The second surprise was the house itself.
Alex stopped on the front sidewalk, put his hands on his hips and surveyed the single-family home. It wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t attached to another house either, and the upscale neighborhood was within walking distance of the thriving Bethesda downtown area. Alex said, “At Johnson’s pay grade I thought we’d be looking at a one-bedroom apartment like his fiancée. Hell, this thing’s got a yard. With grass.”
Simpson shook her head. “When I got assigned to WFO and didn’t know squat about the D.C. housing sticker shock, I priced some places around here just for the hell of it. This is over a million dollars, easy.”
Inside, Agent Lloyd was waiting for them. Alex said, “Where’d he get the money for this place?”
Lloyd nodded. “And it’s not just the house. There’s a new Infiniti QX56 in the garage. Runs over fifty grand. And we found his other car. He left it on the Virginia side of the river before he took his last swim. Lexus sedan, another forty grand.”
“Selling secrets?” Simpson asked.
“No. We think it’s a more reliable source of illegal cash.”
“Drugs,” Alex said quickly.
“Come up and see for yourself.”
As they were being led upstairs, Alex mentioned to Lloyd, “Bureau securing crime scenes differently these days?”
“Special marching orders on this one.”
“Let me guess. Since it involves NIC, discretion is valued over all other things.”
Lloyd didn’t answer but he did smile.
In the master bedroom closet there was a set of drop-down stairs leading to an attic access panel. On the floor of the closet they saw bundles of something stacked in clear plastic.
“Coke?” Simpson asked.
Lloyd shook his head. “Heroin. That brings ten times the return coke does.”
“And his fiancée knew nothing? Where’d she think he got all this money?”
“I haven’t asked her that yet because we interviewed her before we found this. But I will,” Lloyd added.
“How’d you get onto the drug angle so fast?” Alex asked.
“When we saw where he lived, we ran Johnson’s name through SEISINT and pulled up the property records on his purchase of this place. He bought it last year for one point four million and put a half million in cash down from a financial source we haven’t been able to trace. He financed the cars and then paid them off soon after, again using a bank account we can’t track. I knew it had to be an inheritance, drugs or selling secrets. The point of least resistance was the drugs. So I pulled in a dog from DEA. It started barking its head off when it went into the closet. We didn’t find anything until we saw the panel to the attic. We lifted the dog up there and bingo! He had it stacked between the rafters with insulation over it. ”
“Well, I guess other things being equal, it’s better he was selling drugs than selling his country down the river,” Simpson commented wryly.
“I’m not even sure he had access to secrets worth selling,” Lloyd replied. “And now we don’t have to go down that road. But this is going to be a big enough mess as it is. Hell, I could write the Post headline myself: ‘Carter Gray, Intelligence or Drug Czar?’”
It seemed to Alex his FBI counterpart was looking forward to every last bit of dirt thrown up on the only federal law enforcement agency that rivaled his in terms of budget and bite. He said, “Now the question is, did he kill himself because he was a drug dealer getting married to a respectable woman and suddenly couldn’t handle it, or did his druggie associates kill him and try to make it look like a suicide?”
Lloyd said, “I’d vote for him taking his own life. He died on the spot where he and his fiancée had their first date. Drug dealers would’ve just popped a new hole in his head while he was sitting in his car or sleeping in his bed. The whole murder-suicide subterfuge is way too sophisticated for those types.”
Alex considered this, then said, “Did you find anything else connected to the drugs? Transaction journal, list of drop-off spots, computer files, anything like that?”
“We’re still looking. But I doubt he would’ve been careless enough to leave stuff like that around. We’ll let you know what we do find so you can close your file out.”
As Alex and Simpson walked back to the car, Simpson glanced at her partner. “Well, there goes the pain in your ass that you didn’t really need. Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Alex said curtly.
“But a drug dealer at NIC, they’re still going to take heat over that.”
“That’s how the cards fall sometimes.”
“So back to WFO?”
He nodded. “I’ll shoot off my e-mail upstairs, follow with a more detailed one when friend Lloyd fills in the rest of the spaces, and we go back to busting counterfeiters and standing in doorways looking to catch a bullet.”
“Sounds like a thrill.”
“I hope you believe that, because you’re going to be doing it for a long time.”
“I’m not complaining. I joined the ranks, nobody pushed me here.” She didn’t sound very convincing, though.
“Look, Jackie, I usually mind my own business, but here’s a piece of real honest advice for a healthy career with the Service from someone who’s seen it all.”
“I’m listening.”
“Do your share of the crap work, no matter who’s looking out for you upstairs. One, it’ll make you a better agent. Two, you’ll leave the Service with at least one friend.”
“Oh, really, who’s that?” Simpson said irritably.
“Me.”
CHAPTER
22
AT THE NIC HELIPAD GRAY boarded a Sikorsky VH-60N chopper. It was the same model the president used as Marine One, although in the coming years it would be replaced by a Lockheed Martin-built version. Gray usually rode the Sikorsky to the White House for his meetings with Brennan, causing some understandably anonymous souls to snidely dub it “Marine One and a Half.” However, there was one distinct difference between how Gray and Brennan were ferried on choppers. When the president rode in from Andrews Air Force Base, Camp David or elsewhere, there were three identical VH-60Ns in the convoy. Two served as decoys, giving any would-be assassin with a surface-to-air missile only a one-in-three shot of hitting his intended target. Carter Gray was on his own in that regard. After all, there were numerous cabinet secretaries, but just one president.
Traditionally, it was only Marine One that was allowed to land on the White House grounds. It was Brennan who’d authorized Gray to travel this way, over the very heated protests of the Secret Service. It saved Gray what could have been a tortuous daily commute from Loudoun County, and the intelligence czar’s time was very valuable. However, there were still grumblings at the Secret Service. Understandably, they didn’t care to see anything flying at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue unless it had the president on board.
At a speed of 150 knots the ride was quick and uneventful, though Gray was too busy to have noticed. He strode across the White House grounds knowing full well that the countersnipers arrayed on the surrounding rooftops were drawing practice beads on his wide head. Inside the West Wing Gray nodded at people he knew. Until 1902 greenhouses stood on this plot of ground. That’s when Teddy Roosevelt finally decided he needed a private place, away from his numerous children and their large coterie of pets, in order to competently conduct his business as the nation’s leader. His successor, the rotund William Taft, made the West Wing even bigger and the Oval Office a permanent fixture in the lives of all future presidents.
Gray’s daily visit had already been scheduled and approved. No one went into the Oval Office unannounced, not even the First Lady. Brennan always received Gray in the Oval Office and not the adjacent Roosevelt Room, as he often did visitors and other underlings.