Blood Flag: A Paul Madriani Novel (20 page)

According to the report they took scrapings from under Sofia’s fingernails and found microscopic evidence of cellular tissue. Whether it belongs to Sofia or to her killer will have to await DNA testing. They have sent the material out for profiling.

I read on. “Internal examination reveals fracture of the thyroid cartilage and hyoid bone as well as compression of the carotid artery.” Whoever did it was strong. It appears that he overpowered her and crushed her windpipe almost immediately. I take some solace in the fact that death must have been quick.

“You have to wonder if there’s some contagion going around,” says Harry.

“Why is that?”

“Cause of death. According to the coroner, Robert Brauer died of cardiac arrest, but here’s the kicker. It was induced by insulin poisoning, believed to be a massive insulin overdose, resulting in hypoglycemic shock, coma, and collapse of the functions within the brain stem. Where have we heard this before?”

I hear him, but I’m not listening. Instead my eyes are fixed on the four lines toward the bottom of the ME’s report on Sofia, grouped under the heading “Additional Findings.”

“Blood screening panel detected elevated levels of the hormone HCG, indicating that the victim was approximately eight weeks pregnant at the time of death. Internal examination confirmed the existence of an intrauterine pregnancy, embryo approximately 1.6 centimeters in length recovered.”

TWENTY-FIVE

T
his morning Zeb Thorpe was meeting with some of his section chiefs within the Counterintelligence Division of the FBI. Thorpe was executive director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, otherwise known as the NSB. He held a broad portfolio that ranged from weapons of mass destruction and counterterrorism to counterintelligence and espionage.

Today Thorpe had been tipped off by one of his assistants that he might find himself tripping through a political minefield, something he hated. According to the assistant there was reason to believe that Israeli intelligence might be working an active espionage operation on US soil out of their Los Angeles office.

Foreign intel operations were not uncommon, though most of the time they did not show up on the six o’clock news or in the next morning’s newspaper. Often they were run out of foreign embassies and consulates, as this one apparently was. In most cases the incident was disposed of quietly and at a low level. The foreign operatives would be identified. Their diplomatic credentials would be canceled and they would be invited to leave the United States. Of course, this would depend on the nature of the relations between the two countries and the size of the bone over which they were fighting. Normally it was industrial, high-tech, or national security secrets. If true to form, the foreign nation would then, in order to save face, retaliate by expelling one or more American diplomats from the US embassy in their country, at which point things would then go on as before. It was a time-honored and tested process.

The problem in this case was the deteriorating nature of relations between the Israeli government in Tel Aviv and the US administration in Washington. What to do when old friends have a falling-out?

Israel was a long-term US ally with close ties to the American military. The two countries often shared critical intelligence. The United States supplied arms and Israel shared research and development in weapons as well as other fields.

For decades Israel was considered one of the principal islands of American interest in a troubled and increasingly chaotic area of the world. It was a region in which American influence was now seen by many as being in decline. Perhaps it was only natural then that there were increasing voices in Tel Aviv wondering whether, if it came down to a battle for Israeli survival, the Americans would have Israel’s back. Add to that the feelings of Jewish-American voters and the issue had the potential to become a powder keg.

Thorpe already had standing orders from his superiors at the Justice Department to run everything they turned up in the investigation past political operatives at the White House before taking any action. He hated it, and at this point he didn’t even know what was going on.

Thorpe settled into his chair, looked at the men around the table, and said, “So what do we have?”

One of the men across the table, a special agent from Los Angeles, handed him a small clear plastic evidence bag large enough to hold a fifty-cent piece. Inside was a tiny glass vial of some kind. It was about the length of two long grains of rice and about the same diameter.

“What is it?”

“It’s a human microchip implant,” said the agent. “It contains an integrated circuit device, RFID, radio frequency identification. The transponder is encased in silicate glass. It’s implanted under the skin by injection using a special syringe, usually in the fleshy part of the hand.”

“Go on.”

“It runs wirelessly through a noncontact radio system. The microchip can provide automatic identification as to the owner or it can be used for tracking as well as other information. It depends on how it’s programmed. That one was set up for identification only. It was found embedded in a bar of shaving soap by a gentleman in Sandpoint, Idaho. Fortunately for us, the man was a bit of a conspiracy theorist. He’d seen pictures of them on the Internet and thought someone might be trying to spy on him. He called the local police. They took the bar of soap and ran the implant by their tech people, who called us.

“When our people saw it they got suspicious.”

“Why is that?”

“There’s not a lot of private employers or public agencies that use them, and the few that do employ them have high security needs. We sent it to our lab and they checked it. It came back as part of a batch that was sold to the US government. In the meantime we had our lab check the soap. They found traces of human DNA. Not enough to establish a profile for identification, but we know that the manufacturer uses beef tallow—”

“You think the body was dissolved,” said Thorpe.

“We think there’s a good chance.”

“The DNA could be from the guy in Idaho,” said Thorpe. “Maybe he sneezed while he was shaving, or cut himself. Hell, it could be from sloughed-off skin cells.”

“We don’t think so.”

Thorpe was getting a queasy feeling in his stomach. The next thing they’d tell him was that it belonged to a CIA agent who disappeared after having lunch with the Israeli ambassador.

“We had our people check government purchase orders and discovered that this particular implant was part of a shipment that went to the navy. We sent the implant to them. They checked it with their equipment and it came back as having been implanted three years ago in one James Arnold Pepper, a former chief naval petty officer, part of a team that was assigned to a special project being run by DARPA.”

That got Thorpe’s attention. DARPA was the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a black-bag research arm of the Defense Department. Whatever they worked on was normally top secret.

“This particular project dealt with subsurface drones, antisubmarine warfare. They wouldn’t tell us anything more because we weren’t cleared. But they did tell us that Pepper had access to highly sensitive information. It was the reason he was ultimately dropped from the project and discharged from the navy.”

“Why was that?” said Thorpe

“He had a drinking problem.”

“Oh, wonderful.”

“And it gets worse,” said the agent.

“It usually does,” said Thorpe. “Go on.”

“The navy had no record of Mr. Pepper’s whereabouts. All they had was his date of discharge and the name and phone number of next of kin, a sister in Washington State. We contacted her. She hadn’t seen or heard from her brother in more than two years. So we started looking, checking for phone records in his name, running the computer on licensing and driving records. We ran the URC database and found one arrest for burglary in Southern California but no conviction. And then we made a hit, a credit card in Pepper’s name on an account in San Diego opened about five months ago using Pepper’s Social Security number. The statements on the account go to a PO box. So far the bill is being paid regularly by cash at the bank, no checks, even though there was a checking account in his name. The deposits into the account are all in cash, no checks. All of them under ten thousand dollars. To date just under thirty thousand dollars.”

“What are you saying? They’re structured payments?” said Thorpe. “Are you suggesting we pick the man up for money laundering and sweat him?”

“If we could find him,” said the agent. “We think there’s a good chance he’s dead.”

“Why, because of the trace DNA?”

“If not, how did his microchip get into the bar of soap? Tallow plants have been used in the past to dispose of dead bodies.”

“I know,” said Thorpe. “I read the same stuff in the Bureau histories.” The mob was believed to have done it for years in the area around the Chicago stockyards.

“So you think somebody killed him and is borrowing his identity,” said Thorpe.

“We think it’s a possibility.”

“Why? To what end?”

“We don’t know,” said the agent.

“What does this have to do with Israeli intelligence?” He was hoping it was just a flat-out murder, in which case they could drop it back on the locals and tell them good luck.

“I’m getting to that,” said the agent. “The credit card in question, it was used to purchase additional minutes on some prepaid SIM cards for a cell phone. We checked with the carrier that provided them. They were able to pull up records of incoming and outgoing phone calls under the assigned phone numbers. There weren’t many,” said the agent. “No more than two or three under each card before the number disappeared from their records. Almost all the phone calls were incoming, from a cell number in Los Angeles. The number belongs to a man who has a diplomatic passport issued by the state of Israel. He’s an attaché to the Israeli consul’s office in L.A.”

Thorpe looked down at the table and thought, Shit!

TWENTY-SIX

I
try to convince Joselyn to stay at the office, that I will call her when I finish talking to the man, but she will have none of it. Almost from the very moment she found out that Sofia was pregnant when she was murdered, Joselyn was out the door and headed for the car.

“You can stay here or you can come,” she tells me, “but either way, I’m going.” She wants to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Theo Lang, the old man whose grand house in La Jolla hosted Sofia’s memorial service, has some questions to answer. He lied to me about meeting Sofia. We know that. What we want to know is, who brokered the letters of recommendation given to Sofia, one of which he signed?

“You can be sure it wasn’t just casual sex,” says Joselyn. “Whoever it was. Whoever was the father, it was someone she cared about. You know that and so do I. The person who got her those letters was connected, older, and powerful. Why would the old man lie, unless he was trying to protect someone?”

“We need to think about this before we go blundering in,” I tell her.

“You can think about it in the car as we drive,” she says. “You saw the report. Sofia was two months pregnant. That means she knew, and she was probably scared. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist,” says Joselyn. “Whoever got her those letters runs in the same social set with Lang. That means he’s rich, he’s powerful, and he’s probably married. Sofia goes to him and tells him she’s pregnant. What do you think he’s going to say?” She stops on the walkway outside the office and looks me dead in the eye.

“You may be right,” I tell her.

“May be?” she says.

“Probably. It’s entirely possible.”

“The immaculate conception was possible. This is etched in stone. You know it and I know it. Men are all alike,” she says.

“Present company excluded, I hope.”

“I’ll let you know about that later,” she says. “First let’s go talk to Lang.” She starts to walk again.

“Let’s assume you’re right.”

“Assume, my ass,” she says. “I know I’m right.”

“In that case we should take it to the police, tell them what we know, and let them deal with it. This is a whole new angle. The pregnancy. It’s not something they know about.”

“What do you mean?” She stops again. “It’s
their
medical examiner,
their
report. They know she was pregnant. Or they would if they bothered to read it. They certainly weren’t interested in Sofia’s telephone trinket in your client’s yard. What if he followed her there?”

“It’s possible.”

“Damn right, it is.”

“The cops don’t know about the letters, the fact that they were brokered by someone who got them for Sofia. They have no leads. No clue as to who the father is.”

“Neither do we. So let’s go find out,” she says. She starts walking again. Before I can catch up to her she’s at the car door, tapping the toe of her high heel on the concrete, boring holes through me with eyes that look like hot coals, waiting for me to unlock the car.

I push the button on the key fob. She gets in and slams the door. If she had a gun I’d be worried.

I go around and get in on the driver’s side.

“Let me have your phone,” she says.

“Why?”

“Please. Don’t argue with me. Just give it to me. It will get us there faster.” Joselyn is afraid that I might take the long way around, a drive through the park to try to cool her down. She can read my mind. She punches up the maps on my phone, finds Lang’s address from Saturday, and before I can say another word, the phone is instructing me to “proceed to the route.”

I pull out of the lot and turn onto Orange Avenue, and we head toward the bridge.

We left Harry and Herman to finish up with Tony Pack. He offered to hold over, but I told him no. We have inconvenienced the man enough. He was interested in only one piece of information after we read the autopsy reports: the news that Robert Brauer died of insulin poisoning. For Tony this was the lynchpin. It confirmed everything he suspected about his father’s death and drew up the knot even tighter that all three of the men, Ed Pack, Brauer, and Walter Jones, were murdered. Why? We don’t know. But it settles any question as to whether there was ample reason for them to be afraid.