32. Carter
Carter
“Carter, come on,” Silvia said, frustration creeping into her voice. “Every minute that goes by… Let’s prioritize finding Alice, and then we can start to sort out the rest of this mess.”
She was right. Whatever the bigger picture here, the immediate priority was Alice.
“I’m gonna need my phone,” Carter said. If Alice was still wearing the tracker ring…
Schneider stepped back from the table, straightening. “Ah, your phone…”
“You guys have tried to hack into it, haven’t you?”
“Seems to have triggered some mechanism that’s wiped the whole goddamn contents.”
“Bring it to me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
Schneider screwed up his face. “Yeah, I don’t think your phone’s gonna be any help.”
“That phone is the best chance we have of finding her.”
“You know, Mr. Beck,” Schneider said, leaning against the gray wall and crossing his arms. “I’ve spent my career assessing when people are hiding something from me, and you’re hiding something from me. And I don’t like it when people hide things from me.”
“Funny, I was just thinking the same about you.”
Schneider’s expression shut down. For a guy who did a lot of prodding, he sure didn’t like to be on the receiving end.
“The phone?” Carter said.
“You can have your phone once we have the evidence.”
“Oh, so this is blackmail now?”
“Ben, can we discuss this outside?” Silvia said tightly.
Schneider advanced on Carter, jabbing his pointer finger at him. “Mr. Beck, I want to find her as much as you do.”
“You know, I’m beginning to think that’s not completely true,” Carter said, testing him. Sure enough, his face colored. A guy of his rank shouldn’t be so easily rattled.
Someone knocked on the door and opened it. “Here’s the evidence you wanted brought up,” a woman said, and passed a paper bag to Silvia. “Plus, gloves to handle it with.”
“You requested it?” Schneider said to Silvia. “It was obviously a stalling tactic. Take them back,” he said to the woman.
“No, leave them,” Silvia said. She nodded at the woman, who, after a moment’s hesitation, closed the door and left. “I’m interested in seeing where this goes. Carter obviously knows something we don’t.”
“He’s bluffing.”
“And if that’s true, we’ll know for sure in about a minute.
Besides, the physical evidence in this case consists of a single pair of boots,” Silvia said, pulling the stilettos out.
They were in their own plastic bag. “I didn’t see any harm in taking a look—considering that he was right about the video of the previous interviews having disappeared. ”
“Is that right?” Schneider said.
“I checked. No record of them. What did you want to look at, Mr. Beck?”
“We’ll need to remove them from the bag,” Carter said.
“And contaminate a crucial piece of evidence in a federal murder inquiry?” Schneider said.
“If you’re concerned, why don’t you remove them from the bag yourself?” Silvia held out the gloves, which Schneider snapped on without removing his gaze from hers.
“What am I looking for?” he said impatiently, sliding them out of the plastic bag.
“Remove the heel tips,” Carter said, already doubting himself. The heels were way skinnier than he’d remembered. No room for a flash drive.
“The what?”
Silvia pointed. “The rubber ends on the heels.” She pulled a set of keys from her pocket and flicked out a mini pocketknife. “Here, use this.”
Carter focused on keeping his breath steady as Schneider dug into one of the heel tips and popped it off. Carter shut his eyes for a second. No hidden compartment—it was just a normal heel.
Schneider examined the heel tip. “This is regular old rubber. What were you expecting?”
“And now the other tip,” Carter said with all the calm he could muster. If that didn’t work, could he talk them into digging up the insole?
He nearly went cross-eyed as he watched Schneider flick it off. This time there was something there, rolled up inside the hollowed-out heel. Instinctively, Carter went to grab it, but Schneider held him off by pointing the tiny blade at him. Using the knife, Schneider edged it out.
“Looks like a rolled-up photo,” Silvia said.
Schneider smoothed it out. It showed a woman and two men. She was handing something to one of them. A still from a security camera, by the look of it. Carter noted that Schneider remained silent, his face unreadable.
Silvia drew the photo closer, using the end of her pen. “That woman looks like…”
“Tania Garrett,” Carter finished. “She was on several of my tours to Moscow, including the last one, when the station chief died. I recognize the street corner. It’s in Moscow, not far from Red Square.”
“The timestamp,” Silvia said. “It’s the day before the murder. And the men?”
“I don’t know,” Carter said tightly. Their faces were clear—if he’d ever met them, he’d have remembered. Another goddamn mystery piece in the puzzle.
“Tell me, Mr. Beck,” Schneider said, reclaiming his earlier bravado. “How does this blow the whole thing open?”
“Carter?” Silvia prompted.
“Looks to me like she’s paying them off,” Carter said, knowing it sounded weak.
“Or buying a souvenir,” Schneider said.
Silvia’s lips were pursed. “You know something more about this, Carter. You’re not surprised to see her in this photo, are you? And Ms. Vasnetsova evidently thought there was some significance to this, given that she concealed it so carefully.”
“And asked to have it back,” Carter added, though that was about the limit of his deductive ability. What had he expected? A photo of Tania Garrett pulling the trigger?
“So what’s Tania Garrett’s significance in all of this?” Silvia said.
“If you want to find Alice,” Carter ventured, “Tania Garrett is the person you should be asking.”
“That’s quite some accusation. You know who she is?”
Carter spoke carefully, picking his way across shaky ground. “I suspect none of us truly knows who she is, beyond being a pro-Russian lobbyist and political donor. This is only a small part of the picture.”
“You don’t know how this photo fits, do you?” Schneider said. “We’re gonna need far more than a snapshot if we’re going to drag a fine woman like that into this. Hand over the evidence and then we can talk.”
“‘A fine woman’? So you know her?”
Schneider rubbed his lips together. “You don’t get to ask the questions.”
“Find Alice, then we talk about the evidence. First step: get me my phone.”
“I’ll get you your phone, even if I have to fetch it myself,” Silvia said, glancing up at Schneider.
“But Carter, you have to stop being so damn stubborn. A woman’s life is in danger, and I know that’s not something that sits easily with you.
Work with me. I will give you my personal assurance that whatever information you have will be handled with the utmost security. ”
“And what if it’s ‘above your pay grade’?”
“We’re obviously going around in circles,” Schneider said, snatching the photo and standing. “Let’s take a break. Meantime, I’ll get this photo urgently logged as evidence.”
“Hold on,” Silvia said, grabbing her phone. “Let me take a photo of it first.”
“No copies!”
Silvia raised her eyebrows at his sudden increase in volume.
He shrugged, and Carter got the sense he was grasping for a reason. “I don’t want this making the cover of tomorrow’s New York Times before we can verify it. Imagine the lawsuit we’ll be risking. Impugning Tania Garrett!”
“For God’s sake, Ben, I’m not going to give it to the New York Times. We need to get a copy to our people in Moscow. They may be able to shed some light on who these men are, what this all means. I remind you that I have equal command here.”
“And this is exactly why the FBI is normally given sole jurisdiction in such matters.”
“You know,” Carter said to Schneider, leaning back in his chair and speaking slowly, “I’ve just figured out what you’re trying to hide here.
You don’t want Ms. Thornton found because it would suit your purposes if all the witnesses just went away.
Because you have more of a personal stake than you’re letting on.
I know what that list really is, and I think you do too. ”
“Carter?” Silvia said.
But Carter’s eyes were fixed on Schneider.
It was sixty percent a stab in the dark, but the guy’s pissed expression told him it had found its target.
Schneider, Tyler Wade, Leonard Poole—the thing they had in common?
They were all eager to shut Carter down, one way or another.
And Schneider hadn’t denied knowing Tania Garrett.
Plus, there was the deputy director’s unusually close interest. Wade seemed to be impugned in Nika’s kompromat documents—maybe the others were too.
Finally, the pieces were starting to fit. Too damn late.
“I want a lawyer,” Carter said.
Silvia looked from him to Schneider. “Someone mind telling me what’s going on here?”
“We’ll talk about this outside,” Schneider said. “Interview terminated, 1:03 p.m.”