Problem was, Sam couldn’t find Windbreaker. In fact, in the short time they’d been speaking, most of the sewing circle of insurance men had stepped away. They were like stealth bombers. Sam would have to deal with Peter Handel-like-the-composer.
“Where am I from?” Sam said. “I’m from a little town in Virginia called Langley. You heard of it? Or do I need to spell it out for you? Would it help if I called in a black helicopter?”
“Uh, no, no, sir,” Peter said. “I’m sorry. I just-you understand, protocol is that we don’t provide confidential information to third parties, and as I wasn’t sure who you were, I… well, you understand, right? Sir?”
Sam took out his pen again. “What’s your Social Security number, Handel?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Your Social. Give it to me right now.” Peter rattled off nine numbers that Sam made a big show of carving into his palm. “Good. Good. Well. I’ll check you out. If you’ve got no priors, haven’t visited Pakistan in the last month, I’m sure everything will be fine. In the meantime, I need all of the information you’ve gathered here today if you value living in a free society. You value that, don’t you, Peter?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Peter said. There was a fine sheen of sweat covering the poor guy’s face and for a moment Sam felt sorry for him. He was just doing his job and, actually, doing it according to rule. Well, Sam thought, at least now he’d have a story to tell about the time he worked with the CIA. “I need to get my clipboard from my car. Is that all right?”
“Which car?” Sam asked.
“The gray Taurus,” Peter said. He pointed down the street where there were maybe five gray Tauruses parked.
“Okay,” Sam said, “but make it fast. Every minute you take is another minute we’re closer to a terrorist action, you understand?”
“Yes, sir,” he said and scampered off.
Sam walked over to the parking lot where Sugar’s car still smoldered. It was unlikely that Sugar’s name was associated in any way with the car, since Sam had a hard time imagining Sugar either going to a dealership to purchase the car or executing the actual act of mailing off a check each month for the payments. And there was no way Sugar was mentally capable of keeping up with his registration and insurance. He was sure the car had those things in the glove box and he was just as sure they were forgeries.
A young detective stood next to the car and wrote notes down on his notepad. Sam couldn’t figure out what it was about young detectives that made him edgy, particularly since they were both fighting the same war, at least metaphorically speaking. Sure, maybe Sam blew things up in the middle of the city periodically, and, sure, maybe he’d done some work over the course of the last couple years that straddled the line between legal and illegal, but it was all for the greater good. Anyway, it was probably that this batch of new detectives dressed like they were in a commercial for self-tanners and polo shirts.
“Help you with something?” the detective said.
“Finley,” Sam said and extended his hand toward the detective, who in turn just stared at it.
“You a reporter? If so, we’ve got no comment, okay?”
“Not a reporter, son,” Sam said. “I’m in from Langley.” He let that sink in for a moment but when the detective didn’t seem to show any recognition, he added, quietly, because these CIA guys tended to be all monosyllabic and quiet, “Langley, Virginia. Where the CIA lives? Maybe you’re familiar with it?”
The detective straightened up a bit but still didn’t seem to be a hundred percent invested in believing Sam.
“You got some ID?”
“Yeah,” Sam said. “The Department of Homeland Security just hands out badges that say TERRORIST LIQUIDATION OFFICER on them. Listen, son, I’ve got about five minutes of time here and either you’re going to help your country or you’re going to hurt it. Which is it going to be?”
The detective looked over his shoulder at the smoldering building. “This terror-related?”
“That’s what I’m trying to determine. This car stolen?”
“Yes, sir,” the detective said.
“And the office, it was the notary?”
“Yes, sir.”
“That makes fifteen,” Sam said.
“Fifteen what?”
“Classified,” Sam said. He took out his pen again and this time wrote “15” on his forearm. “This place owned by Henry Grayson?”
“That’s right,” the detective said.
“Find him?”
“No, not yet.”
“Good. Good. How many men you got on him?”
“None as yet. We’ve been calling his known numbers and getting disconnects. The insurance guys say he’s behind on payments, which they’re thrilled about.”
“Fucking carrion,” Sam said. “Pardon my Greek.” He stepped around the detective and looked into Sugar’s car. There wasn’t anything inside it now that could ever be tied to anyone-it was just ash and melted leather inside a metal frame. “Stolen, right?”
“VIN is for a Chevy van stolen in Orlando three months ago,” he said.
“Same guy, then,” Sam said. The insurance agent had made his way back and was waiting patiently a few yards away. He had a fancy clipboard, one of those that was encased in metal and had a flip top. Impressive. “Here’s what I need from you, Detective, and I don’t have time to wait around for an official report, you understand? For America?”
“I do,” he said. He stood up a little straighter. No matter the situation, in Sam’s experience at least, you ask cops to do something for America and they have an atavistic response that requires them to be completely honest and to improve their posture by at least twenty-five percent “What’d they use to blow up the building? C-4?”
“Shoulder-mounted rocket launcher. Don’t know the make yet. But looks like maybe an M90.”
Shoulder-mounted rocket. Jesus. “Expected,” Sam said. “Same with the car?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right,” Sam said. “What’s your name, Detective?”
“James Kochel.”
“You ever think about working in something that is actually challenging?”
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“Good,” Sam said. “We’ll be in touch.” He stepped away and then did a quick pivot, added a touch of military flair to his persona (while, he noted, tweaking something in his calf) and addressed the detective again. “This Grayson fellow. You got anything on him with organized crime?”
The detective licked his lips in a way that reminded Sam of the guys he played high school football with but who, clearly, were never going to be as important later in life as they were then. Guys like that always licked their lips before something exciting. It freaked Sam out in high school and it freaked him out now. “Fact is,” the detective said, “I probably shouldn’t even be saying anything, but we’re all on the same team, right?”
“America’s team,” Sam said. “Like the Dallas Cowboys. Just one big interdepartmental huddle, Jimmy.”
The detective liked that. He leaned in toward Sam and then lowered his voice. “A year ago we had this place under surveillance. Thought he was running a high-stakes book out of it. Never got him on anything, but he had shady guys coming in and out at all hours.”
“Any Al-Qaeda?” Local cops loved to feel like they were just inches away from finding Bin Laden sitting inside the local Dairy Queen.
“No, no. Local talent.”
Sam looked at his hand and then licked his lips, too. Let him know they both had the same tic, make him think he’d fit in over in Langley. Though his godforsaken Dockers never would. “The name Big Lumpy mean anything to you?”
“It does.”
“The word ‘Hamas’ mean anything to you?”
“It does.”
“Good. Keep away from Big Lumpy for the near future-you got it?”
“I wouldn’t have guessed that,” Kochel said.
“Sleeper cells all over the place.”
“But didn’t he go to MIT?”