Lethal Dose (25 page)

53

They met at a roadside turnoff six miles from the entrance to Bruce Andrews's estate. It was getting on toward late afternoon on Sunday, and traffic on the secondary road was slightly higher than usual, many motorists heading back into Richmond after a weekend in the country. Trucks and cars whizzed by, unaware of who was meeting at the rest stop or why. Had they known, most would have taken more than just a passing interest in the conversation.

“How did Buchanan get to Richmond?” Bruce Andrews asked the other man as they walked slowly through the deserted parking lot.

“As I suspected, he chartered a plane, a Lear 31A. He paid up front for three days but called as the deadline was approaching and paid for another week. Obviously, he wants air transportation nearby and ready in case he needs it.”

“Where did the call to extend the charter on the plane come from?”

“Somewhere in Richmond. They're not sure.”

“What about call display? The charter company doesn't subscribe to it?” Andrews asked.

“Yes, they do. But Buchanan called from a pay phone. Somewhere in northwest Richmond. He probably traveled a ways from wherever he's staying just to use the phone. For a rank amateur, this guy is no dummy.”

A cloud drifted across the sun's path and the ground darkened with its arrival. The intense heat diminished and a cool breeze accompanied the respite. Both men were dressed in khakis and short-sleeved shirts, and the shade felt good. Another car pulled into the rest area and stopped a hundred feet farther along the parking lot. Well out of earshot. Three kids piled out of the car and made a beeline for the grassy expanse bordering the parking lot. The parents walked slowly to one of the seven anchored picnic tables and sat down, the father lighting a cigarette and watching the kids as they played.

“Everything else okay?” Andrews asked.

“Busy but fine. We're exactly where we want to be.”

“Good. Do you have time to take care of Buchanan if he sticks his head up?”

“I'll have to. Who else have you got? Ziegler is out of commission.”

A perturbed look crossed Andrews's face. “That was stupid. You didn't have to slaughter them. You could have killed them and dumped their bodies in some remote mountain gorge. The local bears and wolves would have picked the bones over long before hikers would have found them. That was really dumb.”

Andrews's associate didn't look amused at being chastised. “You take care of things on your end, I'll take care of things on mine. And if I want to have a little fun while I work, well, so be it.”

“Fun is gutting that woman and slicing the kid's throat right to the bone? Jesus, you are one sick son of a bitch.”

“Keep that in mind,” he said.

Andrews ignored the remark. He sat on one of the wooden posts that delineated the parking lot from the surrounding grassy area. The father finished his cigarette and returned to the car, the three kids in tow. A puff of exhaust accompanied the ignition's turning over; a quick flash of the brake lights and the car pulled back into the traffic. The area was deserted again. The cloud passed and the sun returned, its rays hot and unwelcome. “I want them dead,” he said.

“Who? Buchanan and Pearce?”

“Yes.”

“I'm busy, Bruce. I have to be careful right now.”

“That's fine. Just find them and kill them. But this time, don't have quite as much fun as you did in Denver. Just find them, kill them, and dump their bodies somewhere remote or anchor them down and sink them under water. Nothing too difficult. Not for someone with your resources.”

“All right. I'll find them and shut them up. But right now they're second on the priority list.”

“Of course. Priorities are important right now,” Andrews said. He walked to his car, got in, and adjusted the air-conditioning. The man was irreplaceable. He could never hope to achieve his goals without his help. But to that end, his partner was being paid well. Very well. And that often elicited the highest degree of loyalty. Right now, loyalty was crucial.

He pulled out of the rest stop and headed home. Sunday night. Tomorrow was going to be a very busy day. And a very profitable one.

54

Gordon chose anonymity over speed, and they left the Lear sitting in mothballs at Byrd Field and drove north to Washington first thing Monday morning. By nine o'clock, they were sitting in the reception area of the headquarters of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. After fifteen minutes, a well-dressed, trim woman in her early fifties approached them. Her hair was graying and age lines were beginning to take their toll on her features, but her eyes were lively and she moved with alacrity.

“Are you Gordon Buchanan and Jennifer Pearce?” she asked in a pleasant voice.

“Yes,” Gordon replied, rising from the leather couch.

“I'm Elizabeth Ripley,” she said, shaking both their hands. “You asked to see someone about an alleged accounting fraud by a publicly traded company?”

“Yes.”

“Fine, let's go to my office.” She led the way through a series of richly appointed offices and boardrooms until they reached a midsized office with her name on the door. They entered, and she closed the door behind them before sitting down. “What is the nature of your complaint?”

They had decided Jennifer would speak, as she was best versed in the method and extent of the fraud. “I work for Veritas Pharmaceutical…”

Ten minutes later, the SEC investigator looked up from the notes she had taken while Jennifer talked. “These are very serious allegations, Ms. Pearce,” she said. “If true, the accounting differences would total into the hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“I know,” Jennifer said. “We're both very aware of how serious this is.” She paused for a moment. “Now that you have the information, how do you proceed?”

Ripley laid her reading glasses on her desk and reclined in her chair. “It's complicated, Ms. Pearce. We're a small organization by government standards—we manage to get by with just over three thousand staff in eighteen regional offices. So our resources are spread a little thin. That said, when we get a complaint of this caliber—and by that I mean from someone working at the company with access to its financial records—we take it very seriously. And we're not toothless. We bring up to five hundred civil actions against corporations or individuals every year.”

“Civil actions?” Jennifer asked. “Not criminal?”

She shook her head. “No, we don't have criminal enforcement authority. But we manage the investigation: interview witnesses, conduct forensic audits, review brokerage records, and carefully check trading practices. Once we have something to run with, we bring in the appropriate criminal authorities. If the criminal activity has crossed state boundaries, the FBI is often given jurisdiction. Sometimes it's the local police, if the crime was committed in a city where the police have a department capable of handling the investigation. And we work very closely with Congress, all the stock exchange houses and especially the state securities regulators. Not much gets by us once we're on it, Ms. Pearce.”

“What sort of time frames are we looking at, Ms. Ripley?” Jennifer asked.

She glanced at her notes. “I'd like a couple of days to review the year-end financials Veritas has filed over the past few years. And I'll need to confirm with the appropriate departments inside the government that Veritas has been utilizing the tax-credit program in the manner you've suggested they are. I would say the earliest we could meet again would be in about a week's time. And that is placing it in the highest priority.”

“So this is not a quick process,” Gordon said.

“Not in the least. We've got to be sure, Mr. Buchanan. And whatever we find in the next couple of weeks will have to then go through the Office of the Chief Accountant. They're the ones who order and perform the necessary audits.”

“Damn it,” Jennifer said under her breath.

Elizabeth Ripley looked concerned. “What's wrong, Ms. Pearce? Why is time so important a factor for you?”

Jennifer glanced over at Gordon and he gave her a slight nod. She looked back to the securities investigator. “Everything we've told you so far this morning is entirely accurate and can be backed up with a forensic audit. But there's more.” She hesitated, knowing the next few sentences were going to sound crazy. “With very good reason, we suspect one or more of the top executives at Veritas is responsible for at least two murders.”

Elizabeth Ripley did not laugh. The lines around her mouth drew tight and she sat forward in her chair. “What makes you think that, Ms. Pearce?”

The immediate and serious reaction from the SEC woman was not what Jennifer had envisioned. She swallowed and continued. “One of my research assistants, Kenga Bakcsi, was murdered while on holiday in the Caribbean. She had been supplying Mr. Buchanan with information on one of our drugs. Another employee, Albert Rousseau, was killed when his gas stove exploded. He had proof in a floor safe in his condominium that one of Veritas's drugs was dangerous. And late last Tuesday, I was abducted from my house in Richmond, driven into the Shenandoah Mountains, and left teetering over a cliff. If Gordon hadn't rescued me, I would also be dead. And the man who left me there was the one whose family was murdered in Denver a few days ago. It was on all the news stations.”

“I saw it,” Ripley said. She toyed with her pen for a moment. “Who do you think is responsible? And I realize you're only speculating at this time.”

“We have good reason to think the company's CEO, Bruce Andrews, is the man behind all this.”

Gordon cleared his throat. “You seem to be taking this a little more seriously than we thought you might.”

The intensity in Elizabeth Ripley's eyes was almost frightening. “I've been doing this for a few years, and you are not the first people to sit across that desk fearful for your lives. Individuals who are willing to commit fraud on a large scale are often willing to protect their indiscretions.” She leaned back in her chair and glanced out the window at the D.C. skyline. “A few years ago, I had a young woman, perhaps thirty, come in my office and offer information about a fraud inside her company. She told me that the man who was responsible was acting in a threatening manner. I told her I would do everything I could and sent her home. She showed up in the Potomac River eight days later. She had three children. So you see, when people come to me of their own free will with tips of insider trading or accounting fraud, I take them seriously. When they tell me they fear for their lives, I take them extremely seriously.”

“Thank you for that,” Jennifer said.

“I'm going to fast-track this file,” Ripley said. “I'll schedule a meeting with the chief accountant for this afternoon. We'll subpoena financial records from the government department that handles the tax credits and have the information on our desks within forty-eight hours. We'll know in four days—by Friday, next Monday at the latest—whether we can proceed against Veritas. That's the best I can do.”

“That's good enough,” Jennifer said. “Thank you.”

Elizabeth Ripley walked them to the reception area, wished them the best, and shook their hands. She disappeared back into the labyrinth of offices before the elevator arrived. They rode the sixteen floors in silence. Once on the street, they picked up the rental car from the parking lot and headed back toward Richmond. The meeting had gone well—extremely well, in fact—but lingering in both their minds was one burning question.

Could they survive until the securities commission removed Bruce Andrews from power?

55

“What have you got?” J. D. Rothery asked eagerly.

“We're pretty sure we've located the lab,” Craig Simms said. He unrolled a large map onto the table. Jim Allenby, Tony Warner, and Rothery crowded around the table in the Under Secretary's office. It was just after twelve noon on Monday, September 19. The map Simms had spread out depicted Orlando, Florida.

“The building in question is a warehouse, zoned for industrial painting, located here, on Dowden Road in south Orlando.” He stabbed at the map, then overlaid another plat, this one showing the industrial district of Taft in greater detail. “The warehouse is one bay in a series of six, all connected together. They share the same gas lines, water lines, and sewer network. Ventilation systems are independent, and this one has quite the setup from what we can see.” He dropped another sheet of paper atop the township plat. It showed the same building, but the picture had been taken with a heat-sensitive camera. The end bay on the east side was glowing in five concentrated areas. “These five hot spots are HEPA filters. All are fully functional and capable of filtering the air to less than one one-thousandth of a micron. Total overkill for what the business would require.”

“You said it's zoned for industrial painting? Don't those businesses need good ventilation?” Rothery asked.

“Good ventilation, yes. HEPA filters, no. These filters run about two hundred grand each, and they're mostly used for work in clean environments, like manufacturing plants for silicon chips and medical research.”

“A million dollars in filtration systems on a single industrial bay,” Jim Allenby said. “It definitely seems like overkill.”

Simms nodded. “The building owner is this man, Ismail Zehaden.” He produced a handful of black-and-white photos of a fifty-something man of Arabic descent with gaunt cheeks and a long, slender nose. His hair, cut about halfway over his ears, was thick and dark, with touches of gray. The eyes were steely and penetrating. “He's been in the United States for thirty-nine of his fifty-one years. Spent his first twelve years in Bandar-e ‘Abb
s, a port city in Iran across the Strait of Hormuz from Oman. His father worked in the oil industry in Qatar and Oman as a well-site geologist. They emigrated to the United States in 1966. Lived in Houston for ten years, where the father worked for Exxon as a geologist in the production and exploitation division. By the looks of things, the family appeared quite normal while they were in Houston.

“Ismail, who now goes by Sam, was the middle of three boys. He was accepted to and graduated from MIT, with a degree in electrical engineering. In 1992, he moved to Orlando and started a high-tech company that manufactured guidance systems for surface-to-air missiles. The company name is Istal Technology, probably named after his father, whose name was also Istal. Most of his office and lab space is on Sand Lake Road, adjacent to Martin Marietta's research facilities.”

“Do they sell to Martin Marietta?” Rothery asked.

“Yes. That's Istal's main client.”

“Then it makes sense for them to have office and lab space next to Martin Marietta. But why in Taft? And why an industrial bay zoned for painting?”

“We suspect it's a cover for the ventilation systems, J. D.,” Simms said. “Nobody says boo when a company that sprays anything toxic puts adequate ventilation in place. That just makes them a good corporate citizen.”

“All right, we know who Sam Zehaden is, but why is he intent on killing millions of people in the country he's called home for almost forty years?”

“There was an incident about eleven years ago that seemed to change him. Three of his uncles and one aunt were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were in a restaurant in Shiraz, a moderate-size city in central Iran, when the place was blown to bits by a smart bomb.”

“What?” Rothery said. “What the hell happened?”

“The rear of the restaurant was being used as a meeting place for an al-Qaeda faction. The Israelis had good intel that there was to be a high-level meeting on that day at that time, and they hit the building with one perfectly placed bomb. Totally destroyed the restaurant, killing six staff, twelve diners, and an unknown number of terrorists. But it would appear the damage was done. Sam Zehaden blamed the United States, his own country, for sanctioning the Israeli attack.”

“Is there any proof he turned?” Allenby asked.

“He began traveling to Iran on a regular basis. He was seen in the vicinity of known al-Qaeda members and started sending money back to Iran. Prior to his relatives' deaths, he had been quite visible in the community, supporting the local children's hospital and numerous other charities, but after the incident he dropped out of sight. Went off the radar.”

“That's all good stuff, but why do you think the lab is in that building?” Rothery asked.

“We had a call from a citizen about the HEPA filters. She's a nurse in a local hospital and knows what constitutes necessary filtration. She figures that in its current state, that particular bay is at about a BioLevel Four status. That and the timing. The filtration systems were moved in the last week in August. My biological experts have calculated the amount of time needed to produce a quantity of virus that could constitute a major threat at about three weeks. Today is September nineteenth, J. D. The timing is perfect.”

“How reliable is your source?” Rothery asked.

“First class,” Simms said. “We can't identify her at this time. That was part of the deal. She's scared shitless that if Zehaden is indeed al-Qaeda, someone will come looking for her after the fact. We guaranteed her anonymity, but it didn't help. She wants her name kept out of it.”

“One more question, Craig,” Rothery said.“How does the CIA know so much about Sam Zehaden? He lives inside our borders, a place your powers as an agency do not extend to.”

“We picked up on this guy when he started to visit Iran on a regular basis. It was prudent to follow up on his activities, even if that meant keeping a file open on him while he was at home.”

Rothery nodded. He turned to Jim Allenby. “What do you think, Jim? This is going to be your operation. You think it warrants action?”

Allenby was silent, weighing the facts. Finally, he said, “The upside definitely outweighs the downside. If we miss, we haven't really lost anything. We're just doing our job. But if we get lucky, we're saviors. If this warehouse is the lab, we've ended an extremely serious crisis before the terrorists could strike. Not only will that bolster the confidence of the average American, it will send a firm message to other terrorist cells. I think we should move on it, J. D.”

“Okay,” Rothery said. “Do you want to coordinate it, Jim?”

“Sure, but I'll want some SWAT backup as well. I'll contact the Orlando PD and set it up. I'll have everything in place for early tomorrow morning.”

“Tony, you okay with this?” Rothery asked the NSA man, who to this juncture had been quiet.

“I think it looks good.”

Rothery leaned back from the table with the maps and crossed his arms on his chest. “All right, gentlemen. You've got the green light. Let's shut this operation down. And let's keep our fingers crossed that this is it.”