He no longer works at the Statesman. From what I understand, he’s a very sick man. You might consider the possibility that Mr. Potter manipulated you to drum up a story so he could get his job back. It’s a reporter’s job to lean on their sources until they spill, so to speak.”

  “But he has pictures.”

  “Pictures? Of your husband—”

  “And the informant. A pistol doesn’t do that. At least, that’s what Mr. Potter said.”

  “Maybe it would be wise to have an expert look at them.”

  “Maybe,” said Mary.

  Mason fixed her with his steady eyes. “For now, all you need to know is that Joe died heroically in the service of his country. The United States will be a safer place because of his work. I’ll see to it that his pension is based on the salary he was to receive after his promotion to the Senior Executive Service. When this is all over, you and your family can expect a commendation from the president.”

  “The president?” said Mary, but all she was thinking about was the enormous impact on the family’s finances that a promotion to the Senior Executive Service would bring.

  “The highest levels of national security, Mary.”

  Still, her curiosity demanded one thing. “So what is Semaphore, then?”

  Mason cocked his head. “What was that, Mary?”

  The hint was plain enough. She heard Randy Bell ordering her never to say that word again. “Nothing,” she said. “I must have misheard something.”

  Mason placed his hand on her arm. “Mary, you’re a civilian. Our work can be dangerous. May I have your word that we won’t be running into you again…for your sake?”

  “Yes,” said Mary.

  “Promise?”

  Mason extended his hand and she shook it, looking directly into his eyes. “Promise.”

  “Thank you for your cooperation. I can see that Joe was a lucky man.”

  Mary reached for the door handle.

  “And Mary,” Edward Mason said, in an entirely different voice. Her kind uncle had been replaced by the admiral in one of his black moods. “Vehicular battery is a serious offense. A felony. Add to that interfering with a federal investigation. You and Mr. Potter nearly got into a lot of trouble. I don’t think your children need to see their mother in a federal penitentiary on top of losing their father.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mason.”

  “Ed—please.”

  Mary stepped out of the car. During their tête-à-tête, someone had extricated the Jeep from the Ford. Despite the impact and the deafening noise of the collision, there appeared to be little damage to Tank Potter’s car. The Ford wasn’t as fortunate but looked drivable.

  Mason came around the front of the sedan. “Cut Potter loose,” he said.

  “But…,” Don Bennett protested, hurrying toward his superior.

  “Do it,” said Mason.

  Tank Potter got to his feet and stood patiently as an agent cut the plastic cuffs. Mason approached him and whispered a few words that Mary couldn’t hear, but the effect was to make Potter wince repeatedly. She imagined he’d gotten the same warning as she had, but without the sugar coating. Keep your nose out of the FBI’s business or your ass is getting thrown in jail.

  “You’re free to go, Mr. Potter,” said Edward Mason. “I’d get those brakes checked if I were you.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Mason. I’ll be sure to have my car looked at immediately.”

  Tank watched Mason head back to his car, then walked over to Mary. “What did he tell you?”

  “Is it true?” She was surprised at the anger she felt toward him. More than Bennett or Mason, he had manipulated her. Their actions, however mercenary, were on behalf of their country. Potter’s were strictly for personal gain.

  “The DUI? Yeah, it’s true. But that doesn’t—”

  “And you no longer work at the Statesman?”

  “Technically…”

  “Do you or don’t you?”

  “No, ma’am. I’m no longer an employee.”

  “So you visited me to drum up a story to get your job back. You came to my house to lean on me and see if I spilled?”

  “To ‘lean on you’? Where’d you get that? I’m a reporter. We interview people. We ask questions. It’s our job. I wasn’t leaning on you.”

  “You used to be a reporter,” said Mary, her voice, her body, trembling with rage. “Now you’re just an unemployed drunk who pressures widows into divulging private information.”

  “It’s not like that. I’m not making any of that stuff up. Ask Mason. He knows it’s true. Why do you think they’re moving the bodies?”

  Mary pinned her shoulders back and raised her chin. “I don’t have anything more to say to you, Mr. Potter. I’d appreciate it if you left my family and me alone.”

  “What kind of Kool-Aid did he give you, lady?”

  “Just the truth. Next time you’d be well advised to do the same. Goodbye.”

  Mary walked to Edward Mason’s car and tapped on the window. “Would it be possible for one of your agents to give me a ride home?”

  “Our pleasure.”

  “I apologize for any inconvenience. It won’t happen again.”

  46

  As ONE 1 began its initial descent into the Austin area, Ian stood in his personal quarters, humming a song from a favorite musical. ONE 1 was essentially a bespoke 737-900ER designed to his requirements. There was a screening room and a fitness room, an office, and a bedroom. His quarters took up the rear of the plane. The office was identical to his offices in Austin, Palo Alto, Guangzhou, and Bangalore, if on a smaller scale: dark carpets, birch furnishings, minimal, spare, efficient.

  “You wanted me?” asked Briggs.

  “Come in,” said Ian. “Shut the door.”

  “Did you ask to see me so we could sing show tunes?”

  “Do you know any?”

  Briggs regarded Ian as if he were mad. “What are you so damned happy for? We have a problem and we need to tie it off.”

  “I thought you already told me it was ‘banked.’ Once—or was it twice?”

  “Call me a gentleman. I have a soft spot for women.”

  “And your suggestion?”

  “You don’t need to know.”

  “Didn’t you hear what Mason said? Mary Grant apologized for damaging the investigation. She promised not to disturb things further.”

  “You believe her?”

  There was no point in answering the question. Belief was subjective. Ian trafficked in certainties. “Show a carpenter a nail and he hits it with a hammer.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You’re the carpenter,” said Ian. “An excellent carpenter, to be sure, but a carpenter nonetheless. Sometimes a more elegant
solution is called for.”

  “The woman has to go. How’s that for elegant?”

  Ian walked to his desk and sat. He’d spent the past half hour sorting through the angles. Eliminating an FBI agent was one thing: a single, orchestrated act with all pieces in place to control any possible damage. Eliminating the agent’s wife was something else entirely. Her death only days after his would not go unnoticed. Questions would be asked. The story had all the makings of a tabloid sensation. Edward Mason was a powerful official, but he had no means of controlling the investigation into the murder of a private citizen, or the press coverage it would garner.

  There was more. Ian refused to orphan two young girls. He knew about growing up without a father. He hadn’t wanted to get rid of Joseph Grant, but in the end there had been no other choice. Grant was too tenacious, and Hal Stark had far too much information. In the end it was Ed Mason’s decision as much as his.

  “About the reporter,” said Ian. “The one with the pictures. What’s his name again?”

  “Potter. Tank Potter.”

  “Yes, about Mr. Potter and his indiscreet friend at the medical examiner’s office…”

  “Cantu.”

  “Yes, Mr. Cantu.” Ian drummed his fingers on the desk. “Those two are nails. Feel free to use your hammer.”

  Briggs appeared happier: a horse given his reins. “And the pictures?”

  “Tell the Mole to make them disappear. I believe that’s well within his skill set. Let me take care of the woman.”

  “You’re sure about this elegant solution?”

  Ian spun in his chair and gazed out the window.

  “All right, then,” said Briggs. “We’ll do it your way.” He paused at the door. “What’s that song, anyway? I think I’ve heard it.”

  Ian kicked his feet onto the desk and sang aloud. “How do you solve a problem like Maria?”

  Briggs looked away, sickened, and hurried fore.

  Ian shook his head. Of course Briggs hated The Sound of Music. No one was killed in it.

  He continued singing, his voice growing louder, his hands moving theatrically. “How do you catch a moonbeam in your hand?”

  He had the answer.

  Sloths.

  47

  Tank Potter made a beeline across the newsroom to Al Soletano’s office. “I’ve got proof,” he said, holding his phone above his head. “I told you I had a story. Here it is. Proof.”

  The few reporters at work popped their heads above their cubicles to see what the commotion was all about. A few called his name. Tank paid them no heed. His wrists burned from the flex cuffs. His back ached from the kidney punch. But worst was the injury to his professional integrity.

  “Al!” he shouted. “You there? Come out of your hobbit hole.”

  Soletano emerged from his office, a sheaf of paper in one hand, a cup of coffee in the other. “What are you doing here, Potter?” he asked wearily.

  “I was right about the story—about Joe Grant.”

  “I don’t want to hear.”

  “Proof,” said Tank, brandishing his smartphone.

  “Take it somewhere else. You no longer work for this newspaper.”

  “The FBI was stonewalling. I knew it all along.”

  “Did you hear me?

  “I have pictures showing that Grant and the informant weren’t killed by a handgun. They directly refute Bennett’s official account.”

  “Sorry, Tank. Can’t help you.”

  “Did you hear me? Pictures. Evidence.”

  “Did you hear me? Get lost.”

  “Fine. I’ll take them over to AP. I’m sure the Associated Press will be happy to look at them. And when they do, it’ll be their story.”

  Soletano stared at him a second, then inclined his head in the direction of his office. “In. Sit. Talk.”

  Tank entered the office and sat down. “By the way, do you have a glass of water? I’m dying of thirst.”

  “Look who’s the smartass,” said Soletano, following him in and closing the door. “One day without a drink and you think you deserve a medal.” He perched on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his belly. “I’m listening.”

  Tank struggled to fit his bulk into the chair. With painstaking detail, he described his visit to the medical examiner’s office the night before and his certainty that both Joseph Grant and the informant had been killed not with a handgun but with a high-powered rifle. Before showing Soletano the photographs of the corpses, he recounted his interview with Mary Grant that morning, beginning with the troubled voice message left by her husband (then mysteriously erased) and ending with her call to Randy Bell, Joseph Grant’s former partner. “She thinks the case her husband and Bell were working on was called Semaphore.”

  Finally he gave Soletano a blow-by-blow narrative of his visit to the medical examiner’s office three hours earlier and the race to reach the airport before the FBI in order to chronicle its shipment of the corpses to Quantico.

  “You rammed your Jeep into the FBI?” said Soletano.

  Tank nodded.

  “And they didn’t arrest you?”

  “I’m here.”

  “You got balls, Potter. I’ll give you that. It’s a wonder you’re not in jail.” Soletano pushed himself off the desk. “Let me see your proof.”

  “You can show the photos to a forensic pathologist. No way a handgun did this. Wounds this size come from a rifle.”

  Tank opened the photo roll. The pictures of Joseph Grant and the informant were the last he’d taken, and as such should have been the first he saw. Oddly, the pictures weren’t there. “Just a sec,” he said. “I’m getting them.”

  Soletano looked unimpressed.

  Tank closed the photo app, then reopened it. The last picture taken was always visible in a frame placed in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. He double-tapped the image and got a topless picture of Jeannette, a buxom blond favorite from Pedro’s.

  “Any time now,” said Soletano.

  Tank went back to the photo roll.

  Nix. Nada. Zip.

  The pictures he’d taken at the medical examiner’s office were no longer there. Tank was a master at jumping to conclusions. First Joseph Grant’s voice message had been erased from his wife’s phone. Now it was Tank’s turn. In the time it had taken him to drive from the airport to the Statesman, someone had hacked into his phone and deleted the photographs.

  But who?

  No one knew about the pictures except himself, Mary, and of course Carlos Cantu. The FBI might infer that he had pictures from the fact that he had admitted to seeing the corpses, but they had no proof. Unless Mary Grant had told Mason. Either way, they didn’t have his phone number or the unit’s IP address.

  Or did they?

  Tank recalled Mary Grant asking him if he’d “leaned on her to spill.” If the words sounded familiar, it was because he’d e-mailed a buddy from the paper earlier that he was heading over to her house to do exactly that. And why had the FBI been tearing out of the ME’s building when Carlos Cantu had told him barely fifteen minutes earlier that they didn’t appear to be in any hurry? Somehow they’d known he was coming. Even before Tank and Mary reached the airport, they’d been listening in.

  All this came to him in a second.

  “Well,” said Soletano, “are you going to show me or not?”

  Tank put down the phone. “Actually…not.”

  “What do you mean? Let me see ’em.”

  Tank shook his head. “You know what, Al? You’re right. I’m not sure I do have a story.”

  “You bullshittin’ me? You get me all hot and bothered, and now you’re giving me nothing?”

  “Sorry, Al. My bad. I’ll be back when I’m sure.”

  “Don’t bother. You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is. Now get out.”

  —

  On the ground floor, Tank stopped in the break room and bought a can of Coke. The loss of the photographs didn’t discourage him. On the cont
rary. The fact that the FBI—or another interested party—was hacking into his phone and listening in on his conversations was a tonic. You didn’t destroy evidence unless there was a crime. Tank was on the right track.

  He looked at his phone.

  Traitor.

  There was only one punishment for treason.

  Outside the building, Tank walked briskly back to the Jeep. Crouching, he placed the phone beneath the rear tire, wedging it between asphalt and rubber. Once behind the wheel, he put the Jeep into reverse. He heard a crunch, and then another as the tire passed over the handset. Still he wasn’t satisfied. Phones were tough little bastards these days. He’d dropped his a dozen times, and though the screen was cracked and the case was chipped, it still worked.

  Sliding the transmission into park, he stepped out of the car and examined the handset. The phone was crushed but looked more or less intact. He imagined that somewhere inside it a battery was still connected to a transmitter that still emitted a signal that someone somewhere with the proper technology could track.

  Tank dug his heel into the metal and glass and ground it into the asphalt. Finished, he picked up the phone. He had to marvel at its design. It just didn’t look dead.

  He had an idea.

  Tank threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove around to the front of the building. Twenty yards away flowed the green, fast-moving waters of the Colorado River. He got out of the car, strode to the riverbank, and threw the phone as far as he could. He watched the handset tumble end over end, sparkling in the sun, before dropping silently into the water.

  Let ’em track that, he thought.