Chapter Forty-Three
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
I paced in between the Warden’s truck and Shooter’s, my head and neck throbbing from the car crash and from carrying Frank out of the swamp.
“Like I said, I could be wrong,” Cassie said.
In my head, I thought of Ethan Nolan’s words to me just hours earlier.
You really don’t know anything, do you?
I turned to Shooter. “What did you guys report in so far to HQ? Last twenty-four hours?”
“Just that we’d found the Nolan house, but no one was there,” Shooter said. “That Dad had died in December, and the son was in the wind.”
I looked east to the swamp, then back to Shooter.
“We need to call Marly,” I said. “There’s a question we haven’t followed up on.”
I urged Cassie to keep looking around and hung up. Phoned Quantico.
“Marly,” I said when she came on the line. “The information Ethan Nolan looked at when he accessed Banning’s personnel file in December. You go through it yet?”
“Haven’t had a moment,” she said.
“Can you?”
Marly pulled it up, and we waited. As we did, she explained that the system left a timestamp whenever an item was inspected.
“Huh,” Marly made a noise.
“What is it?” Shooter asked.
“There’s a letter here. Apparently, a Lieutenant Colonel Jack Nolan applied to the Bureau and used Banning as a reference.”
“The letter’s from Nolan?” I asked.
“No,” Marly said. “It’s from Banning. Nineteen eighty-three. An internal memo, suggesting the Bureau double-check Nolan’s psychological fitness.”
“Jesus,” Shooter said.
I was starting to get a bad feeling about this case.
“When was the director’s login used?” I asked, “To inspect that document?”
“At one twenty-one a.m.,” she said. “December eighteenth. It was Nolan Junior’s first login.”
This was early in the morning, just hours after Banning’s book event had ended.
I blinked. Something didn’t fit. Based on the video from the event, I’d assumed that if Nolan had gotten into any account, it would be Agent Yang’s.
“Can you access an agent’s case history for me?” I asked.
“If it’s relevant to the case,” Marly said.
“Agent Lisa Yang,” I said.
When I looked at Yang’s résumé, a pattern had bumped. She’d gone from Yale to Iowa. An odd move for a smart daughter of East Coast immigrants.
But the Iowa Writers’ Workshop was top 5 in the country.
This was probably the same detail that William Banning had noticed when she’d applied to work on his team in 2016.
“Tell me something, Marly,” I said. “How many files does the average agent check out per year?”
“Fourteen,” she said.
“And someone in the research group?”
“Maybe twice that.”
“How many files did Lisa Yang check out in the last four years?”
I waited, and Marly came back. “In the teens, most years,” she said. “But in June of twenty eighteen, Yang checked out thirty-three files.”
“All in one month?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What about Banning?”
“Director Banning?” Marly asked. “The director doesn’t do research, Gardner.”
“Can you look?”
I heard a few keys being punched. “Huh,” she said. “Between July first of twenty eighteen and April twentieth the following year,” she said, “Banning checked out a hundred and twenty-one files.”
I recalled Freddie’s comments about Agent Yang jumping in during the book talk. And Frank’s note about Banning knowing the cases cold, but not the way they were described in the book.
Yang had ghostwritten Banning’s biography.
That’s why her case activity was so high. She had done the research, back before Banning retired.
More than that, she’d done most of that research using Banning’s login. Which she still had.
When Nolan captured the keystrokes off the 360-degree fan video, he didn’t log in to Yang’s account. He logged in to Banning’s. He must’ve felt like he’d hit the lottery, seeing the note about his dad.
Or maybe he felt something else. Like rage.
I had gone silent, and Marly cleared her throat.
“What is it?” she asked.
I wondered if it was normal to travel with your ghostwriter.
“Lisa Yang,” I said. “On December seventeenth, she was traveling for the Bureau. Did she submit for reimbursement?”
Marly typed for a moment, then answered. “Yup. Flight and taxi.”
“What about lodging?” I asked. “In Houston.”
“None,” she said. “She stayed overnight, but—no—nothing for lodging.”
Yang and Banning, I thought.
What had Poulton’s advice been? Tread lightly. She’s highly decorated.
But I had seen no such decoration in her file.
I knew what had happened now. More than that, I knew what was about to happen next. I thanked Marly and got Poulton on the line.
“Where’s Banning?” I asked the deputy director.
“Houston,” he said. “The director figured your team would catch Nolan today, and he wanted to be close by. Make a big splash with the announcement.”
Or maybe control how much of the splash got on him.
“I got word about what happened with Frank,” Poulton said. “That will go a long way for you. But as far as I’m concerned, you’re off the clock still, Camden. Why are you calling me?”
“When’s the last time you checked in on Banning?”
“I don’t make a habit of babysitting the director.”
“He served with Nolan Senior in Vietnam,” I said.
“What?” Poulton’s voice spiked.
“They know each other.”
“I don’t believe for a second that—”
“Agent Lisa Yang has no Bureau-paid lodging in Houston on December seventeenth,” I went on. “The night of the bookstore event. Do you find that unusual?”
Poulton hesitated before answering.
“You might’ve saved an agent’s life today, but you’re skating on thin ice, Camden.”
He knew.
“Nolan was at that bookstore,” I said. “He watched Yang enter Banning’s password.”
“Bullshit.”
“Then he followed Yang and Banning back to the director’s room at the Lancaster Hotel,” I said. “After they went to bed together, he logged into Banning’s account. And you know what he read, Craig? Not a serial murder file. He read the director’s personnel file .”
“What?”
“The director blackballed Ethan Nolan’s dad with the Bureau. Three decades ago.”
Poulton had gone quiet. I knew how his brain worked. He was calculating how he could use this.
“Take me off speaker,” he said.
I did this, holding the phone to my ear.
“That mess you made in the Jacksonville office, Camden… most people, that’s the end of their career.”
“But not me, huh?” I said. “I’m lucky?”
“You’re more persistent than I imagined. I see your value now.”
Poulton was scheming. Deciding how he’d use this information against Banning. The affair, which he probably already suspected, he now had proof of. Plus the connection between the director and our suspect. Maybe he could push Banning into an early retirement.
“If you’re trying to put an ace in your pocket, Craig, I don’t think you’ll have much time to play it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Why do you think I was asking if you’d checked in on Banning? If I’m right, the director is long gone.”
“Wait a damn second, Camden,” he said, putting me on hold.
As I waited, I thought of “The Paddock and the Mouse.” About the difference between being virtuous and acting virtuous.
That clue was never about the FBI.
It was about William Banning.
Poulton came back on the line. “The director took off two hours ago,” he said. “Left his cell phone, badge, and key card, but took his weapon.”
Banning knew where Nolan was.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Poulton said. “Is this kid gonna expose Banning as a fraud?”
The head of the FBI lying about writing a book was one thing. But being the trigger for a madman going on a rampage? The bloody pictures that had been pushed into the public eye during the case had both horrified and captivated the media. And all the while, the director would look like he was too busy to care, sleeping with a subordinate.
Then there was that ad campaign. I recalled Banning’s lines from it: “The world’s brightest in behavioral sciences work at the FBI. People like me.”
The media would pull clips from that campaign and eat the director alive. And Banning knew it. Knew he’d be portrayed as incompetent.
“Politics aren’t Nolan’s concern,” I said. “He wants revenge. He’s going to find Banning and kill him.”
“And Banning?” Poulton asked.
I contemplated a showdown between Banning and Nolan Junior. An aging bureaucrat versus a twenty-six-year-old on a property that Nolan knew well. Had hunted on. Had maybe even been hunted on himself.
“Banning wants the same thing Nolan does,” I said.
“And wherever they’re meeting… you think you can get there first?”
“I can try,” I said.
And suddenly Poulton surprised me.
“Well, maybe you get there a little late, but still take down Nolan.”
I blinked. “Late?”
“Then when I’m in charge, you can call your own shots. Set up your own shop.”
I hesitated, unsure of what to say.
Could I save PAR?
“Jesus, for once in your life, Camden, read between the lines. Think like the rest of us.”
Before I could ask a question, the phone went dead. Poulton had hung up.