Counterfeit Lies

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR

Five LAPD units, three fire trucks, and two ambulances were at the hotel less than seven minutes after Trey pulled the alarm. A fireman shut off the sprinkler system while Trey and Brian provided an outline of what transpired in the room to an incredulous LAPD detective. Jake remained in the adjoining bedroom with Gracie, confident that there soon would be plenty of FBI agents of much higher pay grade on-scene to fill in the details.

As soon as Gracie dozed off, Jake called Park. “Your granddaughter’s safe but your daughter’s dead. She betrayed the family.”

“How did Jenny die?”

“Yeong and a bunch of his goons showed up. All hell broke loose. I’ll explain the rest when I get to your house. I got out the fire escape with Gracie and will come to you as soon as I can get to my car.”

“What about the money?”

“Some of the bills were destroyed when the sprinkler system went off, but most of it is still hidden in the basement of the hotel. We can come back later and retrieve it after the cops and firemen leave.”

Park replied with a simple “Thank you, Jake.”

As the crime-scene technicians began their gruesome work, Jake tapped Brian on the shoulder and motioned for him to come into the room where the child was sleeping. In a voice just above a whisper he explained what had happened to Gabe. Jake could see the mist forming in the new agent’s eyes. Swallowing hard to suppress the emotions building in him, Jake grabbed the new agent, gave him a hug, and whispered, “Semper Fi.”

Twenty-five minutes after the explosive firefight, ASAC Hafner, the CIA spook Wilson, and Supervisor Rachel Chang arrived on the scene wearing FBI raid jackets. Hafner elbowed his way past the police and demanded to speak to Jake in the adjoining room.

Jake was sitting on the bed; the little girl, beside him, was asleep. Brian Carter was in a chair next to the window reflecting on what he had just experienced and on the loss of a friend.

Hafner was visibly angry. But before he could raise his voice, Jake put a finger to his lips and pointed to the sleeping child.

Instead of shouting, Hafner hissed, “You were supposed to have pulled out of this assignment. Headquarters ordered it. I want to know when you knew about the Supernotes. Why wasn’t I called? I’m your ASAC. I should have been notified immediately about this operation. I saw no ops order and I certainly didn’t approve of any of this.” Hafner waved his arm toward the slaughter in the next room and the hallway.

Though neither man knew it at the time, it would take days of “trajectory analysis” and countless hours of forensic work in the FBI lab to eventually determine which weapons fired which rounds. Based on a 3-D analysis of the mayhem, it was determined that several of the deceased had been struck by multiple weapons. Only one, Mohammed, had been hit just once. Jake, hoping to mitigate some of the ASAC’s wrath, said, “If it makes any difference, I only fired one round.”

Hafner simply glared, so Jake continued in a whisper. “It all came up suddenly. It was a very fast-moving operation. I didn’t have time to put it on paper. I thought I had until the end of the day.”

“That’s no excuse. I should have been notified. I’m the ASAC. It’s my career on the line. I’m going to ask you again and maybe I should speak slowly so you’ll understand.… Why were you still in this operation and when did you know they were Supernotes?”

Jake feigned innocence with an accurate but calibrated version of the truth. “I didn’t know for sure they were Supernotes. I suspected they were but I didn’t have any samples to run past Secret Service. Park just gave me the three million for the ransom.”

Hafner wasn’t buying it. “So you had three million in samples!”

“But that was for the ransom. All the meetings and calls are recorded. If you listen to the recordings you should get a pretty good idea of how it all went down. I thought the Bureau’s priority would be the safety of this child,” Jake said, pointing to the little girl asleep in the bed. He actually sounded sincere.

Hafner waved some waterlogged counterfeit bills in the air. “These are ruined. We can’t go back to Headquarters with soaked bills.”

“They’d still be counterfeit, wouldn’t they?” said Jake, deciding to prolong the ASAC’s suffering by waiting to tell him $2.9 million in dry Supernotes was stashed in the two oversized plastic toolboxes sitting at Brian Carter’s feet.

Hafner blasted through his agenda. “I’ve scheduled you for an emergency psych eval at Headquarters and I plan on asking for a polygraph as well.”

Jake pointed to Gracie again and motioned for Hafner to lower his voice. Then, in a whisper he asked, “Psych eval? What for?”

Hafner rolled his eyes. “I don’t like the way you respond to supervision. I think you have issues.”

Jake laughed out loud, causing Gracie to stir. “Oh, I’ve got issues, huge issues!” he whispered. “But you don’t think I can fake sanity? I’ll pass. I always do. And forget the poly.”

Hafner had no intention of backing down. “Why?”

Jake smiled and said, “If I don’t pass the polygraph, there goes my credibility. The U.S. Attorney won’t allow me to testify. If I don’t testify, we won’t get a conviction. And if we don’t get a conviction, you don’t get a promotion. You need an unblemished lamb for this sacrifice.”

Jake spotted Olivia Knox standing in the doorway and decided to play his trump card.

“Besides, if I fail, it might screw up the centrifuge and nuclear weapons deal.”

“What centrifuge and nuke weapons deal?” clamored Hafner.

Jake’s smile morphed into a serious expression. “Probably won’t be able to work it now, after you get the results of the psych eval and the polygraph.”

Knox decided to end Hafner’s torture. “Tell him the rest of the story, Jake.”

He complied. “The Supernotes were sent to Park to buy centrifuges and other high-tech components for the nuclear weapons work Pyongyang is now doing for the Iranians. The ayatollahs in Tehran have contracted with the DPRK to do the fissile material enrichment and R&D that’s banned by that new UN treaty.”

Wilson, the CIA ghost, finally spoke. “That fits with chatter we’ve been picking up overseas.”

“Am I cleared to know that?” Jake asked, still whispering.

A pregnant pause hung over the room as all parties looked toward Olivia Knox.

“Charles, I gave Jake until midnight tonight to wrap up the operation. Earlier today, we met and talked about what needed to be done. I personally approved his plan.”

“But why wasn’t I told about this?” said the ASAC, in a whispered whine.

Olivia continued. “Because when I called to tell you, Charles, you were on the phone with the State Department.”

“But I had to talk to State,” Hafner protested. “The Attorney General himself told me to make sure we didn’t do anything that would screw up the permanent nuclear weapons deal with Iran. What did you expect me to do?”

Knox held up her hand. “I expect the same thing from all my agents. I expect them to do what’s right.”

Hafner, chagrined in front of his subordinates, muttered, “I guess I should cancel my trip to D.C.”

“I think that’s wise,” said Knox.

Cradling Gracie in his arms, Jake walked past the police and fire lines and a growing crowd in front of the hotel. He proceeded virtually unnoticed to the undercover Range Rover. As he placed the somnolent child on the backseat and locked the seat belt around her, he said to himself, Katie used to tell me, “All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purpose.”

As Jake pulled out onto Olympic Boulevard his cell phone slipped down between the seat and the console.

He never saw the text message from Trey Bennett.