While Justice Sleeps(74)
It would be a masterstroke, one where he would solve the very crisis he’d created. Just in time for November.
* * *
—
Dr. Elizabeth Papaleo, onetime chemist and current head of Strategy, Policy, and Budget for the Science and Technology Directorate, bent over a spreadsheet tome dense with acronyms and cost overruns her subsection would be called upon to explain to the House of Representatives on Friday for its hearing titled “Gaining Efficiencies in Science and Technology Spending in a Rapidly Changing Global Environment.” Just the thought of it all made her head ache. Already, the prepared remarks had been sent up the chain of command to the undersecretary, and the redacted text sat by Betty’s elbow. Duly approved budget allocations never seen by legislative eyes would get no hearing in front of the House Budget Committee.
Taxpayer funds spent under the budget function of national security enjoyed a shield of privacy, a mantle peeled away only within the confines of men and women with clearance levels well above any normal elected official. Her file contained the deeper dive of allocations, ones that rolled up into more innocuous phrases like Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation. Those would be the entries discussed with the House Budget Committee and its defense dollar hawks. And, according to the request from the Supreme Court of the United States, the file would be discussed with someone in their shop on Friday.
In the basement of the S&T division, she sat cross-legged on the floor of the storage room. She combed through reams of reports she’d dragged from the dust into the meager fluorescent light flickering above. In her domain, the green-and-white dot matrix printouts had not been relegated to museums. Instead, the billions they’d be called to account for found temporary homes in cramped, poorly lit closets and in musky subbasements teeming with shadows. She had lugged the boxes of reports from their hiding places, hunting for needles in a sky-high haystack.
Betty compared the printouts to budget books, each emblazoned with a prior year’s date. Five in all. She carefully studied the marked pages with their highlighted rows. “Chromosomal research grants,” she said to the empty room, a habit developed after decades of solitude. “Grants broken up over dozens of disbursements, none of them more than twenty-five million dollars. But I can’t find any paperwork showing the grants were ever published, awarded, or reported on. No NOFAs.”
In the world of government-funded scientific research, the Notice of Funding Availability was the key to the kingdom. It was the government’s way of telling the world to come and get it. After the publication of a NOFA, moneys disappeared into research projects and demonstration projects—and evaluations of the evaluation protocols for research projects and demonstration projects. But rarely did a dollar leave the federal coffers without a NOFA. Certain she had missed something, she reached for her pile of procurement records. Maybe the funds went out as a payment for service.
What she found was a list of disbursements that corresponded to the funding and the grant category. But no NOFAs or service contracts or 8(a) direct awards. Nothing. Just money slipping out the back door and into accounts she couldn’t locate. More than $300 million on chromosomal research in five years.
With papers scattered around her like confetti, Betty gave a cry of triumph. The transfers had gone in a dozen different directions, but she’d learned a trick or two in her time heading the division. Money could be washed by just about everyone except the federal government. Covering every track left a smudge behind—a tiny tick of information that could build a picture for the right viewer. All she had to do was look.
TWENTY-NINE
One block from Avery’s apartment, a sedan parked and cut its lights and engine. The man behind the wheel watched silently, casually noticing the FBI agent stationed near the building’s entrance. A short time later, a U.S. marshal on security detail arrived and swapped off with the agent. Neither was aware of the visitor whose vehicle had squeezed between cars parked along the curb for the night.
At the appointed hour, Castillo dialed the encrypted phone assigned for the day. His windows had been rolled down to accept the slightest breeze and allow cigarette smoke to filter into the still, thick air. His location was secluded, interrupted only by the skitter of night creatures. But he raised the window because precaution had been drilled into every member of this skunk works team assembled in mid-January. Former soldiers all, they had an allegiance that cut across branches of government and a battlefield loyalty to their commander. “The four targets are still inside. I assume you heard the conversation.”
“Did we mirror the contents of Jared Wynn’s computer?”
“No, sir. His firewalls are military grade. He didn’t connect to the girl’s network. But we believe we know what they know.”
“Yes. They’ve identified Ani Ramji and Tigris.” The man tipped his chair back as frustration built in a crescendo in his brain, a cacophony that threatened to drown out reason. “You’ll go to Justice Wynn’s cabin tonight. Phillips will assign someone to take over surveillance. Do we still have eyes on the mother? We may need to use her as leverage.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And the investigation into the nurse’s death? I assume no movement there either.”
“We are being copied on all case notes. The local police are looking for her husband, but on your orders, Wargo located and disposed of him. Agent Lee has been unwilling to share his theories, but the cops assume it’s just FBI turf bullshit. If he suspects anything, he’s hiding his concerns.”