"He would have authorized it; Szymanski did the physical work, the arrangement between Aldric and Callow is the center of everything on that drive. The shell companies, the transaction flows, the recorded conversations, they all point outward toward Aldric's network and inward toward the regulatory body that was supposed to be investigating it.
"Jones said the recording from last night gives us the complete package, she needs thirty-six hours."
"Callow will know something is in motion before thirty-six hours. Aldric speaks to him regularly, when Percy delivered the wire recording this morning, that clock started." Miller was tense.
Mira looked at him, "How do you know Percy delivered it this morning?"
Miller met her eyes, "Because Percy called me at nine o'clock and told me he had, he also told me he'd identified you as someone Diane had chosen. He said she'd chosen well."
Chen looked at Mira, "This means the architecture Percy described to you, after spending four years within it and working toward something, was not built by him alone.
Mira had reached this conclusion somewhere between the library's entrance and the reading room and she'd been waiting to see how long it would take Chen.
"You've been working with Percy." She glanced at Miller.
"Since the second oversight inquiry, he came to me after discovering Diane's operation through his access to Callow's communications, the fact that he went to me instead of Callow told me everything about where he stood." Miller looked up at last, "We've been working on parallel tracks, his within the law, mine outside it. Diane was the link between us."
"She didn't know?" Mira asked.
"She knew about Percy, she didn't know about me and Percy together, she would have been angry about that. She was right to keep the name from me because she wasn't certain of my judgment."
"We need to move today, Jones has the drive and she needs to get it through a clean channel to someone authorized to receive it." Mira glanced at Miller. "You said Callow signed off on the operation, which means he's fully aware of the official setup around this case, any channel connected to the FCCU is compromised."
"Every federal financial crime agency has some link back to the FCCU." Miller said.
"Then we step outside the federal level, senate oversight."
Chen glanced at her, "Vasic."
"Her subcommittee operates independently on financial crimes cases, she came from private arbitration, with no federal regulatory experience and no apparent ties to Callow's network and she's got every reason to want this to turn into something real."
Miller was silent for a beat, "If Callow's influence reaches into the Senate subcommittee..."
"We find out when the package arrives and either it moves or it doesn't, but right now she's the cleanest channel we have."
Miller nodded slowly, he was out of options, so he resigned to whatever Mira decided.
"I need a full written account, the operation, the secure channel, your communications with Diane over fourteen months, the name, how she found it and when she gave it to you." She met his eyes.
"That account implicates me."
"It also backs up everything on the drive, it shows Callow knew about the operation and was in direct contact with an asset he later had killed, you said you should have pushed harder, this is pushing harder."
Miller looked at her for a long moment then, without asking, he reached across the table, took Chen's pen and tore a page from the back of his notebook with the deliberate care, he made a decision before it could be second guessed.
The car park was sparse for a Friday afternoon. Chen walked beside her to where she'd left the car, his canvas bag slung over one shoulder, hands tucked into his jacket pockets.
"People will defend him, not out of corruption, but because taking him down means tearing apart something they rely on."
Vasic has been waiting for the perfect package, one complete enough to break through the structural defenses. Jones provides the financial framework, Miller brings Callow's direct knowledge and authorization and the wire recording captures Aldric's voice describing the network. Together, it's more than enough."
"And Percy? Four years inside it, his voluntary disclosure corroborates the network's legal architecture from the inside. His testimony about what he saw and signed and built is the connective tissue between the financial records and human decisions, he's the most important witness in the chain." Chen put the fact in the air.
Mira looked at him.
"He's also the most exposed, anything he reveals will implicate him too, there's no way for his testimony not to carry serious personal legal risk."
"He's been building a contemporaneous record against himself for four years, he knows exactly what it costs, he made the calculation a long time ago."
Chen noticed something in the subtext, debated mentioning it, but ultimately decided to let it go. They stood by the car, trying to decide where to go next, when her phone buzzed and interrupt her thoughts. It was an unknown number, but she answered it anyway.
"Detective Cooper."
"How did you get this number?" Mira asked, she instantly recognized the voice, a fact that both annoyed and amused her at the same time.
"Your sergeant Chen handed it to Miller in the library and Miller's phones aren't as secure as he thinks, I'm not keeping tabs on Miller, I just happened to get the number through another route and I want to be upfront about that."
"Where are you?"
"Walking, I've been walking since I left Jones. She received the recording, confirmed the audio quality and told me to leave because I was interrupting her concentration." Percy paused for a moment, "She's formidable."
"You heard about Callow?"
"Miller called me from the library before you got here, he wanted to know if I had the name on my own. I didn't, I knew the outline of someone at that level, their role, their reach into the FCCU but not their name. I should've dug deeper, I had access to Callow's calendar through the legal monitoring work. I saw his name, reviewed his schedule, was close to his communications for four years and still didn't find him."
"He designed the structure; he built it specifically so that people with access would look at it and see nothing actionable. He's been doing this for nineteen years; you've been doing it for four."
"Thank you." He spoke without really thinking about how his words might be taken.
"We're going to need you, the voluntary disclosure, everything you've got on the legal framework, the assessments, the four years of documentation you've been compiling, are you ready for that?" Mira asked, she glanced around as the city gradually settled into another ordinary evening.
"I've been ready since the second year, I just needed somewhere for it to go."
"It has somewhere to go."
"I know." He said it softly, "Twenty minutes, Blue Door, if you wanted coffee that isn't from a thermos."
She ended the call and glanced at Chen, who was absorbed in his phone.
"Not a word." She reached out for her keys.
"I'm not saying anything." He shrugged.
"You're thinking loudly." She sat in driver seat.
"He's been inside something for four years with no one to talk to; see you at station." Chen walked to his car.
Percy was at a corner table when she walked in, he already had coffee already and stood briefly as she approached.
Mira took a seat across from him. At the station, he'd been just a figure in grainy footage; in Aldric's sitting room, a performance; in the service corridor, something closer to himself but still defined by function but here, he was simply a man at a corner table, waiting for someone he'd seen in Soane's office, someone he'd watched from a park bench that morning.
"You said twenty minutes." She looked at him.
"I walk quickly when I'm thinking." He held her gaze.
"What were you thinking about?"
Percy paused out of habit, then relaxed his tense muscles and said directly, "I was wondering whether to call you, but Miller answered the question for me by having an insecure phone."
"How's Jones?"
"Formidable."
"The recording quality?"
"She said good."
"And the timeline?"
"She'll have an initial assessment by Sunday morning." He rubbed his jaw, "You do that."
"Do what?"
"Give people the accurate version of themselves when the version they're carrying is worse than accurate, you did it with Miller in the library, you did it with me." Percy looked at her the same way he had when they were sitting together on the bench.
"Why did you really call?"
"Because I've been walking for two hours and I didn't want to keep walking, you're the person I wanted to stop walking for." He said it without careful management.
She reached across the table but stopped midway when her phone buzzed, it was Chen.
"Soane just left the building, he's not the night shift man."
She showed it to Percy, he read it and together they said in unison, "Callow."
To be continued...