He tried to slow his brain and think rationally. A number of old classmates from Yale had gone to law school, but they were almost all securities, tax, or estate lawyers. One was doing legal aid work in Texas, but otherwise he didn’t know a single criminal attorney, not one, and besides, only guilty people ran straight to lawyers. Nobody had even accused him… yet.
Next, he thought about Simmons. She would be his alibi! She could tell the FBI and the police why he was working at Genesis Advisors!
He reached his car, fumbled for his cell phone, and punched in the emergency contact number Simmons had programmed into it. The number rang and rang. He killed the call and dialed a second time. Again no answer. How was that possible?
He shook off the panic he was starting to feel and decided to contact the two FBI agents, Stewart and Anderson. He’d talk with them before the police found his prints, explain that he was working for Simmons, that he’d found the doctor already dead. The agents would understand. Ironically, their testimony might be the only thing that could clear him.
TWENTY-EIGHT
NEW YORK, JUNE 29
BRENT HUNCHED IN HIS DARKENED car and punched out Agent Stewart’s number on his cell phone. As it rang he looked up the block at a couple walking their black lab in front of Dr. Faisal’s front steps. The dog pulled against its leash and began to sniff. Brent froze, fearing that it would smell dead bodies and start to howl, but the owner gave the leash a tug and moved off. Brent let out the breath he’d been holding then realized that the phone was still ringing and no voice mail had picked up. He checked the number and redialed. No answer. Same result as Simmons. Government inefficiency, he thought. Probably it would be fixed by morning, but he couldn’t wait.
He considered his options. He could call the FBI’s central number, but the night duty officer wouldn’t put him through to Stewart’s home, not unless Brent disclosed the reason for his call, which he wasn’t about to do. Even if they promised to relay his message, it might be hours before Stewart got back to him.
He checked Stewart’s business card. The address was Avenue of the Americas somewhere in the high Fifties. If he showed up in person, even if they wouldn’t call Stewart’s house, he could at least demand to see another agent. He needed a face-to-face meeting with another human being to tell his story. One way or another, the FBI had to understand that he was innocent.
Twenty minutes later, he parked in a loading zone on a side street less than half a block from Stewart’s building. As he climbed out of his car, a light colored van cruised slowly past. He would have paid no attention, but he caught the guy in the passenger seat giving him an intense stare. It made him feel strangely furtive, but he shook it off then hurried up the block and through the front doors to the night security desk in the lobby.
“Fourteenth floor—FBI,” he told the guard as he prepared to sign in.
The guard put his hand over the sign in book. “FBI?”
Brent nodded.
The guard shook his head. “Ain’t this building.”
Brent reached for his wallet and extracted Stewart’s card, pointing to the address and floor number. The guard looked at it then shook his head. “Don’t care what it says. We ain’t got no FBI.”
Brent took back the card. “Who’s on the fourteenth floor?” he demanded.
“Law firm.”
“Which one?” Brent challenged, certain the guard was mistaken.
The guard pointed impatiently at the tenant listing on the wall beside the elevator banks. “Tweed, Barker.”
Brent stepped to the roster, which confirmed that Tweed, Barker and Rowe occupied floors ten through sixteen. His stomach went cold at what appeared to be such an odd coincidence. Could a printing company have made a mistake when Agent Stewart ordered new cards? It seemed a ludicrous explanation.
He asked the guard for a Manhattan phone directory and looked up the listing for the FBI. Their only address was 26 Federal Plaza in lower Manhattan. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the main number. Again, there was no answer. “Is there a pay phone?” he asked.
The guard pointed across the lobby to several phones beside a shuttered magazine stand. Brent went over, dropped some change in the slot, and re-dialed the number.
A night operator answered immediately, and Brent asked for Agent Darius Stewart’s extension. The operator put him on hold, and when she came back she told him there was no Darius Stewart in the Manhattan office.
Brent took a deep breath, a fresh flame of panic burning in his guts. There had to be an explanation. Maybe Stewart worked out of Washington. When he asked for Tom Anderson’s extension and got the same response, he asked the operator to check the national record. She typed for a time before telling him that there were a number of Stewarts, but no Darius. The only Tom Anderson was a programmer, not a field agent.
Brent hung up. Back at the security desk he said to the guard, “I need to go up to the reception desk at Tweed, Barker and Rowe.”
“It’s after hours. You got business?”
“My attorney works there.” Brent heard the lack of conviction in his tone.
The guard’s expression was careful. “Why don’t you call ‘em in the morning?” he said, raising his voice a little.
The second guard had been casually flipping through pages of the New York Post, but now he raised his eyes and cast Brent a wary glance. At six-four, two twenty, even in a suit he undoubtedly looked threatening to a couple over-weight security guards. Fearing they’d call the police if he pushed any further, he walked outside, ignored the rain, and headed toward a pay phone on the corner.
A call to information gave him Tweed, Barker and Rowe’s number, and a second later he asked the firm’s night receptionist for Spencer McDonald. Manhattan lawyers worked the same crazy hours as investment people, so it would be nothing unusual for McDonald to be there at eight o’clock on a weeknight. The extension rang until McDonald’s voice mail answered. “This is Spencer McDonald,” it said. “I will be out of the country for approximately three weeks beginning…”
Brent’s breath caught. He gripped the receiver as if he could choke out the truth. He wanted to call back and listen to the recording again, but nothing would change. Spencer McDonald had a deep baritone and a thick southern accent, very different from the flat, slightly nasal tone of the lawyer who had taken him to New Jersey.
He knew it was fruitless, but he called the firm’s main number one more time. “Mr. McDonald’s still out of the country?”
“Yes, Europe for two more weeks.”
“And you couldn’t have more than one Spencer McDonald?”
“I’m sorry,” the receptionist replied.
Brent knuckled his eyes. How was it possible—three people dead, Faisal’s money seized, the FBI Agents vanished, Spencer McDonald… an imposter?
He felt a surreal dread in his guts as he hurried to his car and fumbled the scrap of paper with Biddle’s cell number from his briefcase. He dialed, got Biddle’s recording and left no message. Wofford was the only other choice, so he looked him up in the firm directory and dialed his mobile number.
On the third ring, he heard Wofford’s drawl. “Hello?”
“Fred!” He took a deep breath, struggling to sound calm because what he was about to say was so unbelievable. “It’s Brent Lucas. I need to talk to you about—”
“Lucas!” Wofford snarled. “What the hell have you done?”
Brent opened his mouth, but at first no words came. Could Wofford already know about the bodies? “What?” he managed at last.
“We’re onto you! We know you wired Faisal’s money out of the country! How long have you planned this?”