Blue Labyrinth

53

Vincent D’Agosta sat back in his chair and stared morosely at his computer screen. It was after six. He had canceled a date with Laura at the Korean place around the corner and he was determined not to let up until he’d done all he could. So he sat, staring mulishly at the screen as if trying to force it to yield up something useful.

He’d spent over an hour digging into NYPD files and elsewhere, looking for information on John Barbeaux and Red Mountain Industries, and had come up with precisely squat. NYPD had no files on the man. An online search yielded little more. After a brief but distinguished career in the Marine Corps, Barbeaux — who came from money — had founded Red Mountain as a military consulting company. The firm had grown into one of the country’s largest private security contracting organizations. Barbeaux had been born in Charleston; he was sixty-one years old and a widower; his only son had died of an unknown illness not two years before. Beyond that, D’Agosta had learned nothing. Red Mountain was notoriously secretive; its own website gave him little to go on. But secretiveness wasn’t a crime. There were also online rumors of the kind that swirled around many military contractors. A few lone voices, crying in the digital wilderness, linked the company to various South American and African coups, mercenary actions, and shadow military ops — but these were the same types of people who claimed Elvis was still alive and living on the International Space Station. With a sigh, D’Agosta reached out to turn off the screen.

Then he remembered something. About six months back, a program had been put in place — spearheaded by a police consultant, formerly of the NSA — to digitize all NYPD documents and run them through OCR software. The idea had been to ultimately cross-link every scrap of information in the department’s files, with the goal of looking for patterns that might help solve any number of “cold” cases. But, as with so many other initiatives, this one had gone off the rails. There were cost overruns, the consultant had been fired, and the project was limping along with no completion date in sight.

D’Agosta stared at the computer screen. The team was supposed to start with the newest documents logged into the system and then work backward chronologically through the older ones. But with the size of the team slashed, and the volume of new material that came in every day, the word was they were basically treading water. No one used the database — it was a mess.

Still, a search would take only a moment. Luckily, Barbeaux was not a common name.

He logged back into the departmental network, moused his way through a series of menus, and accessed the project’s home page. A spartan-looking screen appeared:

Below was a text box. D’Agosta clicked on it to make it active, typed in “Barbeaux,” then clicked on the ENTER button beside it.

To his surprise, he got a hit:

“I’ll be damned,” he murmured.

There was an icon of a document next to the text. D’Agosta clicked on it, and the scan of an official document appeared on the screen. It was a memo from the Albany police, sent — as a departmental courtesy — to the NYPD about six months back. It described rumors, from “unnamed third parties,” of illicit arms deals being made by Red Mountain Industries in South America. However — the document went on to say — the rumors could not be confirmed, the firm in all other ways had a stellar record, and so instead of bumping the investigation up the hierarchy to federal agencies such as the ATF, the case had been closed.

D’Agosta frowned. Why hadn’t he discovered this factoid through normal channels?

He clicked on the screen and examined the attached metadata. It showed that the physical copy of the memo had been filed in the “Barbecci, Albert” folder of the NYPD’s archives. The record header showed that the person who had filed it had been Sergeant Loomis Slade.

With a few more mouse clicks, D’Agosta opened up the file on Albert Barbecci. Barbecci had been a small-time mobster who had died seven years ago.

Barbeaux. Barbecci. Misfiled. Sloppy work. D’Agosta shook his head. That sort of sloppiness didn’t seem like Slade. Then he picked up his phone, consulted a directory, dialed a number.

“Slade,” came the atonal voice on the other end of the line.

“Sergeant? This is Vincent D’Agosta.”

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“I’ve just come across a document on a man named Barbeaux. Heard of him?”

“No.”

“You should have. You filed the document yourself — in the wrong folder. Put it under Barbecci.”

A pause. “Oh. That. Albany, right? Stupid of me — sorry.”

“I was wondering how you happened to be in possession of that memo.”

“Angler gave it to me to file. As I recall, it was Albany’s case, not ours, and it didn’t check out.”

“Any idea why it was sent to Angler in the first place? Did he request it?”

“Sorry, Lieutenant. I’ve got no idea.”

“It’s all right, I’ll ask him myself. Is he around?”

“No. He took a few days off to visit some relatives upstate.”

“All right, I’ll check in with him later.”

“Take care, Lieutenant.” There was a click as Slade hung up.