“So you gonna step back? I know Mallard’s got some clout, as a deputy director.”
“He does, but the Marshals Service doesn’t necessarily pay attention to what Louis wants,” Lucas said.
“I’ll go with you guys—if you can think of anything to do.”
• • •
Lucas went homeand made pasta with his secret ingredient pasta sauce, which was basically regular tomato sauce with a shot of Heinz 57, and after they’d loaded the dishwasher and the kids were off to do whatever they did, which was mostly talking on her phone (Gabrielle) and studying a driver’s license exam booklet (Sam), Weather cross-examined him on his status in the investigation, and why he’d been disinvited from participation.
That took a while to explain, and then she asked, “Didn’t John tell us that Bernie liked to go clubbing?”
“Yeah. Being a deejay, playing video games, and clubbing, those supposedly are his things. Maybe driving fast cars, if he gets an inheritance.”
“I know you don’t like my commentaries on your investigations…” she began.
“You’re wrong about that, but go ahead.”
“If I were a spy, and I do read a lot of spy novels, I might have a burner phone for emergencies, but everybody knows phones can be tracked. And probably monitored. I can see him using a phone to set off an alarm when nothing better is available, like letting the assassination team know when they were leaving the airport or arriving at the hideout…”
“C’mon, spit it out,” Lucas said.
“I can’t think of a better place for serious, secret discussion than aclub. Especially with people dancing and sneaking off together to snort cocaine or whatever they do now.”
“How would you know that?” Lucas asked. “You’ve never been in a dance club in your life.”
“I used to go to First Avenue…”
“Sure, thirty years ago…”
“Just like a man,” Weather said. “You’re not being responsive to my insight.”
“I…Well, you’re right. I gotta call Sherwood. They need to focus on the clubs. Maybe get some FBI chicks to dress up. If the FBI has chicks.”
“It’s at least an outside possibility,” Weather said. “The chicks, I mean. Dressing up.”
Lucas called Sherwood with a suggestion that the FBI heavily cover any clubs that Bernie might go to. Sherwood said, “We’ve already talked about that—me and the FBI troops. It’s gonna be weird because it’s impossible for FBI guys not to look like FBI guys. I mean, they’re all carrying guns and everybody in a club knows what a guy carrying a gun looks like.”
“Then you could scare off anyone trying to meet him.”
“I think you could,” Sherwood said. “But, they’re going out tonight.”
“Call me if anything happens.”
“I won’t be there, but I’ll wait up for the feds to report back, and let you know.”
Lucas got an email from Sherwood at 2 a.m., which he read the next morning. It said, “Nothing happened.”
22
Sherwood was wrong about that.
The FBI agents who had searched Bernie’s clothing for a burner phone, and had found it, had reseated the battery so they could look at the phone’s contents and see who he’d called. When they put it back in the ripped-out pocket of the ski jacket, they forgot to pull the battery again. Which was stupid, but there it was.
That night, when Bernie went to check in with his handler, he touched the phone and instantly realized that he had been found out. He left the phone where it was, in the jacket, and lay on his bed to think about it.
If the FBI had the burner’s phone number, they could easily find its connection history, but not the content of the calls.
The contact protocol was simple enough: when Bernie was alone in his room, he’d set his iPhone to wake him at four o’clock in the morning with a vibration, rather than a ring. He would get up, erasethe alarm, retrieve his burner from the jacket, dial a number, let it ring once, hang up, remove the battery and go back to bed. That was the on-station, all-clear signal.
