The Black List (28 page)

“That I had a manager who took care of most of that end of my business, but he died. Dorian Rose.”

“Who was, coincidentally, employed by A
.
D
.
E., a government contractor who considers themselves a charity to resettle refugees?”

“If you say so.”

“For an attorney, Mr. Redfern, you seem to be slightly disorganized.”

“I assure you, Mr. Tillett, I’m very organized.”

“Oh, good. Then you’ll have no problem producing all the records I intend to subpoena regarding your relationship with any charity and the profit you are making off of the refugees.” He adjusted his glasses, wrote some notes on a yellow legal tablet before proceeding. “One thing that concerns me. You say you were not aware of the condition of those buildings? The condition your tenants were forced to live in?”

“I own the properties. I hire people to run them for me. Apparently my trust was misplaced. When they’re less than honest, there isn’t much I can do but try to make amends after the fact.”

“How is it that you are housing nothing but refugees in your buildings?”

Redfern hesitated, glanced at Sydney, then back, and Sydney noticed a slight trembling in his hands as he clasped them in his lap. “I have an arrangement with a charitable organization to house them at a discount.”

“And the name of this organization?”

“A
.
D
.
E.”

Tillett jotted more notes, then tapped the pen on the tab before looking up. “Here’s what’s going to happen, Mr. Redfern. When this lovely FBI agent gets done questioning you, and you cooperate in every way, you will start on the first building. You will move your tenants, every one of them, into a hotel or motel by this evening. It doesn’t have to be the Hilton, just one that you would feel comfortable sleeping in yourself.”

Redfern’s jaw dropped. “Do you know how much that’ll cost?”

“In fact, yes. I’ve done this before, as I’m sure you’re aware.” He looked at his watch, then stood, with an exaggerated sigh. “Unfortunately I don’t have time to linger, because I’m due in housing court and you know how testy those judges get when you’re late. Now where was I . . . Of course. Move them into a motel,
fix
the building so that it is livable—”

“And if it isn’t?”

“Direct them to a new home that
you
would be comfortable living in, and then start in on the next building. Is there any part of that you don’t understand? The last building owner I took to court seemed to have difficulty with that part. The place-being-livable part.”

“I understand,” Redfern said, a much more subdued person.

“Good. Because you are now on my radar, and every one of your tenants is now my client. Do I make myself clear?”

Redfern nodded.

Tillett stood, slid a card onto the table toward Redfern, then said, “Feel free to call if you have any questions.” He turned to Sydney, held out his hand, his eyes crinkling over his spectacles. “Thank you so much for the client referral.”

“A real pleasure.” He left, and Sydney took his seat, smiling at Redfern. “Such a nice little man, isn’t he?”

“Darling.”

“Now, let’s see . . . Dorian. Your poor former employee. How is it you came to hire him?”

“A
.
D
.
E. recommended him to me.”

“Convenient.”

“Look, Ms. Fitzpatrick—”

“That’s Special Agent Fitzpatrick.”

“I might be guilty of a few housing violations.”

“A few?”

“Times ten buildings, fine, I concede the issues, but in all fairness, I’m not the only landlord who is making money from the government’s oversight.”

“Baby steps, Mr. Redfern.”

“As I was saying, the apartments aside, this all occurred
after
I had contacted a contractor about tearing the buildings down. A
.
D
.
E. approached me because they needed immediate housing and we thought we could buy a few months, and one thing turned into another. It’s not an excuse, but that’s the truth. There’s no government conspiracy. Not on my part at least. I don’t know anything about A
.
D
.
E., their operations, or the program they’re involved with.”

“And Senator Burgess’s involvement with this?”

“None. That I know of anyway. She’s a proponent of the refugee program is all. Her visit to my office was of a different nature.”

“Something to do with Wingman Squared?”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, stared at her for a solid second, then asked, “Why would you say that?”

“I saw the file on your desk.”

“That file is confidential and covered by attorney-client privilege.”

“Any connection as to why someone tried to run down me and my friend the other night?”

“And your friend would be?”

“Zachary Griffin. The man who was in your office with me the other day.”

“No, Ms.—Special Agent Fitzpatrick. Without saying anything further, I seriously doubt anyone from that file is involved in what you’re involved in.”

“Let’s try this, then. Why would someone from A
.
D
.
E. try to run us over?”

“Far easier, since they’re not my client. Ignoring my small slice of the pie renting apartments, being a government contractor in the refugee program is like hitting the mother lode.”

“Because they get money to run the programs. I get it.”

“Because they get a
lot
of money to run the program. Put it this way. If I told you that I could turn your two hundred dollars cash into twenty-two hundred cash, courtesy of the U.S. government, and all you needed to do was a little creative accounting by collecting a thousand dollars in donated clothes, furniture, even your junker car—running or not—you’d be opening an investigation on me for running a pyramid scheme. And yet that’s exactly how the federal government is funding these private charities. Don’t even get me started on the private funds
above
two hundred dollars. Why do you think they’re hunting for buildings like mine to house the refugees in? Because the less they have to pay from their private donors and from the money the government is giving them to bring in, house, clothe, and feed the refugees, the more they get to stick in their pockets.” He leaned forward. “We’re talking a multimillion-dollar business courtesy of Uncle Sam. The sooner they get them on welfare, boot them out of my apartments, the sooner they can bring in new refugees and creatively earmark funds for them.”

“How many refugees does this involve?”

“Countless. It’s a revolving door, and the name of the game is money, and everyone is playing. Some of them are better at it. And you can damned well guarantee that the charities are paying big bucks to lobbyists to keep that door spinning. Because the moment the government decides to stop bringing in refugees, their golden wells dry up.”

“Like A
.
D
.
E.?”

“Exactly. They have their fingers on the pulse of Washington, and Great Britain. And here you are, bringing unwanted attention that is likely to cost them millions upon millions of dollars.”

It certainly explained why someone had targeted Griffin outside the parking garage. People had been killed for less.

She stood. “Am I going to be expecting any more calls from high-ranking officials to back off?”

“Now that I know what it is you’re looking into, no.”

“You thought I was looking into W Squared?”

“Weren’t you?”

“Until I saw the file on your desk, I wasn’t even aware they existed.”

“My mistake, then.”

She wanted to ask him more, but knew she couldn’t without drawing undue attention. Especially knowing he had that direct pipeline to the top of the government.

He left, and she walked out after him, stopping as she passed the Watch Commander’s office, when Sanchez called out to her.

“I don’t suppose you’re going by the field office?” he asked.

“I could be. Why?”

“I have a suspicious report that needs to be dropped off at the JTTF,” he said. “Some lady said a guy on the bus was carrying a nuclear warhead.”

“A nuclear warhead? On a bus?”

“Pocket-sized, in case you’re wondering how it fit. Apparently he spent most of the bus ride in the restroom throwing up, so she figured it was radiation poisoning. Probably nothing but an overactive imagination, but these days . . .”

“I’ll swing by and make sure it gets to the rocket scientist squad.”

“You have one?”

“Someone has to deal with these sorts of calls.” She eyed the report, thinking that these were the reports she’d always enjoyed back when she was a cop. The sort that broke up the monotony of police work, usually narrated by someone who’d gone off their meds, or someone who needed to be on them to begin with.

What she read, however, was anything but funny.

In fact, it scared the living daylights out of her.

She prayed that what the woman had seen in the man’s pocket—the small metallic canister about the size of a billiard ball—was anything but what she thought it was.

47

“What are you doing?”

Sydney’s voice sounded a million miles away, and Griffin turned his cell phone the right way when he realized he was holding it upside down. “Sleeping. Why?”

“Yusuf’s here. In D.C. At least I think it could be him.”

“How do you know?”

She told him about the police report. “Only no one believed the woman, probably because she was calling this metal cylinder in his pocket a nuclear warhead.”

“A . . . what?” He sat up, feeling out of it. “Back up. I missed something.”

“The stolen cesium 137 from the storage facility in southern California.”

He was wide-awake now. “The witness saw it?”

“She described the capsule perfectly. And his symptoms, at least the way she told it, definitely match radiation poisoning.”

Griffin got out of bed, walking to the bathroom. “I’ll meet you at the office.”

“About that. I think someone followed you from your office last night. Otherwise, how would they know we were at the bar?”

She heard him taking a deep breath. “I was watching for a tail, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. It makes sense,” he said. “Do you remember the back way in?”

It was a somewhat convoluted route that ran below the streets in a tunnel and ended up in a warehouse a couple blocks away. “Not well enough to do it myself.”

“Your pass card and fingerprint on the biometric lock will get you in. But if you want to wait for me, I’ll be there in about twenty. Do me a favor, though. Call McNiel, let him know about the police report and your theory on being followed.”

“Are you sure McNiel won’t have a problem with you coming in? You just got out of the hospital.”

“A bump on the head. The CAT scan came back clean.”

“Then why were you sleeping if you’re fine?”

“Damned nurses came in and woke me all night long. See you in a few.”

He showered and dressed, then met Sydney at the garage warehouse, the two of them parking their cars inside. He entered a code, pressed his finger to the reader, and the metal door clicked open. The ATLAS building was accessed via an underground passage that ran parallel to the Metro subway system. They descended the stairs, then entered the brick-lined passageway, their footsteps echoing as they walked.

The same security measures were used to access the entrance to the elevator, which took them up to the fifth floor. McNiel was waiting for them in his office.

Sydney gave him the report she’d picked up from the police, and even though she’d briefed him on the phone, he took the time to read it. When he finished, he set it on his desk, asking her, “You actually talked to the witness?”

“Right before I called Griffin. I wanted to see if there was any validity to it.”

“And what was your take?”

“Put it this way. If we hadn’t known about the cesium 137 capsule being stolen from San Diego, I would have written her off the moment I heard the words ‘nuclear warhead.’ But this thing she saw in his pocket? It fits the description.”

McNiel glanced at the report again. “The two of you hit the Greyhound station. See if they have any surveillance equipment on the premises. If it is him, this could be the break we’re looking for. I’ll notify someone to look into possible contamination in the building. I want you two to find out where that bus is so we can check it as well. Last thing we need is to spread radiation across the continent via Greyhound.”

Griffin stood. “Sydney told you her theory about someone watching our building?”

“She did. I’ve assigned Henderson to look into it. Until we know one way or another, continue using the back entrance. If it turns out she’s right, Henderson will call you when he’s ready to throw you out there as bait.”

The glass-fronted Greyhound
terminal was crowded with passengers, some with luggage, some without, and it was fairly noisy, the acoustics causing voices to carry in the large building. Griffin and Sydney found the security office and talked to the officer in charge, Sydney’s FBI credentials gaining them instant cooperation. The first thing they did was order the bus that drove in from San Diego to be stopped. It was apparently heading back. They did not inform the security officer why, nor did they mention the possibility of contamination. No sense in instilling panic, since everyone who’d been on the bus for any length of time would have to be tracked down. That, however, would be handled by others.

The officer took them into a small room where the video surveillance was located, and after finding the right time period, allowed them to watch the passengers who departed from the bus, then entered the terminal.

A man matching Yusuf’s description entered the terminal, made a call from a cell phone, then waited inside for at least twenty minutes, using the bathroom a couple times before departing out the front doors, and Griffin was just able to make out the taillights of a car as he walked out. “Do you have any video of the passenger loading zone?”