As I stood by the picture window taking in the spectacular view, I had mixed emotions. Part of me was excited to be here in a new place, with a new task among people who did not know me, just as I had longed for, but I was suddenly overwhelmed by the undertaking ahead of me.
I had done some research on FACSA and had been amazed to discover that it had over 800 federal agents and nearly 2,000 other employees, most of them at its Virginia headquarters. Even the horseracing team, one of the smallest sections in the agency, was larger than I was used to at the BHA.
How was I going to discover a mole in that lot?
A knock at my door brought me back from my daydreaming. It was Tony.
‘Welcome, Jeff,’ he said, shaking my hand. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Good flight, and this is very comfortable.’ I waved my hand around.
He smiled. ‘Anything you need?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I need information. In particular I need copies of the personnel files for all your racing team and the results of your communication inquiry.’
He nodded but looked troubled.
‘I’m not sure I can get the personnel files.’
‘You’re Deputy Director,’ I said. ‘Surely the files are not confidential from you.’
‘It is not the confidentiality that’s the problem, although they are, it’s that I don’t want anyone to know why you are here, not even the personnel team.’
‘Tony, I really need that info. Otherwise I’ll be wasting my time. I should really have the opportunity to study it before I arrive at your offices on Monday.’
‘I’ll get on to it. Anything else?’
‘Yes. I also need details of all the operations that you have launched, including those that you feel were compromised. There has to be a common link. And I need direct access to you at any time.’
‘I’ll give you my private cell number,’ Tony said. ‘Never ever contact me at the agency, either in person or by using agency comms.’
‘I thought I was here as your guest, as you were mine at the BHA.’
‘My trip to the BHA was made without the knowledge of anyone at FACSA other than the Director. As far as anyone else at the agency is concerned, I was away on annual leave travelling in Europe with my wife, Harriet. Your cover is that you are here under our international exchange scheme for law-enforcement agencies simply to observe our methods of operation.’
‘But the British Horseracing Authority is not a law-enforcement agency.’
‘I know but it is as good as. The exchange scheme was the best excuse the Director and I could think of. All federal agencies have observers from other national police forces, mostly from those where the US is helping to set up law enforcement such as in Afghanistan and Iraq. So our staff are used to visitors but, as such, you would not have direct access to the Deputy Director. Therefore you must never contact me except through my private cell. And never refer to anyone about my time in London. That’s essential. I do not want to give our mole friend any cause for alarm.’
There was something about the way he said it that made the hairs on my neck stand up.
‘What are you not telling me?’ I looked him directly in the eye.
He turned away.
‘What is it?’ I asked.
‘It might not be connected.’
‘What might not be connected?’
He looked back at me.
‘You are not the first person we have approached to assist us.’
He paused.
‘Who is the other person?’ I asked.
‘Was,’ Tony said. ‘He’s dead. He was killed last December in an auto wreck on I-95 south of Baltimore.’
‘Accident? Or deliberate?’
‘There was a thorough investigation by the Maryland State Police. Their conclusion was that he went to sleep while driving home late at night. His vehicle left the road, hit a tree and caught fire. Toxicology tests showed he’d been drinking.’
‘Didn’t your agency initiate its own investigation?’ I asked.
‘How could we?’ Tony said. ‘It was outside our jurisdiction.’
‘Who was he exactly?’
‘His name was Jason Connor. He was a journalist who wrote about horseracing for a magazine called Sports Illustrated.’
I nodded. I’d heard of it.
‘How did you come to use him?’
‘Initially, Connor went to NYRA last October because he was concerned about blood doping in racehorses at Belmont during their fall meet. He had seen some transfusion apparatus at a training barn at the track that he felt was suspicious.’
‘NYRA?’ I pronounced it as a word in the same way as Tony had.
‘New York Racing Association. They control horseracing at the three tracks in New York State. It was NYRA who contacted us. We initiated a raid on the barn and we found absolutely nothing. The whole place had obviously been steam-cleaned. I have never seen a barn so spotless and disinfected. You could have eaten your dinner off the stall floors. And the horses had been sent away to Kentucky for what was described as a vacation. I ask you. Some of them had been due to race at the track that week. The whole thing was a farce.’
Tony shook his head.
‘Jason Connor was furious. What he was really after, of course, was an exclusive for his magazine and now he wouldn’t get one. He blamed both the agency and NYRA for leaking the information. At first we dismissed his notions as just the ranting of an angry man, but then I started looking at how often our operations were being compromised. That’s when I went back to him to ask him for help.’
‘And you now think his death was to do with that?’
‘The Chief Medical Examiner for Maryland declared his death was accidental but I’ve never liked coincidences. On the very day Jason Connor died, he’d been to Laurel Park racetrack to question a groom who had previously been working at the barn at Belmont.’
‘What did the groom say?’
‘I don’t know. Connor never got to report back and the groom has since vanished. Not that that’s particularly unusual. It happens all the time. He was probably an illegal alien who was frightened away by the attention.’
‘Didn’t you try to find him?’ I asked.
‘Of course. But trainers’ record-keeping is not always great at the tracks. Turns out the groom had a work permit issued on forged paperwork in the name of a 26-year-old Mexican called Juan Martinez. That may or may not be his real name. Martinez is by far the most common surname in Mexico, much more so than Smith is here. And they didn’t even have a photo.’
‘Who did the looking?’ I asked.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Was it someone from your agency?’
‘I did it myself,’ Tony said. ‘I was once a detective in the Bronx. I reckon I still know the moves but this one was a dead end.’
‘So who at the agency knew about Jason Connor?’
‘Everyone in the racing section knew he’d been to NYRA with the original concerns. That was common knowledge. It was with the help of his information that we set up the operation.’
‘Who knew he’d also been approached to help find your leak?’
‘Supposedly only the Director, the chief of the horseracing team, and me.’
‘Who is the chief of the horseracing team?’
‘Norman Gibson. He’s an ex-cop from Chicago.’
‘Do you trust him?’
‘I would say so, yes.’
‘Does he know about the real reason I’m here?’ I asked.
‘No. He does not.’
‘So you don’t trust him that much,’ I said. ‘How about the Director of FACSA? Do you trust him more?’
‘I’d trust him with my life,’ Tony said.