Replaceable: An Alan Lamb Thriller (10 page)

The name of the man who had been terminated from Sagent BioGen six months ago was Graham McKay. He was a thirty-five year old lead biologist who had studied for several years at Cambridge and had then finished out his education at Harvard. He was divorced and had a seven year old son from a previous marriage. His employment at Sagent had started in 2019, and he had remained with the company, eventually becoming one of the lead scientists, up until his termination in late 2023.

“Did Jones tell you why they fired this guy?”

“Reluctantly.”

“And?”

“Apparently, they found out the guy had been giving out company information to a third party. Inventory logs, research data, equipment manifests, you name it.”

“Do they know who he was giving the information to?”

Guy shook his head. “Nope. Whoever it was, they were using a dummy cloud storage account. McKay would funnel data into the cloud and then it would disappear.”

“We’ve got people that can trace that kind of stuff.”

“Sagent didn’t provide specifics to the officials. Other than some of the top level executives within the company, nobody knew about McKay’s clandestine efforts. Even if they had brought it to law enforcement, I doubt they would have gotten anywhere. Whoever was on the other end was no doubt using software to mask their location. Daisy-chain a few proxy IPs together and they’d be jumping all over the place. Most of the service providers won’t budge when it comes to giving out client info without being subpoenaed first, and even if they made it to the next link in the chain, they’d have to keep drilling down. It would take forever. If a person is the slightest bit tech savvy and doesn’t want to be found…then the sad fact is that he isn’t going to be.”

“That leaves McKay himself.”

“Best way to do it. Get it straight from the horse’s mouth,” Guy said. “Not that he would cooperate.”

“Where does he live?”

“Walnut Creek. Suburb outside of San Fran. About an hour’s drive from the city. I’ve had his place under surveillance for the last five hours.”

“That’s a little more involved than I expected.”

“Hey, I wanted you to get your money’s worth. I’ve got friends everywhere. McKay hasn’t shown up.”

“Did he find other work?”

“Not as far as I can tell. But I got access to his bank accounts. Should be in the stack of papers I gave you.”

The sun was starting to sink below the horizon, disappearing behind the building across from them. Alan shuffled through the papers Guy had given him until he found a copy of McKay’s bank account statement. “He isn’t hurting,” Alan said. “He’s got over a hundred fifty thousand in his account.”

“In
that
account. He’s got close to a quarter-mil in another one. If you look at the transactions, you’ll see that someone has been making regular wire transfers into them on a monthly basis. Sagent shitcanned him six months ago, but he’s still got money rolling in.”

Alan studied the bank statements more closely, focusing his attention on wire deposits that occurred like clockwork over the course of the last eight months. “All the big deposits are coming from a company called Odin LLC. That’s something.”

“Not really. If you do some research, you’ll find out that Odin LLC is a subsidiary of some outfit called The Valhalla Group. As far as I can tell, its operations are based out of Gibraltar. Good luck finding anything on them though. I tried and didn’t get anywhere. I think it’s a dummy corporation. A way to siphon money from one offshore account to another. Odin LLC appears to be an offshore company, too, but it’s registered to do business in a single state. Wanna take a stab at which one?”

“California?”

“Bingo. And the person listed as the registered agent is Graham McKay, with his home address listed as the registered office. There’s a P.O. Box listed for the mailing address and I’ll bet that was setup under McKay’s name as well.”

“That seems pointless,” Alan said. “Why go to all the trouble of trying to cover your tracks just to make a simple mistake?”

Alan was thinking about the fingerprint and DNA samples; how they had left evidence at all the crime scenes.

“Think about it. It probably wasn’t a mistake at all. McKay isn’t paying himself. If he was, that would make him one of the most incompetent money launderers in the world. And I would know. The IRS has hired the firm as an outside consultant a couple of times when they’ve investigated a few of the stickier cases. Tax evasion, money laundering, fraud. I’ve seen it before. The perps always create these dummy corporations to stay off the radar. Transfer funds from numerous dummy companies. Becomes virtually impossible to trace it back to its origins. Especially if you’re dealing with some of the offshore financial institutions. They’re serious about protecting their clients’ privacy. Nine times out of ten, you come up empty-handed.”

“So why set up a dummy company in order to pay McKay and then use his personal contact info? Wouldn’t that lead right to him?”

“Sure. That was probably the goal all along. So that all roads lead back to him. He’s basically what’s known as the fall guy. The patsy.”

“But somebody is still paying him. Maybe to ensure his silence?”

“Either that, or he’s still working for them.”

“He doesn’t work for Sagent anymore,” Alan said. “He doesn’t have inside access. What good would he be to them?”

“He
is
a scientist,” Guy said, flicking his cigar to the parking lot below. He led them back into the room and began mixing himself a drink. “He had probably passed off all the information they needed before Sagent let him go. Remember, the stolen equipment thing happened shortly after McKay left. Nobody steals that much equipment unless they either plan on selling it to a third party or using it themselves. Whatever happened at Sagent, McKay mustn’t have had any love for them if he was willing to jeopardize his job by committing corporate espionage. Somehow he must have become disgruntled. I don’t think anyone would have had to keep paying him to keep him quiet after the fact. He’s a brain, not a career criminal. He wouldn’t have taken the black mark on his employment history and his reputation just for the big payoff. I think something else would have enticed him.”

It made sense. Graham McKay had been making good money at Sagent BioGen. It wasn’t making him rich, but his salary had been triple that of Alan’s at the GCB. Add in ownership in company stock, the guy wasn’t suffering financially. He had worked his way up to a lead scientist position and had the highest access the company allowed. There was nothing to indicate that McKay’s betrayal had been motivated strictly by financial gain.

“You think whoever these guys are, they used McKay long enough to gain access to all the data they needed, and then poached him to come work for them after the fact?”

“It’s the logical conclusion.”

It’s about the only logical thing about this entire case,
Alan thought.

“They steal all of Sagent’s data, steal their equipment, and then steal their lead scientist. Whatever kind of research Sagent was doing, these guys wanted it bad. They’ve gone to great lengths to keep it a secret.”

“We’re talking about millions in scientific equipment. Some of it wasn’t small. Which means it wouldn’t be easy to transport.”

“They’d need a big truck to haul it all,” Guy agreed.

“It’s doubtful they would have taken it far. They would need a place to set it all up. Big enough to house it all with enough power to make it all operational.”

“Like a warehouse or something.”

“If they’re using McKay as the fall guy, wouldn’t it stand to reason that if they were renting out a facility, they would have put it in his name as well? All roads lead back to McKay. That’s what you said.”

“Your logic is sound, Agent Lamb, and I think I know where you’re going with this. And I’m all over it.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re a national treasure?”

Guy made a throwaway gesture with his hand. “Ah, shucks, you’re going to make me blush. I like you, too.”

Alan stood up to leave.

“Did you want me to keep my guy casing McKay’s residence?” Guy asked.

“You can pull him. I’ll be paying him a visit myself. I owe you. Big time.”

“If there’s one thing you can count on,” Guy said, plucking a fresh cigar from a small humidor that stood to the left of the laptop on his desk, “it’s that someday I’ll collect.”

Chapter 12

Gant had been
less than enthusiastic about Alan’s plan to go to California to follow a lead in the investigation, but it hadn’t hurt that Deputy Director Strickland was breathing down his neck for answers, or that Alan had fudged his reasons for going.

He didn’t like lying to Gant, or lying in general, but he wasn’t ready to lay all of his cards on the table just yet.

Marvin’s cloning theory still seemed preposterous despite mounting evidence to the contrary. Shaky enough that had he laid it all out for Gant, he might be on his way back to the Patriot Inn on involuntary leave rather than sweeping through the clouds on a jet bound for San Francisco.

Before leaving the office, he had let Lucy know where he was going. Unlike Gant, he had told Lucy the truth. He had explained the equipment theft at Sagent and Graham McKay’s possible connection.

Lucy had listened patiently until he was finished. “Are you sure you should do this by yourself?” she had asked. “This person might be dangerous.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“You say that, but what if you get in a pinch?”

“That’s a risk I’ll have to take. I need to find out who he’s working for, and I can’t take the chance of some yahoo fresh out of the academy with an itchy trigger finger shooting the guy because McKay looked at him funny.”

“If Gant knew what you were doing…”

She had let the remainder of the thought hang in the air. There was little reason to finish. They both knew that Gant would pop his top if things went all Wild West on them.

“Maybe you should tell him,” Lucy had said. “I know it sounds crazy, but he trusts you. He trusts your judgment. He knows you wouldn’t waste time on something if it wasn’t at least possible.”

“I also know that Gant likes to err on the side of caution. Until I have something more solid, I want to play it close to the vest. The cover story is that I’m following up on a potential lead on some of the stolen cash from the Mellencott Bank robbery. I told Gant a hit came up on some of the serial numbers. It’s paper thin, and if he looks into it, he’ll find out pretty quickly that I was pulling his leg, but all I need is to get out there.”

“Then what?”

“Then I hope things will sort themselves out. We don’t have anything else to go on.”

“I don’t like lying, Alan.”

“Either do I. Can you keep it a secret?”

“If Gant asks…”

“I don’t think he will.”

“But if he does…”

“All I need is five hours. By that time I’ll have landed in the city.”

Lucy bent down and opened the bottom drawer of her desk. She grabbed out her purse, rummaged through it, and then came out with a business card, which she handed to Alan. “Here. This is a friend of mine. He’s a psychic. He also does some remote viewing occasionally. He’s really good at what he does, so before you say –”

“Thanks,” Alan said and took the card from her without another word. He didn’t believe in psychics, and he didn’t believe that they were going to make any headway in the case via spiritual assistance, but his mind was more open to absurd possibilities now that Marvin’s theory seemed to hold some weight. After all, he had believed it enough that he had sent Guy Bernard chasing after it. And that gamble had paid off, or at least appeared to have had, and Alan didn’t think any of it was coincidental. Something (nothing more substantial than a gut feeling perhaps) told him that this was all part of the plan; that someone was still carefully placing breadcrumbs, creating a trail for them to follow.

The real question was why? If they wanted to get caught, why not make the clues more blatant?

No. This was a game. A patient and strategic game of cat-and-mouse.

It made Alan question his investigative abilities. If it hadn’t been for the small clues placed along the way, where would they be?

Nowhere
, was the depressing yet honest answer. They would be running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

We still are
, Alan thought.

He remembered something Guy had said the evening before and hoped that it was true. That all roads led back to a man named Graham McKay.

Two major events occurred while Alan was in the air trying his best to catch some shut-eye before his plane landed in San Francisco.

The first incident was an explosion at a chemical plant in Rhode Island. The explosion had killed two dozen employees and injured nearly a hundred more. Fire and Rescue crews were still trying to contain the fire and search the debris for survivors.

The second event was a car bomb that had gone off on a busy downtown street in Shreveport, Louisiana. It had obliterated several shops that had been in close proximity to the suspect car. Two people were killed, with six more being seriously injured.

The news was all over the airport television screens when he landed at SFO.

When he took his phone out of airplane mode, there was a text message from Lucy asking if he had heard about the two bombings yet. The text went on to say that both cases had been referred to the GCB.

Lucy had ended her message with,
Gant is seriously LHS.

Alan didn’t know what Lucy meant by ‘LHS,’ but in the end decided that it stood for ‘losing his shit.’

Close enough for government work,
Alan thought, but didn’t laugh.

While he was waiting in line for his rental car, Alan received a call from Guy Bernard.

“You have something to write with?” Guy asked.

“Just a sec.” Alan borrowed a pen from the customer service desk and rummaged through his pockets for something to write on. He found the business card for the psychic that Lucy had given him and flipped it to the blank side. “Okay, shoot.”

Guy gave him an address. “It’s outside the city. Big place. Suburban area. I contacted the property owner. The lease is in McKay’s name, but payments aren’t coming from him. Property owner says he receives funds every month via wire transfer.”

“From who?”

“Take a wild guess.”

“Odin LLC.”

“You’re an ace detective, Agent Lamb. Where are you right now?”

“San Francisco,” Alan said. “On my way to pay McKay a visit.”

“You’ve got some time,” Guy said. “Somewhat serendipitously, I didn’t get around to pulling my guy off the stakeout until later last night. McKay showed up around seven-thirty in the evening. Didn’t leave after that. At least not before my guy left.”

“I’m headed down there now.”

“You’re not going alone are you?”

“That was the plan.”

“I thought you guys always brought the cavalry with you?”

“Not this time. If I bring the entire circus with me, it might scare the animals.”

“You heard about the two bombings, I take it?”

“Yeah.”

“Related?”

“Looks that way.”

“Ugly shit. These guys are some serious players to pull something like that off simultaneously. Really amping it up. If it was me, I’d come in locked and loaded. But I’m not your mother.”

“I appreciate that.”

“Just watch your back.”

“I will,” Alan said and hung up.

After the girl at the counter handed him the keys to the rental car, Alan started the hour-long drive to Walnut Creek. It was 5:56 P.M.

He thought about the two bombings that had occurred only hours ago. A series of random robberies was a far cry from a bombing. Alan wondered why the crimes were escalating. What purpose did it serve?

Lucy was supposed to be emailing him copies of the initial reports on the bombings in Louisiana and Rhode Island, and he planned on examining them when he was back at the hotel, but there didn’t appear to be any rhyme or reason to the chosen locations. No individual or group had publically taken responsibility for the recent atrocities. It was almost as if they were committing these random acts of violence for no other reason than that they could; to see how long they could get away with it. But the severity of the crimes was ramping up. There were casualties involved now. Innocent peoples’ lives had been extinguished with extraordinary suddenness, and it all seemed to be in the name of some insane game.

He thought about Darrow.

Darrow had given them precious little, but he had alluded to there being things he wasn’t telling them. Why was the spook handing over cases to the GCB? To make them look bad? Was someone hoping to have the bureau shut down? Why the secrecy? In the greater scheme of things, they should have been allies, but there were hidden variables in this sick game of cat and mouse, and Darrow had decided to hold something back.

Something about Darrow had set Alan’s radar pinging. Darrow had been a difficult man to read. A man, Alan thought, that one might do well to remain cautious around.

And who did Darrow work for? That was a million dollar question in a long string of questions that Alan didn’t have the answers to.

He took one hand off the steering wheel long enough to remove the business card that Lucy had given him from his pocket. He turned it over and read the address he had jotted down.

Maybe Guy had been right; maybe this wasn’t something he should be doing alone. Given the severity of the most recent crimes, Alan would have bet his pension that there were now plenty of other agencies chomping at the bit to apprehend whoever was behind things. A few phone calls and he could have no doubt had an army of local and state law enforcement personnel at his disposal.

But his hesitation was short-lived. He still thought it would be best to go in quietly and unassumingly. If McKay refused to give up the goods, he could get a warrant, call in the backup, and search McKay’s residence.

Alan wasn’t about to let self-doubt cloud his judgment. Not this far into the game. It wasn’t as outrageous as it initially appeared when weighed against the fact that they had absolutely nothing else to go on. If they didn’t follow this lead to its conclusion, then they were dead in the water. Even Gant couldn’t fault him for that.

As he entered the Walnut Creek city limits, Alan could see Mount Diablo in the distance. He passed the Lesher Center for the Arts as he headed south on Locust Street, and then a Cheesecake Factory as he turned left onto Botelho Drive. After Botelho, he took Main Street until he merged onto Creekside, which curved and then abruptly ended at a cul-de-sac. McKay’s residence was situated on the right side of the cul-de-sac. It was a large, two-story home surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. Alan could see a swimming pool at the rear of the house.

The house’s position in the cul-de-sac made for lousy parking, at least if someone was trying to be inconspicuous.

Alan opted for a space along the curb immediately before Creekside curved into the cul-de-sac, on the opposite side of the street from McKay’s house. He wedged the rental car in a cramped space between a Cadillac Escalade and a Lexus sedan. He adjusted the driver’s side mirror until he had a decent view of McKay’s place. It wasn’t ideal, but it was the best he could do without sticking out like a sore thumb.

It was 7:00. The man Guy Bernard had had doing surveillance on McKay’s house the day before had reported that McKay had arrived home around 7:30 P.M.

Alan had time to kill. He considered calling Lucy to see how things were going, but it would have been nine o’clock there and she would have left the office for the day. He decided that no news was good news.

It also meant that Gant hadn’t called his bluff yet.

Alan leaned back in his seat and waited.

Seven-thirty rolled by, then eight and eight-thirty. By 9:15 the sky was dark, the stars were out, and there was still no sign of McKay. The side of himself that was prone to becoming panic-stricken insisted that McKay had caught wind of being made and had headed for the hills. Had drained his bank accounts and skipped town, taking his secrets with him. It hadn’t occurred to Alan what he would do if McKay never showed up.

Alan was too absorbed with staring into the side mirror to notice the figure approaching the parked rental car. He nearly jumped out of his seat when someone began tapping on the passenger side window.

A face he didn’t recognize appeared in the window, gesturing for Alan to roll the window down.