The Eighth Sister (Charles Jenkins #1)(108)

“How about records for reimbursable expenses sought by Carl Emerson or a Richard Peterson for that same time period? Did you find any of those records?”

“I wasn’t asked to look for any such records.”

“Wasn’t asked to look for those either,” Sloane said, as if perplexed. He turned as if to retake his seat at the counsel table, though Jenkins knew he wasn’t finished. Sloane wheeled and walked back to the lectern, looking perplexed. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ikeda, but just a few additional questions. Do your files provide a termination date for Carl Emerson’s employment with the CIA?”

“Yes. January 25, 2018.”

“He was fired?”

Ikeda looked to Velasquez, who shot out of her seat. “Objection, Your Honor. It misstates testimony.”

Harden shook his head. “Not this witness’s testimony. He hasn’t answered the question. Do you need the question repeated, Mr. Ikeda?”

Ikeda looked uncomfortable. “No,” he said. He looked to Sloane. “He was terminated.”

“Fired,” Sloane said.

“He was terminated,” Ikeda persisted.

“The records don’t say Carl Emerson retired, do they?”

“No.”

“Quit?”

“No.”

“Leave of absence? Sabbatical?”

“No.”

“It says he was terminated, correct? Canned, fired, dismissed.”

“It says ‘terminated.’”

“Do your records say why Carl Emerson, who worked for the CIA since at least the 1970s, was fired?”

“No.”

Sloane paused, as if to give that information some thought. Jenkins knew the jurors would do so as well.

Velasquez took about five minutes on redirect, then excused Ikeda. The remainder of the afternoon was a parade of witnesses from the twenty-seven on the government’s witness list. None were particularly damaging, but by the end of the day Jenkins had started to feel like a pi?ata.



Early the following morning, after a late night, Sloane returned to his office with Jenkins and Jake and found an unmarked envelope on the floor just inside the glass-door entrance. The exterior of the envelope did not have a stamp or a postmark, which meant it had been hand delivered.

Sloane opened the envelope and pulled out a single sheet of paper. He shook his head and held it up. “Carl Emerson’s last-known address.”

“They’ve had it all along,” Jake said. “Where is he?”

“Santa Barbara,” Sloane said. “See if the address is still good. If it is, get him served with a trial subpoena.”

“It’s outside of a hundred miles. We can’t compel him to appear,” Jake said.

“I understand,” Sloane said. “But if Emerson isn’t at least called, after I’ve brought up his name so often, the jury is going to want to know why not. I want to put that turd in the government’s pocket when I give my closing. I want to be able to say we subpoenaed Emerson, but he wouldn’t come, and the government could have called him as a witness but chose not to. Maybe the insinuation will be enough to cast reasonable doubt.”





63



To start the second day of trial, Maria Velasquez called FBI agent Chris Daugherty to the stand. Daugherty looked the part in a dark-blue suit, button-down white shirt, and solid-red tie. He couldn’t have come across as more American if Velasquez had hung a flag around his shoulders.

Velasquez took Daugherty through the circumstances that led to him interviewing Charles Jenkins and, with prompting, Daugherty explained in detail the nature of each conversation.

Then she asked, “Did Mr. Jenkins ever ask that a CIA representative be present before talking to you?”

“No, he did not.”

“In your experience, would that have been customary for a man telling you of a sensitive CIA operation?”

“In my experience it is customary.”

“Do you have an understanding why that is customary?”

“The FBI is responsible for what happens within the United States. The CIA is responsible for what happens outside the United States. The two agencies can’t and don’t know what the other is working on at all times, so a CIA agent questioned by the FBI will seek a CIA representative to make certain that confidential information is not disclosed.”

“When Mr. Jenkins finished telling you his story, what was your response?”

“I told him that I didn’t believe him. I told him the story was ridiculous.”

“What was his response?”

Daugherty shrugged. “He said, ‘Trust me. I wouldn’t lie to you. I can’t tell you everything. You need to fill in the blanks from the CIA.’ I said, ‘Why can’t you tell me?’ And he said, ‘Because I was told that anything I said could endanger an ongoing, critical operation.’”

“Did you call the CIA and attempt to verify what Mr. Jenkins told you?”

“I couldn’t verify anything he’d told me. The CIA told me they had no record of Mr. Jenkins being reactivated, and they had no record of any operation involving him inside Russia or anywhere else. They also advised that they had looked into the two operations that Mr. Jenkins told me to ask about. They said both operations had been deactivated years before, but that the two assets had recently died in Russia under suspicious circumstances.”