Hard Rain (37 page)

‘T
he FBI confirmed it – from the same batch of explosives used on Portman’s safe. Ours, or the Israelis’, depending on how you want to look at it,’ said Captain Cain.

Masters came in and took her seat.

‘You missed the funerals, by the way.’ The captain had trouble deciding where to look, so he walked to the window and watched the Bosphorus traffic. ‘But then, so did I,’ he continued. ‘Doctor Merkit’s family didn’t want infidels present. I bought her flowers from the three of us. Karli and Iyaz delivered them. I sent flowers to Emir’s family also.’

‘Thanks, Rodney,’ I said. ‘I know how you felt about her.’

‘Actually, I doubt that, Special Agent. But what can you do?’ He wasn’t expecting an answer and shuffled his feet. ‘I know it wasn’t intentional on your part – how things turned out between you and her . . . just happened.’

Cain had his back to me. Beyond him, through the window, a Russian oil tanker drifted down the waterway.

‘Do you want to hand your involvement in this case to someone else?’ I asked.

‘No,’ he replied, turning to face me, a grim set to his features. ‘I want the satisfaction of helping you nail the fuckers who killed her. The FBI
just came good with IDs on those photos you sent from Iraq.’ Cain opened his briefcase and removed a folder. Inside were the photos, which he spread out across my desk.

I picked up the one on top. ‘Moses Abdul Tawal.’

‘And that’s his real name, not an alias,’ Cain continued. ‘Stop me if I’m telling you stuff you already know. He’s a heavy hitter in Egyptian business circles. Well known to Egypt’s politicians. Helped build the Aswan High Dam. Could be why he was brought in on your desal project, water and heavy construction being common to both. You need something big done, you call in Tawal. He owns at least two-dozen companies, is a major shareholder in double that number, and not all of them above board. It’s rumoured he also deals in illegal arms – the hard-to-get high-tech stuff – but no one has managed to hang anything on him. Interestingly, Interpol has had their eye on Tawal for a while in a low-level kind of way. One odd thing: he’s Jewish. You can count the Jewish population in Egypt on the fingers of one hand, by the way. They’re a statistical anomaly. Apparently, he takes his religion seriously, but it doesn’t seem to have hurt him in business. Tawal doesn’t have a police record, although he has been implicated in a large number of common assaults, none of which has ever gone to court. He probably punches them in the mouth, then pays them to keep it shut. It’s safe to say the guy has a temper.’

I nodded. We’d seen one of his tantrums.

‘Tawal has a number of addresses, in Paris, New York and Cairo. Also has a houseboat on Lake Nasser – likes to feed the wildlife.’

Masters picked up another familiar face from the pile, a photo of Jarred with a powerful set of binoculars in his hands. ‘And this guy?’

‘Jarred Ben-Gari. Formerly of the Israeli Defense Forces, rank of captain. Good record. Fought in the September War against Hezbollah. Then one day he just resigned his commission and walked away. No reason. Turned up at your desal plant.’

I recalled the look on the guy’s face the moment he died. ‘I don’t think we’ll be running into him again,’ I said. In fact, for all I knew, maybe Tawal himself was also getting debriefed on eternity. ‘Was Ben-Gari with the Sayeret?’ I asked.

‘Good guess,’ Cain replied. ‘He was. Something went wrong and he was transferred. Ended up in artillery.’

Masters and I exchanged a glance. Both of us had caught the connection, even if Cain hadn’t. The explosives used on the safe and in the car bomb had come from Israeli artillery shells supposedly fired in the September War. Jarred, military HMX, Tawal, Portman . . .

‘What about the rest of these people?’ Masters asked, picking up a photo of a guy wearing sunglasses who was strolling along arm-in-arm with an AK-47. He was either whistling or puckering up.

‘Just your usual rag-tag bunch of former shooters,’ replied Cain, ‘graduates from various combat units who quit to make some real money doing the same job they were doing for their governments. Nothing special about any of them. No apparent common factors.’

I leaned back in my chair and stared at the ceiling, trying to put the pieces together. The exercise made my head hurt.

‘Anything else you need a hand with?’ Cain asked.

‘No, not really. Not just at the moment anyway,’ said Masters. ‘Thanks for all this, Captain. And Vin and I are both deeply sorry about Doctor Merkit.’

Cain nodded and said, ‘Yeah.’ He was about to say something else, but then decided he should leave before whatever it was just came out of its own accord and shot him in the foot.

Masters looked at me and I looked back at her. We were both thinking the same thought: could Rodney Cain be our mole?

‘You stole his girlfriend. That’s a motive right there.’

I wasn’t ready to point the finger at Cain quite yet. And my relationship with Doc Merkit came along after the information about a second safe was passed to Yafa. ‘I need some air,’ I said.

‘No you don’t. We need to talk. About the case. There are holes.’

‘You want to talk about the case . . . here?’ I opened my hands wide and looked around the room. For all we knew, you could shake more bugs out of this room than a picnic rug. Whoever the mole was had plenty of resources, along with high-level access. There were at least ten people on the short list.

The phone on my desk rang. I picked up. ‘Special Agent Cooper.’

‘Hello, Special Agent. It’s Sage Laboratories calling.’ The voice on the line was young, female and black. ‘Says here on the instructions that we’re to fax our report, rather than email it.’

‘That’s correct.’

‘You provided us with a couple of security questions for proof of identity.’

‘Yep, I remember.’

‘Usually these are your mother’s maiden name, that sort of thing . . .’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Okay . . . um . . . Who did the Redskins trade for on April Fools’ Day, 1964?’

‘Sonny Jurgensen.’

‘What year did George Allen take the Redskins to the Superbowl?’

‘1972.’

‘Okay, Special Agent Cooper. Your report is being faxed as we speak. And . . . have an NFL day.’

‘I’ll try to,’ I said, hanging up.

‘What was that all about?’ Masters asked.

‘To the fax machine, trusty sidekick,’ I said.

It was cool but sunny down by the water; warm, as long as I didn’t move about and gave the sunlight enough time to accumulate on my exposed skin. A few small fishing boats bobbed at their moorings close to the retaining wall. I finished reading the report from Sage Laboratories as Masters dodged the traffic and skipped through a break, a steaming apple tea in each hand.

‘Here,’ she said, holding one out to me.

‘Thanks.’

‘I could get addicted to this stuff.’

‘Jarred . . . it’s possible,’ I said. ‘Thousands of shells were fired into southern Lebanon. A captain of an artillery barrage could’ve made a few of them disappear.’

‘If we could prove that, and I think we could, at least to a court’s satisfaction,’ Masters added, ‘it would connect Tawal to Portman’s wall safe, and hence to Portman’s murder. From there it’d be a hop, skip and a jump to all the other murders. What did Sage come up with?’

‘I haven’t read the whole thing, but pretty much what we expected.’ I handed her the report on the earth sample we’d taken from the pit and sipped my tea while she skimmed through it, mumbling, picking out bits here and there.

‘
Concentrations of uranyl fluoride . . . hydrafluoric acid . . . adducts of uranyl fluoride . . . consistent with the exposure of uranium hexafluoride to water . . .
Jesus, you know what this means?’

‘That Tawal is a good reason to make the electric chair more freely available.’

‘The bastard really did poison the water supply to give the desal plant a reason to exist, then produced a fabricated water report to make it look like DU contamination.’ Masters shook her head. ‘Fuuuuck . . . All those poor children, their parents . . .’

I held my hand out to take back the report but she stopped me.

‘Hang on. There’s a note here about the HEX.’ She turned the page and continued reading as I watched a tanker the size of the Chrysler Building squeeze through the narrow strait, and thought about what I’d like to do to Tawal if I caught up with him. ‘Oh, man . . . listen to this,’ she said. ‘They’re saying most of the hot isotope of uranium, U235, had been removed. The percentage of uranium-235 was 0.3.’

‘Can you give that to me in English?’

‘As you know, depleted uranium is the feed-stock for nuclear fuel that ends up either in reactors or bombs. The stuff gets put through a process called gaseous diffusion. What comes out one side is depleted, HEX with very little of the U235 left in it, remember? That stuff goes into storage. Out the other side comes enriched HEX, which goes on to be made into the fuel. Sage says that because the sample we provided contained a specifically small amount of U235 – 0.3 per cent – our uranium compounds came from
depleted
uranium hexafluoride from a specific source. Vin, they’re saying the storage cylinder we dug up was one of ours!’

‘Ours?’

‘America’s, the USA’s – ours. Somehow Tawal managed to get his hands on one of our depleted-uranium storage tanks – or more than one, who knows? – shipped it to Iraq, and buried it in the ground . . . Jesus, Vin, we have to take this to somebody.’

‘Like who? We don’t know who we can trust, remember? We’ve got the cylinder’s serial number, and we keep that card close to our chest till we’re ready to play it.’

Masters’ cell started ringing. She juggled the report and the tea and took the phone out of her jacket. From the look on her face when she checked the screen, I could tell she didn’t know the caller. ‘Special Agent Masters . . . Yes, of course I remember you, Colonel.’

Masters lowered the phone and mouthed, ‘Colonel Woodward.’

I nodded – the Reapers’ commanding officer.

‘No, I’m in Istanbul,’ she said. ‘Yes, a beautiful city . . . Yes, Special Agent Cooper is here with me . . . Uh-huh . . . Uh-huh . . . sure . . .’

I drank the last of the tea and walked the twenty paces to a trash can. When I returned, Masters was still on the call.

‘Yeah . . . So you were aware that Colonel Portman had lost his appi-8 status? . . . Uh-huh . . . Fair enough . . . Yes, sir . . . You were? Really? . . . Uh-huh . . . What did he have against them? . . . Uhhuh . . . What? . . . Okay . . . Well, thanks very much for the heads-up, Colonel. Special Agent Cooper and I appreciate your cooperation. Goodbye, sir.’ Masters gave me a half smile. ‘Y’know, I cannot understand that man. What the hell is a SWAG?’

‘What was the colonel having a “scientific wild-ass guess” about?’

‘He knew that Portman had been grounded.’

‘Why didn’t he mention it to us?’

‘Probably didn’t trust us – us being ground pounders and all. Though his stated reason was that he was unsure about what he could and couldn’t say. Anyway, his superiors have cleared him to talk. The SWAG related to him believing that Portman had a problem working with the Israelis.’

‘Was he anti-Semitic?’

‘No, nothing like that.

‘The Reapers were going head to head with the Cheil Ha’avir, taking on those F-16 Sufas we saw down at Incirlik. The Israelis were practising bombing runs – lofts.’

‘Lofts? Shit . . .’ A loft was a particular bombing profile designed to throw ordnance a long way, where the delivery platform flew a parabola and let the load go near the top of the arc. ‘Practising the delivery of nuclear ordnance?’

‘That’s what the colonel said. And while the Israelis were doing that, it was the Reapers’ job to come at them, mimicking the sort of tactics an opposing force might use.’

‘Was he specific about what kind of opposing force?’ I asked.

‘Block said his squadron was flying intercept profiles that might be used by F-14s.’

I was mildly stunned. F-14s. There were only two places in the world where F-14s still flew. In re-runs of
Top Gun
. And in Iran.

‘O
kay,’ I began as we headed back to the peach fortress on the hill, ‘this is what we know . . . After making like an Iranian fighter-interceptor against the Israelis, Portman gives up his flying status to concentrate on the shit going down at Kumayt. Then Yafa and her eunuchs come along and kill him in such a way that the police believe he’s the victim of a serial killer, a theory reinforced by subsequent murders. Portman’s gruesome death turns out to be merely the cover for the murderers’ real intentions – securing the only report they believe to be in existence on the HEX-contaminated water at Kumayt.

‘The explosives used to blow Portman’s safe, as well as the car bomb that later kills Doc Merkit and Emir, turn out to have come from Israel, from artillery shells supposedly fired off in the September War. And this brings us to Jarred, who happens to be a former IDF artillery captain working for Tawal, the guy who’s poisoning the water at Kumayt with US nuclear material. Why? Because he needs an excuse to build a vast desalination plant on the Iranian border that will be used as a secret military base. Have I missed anything?’

‘The US connection – the HEX. We’re up to our necks in this somehow,’ Masters said as we went through the front security check.

I agreed. Plus, there was the mole; the tampering with Portman’s email; the general obfuscation, the leaking of confidential information.

The local women in their headscarves and body stockings smiled at us from behind the bomb-proof glass like we were old friends. Masters smiled back for the both of us. After passing through the x-ray machine, we walked in silence to the elevator. We’d just missed it. Masters pressed the button and leaned against the wall.

‘I’ve been thinking about who we can check that HEX tank’s serial number with,’ she said.

‘Any ideas?’

‘Well, the Department of Energy runs all nuclear storage facilities. When I was asking around about the Iraq DU dumps I developed a pretty good rapport with a woman in the DoE’s middle management. She was high enough to have reasonable access, low enough to pass under the radar, and jaded enough to want to help.’

‘Okay, see what she can do with it.’

‘I’ve also been thinking about something Doctor Bartholomew told us. That Portman said he felt personally responsible for the children affected by the contamination at Kumayt. Why would he say that – that he felt
personally
responsible?’

‘You think we’ve missed something?’ I asked.

‘Maybe nothing important . . . Portman stumbles across the hospital at Kumayt and he gets involved. He gets drawn into the tender process and doesn’t like what he sees going on. Maybe he plays a few hunches and comes up with some frightening information that leads to even more frightening conclusions. And when he learned what his squadron was up to, he wanted no part in it. Portman had the full picture. I wonder what he was going to do with what he knew.’

The elevator arrived.

‘If Portman blew the whistle on the shit going down in Kumayt, what would that do to the governments in Israel and the US?’ I wondered. ‘It’s our HEX and Israel is our ally. Once the scandal hits the media, both administrations are going to be in for a rough ride. What would Jerusalem and Washington do to protect themselves?’

They’d do plenty. And what instrument would they use for that protection? The Israelis would call on Mossad. Washington would use the CIA. Masters and I looked at each other, arriving at the same place at the same time:
Stringer
.

The elevator stopped and the doors opened. The coast was clear. We hurried to our office. I opened the door and –

‘Ah, just the people I was hoping to bump into.’ It was Harvey Stringer, seated behind my desk. ‘In fact, I’ve been trying to do that with you in particular, Cooper, for some time. But you’re elusive, aren’t you?’

‘I didn’t realise,’ I said.

‘No, I’m sure.’ Stringer tapped his fingers together and stared at us like he was considering his next move.

Goddard and Mallet were loitering around Masters’ desk. I noticed they’d switched to wearing suits now that their cover was blown, the cheap variety that give out electric shocks on warm, dry days. I had the impression we’d caught them all in the act of a little invasion of privacy.

‘In my office in an hour and a half. Both of you,’ Stringer demanded. The desk seemed a lot smaller with the big man behind it. He stood up and performed that big person’s trick of appearing weightless as he swung out from behind it and made the door in two giant steps. Without turning, he bellowed, ‘Be on time.’

Mallet and Goddard followed their boss at a respectful distance.

‘Flotsam before jetsam,’ I called out as they reached the door, which caused them to pause.

‘Cooper, admitting you’re an asshole is the first step in the program,’ said Goddard with a smile.

‘Doesn’t seem to have worked for you, or your throwback buddy. And did you happen to find what you were hunting around for back there? A few good ideas, maybe?’

Mallet shook his head. ‘Aside from your partner’s spectacular ass and her exhibitionist tendencies, you two got nothing.’

‘Catch you in your next X-rated performance, honey,’ Goddard said to Masters as he walked out, looking smug, Mallet in tow behind him looking smugger.

Masters headed back to her desk, steamed up. ‘Do men always compete with each other to see who can be the biggest shithead?’

Yeah, often. Redirecting her energies, I wrote on a pad and passed it to her:
Agree we might have missed something important on Portman. Need to go back through the case notes
.

She gave a nod.

I went to the filing cabinet, unlocked it, pulled the files and laid them on her desk. We re-read the translations of Iyaz and Karli’s notes, neighbours’ eyewitness accounts, the scene-of-crime report, the initial report on Portman’s remains from forensics, the lists of evidence collected, my own notes on the Thurlstane Group and the interview with Bob Rivers, Portman’s phone and bank records, his will and insurance papers, the phone interview with Portman’s wife, his flight records, and a hell of a lot more besides. Nothing popped, for me or Masters. After nearly an hour she got up and took a glass of water from the cooler.

I had a problem. ‘There’s nothing new,’ I told Masters.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Aside from the Flight Records stuff, nothing new has been added to the case file.’ After a pause, I called Captain Cain. ‘Rodney, Vin.’

‘What’s up?’ he asked.

‘There are a few preliminary reports in Portman’s file. None of them have been updated with finals.’

‘Such as?’

I picked up the one at the top of the pile. ‘Such as the full, unabridged report from Istanbul homicide forensics.’

‘Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, got that one right here. Arrived the day before yesterday. Took longer because they had it translated. I didn’t know you were sweating it.’

‘Nothing else come in?’

‘A few of the neighbours have been re-interviewed . . . To be honest, I think Istanbul homicide have moved on. They’re expecting us to make the miracle breakthrough.’

I felt a twinge of guilt. Cain had just inadvertently reminded me that
I’d kept him well behind the play. But then I remembered the hint of suspicion and the guilt untwinged itself. ‘Can you fax up what you’ve got?’ I asked him.

‘Sure.’

I hung up and checked the watch. Half an hour till Stringer Time.

Cain sent the final forensic report through on the machine a minute later. It had swelled considerably, but I wasn’t expecting to see anything particularly new or surprising, just a lot more detail on what we already had. I started flipping pages. Yep – the missing bones, the number of pieces he was cut into, the damage done to the back of his larynx by the chloroform . . . There was half a rainforest of recorded tedium. Say a guy gets an axe buried up to its handle in his forehead, you’d think the forensic autopsy would stop somewhere above the neck, right? But no, when these guys are good, they’re thorough. They take tissue samples, hundreds of them, from all over the body. If the thickness of the report was any indication, Istanbul forensics was thorough.

‘Hey,’ said Masters. I glanced up. She pointed at the face of her wristwatch. In twenty-five minutes Stringer would start drumming his fat fingers on his desk, wondering where we were.

I speed-read the summaries. In an early operation, some surgeon had botched the posterior cruciate ligament in the knee joint of Portman’s left leg. No more skiing for him. There were no signs of arthritis in his fingers or toes. There was a low-grade case of haemorrhoids and a little diverticulitis. Tut-tut, not enough fibre in the diet. Portman’s renal function was poor. His lung function was excellent – well above average for a guy around fifty, and his liver function was normal. His –

Wait a minute. Poor renal function – why was that? Why weren’t Portman’s kidneys working? I flicked back to the appropriate section and read the pathologist’s more extensive overview. The word ‘necrotised’ got my full attention. ‘Shit,’ I said out loud.

‘What?’ Masters enquired.

‘You got Portman’s files there – his medical records?’ I asked.

Masters passed it across.

‘Turns out Portman was down to one kidney. The other one was
almost completely dead.’ I searched for the paragraph I knew should be in his last flight physical, but it wasn’t there. Somehow he’d fooled the system. ‘Jesus . . . I think I can tell you why Portman felt personally responsible for the situation down in Kumayt. Because, in Desert Storm, he flew Warthogs and buried a few tons of depleted uranium in Iraqi ass.’

‘You have to call his wife,’ said Masters.

‘Ex-wife,’ I corrected her.

‘She has a right to know,’ Masters replied, as she re-read the information rushed through from Andrews.

It had taken some fast talking, but the Flight Surgeon’s office had come through. The guy on the desk there pulling an all-nighter must have been bored. He’d faxed us the relevant page in Portman’s flight log within twenty minutes of our request.

‘You’re better at this stuff than I am,’ I said.

‘You’ve already spoken with her,’ Masters said, holding the handset out to me. ‘I’ve dialled the number. Take it . . .’

I took the phone. It was ringing, and then someone picked up.

‘Hello?’ said a familiar voice.

‘Mrs Portman?’

‘Yes . . . ? Who is it?’

‘Mrs Portman, I’m sorry about the hour,’ I said, glaring at Masters. ‘This is Special Agent Cooper.’

‘What time is it?’

‘It’s 7 am, ma’am.’ If I were her, I’d have hung up on me.

‘Your voice is familiar. I’ve spoken to you before, haven’t I?’

‘Yes, ma’am. Special Agent Vin Cooper. I’m with the OSI, investigating Emmet Portman’s death. You might not remember – you told me about your husband coming home and telling you he didn’t want children, that he wanted a divorce.’

‘I remember. You were rude to my sister . . .’

‘I was jus–’

‘Why are you calling? Do you know who killed him?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is that why you’re calling? To inform me?’

‘We don’t have the proof as yet, ma’am.’

‘So you’re not going to tell me who?’

‘I can tell you positively that he was not the victim of a serial killer, ma’am. We believe he was killed by an organisation that wanted it to look like a serial killing. Emmet Portman found something. The organisation wanted to stop him revealing it, and stopped in a way that would send any investigation chasing its tail. I can’t tell you too much more about it – not just now.’

There was silence while she took all this in.

‘Mrs Portman, your husband saw combat in Desert Storm. Did he tell you much about it?’

‘No. A little – not much. Why?’

‘He was one of the pilots who stopped the retreating Iraqi army on the highway to Basra. It was widely reported in the media at the time – it was called the Highway of Death.’

‘Yes, I saw the pictures. Horrible. I didn’t know he was involved.’

‘Did you know he was on the verge of complete renal failure?’

‘What?’

‘He was down to less than one kidney.’

‘No . . . no, I didn’t.’

‘Mrs Portman. Your husband was also sterile.’

‘Sterile? I don’t believe it.’

‘Believe it, ma’am. You should also know that your husband loved you very much,’ I said.

There was silence on the line.

‘Mrs Portman?’

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. And I don’t see that it’s really any of your business.’

She was right, it wasn’t. But Masters and I had come to know a few things about Colonel Emmet Portman. Maybe passing on some of that knowledge might help her down the line. ‘Ma’am, my investigating partner
and I believe your husband divorced you so that you could meet someone else. He wanted you to have children. He wanted children with you.’

‘I’m hanging up now . . . This is . . . I don’t believe you.’

‘Mrs Portman . . .’

She didn’t hang up.

‘Colonel Portman was flying A-10s,’ I said. ‘Tank-busters. The ammunition they use is called depleted uranium, or DU. Have you heard of it?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of it.’

‘When this ammunition burns, it turns into a uranium oxide aerosol. When inhaled, there’s a view amongst a number of medical experts that it can cause problems.’

‘What kind of problems?’

Masters handed me a page downloaded from the internet about some of the disorders being levelled at DU. A paragraph was highlighted, which I read out.
‘Kidney damage, cancers of the lungs and bones, respiratory disease, skin disorders, neurocognitive disorders, chromosomal damage, and birth defects.’

‘Oh my god . . .’

‘During the attack on the highway, the A-10s were pretty low and they shot off a lot of DU,’ I continued. ‘He could have breathed in a lot of uranium oxide.’

Silence.

‘Ma’am,’ I said, ‘the stuff he was breathing probably killed his kidneys, and sterility is another symptom. As I said, we believe your husband left you so that you could have healthy children with someone else.’