“The twenty-sixth of June, only the top hotels…Go ahead. What is it you’re looking for, Ty?”
“I’d rather not go into it, if that’s okay. It’s part of a private investigation. You understand.”
“I understand perfectly,” the inspector said without argument. “You may have heard, we Swiss are used to matters of privacy. So tell me, what it is that you need?”
“The hotel guest lists for those days,” Hauck said. “All of them, if you can.”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN
Naomi flew back to Washington that Monday afternoon and went straight to her office across from the Treasury.
She threw herself behind her desk, which was submerged under piles of memos and security reports that had stacked up in her absence. So far there was still no word on the Mercedes. She tried to convince herself over and over that it was al-Bashir, not her, like Ty had said, who had put his family in danger. But still, she couldn’t shake the sting of feeling responsible. The boy’s panicked face, peering out the back window, had haunted her all the way home. She sank back wearily in her chair under the weight of never having lost anyone before.
She logged on to her computer and scanned for a message from her contact at the Swiss Federal Office of Police’s financial crimes division. With Thibault and al-Bashir gone, there was only one course left-to try to prove Hassani was in Gstaad at the same time as the others. That some kind of conspiracy had been hatched there.
Then there was the added worry of just how to proceed. Ty’s concern was real. Someone always seemed one step ahead of them. There were only a handful of people on the inside who knew, and she had grown to understand, as Ty said, this was no longer something she could go on managing in the usual way.
She was scanning through her e-mails and calls, sipping a latte to fight the jet lag, when her boss, Rob Whyte, appeared with a knock at the door.
“Talia said you were back.”
Naomi straightened up, surprised. She cleared her throat. “Just got in now.”
“I’m sorry,” Whyte said, coming in, “about what happened, Naomi.” He pulled out a chair across from her desk. “Still no word?”
She shook her head. “I think we’ve got to proceed as if they’re gone.”
Her boss nodded. “You realize, Naomi, there’ll have to be a review of this. How it all went down.”
“I understand.”
“I know how it must make you feel. You had him.”
“Thanks,” she said, growing suspicious that he was buttering her up for something.
Whyte sat. His tie was loosened, and for the first time Naomi felt something unspoken and distant between them, a stiffness in his eyes. Was it what had happened in London or something more? She had always trusted him completely. Why not? Rob had been JAG. An ambitious lawyer. Passionate about the good they were doing. One day he would go on to bigger things. It gave her a queasy feeling holding important information back from him. But Hassani had recruited al-Bashir. He had seduced Glassman and Donovan. Something had gone awry. And this was what she felt she had to do right now.
Her boss rocked back in the chair. “So where do we stand?”
“Back at square one. Al-Bashir was the only one who could fully implicate Hassani. Now that he’s gone, I’m going to have to try to retrace some of the movement of cash between Thibault and Hassani’s firms. It’s possible there were other people in play. I’ll try to see if we can find a fit.”
Whyte nodded, his fingers folded in front of his face. “That thing in Serbia, Naomi, what you did was crossing the line. It could get our department in a lot of trouble.”
Naomi shrugged. “I did what I felt I had to do, Rob.”
“I know, I know. It’s just that, when Justice finds out…They’re already bent out of shape we didn’t bring them in on taking al-Bashir into custody. They’re calling us a bunch of amateurs.”
“I don’t care what they’re calling us. There was no time.”
He nodded. “Listen…there’s something else. Hassani is in the States.”
“The States?” Naomi put down her coffee and fixed her gaze directly on him.
“Uh-huh. He’s here for the Reynolds Reid annual meeting. You know he helped arrange that preferred financing for the Bahraini royal family…”
Naomi’s blood began to surge. “Then we can pick him up, Rob. We can question him. He’s here!”
“Question him on what, if you don’t mind me asking? On some perfectly legal flow of funds that, at worst, might tie him to Dieter Thibault? Which he would clearly insist he knew nothing about. You haven’t established a single direct contact between him and Thibault. Only that phone conversation with al-Bashir. He’ll deny it meant anything, just as al-Bashir did. What’s there to use as leverage against him? Two co-conspirators, both dead? This is a big fish, Naomi…”
She looked back at him, suddenly feeling something different, a weakening in her boss’s will. A loss of nerves? His career path suddenly in jeopardy, would he take on the very institutions he might one day look to for a deal?
Or maybe it was worse…
“That auditor’s position up in Montana,” Naomi said, smiling cautiously, “you’re thinking that may not be such a joke…”
Whyte got up. He smiled only enough to let her know he wasn’t amused. “Come back to me with something firm. Facts, Naomi-not conspiracies. You’re a goddamn Treasury agent, not Jack Bauer on 24.”
In his gaze Naomi suddenly saw that everything was now in play. Her future as well. That auditor’s position up north, it might not be Rob’s next posting.
She might get there first.
“I’m working on something, Rob…”
CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT
That first night back, Annie came over. Mondays, Hauck generally cooked. Then they’d hang out on the couch and watch a game or rent a movie. Monday was Annie’s only night off and the last thing she needed was to spend it at a restaurant.
That Monday, Hauck felt a little nervous how things would go.
He knew he hadn’t been completely honest with her. About what had been taking up his attention as of late. Where he had been in the past week and why. It was time to come clean. As she came up the stairs, in a pair of torn white jeans and a cute orange tee, she waved brightly, but he could tell in her reserved smile that something was a little wrong.
“Hey, stranger.” He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek.
“Glad you’re back,” she said, hugging him back.
Tonight, Hauck was doing lamb burgers on the grill, with caramelized onions in balsamic and topped with Danish bleu.
“Sounds awfully good,” she said. “Spoil me.”
They opened some wine and sat on the deck overlooking the sound, feet up on the railing. A nice breeze came off the water. She didn’t ask about the trip. It was like she was waiting for him to volunteer it. They chatted about the restaurant. How it was time to get his boat in the water. He asked about Jared. She said he was doing okay. The conversation felt like the weight of a two-ton truck pressed across his back. They both felt it. There was something distant between them tonight.
How could there not be?
Hauck stood up. “Maybe I should go fire up the grill…”
“Listen, Ty-”
“Me first.” He sat back down. “I’ve actually got something to say. About where I was. What it is I’ve been up to lately. I haven’t been entirely honest with you, Annie, and-”
“I know what you’ve been up to, Ty…”
He stopped, looked at her. Annie’s eyes were round and totally nonjudgmental. Still, her gaze made him feel a bit ashamed.
She said, “I let myself in here while you were away.” She put her wine down and faced him. “I wasn’t snooping. I’d left my earrings the last time I was here and I went upstairs to look for them. I found them, on your dresser. Elena must’ve put them there…I also found something else.”