Jake shook his head and mouthed the words as if shouting but whispered, “He is weak. I’ve seen too many like him since joining the Bureau. One more overeducated bureaucrat who hides behind the manual. Keep ’em off the streets and let the real agents do the work.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, but part of my job is to keep you on the street and away from Headquarters and shrinks, especially in a fast-moving case like this one. I’m on your side, Spider-Man, but you’re making it tough.”
Jake lowered his head. His contempt for administrators plagued him at the most inopportune times… usually in the middle of an investigation. He knew Trey was right. “You got my back?”
“You know I do. Just stay off the high ground for a day or two.”
Jake smiled, nodded, and said, “Deal. As long as you promise not to hang your mike when we’re meeting.”
“Works for me,” replied Trey. “Just don’t answer your phone unless it’s me or the bad guys.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.” Jake nodded to the waitress, who refilled their cups.
When she left the patio, Jake took a sip and asked, “What’s really going on with the Park kidnapping? Are we behind it?”
“Jake, you can’t really believe that?”
I watched Hafner and the spook last night. There’s more to this than anyone is telling me. And now Hafner wants me back east for a psych eval, which will take me out of play for at least three days.”
“You watch way too much TV. Don’t go paranoid on me. Next thing you’ll tell me is Hafner’s an agent for the Trilateral Commission and he’s really running the world from the basement of the World Bank.”
“Is he?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
Trey paused, a little too long, conspiratorial thoughts beginning to surface. “How the hell would I know? If I asked him and he told me the truth, he’d have to kill me. Then where would you be?”
Jake held his look for a pregnant moment before a smile surfaced. “There’s a reason why it’s a secret society.”
“You aren’t cleared for the secret handshake,” said Trey, dismissing the conspiracy theory and somewhat relieved his agent wasn’t going there, either.
Jake turned serious. “But I am cleared. It’s my butt out there, not yours and certainly not Hafner’s. I need to be cut in on what’s really going on — in the depths where I can’t see. It is, after all, my ass that’s on the line.”
“Jake, it’s need-to-know. I’m up for my five-year security evaluation and they’re putting everyone on the box.”
“Take a Darvon the morning of the polygraph,” said Jake.
“Does that work?” said Trey, surprised there might be a way to beat the polygraph exam.
“No, but you’ll be more relaxed when they tell you you failed.”
“Come on, Jake. Don’t ask me. Just continue to march and keep me updated as you go.”
Jake shook his head, almost in disbelief. “Well, I need to know and I need to know yesterday.”
Trey said nothing.
“I can’t believe you’re siding with management,” said Jake, a comment reminiscent of the grade-school barb “You throw like a girl.”
Street senses prevailed. Trey looked around before responding. “The Agency says Park’s a North Korean IO. They believe he has access to millions in Supernotes and will probably use them for the ransom.”
Jake nodded. “I guess it makes sense the DPRK has intelligence officers operating in L.A. Their entire government is a criminal enterprise, so why wouldn’t someone profiting from its contraband be connected back to Pyongyang? This gets more interesting by the minute.”
As the waitress approached and refilled their coffee cups, both men quieted until she left.
Trey lowered his voice. “A ransom payoff in Supernotes doesn’t cost anyone anything. It just floods our economy with more bad paper. But that’s not all. It turns out NSA didn’t know it in ‘real time,’ but they picked up overhears about the kidnapping… before it went down—”
“Before it went down!” interrupted Jake.
Trey shook his head slowly. “Kidnapping is a predicated word. They couldn’t trace the calls because they were prepaid disposable phones.”
“So we let Jenny and the little girl get kidnapped.”
“This is way above my pay grade and yours. But it looks to me as though the folks in Washington and Hafner thought this might force Park to use the Supernotes for the ransom.”
“I don’t believe this,” said Jake, shaking his head. “Three people were killed and we could have prevented it!”
“It’s not that simple. Nobody thought anyone would get killed. They didn’t know the ‘who,’ the ‘where,’ or the ‘when’ of the kidnapping until after it all went down. That’s because of the incredible volume of information NSA collects. It’s like trying to get a spoonful of water while standing under Niagara Falls.
“Everything I just told you apparently became evident in the past twenty-four hours. If we warned Park about the kidnapping, he would know we were on to him. This whole North Korean issue is important.”
“More important than a life?”
Trey didn’t hesitate with an answer. “Yeah, Jake. Even innocent people get caught in the cross fire, but maybe preventing North Korea from playing a key role in a nuclear holocaust is more important than some Asian gangbangers getting clipped.”
Jake calmed. He didn’t want to get into a moral-equivalency argument with Trey since he knew firsthand what it was like to put other people’s lives on the line. He had to do that in combat as a Marine — and nobody has pleasant memories of those times.
“So whose phones did we pick up on Park’s wiretap?”
“That’s the other thing. It wasn’t on our warrant for Park. It was a call from Lebanon to a ‘throwaway’ cell phone in L.A.”
“What?”
“It was a short call, but NSA is certain the conversation was about the Park kidnapping.”
Jake rubbed his eyes, trying to sort out all he was hearing. “How are we playing the kidnapping?”
“Again, we’re in a box. Park never reported it and if we go to him he’ll know either we’ve got the house wired or we have someone on the inside. From where I stand that someone looks like the gringo sitting across from me.”
“But we have to do something. Trey, we can’t let this little girl and the daughter get killed. They really are the innocents in all this.”
“I know. We talked about it last night after you left. Rachel thinks you should try to convince Park to call us but is leaving the final decision up to you. For some reason she trusts your judgment,” said Trey with a slight smile.
“I was just getting ready to say how much I really think she is a great supervisor with tremendous instincts.”
“Don’t let your ego get in the way of the investigation,” said Trey, still smiling.
Jake shook his head after taking a sip of coffee. “I don’t think trying to convince Park to call the Bureau is the right move. If we bet wrong, I’m out. I think the better road is to stay close, within his wingspan, and be available for him.”
“You might be right.”
“I hope I am.”
“I hope we are,” said Trey, who took a final sip of his coffee. “I don’t want any of this to come back to bite you or me.”
“We’re okay. Thanks for cutting me in. We’re going to get this done, but I may decide the front office doesn’t need to know the how or the where.”
“Jake, one other thing: don’t go toe-to-toe with Hafner. He’s got suck at Headquarters; tread lightly or you might find yourself in Adak, working security clearances for government contractors.”