“Let’s separate them and see who’s willing to volunteer statements now,” Mia suggested. She pointed a manicured fingernail at Castile and Phillips. “Take them into separate rooms. See who wants to talk.”
Castile and Phillips were hustled out of the room. Castile disappeared into her bedroom, Phillips stumbled into the compact kitchen.
Mia and a uniformed cop with an evident affection for the weight room, along with a sulky-looking Jones, were left standing alone in the small living room. Nobody spoke. Not a word, not a whisper. Jones couldn’t seem to tear his eyes off the pattern of the Indian carpet on the floor. His chest was pounding. Sweat was forming a puddle in the small of his back.
After an interminable three minutes, Mia asked Jones, “Would you care to guess what they’re saying in there?”
He shuffled his feet a moment, then said, “My buddies would never screw me.”
“Jonesy, you’re an idiot if you really believe you’re worth thirty-five more years in prison to them. Could it be you’re even stupider than you look?”
His name. She knew his name, and that really shook him. Only one way that could happen, somebody was already talking, already ratting. In fact, as he thought about it, somebody had tipped her off about the break-in. How else could they have been caught in this setup? His body began shaking. He never imagined they would get caught. And nobody ever mentioned that the idiot hauling the dope got the booby prize.
“Thing is,” Mia continued, still very factual, “I should be very pissed at you. I’m betting that dope was meant to frame me, a federal agent.”
Another nail in the coffin. Was it worse when you tried to frame a federal agent? Jones bit his lip and stared harder at the carpet. How much more did that tack on to his sentence?
“Odd, I know, but now I just feel sorry for you,” Mia said, and she sounded very genuine.
At least they had something in common. Jones was definitely feeling sorry for himself, too. Were it he in one of the other rooms, he wouldn’t hesitate a moment; without the slightest qualm he’d cut the fastest deal he could get, and begin shoving the blame at the idiot carrying the bag. The dope charge terrorized him. It was twelve pounds, not ten-not that the additional two made any difference. The sentencing guidelines for twelve pounds of heroin were brutal.
And they’d caught him fair and square, in the basement, holding a Hefty bag filled with junk in his right hand, with a big brick in his left hand.
“But there might be a way you can help yourself, Mr. Jones,” Mia offered, with only a hint of reservation.
Jones saw a ray of hope, for the first time. “Tell me. What is it?”
“You want to talk about TFAC? If you have anything helpful, I’ll do my best to get you a little slack.”
So she knew about TFAC, too. What didn’t she know? A lot, he hoped, because he suddenly felt an irrepressible urge to tell her anything she was interested in. Names, dates, his wife’s embarrassing incontinence issues-name it, and he’d talk her ear off. “What’s it worth and what do you want to know?” Jones asked, trying his damnedest to sound like he still had a choice in this matter.
“I’ll try to get twenty knocked off. That leaves twenty, max. Behave like a model citizen, you’ll cut that in half.”
The nods were so fierce he nearly broke his neck. Ten years suddenly sounded like a short holiday.
“TFAC hired you to do this job, right?” Mia suggested.
“Yeah, sorta. We’re contractors. TFAC brings us in for the occasional job.”
“Who brings you in? Give me a name.”
He thought about the twenty years knocked off his sentence-“O’Neal. Martie O’Neal.” The name couldn’t come out fast enough.
“What were you asked to do?”
“Look for dirt. Plant bugs in your phones. Leave a little gift somewhere in your home.”
“The heroin. To set me up, right?”
“I guess. What happens afterward, I don’t know.” He tried desperately to sound convincing. He would never knowingly try to hurt the nice lady with twenty years of his life in her hands.
“Who’s TFAC’s client for this job?”
“I dunno. I swear I don’t. They never tell us. I’d tell you if I knew, I just can’t.”
“Have you done a job like this before?”
“Yeah, coupla times.”
“When was the last time?”
“Seven, maybe eight months ago.”
“Who? Where?”
“Some rich guy. Up in Jersey.”
“Name?”
“Wiley. Uh, Jack, or John, I think.”
Mia seemed to be out of questions for the moment. The instant they got him to the station, he would spend hours being grilled on tape and filmed. Now that he was already squealing and on record with a few big admissions, the hardest part would be getting him to shut up.
She turned to the uniform. “Get him the hell out of my house and book him. Make sure he’s kept away from the others.”
Jones was led out the door, tears rolling down his cheeks, as he stumbled over his own feet. Castile and Phillips were also singing their hearts out, answering any question thrown their way. All three were small fry, almost insignificant in the big scheme, though. Mia didn’t really care how many years they got, if indeed they got any at all.
As long as they spilled their secrets, as long as everything was on record and legally admissible.
As long as they helped her bag the big fish.
The same night, a Pentagon spokesperson, anonymously of course, leaked to the press that the $20 billion polymer contract was suspended, pending a careful review to determine its ultimate efficacy.
The decision to drop the news this way, so lacking in richness or detail or attribution, came straight from the top. The Secretary of Defense was understandably furious, but controlled. There was, as yet, no definitive evidence that the polymer failed after four months-nothing but a musty old report done years before by some private company.
In another week or two, assuming the original tests were correct, the first polymer coatings might start failing and they would know for sure about the polymer’s fleeting qualities. Until then at least, he wanted this handled without any grandstanding.
But the secretary’s patience with all the dirty scandals emerging from the Iraq war was exhausted. There had been so many. The greedy contracting officer who took kickbacks. The tortures committed in military prisons. The sleazy oil deals made quietly under the table. The massive arms shipment that was mysteriously misplaced and ended up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents. And too many other disgraceful memories, large and small.
So much of his limited time had been spent fending off congressional inquiries or wrestling with nosy, ambitious journalists who just wouldn’t get off it.
Big wars involved big money; a little bit of profiteering was to be expected. Wars spawned greed, what’s new? Deplorable certainly, but human nature didn’t take a holiday just because the bullets were flying.
This, though, was different, involving as it did one of America’s largest, most prestigious private equity firms. CG was a powerhouse, widely feared, vaguely admired, and uniformly envied in the corridors of power. A former American president, former secretary of state, ex-secretary of defense, all those impressive, famous foreign leaders, and countless lesser officials-barring a footlocker full of the most damning evidence, CG was not to be trifled with. The secretary definitely didn’t want to jump the gun, half-cocked. A single misstep at this stage and CG would pull out all the stops and make him pay dearly.
So whatever was done had to be accomplished quietly, respectfully, and fast. No big public announcement, no fanfare was the order of the day. Word was passed down, through the deputy secretary, then the undersecretaries, then the assistants, and deputy assistants to the assistants, to all the grandly titled minions, that the only leaks on this affair would come through the secretary himself, or else.