Chapter 33 #2
“As Rian told Philly, he’s been working on the inside to get evidence against his dad,” Leo said.
“Between Callie stopping by his office a few weeks ago and Philly reaching out to him—thanks for not telling us that, by the way—he’s hopeful a case can finally be made.
He wanted to get you the information he found—which isn’t a lot but is helpful—so that you could pass it along, maybe encourage the process. ”
“You contacted him?” Callie asked, not accusingly, but also not happy he’d kept it from the team.
Deciding offense was the best defense, he winked at her.
“I might have sent an email to check in on him. I also might have mentioned that an old friend was in town and that she worked for the FBI. At that point, I didn’t know you’d quit.
Oh, and since Paris is Rian’s favorite city, I mentioned that this friend of mine and I were thinking of visiting the city. ”
Leo chuckled. “Enough info for him to get the message while still sounding like chitchat. Nice.”
Callie stared, her dark eyes searching his face. Then she gave a little shake of her head. “What did he send?”
“A donation to the Falcons’ work helping people out of bad situations. It came in a greeting card that also had a link to a file drop site,” Leo answered. “He uploaded seven pictures—all bank statements—three email files, and summaries of a few conversations he overheard.”
“Anything useful?” Philly asked.
“The bank statements are interesting as they aren’t associated with the business and aren’t even in Aiden’s name, but when we traced them back, it does appear as if he controls them.
We’ll have to firm that connection up, but over the past three years, funds were wired from those accounts and into accounts associated with the wives of two Indian government officials, the son of a Chinese businesswoman, and two of our very own politicians.
We’re checking the payments against business with Nolan Enterprises. ”
“What about the other pieces of information?” Callie asked.
“The conversations were also interesting. Nothing damning on their own, but in the context of some of the other things we’re finding, it supports our theory about Aiden’s corrupt activities,” Leo answered.
“Surely Rian heard his father talking to a lot of people. What made him suspicious about those conversations?” she asked.
“We’ll send them to you to look through. They are cryptic enough to border on being cliché. I think it was more the weirdness of them than the substance that caught Rian’s attention,” Leo answered.
Callie bobbed her head.
“And the emails?” Philly asked.
“Those are the most interesting,” Sabina said.
“They are emails to Aiden from three separate government officials. One from Saudi, one from Italy, and one from the US. The US email is more subtle, but all of them allude to receipt of the payment, including one that came in a suitcase. There’s no reply from Aiden, but still, we confirmed Nolan won bids associated with those officials. ”
“What kind of deals?” Callie asked.
“In Saudi and Italy, they supplied clothes to high-end shops owned by relatives of the officials. The US one was for uniforms, although for bus drivers, not the military,” Leo answered.
“We’ve received authorization to look deeper into those procurement processes,” Sabina added.
“The house of cards is crumbling,” Philly muttered.
“But hopefully not completely,” Callie said. He glanced over. “As you pointed out, thousands of employees rely on Nolan Enterprises for their livelihoods, and it’s a minority percentage of their business that Aiden has poisoned. If we can carve out the cancer, that’s what we need to do.”
“And that’s what we’ll do,” Sabina said as Philly studied Callie. He’d never thought her cold-blooded, but it did funny things to him that she hadn’t lost sight of her humanity in the hunt for her prey.
He cleared his throat. “Any updates on the iPad data dump?”
Leo groaned; Sabina chuckled. “Your friend had shit security, but she didn’t need much. We’re still trying to decipher everything.”
“Any chance she used Tewa?” Callie asked, referring to the language Liza had used in the files she’d left.
“Oh, she did, but like a Spanglish or Hinglish version of it,” Leo said. “She’ll start a word in Tewa then end in English. Or start a sentence in English, then end it in Tewa. It would have taken us longer to figure it out if your earlier work on her files hadn’t pointed us toward the language.”
“Any highlights you can share?” Philly asked.
“Her informant was a woman,” Sabina said. “French—which isn’t a surprise—and young enough not to catch a pop culture reference Liza made.”
“Or maybe she didn’t catch it because they were from different cultures?” Philly suggested.
“It was a French reference she made,” Sabina responded.
“Right,” he conceded, reminding himself to never question Sabina. “If we assume she was an adult, but not old enough to get the reference, you must have an age range for her?”
“No older than twenty when the bomb went off,” Leo replied.
“And yes, we’re looking at the victims. It’s possible she set Liza up by claiming she’d meet her at the bar, then never showed. But it’s also possible that the Operation Nationalists knew she was an informant and either didn’t stop her or sent her there to die, too.”
The four of them pondered the possibilities for several seconds before Callie asked, “Is there anything more we can be doing? We have time. We can skip some of the activities.”
“No, you’re doing what needs to be done,” Sabina said with no room in her tone to argue. “Every drip of information you get from Joseph is helping. And building a relationship with him, not only Rian, will serve us better in the long run.”
“When the shit hits the fan, he’ll think we befriended him solely for information. That’s not likely to endear us to him,” Callie said, her opinion on the situation clear in her tone.
“Of course he’ll think that,” Sabina replied, not the least offended. “But unless you think he’s hiding his true self from you, his innate goodness and desire to be genuine will win out over any little butthurt he might feel. And Rian will be there to talk him around, too.”
Callie turned to him, mouthing “butthurt,” then stifled a laugh.
He grinned. “Right. So, on that note, we’re due to meet Joe at the cave bar before dinner. We’ll check in tomorrow?”
“We’ll have the data from the iPad sorted by then,” Leo said.
“Enjoy yourselves,” Sabina said. “And that king-size bed,” she added before hanging up.
Philly winced, then hazarded a glance at Callie.
“Is my boss playing matchmaker?” she asked, two deep lines etched between her eyes.
Philly lifted a shoulder. “She has a bit of a reputation for doing that.”
Callie’s gaze drifted toward the sliding doors. He held still, unsure what mood would take hold. She had every right to be annoyed, even uncomfortable.
After a beat, she cocked her head, then looked at him. “That’s weird, right? I’ve only ever worked at the FBI, never at a private company, let alone a family-run one.”
“Yeah,” he said on an exhale. “It’s a little weird. But the Warwicks are a little,” his voice trailed off as he sought the right word.
“Obsessive about family, and they perceive everyone who works at HICC as family?”
“Yeah, that. Once you’re in, they don’t really give you much choice, whether you want it or not.”
She stared out the sliding door again, and again, he waited. Finally, she sighed. “That’s a deeper question than I want to ponder right now. Right now, I want a prickly pear margarita.”