“I’ll talk to you after we get the info dump,” said Nuri. “Figure out the next move then. In the meantime, I’m going to bed. You good?”
“Good.”
“You OK, Colonel?”
“I’m here,” answered Danny.
“Maybe you ought to get some rest, too,” said Nuri. “You sound a little tired.”
Danny glanced at his watch. It was five in the morning; no way was he getting back to sleep.
“I’m good,” he told Nuri. “Talk to you soon.”
15
Breanna overslept, and by the time she woke, Zen had already left to take Teri to school and then go to work.
Her body felt raw from the fight, as if it had been physical. She took a shower, feeling drained of blood, even trembling a little. Coffee helped get her awake, but it only reinforced the jitteriness. She left for work without checking the news or looking at her version of the morning briefing. Her BlackBerry had a dozen messages, but none were from Zen, so she didn’t bother opening them.
Breanna generally split her days between the Pentagon and Room 4. Today she was scheduled to spend her time at the Pentagon, where, among other things, she was supposed to make sure arrangements for the Tigershark demonstration test flight were set. But she headed to the CIA campus instead, anxious for an in-depth update on the operation.
And considering, in the back of her mind, what to tell Danny about the Wolves.
To her great surprise, she found Reid in the bunker. Not only did he spend the bulk of his time in his office in the main building, he was famously known as a late riser, often grumbling about meetings that began before 10:00 A.M.
“Extra strong this morning,” Breanna told the automated coffee unit. “Very strong.”
“You saw the e-mail?” Reid asked her as the coffee began to brew.
“No. I just had an instinct that something was up.”
Reid was an old-school CIA hand, both figuratively and literally. Sometimes it seemed to Breanna that he had been with the Agency back when it was the OSS.
“MY-PID has arranged all of the data from the mobster’s computer,” said Reid. “There’s one possible lead through a bank account. And some interesting connections. Most of the information on the drives pertains to his business interests. The FBI will be interested. And there’s plenty more for the Italian antimafia commission.”
“Let’s have a look.”
“Here.”
Reid turned to the wall, then told the computer to display the data summary. Several windows of information appeared, long lists of files arranged in treelike fashion. A window on the left showed correspondence between Moreno and other members of his organization, translating them from Italian as well as decrypting them. They indicated that he was having some conflicts with upper level associates, or fellow mob bosses. There was personal animosity and friction as well. Based on what Nuri had observed, that was more than understandable.
The profile the information drew was of a man whose empire was slipping away from him. If they were in America, the authorities might even attempt to pressure him and get him to turn against the rest of the mob. But the Italians didn’t work that way.
“He does seem to be losing his grip,” said Reid. “Which is perhaps another reason he didn’t use his own people for the strike in Berlin. In any event, the matter that concerns us is here, a pair of transactions that switched money from a Naples bank to Egypt, then to Russia.”
“Does that say three million dollars?” asked Breanna.
“They don’t come cheap,” said Reid. “But he can afford it.”
“Have you traced the accounts?”
“They were opened and closed the same day. The Russian bank has a branch in Moldova.”
“Hmmm.”
“I thought you’d find that interesting. I have a list of transactions on the day the money hit the Russian account. We have five different accounts where we think the money went, but the transfers aren’t recorded as transfers. Someone withdrew the money, in theory as cash, then placed it into these accounts. If that happened. Most likely it was only on paper. And we’re guessing at the match-ups, because the amounts don’t match exactly. There’s about ten thousand dollars missing.”
“Pocket money.”
“Maybe. Or just diddling with the numbers to throw off programs designed to look for suspicious transactions.”
“But it was done in Moldova?”
“Likely. Again, this could all be manipulated,” admitted Reid. “The records. I don’t trust the Russian banking system. It’s always been full of holes.”
“Where is the bank?”
“In the capital, Chisinau. It has some dealings with other Russian banks in Tighina. Tighina is a provincial capital, near the area under dispute with Russia. Good-sized city, at least for Moldova. Those banks are pretty small and don’t seem to have been involved. There’s a big dispute between that region and the rest of Moldova; no other banks deal with them — or with the Russians.”
“Other links?”
“Already looking for them.”
“I have to tell Danny.”
“That would make sense. There are a few other loose ends. The FBI agent Nuri took with him wants to use some of the information we developed on Moreno for her own case against him.”
Breanna nodded. They had been counting on the FBI to do just that. Anyone watching would think that Moreno, not the Wolves, was the focus of the investigation.
“Nuri also found this information. Oddly.”
A list of websites relating to Moldova came up.
“Was he planning to go there?”
“That might be a possibility,” said Reid. “They’re all recent — just the other day. After the murder.”
“Trying to see where his money went?”
Reid shrugged.
“Maybe he’s dissatisfied with the job,” he said. “Or maybe he’s looking to provide a bonus.”
“Was the break-in discovered?”
“Apparently not. Nuri had to drug a dog, but he covered that up. In any event, the mobster has been using the computer quite prolifically since he got up a few hours ago.”
“Since we’re in their system, maybe we can watch and see what happens,” said Breanna.
“We think more and more alike with each passing day,” said Reid.
“Scary.”
“Very.”
Breanna sat at her desk staring at an old photo of Mark Stoner for nearly a half hour before putting the call in to Danny.
Part of her hoped he wouldn’t pick up; she wanted to put off talking to him for as long as possible. The other part wanted to get past this as quickly as possible.
Danny answered on the first ring.
“Can you talk?” she asked.
“I’m at the hotel,” he told her. “It’s fine.”
“We have more information on the Wolves.” She heard her voice crack. “And I have — there’s something I didn’t give you earlier. Because — for a couple of reasons.”
“All right.”
Breanna took a deep breath.
“We think that the people involved with the Wolves have been altered — enhanced is the better word,” she said, correcting herself. She remembered her conversation with Zen the night before, how he had initially dismissed it all as science fiction nonsense. “It sounds incredible, but we think they’re the result of experiments — that their bodies have been genetically altered, with drugs and in some cases biomechanical devices.”