Inside the second bag, Kevin found the mother lode. There were about thirty reports from William Evans. Kevin flipped through the reports quickly. They were dated from 1992 through 1995, and contained information from Draga about upcoming military actions in which the Black Dragons would be participating. There were also reports from Draga of meetings he had with President Milosevic and others in the Yugoslavian government.
Reading this material gave Kevin goose bumps. He was holding dynamite in his hands. The information in these reports might not only clear Draga of war crimes, but could prove that President Milosevic was the one giving the orders to the Bosnian Serbs in the war in Bosnia. The U.S. government might also be badly damaged by these reports. They showed that it knew of the attacks on cities and towns in Bosnia before they happened, and had done nothing to prevent the thousands of deaths that followed.
Kevin could not contain his excitement. “This is the best Christmas present I’ve ever gotten. I’m going to take these and copy them right away. I’ll have them back to you in an hour.”
Kevin strode quickly from the house, the shopping bags tucked under his arms. He got in his car and drove to downtown Oakland, where he knew of a 24-hour copy center. It was rush hour, and Kevin found himself crawling along city streets. He looked in the rearview mirror. There were no signs that he was being followed. If someone had been following, Kevin suspected they would not have let these documents get into his hands in the first place.
At the copy center, Kevin made two sets of copies. He mailed one copy to himself in Holland just in case the other copy was somehow taken from him before he got there, or when he came through Customs. Kevin shook his head at the irony of his situation. Just a few months ago, as a federal prosecutor, he could show his credentials and be waved through Customs. Now, he was smuggling papers to avoid Customs agents.
When he left the copy center, Kevin saw a sports store featuring Oakland Raiders souvenirs. He decided to get a present for the #1 Raiders fan in The Hague. After this brief detour, Kevin returned the originals to Alice Mancini.
When Kevin arrived back in Santa Rosa, Diane and Ellen were not at the hotel. Kevin had hardly seen Ellen since they had arrived in California. She had so many sleepovers with her friends that she had not spent a single night at their hotel. Kevin sat down and studied the reports. He found one report that excited him. In 1992, Draga had furnished William Evans with a list of the Black Dragons. Unfortunately, the list had not been attached to any of the reports.
As he read over the reports, Kevin realized that he needed to find Evans. The man might be his star witness in The Hague. Kevin turned on his laptop computer and got on the Internet. After some searching, he found the Hilton Hotel Corporation website. He wondered whether he could locate an employee through the website. Hilton had thousands of employees. After searching the website, he came up with nothing.
A few minutes later, Diane and Ellen came into the room. “Hi, Daddy,” Ellen said. When she saw the laptop, she asked, “Can I check my e-mail? My friends from Holland are probably wondering what I’m up to.”
“Sure, I was finished anyway.”
He watched as Ellen effortlessly accessed her e-mail, then squealed with delight as she read her messages from her friends. “Jennifer thinks she’s getting a scooter for Christmas. And, Katie is going to Disney World.”
Watching Ellen operate the computer with ease gave Kevin an idea. “Ellen, could you spend a minute being a detective again?”
“Sure, Dad.”
“I need to try to find a William Evans who works for Hilton Hotels. I want to know what city he works in. How would I do that?”
“That’s easy.” Ellen turned back to the computer and typed in www.google.com. “This is a search engine. It searches all kinds of places on the Internet.” She typed in the words “William Evans” and “Hilton”.
Kevin stood, looking over Ellen’s shoulders. Ellen scrolled down through several entries that appeared on the screen. Then she clicked on one of them. It was a newspaper article about the recent prosecution of a skimming operation at the casino of the Flamingo Hilton Hotel. The article said that Hilton’s internal security staff, headed by William Evans, had uncovered the fraud.
“He’s in Las Vegas, Dad,” Ellen said matter-of-factly.
CHAPTER 15
“Santa found me even in a hotel!” Ellen shouted.
She burst out of bed in their hotel room, flipped on the light, and looked at two wrapped Christmas presents at the foot of her bed. “Can I open them?”
Kevin looked at the clock radio on the night stand. It was 5:03 a.m. “Santa came early, it’s still dark out. But go ahead and open them.”
He and Diane struggled to clear their heads and open their eyes. They sat up in bed and watched Ellen attack the wrapping paper.
Her first present was a “Talk Girl” portable tape player. “This is great! Now, I can record messages in Holland and send them to my friends in Santa Rosa.”
Ellen put the tape player aside and opened Santa’s second present. The second gift was a “Password Diary.” It was a journal for writing in, but to open it you had to say a password into the microphone on the side. It had voice recognition technology, so only the holder of the diary could get in, even if someone stole the password. Ellen was delighted. “I love it!” she squealed, hugging it to her chest.
Ellen tried out the diary right away.
Kevin was thankful that Santa had included batteries. He imagined himself driving around Santa Rosa at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas looking for a place that sold batteries. After Kevin, Diane, and Ellen opened their presents to each other, it was still early.
Kevin decided to jog up to Lake Ilsanjo in Annadel State Park. He started out fine, but found himself struggling once he got to the hills. He had been running in a flat country for the past six months, and he could definitely feel the difference. When he finally reached the lake at the top, Kevin’s mind began working on how to approach William Evans in Las Vegas. He decided to get some advice from Bud Marcello.
Two days later, after getting Bud’s input and assistance, Kevin flew to Las Vegas. When he arrived, he was met by two beefy escorts in a black Lincoln Town Car. A broad-shouldered, clean-cut young man, who looked like an NFL lineman, got out of the passenger’s side. “You Kevin Anderson?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Striker. Hop in.” He held the door open.
Kevin got in the backseat. The driver turned around and said, “Nice to meet you, Mr. Anderson. I’m Jim Timmons from LST Security.” He was about the same size as the passenger, which translated to huge and muscular.
Kevin knew from Bud that both escorts were former elite military and worked for CEOs and entertainers who paid top dollar for high-level security. Kevin did not have to pay for their services this morning – Bud had called it a “trade out.” He hadn’t asked what Bud would be trading back. He didn’t want to know.
“Your man’s at work this morning at the Las Vegas Hilton in the second floor security office,” Timmons said as they headed down the Las Vegas Strip. “What do you want us to do?”
“I’d just like you guys to come in with me and wait in the reception area. I want Mr. Evans to see you, but I need to meet with him alone.”
“Ten-four.”
They drove to the front of the Hilton. The driver parked the car right in front of the hotel. Kevin saw him slip the bellman a bill. Greasing palms was the way business was done on the Strip.
As they took the escalator to the second floor, Kevin turned on the mini tape recorder he had brought in his jacket pocket, and spoke into it: “This is Kevin Anderson, today’s date is December 27th, and I am in the Las Vegas Hilton Hotel to meet with William Evans, formerly of the CIA.”