something fishy about the sale. He was paid almost three times what the house was worth. A development company bought the house and I haven’t been able to trace where they get their money from. I could do it eventually, Emma, but they told me I couldn’t spend any more time on this.’
‘Could someone be funneling money through the development company?’
‘Sure. It’s big, it’s global, and it’s got income flows from a dozen different directions. It’d be perfect for funding foreign ops.’
‘You need to find the source of Carmody’s money.’
‘I’m sorry, Emma, I can’t. Not now, and not unless you get something solid.’
Emma was silent for a moment.
‘What about Carmody?’
‘He’s a totally different breed than Mulherin and Norton. He started off as a navy nuc, trained as a reactor operator in Idaho Falls, then served on both attack boats and boomers. His record was spotless. Good fit reps, commendations, fast track for promotion. He was being considered for officer candidate school when he decided to leave the nucs.’
‘What happened?’
‘Nothing happened. He was twenty-four years old – he enlisted at eighteen – and after six years he was tired of submarines and decided he wanted to be a SEAL. The nucs weren’t happy about him leaving but he said if they didn’t transfer him, he’d quit, and he was just too good for the navy to lose. And the SEALs really wanted him, a big young guy with a technical background. He was a dream candidate.’
‘How’d he do in the SEALs?’
‘Great, until right before he quit. He’s one of those guys that has his medals stored in a government lockbox because he can’t tell anyone why he got the medals. Kinda like you, Emma.’
Emma ignored the compliment. ‘What happened before he quit?’
‘He was in … someplace, and … well … something went wrong. One SEAL was killed and Carmody got the blame.’
Emma could tell that Peterson was reading from a report and not telling her everything – or anything.
‘Come on, Peterson,’ she said. ‘What kind of op and what did Carmody do?’
‘Sorry, Emma, I can’t say. The point is, Carmody had to make a decision in the middle of a firefight and he made the wrong decision. In hindsight, that is. You know how it is; you’ve been there before. Anyway, Carmody was the NCMFIC and he took the hit.’
NCMFIC was military-speak for noncommissioned motherfucker in charge.
‘Did they bust him out of the SEALs?’
‘No. This guy was a star. They put a letter in his file and were going to make him repeat some training – basically a slap on the wrist – but he quit before they could.’
‘So when he left the navy, he was pissed.’
‘The records don’t say. His stated reason for leaving was to pursue work in the private sector. He may have been bitter, but you don’t get that impression. I mean there’s no nasty letters to his CO in his file, no demands for hearings. It looks like he was just ready to move on after six years of putting his ass on the line for minimum wage.’
‘Do you know what he did after he left the SEALs?’
‘Sort of. I don’t have a lot of detail but he was in Hong Kong for almost seven years. He got out of the navy in ’96, bummed around Europe for a year, then he took a job at a utility company outside of Toledo that operates a nuclear power plant there. But in ’98 he quit the job at the utility company – it was probably too much like being back on a sub – and goes to Hong Kong where he lands a job with an outfit that provides security for big shots and their businesses and their families over there. I don’t know if Carmody was a bodyguard or some other kind of security consultant, but being an ex-SEAL he could have been either. Then the company he worked for in Hong Kong relocated to Thailand in 2003. This was six years after Hong Kong was returned to the Chinese so I imagine by then private enterprise in Hong Kong was starting to feel the heat from the old-timers in Beijing. The problem is, we have no record of what Carmody did after the security company relocated, but he stayed in Hong Kong until he came up with the shipyard training thing last year.’
‘That’s quite a career change,’ Emma said, ‘from hired muscle in Hong Kong to training consultant in the States. I wonder why he didn’t relocate to Thailand with his old company.’
‘Beats me,’ Peterson said.
Emma thanked Peterson and started to hang up, but before she did, the researcher said, ‘Emma, this guy Carmody is smart and if he’s gone bad, he’s dangerous. I’ve heard you’re kinda on your own out there. You be careful, ya hear?’
Emma put down the phone and stared for a minute at the picture on the wall across from her bed. It was an oil painting of Mount Rainier rising above magenta-colored clouds, and it was hideous. She wondered if there was a company somewhere called Ugly Art, and if every motel in the country purchased from them.
She thought for a moment, made another phone call, then called DeMarco’s room. There was no answer. Where the hell was he?
‘So tell me,’ Diane Carlucci said, ‘how’d you land a job with Congress?’
DeMarco had asked a number of people for a nice place to take a lady to dinner and was directed to one in the little town of Winslow on Bainbridge Island. For a small-town restaurant it was pretty pricey, but DeMarco didn’t care. The view was good, the food was good, and Diane Carlucci was very comfortable to be with. There was no first-date awkwardness, no straining to find something to say – until now. DeMarco hesitated. ‘I guess you know about my old man?’
Diane Carlucci nodded.
‘Well,’ DeMarco said, ‘he made it kind of hard to get a job after law school. Firms weren’t kicking down the door to hire the son of a guy who worked for a mobster and killed people for a living.’
‘I can imagine,’ Diane said. She hesitated and said, ‘You know I met your dad once. I liked him.’
‘Yeah, he was a likable guy,’ DeMarco said. ‘He was a good father, too. He just didn’t make the best career choice.’
‘So how’d you get a job with Congress?’ Diane asked again.
‘I have a godmother, a friend of my mom’s I call Aunt Connie. She worked in D.C. when she was young and she had some pull with somebody. She talked to him and got me the job.’
What DeMarco had just said was the truth. It wasn’t the whole truth but it was the truth. ‘And you,’ DeMarco said, ‘how do you like—’
‘No, we’re not through with you yet,’ Diane said. ‘I heard you were married, that you married—’
‘Yeah, I did, and now I’m divorced.’
‘I knew that. I heard that she left you for—’
‘Yeah, my cousin.’
‘The one who works for—’
‘Right. Why haven’t you guys arrested him yet?’
Diane Carlucci laughed. She had a great laugh.
‘So now can we talk about you?’ DeMarco said.
DeMarco was the only customer in the motel bar.
He’d enjoyed dinner with Diane and had been sorry the evening had ended so early – seven thirty – but Diane was the dedicated type. She had told DeMarco that she needed to get back to her motel, review her case notes, and prepare for tomorrow. She and her partner had found out that Whitfield, who all agreed was a rather contentious fellow, was engaged in a property dispute with a neighbor, a man who had anger-management problems,