Chapter Six

That evening, Devon moves his wife and Ruth to a safe house in lower Manhattan arranged by McGee. Caitlin helps them settle in and promises to send some of the office staff around the next day to provide any additional help they might need.

For the first time, Devon meets the very impressive man who will be in charge of all security matters for the young Carlisle family. Ivory White is an unlikely name for the blackest man he has ever seen. Ivory is—in the vernacular—the muscle of the McGee organization. The man is a magnificent specimen—tall, athletic, bald, arrogant, and looks like he can be mean if needs be—and they gather from McGee that is quite often the case in his line of work. Whatever the correct definition of his responsibility is, it is best known by its euphemism—“special investigations.” He does all of the personal security for high profile clients. McGee lets it be known that—for all of his martial arts and other physical skill sets—Ivory is extremely intelligent. He is a remarkable linguist who speaks six of the most useful languages of the 800 used by the citizens of the most densely populated city in the country if not the world. He is armed to the teeth.

He makes Devon nervous, but the two women in the family take to him immediately. They feel safe with him, and that is the point of the whole exercise. The following morning, two of Ivory’s security agents—one of whom is Ed Rainer, the chauffeur for McGee & Associates—escort him as unobtrusively as possible to his office in BB&H. The door is locked, and his key no longer works. Devon, Hector, and Ed all know the jig is up; but just to humor Devon, they all traipse down to HR to see what is going on. The secretary for Human Relations has a box of Devon’s private stuff, and a notice—literally a pink slip—informing him that his services have been terminated. Big surprise. There is no one about who can shed any light on what is happening; and apparently no one cares, since all telephones Devon tries are busy “for the rest of your life,” one snotty secretary tells him.

Devon and his bodyguards drive back to the safe house to check on his girls. Caitlin reassures him and moves him out to the limo for a ride to Broadway between Duane and Worth Streets, south of Canal Street and north of City Hall. Ed drops them off at the 26 Federal Plaza building, and Devon and Hector take an elevator ride to the twenty-third floor where the five borough FBI offices are located. In addition to the special agents of the FBI, there are three agents of the SEC—who came over from their Brookfield Place office on Vesey Street—all waiting to meet the whistleblower. Caitlin nods to the agents whom she has already met. Three days ago, she delivered the copious numbers of documents collected by Devon with considerable assistance from hackers at McGee & Associates.

FBI Special Agent Henry Weintrobe extends his hand to Devon, and Caitlin makes introductions all around.

Since they are in the FBI’s house, Weintrobe takes the lead—not especially unusual for FBI agents.

“We have had a chance to talk to Ms. O’Brian, Mr. Carlisle; so, we don’t need to put you through a lot of questioning. There are several procedural matters to take care of, and we should deal with them right now. I have a couple of questions about your involvement in all of this. When did you discover the irregularities at BB&H?”

Devon takes the question and runs with it in the interest of efficiency. In a few crisp sentences, the FBI and SEC agents know of his membership in The Only True Church of Christ, his employment at BB&H largely for the purpose of handling church accounts, and of his none-too-friendly conference with the Council of Prophets in Heart of Eden, Wyoming.

“I just have to ask: where in the world is Heart of Eden, and how did it get that unlikely name?”

Devon tells them, and the agents and Caitlin just shake their heads.

There are several more questions about the religion—which all of the agents now refer to as a “cult.”

“Did you enrich yourself or your family from the ill-gotten gains from Wall Street, Mr. Carlisle?”

“Only to the extent that I set aside an account in another financial institution to protect myself and my family if—or now is a fact—when I am cut off. It hasn’t happened yet, but I expect to be excommunicated.”

“Is that really a bad thing, given the criminal activities that we are about to investigate?”

“Most definitely for me. The church will take my wife and give her to another man if I don’t convince her and protect her. I will have to go to great lengths to protect my sister and—if at all possible—my father, mother, and my other siblings. But I have accepted all of that. Having the FBI and SEC step in has to be viewed as the lesser of evils.”

“Well, thanks for the high compliment, Mr. Carlisle,” Special Agent Weintrobe says with a friendly smile.

Devon nods in acceptance and resignation.

“Besides,” he says, “my family is so dyed-in-the-wool that they will reject me in favor of the church anyway.”

It is a sad statement of the truth, and Devon knows it all too well.

“We’ll execute search warrants on BB&H and church headquarters in Wyoming today. It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you to lay low for a while, Mr. Carlisle. Why don’t you and your wife take a little trip with your sister, Ruth. I don’t think the nice church folks are murderous, but you never can tell in cases like this,” Weintrobe says.

Ed picks up Devon and Caitlin outside the front door of the federal plaza building, and they return to the McGee & Associates offices.

“How did it go?” McGee asks.

“Okay. The die is cast, and there’s no turning back now,” Devon says. “It is a hard thing to have the world you have known and counted on all your life just crumble around you. I know I shouldn’t be upset, but those people are the only real friends I have—and my family. It is going to be a very difficult adjustment.”

“I have a suggestion,” McGee offers. “Maybe this whole thing is a matter of just a few rotten apples, and the senior church authorities and the rank-and-file will welcome you back and applaud what you have done to straighten things out. And—even if more of them are corrupt than you think right now and they don’t accept you back into the fold—you haven’t lost any real friends. Remember, in that scenario you are the good guy; and you are on the side of the angels.”

“How come I don’t feel so great about it, then?” Devon muses, mainly to himself.

“Back to business. We don’t really know what they’re going to do; but to be on the safe side, I want you and Ruth to go with Ivory to a safe location until this blows over. Transfer all of your personal funds to this bank under the name of Riley Sargent. They are expecting the transaction. We’ve used this place before, and your money will be secure and untraceable there. The arrangements will be rigid: only you and I can withdraw funds. The password for the account is “Safe_ HAVEN07-30-15$#.” The numbers are today’s date. Ivory and his men will drive you back to your apartment; so, you can clear it out. Tell no one—and I mean no one—where you are going or about the bank arrangement. I know you have burner cell phones. Use them exclusively, but try and communicate as much as possible through me or Caitlin, okay?”

Devon nods in agreement.