King and Maxwell

CHAPTER 30

SEAN WAS SEATED ACROSS FROM Mary Hesse at a restaurant in Chantilly, Virginia. She was in her mid-forties, attractive with dark hair and a slim figure. She seemed to have a problem making eye contact with Sean. She wore glasses but kept taking them off and wiping the lenses with her napkin.

Nerves all around, observed Sean.

“So you worked with Sam Wingo?” he prompted for the second time. This was shaping up to be like pulling teeth, he thought. But in situations like this patience was a virtue even though it felt like an ulcer.

She nodded. “Sam was a really nice guy. It was just–” She broke off, looking slightly dazed.

“It was just what?”

He put a hand across and tapped her wrist. “Ms. Hesse, I know this is hard. But as I told you on the phone I’m working with Sam’s son, Tyler.”

“Sam spoke of him all the time. He was really proud,” she said.

“I’m sure he was. Tyler is a great kid. But he’s terribly worried about his dad.”

“They said he had been killed in Afghanistan.”

“We don’t believe that to be true. And I think you were about to say that you thought something was off about Sam, weren’t you?”

She looked surprised at his observation. “How did you–”

“I’m former Secret Service. We get really good at reading body language.”

“Well, he just appeared one day at DTI. No one had seen him previously. No one that I knew had even interviewed him for the job. And while we’re not that big a company we do have certain protocols.”

“And these weren’t followed with Wingo?”

“They didn’t appear to have been followed,” she corrected.

“What else?”

“He spoke Dari and Pashto, but not, well, not at the level of the other people at the firm.”

“But I understood he was a salesman. He drummed up business for the company.”

“We don’t need drumming, Mr. King. We’re swamped, even with the winding down of the wars in the Middle East. There’s still a large military footprint. And commercial companies are starting to go there. They all need translators.”

“So business is booming and you don’t need salesmen. So what was Wingo doing for you?”

At this simple question Hesse seemed perplexed. “I’m not really sure.”

“You’re not really sure? You told me you worked with him.”

Her face paled, and for an instant Sean thought she might be sick.

“Take a sip of water and catch your breath,” he advised.

She gulped some water and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

“You okay?”

She nodded. “You see, he wasn’t really working for us.”

“So what was he doing?”

“I was teaching him Pashto and Dari. At least building on what he already knew.”

“You were teaching him to speak the languages primarily used in Afghanistan?”

“And other countries in the Middle East as well, including Pakistan. And in Iran, Dari is known as Farsi. It’s a very useful language to know over there, along with Arabic of course.”

“So if he wasn’t a salesman and he wasn’t qualified to be a translator, were you teaching him to be one?”

“No. We have immersion schools for that. What I did was work with him one-on-one three hours a day, every weekday. I did that for nearly a year.”

“Did you ever do that with anyone else?”

She shook her head.

“He was a reservist headed to Afghanistan. Maybe he wanted to speak the languages?”

“But he wasn’t paying us to do it. We were paying him a salary to learn the languages.”

Sean sat back, obviously flummoxed by this statement. “How do you know that?”

“Our company bookkeeper, Sue, is a friend. She told me. But the thing is we were getting fully reimbursed for his salary.”

“Who by?”

“Some unit at the DoD. I’m not sure which, there are so many. But we were definitely getting paid back. It wasn’t costing us a dime. Our company’s owner is not known for his generosity. He wouldn’t pay for an employee who had no duties.”

“Did you ever talk to Wingo about this… this unusual arrangement?”

“I was told not to. I considered him a friend because we spent so much time together. He told me about his son. I told him about my family. I was stunned when he didn’t show up one day. I knew he was leaving for Afghanistan at some point, but I didn’t know he had been deployed. And I didn’t know he was in the reserves.”

“He was regular Army. I think you were helping prepare him for a mission that required those language skills.”

“What was the mission?” she asked in a whisper.

“Good question. I wish I knew.”

“You said you didn’t think Sam was dead? But it was in the paper.”

“No, I don’t think he’s dead.” Sean leaned forward. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not in danger or trouble or both. Did he mention anything to you that might help me? Anything at all?”

“He told me he hoped to retire soon. He wanted to spend more time with Tyler.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, there was something strange right before he left DTI.”

“What?” said Sean sharply.

“He said he was going back to Afghanistan soon. I told him to be careful. That I didn’t want him to die from an IED[20] or a sniper. That I prayed he got back soon.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He said that IEDs and snipers were the least of his worries.”

Sean rubbed his chin. “Meaning what? That something else even worse might happen to him over there?”

“I guess, yes.” Her features shifted to alarm at what this actually meant. “What other things could be worse than being blown up or shot?” she asked.

“There might be something,” replied Sean.

He confirmed some other information with Hesse and then left her there staring into her coffee cup.

He was halfway to his car when his phone buzzed. It was Michelle. She filled him in on her meeting with McKinney.

“A billion euros?” he said, his voice heavy with skepticism. “That’s about a billion three U.S. dollars at current exchange rates.”

“I’ll take your word for it. And it apparently weighs forty-eight hundred pounds, crate not included.”

“And why would McKinney come to us and offer up this information?”

Sean slid into the front seat and clipped his seat belt on before starting the engine, the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear.

“I think he feels hemmed in. Not trusting anyone, meaning on his side too,” she said.

“Still, it was a stretch for a DHS guy to come to us and convey that sort of information. He could get his ass canned for that.”

“No argument there. I was as surprised as you are.”

“How did you leave it with him?”

“I didn’t really. He just left and I got on the horn with you.”

“I’ll be there in about forty minutes. Hang tight.”

Sean put the car in gear.

He didn’t look in the rearview mirror.

If he had, he might have noticed the red dot flitting across his forehead.