The photographs were by the upturned steel helmet next to the Marine Corps badge, more by the television.
Don’t forget, he told himself.
He showered, dressed, had breakfast on the sun deck, then took the metro rail to Union Station and walked to Dirksen Building.
The staff rooms of the Senate Banking Committee were on the fifth floor: three secretaries and a cluster of offices, some staffers having their own rooms and others sharing, computers and telephones on the desks, and the computers linked to the various databases to which the committee had access.
The desk he had been assigned was in a corner of one of the open plan areas, beneath a window. It was slightly cramped, but that was standard on the Hill, despite what people thought, and at least he could look out of the window. It was a pity he didn’t have more privacy, but everyone in the office was on the same side, and if he needed to make any really secure calls he could do them from somewhere else.
He fetched himself a coffee from the cafeteria and settled down.
Money laundering or banking, Pearson had said, as long as it was something with which the ordinary man or woman in the street would identify. And nothing too official yet, by which Pearson had meant nothing too obvious. Just a trawl, see what there was around. More than just a trawl, though; make sure he had enough evidence so that when Donaghue officially launched the enquiry he already knew it would produce results. The announcement of the enquiry timed to give Donaghue extra publicity once he’d thrown his hat into the presidential ring, and the results ready for when he and his advisers decided to use them. Everything planned, nothing left to chance.
Mitchell sat forward in the chair and began the calls.
‘Dick, this is Mitch Mitchell. Doing a job for the Senate Banking Committee and wondered if we should get together …’
To a lawyer at the Fed.
‘Angelina, this is Mitch Mitchell. Assigned to Senate Banking for a while and thought I should give you a call …’
A banker in Detroit.
‘Jay, this is Mitch Mitchell. Yeah, good to talk with you. How’re you doing … ?’
To a journalist on Wall Street.
Look for his own investigation, try to find something that nobody else had, and he’d spend light years on it and get nowhere. Pick up on something somebody else was already working, though, take it beyond where their expertise or resources could go but offer to cut them in on the final play, and he might make it.
‘Andie.’ Drug Enforcement Administration in Tampa, Florida. ‘Mitch Mitchell, long time no see. How’d you mean, you knew I was going to call. Why, what you got going?’
It would have to be good, though, have to be right. And he wouldn’t mention Donaghue unless someone asked, because Donaghue was money in the bank and only to be used when necessary.
By lunchtime he had spoken to ten contacts, by mid-afternoon another three, two more phoning him back. Tomorrow it would be the same, the day after the same again. And after he’d talked to them he’d hit the road, get hunched up over a beer with those who might have a runner. Sometimes it would be coffee, sometimes dinner, sometimes twenty minutes behind closed doors. And not all the contacts male, some of the best would be female.
‘Jim Anderton, please.’ Anderton was an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, smart waistcoats and friendly manner. When it suited. Political ambitions and on the make.
‘I’m sorry, Mr Anderton’s in court. Can he call you back?’
Mitchell gave the receptionist his name and new office number. Anderton would call back even if he didn’t have anything, because assistant DAs with political ambitions always did.
Tampa and Detroit seemed front runners at the moment, he decided, plenty of other options already emerging, though. He switched on the computer, built in a personal security code, and opened the first file of the investigation.
The armoured Chevrolet collected Brettlaw at seven. The family were seated round the breakfast table. Great house, great wife, great kids – he always appreciated being told. Great barbecues in the summer, great hiking trips in the fall, great skiing in the winter. When he’d had the time.
Fifteen minutes later the driver swung through the gates at Langley and turned under the main building. Brettlaw collected his briefcase and took the executive lift to the seventh floor. By nine, shortly before his meeting with the DCI, he was on his third coffee and his fourth Gauloise.
Costaine telephoned at eleven, via Brettlaw’s secretary, asking if the DDO had ten minutes. If Costaine, as his Deputy Director for Policy, asked for ten minutes, it was Costaine’s code for saying something was wrong. Not necessarily something that would change the world, just something which the DDO should know about, perhaps something which it would take the DDO to sort out. Besides, Costaine was Inner Circle; not Inner Circle of Inner Circle, but still part of the black projects.
Brettlaw told him to come up, and asked Maggie to put the remainder of his morning’s engagements back ten minutes.
Costaine arrived three minutes later.
‘There’s a slight problem with Red River.’
He was seated in the leather armchair in front of Brettlaw’s desk.
‘What exactly?’
Red River was a worn-out mining town turned ski resort eight thousand feet up in the Southern Rockies. Apparently run down, apparently redneck. Great people and great snow. Red River was also the code for one of the black projects.
‘Certain funds which should have been in place two days haven’t arrived.’
‘Important?’
Costaine ran his fingers through his crewcut. ‘Delicate rather than important, but we should get it sorted out.’ But he couldn’t, because he was operations, not finance.
‘Leave it with me. If it’s not sorted by tomorrow let me know.’
He waited till Costaine left then telephoned for Myerscough to come up.
‘The Nebulus accounts. Apparently some of the funds which were scheduled for transfer two days ago haven’t made it.’
‘No problem.’
Almost certainly it would be something as obvious as a bank clerk transposing two digits, Myerscough thought. It had happened before and would happen again. It was probably better to start in the middle rather than at the beginning or end of the chain – that way he’d reduce the work. Therefore he’d contact the fixer and get him to check that the funds had passed through the switch account in London. That way they could narrow down the problem area. And if the funds hadn’t reached London he’d go back to First Commercial and ask why the money hadn’t exited the US.
It was eleven Eastern Time, therefore he might just catch Europe before it closed down for the night. He left the seventh floor and returned to his own department on the fourth.
His office was in one corner, the rest of the section open plan, desks and computers, the technological whizz kids bent over them, sometimes fetching a coffee or iced water and leaning over someone else’s shoulder, cross-fertilizing ideas and statistics or just talking. It was a good department with good people. He closed the door, called the first number before he’d even sat down, and looked through the glass.
Bekki Lansbridge was in her late twenties, an economist by training, and had been with the Agency five years and his department for the past eight months. She was five-seven, he guessed, almost five-eight, blond hair and long face. And there