Call It Treason (The Adam Drake series Book 4) Page 18

  CHAPTER 53

  Drake was the only person standing in front of the glass doors at 9:00 a.m. when they were opened and was allowed to enter the lobby of the Prescott Group. He asked to see Mr. Mark Hassan.

  “I’m sorry, sir. Mr. Hassan isn’t in yet,” the receptionist told him. “Do you have an appointment to see him?”

  “I don’t, but it won’t matter,” Drake said. “He’ll see me.”

  Drake sat and watched people pass through the lobby for an hour, reading the Post and all of the Sports Illustrated magazines, before he returned to the receptionist.

  “Is he in yet?”

  “Let me check,” she said, and called Hassan’s assistant. “He still hasn’t come in, sir. Would you like to wait?”

  “I don’t suppose you’d give me his home address?”

  “No, sir.”

  Drake left the lobby and called Liz.

  “Hassan hasn’t come in yet. Is there any way you can find his home address for me?”

  “Have you tried finding it on your smartphone?” she asked.

  “Too frustrated to think of that, sorry.”

  “It wouldn’t have helped,” Liz said after a minute. “His number is unlisted and there’s no address.”

  “So the government with its vast database doesn’t know everything,” he teased. “That’s a relief.”

  “I didn’t say I couldn’t find it, smarty. He lives in McLean on Red Cedar Lane,” she said, and gave him the address.

  “Do I want to know how you found it?”

  “Not if you’re paranoid. Call me if you find him.”

  It took Drake forty-five minutes to find the red brick townhouse in McLean. When he did, he had to park a block away and walk to a yellow rope barricade. He stood with the other onlookers for a couple of minutes, watching police come and go from the red brick house.

  “What’s going on?” he asked a man standing next to him.

  “Someone was shot in the house, according to one of the news guys.”

  “Do they know who?”

  “He didn’t know, but thought it was the guy who lived there.”

  Drake walked down the line of yellow crime scene tape to a Metro cop making sure no one got any closer to the house.

  “Officer Carter,” he said after glancing at the man’s name badge, “a man over there is saying it’s a homicide. That true?”

  “Don’t know what he’s been smoking,” the officer said. “More likely a suicide.”

  Over Officer Carter’s shoulder, Drake saw two men wearing blue jackets with FBI in white across the back enter the crime scene. They stopped at the front door to confer with another Metro cop.

  Drake stepped away a short distance and called Liz again.

  “Looks like I’m not going to talk to Mark Hassan,” he told her. “The address you gave me is a crime scene. Someone’s been shot inside. One cop thinks it’s a suicide, but the FBI just showed up. Can you find out what’s going on?”

  “I’ll make a call,” she said.

  Drake continued to watch as a medical examiner van pulled up. Ten minutes later, a body bag was brought out on a stretcher and driven away in the van.

  “An FBI friend says Mark Hassan committed suicide,” Liz said when she called back. “They’re investigating it because his suicide note appears to be a confession to embezzlement. But it also mentions Sheikh Qasseer in Bahrain. As soon as Metro police saw that, they called the FBI.”

  Two Ford Crown Victoria’s arrived and four more FBI agents marched to the front door.

  “That would seem to confirm there’s a connection between the sheikh and the youth camps. But why would Hassan commit suicide?” Drake asked.

  “If he was stealing from the sheikh,” she said, “maybe he feared sharia law more than our law regarding embezzlement.”

  “Maybe, but offing himself the morning after thugs from one of his youth camps come gunning for us is more than a little suspicious. I’m heading back to the hotel. I’ll call you after I meet with Mike.”

  Now what? Drake thought, as he drove through the streets of McLean on his way to Georgetown and his hotel. With Mark Hassan dead, the people left that he believed were involved with the foundation and the West Virginia camp narrowed to include: the camp manager, perhaps John Prescott as the chairman of the foundation’s board of directors, the other Hassan, and the mysterious sheikh in Bahrain.

  As he stopped at the intersection ahead and sat waiting for the light to change, he let his mind wander. Connections were usually made when he let his mind slip into neutral and work freely, choosing paths of its own to draw lines from dot to dot.

  Something he saw at the camp he wasn’t supposed to see…

  A honking horn from the car behind jolted his racing mind like a cattle prod. He drove on and pulled to the curb in the middle of the next block to think. What had he seen at the camp? Which time? Everything hinged on that. He knew it in every fiber of his being.

  CHAPTER 54

  John Prescott sat stoically in his office and listened to the FBI agent detail what had been discovered on Mark Hassan’s laptop. Then the questions he feared began.

  “Did Mr. Hassan have access to the American Muslim Youth Camp Foundation account?” Agent Leslie Perkins asked.

  “He was a member of the foundation’s board of directors, but he had limited access to the account itself.”

  “Did that ‘limited access’ allow him to direct expenditures from that account?”

  “He was the director assigned by the board to monitor the account, so yes.”

  “Did ‘monitor the account’ include arranging for financial auditing of the account?”

  “It did.”

  “Were those audits performed by outside auditors, or were they internal audits he arranged?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

  “Mr. Prescott, you are one of the directors of the foundation. In fact, you’re the board’s chairman. As such, you have a fiduciary duty to oversee the foundation’s financial matters. Are you saying that you don’t know what type of financial auditing was done?”

  “I don’t know the answer because I don’t remember, Ms. Perkins.” He could feel nervous sweat starting at his hairline.

  “Do you know if there was any evidence, in any of those audits that you don’t remember, of missing funds or embezzlement?”

  “Again, I don’t remember. It looks like I won’t be able to help you with these questions until I ask my staff to look into the matter. Until I have time to do that, I think we’re finished for today,” Prescott said and stood to indicate the meeting was over.

  Agent Perkins remained seated, entering her notes on a small laptop.

  “We’ll need to conduct our own audit of the foundation’s account, Mr. Prescott. For the time being, we will freeze the account until that’s completed. I’m sure you’re as interested as I am to know if a crime has been committed here. Good day,” she said closing up her laptop. She stood and left.

  Prescott watched the FBI agent walk down the hall from his corner office, and called Mark Hassan’s secretary.

  “Bring me all the files Mr. Hassan has in his office for the American Muslim Youth Camp Foundation. If he kept anything on his laptop, bring the laptop too,” he ordered.

  He wasn’t worried about missing funds, because he knew there weren’t any. He couldn’t believe Mark Hassan would indicate otherwise. What he was worried about were the campaign contributions from foreign contributors diverted to the president’s re-election campaign before the funds were actually deposited in the foundation’s account. Those were a different matter entirely.

  That didn’t include the amounts siphoned off for other candidates in the president’s party who needed to fill their coffers during difficult campaigns. A grand total of close to $250 m
illion dollars was dispersed from foreign contributors into various campaigns, all of it a violation of federal election laws.

  If the foreign money received by the foundation he chaired was discovered, the online contributions from foreign contributors would also surely be discovered. That arrangement was easier to set up, because amounts under $200 dollars didn’t have to be reported and there was no requirement that each contributor had to be verified as a U.S. citizen.

  If both schemes were exposed, the president and a lot of Washington heavyweight politicians would be dragged down in one of the biggest election scandals the country had ever seen. He would be right in the middle of it. He had to find a way to keep the records of the foundation’s account out of the hands of the FBI auditors.

  Prescott told his secretary he was leaving for lunch and left the office. In the privacy of his car, parked in his reserved space in the basement, he called Layla Nebit on her private line.

  “Meet me at Hay-Adams for lunch,” he said.

  “I’m busy, Prescott.”

  “Get unbusy!” Prescott ordered. “We have a problem.”

  “Did I not make myself clear? I’m busy.”

  “The FBI wants to audit the foundation’s books.” He waited while the news registered.

  “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  He was finishing his first martini when she made her way across the room. Her cheeks were flushed from walking over from the West Wing.

  “What the hell happened?” she demanded.

  “Mark’s dead. He apparently left a suicide note on his laptop, confessing to embezzling money from the foundation,” he told her.

  “Bullshit, John! We both know every dollar can be accounted for.”

  “Except for the money that never made it into the account,” he reminded her.

  “There’s no record of that. Besides, what does all this have to do with me?”

  “You set the whole thing up, Layla,” he said with a smile. “A lot of the money came from your friends in the Middle East. And a lot of that money that was off the books made its way to the Muslim groups here that you wanted blessed. A lot of it went to getting your boss re-elected. I’m not in this alone.”

  “You can’t prove we were involved in any of this,” she said softly.

  Prescott motioned to a waiter to bring his guest a martini and said, “Layla, have a martini with me and listen for once. You are a director of the foundation and you have a fiduciary duty to manage the finances, just like I do. We both have to find a way to keep the FBI out of the foundation’s books.”

  She shook head. “No, John, as I said before, the books are clean. Mark assured me of that. You need to take care of this yourself.”

  The waiter stopped by with Nebit’s martini and Prescott waited until he left to say, “I know all about you, Layla, and your mother and your lover. I have a copy of a secret file the CIA keeps on you. I’ll share it with the world, before I take the fall for this.”

  CHAPTER 55

  Layla Nebit closed the door of her office in the West Wing and sat at her desk, stilling her body so that her mind could find a way out of the quicksand about to pull her under.

  With all the effort over the years to carefully craft a career and relationships to put her at the side of the most powerful man in the world, she was about to lose it all; her position of power and influence and her good name.

  Prescott’s concern about the FBI’s audit of the foundation’s books didn’t worry her. Money flowed freely in Washington for all sorts of agendas that might trouble the average citizen, and had throughout the life of the republic. Rumors of foreign money being used by presidential candidates were around for at least the last three or four elections and nothing was done about it. Prescott should know that as well as anyone.

  If rumors began circulating about the president’s campaign contributions for his re-election, she would quickly put an end to them. She controlled access to the White House and the president, and by virtue of that, she controlled the media.

  What she feared most was losing her position at the pinnacle of power, due to her mother’s past indiscretions with the philosopher of modern terrorism, and her lover’s secret life. She could probably survive if it was just her mother’s past that was exposed, but she knew her fall would be fast and furious if her relationship with Mohamed was exposed.

  Her mother looked to be young and naïve to her fans, and probably was easily influenced early on as an actress. That wasn’t the truth, of course. Her mother was brilliant and knew exactly what she was doing when she joined the cause and began her fight for a truly Muslim Egypt. However, she knew the spin she created would cover her there.

  Mohamed was another story. He had a secret life as a freedom fighter and she didn’t care. He was exciting and dangerous and it thrilled her to be his lover. He was young and virile and passionate about a cause they both shared, the submission to their religion by the entire world.

  If her relationship with him was discovered, she knew she would lose him, as well as her relationship with the president. She couldn’t let that happen. What she didn’t understand was why the CIA hadn’t done anything if they knew he was sharing her bed. She’d been vetted and given the highest security clearance there was.

  If they were worried about her, that wouldn’t have happened. Unless, of course, they were afraid of how the president would react if they tried to take down his closest advisor and friend. The president didn’t conceal his distrust of the intelligence community, finding them neither intelligent, nor reliable.

  So, the immediate problems were keeping the FBI out of the foundation’s books, and dealing with John Prescott and his threat to expose her. She knew how to deal with the FBI. One whisper in the president’s ear that the FBI’s threatened audit was an affront to every American Muslim would get his attention. He was very protective of every constituent group that supported him.

  Dealing with John Prescott was another matter, and one that she should discuss with Mohamed before she did anything.

  “Could you come to my place in an hour?” she asked Mohamed when he answered her call. Her voice was shaky as her mind still reeled with the morning’s events.

  “You sound upset. Is something wrong?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yes, but we need to talk. I’ll see you in an hour.”

  For the next thirty minutes, she postponed scheduled meetings and sent a text to the president saying she wasn’t feeling well and needed to go home.

  By the time her chauffeur stopped in front of the high-rise condo, she developed and rejected several ideas for dealing with John Prescott. Her first thought was to quietly blacklist him so that his lobbying clients would run from him, as if he had a communicable disease, and then run him out of town. While the thought was immensely satisfying, she knew that course of action would only guarantee her exposure.

  The other options, besides simply making him disappear, focused on making sure the FBI never got close to the financial records of the American Muslim Youth Camp Foundation. When she let herself in her condo, she decided that was her best hope.

  With the president’s blessing, she would call her man in the Department of Justice and have him take over the investigation of the foundation. As long as there appeared to be an ongoing criminal investigation, they could decide at some later time how they wanted to put together a case against Mark Hassan. That would satisfy the FBI and keep the sensitive financial records protected until they could be altered or erased.

  She was outlining her plan on her iPad on the green granite countertop of the kitchen’s island when she saw Mohamed closing the front door.

  “Tell me everything,” he said, as he approached with his arms wide.

  As she prepared him a cup of Shay Khamsina, the Egyptian tea with mint he loved, she to
ld him about the FBI’s questioning of John Prescott and the suicide note left by Mark Hassan, his cousin.

  “I learned of Mark’s death on my way here,” he lied, “I can’t believe it. I saw him yesterday and he was fine. You say Prescott told you Mark left a note and confessed to embezzling money?”

  “That’s what the FBI told him,” she said, “but it’s not true. There’s no missing money.”

  “Does Prescott know that?”

  “I think he does, Mohamed. He trusted Mark. He’s more worried about an FBI audit discovering his foundation funneled money to campaigns from foreign contributors.”

  Mohamed finished his tea and sat quietly for a moment and took her hand. “I have an idea,” he said. “Before you call in the Department of Justice, let me talk to Prescott. There’s a way to make this all go away without getting you involved.”

  CHAPTER 56

  Mohamed returned to his office in the Evening Star building and got to work. For the last three years, he had recorded all of the financial transactions for the Allah’s Sword operation on an encrypted Excel spreadsheet.

  From the first $1,000,000 he received from the sale of the 50 MANPADS to Sheikh Qasseer in Bahrain to the $9,000,000 the Brotherhood provided to fund the $10,000,000 budget he created for the operation, every dollar was accounted for and every disbursement listed.

  He created a code for the spreadsheet that only he could understand, and with a few simple changes, he made it appear that John Prescott was the moneyman for Sheikh Qasseer out of a separate account he alone controlled. With a transfer to an encrypted Ironkey drive for secure transport, all he had to do was plant the spreadsheet on a computer Prescott used and make sure it was discovered.

  The discovery of the altered spreadsheet would be almost immediate, because he decided that John Prescott needed to die that night. Coupled with Layla’s plan to get the FBI to back off an audit of the foundation’s financial records, the investigators should be satisfied for years to come. Their final report would conclude that John Prescott’s treachery aided and abetted the latest terrorist attack on America and its citizens.