Counterfeit Road (22 page)

‘It’s a complex and organized plot,’ Raveneau said. ‘We followed a lead in a homicide investigation and came into it from a different angle.’

Fine turned to him.

‘I understand FBI teams were sent to Pakistan. Is that true?’

‘It might be true, but I think they were probably doing just what the plotters wanted.’

‘You do?’

Raveneau nodded. Fine held Raveneau’s gaze then looked at la Rosa again. Raveneau knew from la Rosa’s tutorial that Fine graduated from Stanford, worked in New York then Washington for many years before returning to the Bay Area. He built his blog when competition was still thin and the postings sporadic. He brought a competitor’s discipline hardened from years of deadlines.

‘Who is most at risk?’ Fine asked, and la Rosa was ready. ‘We don’t know but we do know from the weapons where the real casualties will be.’

That was like soft-pitching him one to hit out of the park. ‘On the street?’

‘Yes.’

Fine leaned forward and poured himself more coffee. ‘Anybody else?’

‘I’m good,’ Raveneau said and then, ‘How much do you know about the bomb threat?’

‘If I tell you am I putting my source at risk?’

‘No.’

‘Not even if the source is inside your department?’

‘It’s not.’

‘That’s true, but how could you possibly know that?’

‘No one in our department would care about a shakeup at the FBI. But another federal agency might and someone within that agency might have personal ambitions that could jeopardize our chances. I’m not talking about the public being alerted and aware. Frankly, I’m for that.’

‘So am I, Inspector.’

‘Your source must be too.’

But that wasn’t necessarily the case and Fine seemed to acknowledge that.

‘There’s a point,’ la Rosa said, and paused, her lips briefly pursed, ‘a point where information can be useful to the plotters.’

‘You’re not going to try to sell me that old saw, are you?’

‘Worse,’ Raveneau said. ‘We’re going to tell you this time it’s different.’

‘How?’

‘There’s no proof and you can’t print it, but you could ask your source if there’s any chance of this. We’d like you to ask and gauge the response.’

‘OK.’

‘Your source will dismiss the idea but we see a pattern that suggests the plotters are getting help from inside law enforcement. That doesn’t mean it is local help.’

‘And you say my source will dismiss that?’

‘I’m betting he or she will.’

Fine looked down at his coffee and Raveneau got the feeling Fine’s source might not be local.

‘You are asking me to say something I can’t say credibly. I can tell you my source is very bright and if I throw out an idea like this that I can’t possibly know about, I’m going to get questions. I may lose my access.’

‘Don’t lose your access.’

‘What’s it to you?’

‘Just hear us out. We’re going to give you something but we can’t give you much because we don’t know how much the other side knows or doesn’t know about the investigation. You’ll have to be oblique.’

Fine nodded, barely, but it was a nod.

‘Reference the quadruple slaying at Khan’s cabinet shop and the subsequent murder of Khan and his wife.’

‘The burglar?’

‘It wasn’t a burglar. That’s very vague but can you work with that?’

‘Yes.’

‘In return we’d like to know what you learn.’

‘OK, but is the public going to get warned soon?’

‘That will probably come soon in a joint press conference with SFPD and the FBI. It might happen today. It might happen tomorrow, but it will happen because we’re not sure where this thing is at.’

‘So they’re covering their asses.’

Raveneau left that alone and added, ‘Your source can’t know you were visited by homicide inspectors. That’s very important.’

Fine’s eyes half closed and he was obviously skeptical. He was quiet then surprised Raveneau, saying, ‘That has implications I don’t even like to think about.’

‘It does and we need to ask one question about your source.’

‘I thought we agreed you weren’t going to.’

‘FBI or Secret Service?’

‘Who will know I told you?’

‘We’ll keep it to ourselves.’

‘For how long?’

‘For as long as we possibly can.’

‘My credibility depends—’

‘We’ll protect you.’

He looked at la Rosa and back at Raveneau. ‘It’s an old connection. It’s someone I went to school with years ago. He’s moved steadily upward in all that time. He’s not in the FBI or Secret Service, and you’ll never touch him. He worked for the CIA and he’s in some offshoot now that doesn’t even have a name.’ He looked past Raveneau at the wall behind then said, ‘I’ll call you.’

FORTY-ONE

‘
Y
ou still get to read,’ Brooks said, ‘but the situation has changed. You can sit at my desk and read what was sent to me, but I’m not going to print anything for you. And I have to tell you we’ve had a long-standing good relationship with SFPD and people here are angry we were bypassed the night the bomb casings were lost. It wasn’t our ineptitude but it’s going to fall on us. The field office here doesn’t look very good right now.’

‘I was in Hawaii.’

Brooks was close enough for Raveneau to smell his aftershave. He was too close and too urgent.

‘This wouldn’t have happened if we’d been involved or if your CIU team was on them. The FBI lost them. They added agents. They brought in people that don’t even know the area. They’re arrogant. They are endlessly stupidly fucking arrogant, but it’s going to land here when the White House cancels the President’s visit and after everybody and his brother learns what happened. Some blogger has already written about them. I’m angry. I’m very angry.’

Brooks stepped back and looked away. He had a new suit and a different haircut that left him with a smooth hard clean look. He wasn’t suffering in the shadows. He led Raveneau to his computer and brought up a PDF file.

‘OK, there you go. Now you can read and chase ghosts. You were in Hawaii working a cold case when the bomb casings got lost and now you’re home focused on this murder that probably no one will ever solve. But, hey, working it fills the days and someone has to care for those lost souls. And that’s fine. There’s a place for it. But is there a need for it with all the other things going on right now? You have talent at investigating. You’ve got experience. You know this city. You shouldn’t be spending your days on Alan Krueger’s murder. He’s been dead for a long time and these missing bomb casings are an absolute priority.’

‘Slow down, Brooks.’

‘No, I’m going to say what I think. That surveillance got botched because we weren’t there and SFPD’s Criminal Investigation Unit was left sitting in the back seat on a critical, critical surveillance. Of course, ask the FBI and they’ll tell you about how they trained this team. They trained this city, that city, these state police, they’ll give you their whole big brother academy rap. But you and I know ninety-five percent of FBI agents can’t do surveillance. Half of them look alike. Doesn’t even matter what color their skin is, they still look like they came from the same factory and when they go anywhere they go in pairs, so pretty soon you’ve got a car parked down the street with two guys in it who look pretty much the same. What are you going to think when you see that?’

‘I’m reading, Brooks.’

‘Yeah, yeah, you read, you read, Raveneau, but you know what I’m saying. You know I’m right.’

Raveneau read the usual federal forms. He read the notes on Krueger quitting, two paragraphs devoted to making clear the time, date, and moment Alan Krueger made the decision for ‘personal reasons’ to ‘resign’ from the Secret Service. It was recounted in plain language that Krueger did twice while on duty falsely report his whereabouts for which he was reprimanded later after the false representation was exposed. The facts of the reprimand included the name John Pagen, presumably Krueger’s supervisor. He went through each page again slowly, this time copying down some of Krueger’s background information including the years of his military service.

When he finished he sat in the chair for a few minutes thinking about it. What he read was sanitized. There was really nothing there yet he did get a name, John Pagen. If Pagen was a supervisor then, he was retired now. He might be in the area still.

Raveneau read and took notes, then left quietly. He preferred not to see Brooks on the way out. He would find Pagen. He’d stay focused on this case that mattered the same today as it did when the Canadians found Krueger’s body in 1989. From his car he called Secret Service headquarters in Washington, identified himself and said he was working a cold case from 1989 and trying to get in touch with a retired agent named John Pagen. He gave his name and cell number and knew the first call would be to the Homicide Detail to confirm he was who he said he was. If alive, Pagen would have a Fed pension and one way or another Raveneau would find him. He didn’t expect to find him that afternoon, but that’s what happened. Pagen called him later in the day.

‘I retired in 2002,’ Pagen said, ‘and I’ve been working harder ever since.’ He laughed. ‘I inherited my father’s ranch outside of Marysville. We grow pistachios and prunes.’

‘How do you like it?’

‘I love it. Maybe if my career had been something I’d feel differently, but I love growing things and being outside when I want to. I did know Alan. I knew him fairly well and liked him. He was quite talented and bright. He saw the world turning into a global mix long before the rest of us in that office. That’s how he ended up working the Asian end. You’re wondering what he was working on when he was killed?’

‘I am.’

‘I’m assuming you know he was there on his own by that point, three or four years.’

‘I read his resignation letter this morning.’

‘Right, the resignation, that was another thing again. He and another agent had a personal animosity. They couldn’t stand each other.’

‘I’d like to hear about that.’

‘Will talking about it get you closer to who killed him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, I’ll meet you or you can come up here if you want.’ Raveneau jotted down directions. ‘If you pass Mariani plant number two, you’ve gone too far. But we can do this over the phone too. You can call me any time.’

‘You said you knew Alan fairly well. Did you know any of his friends?’

‘Are you asking about the boyfriend?’

‘I’m wondering about a Jim Frank and a Tom Casey.’

‘I know the names and I know he had a photo on his desk with the three of them in it. The boyfriend I never met and I don’t think Alan set foot in our office again after he resigned. I got him his first work in Hong Kong though. We had a lead, Alan spoke the language, and his counterfeiting work was very respected at headquarters.’

‘Was that a lead about counterfeit one hundred dollar bills?’

‘No, I think it was about twenties. We had a lot of twenties floating around for awhile.’

‘He had sixty-one hundred dollar bills on him when he was killed.’

‘I remember, and they were brought to our office. They weren’t counterfeit.’

‘A videotape of the murder was sent to us. Literally, the last few minutes of Alan’s life, and I’ll show it to you when we meet if you want to watch it. I wouldn’t watch it if I were you, but I’m telling you because it’s why our Cold Case Unit picked this one up again. I checked the bills out of evidence and the Secret Service took another look and came up with a different conclusion.’

‘Is that right?’

‘I have to take them at their word.’

‘They aren’t going to lie to you.’

‘Of course not.’

‘We made mistakes like everyone else.’

It happened very fast. The hale, good natured sounding man who had answered the phone and seemed more than willing to do what he could to help, now lost spirit and said quietly, ‘I’m afraid of where this is going. There was talk at the time, but Alan was killed before the first supernotes were found. That was in the Philippines. It was a banker who picked up on them. If Alan had been alive we might have asked him to go there and work with the agents we sent.’

‘You do know where this is going.’

‘Alan was carrying supernotes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I have to think about that. Why don’t you give me a few days? Can you do that?’

‘I can.’

‘And I’ll make some calls too. Some of us are still around. Tell you what, I’ll call you. If I call Homicide do I ask for the Cold Case Unit?’

‘Just ask for me.’

‘You’ll hear from me soon.’

FORTY-TWO

‘
I
nspector, did I catch you at a bad time? If so, I’m sorry. I don’t always think about mainland time.’

‘I planned to call you anyway.’

‘Then I’m glad I beat you to it.’ Casey coughed heavily. As he recovered he said, ‘I’ve caught some damn cold. I apologize how things ended. I read too much into you going out to the air base after leaving here. I figured you’d call him. I didn’t mean to focus any suspicion on my friend and he was upset you followed him. He told me you trailed him all the way to the restaurant.’

‘I called ahead and he was fine to meet at the base, but not when I got there and I’m like you, I’m getting more ornery as I get older.’

Casey chuckled, coughed because of it.

‘That’s because I told him you’d gone into Jim’s house without permission. I let him know that I wasn’t sure about you. But now that I’ve had some people check up on you I feel better. You’ve got a reputation for getting the job done. Anyway, as we got to talking I suggested he come into town and told him I’d buy him dinner. Blue Dragon is where we usually meet, so that’s what we did. It was a chance to catch up with Victor. Life hasn’t been fair or easy for him. He had some bad luck early.

‘When you showed up at the Blue Dragon I thought, well, he’s flown all the way here and now he’s trying to make something happen, trying to connect dots that don’t connect. I know that’s not what you’re doing, and really I’m impressed that San Francisco still cares about what happened to Alan to spend time and money on trying to solve the murder. So I’m calling to see what I can do to help. Were those photos any value and did you give the boy his?’