Refilling his own glass and setting the bottle down, Wise said, “We’ve got five kidnappings and a murder, which are filled with a lot of information. What do they tell you?”
Harvath had been poring over the files ever since his meeting at the Federal Reserve that afternoon. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t much there. “I have to be honest with you, there isn’t a lot of information. We’ve got next to no evidence.”
“Which is evidence in itself.”
“What are you talking about?”
“As far as physical clues at the crime scenes themselves, there aren’t any, right?”
“So?”
“So that tells us these guys weren’t just good, they were professional,” stated Wise. “And to pull off five kidnappings in different cities all on the same night, there had to be—”
“Multiple teams,” Harvath replied, finishing the man’s sentence for him. “I already know that. That’s not what I’m struggling with here.”
“Just stay with me. Now, whoever orchestrated the kidnappings had to have had access to information, to the actual five names from inside the Fed itself. That’s no easy feat. Couple that with professionals having been hired to actually carry out the kidnappings and now we’re talking serious money. But, it gets better, or more specifically, more expensive because murder doesn’t come cheap.”
“You’re convinced the kidnappings and the murder were all done for hire?”
Wise nodded. “And I’ll tell you why. Per the file and the pictures, Claire Marcourt was beaten to death. Outside of self-defense or a fit of jealous rage, very few human beings are capable of taking another life like that. Then, there are her ears.”
“What about them?”
“They weren’t just hacked off with a pair of shears or a dull pocketknife. The lines were clean and pretty well matched. Someone used a sharp blade, took their time, and knew what they were doing.”
“But if you’re going to beat someone to death, who cares if the lines are clean?” asked Harvath.
“Exactly,” Wise replied. “And while we’re at it, and I think your theory about the Pine Tree Riot is right on the money, why prop up the ears in the photo? Why take the time to display them like that?”
“Because whoever this guy is, he didn’t want us to miss them.”
“They’re ears, for crying out loud. Who’s not going to notice them? Why not just drop them next to that economist’s quote and take the picture? Why go through all the trouble to set it up like it was some sort of an exhibit?”
“I don’t know,” said Harvath. “Maybe this guy’s a sadist and proud of his work.”
Wise tapped the tip of his nose with his index finger and then pointed it at Harvath. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
Harvath waited for him to extrapolate, but Wise was suddenly lost in his own thoughts. Harvath rapped his knuckles on the bar top to get the man’s attention. “Knock. Knock.”
Wise shook himself out of his reverie. “Sorry, I was thinking about a Russian diplomat kidnapped in Iraq.”
“What about him?”
“The FSB operatives flown in from Moscow were able to get him back within seventy-two hours.”
“That’s impressive. How’d they do it? I’m guessing it didn’t involve pretty please with sugar on top.”
“No, it didn’t,” Wise replied. “Actually, it was pretty vicious. The Russians focused on the most likely neighborhood, swept in, and started breaking hands, fingers, arms, and legs until they found somebody who knew something. From there, they were able to identify a cousin of one of the kidnappers. Once they had him, they began slicing off his body parts and had a courier drop them off one at a time at the family’s house. After the man’s nose and both ears had been delivered, the diplomat was returned to the embassy unharmed and the FSB agents returned to Moscow.”
“That’s one way of handling things. Especially in that part of the world, but do you really think we’re dealing with the Russians?”
Wise shook his head. “An organization with enough expertise to penetrate the Federal Reserve? Experienced enough to pull off five simultaneous kidnappings without leaving a trace? This is something different.”
“Well, if not the Russians, maybe this is some sort of a currency war. Or maybe the Fed screwed up and ran afoul of the Cosa Nostra. With the kind of money they move, anything is possible.”
“But what’s probable? What kind of group would openly invite the full ire of the United States government?”
“Who knows? Maybe they’re exactly who they claim to be,” Harvath stated. “Why can’t this simply be a group of patriots trying to intimidate the Federal Reserve into shutting down?”
“Because that doesn’t make any sense.”
“None of this makes any sense.”
“What I mean,” Wise clarified, “is that it’s nuts to think that the Fed could be bullied into doing anything, much less closing its doors.”
“Then why do this?” Harvath asked. “What’s the purpose?”
“Maybe the purpose isn’t to get them to close their doors but to generate enough media attention to force a discussion of the Fed center stage, right into the national spotlight.”
“Which is exactly what the Fed doesn’t want.”
“Of course not,” said Wise. “The less people take an interest in them, the better. That’s why you were given this assignment.”
“Then let’s suppose for a moment you’re right. Why would someone want to force a national discussion of the Federal Reserve?”
“Maybe these patriots see the Fed as something so dangerous to the nation that it has to be dealt with. Even if that means using violence.”
It was a provocative possibility, but there was something about it that just didn’t feel right to Harvath. There was nothing “patriotic” about murdering other Americans in cold blood. There had to be something else.
And that something else was the pressure weighing on Harvath’s shoulders, even after he had left Wise’s home that night. Would he be able to figure out what that something else was before someone else was murdered?
CHAPTER 22
FAIRFAX
VIRGINIA
Ryan rode with McGee back to the Farm to pick up her car. She thought about stopping by the grocery store on the way home, but she was wiped out from her jet lag. All she wanted to do was throw on her robe, pour a glass of wine, and stretch out on the couch with a good book until she couldn’t keep her eyes open anymore.
Of course, she hadn’t told McGee any of this. He never slept, and in fact liked to joke that it was a sign of weakness. So instead, she had told him that she was going right home to start assembling a plan for how they should proceed. Hit the ground running, McGee had liked that.
She pulled into her complex and parked in the assigned space near her building. Any mail in her box could keep until tomorrow. Climbing the exterior steps to her second-floor apartment, she walked down the open-air hallway to her door. Opening it, she stepped inside and tossed her keys in a bowl on the kitchen counter. It had been a long day and it felt good to be home.
Her small, two-bedroom unit was tastefully decorated, particularly so for a government employee who was home so seldom she didn’t even have a landline.
Ryan had painted the entire place and had installed the crown molding and baseboards herself. The walls were hung with matted prints she had razor-bladed out of old botany books picked up at a flea market. Everything had been done cleverly and on the cheap. Her only substantial investment was her stereo system. It was built around an expensive Tritium Super Analog turntable, upon which she indulged her greatest passion, a museum-quality collection of jazz and blues records she had been collecting since college.