BECAUSE OF demonstrations cutting off the streets around City Hall, it took over an hour to drive from the clinic to the FBI field office in the Vance Building on Third Avenue, and on the way NPR talked to Representative Diane Trumble, who had recently returned to Congress after recuperating from last summer’s gunshot. While grateful for the standing ovation she’d received upon entering the chambers, she made no secret of her anger that the Plains Capital–IfW investigation had been closed down only a few weeks after Paul Hanes, its chair, had been killed, and she had been laid up in the hospital. Legislators had abandoned it to join the new, constituent-pleasing investigation into the FBI’s handling of the Massive Brigade. “This is a cynical move by colleagues who get their funding from Wall Street,” she said, real bitterness in her voice. “Terrorists might disrupt our daily lives, but they should not disrupt the path of justice. Let’s not allow international tax dodgers to benefit from the tragedy of July 4, 2017.”
“Amen, sister,” said Rachel, once again thinking about the irony of July 4—not only had the Massive Brigade delegitimized itself, but it had undermined one of the few government investigations that aimed to make corrupt bankers pay for their crimes.
There were eyes on her as she limped to her fifth-floor cubicle. The pain had returned, a sharp rebuke from the morning’s therapy, but just as she’d learned to master her anger over the last half year she’d learned to master her face; other than a little twitch around the eyes, no one would have noticed her agony. Max, their Special Agent in Charge, was chatting with two visitors in his glassed-in office. Paula and Chuck stood with coffee cups, their conversation dying as she passed. Up ahead, rising from his own cubicle, Henry said, “Well, that’s some shit, isn’t it? Releasing the report?”
Henry had spent the last four months trying to become her friend, but friends weren’t what you found in the Bureau. “We finally gave in,” she said.
“Or maybe we’ve got them right where we want them,” he joked.
“Rachel?” she heard, and turned to see Max’s unhealthily gray face sticking out of his office. “Come in here a minute?”
She turned to cross the floor again, still working to master her face. While the pain would eventually fade, she could do nothing about the limp, and her doctor had assured her that she shouldn’t try. It would be with her the rest of her life.
The visitors stood when she entered, and Max introduced them as Sarah Vale and Lyle Johnson, both from Headquarters. They shook hands. Johnson, a military stiff, had a salt-and-pepper mustache that made her think of how few men she knew wore mustaches, while Vale was a Latina who smiled a lot, her method of encouragement. Johnson clearly found that kind of forced friendliness a waste of effort.
Stating the obvious, Johnson said, “We’re here about the Massive Brigade report.”
As Rachel took a free chair, she spoke to cover her pain. “This is part of the declassification?”
“You could say that,” said Vale. “A lot of people have been burned over these past months, and we don’t need more collateral damage after it’s released.”
She understood their point. Two senior Bureau officials had stepped down from their posts after being caught in too many on-camera lies, and with the constant patter of press leaks the first order of business at the Hoover Building would be job security. “You might have tried not bullshitting the public for the last half year. That’s why we’re in this situation.”
“Woulda, shoulda,” said Vale, smiling. “Let’s not drag history through the coals.”
“If we wanted to do that,” Johnson said, “we might start by asking about your own contact with reporters.”
Rachel gave him a sharp look. “Are you accusing me of something?”
“No, he’s not,” said Vale.
“I’m just making a point,” Johnson said, then shrugged. “Mistakes are always made. What matters is how you deal with them afterward.”
Rachel’s thigh, which after reconstruction had begun to act as a bullshit detector, throbbed. It would have been a lie, though, to say she wasn’t interested in knowing what they were selling. Besides, when wasn’t there some level of bullshit when dealing with Headquarters? “Who sent you to me?”
“No one,” Vale told her. “We’ve just been asked to make sure that what the Bureau shows the world is as perfectly aligned with the facts as possible. You were at the center of this.”
“But you report to someone.”
Vale looked at Johnson, who, almost embarrassed, said, “Owen Jakes.” They knew about her history with him. Everyone knew. “But this,” he went on, “is a request from higher up.”
Rachel gazed at these two emissaries from DC. They looked young to her—but once you’ve been shot, everyone seems young. She turned to Max, who’d been so uncharacteristically silent all this time. “What’s going on, Max? Are you part of this?”
Her SAC rose to his feet and headed to the door. “I think I’m going to get a coffee. Anyone?”
Both Vale and Johnson shook their heads.
“Okay then,” Max said, and left. Rachel watched him head not to the kitchenette but to the exit.
Johnson said, “I thought he’d never leave,” and for the first time he cracked a smile.
Vale turned to Rachel. “Have you read the final draft of the report?”
“I was never put on the distribution list.”
Vale arched a brow. She really liked showing off her feelings. “Does that seem odd?”
It did, of course. That the final report on a case that had absorbed her for months and had culminated in nine deaths in Watertown—that that report wouldn’t be accessible to her was certainly odd. Then again … “Well, I did crack Jakes’s skull with a laptop.”
There—in Vale’s face, a twitch of the lip. She was trying to hold down her smile.
Johnson wasn’t amused. “Six stitches,” he said.
Vale leaned closer. “How much of your own report had you written before you, uh, went on leave?”
Rachel remembered the wild rush, the bleary-eyed hours in that Cessna, trying to get it all down before going to the office to face the ax. “Fifteen thousand words? Something like that.”
Johnson said, “The final report is three times that length, but only about three thousand words are attributed to you.”
This was news to her. “Well, it’s not all that surprising. Jakes and I would have come to different conclusions.”
“Which is why we’re here,” Johnson said. “We want your version.”
“You don’t have my fifteen thousand words?”
“Missing,” Vale said, sadness filling her face.
Rachel almost told them she had a copy if they wanted to see it, but by keeping that classified document on her personal laptop she’d broken a few federal laws that, in today’s climate, might not be so easily brushed aside. So she said, “Give me the report, and I’ll happily mark it up for you.”
They were quiet a moment; then Johnson cleared his throat. “Like you said, you’re not on the distribution list.”