“Did you hear me?
“I have pictures showing that Grant and the informant weren’t killed by a handgun. They directly refute Bennett’s official account.”
“Sorry, Tank. Can’t help you.”
“Did you hear me? Pictures. Evidence.”
“Did you hear me? Get lost.”
“Fine. I’ll take them over to AP. I’m sure the Associated Press will be happy to look at them. And when they do, it’ll be their story.”
Soletano stared at him a second, then inclined his head in the direction of his office. “In. Sit. Talk.”
Tank entered the office and sat down. “By the way, do you have a glass of water? I’m dying of thirst.”
“Look who’s the smartass,” said Soletano, following him in and closing the door. “One day without a drink and you think you deserve a medal.” He perched on the edge of his desk, arms crossed over his belly. “I’m listening.”
Tank struggled to fit his bulk into the chair. With painstaking detail, he described his visit to the medical examiner’s office the night before and his certainty that both Joseph Grant and the informant had been killed not with a handgun but with a high-powered rifle. Before showing Soletano the photographs of the corpses, he recounted his interview with Mary Grant that morning, beginning with the troubled voice message left by her husband (then mysteriously erased) and ending with her call to Randy Bell, Joseph Grant’s former partner. “She thinks the case her husband and Bell were working on was called Semaphore.”
Finally he gave Soletano a blow-by-blow narrative of his visit to the medical examiner’s office three hours earlier and the race to reach the airport before the FBI in order to chronicle its shipment of the corpses to Quantico.
“You rammed your Jeep into the FBI?” said Soletano.
Tank nodded.
“And they didn’t arrest you?”
“I’m here.”
“You got balls, Potter. I’ll give you that. It’s a wonder you’re not in jail.” Soletano pushed himself off the desk. “Let me see your proof.”
“You can show the photos to a forensic pathologist. No way a handgun did this. Wounds this size come from a rifle.”
Tank opened the photo roll. The pictures of Joseph Grant and the informant were the last he’d taken, and as such should have been the first he saw. Oddly, the pictures weren’t there. “Just a sec,” he said. “I’m getting them.”
Soletano looked unimpressed.
Tank closed the photo app, then reopened it. The last picture taken was always visible in a frame placed in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. He double-tapped the image and got a topless picture of Jeannette, a buxom blond favorite from Pedro’s.
“Any time now,” said Soletano.
Tank went back to the photo roll.
Nix. Nada. Zip.
The pictures he’d taken at the medical examiner’s office were no longer there. Tank was a master at jumping to conclusions. First Joseph Grant’s voice message had been erased from his wife’s phone. Now it was Tank’s turn. In the time it had taken him to drive from the airport to the Statesman, someone had hacked into his phone and deleted the photographs.
But who?
No one knew about the pictures except himself, Mary, and of course Carlos Cantu. The FBI might infer that he had pictures from the fact that he had admitted to seeing the corpses, but they had no proof. Unless Mary Grant had told Mason. Either way, they didn’t have his phone number or the unit’s IP address.
Or did they?
Tank recalled Mary Grant asking him if he’d “leaned on her to spill.” If the words sounded familiar, it was because he’d e-mailed a buddy from the paper earlier that he was heading over to her house to do exactly that. And why had the FBI been tearing out of the ME’s building when Carlos Cantu had told him barely fifteen minutes earlier that they didn’t appear to be in any hurry? Somehow they’d known he was coming. Even before Tank and Mary reached the airport, they’d been listening in.
All this came to him in a second.
“Well,” said Soletano, “are you going to show me or not?”
Tank put down the phone. “Actually…not.”
“What do you mean? Let me see ’em.”
Tank shook his head. “You know what, Al? You’re right. I’m not sure I do have a story.”
“You bullshittin’ me? You get me all hot and bothered, and now you’re giving me nothing?”
“Sorry, Al. My bad. I’ll be back when I’m sure.”
“Don’t bother. You’ve wasted enough of my time as it is. Now get out.”
–
On the ground floor, Tank stopped in the break room and bought a can of Coke. The loss of the photographs didn’t discourage him. On the contrary. The fact that the FBI-or another interested party-was hacking into his phone and listening in on his conversations was a tonic. You didn’t destroy evidence unless there was a crime. Tank was on the right track.
He looked at his phone.
Traitor.
There was only one punishment for treason.
Outside the building, Tank walked briskly back to the Jeep. Crouching, he placed the phone beneath the rear tire, wedging it between asphalt and rubber. Once behind the wheel, he put the Jeep into reverse. He heard a crunch, and then another as the tire passed over the handset. Still he wasn’t satisfied. Phones were tough little bastards these days. He’d dropped his a dozen times, and though the screen was cracked and the case was chipped, it still worked.
Sliding the transmission into park, he stepped out of the car and examined the handset. The phone was crushed but looked more or less intact. He imagined that somewhere inside it a battery was still connected to a transmitter that still emitted a signal that someone somewhere with the proper technology could track.
Tank dug his heel into the metal and glass and ground it into the asphalt. Finished, he picked up the phone. He had to marvel at its design. It just didn’t look dead.
He had an idea.
Tank threw the phone onto the passenger seat and drove around to the front of the building. Twenty yards away flowed the green, fast-moving waters of the Colorado River. He got out of the car, strode to the riverbank, and threw the phone as far as he could. He watched the handset tumble end over end, sparkling in the sun, before dropping silently into the water.
Let ’em track that, he thought.
Satisfied that he was alone-really and truly alone-and that no unseen witness was tagging along beside him, keeping a record of his every word and movement and reporting them to his master, he returned to his car and accelerated out of the lot.
It was almost five.
Happy hour.
There was only one place he wanted to be.
48
“Do you know who Odysseus is?” Ian asked Katarina as he entered the spa. ONE 1 had landed a while ago, but he needed to stay at the airport to greet the Israelis.
“A Greek,” said Katarina. “Was he a god or a man?”
Ian closed the door and disrobed. “Man. A warrior. The chap who led all the others inside the Trojan Horse.”
Katarina was wearing shorts and a tank top, her admirable biceps on display. She handed him his third batch of supplements. No magic drip today. After taking his pills, Ian lay down on the massage table. Katarina disrobed and when she was naked began to massage him, concentrating on the shoulders and neck, kneading his muscles with her strong fingers.
“Why do you ask about Odysseus?”
“Just curious.”
Katarina found a knot deep down and applied pressure to it for a full minute. Ian sucked in air through clenched teeth. The pleasure was excruciating.
“You are never curious,” she said. “Why are you thinking about the Trojan Horse?”