Lies

LIES

People lied. Helen Sykes knew that from years of experience. And she counted on it. If people didn’t lie, she would be out of business. The CIA would be out of business. Every time an informant told them something, the informant got that thing by lying to someone else. Unless, of course, they were lying to the CIA and telling the truth to the other party. Or lying to both (which was probably the most common). At this moment she was wondering about the truth of the story being told by the man sitting in her office. The fact that he was a member of her own team didn’t change anything. That might have given him the benefit of the doubt except for the fact that he was right now telling her that he had lied to her before.

“That’s not what you said yesterday,” she said. “Yesterday you said exactly the opposite.” As usual, there was nothing on her desk, nothing extraneous to devote her attention to.

“Not exactly the opposite,” Rafe said.

“You said there was nothing special to link Sterling Wealth Management to Homeboy’s trades. That lots of firms used the same shady brokerage and the same shady bank. That any of those other firms could be handling Homeboy’s business.”

“It was a ‘down-low superhighway,’ you said.” This came from Frank. “We were back to square one, you said. We were nowhere, you said.” Frank was sitting in his usual chair along the wall. The chair Rafe had was more comfortable, but it didn’t feel more comfortable.

“I’ve had another talk with Mister Hassan,” Rafe said.

“Your friend Majid,” Frank said. He turned to Sykes. “They both went to Harvard. Has he mentioned that?”

“One question before we go any further,” Sykes said, still looking only at Rafe.

He waited.

“What was in the suitcase?” she said.

Oh shit, Rafe thought. He knew he looked surprised. He hoped it looked like the surprise of someone who found the question surprising because it made no sense, not someone who found the question surprising because it did.

“What suitcase?”

Frank smiled. “The one you carried into your friend Majid’s office. The one you left there when you took off on your boy’s adventure chasing Detective Okoro.”

“Your people saw that?” Rafe said, realizing.

“So did Okoro. He’s a detective. He wonders about anybody carrying bags into the office of a money launderer.”

“I thought you brushed him off.”

“Well, not without a little conversation first,” Frank said. “That would have been rude.”

“Okoro’s a crook,” Rafe said. “Mister Hassan told me. Okoro tried to shake him down for a share of the profits from the Sahel Hydrocarbon disaster.”