At seven a.m. Monday morning, Luna Faye and Elaine Brogan
left the farmhouse in Luna’s SUV, heading for Lyon. Kathy was still home with
Nick and Tony, with both men keeping an eye on her.
Elaine and Luna spent most of the three-hour drive planning
their pitch. Their appointment with Director Valdez was at 11:45—he grudgingly
agreed to give them fifteen minutes between two other appointments. Valdez was
the Service’s new Director of European Operations, the man who had replaced Raj
Malik.
Luna reported directly to him.
Traffic on the A7 motorway was heavier than expected in
spots, and it was already 11:25 by the time they reached the center of Lyon. Luna
was driving aggressively now, passing vehicles at every opportunity, afraid
they would be late for the meeting.
During the last few minutes, Elaine had grown quite tense.
It wasn’t just because she was afraid they would be late for their appointment.
She was bothered by the fact that the “informant” who had given them the
financial information on Spyro’s holding companies was her own mother. This was
clearly a conflict of interest on Elaine’s part and a blatant violation of
Secret Service guidelines.
As Luna veered the SUV off the motorway and onto the
Autoroute du Soleil, which ran alongside the
Rhône River and led to Interpol Headquarters, Elaine decided she
needed to give Luna an out.
“If you don’t want to take the risk and get involved in
this, I don’t blame you. I can meet with Valdez by myself.”
“Don’t worry about it, baby-doll. I’m cool with it.”
“But what happens when Valdez finds out she’s actually my
mother? He
will find out, sooner or later, Luna. You know he will.”
Luna chuckled. “You’ll get taken off the case and have your
wrist slapped.”
“What are they gonna do, fire me?”
“Yes, probably, if they find out you knew she was my
mother.”
Luna shrugged. “You worry too much, baby-doll. If Spyro
Leandrou is as crooked as we think he is, nobody will give a rat’s ass how he
appeared on our radar screen. If he’s into drugs or arms trafficking, like we
think he is, he’ll be a big score for Valdez, his first major collar in his
lofty new position as Director of European Operations. He’s just getting his
feet on the ground, and he needs a high profile bust under his belt. Besides,
the FBI and IRS are already onto Leandrou, they don’t have any hard evidence
yet.” Luna glanced at Elaine. “Be more confident, Elaine. After taking Raj
down, you and I have some real clout—we be bad-asses now, girl.”
Elaine laughed, but she wasn’t so sure.
Whenever Elaine visited Interpol Headquarters, where the
Secret Service’s European Operations team was housed, she felt small.
Situated on a narrow strip of land between the Rhône River
and a man-made lake in the Parc de la Tête D’Or, at first glance, the huge
building might have been the corporate headquarters of some incredibly dull
international conglomerate. The massive structure was arranged in a hollow
square, with four sprawling wings surrounding a central courtyard, roofed by a
glass pyramid six stories off the ground. Only the coiled razor wire that
topped the green fence that circled the perimeter, and the heavily-armed
gendarmes in camouflaged fatigues stationed around, tipped you off that this
was nobody’s corporate headquarters.
Over six hundred people worked inside the complex. This
included the relatively small United States Secret Service staff as well as law
enforcement officials from fifty-four other nations. In addition, one hundred
and twenty police officers on temporary assignment from Interpol member
countries also had offices there.
Inside the main door was a swath of two-inch thick
bulletproof glass emblazoned with the Interpol logo that protected the staff
from attack. As would be expected, security was super-tight. Since Elaine’s
official workplace was in Marseilles, she did not have an ID that gave her
access to any part of the building.
After sliding her passport and Secret Service ID into a
drawer that opened in front of her, she had to empty the contents of her bag
and purse onto an X-ray conveyer, then step into a full body scanner.
“Sorry about that,” Luna muttered, when Elaine finally
emerged on the other side. As she pieced her belongings back together, she was
handed her temporary ID by a formal French receptionist who told Luna that she
had to “remain with ze visitor at all times.”
They walked down a long hallway and into the light-filled
atrium in the center of the building, which was lush with palms, ferns, and
ivy. The elevator was inside a glass cylinder. After Luna inserted her ID into
the reader inside, they took it up to the fifth floor where the Secret Service
offices were located. In total, Luna had to use her keycard three times just to
get from the lobby to her office.
As Elaine followed Luna through the maze of cubicles that
was allocated to the U.S. Secret Service staff, Elaine felt self-conscious, and
a little awkward. She and Luna may have been “bad-asses” now, as Luna said, but
they were also distrusted, Elaine felt, by the rest of the staff, and to some
extent, feared. Nobody liked whistleblowers no matter how heinous the crimes
that their colleague(s) had committed. Most of the current agents were new to
the Lyon office, as the staff had been shuffled as an extra security measure to
cut any ties they might have had with Raj.
Martin Valdez had one of the larger, coveted corner
offices, with a splendid view of the wide, green Rhône.
To Elaine’s relief, they were three minutes early for their
meeting, and his administrative assistant immediately buzzed him on the
intercom.
The director rose from his desk to greet them and shake
hands.
“Agent Faye,” Valdez said cordially, as they entered. He
turned to Elaine and quipped, “And what do you know? Agent Elaine Brogan, the
Queen of Counterfeits!”
Elaine laughed. “I’m not sure if I like that title.”
Martin Valdez was as straight as they came. After the
scandal with Raj Malik, the Service took no chances with his replacement. A
devout Catholic and family man, Valdez was almost a poster boy for Hispanic
professionals at the Service. He was shoved into the limelight at every
opportunity by the PR department to show how “diverse” the organization was
now, and how high minorities could rise within its ranks.
But Valdez would have risen quickly with or without the PR
department’s help. Graduating at the top of his class from Stanford Law School,
he not only had a sharp, incisive mind, but the rare ability to make people
feel immediately at ease around him, as if he was on your side and completely
understood your point of view.
Elaine liked him. She had only met him a couple of times,
but she felt no distrust coming from him. In fact, he seemed to be grateful for
the opening in the organization that she and Luna had created by eliminating
his corrupt predecessor. Rumor was that Valdez had long-term political ambitions.
He was dressed in a perfectly fitting gray suit with a dark
red tie. Elaine was glad she and Luna both looked their best—she was wearing a
navy business suit and flats, and Luna was dressed in a maroon pantsuit that
was as intimidating as it was flattering.
As they sat down in the chairs opposite his desk, Elaine
saw the top page of the file on Spyro Leandrou open in front of him—they had
emailed it to him and he had apparently printed it out.
He motioned to the file. “Why don’t you walk me through this,
Agent Faye. To be honest, I really didn’t have time to get into it...”
“No problem, sir.” Luna rose and stood beside him.
She began going through the printout, page by
page, explaining all the shell companies, and how she thought Leandrou was involved
in money laundering and possibly some large scale and very serious illegal
activity.
When she finished, she sat down beside Elaine.
Valdez leaned back in his chair, thinking, gazing at the
printouts. “From what I can gather, Leandrou is a respectable citizen in good
standing with the community, at least in Pittsburgh, pays all his taxes,
donates a lot of money to charities, and neither the FBI and IRS have been able
to find a damn thing on him.”
“That’s certainly true, sir,” Luna said, “but both agencies
want him investigated.”
Valdez laughed. “Of course they do.”
“They want us to stick
our necks out to get the dirt
on him, if there is any, and then they’ll rush in and take the credit when they
collar him.
At the press conference,
they’ll be at the podium, with us standing along the back wall.”
“But we do have more leeway to investigate abroad, sir. And
we don’t really have to involve them, do we?”
Valdez glanced at his watch, sighed, and looked back at the
printout. It was obvious he did not like the idea of going after Spyro
Leandrou, but on the other hand, it was also obvious that he was tempted. Luna
was right—a high profile bust would be a nice feather in his cap at this
juncture. But was it worth risking a harassment lawsuit from Leandrou?
Frowning, Valdez turned to the very last page of the
printout. It was a photocopy of the Panacea business card. “What the hell is
this, anyway? You didn’t explain it in the text.”
“That’s because we honestly don’t know what it is, sir.”
As Valdez opened his mouth to say something else, Elaine
pulled the actual card from her pocket and slid it across the desk to him.
He picked it up and inspected it closely. “Just looks like
an ordinary business card to me,” Valdez said. He flipped it over, glanced at
the blank back side, and flipped back to the front, then ran his thumb across
the silky surface. “But a damn fancy one. Looks like they cost about ten bucks
each.”
Elaine and Luna exchanged a glance—it was exactly what Nick
had said.
Valdez didn’t notice, and he looked at Elaine. “What about
an RFID chip?”
Elaine shook her head. “We checked.”
The director shrugged. “Then who knows? Maybe somebody gave
it to Leandrou. It could be anything. It might just be a massage parlor in
Athens.”
“Our source told us there was a whole box of them in his
home safe.”
Valdez raised an eyebrow. “Your source...”
Luna glanced uneasily at Elaine. Her back was rigid as
steel now, but she masked her anxiety.
“Yes, sir. Spyro
Leandrou’s wife. That was in the cover email we sent.”
“I saw that.” Valdez looked from one face to another. “What
I want to know is, why exactly did Leandrou’s wife come to you? Why not the
Greek police, if that’s her and Leandrou’s main residence?” Valdez frowned. “I
don’t understand—how did she even find you two?”
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