“Sorry,” I said, snapping my fingers close enough to my phone’s mouthpiece that she could hear. “Forgot to mention that I also saw your name pop up on some files over at MI5.”
More silence, but it was weighted, tugging on my phone’s earpiece like a bent fishing pole.
“That’s impossible,” she said, but even she didn’t believe it.
“Don’t worry; I’ll email you the files after we hang up. Along with a few more that show a direct link between you and a man named Junan Collins who specializes in industrial espionage, among other types of theft.”
“What do you want?” The German accent was back and thicker than ever. Fear tends to do that, revert people back to their most base level in all facets.
“Call Trish and tell her your partnership is over effectively immediately,” I said. “Tell her Rick Carter threatened to go public with your dealings unless you did as you were told.”
“That won’t end well for you, Mr. Carter.”
“Your concern is admirable, Marianne, but at the moment I’d be more worried about what will happen to you and your company should the information in my possession ever get to the press. Or maybe I’ll just send it directly to the company you’re stealing from, see how they’d like to handle it.”
“Okay, okay,” she said. Anything else she had planned that day had taken a backseat in terms of importance to ending this call as quickly as possible.
“Good. I’ll send the files once we hang up. Email me back as soon as you tell Trish. If you lie to me, I’ll know. And Marianne?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t forget to tell her my name. Rick. Carter.”
I hung up, feeling better than I had in a long time.
“What was that all about?” Robert asked as I sent the files linking Innovative Technologies to Junan Collins and a stolen set of prototype microchips that powered the next evolution of smartphones, one with full AI capabilities. An evolution that Innovative Technologies paid good money to cash in on in a less than honorable way.
“That,” I said, “was my third victory of the day.”
“I’m gonna need a little more than that.”
“I figured out what Jeff was investigating.” Robert and Denise both stood up straighter, the leftover sleep suddenly gone from their eyes. “I’m pretty sure the woman who hired me, the one who answered Jeff’s phone the other night, is part of an organization that profits off being the middlemen between criminal organizations and legitimate businesses. That’s why the suspects in those files were all over the place in terms of their rap sheets. We were trying to solve a puzzle last night, Robert, when what we should have been doing was playing connect-the-dots.”
“And you connected them?”
I nodded. “Those two guys I told you were the big fish, the Chinese general and the Lynch guy?”
“Yeah.”
“They match the profile of someone who I know for a fact is on what my client calls their Board of Directors. Except they’re not some group of criminal masterminds bent on world domination—they’re a bunch of washed-up has-beens who spent their lives abusing their power, skimming off the people who did the real work, and are desperate to continue doing so. They connect criminals of all kinds to large, wealthy organizations that want what those criminals have to offer but don’t want to risk being connected to them directly. So Trish’s group acts as the go-between. They make introductions, they set up meetings, they broker deals—all of it kept completely in the dark and safely away from their clients. And all for a sizable fee.”
“Isn’t that essentially what you do?” Denise said, not without judgment.
“Yeah, but this is on a much bigger scale. And they are way more organized and have their hands in way more illegal shit than I ever have.”
“So this is all about money?” Robert asked.
“It’s always all about money. Human trafficking is just a part of what they’re into. It also appears to be their acceptable loss, a line of business they’re willing to sacrifice, with me and Leon set to take the fall. While the media and authorities are focused on the horrors of their disabled sex slavery ring, they can continue profiting from everything else on their list of services.”
“Including smuggled uranium,” Robert said.
I nodded again. Coperion’s CEO, Ahmir, had cracked just as quickly as Marianne. Anything to keep my information from going public. In less than ten minutes, he’d confessed to knowing about his company’s illegal enrichment activities. Hardly made them unique. Most people in the US intelligence community suspected that the majority of Saudi companies had some type of enrichment activity going on, but it would never advance to nuclear capabilities as long as our two countries remained on good terms. It was a contingency plan the Saudis hoped to never use.
What Ahmir hadn’t planned on was one of his scientists smuggling a box’s worth of pellets out one night, and handing it off to an arms dealer working with Trish. Ahmir claimed to not know anything about Trish or who her client was that would be interested in purchasing the uranium, but he and I both agreed that whoever it was probably wasn’t interested in using it as a paperweight. The box being in my possession compromised not only Trish and her client, but Coperion as well.
“So how does knowing that help us?”
“Trish is part of a big business, Robert, and like all businesses—legitimate or otherwise—she cares about two things: Her money and her reputation. I say we fuck with both.”
“And how do you plan on doing that?”
“By calling the companies on that list and threatening to go public with what we’ve got unless they sever all ties with her and her Board. The woman I just hung up with was the third one so far to agree.”
“But your candidate only got a small portion of the evidence the task force had.”
“Right, but we’re not trying to mount a criminal case against them. The most valuable service Trish provides to her clients is anonymity, the security of knowing that they will never be connected to the criminals they’re doing business with because Trish and her Board are the only ones dealing directly with the bad guys. If we take that anonymity away, Trish’s reputation is shot and all of a sudden all the money and influence her Board of Directors crave dries up like a housewife with a headache.”
“Eww,” Maggie said from the couch. She had woken up at some point during my call and listened with the afghan wrapped around her shoulders.
“Sorry, Peanut, thought you were asleep.” I felt my face flush. Turning back to Denise and Robert, I said, “We don’t have enough evidence to take them to court, but we’ve got more than enough to burn down every business implicated if that information ever goes public. I’ll give it a day, then call Trish and tell her I’ll back off if she calls off the hit on you.”
“But I’ll still be a threat to her because of the uranium.”
“You won’t be,” I said, pausing because I knew what came next would not go over well, “after I let her know that you told me where it’s hidden, and I moved it to a location only I know about. Puts the target on me and me alone.”
“No way,” Robert said angrily.
“Trust me, I can handle my—”
