“Why don’t you sound convinced?”
“I got that tingle. A reporter’s sixth sense that there was something else going on, something that might lead to a bigger story. Here’s this rich guy with a yacht, missing for ten days before someone thinks to go looking for him. The only reason they could pinpoint the date he went missing was the fact his car was found in the marina parking lot with January second stamped on the entry ticket. His neighbors said he traveled abroad so often, they weren’t alarmed when they didn’t see him for a week.”
“Traveled abroad?” said Jane. “Why?”
“No one could tell me.”
“Or they wouldn’t tell you?”
Lukas smiled. “You’ve got a suspicious mind, Detective. So do I. It made me more and more curious about Desmond. Made me wonder if there was more to the story. You know, that’s the way the Watergate story got started. A routine burglary case blows up into something much, much bigger.”
“What was big about this story?”
“Who the guy was. Charles Desmond.”
Jane looked at the photo of Desmond’s face. He wore a pleasant smile, a neatly knotted tie. It was the sort of photo that might appear in any corporate report. The company executive, projecting competence.
“The more questions I asked about him, the more interesting stuff started to turn up. Charles Desmond never went to college. He served twenty years in the army, most of it working for military intelligence. Five years after he leaves the army, he owns a nice yacht and a big house in Reston. So now you have to ask the obvious question: What did he do to amass that huge bank account?”
“Your article here says that he worked for a company called Pyramid Services,” said Jane. “What’s that?”
“That’s what I wondered. Took me a while to dig it up, but a few days later I learned that Pyramid Services is a subsidiary of guess which company?”
“Don’t tell me,” said Jane. “Ballentree.”
“You got it, Detective.”
Jane looked at Gabriel. “That name just keeps popping up, doesn’t it?”
“And look at the date he went missing,” said Maura. “That’s what caught my eye. January second.”
“The day before the Ashburn massacre.”
“An interesting coincidence, don’t you think?”
Gabriel said, “Tell us more about Pyramid.”
Lukas nodded. “It’s the transportation and security arm of Ballentree, part of the range of services they provide in war zones. Whatever our defense needs abroad-bodyguards, transport escorts, private police forces-Ballentree can do it for you. They’ll go to work in parts of the world where there are no functioning governments.”
“War profiteers,” said Jane.
“Well, why not? There’s a lot of money to be made in war. During the Kosovo conflict, Ballentree’s private soldiers protected construction crews. They’re now manning private police forces in Kabul and Baghdad and towns all around the Caspian Sea. All paid for by the US taxpayer. That’s how Charles Desmond financed his yacht.”
“I’m working for the wrong damn police force,” said Jane. “Maybe I should sign up for Kabul, and I could have a yacht, too.”
“You don’t want to work for these people, Jane,” said Maura. “Not when you hear what’s involved.”
“You mean the fact they work in combat zones?”
“No,” said Lukas. “The fact they’re tied in with some pretty unsavory partners. Anytime you deal in a war zone, you’re also making deals with the local mafia. It’s merely practical to form partnerships, so local thugs end up working with companies like Ballentree. There’s a black market trade in every commodity-drugs, arms, booze, women. Every war is an opportunity, a new market, and everyone wants in on the booty. That’s why there’s so much competition for defense contracts. Not just for the contracts themselves, but for the chance at the black market business that comes with it. Ballentree landed more deals last year than any other defense contractor.” He paused. “Partly because Charles Desmond was so damn good at his job.”
“Which was?”
“He was their deal maker. A man with friends in the Pentagon, and probably friends in other places as well.”
“For all the good it did him,” said Jane, looking down at the photo of Desmond. A man whose corpse had lain undiscovered for ten days. A man so mysterious to his neighbors that no one had thought to immediately report him missing.
“The question is,” said Lukas, “Why did he have to die? Did those friends in the Pentagon turn on him? Or did someone else?”
For a moment, no one spoke. The heat made the rooftop shimmer like water, and from the street below rose the smell of exhaust, the rumble of traffic. Jane suddenly noticed that Regina was awake, and her eyes were fixed on Jane’s face. It’s eerie, how much intelligence I see in my daughter’s eyes. From where she sat, Jane could see a woman sunning herself on another rooftop, her bikini top untied, her bare back glistening with oil. She saw a man standing on a balcony, talking on his cell phone, and a girl seated near a window, practicing her violin. Overhead, the white streak of a contrail marked the passage of a jet. How many people can see us? she wondered. How many cameras or satellites, at this moment, are trained on our rooftop? Boston had become a city of eyes.
“I’m sure this has crossed everyone’s mind,” said Maura. “Charles Desmond once worked in military intelligence. The man Olena shot in her hospital room was almost certainly ex-military, yet his prints have been scrubbed from the files. My office security has been breached. Are we all thinking about spooks here? Maybe even the Company?”
“Ballentree and the CIA have always gone hand in hand,” said Lukas. “Not that it should surprise anyone. They work in the same countries, employ the same kind of guys. Trade on the same info.” He looked at Gabriel. “And nowadays, they even pop up here, on home territory. Declare a terrorist threat, and the US government can justify any action, any expenditure. Untold funds get channeled into off-the-books programs. That’s how people like Desmond end up with yachts.”
“Or end up dead,” said Jane.
The sun had shifted, its glare now slanting under the umbrella, onto Jane’s shoulder. Sweat trickled down her breast. It’s too hot for you up here, baby, she thought, looking down at Regina ’s pink face.
It’s too hot for all of us.
THIRTY-TWO
Detective Moore looked up at the clock as the time closed in on eight P.M. The last time Jane had sat in the homicide unit’s conference room, she’d been nine months pregnant, weary and irritable and more than ready for maternity leave. Now she was back in the same room, with the same colleagues, but everything was different. The room felt charged, the tension winding tighter with each passing minute. She and Gabriel sat facing Moore; Detectives Frost and Crowe sat near the head of the table. At their center was the object of their attention: Jane’s cell phone, connected to a speaker system. “We’re getting close,” Moore said. “Are you still comfortable with this? We can have Frost take the calls.”
“No, I have to do it,” Jane said. “If a man answers, it could scare her off.”
Crowe gave a shrug. “If this mystery girl calls at all.”
“Since you seem to think this is such a big waste of time,” snapped Jane, “you don’t have to hang around.”
“Oh, I’ll stay just to see what happens.”
“We wouldn’t want to bore you.”
“Three minutes, guys,” interjected Frost. Trying, as usual, to play peacemaker between Jane and Crowe.
“She may not even have seen the ad,” said Crowe.
“The issue’s been on the stands for five days,” said Moore. “She’s had a chance to see it. If she doesn’t call, then it’s because she’s chosen not to.”