Something snagged in Dom’s gut. “Irene, I can’t absolve sins for which you are not repentant.”
Her face darkened. “Oh, I’m repentant, Father. I am also appalled and ashamed that it’s come to this. In the end, I submit that absolution is your call, but the act of confession is mine, and Father, I need you to listen.”
Dom had learned over the years that no two confessions were alike-except for adolescent confessions, of course, which were entirely alike-and that when dealing with powerful people, the plea for absolution frequently sounded like a demand. It was the way those egos were wired.
“Very well, then,” he said. “I’m all ears.”
“I’m going to need more than your ears, Father. I’m going to need your whole person. You remember All American Industries, don’t you?”
“One of the big-money contributors to the Crystal Palace Cathedral,” Dom said.
“Exactly. Now pay attention because this gets complicated. Based on the information you gave me in your first call, my people did a thorough background check on them.”
“So did Venice. She came up with nothing. Such a nothing, in fact, that Gail hypothesized that it was a government cutout.”
“Good for her,” Irene said. “Because she’s exactly right. CIA, in fact. Even we couldn’t put meat on the theory until we did complete backgrounds on the members of the board of directors. We hit pay dirt with a guy named Dennis Hainsley. Do you want to take notes?”
Dom shook his head. “I never document confessions. Runs counter to some pretty important vows. Besides, I’ll take what you tell me to my grave.”
Irene gave a frustrated sigh. “Okay, Father, I’ll be blunt. You’re going to have to reveal some of this. Lives are at stake. I expect you never to reveal who gave you the information, but I’m going to need you to act on it.”
Indeed, no two confessions were alike. “In that case,” Dom said, “I’ve got a good memory. Still no notes.”
“Your call,” Irene said. “Our computers pinged on Dennis Hainsley. The name showed up on the same kind of list that Digger’s name comes up on. A covert list. We had to dig pretty deeply, but ultimately, we tracked it to the Agency.”
“CIA.” Dom was pretty sure that’s what she meant, but given the stakes, it was worth clarifying.
“Exactly. In the 1990s, Dennis Hainsley was the official cover for Trevor Munro, who, until recently, was the CIA station chief in Caracas.”
“Venezuela, right?” Geography had never been Dom’s long suit.
Irene smiled. “Yes, Father. Caracas, Venezuela.”
“All respect, Irene, Dennis Hainsley sounds to me like a pretty common name. Couldn’t this be a different one?”
“I’m getting to that. Trevor Munro, aka Dennis Hainsley, has spent most of his career on various Central and South American desks. He goes all the way back to the Contras-Sandinistas mess. Hell, he goes nearly to Noriega’s rise in Panama. From the very early days of his career, the drug trade has been front and center on everything he did. Those were the days when America chose which drug lords were successful and which ones suffered, depending upon the degree of cooperation with Uncle Sam’s priorities du jour. Are you following me so far?”
“I’m not confused,” Dom said, “but I’m not connecting any dots yet, either.”
“Well, then get ready. One of Munro’s primary points of contact for getting leverage against the drug lords was an American named Mitchell Ponder. Ring any bells?”
Bells, no. Brass gongs, yes. Mitchell Ponder had been instrumental in the kidnapping of two children from Resurrection House not too long ago. During the mission to get them back, Jonathan and Boxers killed Ponder and destroyed one of Colombia’s most profitable cocaine rings, literally burning up tens of millions of dollars in product and processing equipment.
“Since you’re mentioning his name, I’m assuming there’s a connection,” Dom said. “I mean, between that incident in Colombia and what’s happening now.”
Irene nodded. “We think there is, yes. I just learned that at the time of Digger’s adventures in Colombia, Trevor Munro was on Mitch Ponder’s payroll, offering protection to Ponder’s operation in return for serious cash.”
“How serious?”
“Does it matter? Serious enough to justify retribution.”
Dom took some time to process the details. “So the CIA is behind all of this?”
“Not behind it,” Irene corrected, “but complicit in it. It turns out that Mitch Ponder was a manufacturer of product, not a distributor. His primary customer was a very bad guy named Felix Hernandez-one of Mexico’s big three drug lords. When Digger stopped the music by killing Ponder, Hernandez was the one left without a chair, and he was not happy about it. Beyond the economic loss, he was doubly pissed because he was convinced that Digger’s mayhem was an Agency operation. He thought Munro had betrayed him.
“Munro denied it, of course, but an angry drug lord is a very scary animal. Fearing for his life, Munro got himself transferred back to Langley, where, typical of the Agency, they promoted him to bigger and better things. As we speak, he’s one retirement away from being named ADD/CIA.”
Dom showed confusion.
“Oh, sorry,” Irene said. “Associate deputy director of the CIA. Number-three guy. Just south of requiring Senate approval.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I’ll get to that. Bottom line, all of this has convinced Hernandez even more that he’s being betrayed. And I can’t prove any of it. Yet. We have a source inside Hernandez’s cartel, though, who’s been working with us in return for future asylum. She tells us that Hernandez has been leaning hard on someone inside the U.S. intelligence community. She doesn’t know a name, but she knows it has something to do with betrayal and an Agency op gone bad. Hernandez keeps talking about having an important spy’s balls… um, sensitive parts in his hands.
“Now this comes up. A lot of the rest is conjecture, especially the connection to the Crystal Palace, but really, what is the likelihood that a CIA cutout company would give a surprise donation to a troubled church just weeks before that money would be needed to pay off a ransom that happened to be delivered by the very team that caused the original mayhem? That’s a coincidence that comes as close to impossible as any I can think of.”
There was no arguing the point. “It just seems to be the long way around the barn to get three million in ransom.”
Irene made a shooing motion. “I don’t think it was about the ransom. I think it was about killing Digger and his team. I think Munro threw him under the bus.”
“Then why go through the whole charade of the kidnapping and Mexico? Why not just kill them on the street?”
She smiled. She’d been waiting for this question. “Again, I have to conjecture, but my guess is that Munro doesn’t know who he’s looking for. That’s why the Interpol alert is for Leon Harris and Richard Lerner. Dig and Boxers have used those handles for a long time, but because the covers are buried so deep, the names have never meant anything. Are those the names they used on their Colombia op?”
Dom had no idea.
“Let’s assume that they were,” Irene continued. “To get them, Munro had to stage a kidnapping and get the Crystal Palace to hire Security Solutions-again, not by name, but by the operators’ aliases.”
Dom sorted it in his head. The dots all seemed to connect. That it made sense disgusted him. “So the church gets a six-million-dollar donation, and all they have to do is agree to give away three million in ransom.”
“It’s not a pretty world, is it, Father? For all I know, the three million in ransom might have been earmarked to be returned to the church.”
Dom’s mood darkened even more. “Children, Irene. Children have died for this plan. How can that be worth it?”