Need You Now

16

A ndie was alone in her office when the text arrived. She didn’t recognize the incoming number, but the message was clearly from Patrick.

Position Three. ASAP.

It was his third message in less than twenty-four hours, his second selection of Position Three. She sensed that something was wrong. She rose from her desk, closed the door, and hit Call Back. Speaking on the telephone was a total break in protocol, and Patrick sounded surprised, but he answered in Spanish- Hola -which was their previously agreed-upon code for I’m OK, no gun to my head.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” asked Andie.

“Yeah, other than the fact that I got mugged in the park after you left and spent the night in the ER.”

Andie wanted to follow up, but Patrick was on a cell she didn’t recognize. “I’m on my way.”

She grabbed her coat, then on second thought went back to her computer. The Parks system was part of the automated incident report database, and in less than a minute she had the full report of last night’s incident. She printed a copy, skim-reading as she hurried to the elevator.

… white male found unconscious…

She stopped, relieved that Patrick had reported that he was okay, but anger was coursing through her veins. She blew right past the elevators, hung a quick left at the end of the hall, and found her supervisor alone in his office.

“Got a minute?” she asked.

Wayne Teese was the assistant special agent in charge of the Manhattan field office. Andie was his direct report on the FBI’s money-laundering investigation at BOS. He didn’t micromanage, but Teese had the final word on the broad parameters of Andie’s relationship with the principal informant in the operation-Patrick Lloyd.

Teese grimaced at the sight of Andie standing in his open doorway, as if he knew what was on her mind. With some reluctance, he waved her inside. It wasn’t that he disliked Andie. An overload of administrative responsibilities simply made any intrusion unwelcome. Andie closed the door and took a seat, his gunmetal, government-issued desk between them.

“I’m on my way to meet with Patrick Lloyd right now,” she said. “I’m asking you to reconsider your position on protection for him.”

“Denied,” he said.

“But-”

He raised a hand, stopping her. “You’ve already stated your case.”

She had indeed. Rather convincingly. The bureau’s intransigence was baffling.

“He’s been attacked twice,” said Andie, holding up a copy of the police report. “This last one landed him in the emergency room. I don’t see how we can expect him to continue in this role if we don’t guarantee his protection.”

“We have at-risk informants all over the world. It’s cost prohibitive to protect every last one of them.”

“Patrick Lloyd is different. This is not a situation where a target cooperated in the investigation to avoid prosecution. Patrick is not suspected of any criminal conduct, much less the kind that would justify putting him in this much personal danger.”

Teese folded his hands atop his desk. He had just a few years of seniority on Andie, but the worry lines aged him. With so much of the FBI’s funding earmarked for homeland security, the shoestring budgets for more traditional operations had stretched the office and his supervisory capacity to the limit.

“We agreed to provide medical treatment for his father from one of the most prestigious cancer centers in the world. I don’t have resources to essentially provide him with a personal bodyguard. We kept our side of the deal. He needs to keep his.”

Andie knew exactly what he meant. “I realize that he has not delivered much.”

“It’s been the better part of six months, and he’s delivered nothing .”

“Patrick never agreed to be the FBI’s all-purpose eyes and ears and give us carte blanche access to confidential banking information. He promised only to befriend Lilly Scanlon and tell us if she admitted to criminal conduct that fits our theory of the case.”

“He certainly befriended her,” Teese said, scoffing. “So either he’s holding out, or he doesn’t understand our theory.”

“Or maybe there’s something wrong with our theory.”

Andie braced herself. The theory was one that Teese himself had developed. He was known for defending his brainstorms the way he defended his beliefs: with the vigor of a combat-tested Marine.

“It’s been three years since Cushman’s scheme blew up,” he said. “Banks, lawyers, private security firms, and just about every law enforcement agency in the world have searched under every rock for the supposed sixty billion dollars that was lost. Only a fraction of that amount has been recovered. There’s a good reason for that: most of the funds on Cushman’s books never actually existed, except as a bogus entry in Cushman’s records.”

“I’m not saying the theory is implausible,” said Andie. “There’s no end to the creative ways to launder money.”

“It’s beyond plausible,” said Teese. “If I’m a drug dealer with ten million dollars in dirty money from cocaine sales, a Wall Street crook like Cushman is my best friend. I give him my ten million. He records an ‘investment’ of a hundred million dollars. In a few months, maybe a year, he pays me a return of ten percent on my bogus hundred million dollars. Presto, change-o: my ten million, less a cut for Cushman, comes back nice and squeaky clean as investment proceeds. But the bottom line for Cushman’s Ponzi scheme is that the fraud is overstated tenfold-sixty billion is more like six billion.”

“I’m not debating the theory in the abstract. I’m just saying: maybe the reason we’re getting nothing from Patrick Lloyd is that it wasn’t drug money that flowed through BOS/Singapore to Cushman Investment. Or if it was, maybe Lilly Scanlon had no idea it was dirty.”

“You’re being naïve. The reason we’ve gotten nothing out of Patrick Lloyd is that he hasn’t been given the proper incentive to talk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean the element of added danger may be the added incentive that Mr. Lloyd needs to give us the information we’re seeking.”

“That incentive means putting an innocent person in danger.”

“I hate to sound like a broken record, but I keep coming back to the deal.”

“I understand the technical terms of our agreement. But by cooperating, he may have blown his witness protection coverage. The bank is digging deep into his background. We have at least a moral obligation to protect him… and his sister.”

He was suddenly six inches taller in his chair, literally getting his back up. “Moral obligation? You’re overlooking the fact that it was Patrick Lloyd’s father who killed Gerry Collins and, in the process, eliminated the best source of information about the Cushman scheme.”

“So, pox on the entire family? Is that it?”

“I’m saying it’s a morally ambiguous situation.”

“It’s not ambiguous to Patrick. He firmly believes his father didn’t kill Collins. He thinks his father was coerced into a confession.”

Andie braced herself again, this time for a forceful denial, or at least a hearty guffaw. She got neither.

“I have to get back to work,” said Teese. “Deliver this message to Mr. Lloyd: it’s time he kept his end of the bargain. Deliver something. If he does, we’ll take another look at protection.”

Andie felt like she was back where she’d started. There was definitely no point in going around the same circle. “It would be helpful if I could tell him that we are continuing to keep our end of the deal.”

“You mean tell him that his father is still alive and receiving treatment?”

“Yes.”

Teese pondered it. “I don’t see a problem with that.”

“He’ll also want assurance that the new treatment facility is comparable to the Duke center.”

“You can tell him that in general terms. But you can’t disclose the new location.”

“That’s going to be awkward,” said Andie. “It’s only natural for him to ask why his father was moved, what his new name is, why I can’t tell him where he’s gone-all of that.”

“We can’t tell him.”

“Okay. But it would be easier for me to accept that decision if I knew the answers to those questions.”

“That’s on a strictly need-to-know basis.”

“I find it interesting that there’s enough money allocated to this operation to create a new identity for Patrick’s father, move him to another facility, and arrange for medical treatment from a new facility. But there’s not a dime in the budget to protect Patrick, who happens to be the only person helping us in the BOS investigation.”

“Sorry,” said Teese. “Strict need-to-know basis.”

“Got it,” said Andie.

Teese turned in his chair and faced his computer screen. Andie rose and started for the door, then stopped.

“You know, Patrick is very emphatic that his father is innocent. I can’t overstate how strong his feelings are on that.”

Teese was typing and staring at his computer screen, never looking up. “Strictly need to know,” he said.

Andie nodded, not in agreement, but merely acknowledging his words as the FBI’s final position. She left the office, her thoughts awhirl as she walked down the hall toward the elevator. No doubt about it: Andie needed to know.