No Tears for the Lost

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

‘More than a bloody suggestion,’ Weller put in dryly. ‘Our information puts Henzigger in London when the bust was blown, whereas he’d left notes with friends to say was travelling in Europe.’

‘So what?’ Portius looked close to bursting, his face growing red with a mixture of emotions. Clearly embarrassment was high on the list. ‘Last time I heard, England was in Europe, too. And there’s no rule to say he couldn’t come here if he wanted.’

‘Okay.’ Riley broke in on the threatening feud. ‘But how does Henzigger know Quinn?’

Portius seemed relieved by the interruption. ‘They both went through the DEA training programme together. They were even roomies for a while. In those circumstances, you get to know people like your own family.’ He scowled as if reluctantly acknowledging that every family has a black sheep.

Riley couldn’t blame him. Nobody liked the idea that a former colleague was batting for the opposition. ‘So he was working with the drug shippers,’ she said. ‘What made him do it?’

Portius shrugged and looked depressed. ‘We don’t know. Maybe he was exposed for too long. If so, we should have spotted it sooner. Maybe he was compromised and got in too deep. The fact is, he’s been under suspicion for unauthorised activities in Latin America, but all our investigations so far have revealed nothing. Nothing we can use, anyway.’

‘Did he have the ability to mount the shipment? It’s hardly like shopping at B amp; Q, is it?’

Portius looked puzzled by the reference but shrugged it off. ‘Sure. He had the contacts, the sources and the experience. He certainly knew where to get supplies. He knew the people who’d already set up supply chains, so setting up another — if that’s what he did — was just a question of logistics.’

‘But those chains originally led to the American mainland through the Caribbean,’ Weller pointed out reasonably. ‘Why switch to Europe?’

‘The States is already awash with product. Prices have dropped and the inter-gang wars are getting out of control. Everyone wants whatever action is going. We think Henzigger identified a growing market in Europe and saw distractions in the system which he thought could be exploited. ‘

‘Distractions?’

‘Asylum seekers.’ Weller looked at Riley. ‘You know what it’s like. From Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Bosnia, Albania — you name it. With anti-terrorist measures being prioritised at airports and away from coastal ports, you get holes. Big ones. Henzigger would have seen it without too much difficulty. It’s what he was trained for.’

Riley waited, but there didn’t seem to be anything else forthcoming. She decided to inject some excitement into the room to see what the reaction was.

‘What about Walter Asner?’ she asked.

The effect on Portius was electric. He almost jumped out of his seat. ‘Asner? Christ, how do you know about him?’

‘Who the hell is Walter Asner?’ Weller demanded, rounding on Riley.

‘He was a deep-cover DEA agent working within the embassy circuit,’ Riley told him. ‘His job was to ferret out information at the top of the tree — people who thought they were beyond reach. He committed suicide in his garage after retiring from the agency. Allegedly.’

Portius looked shocked. ‘How do you know this?’

‘Henzigger. He told me all about Asner’s role with the DEA.’

Portius looked stunned.

‘Why did he do that?’ Weller demanded. The look on his face told Riley he wasn’t ignoring the fact that she’d got more information from Henzigger than she’d let on earlier.

‘I still haven’t worked that out. It was all part of the story he told me about being under suspicion.’

Portius shifted in his chair, prompting Riley and Weller to look at him. He took a deep breath and said, ‘Asner spent several years in Colombia. He moved among the embassy people, socialising, advising, helping smooth paths on trade deals. He was a faceless, harmless civil servant and nobody gave him a second thought, least of all staffers from friendly embassies. As far as they were concerned, he was merely another admin suit in line to have his hand shaken. We think,’ he looked up at Riley momentarily, ‘we think he stumbled on something that really bothered him. Something big enough that he couldn’t carry on. So he resigned. That was all.’

‘Hardly all,’ Weller murmured. ‘It made him take his own life.’

Portius gave another jut of his jaw and shot one of his cuffs in indignation. It was clearly an uncomfortable topic, but equally clear that he was under orders. ‘The belief in the agency is that Asner had done something nobody counted on: he’d uncovered a conspiracy involving our own people. It’s the only explanation.’

Riley watched his face, trying to work out what was behind the official mask. ‘You don’t think it was suicide, do you?’

‘No. But we can’t prove it was murder.’

Weller growled, leaping ahead. ‘Christ, to think we let Henzigger go on your say-so.’

‘Henzigger killed him?’ Riley looked between them for confirmation. ‘He told me they were friends.’

Portius blinked rapidly. ‘Colleagues in the same pool would be more accurate. Asner was a professional; he must have made records, some notes we haven’t yet found. Asking for retirement right out of the blue like he did, it must have struck Henzigger as odd. We think he went to see Asner at his home and Asner either told him what he’d discovered or let it slip. It’s possible Asner had discovered what Henzigger was up to.’

‘Was this part of the trouble Henzigger got into?’ said Riley.

‘It was part of an ongoing investigation, yes. But we couldn’t marry the two.’ He coughed. ‘Possibly Asner did.’

‘How?’

‘By joining two ends of the same piece of string. If he found out what contacts Henzigger had with the cartels and FARC, then studied which people on our side Henzigger was seeing regularly, the rest was a matter of deduction. We’re still trying to follow the same path.’

‘How does this affect us?’ Weller sounded bullish, but Riley had a feeling he was already there, and was merely nudging the conversation along.

‘If Henzigger was arranging shipments, he needed someone to facilitate things down the line: documents, shipping papers, permits, letters of recommendation — it had to be someone with access to papers and people.’

‘Why couldn’t he do it himself?’ Riley asked.

‘Henzigger didn’t have local knowledge of the area where the shipments were going, or the contacts. He’d have had to recruit someone to convince his suppliers he could pull it off, otherwise they wouldn’t have touched him.’

‘So this contact would need knowledge of where he was shipping his drugs to, then?’

‘Yes. But this has been going on for a long time. We think he developed contacts in the trade sections of various embassies, spread across Europe to begin with. But the UK was the jackpot. Whoever the UK contact was, would have been expensive, but the end result would have been worth it. The returns are huge and the markets insatiable. All he had to do was stay clear of the opposition at this end, but I doubt he’d planned on being around too long to care, anyway.’

‘Do you know the name of this contact?’ Weller looked as tense as a gun dog and even Portius picked up on it. But now the tables were turned, and Riley felt the American’s relief at being able to point a finger of blame at someone on the other side.

‘We’re not sure,’ he replied cautiously. ‘The evidence points towards Sir Kenneth Myburghe.’

Weller looked ready to go ballistic. ‘Can I suggest, then, Henry,’ he grated, barely restraining himself, ‘that you get your team working on it? In the meantime, we’ll see if we can’t come up with the answer from this end.’ He threw Portius a look heated enough to have welded the American to his seat, then stood up and headed for the door, signalling for Riley to follow.

As she did so, a phone rang on a small table behind Portius. He reached over and snatched it up as if grabbing a lifeline to save him from further humiliation.

‘You knew all this, didn’t you?’ Riley hissed, as they neared the door. ‘All that claptrap about Palmer and Myburghe and what Henzigger was doing. You’ve known all the time. How long have you been working on this?’

‘Too bloody long,’ he replied sourly. ‘I’ll be glad to see the back of it.’

‘Wait.’ It was Portius, springing up as if jet-propelled.

They stopped and looked at him.

‘Something else I was going to tell you,’ he said quietly, the words coming out reluctantly.’ There’s another shipment.’ He replaced the phone gently on its cradle. ‘A big one. We think Henzigger’s behind it.’

Riley didn’t need to look at Weller — she could almost hear his teeth grinding in fury.

‘Another one?’ he yelped. ‘There’s a shipment coming in here and you didn’t think to bloody tell us?’ The words snapped across the room and Portius flinched as if he’d been struck across the face.

Riley felt almost sorry for him. If this didn’t create a new period of frosty relations between Washington and London, she wasn’t sure what would.

‘We had information,’ he muttered defensively. ‘But it was mostly rumour… nothing substantive.’ He looked at Riley for support and his voice grew harder in defiance. ‘You know how it is: it starts as a whisper, with bits here, pieces there. False stories, whispers… even misinformation, until in the end it gets so fragmented you don’t know what to believe.’

‘Is that what brought you over here?’ Riley asked. Then it hit her. ‘You knew what he was up to, didn’t you? You asked Immigration to let him go so you could follow him.’

‘And he bloody side-stepped you.’ Weller’s voice was loaded with accusation.

Portius looked like a man drowning. ‘It looks that way, yes.’ He tried not to catch Weller’s eye, and the senior policeman looked as if he wanted to turn the American into a stain on the carpet. ‘We suspected most of it but nobody would talk. What nobody could come up with was the name at this end.’

‘Sounds like Asner might have,’ said Weller sourly. ‘Doesn’t it?’

‘That was a mistake.’

Weller’s anger suddenly dissipated as quickly as it had arisen. He let out a deep sigh. ‘Okay. Now what?’

Portius cracked a knuckle and stared at the darkened window. ‘Henzigger’s a planner. He works out everything in advance, discounting risks, putting people in place, setting up escape routes and fallbacks. He uses people for information without them knowing it.’ He looked at Riley. ‘We think that’s why he approached you. He heard somehow that you and your friend, Palmer were close to Myburghe and figured you’d be a source of information.’ He paused. ‘There’s something else.’ He nodded at the phone. ‘I was just advised that they’ve brought the shipment date forward.’

‘When?’

‘We heard a whisper three days ago. By then it was too late to mount-’

Weller snarled like a terrier with a rat. ‘I don’t mean when did you hear, although God knows, I’m sure it wasn’t recent enough to be of any use. I meant when is the shipment due in, and where?’

Portius swallowed hard. ‘We think it was due today. My people are just checking the ETA.’ He looked like a small boy in front of a headmaster, and quickly leaned over to scribble on a piece of paper. He ripped off the sheet and handed it to Weller. ‘That’s the ship’s name.’

‘It’s tomorrow.’ Riley said, then looked at her watch. ‘No — it’s today.’

Weller’s head snapped round. ‘You what?’

She told him about her earlier meeting with Henzigger by the river. If Weller wanted her head on a plate, it was too bad. ‘I first suggested we meet up tomorrow, but he claimed he was tied up all day. Doing what? What could keep him more tied up than overseeing a shipment? It must have been somewhere close to London.’

Weller nodded. ‘Right. This has gone far enough.’ He turned to Portius. ‘How about you get Marching Boy back here to show us out. I’d hate to get shot by one of your goons for looking down the wrong corridor.’

Portius bridled at the implied criticism. ‘What are you going to do?’

‘Me?’ Weller smiled and waved the piece of paper Portius had given him. ‘Now you’ve decided to cough up, I’ve got some shipping movements to look at.’

Portius looked like he’d rather have a full company of US marines come in and jump all over them in their boots. But he picked up the phone to summon an escort out of the building. Seconds later they were chasing the same marine guard back downstairs in double time.

‘You were rough on him,’ Riley said quietly, as they picked up their mobiles from the security desk.

Weller scowled. ‘Serves him right. If they’d shared their information years ago instead of playing silly buggers, we could have saved ourselves all this trouble.’ He gave a sly grin. ‘Did you see his face? Portius thought tonight was going to be all about me pleading mea bloody culpa over Myburghe. Now he’s had to admit one of their boys is a real stinker, he’s wriggling like a tart on a trapeze.’

Riley smiled at the imagery. ‘How about Myburghe — any sign of him yet?’

‘No. His car was found forty minutes ago under the Western Avenue flyover. It was empty.’

Riley mourned the fact that none of her time over the past few days was chargeable to the Home Office. They’d certainly had their money’s worth out of her. She almost felt admiration for Weller’s tactics. He’d played her all along just to stir the waters, and now he’d done the same with Portius. She was ready to bet that the mauling Portius had undergone at Weller’s hands was unprecedented. And now he was standing back to see what unfolded.

He handed her a card with his number on it. ‘Call me if you trip over him.’

As he disappeared into the night, Riley’s mobile rang.

It was Henzigger.

‘I’m real mad at you, Riley!’ he wailed, his voice a wild singsong and pitched high as if balanced on the edge of hysteria. The hum of a car engine filled the background, and she realised he was on the move. ‘I’ve got the feeling you weren’t being straight with me. Am I right? Are they closing in?’

‘I don’t know what you mean,’ Riley said. ‘Where are you?’

‘C’mon, don’t kid a kidder. I know when something smells bad. I just got a call from a friend. Someone at the embassy wants my passport. Now why is that, I wonder? Still, never mind. I’ve got someone here who’ll make sure they play ball.’

Riley felt her throat tighten. She knew instantly what he was saying: he’d got Myburghe.

‘Now what do I do, Riley? Do I stick with the plan and hope I can get out in one piece? Or do I let it go and cut my losses? Whaddya say, huh?’

She couldn’t reply, unable to form the words.

When he spoke again, she felt a cold tremor running down her spine.

‘Or maybe I should let my guys hang Myburghe up in the same place they did his caveman butler!’

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