The Darkness Gathers (22 page)

“This is the last time I’m doing this. It’s fucking freezing out here,” said Craig on the other end of the line. She could hear the street noise behind him.

“I know, I know. What’s up?”

He paused. “I think it’s big. But I’ll just give you the facts; you make the connections. The first thing is that Nathan Quinn is supposedly a power player on the Council.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, ostensibly, it’s an organization of world leaders in government, business, science, the media, what have you. They get together to talk about global issues. It’s
supposedly
this kind of benevolent forum for great minds to discuss and decide the pressing issues of the world.”

“But …?”

“There
are
some conspiracy theorists who believe that these men control the fate of the free world, that they are the Establishment with a capital
E
. That all the governments of the world are their pawns, and that the decisions that are reached during their very secret meetings affect global policy—everything from who goes to war with whom, who imports or exports what, which economies collapse or flourish.”

A blossom of dread opened in her stomach as Marianna’s words come back to her in a flood: “There are men who run the world … devils with ravenous appetites.… When you play that DVD, you’ll see them as they truly are.”

“Oh God,” she said.

“When I hacked into the CIA database, because, you know, they have files on all those guys—I mean, a source I have told me that all of Quinn’s CIA files are sealed. They are megaclassified, like basically only the president will ever have access to anything in there. And maybe not even him.”

She’d heard about organizations like the Council, sort of in the periphery of her consciousness, but she’d never really given much thought to the idea of a secret society of powerful men controlling the world. She had always been too busy with real and immediate demons, those brandishing weapons or living in her head. But it did make a sick kind of sense, and she felt her stomach lurch. She thought about how she and Jeffrey had been followed, how their bags had been searched. She thought about how Detective Ignacio felt that he was being watched and how he had been “asked” to stop his queries into Nathan Quinn’s business dealings. How Valentina and Marianna had been murdered before her eyes. A darkness gathered over the events, casting them in a shadow of malice. If all the separate elements of the case were really the machinations of one entity, then they might be wrestling a giant, and she wondered for the first time if they had a chance in hell of coming out on top. And whether Tatiana would be crushed in the struggle.

She sighed heavily into the phone.

“There’s more,” said Craig after giving her a moment to digest the information.

“Okay,” she said, snapping back. “What else … what did you find out about Jenna Quinn?”

“Nathan and Jenna Quinn were married at the end of 1997. Her last name at the time was Mladic.”

“As in Radovan Mladic?” asked Lydia, remembering the name of the mob boss who Craig said owned American Equities.

“The same; she was married to him. In fact, she was and still is the co-owner of American Equities.”

“The company still exists?”

“It still exists in Albania, but I have no idea what it does. Nobody seems to, not the International Business Network for World e-Commerce and Industry or the International Trade Commission. It’s listed in the IBN as an importing/exporting company. But there is no information regarding the product. It’s almost like they’re hiding in plain sight.”

“Is there an address or phone number in Albania?”

“Yeah. But no Web site. Do you have a pen?”

She pulled her giant leather day planner, worn and overstuffed with receipts, notes, and addresses, from her bag and a yellow Post-it fluttered to the floor of the Jeep like a butterfly.

“Go ahead,” she said, prepared to write the information down.

“What about Nathan Quinn? Does he hold an interest in the company?” she asked after he had given her the information.

“If he does, it’s not on his books. The next time you see Nathan Quinn, you should tell him that Quinn Enterprises needs some work on their fire wall. And that their CFO’s password is
IQUIT
.”

“What about her assets?”

“Well, Jenna
Quinn
doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. She and Tatiana are both U.S. citizens, which, if you know anything about immigration, takes years and years for most people, even if they’re married to an American. But in the Quinns’ case, the sea of red tape seems to have parted. Must be one of the perks of being a member of the Council. They were both citizens by the end of 1998. Jenna Quinn doesn’t even have a credit rating. Jenna
Mladic
, on the other hand …” He paused dramatically.

“What?”

“I don’t have figures—it’s hard to get that information from other countries without accounts and passwords, even for me. But she has accounts at a bank in Albania and, so far, one other in the Cayman Islands. Active accounts, with regular deposits and withdrawals. That much I know.”

She remembered what Detective Ignacio had said about seeing where the money led them, and she wondered if he had followed it this far or further. And what—or whom—he had found at the end of the trail that had frightened him.

“I didn’t think they had banks in Albania after the crash.”

“Well, it’s what international bankers like to call an ‘emerging’ market.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that other foreign companies or governments will establish banks in struggling economies, ostensibly as a kind of foreign aid, to issue small business loans, grant credit to bolster a weak economy.”

“But it also allows them control over who gets the money and what kind of businesses emerge?”

“Exactly.”

“Sounds very ‘conspiracy theory,’ doesn’t it? Wealthy investors, members of the Council, like Quinn, pump money into a Third World economy, investing heavily in the most promising business ventures, and in a generation, if all goes well, you own the ruling class of that country. If things go badly, like they did in Albania, you just walk away.”

“It’s no shit. This stuff is in play every single day, and most people are fast asleep, dreaming about working hard and making it big someday, thinking they live in a democracy. But really there are these shadowy figures controlling the money—who gets the small business loan, who gets the VC money. It can be spooky if you think about it.”

“So do we know who established the bank?”

“Not yet.”

“Where are her deposits coming from?”

“I don’t know. All I know is that they come into the bank on the last Friday of every month. I do know that the bank is located in the same Albanian town as American Equities, a town called Vlorë.”

“Are they wire transfers, or is someone coming in and depositing physical money into the account?”

“No idea. If it was an American bank, I could hack in, no problem. At least as far as getting account activity. But these Eastern European banks are funky; some of them aren’t even on-line.… It’s amazing. I’ll keep trying, but I can’t promise you anything. Maybe if I can get some hot Albanian chick on the phone who digs me, I’ll get further,” he said, and she could hear a smile creeping into his voice.

“Work it, tiger,” she replied, charmed by his boyishness, as always, and for a second losing the heaviness that had settled in her heart and behind her eyes. “What about before Jenna married Mladic?”

“Don’t know. Again, they don’t keep the same kinds of records there as they do here. God bless America, the land of information technology. Otherwise, I’m a fish out of water.”

She watched Jeffrey walk across the parking lot toward the Jeep. He was tall, broad-shouldered, and powerful and had a confident stride. He was her hero in a black cotton T-shirt, faded blue button-fly Levi’s, and black motorcycle boots. Just looking at him sometimes infused her with confidence; with him on her team, she could face anything and win. She smiled, turning back to her conversation with Craig. “We’re sending something to you. Keep it safe. Don’t show anyone. Don’t even open the package.”

“No problem,” he said with a yawn. “That’s all I have for you, Lydia. And I’m fucking freezing, so I’m gonna go.”

“Good work. We’ll see you soon.”

“Lydia?”

“Yeah.”

“Be careful.”

“You bet.”

J
effrey always settled in at a stakeout better than Lydia. He seemed to sink into the driver’s seat, become one with the upholstery, his eyes opened only halfway but seeing everything. He was utterly calm, totally focused, perfectly still, and could stay that way for hours. Lydia fidgeted, scanning through radio stations, flipping through the pages of the Jeep Grand Cherokee driver’s manual. They had the windows cracked for some air, but the engine was turned off, which meant that the humidity was raising sweat on her forehead and the back of her neck. They didn’t speak. That was the other thing: Jeffrey didn’t believe in speaking during stakeouts. Conversation diffused focus, might be overheard, was a waste of energy that needed to be concentrated on watching. This was one of the ways in which Jeffrey and Lydia differed in their investigative talents. Jeffrey got off on gathering evidence, following clues and leads, trailing suspects. He liked the hard, the cold, the what you could see, the trail of evidence that led to an undeniable truth. Lydia knew that the truth might leave only a scent on the wind, a footprint in the sand; it was her gift to follow energy, to intuit the volumes spoken by the furtive gesture, the thing left unsaid.

But the energy in this case was confused, shooting at her from a thousand different directions, its source unclear. She sensed multiple agendas from everyone—Nathan and Jenna Quinn, Special Agents Negron and Bentley. Marianna was high; how much of what she’d said was reliable? Lydia believed that Valentina might have told the truth if she’d had a chance. Lydia looked at the road. They were parked just feet from where Valentina’s life had ended. She thought in the glimmer of sunrise that she could see the stain of her blood on the asphalt, but maybe it was just the shadows of the trees.

She mimicked Jeffrey, leaning back against the headrest, folding her arms across her chest. She measured her breathing and focused on the front door of the Fitore home.

She felt the now-familiar nausea creep back up on her, and felt a finger of pain poke her abdomen.

She was about to break Jeffrey’s rule of speaking during the stakeout when he sat up suddenly. The garage door opened a second later, and the Boxster roared out, followed by a white Mercedes. The Mercedes turned left and rolled past them, and as it did, Lydia saw Jenna Quinn at the wheel. “Well, well,” said Lydia.

“Which one should we follow?” asked Jeff.

“The Boxster, definitely.”

They trailed behind about a hundred feet, letting a black Toyota with a Garfield suctioned to the rear windshield and a red Geo with vanity plates that read
KISS ME
pass in front of them. The Boxster moved slowly, obeying the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit on the quiet residential street, then sped up as he turned onto Sunrise Boulevard. Though the sun had just debuted over the horizon, there were plenty of cars making their way onto I-95 South, enough so they didn’t stand out as they followed Sasa up the ramp. It was still dark enough that most cars had on their headlights, which gave them a bit of an advantage. But a glance in the rearview mirror was all it took for Jeffrey to realize that they were not alone. A bright yellow Ryder truck trailed four cars back, the same one he had seen parked on Sasa’s block.

They headed south on the highway under high concrete overpasses that twisted around one another and reminded Lydia of the skyways on
The Jetsons
, that sort of fifties vision of what the future might look like. As they drove, the affluent suburbs and brightly colored minimalls featuring Chi-Chi’s and Big K’s fell away, replaced by flat gray buildings and small run-down houses. Sasa exited the highway, and they followed. Jeffrey looked in the rearview mirror and no longer saw the Ryder truck behind them. But somehow, that didn’t make him feel any better; he was on edge as they drove through what looked to be the worst neighborhood in Miami. They passed burned-out buildings with darkened figures hovering in doorways; a thin prostitute preened and strutted on a corner, her red hair matted and filthy, the lines on her arms barely concealed by a tattered black shirt, her smile forced and desperate. Lydia tried to keep the pity off her face as they drove past her. A young pregnant woman in blue overalls walked slowly down the street, wheeling a shopping cart and smoking a cigarette. Most of the shops and restaurants were gated, not open yet, except for a coffee shop and a newspaper stand. Lydia noted that the liquor store was also open for business. They moved deeper into the neighborhood, trying to stay as far back as possible without losing Sasa. When he finally slowed and parked the car in front of what looked to be an abandoned building on a deserted block, they slowed and pulled over before turning the corner. Lydia removed her gun from her bag, shoved the bag in the backseat and the gun at her waist. If she had learned anything over the last few days, it was to keep the gun where she could reach it in a hurry. She flashed for a moment on the last time she had fired her Glock; she could still smell the smoke and see the madman’s eyes, hear him struggle to breathe with a broken nose and the Glock in his mouth. She shuddered inside, as if someone had walked over her grave.

They got out of the Jeep, and Lydia looked at it as though they might never see it again, though there was no sign of life on the street, and the only sound was that of the cars speeding down the highway off in the distance.

“Stay close and no hotdogging,” warned Jeffrey.

“ ‘Hotdogging’?” said Lydia with a glare. “I really resent that you—”

He lifted a finger to his mouth, a gesture that Lydia found unspeakably annoying and condescending. But she held her tongue, inwardly vowing to make him pay later. She wore tight black jeans and a loose black Ralph Lauren motocross shirt over the gun at her waist. The metal was hard and cold, the muzzle poking her uncomfortably in the belly, but it felt good to be reminded it was there. Her well-loved Calvin Klein motorcycle ankle boots were made of soft black leather and had tough, flexible soles, good for fighting—and running, if it came to that.