They continued with their simple meal once the waiter recognized they just wanted to be left alone. Shepherd was picking at his steak when Maria surprised him.
She said, “Have you heard from your friend Derek Walsh?”
His head popped up involuntarily. Mike Rosenberg had filled him in on everything that had happened just a few hours ago.
The FBI agent asked, “How well do you know Walsh, anyway?”
“Come on, you know exactly how well I know him.” He looked into that stunning face and added, “Is this an official interrogation?”
“I know the military uses back-channel communication all the time. The FBI agent working on this in New York, Tonya Stratford, was in the academy with me. We talk all the time. We’re not idiots. We can look at someone’s service record. I was just wondering if you had any ideas about him.”
“I know he wouldn’t do anything like what he’s been accused of. One of our friends says it’s a conspiracy and he can’t trust the FBI. Is that possible? Do you guys ever go bad? Any past evidence of FBI criminal activity?”
She gave him a flat look, then said, “Sure, I guess. A couple of years ago one of our agents in El Paso, a guy named Eriksen, discovered a crooked supervisor. The agency hammered him. So it happens, but not very often, and Tonya is my friend. I think that’s just an excuse for Walsh to keep running.”
“And me to keep my mouth shut.”
Shepherd was disappointed he had just realized what the whole point of this dinner was.
Derek Walsh felt a little uneasy leaving Alena at the hotel by herself. He’d sat and answered her questions, but ultimately he was the one who had to make some decisions. That was why he was heading in the general direction of Wall Street. He hadn’t absolutely decided to go directly to Thomas Brothers Financial, but that was his inclination.
He strolled downtown on Columbus Avenue looking for exactly the right place to stop. He knew his next move precisely. He just needed the right spot to execute it. It would have been so simple if there were still public pay phones on every corner. But those days were long gone, and one call from his cell phone would render it more of a liability than an asset. Finally he found a subway entrance and was pleased to find two ancient pay phones stuck on the wall like an afterthought. The next question was if they worked.
As soon as he felt the lack of substance in the first phone’s handset he knew it didn’t work. The handle was just a plastic shell with no speaker or microphone in it. He didn’t hesitate to grab the second handset, which felt more like a real phone, and was gratified to hear a dial tone. He dug in his pocket for two quarters, which the private carrier required on this phone. Then he dialed the number he’d found on the Internet for Tonya Stratford.
There were three rings, and he wondered if she would pick up on a number she didn’t recognize. Finally he heard the connection and Agent Stratford’s clear voice simply saying, “Hello.”
He hesitated until he heard her say, “Hello” again. Then he blurted out, “This is Derek Walsh. Is there any chance we could talk without your partner beating me or you dragging me to jail?”
There was a long pause. He thought she’d ask how he got her number, but she surprised him. Agent Stratford said, “We have a little bit of leeway. There is currently not a warrant issued for you. But you’ve probably seen yourself on the news as a person of interest.”
“If your interest is in arresting me, I may have a way to prove my innocence. You weren’t listening to me when we talked about this before.”
“And I won’t listen to you over a phone, either. We have to meet in person. I promise you’ll have a fair chance.”
“There is some kind of bigger conspiracy working here. I keep running into Russian men with guns. One of them is the same man who mugged me last week. He’s a middle-aged man with a scar on his face.”
“Do you have a name?”
“No. But one of his associates is named Serge Blattkoff. And he was waiting outside my apartment.”
“How did you get his name?”
“I happened to see his driver’s license.”
“How did you get away from him?”
“You’ll know if you see him.”
“When and where do you want to meet?”
Now Walsh took a moment and finally said, “I’ll call you back when I have more information and I can think clearly. Until then, I’d appreciate it if I stayed off the news.”
“No promises until we meet face-to-face. All I’m offering you is a fair chance to explain yourself.”
Walsh hung up without saying anything else. He had no idea how hard or easy it was to trace a phone call. He immediately sprinted back up to the street and continued his walk toward Thomas Brothers Financial. He figured he’d be there sometime around noon.
Major Bill Shepherd took a moment to consider how this FBI agent had manipulated him into finding out information about his friend Derek Walsh. He didn’t answer when she dropped the bombshell and made some comment about back-channel communication. Finally he said, “So this is an all-business dinner?”
“Enjoyable business, but business nonetheless.” She had a smug smile that was not endearing in any way.
“I can honestly say I have not spoken to Derek in over a week.”
“But you know he’s in trouble and allegedly made a money transfer that is partially responsible for the protests and the financial markets collapse.”
“A mutual friend told me about it.”
“Who’s your mutual friend?”
Shepherd realized how serious this was and didn’t want to implicate Mike Rosenberg. He carefully wiped his mouth, folded the napkin, and stood up from the table. “As an officer in the United States Marine Corps, I pride myself on good manners. Good manners dictate that I excuse myself from dinner before I say something which would reflect badly on the Corps and me.”
He turned and marched out of the dining room, happy he was able to get some distance before she started hitting him with more questions. But now he had to wonder how much of his life she had been investigating. Did she know there were several German women he kept company with?
Joseph Katazin was chilly and had thrown on a New York Giants windbreaker as he waited. He’d decided he needed to be more efficient and had told his contact to meet him at noon on Wall Street near the site of the most successful protests. Most of the protests had fizzled, but the terror attacks were still going on. It was only a matter of time before the Staten Island Ferry and the subways were hit. Katazin wanted the protests fired up again as well.
He was on the edge of the courtyard of Thomas Brothers Financial and was disappointed to only see a dozen or so lackluster protesters holding signs and a couple even chatting with the police. That would not happen in Moscow after a display like the ones over the past two days. The police were a little less friendly.
Even the cops didn’t expect much trouble. There were more on patrol than usual, but they didn’t have their riot gear on, and there were no large groups of staged officers like there had been. Everyone had the sense that this had run its course, but if Katazin had his way, that wouldn’t be the final chapter in this aspect of his operation.
The further the operation proceeded, the less contact he had with other areas, and now he was solely focused on what he could affect here in New York City. He could only assume the events in Europe were proceeding as planned and the Red Army was ready to move. He needed to give them more time and divert the U.S. government’s attention a while longer. That was where his contact would come in—Lenny Tallett, a twitchy weasel of a man who talked too fast with a Bronx accent that made it hard for Katazin to understand. Just then he saw the thirty-year-old man coming toward him. As usual, he proudly displayed the tattoos stretching from his hands past the collar of his shirt and wore more than a dozen studs in each ear. A younger woman, perhaps even a teenager, hustled along behind him as he approached.