Page 98 of Dead Fall

After signing the check, he took a final sip of cognac and pushed himself away from the table. It had been a busy day. Juggling the Paulsens, the Russians, and the FBI was a bit like juggling chain saws, but as long as he paid attention, he was confident he was going to get out of this with his hands, fingers, feet, and toes intact.

The key to successfully walking away was not to prolong it. The people who got addicted—whether it was to the money, the proximity to power, or the excitement of it all—were the ones who ended up getting hurt.

Beyond the pain of a sunburn or the occasional hangover from too much rum, Greg Wilson had no intention of getting hurt. In his mind, he was already packing his bags. There was no one who’d be able to stop him.

CHAPTER 28

Joe Carolan was standing in the FBI’s underground garage. “Do me a favor,” he said to the technician. “Check it again.”

“What if there’s no tracking device on your car?” Fields asked as he came back over to join her.

“There’s a tracking device. Believe me.”

“How do you know that your phone isn’t hacked?”

“Because I already had it checked,” the senior FBI agent replied. “And based on Carolan’s razor, a tracker is the most likely answer.”

“You mean Occam’s razor. The simplest answer is usually the best answer.”

“No, I do in fact mean Carolan’s razor, which holds that the Russians, though never to be underestimated, are usually lazy and therefore strive to achieve their objectives by the easiest means possible.”

Fields laughed. “You named a razor after yourself?”

“You go as long in the game as I have, grapple with as many Russians, I believe you earn that right. But you can take it or leave it.”

“In other words,” she replied, “it’s a disposable razor.”

The FBI man rolled his eyes and tried to get them to focus. “Let’s replay what we learned from Mike Taylor, our conspiracy blogger and photographer. He’s never met his ‘Florida’ employer. All his communications are via a messaging app. He was dispatched to the crime scene outside Burman’s apartment and told to get as many photographs as possible. He was additionally told to keep an eye peeled for anyone who looked like federal law enforcement, specifically FBI. Whoever sent himassumed that the Bureau would be responding. That person wanted our photographs. They wanted to know who was working this case.

“And there I was, trying to spot Russians in the smattering of bystanders. Why get your own guys out of bed, why risk them being spotted, when you can just send a photographer? It’s like the old joke about the dog that was so lazy, he didn’t chase cars, he simply sat on the curb and wrote down license plate numbers.”

Fields smiled. “Okay, but you haven’t gamed this all the way out.”

“What am I missing?”

“You originally thought that our conspiracy kid might be tailing the detective from D.C. Metro and, if so, that he had a source inside the PD. But when we interrogated him at his apartment, he told us that wasn’t the case. He said he’d been told that you were headed toward the yacht club and he should get over there to take pictures.”

“Exactly. That’s how I know he’s got a tracking device somewhere on my car.”

“As far as Taylor told us, he was only at Burman’s taking pictures. He didn’t mess with anyone’s car. He violated the restraining order at his ex-fiancée’s place and then went home and uploaded his photos to a Dropbox page set up by his employer. If there’s a tracking device on your vehicle, who put it there?”

It was a totally reasonable question and one that Carolan had been trying to figure out.

“I reviewed the CCTV footage from Burman’s building, but based on where I parked, you couldn’t see my vehicle. I couldn’t see yours, either.”

“You think my vehicle has a tracker on it, too?” Fields asked.

“Think about it. Just because you were the first FBI agent to show up doesn’t mean there were going to be more. If we suspend Carolan’s razor for a moment, maybe the Russians weren’t that lazy. Maybe they had Taylor there taking pictures while somebody else had the job of placing devices.”

“Right under the noses of all those cops?”

Carolan laughed. “How many cops do you know who even lock their cars when they pull up to a scene?”

“None.”

“Exactly. You’d have to be insane to mess with a cop car; at least, that’s what most people would think. With everyone focused on Burman’s body and looking for evidence, no one was focused on the cars. Especially not those belonging to two FBI agents.”

“Fair point,” said Fields. “If they wanted to access either of our vehicles, they’d have to do it somewhere out on the street.”

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