Pinnacle Event

42

“I’m with the FBI. Please come with me,” the Special Agent said to Ray Bowman as he stepped from the Virgin America aircraft on to the jetway. Bowman’s Sunday call to Winston Burrell and the National Security Advisor’s subsequent call to the FBI Director had set the wheels in motion. The Bureau had put two hundred agents onto the task of tailing and listening to Sergey Rogozin and the Kinders from the time their jet had landed at Teterboro four hours ago. Rogozin’s New York office of Olympus Security was being penetrated electronically on its telephone lines and acoustically through the walls and windows.

Ray guided Mbali down the stairs on to the runway, where Bill McKenna, Special Agent in Charge of National Security for the New York office of the FBI sat waiting for them in a Chevrolet Suburban. McKenna looked young for the job and his accent sounded more Texas than Brooklyn. “I’ve been told from the top to give you any and all assistance on this case, so you got it,” he said. Ray introduced Mbali Hlanganani as his “colead on the case.” She didn’t blink, but she made a mental note to ask exactly when she had become that.

“Where did they go from Teterboro?” Ray asked.

“Rogozin went straight for his office. It’s two brownstones on East seventy-fourth. Very pricey real estate. Looks like he has an apartment in one of them,” McKenna explained. “Rogozin came in on an airplane with just two other passengers, Jonathan Kinder, the CEO of Kinder Industries, and his daughter, Victoria, a professor at NYU. The Kinders went to their penthouse on Central Park South, but now the daughter is at the UN. She’s speaking at some meeting there.”

“Can you get me into the UN meeting? I might want to just confront her and ask her what she knows about Rogozin. See what reactions that brings.”

“Already thought of that, Mr. Bowman, set up a top-secret level workspace for you in the U.S. Mission across the street from the UN and got you two passes to the UN meeting through an ex-Bureau guy who now runs security in New York for the UN.”

“Thanks, but I’ll skip that,” Mbali said. “I need to get to the South African Mission and grab a secure phone to call into my office. Among other things, I want to see what we’ve learned about Marcus’s death.”

“The South Africans are on Thirty-eighth Street, between First and Second. We can drop you there on our way,” McKenna said as the Suburban pulled through the airport gate.

“Did you sweep their plane at Teterboro? Any signs of radiation?” Ray pressed.

“We did, along with Customs, searched every plane that came in or went out of Teterboro so it didn’t look like we were after Rogozin. Came up cold, except for some medical equipment on a flight going out to Minnesota. We’ve been running the rad/nuc detection guys ragged the last two weeks, but even so they are really scrupulous. If there was a trace, they woulda found it.”

Bowman was not surprised. It made no sense for Rogozin to personally escort a weapon into New York. The fact that he was in the city suggested that it might not be the target, or at least that nothing would detonate while he was still there.

They were at the end of the morning traffic, approaching noon, but the highway was still jammed and moving slowly. After Ray looked at his watch the third time, McKenna asked the agent driving the truck to turn on the blue lights and use the breakdown lane to get them into town a little faster. Mbali looked more nervous than Ray had ever seen her be. He wondered if it was the scary driving or her sense that they were getting close to knowing what they were after.

“I’m sorry you have been waiting so long Mr. Dupré,” the tall, young man said to Etienne. “I am Nelson Hutamro, in charge of investigating what happened to Mr. Robinson. They just told me you were here and had been waiting for hours. I apologize. We’ve been a little crazy here today. Please, come upstairs to my office.”

Etienne wondered how old the Zulu was, was he really old enough to be the lead investigator on Stroh’s murder? And, if he was, why was he still in Cape Town? Hutamro’s office, however, was large and in a suite that said DIRECTOR MBALI HLANGANANI over the outer door. Hutamro’s office was only three doors down, inside the suite.

“You said you were there when Mr. Robinson was shot and you knew his Service name when you called. And you knew his special call-in number, you phoned in on it. Can I ask how you learned these things, Mr. Dupré?” Hutamro asked when they were seated on an old leather couch and chair.

“Might I have some tea?” Etienne began. “It was very dry and dusty in the lobby all these hours.” Etienne wondered if he could trust this young man with what he assumed from Stroh’s comments was a very important case, important enough to have gotten him killed. “Mr. Stroh, his real name, Marcus Stroh, said that he worked for the top person in your Service, a Ms. Mbali.”

Hutamro called out for teas, then checked to make sure the recording light was on next to the telephone. “He did. So do I. This is her office suite.”

“And you work directly for her?”

“I do. I am one of three Special Assistants to the Director.”

“And what I tell you will get to her and no one else?”

Hutamro crossed his long legs and thought a moment. “If you want that, I can report it only to her. What the Director decides after that, who she will share it with, I cannot say. It is up to her.”

Etienne was exhausted from the overnight flights and he felt he needed a shower, but he was kept awake by the adrenaline, the realization that by coming to South Africa without the permission of DGSE, he would undoubtedly be fired from his contract job and likely worse. He was throwing his life into a blender, but he felt a compulsion. He kept seeing Pierre and Marcus, bleeding onto the linen tablecloth.

“I am a contract officer of the DGSE, acting without permission. My true name is Etienne Kafotamaki. Mr. Stroh made a request of my boss Pierre Marcoux. To answer his questions, I was sent across from Mayotte to Comoros.

“Mr. Stroh wanted information about aircraft and ships that had moved on certain days that acted unusually. I found that information.”

Hutamro sat up in his chair and reached for a notepad and pen. Etienne took a sip of the tea that had now shown up, his hand unsteady with the cup. “Pierre, my boss, was giving that information to Marcus Stroh when he was shot. When they were both shot, I was a few feet away. I should have seen the danger and warned them, but I did not see it until it was too late. I killed the shooter. But it was too late.” Etienne stopped and looked down. He rubbed his eyes.

“It is very difficult to act in time in these situations,” Hutamro said softly. “I am sure you did all that you could.”

“I did not, but now I am finishing my mission. I was to find the information that Mr. Stroh wanted so that it could get to Ms. Mbali. When they know in Mayotte, in Comoros, that I have come here, they will fire me, arrest me. They wanted to take their time and let Paris decide when and if to give this information to Ms. Mbali. I give it to her now.” He handed Hutmaro the card that Pierre had been handing over when he was killed, the card with the aircraft tail number. On it, Etienne had added the names of two ships.

“I can tell you when the plane took off and landed, several times, and when the ships departed and from where. I have memorized it all.”

Nelson Hutamro took the card. He noted a small stain on the upper-left corner. He was sure that it was dried blood. “May I call you Etienne?”

“But of course, yes.”

“Etienne, if all of this proves out, as I am sure it will, we would like to offer you employment with us, perhaps in Mayotte or Comoros, or perhaps Madagascar or Seychelles. Maybe the DGSE will not know that you came here, as Monsieur Dupré. I am sure Marcus Stroh would have wanted us to do that.”

Etienne’s eyes moistened, but he did not shed a tear. He again sipped the tea. “Let me tell you the dates and places.”

Nelson Hutamro copied down the information carefully, verified it again with Etienne, and then excused himself from his own office and walked down a row of desks to Mbali’s secretary. “I need to talk with the Director now, wherever she is.”