“Harper?” Crane pounced on it immediately. “That’s the same guy who showed up with Kealey in Alexandria. I called and told you about that after the raid, and you changed the subject, remember?” There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. “Aunt Rachel, who is he?”
The other woman seemed to waver, but not for long. “He’s the DDO, Sam. He’s the man in charge of the operations directorate, and you can forget I told you that. It’s highly classified.”
Crane nodded slowly, a satisfied smile spreading over her face. “I knew there was something about him. It didn’t make sense from the start. For one thing, Agency lawyers don’t show up at Bureau raids.”
Ford nodded, her face twisting into a scowl. “He’s been trying to undermine my position for months. After a while it became too much, so I did a little digging of my own, just to see if I could get some leverage.”
“And what did you find?”
“Nothing.” Ford drained her glass and shook her head, barely suppressing an incredulous laugh.
“The man is an asshole, but he’s amazingly clean.”
“You just said he’s the head of the DO,” Crane protested. “That means years and years of fieldwork, right? Those guys are used to working outside the lines. He can’t be totally clean.
There has to be something there. A marital infidelity, for example, or a questionable bank deposit…”
“Nothing,” Ford repeated. “I looked at the money angle, of course. He owns a brownstone on General’s Row, and when I found out, I thought that must be it. I mean, a government employee can hardly afford a place like that, right? But as it turns out, the answer is simple: he did well in the stock market back in the eighties, then bought at the right time. He’s actually quite wealthy, though most of his money is tied up in the house.”
“Interesting,” Crane murmured. “If he’s that rich, I wonder why he still shows up for the daily grind.”
Her aunt was pouring the last of the wine. Setting the bottle back on the table, she said, “I don’t know, but he may need the equity sooner than he thought.” A little smile crossed her face. “As it stands, he’s on borrowed time at the Agency.”
Crane perked up, sensing important information. “What do you mean?”
In a self-satisfied tone, the other woman started to go over the day’s events, including the suspensions of Ryan Kealey and Naomi Kharmai, the latter of whom she described as a mid-level analyst in the CTC. She also explained Harper’s tenuous position as the head of the DO, but the story was missing one thing: the cause for the shake-up. Crane was listening absently, trying to figure it out. Then it hit her.
“All of this wouldn’t have anything to do with the break-in at the German Embassy, would it?”
Ford suddenly looked uncomfortable. She toyed with the stem of her wineglass for a moment, then looked up and said, “I heard you were trying to get assigned to the case. Is that true?”
“It’s important, and there’s a lot of pressure to solve it quickly. Whoever gets it will—”
“You don’t want it,” Ford said, cutting her off. The alcohol seemed to have temporarily lost its effect, as her tone was completely serious, and she looked worried. “Trust me, darling, it’s career suicide. That one will never be solved, and once you get your name on the paperwork, I won’t be able to get you out of it. When the case is still open a few months from now, the Bureau is going to start looking for a sacrificial lamb. Someone’s neck will be on the chopping block, and I don’t want it to be yours.”
“You know something, don’t you?” Crane’s eyes opened wide, and she leaned forward in her seat, her voice taking on a demanding edge. “Come on, tell me the truth. Did the Agency have something to do with the break-in?”
“Don’t ask me that, Sam.” Ford shot her a pleading look, then glanced around hurriedly, as if realizing for the first time that they weren’t alone. “Just stay out of it, okay? And you can keep that hurt look to yourself. It won’t get you anywhere.”
“Aunt Rachel, I just—”
“Samantha, stay out of it.”
“Okay! God, I was only asking….”
“Promise me.”
“Fine.” Crane slumped back in her seat and looked away, folding her arms in frustration. “I promise.”
Ford’s expression softened immediately. Reaching over, she placed a hand on the younger woman’s arm. “Darling, you have to trust me.” She hesitated, then went on. “I know I never told you this, but before your mother died, she made me promise that I would look out for you if anything happened to her. Believe me, that’s all I’m trying to do.”
Crane lowered her eyes, and when she spoke, her voice was brittle and barely audible. “She didn’t die, Aunt Rachel. Nothing happened to her. She killed herself. There’s a difference.”
Ford cringed, instantly wishing she could take back the words. “I know, and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up. Still, the point is the same. I gave her my word.”
“If you want to look out for me, you can tell me what your people found on Mason’s computer.”
Ford sighed in exasperation. “You’re not going to let this go, are you? Why does it matter, anyway?”
“It matters because I don’t think the trail ended with Anthony Mason. He was working for somebody else, and I want to know who it was. His laptop is my best chance to figure it out.”
Her eyes shined. “Don’t you see? Mason was dealing in some heavy stuff, so whoever he was working for must be huge. Getting that guy could make my career.”
“Sam, you have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ford said, shaking her head sadly. “This goes way beyond Anthony Mason.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, you know about the ties between Mason and Arshad Kassem, right?”
The younger woman looked puzzled. “Of course, Harper told me about the Iraqi connection the morning of the raid in Alexandria. That guy Kealey mentioned it, too. It didn’t seem too solid to me, but what does that have to do with the laptop?”
“I can’t really get into it. Suffice to say, you’d be amazed.”
“Aunt Rachel, I’m on your side, remember?” Thinking quickly, Crane shifted forward and lowered her voice. “Think about what happened here. If the CIA had pushed its way into a Bureau operation and stolen evidence from a crime scene while you were on the oversight committee, would you have let it pass?”
Ford shook her head slowly, obviously torn. “No.”
“Well, in this case, it was my crime scene and your people doing the stealing. If Harrington hadn’t been there, I would have been in charge, and it would have been my career in the toilet.
Frankly, I think I deserve the truth.”
Ford considered these words for a long time, but she couldn’t fault her niece’s logic. Finally, she nodded her agreement. “Okay, I’ll tell you everything.”
Crane brightened immediately. “Thanks. I knew I could count on you—”
“On one condition,” Ford clarified. “You keep it to yourself until your own people get a break on the laptop. Wait until they give you a name… It won’t take long.”
“And what’s the name?”
Ford hesitated one last time, but she had said too much to back out now. “Mason was being run by a man named Thomas Rühmann. He’s an Austrian arms broker living in Berlin, where he’s using the name Walter Schäuble. If your technicians are any good, they’ll get the Rühmann identity off the hard drive, but not the location. And there’s something else: I have it on good authority that Kealey is going after him.”