Judgment

56

At 4:45 she pulled up in front of a new eight-story building in Chelsea, outside Boston, in front of which was a giant stone seal and the words FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION. She parked in the small visitors’ lot and approached the guard booth. The man asked her to put her driver’s license against the bulletproof glass so he could see it. He told her she should lock up her phone in her car because she wouldn’t be allowed to bring it into the building. He buzzed her into a small glass-walled room, where she had to empty her pockets and put her metal objects in a bin and walk through a metal detector. (She’d left Hersh’s knife in the car along with the phone.) Then she entered the main building and handed over her driver’s license in exchange for a small plastic clip-on badge with a red V for Visitor on it. While she waited, she looked over the wall display of the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted Fugitives. Nobody she knew.

A few minutes later a door opened, and a man in his midforties emerged. He wore a gray suit and had jet-black hair with a prominent white part. He reminded her of a TV anchorman.

“Judge Brody, I’m Special Agent Brickley.” He had a deep, rumbling voice.

She stood up and shook his hand. He led them to a conference room just off the lobby. There was a table with an Avaya phone on it and a couple of chairs.

“Aaron Dunn speaks very highly of you,” Brickley said. “It’s an honor to meet you.”

“Very nice to meet you. I’m sure you’re busy, and I know it’s the end of the day, so I’ll make this brief. I’m in a difficult position here. I have a concern about a case I’m involved with. I’ve never done anything like this before. But I’ve never confronted a case like this before.”

She gave him a rundown on Wheelz. She concluded: “So it appears that the biggest investor in Wheelz is a Russian oligarch named Yuri Protasov.”

He nodded. He knew the name.

“The financing for the deal secretly came from a bank that’s under US sanctions. So it’s illegal. Which may be why he’s going to such lengths to keep his name a secret.”

Agent Brickley nodded again.

“And one thing more,” she said. She felt faint, queasy. “I just have to say it, no matter how farfetched it may seem to you. A couple of people who’ve found out about this have been killed.”

His expression morphed from skeptical to concerned. He paused a few seconds. “Obviously you’ve found something quite interesting. Maybe even alarming — I think so, for sure.”

“Okay.”

“But this isn’t really our area of concern. It’s really more a matter for the State Department.”

“The State Department?”

He nodded, smiled sadly. “Yeah, they’re in charge of sanctions. Sorry to make you come all the way in here.”

“I see.” Why, she wondered, did Aaron Dunn give me this guy’s name?

“But come to think of it,” he went on, “the State Department shut down their sanctions office a while ago. So there really isn’t anyone at State who deals with it. It may be a matter more for the Treasury Department.”

“Treasury, now? Hold on a sec. The FBI is charged with enforcing US law, and we’re talking about a US law. Am I right? How is this not the FBI’s business? The guy’s breaking the law. That seems pretty clear-cut to me.”

“I know, I know. But candidly and off the record? We’re not in the business of going after Russian oligarchs.”

“You’re not? Even Russian oligarchs who break US laws?”

“It’s a new era. The Russia stuff — you know, our enforcement powers have been whittled away. We just don’t have the staff anymore.”

“How come?”

“I used to be in CD, Counterintelligence Division, in Russian affairs, but most of us Russia experts have taken early retirement or left. Not many left. So Russia is no longer so much of a focus.”

“Seriously?”

“And, you know, the FBI isn’t exactly the apple of anyone’s eye these days, when it comes to funding and personnel and such,” said Agent Brickley. “It’s a new world.”

She returned to her car and sat in the FBI visitors’ parking lot for a few minutes. She took out her phone and called Aaron Dunn in Washington. This time she got right through.

“He said that?” Dunn remarked.

“Yes,” Juliana said. “‘Russia is no longer so much of a focus.’”

“Oh, Jesus. Listen, is there any chance of you coming to DC?”

“If I need to, sure.”

“I found someone who’ll see you. Can you get here Monday?”

“It can’t be any earlier?”

“I’m afraid not. He’s out of town before then.”

I have court, she thought. “I’ll be there.”