The Ultimatum: A Jeremy Fisk Novel (7 page)

T
he sun slid from behind a cloud and through the corner windows, setting aglow NYPD Intel chief Barry Dubin’s eggshell head and all but igniting his golden Ermenegildo Zegna Venticinque silk tie, the sort more commonly seen on hedge fund bosses than on public servants. “I’ve gotta tell you, this reminds me of the time Salinger met with your dad in ’61,” Dubin said from Wallace McElhaney’s couch.

“About the Air Force crewmen?” asked McElhaney from a wing chair across the big cherrywood coffee table.

“Exactly. Their lives were at stake.”

McElhaney was two years old in 1961, when his father, then the editor in chief of the
New York Herald Tribune,
received a surprise visit over the weekend from White House press secretary Pierre Salinger at their house in Princeton. One of the
Trib
’s Washington correspondents had gotten wind of President Kennedy’s plans to negotiate the release of the two surviving members of the Air Force RB-47 spy plane shot down by the Soviets over the Barents Sea. Salinger hoped McElhaney’s father would hold the report of the negotiation for fear of antagonizing Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev and poisoning the deal. McElhaney, who went on to follow in his father’s footsteps—he was now the national news editor here at the
New York Times
—had learned that there is a presumption that
newspapers publish whatever they get, in the hope that it will sell papers. In truth, editors and publishers routinely listen to and take into account concerns of government officials. When the government has a clear case that a story places a life in danger, it’s an easy call: you don’t publish.

Unfortunately it’s seldom a clear case. Often officials seek to stop publication for reasons of policy, partisanship, or to avoid embarrassment. In the RB-47 case, the Air Force crewmen’s lives were demonstrably at risk, so the
New York Herald Tribune
held the story.

“Dad liked to say that dozens of journalists got Pulitzers, but not many got handwritten thank-you notes from President Kennedy,” McElhaney told Dubin.

Dubin laughed, a laugh that was both pitted by cigar smoke and, in McElhaney’s estimation, longer in duration than the preceding remark merited. This meeting was beginning to have the feel of a sales call. Almost certainly the ex-spy’s spontaneous recollection of Salinger’s visit was anything but spontaneous. Likely he had first heard of the 1961 case on the limo ride up here, while being prepped for this meeting by a member of the slick publicity team brought in by the commissioner. The same initiative, to buff the Department’s image, probably explained Dubin’s recent embrace of $300 silk ties and distinctive Campagna suits that dipped below $1,500 only at annual clearance sales, and were wasted on him. Dubin was the sort who would look rumpled even in a gleaming suit of armor.

No, Dubin’s was not a finesse game. Never had been. Before joining the NYPD, when serving as deputy director for operations at the CIA, Dubin notoriously treated the media to just two words: “no” and “comment.” In New York, where the media had more leverage, he’d successfully kept reporters from publishing his secrets by guilting them into helping their government in the war on terror. But that line was losing traction in the face of a growing recognition by journalists that carrying the ball for the government was not their
job; the job was to report on the government. The Constitution had abolished governmental power to censor the press precisely so the press could censure the government. The press did so by baring the government’s secrets and informing the public. McElhaney viewed it as his responsibility now to find out if NYPD Intel’s secret programs deserved a place, as Chay Maryland believed, in the same conversation as waterboarding and warrantless wiretapping.

“Why isn’t the Bureau looking at drones?” McElhaney asked him.

Dubin tugged at the sharp tip of his black goatee—dyed, McElhaney suspected. “Wally, I don’t want to criticize the FBI.”

“Now
that
is news,” McElhaney said.

The Intel chief chortled. A beat too long again. “Let’s just say that Ms. Maryland’s role in developing the drone hypothesis speaks to the merits of expending shoe leather at the crime scene instead of pontificating in the conference room. I understand why she thinks it’s her job to inform the public. What she doesn’t get is that Detective Fisk is playing a long game. This Yodeler didn’t mind revealing the model of his rifle, his ammo, and his plan of action to the whole World Wide Web, but he didn’t say boo about a drone.”

“If there even is a drone.”

“A lead’s a lead. Now, if we can figure out what kind . . .”

“You’ll follow the trail from the factory to Yodeler’s lair?”

Dubin leaned back and sighed. “I’m not going to lie to you. It’s a long shot—but when isn’t it a long shot? There are some three hundred thousand drones owned by civilians in this country. But a lot of the time, our only clue is that a perp is driving a black Ford SUV, and there’s, what, ten times as many Ford SUVs as drones? We open a lead on every one, then whittle away at the list, and sometimes it works. In this case we’ll knock on every drone manufacturer’s door, every hobby shop, check out the drone groups’ pages on Facebook or whatnot.”

“You have children, right, Barry?”

“Yeah, a daughter—just had her first child, little girl named Madison.”

“Congratulations,” McElhaney exclaimed.

Dubin grunted. “Save it. I only mentioned her so you could use her by name in any hypothetical designed to play on my guilt.”

McElhaney smiled. “Okay, what if your daughter were pushing your granddaughter in her stroller this afternoon and saw a drone zipping around the corner ahead of them. Would you have her point it out to the little girl and say, ‘Look, Madison, that’s the future of aviation,’ or would you want them to take cover?”

The Intel chief shrugged. “Coventry.”

“Are you talking World War Two or the town upstate?”

“The first one.”

This came from Dubin, McElhaney thought, not a publicist. In 1940, Allied code breakers who had cracked the Enigma rotor cipher machine learned of the Luftwaffe’s plan to bomb Coventry, one of England’s largest cities. If Churchill were either to have ordered Coventry evacuated or to have sent forces to defend it, he would have risked revealing to the Germans that their Enigma system had been compromised, in turn costing the Allies their means of decoding enemy communiqués in critical battles to come. So he let the Luftwaffe bomb Coventry.

McElhaney nodded. “I get it. If Yodeler realizes we know about his drone, and if there is any sort of paper trail to it, he would just change tactics. At the same time, there is almost zero chance that the same criminal who used a disposable cell phone only to comment on the
Times
site would be foolish enough to leave a paper trail to a drone.”

McElhaney wondered if Dubin was seeking to protect something else altogether, like a heretofore secret camera network capable of yielding footage of the drone. Or maybe NYPD Intel had drones of its own; maybe they’d merely pretended to pass on the Skyhawk system five years ago.

McElhaney set his qualms aside to play a long game of his own. “We’ll withhold Chay’s story,” he said, “on one condition.”

T
he shine from Dubin’s power tie preceded him into his office, casting a lightning bolt onto the windows overlooking Ninth Avenue. Fisk watched from a minimalist modern armchair that looked like a squatting gingerbread man, yet another part of the chief’s efforts to gussy up. Flushed, Dubin peeled off his suit coat, dropped it over the back of a matching gingerbread man, and plopped heavily down. By way of greeting, he groaned.

“I take it they’re running the story,” Fisk said.

Dubin dabbed perspiration on his forehead with his tie. “That’s up to you, junior.”

So there was a catch. “Great. I say no.”

Dubin tossed his wing tips onto the coffee table, a wad of chrome that could pass as modern art. “Deal is, the
Times
holds the story if you let Chay Maryland shadow you on the investigation.”

Fisk hoped he’d missed something. “Shadow me?” He shook his head firmly. “If Chay Maryland had been shadowing Seal Team Six, she would have live-blogged the mission to capture bin Laden.”

Dubin said, “We can ask them to run topics past us before she writes anything.”

“We sure can. Would any newspaper ever agree to that?”

“Probably not.” Dubin cracked a smile. “Alternatively, you can utilize your talents as an agent handler.” His smile disintegrated. “Don’t know if you’ve noticed this, kid, but the Department’s been working to get the press to help our cause, for a change. I know you don’t like it, and I can’t say I’m thrilled with it either, but for better or for worse you’re the face of the NYKGB. It might help if the lady who’s been our single harshest critic sees the way you really go about business. This is the kind of public relations opportunity we’ve been trying like hell to buy.”

B
lackwell almost didn’t hear the trill of his cell phone over the pulverizer, a thousand-dollar version of a food processor.

Normally they’re used in labs to turn carbon into carbon dust. Knowing Miami would be a tough place to dispose of a body, Blackwell had stopped at an academic wholesaler in Nashville on his drive down here, paying cash for one of the machines. Toggling off the grinding-chamber motor, he dropped the DEA mole’s left forearm back into the bathtub, atop what was left of the guy’s torso, softening in a cocktail that included hydrofluoric acid and lye.

Blackwell answered the phone. “Freeman.” Which signified he could talk freely.

“Marvelous evening to you, Mr. Freeman,” came Segui’s voice. So blithe that Blackwell knew that the Cartel fixer was in hot water, again. But no one was holding a gun to Segui’s head—the use of “marvelous” was intended to communicate that.

“How are things?” asked Blackwell, covering the mouthpiece in order to mask the plop when the mole’s left hand, now grainy pink sludge, slid from the pulverizer’s spout and into the hole where the toilet had been—removing the toilet allowed direct access to the largest sewer pipe leaving the Motel 6 room.

“My sales team had some bad luck in Appleton,” Segui said. “Appleton” was code for New York City. “Bad luck” meant Segui’s
hit team had failed altogether. That part wasn’t code. Segui was just inclined to positive spin, which served him well, given the temperaments of his masters, the Zetas. In the course of Blackwell’s two-year working relationship with Segui, which had consisted only of brief phone calls or clandestine electronic communications, the fixer had also shown an extraordinary capacity for denial, which served him well given what he had to work with: cokeheads who tended to shoot first and think later, if they thought at all. The good news was their screw-ups meant business for Blackwell.

“Well, shit happens,” Blackwell said, pouring a pint or so of chlorine bleach into the pipe to mitigate the stench of the sludge. “But like I always say, buddy, ‘Weakness isn’t about falling down, it’s about not getting up.’”

“That is exactly right,” Segui chirped. “All this account needs is someone with a bit more experience. So, as you may have guessed, the company is hoping you could go make a sales presentation in person, work a little of your magic.”

“I’d be happy to.” Blackwell meant he’d be happy to do the job if he thought he could get away with it, and if the price was right. “What’s the who, the what, the where, and the when?” He keyed the phone to speaker so that he could keep working. In order to hear Segui, he switched to a bow saw in lieu of the power tools.

“You have a copy of the brochure handy, my friend?”

“Sure, hang on just a sec.” With minimal effort on Blackwell’s part, the saw blade parted the DEA kid’s left biceps, turned gummy by the tubful of water, more chlorine bleach, and sodium hydroxide. Then he drew a burner computer tablet from his gear bag, powered it on, and clicked open the website belonging to a junkyard in Tucson that sold used auto parts via the Internet. “Okay, hit me.”

“F-dash-F-dash-24029-dash-1,” Segui said.

The first
F
and the 1 were essentially camouflage. The middle six characters, F-24029, however, were the actual part number for a 1997 BMW Z3 1.9 radiator in moderate to good condition, on sale
for $89.95 plus shipping. The photograph of the grimy radiator, sitting in the donor car, comprised several thousand pixels. Activating an app that was essentially a microscope, Blackwell zoomed in on pixel number 4,029—the last four digits of the part number communicated the location of the digital dead drop.

Sure enough, Segui had placed a dossier there. Blackwell decoded it, a matter of activating another app.

He thus was able to see the details and photographs of the target, Detective Jeremy Fisk of the NYPD Intelligence Division. Blackwell knew of Fisk. He remembered wondering if the Mexicans were Segui’s boys when he read about the botched hit in New York last month.

“The only issue is I’m in the middle of a big job in Kansas City right now,” Blackwell said. This phone, which had cost him two grand, transmitted bogus metadata that would lead any eavesdropper this side of the NSA to conclude that he in fact was in Kansas City, Missouri—a priceless safety measure.

“When’s the soonest you could make it to Wisconsin?” Segui asked.

“How about early next week?” Blackwell said. This was an attempt on his part to bag overtime. The Zetas were notoriously impatient.

“Hold on, let me look at the calendar,” Segui said, then put the line on hold, probably to confer with the boss.

While waiting, Blackwell returned his attention to the current job. The mole’s now-brittle left humerus snapped in two in Blackwell’s gloved hand. He removed the lower half of the bone, along with the attached tissue, and slid the chunk down into the grinding chamber.

Segui returned to the line. “If we pay you time and a half, could you do the job by the end of the week?”

Time and a half meant $125,000 on top of Blackwell’s standard $250,000 fee on these jobs. Which, after it was laundered through Blackwell’s mistress Franciscka’s statuary in Chicago, would net
him a good couple hundred thou. Plus the down payment on the new Porsche he wanted, the RFF 28 powerboat.

He separated the remainder of the mole’s upper arm from its socket, easy as picking a flower.

“Consider it done,” he said.