Chasing the Monkey King Read online

  Severin hung up. “Guyana?” he muttered aloud. A malaria-ridden diplomatic backwater if ever there was one. Must have pissed somebody off to get exiled to there. After a quick internet search for the number, he dialed the main switchboard for the U.S. Embassy in the Guyanese capital city of Georgetown, and was then promptly transferred to Allen’s desk.

  “Agent Allen?”

  “Yes,” he said in a tone that gave Severin the impression he’d interrupted the man as he was reading the sports section of USA Today and about to take a bite of a jelly doughnut.

  “Morning. Lance Johnston with Political Affairs.”

  “Okay.”

  “The undersecretary has to brief a Senate subcommittee tomorrow on everything China, and she tasked me with putting together her briefing book which is to include talking points about the disappearance of the Commerce personnel you led the investigation of, just in case it comes up. I apologize for the urgency, but I’m drafting the talking points as we speak, and the undersecretary and I would be grateful if you could help me flesh this out for a minute. I have just a handful of follow-up questions.”

  “As long as they don’t concern classified information. For that, you’ll have to use proper channels, no matter how much of a rush you’re in.”

  Severin was able to confirm that Kristin’s husband Wesley had been cursorily interviewed approximately two weeks after the disappearance of the Commerce team. He’d seemed cooperative enough. But he was hard to read. He’d been an emotional wreck. Seemed profoundly angry, which was to be expected. Regardless, the agents were told by their political appointee, non-law enforcement trained superior that because YSP’s lawyer, Holloman, had already confirmed that Wesley had parted ways with the group several hours before the Commerce team disappeared, it wasn’t necessary to trouble him with any further questions in what was clearly a difficult time for him. In other words, they’d taken Wesley at his word and dropped the line of inquiry. It was astonishing. But then again, State Department agents probably weren’t used to investigating homicides. Any homicide detective worth the price of his clip-on tie would have turned Wesley inside out before even thinking about tossing him back into the lake. Would have grilled him. It would have been one of the absolute top priorities.

  “A couple of the interviews you wrote up mention a van ride from the involved manufacturing facility to an airport in the city of Qingdao.”

  “Right.”

  “I didn’t see a report of the interview of the van driver in the attachments. Did you have any discussions with the driver that perhaps didn’t merit inclusion in the final report?”

  “No. We didn’t interview the van driver.”

  Severin was momentarily staggered by the apparent incompetence. In the pause, Allen picked up on the unasked question.

  “He’d disappeared. Nobody could locate him,” he said, already irritated.

  Now Severin found himself tempted to ask how hard Allen and his Chinese liaisons had bothered to try. He was quick to assume that Allen had that despicable indifference so common to the lesser members of federal law enforcement. It was a personality type that drove Severin crazy back when he was a Fed. If such people didn’t give a damn anymore, regardless of the legitimacy of their reasons, then they should quit, sell insurance, and make room for someone good. That they hung on, that they lingered, contagiously miserable and useless, made him furious.

  “I see. Do you happen to have a phone number or last known address for the van driver? A list of known associates maybe? Anything that might be of use in tracking him down?”

  “Chinese police handled all of that.”

  “Do you at least have his name?”

  “You’re writing talking points. What do you need the van driver’s name for when he isn’t even mentioned in the report? What’s the relevance?”

  Alright, schmucko. “He was one of the last people to see the Commerce investigators alive, unless the undersecretary and I are misunderstanding something.”

  Severin’s repeated mention of the title undersecretary silenced Allen. Unhappy though they might be, the last thing lingerers like him wanted to do was give their superiors any reason to notice them. Severin knew exactly what Allen was thinking, and knew the best thing to do would be to use this new leverage to extract more information from him. But his irritation got the best of him. “Mr. Allen, I have to ask, how long ago did you graduate from training? I mean, are you new to this sort of thing? New to basic investigative work?”

  “Who the fff—I’ve been … . What did you say your name was again?”

  Click.

  Next, he tried the other, junior State Department agent listed on the report. The man was earnest but inexperienced—barely a year out of training, even now. Severin had a relaxed conversation with him, but was able to glean very little useful information. He was at least able to confirm beyond any doubt that the powers that be wanted the investigation to be as short and superficial as possible. The agents had been instructed not to press the Chinese for anything that wasn’t offered unbidden. They’d essentially been spoon-fed whatever information the Chinese had seen fit to give them. They’d been allowed to sit in on a handful of interviews in China, had conducted a handful more in the U.S., but had been compelled to make quick findings as to whether there were any suspects. With what little information they’d either been given by the Chinese or had been able to compile on their own within the short time frame, they couldn’t conclude that there were any viable suspects—though the junior agent claimed he would have slept better had they been given time to gather a few more facts concerning Wesley. No kidding, Severin thought.

  So State had assigned the case to an incompetent burnout and a wet-behind-the-ears rookie, and then hobbled them from the get-go. Apparently, Byron Edwards wasn’t the only one who didn’t want the investigation to lead anywhere.

  Getting back on his laptop, Severin searched Powell and Keen’s names paired with the terms antidumping and commerce. In barely over a minute, he found Keen’s name and former office telephone number in the introductory paragraph of a year old Federal Register notice publishing the findings of an antidumping investigation involving steel from Indonesia. In the same paragraph, he found the name and number for Keen’s partner on the case—a man named Sergey Vladimirovich. The same paragraph gave the name of the specific division and office of the Commerce Department for which Keen and Vladimirovich worked. With that, Severin used a telephone directory on the Commerce Department web site to collect the names and phone numbers of 10 more of Keen and Kristin Powell’s officemates, as well as the numbers for their director, Elaine Danielson, and Wesley.

  Impatient for progress, and casting caution to the wind, Severin started dialing the numbers. Nobody answered for the first three, so he left voicemails requesting a call back. On the fourth number, an investigator named Jane Smiley answered. Severin gave her a quick and honest explanation of why he was calling, and asked if she’d be willing to meet with him to talk about Kristin Powell.

  “I don’t—I’m sorry, what’s your name again?”

  He told her, and reiterated that the family simply wanted to know more about what might have happened to Kristin. For closure.

  “I didn’t work with her on that case.”

  Severin thought she sounded, quite suddenly, scared. As if she’d just realized or remembered something deeply troubling. “I realize that. But I still think it would be helpful to my big picture underst—”

  “No, I don’t think I can help you.”

  “I wouldn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes of your time. I’d buy you coffee. A cappuccino. A mocha. Whatever you like.”

  “No. I’m sorry. I’m going to have to hang up now. Goodbye.”

  Calls five and six went to voicemail. Call seven, to Sergey Vladimirovich, hit the mark. Vladimirovich, who sounded to Severin like a man with a serious chip on his shoulder—an authority problem—said he’d be happy to meet. Happy to tell him everything he knew. />
  The rest of his calls were unproductive. Severin didn’t attempt to contact Elaine Danielson or Wesley Powell. He had other plans for them.

  *****

  Severin found Zhang finishing his breakfast in the hotel restaurant.

  “My head is killing me,” Severin said as he strode up to Zhang’s table.

  “Bring me a violin and I’ll play you a lament.”

  “Be a little kind,” Severin said, sitting down and then waving an empty coffee cup at the unsmiling server across the room.

  “I had a crazy vivid dream last night that I was going bald,” Zhang said. “My hair was coming out in big clumps.”

  “Your pretty, pretty hair? Must have been traumatizing.”

  “Yeah, well. I went back over the State Department report this morning.”

  “You’re kidding. You’re a go-getter, Wallace. Aren’t we supposed to still be on Pacific Time?” Zhang didn’t bother to answer. “Anything at all about the company van driver?”

  “All it says is that the investigators and their Chinese police liaisons were unable to locate him for an interview.”

  “So he dropped off the face of the earth?”

  “Possibly.”

  “Or, just as possibly, State didn’t really want to find him.”

  “Why wouldn’t they want to find him?”

  “Who knows? Anyway, I got nothing of value out of the State Department investigators. But I talked one of Powell and Keen’s colleagues into meeting us for lunch. Guy named Sergey Vladimirovich.”

  “A Highland Scot.”

  “No doubt. I tried the others, with the exception of Wesley and Elaine Danielson, but it didn’t get me anywhere. Only one besides Vladimirovich even answered the phone. And none of the others have called me back.”

  “It’s still morning.”

  “Well, if I don’t hear from them, maybe we can chase a couple of them down as they leave Commerce at the end of the work day. Danielson, at least.”

  *****

  They met Vladimirovich on his lunch break in the enormous, sprawling food court of the Ronald Reagan Federal Building, across the street from Commerce headquarters. He brought an officemate he introduced as Andrew Bergman. Severin remembered leaving Bergman a voicemail. They were young—late twenties or very early thirties. Bergman was dressed in smart business casual, but Vladimirovich looked like he dressed as shabbily as he thought he could get away with. Testing the limits. Measured disrespect, in this case indicated by jeans with a hole in one of the knees and a hooded sweatshirt bearing the logo of a hip brand of skateboard. They both wolfed down plates of chicken fried rice as they talked to Severin and Zhang.

  “Thanks for meeting with us,” Severin said. “Your other officemates won’t even return our calls.”

  “It doesn’t surprise me,” Vladimirovich said. “Way back, just after Kristin and Bill disappeared, the whole division was ordered not to talk to anyone about it.”

  “Well, we appreciate your willingness to talk to us all the more then.”

  “We liked Kristin and Bill,” Vladimirovich said. “And we hate our jobs.”

  “And our bosses,” Bergman added. “Anyway, they can’t fire us. We’re federal employees,” he added with a wink.

  “So you guys both work for Elaine Danielson?” Zhang asked. They both nodded. “Were you close to Kristin and Bill?”

  “We hung out with Bill a fair bit,” Vladimirovich said. “I wouldn’t say we were close to Kristin. Wesley wouldn’t let anyone get within arm’s length of her. But they were both nice people.”

  “So you know Kristin’s husband?”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “What can you tell us about their relationship?” Severin asked.

  “Kristin and Wesley’s?” Vladimirovich asked. “Well, he’s a head case. I’ll tell you that for free.”

  “A 21-gun salute head case? Or just a run-of-the-mill head case?”

  “Nobody likes the bastard. He’s insecure. Condescending. Steals credit for other people’s work. Blames other people for his own screw-ups. A backstabber. I could go on and on, but we’ve all seen the type, right? He used to be what’s called a program manager. But the people under him staged a full-scale revolt. And somebody higher up had the balls to do the right thing for once. They let him keep his pay grade, but made him what’s called a technical employee. Non-managerial. People still have to be teamed up with him on cases, but nobody has to work under him anymore. Anyway, Kristin got hired, oh, maybe a year ago. They put her in the only vacant cubicle in the office, which was next to Wesley’s, of course, because nobody wanted to sit by the bastard. Sweet girl. An introvert. Had framed pictures of cats on her desk, if that tells you anything. Wesley was on her like white on rice before she knew any better. Grabbed her up and got all possessive. They were rarely apart. Arrived together each morning. Lunched together. Went home together. Only socialized with others if it was an official staff event. Christmas party. Somebody’s birthday or whatever. Wesley would get all weird on anybody who tried to do anything with her—especially other men. You couldn’t even get a coffee with her without Wesley giving you the stink eye. Psycho jealous type. Anyway, within six months of her arrival, they were married. There was no lead-up. No engagement period. No parties or showers. No save-the-date cards. Just all of a sudden, after a three-day weekend, they arrived at the office married. Kristin’s other office suitemate, Jane Smiley, finally pried it out of her that Wesley proposed and talked her into going straight to the courthouse with her on the previous Friday. And that was that.”

  “Was he ever violent toward her?” Zhang asked.

  “Not that I saw,” Bergman said, with Vladimirovich shaking his head in concurrence. “Although he was definitely what I would call psychologically abusive with her. Hypercritical. Belittling. Then again, that’s how he is with everybody.”

  “Did you ever see him get violent with anybody?” Severin asked.

  “No. That being said, I have the definite feeling he is capable of going crazy on someone—attacking them—if sufficiently taunted or provoked. He just seems like one of those guys who’s always on the edge of exploding.”

  “Did either of you notice anything out of the ordinary in the lead-up to Kristin and Bill’s trip to China?” Zhang asked.

  “Not in the lead-up,” Vladimirovich said. “But while they were in China, Danielson got an email from one of them.”

  “Saying what?”

  “No idea. But whatever it said, it got her wound up. This is all second-hand, though.”

  “From whom?”

  “Danielson’s secretary. Told us Danielson was all wigged out. Asked her to arrange an urgent meeting with the assistant secretary. Subject matter undisclosed.”

  “What’s Danielson’s secretary’s name? Sounds like we should have a word with her.”

  “You mean what was her name. It was Tyreesha Harris.”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Robbed and shot to death walking to her car at the Anacostia Metro Station.”

  Severin and Zhang glanced at one another. “Then we’ll have to talk to Danielson,” Zhang said. “Is there anything you can do to help us facilitate a rendezvous with her?”

  “She won’t agree to a meeting,” Bergman said. “I can pretty much guarantee that. She doesn’t do anything she considers the slightest bit risky. And she’s the type who considers driving at night risky. No way she’s going to agree to be seen anywhere near you two.” He thought for a moment. “But you know what? She takes the bus. An express to Alexandria. She waits for it every day, just after 5, down by the corner of 14th and Constitution. It might be worth trying to ambush her there.”

  “What does she look like?”

  “Late 50s. Heavyset. Maybe 5-foot-3. Brown hair that looks dyed. Today she’s wearing a kelly green dress. And she always wears a tan, full-length rain coat, even when it’s sunny outside.”

  “Aside from whatever happened on the team’s trip to China, was th
ere anything else unusual about the case they were working?” Severin asked.

  “Nothing too weird,” Vladimirovich said. “I mean, I guess it’s somewhat weird that the company they were investigating was looking like it wasn’t going to get a punitive tariff rate applied to their goods.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In these investigations, if we determine that a foreign company’s sales to the U.S. weren’t priced anti-competitively, then they don’t get penalized with an extra tariff on their imports. They get what we call a zero tariff rate.”

  “Right, but you’re saying it’s unusual for a company to get a zero tariff rate?”

  “It is for cases involving Chinese companies. I won’t bore you with all the reasons why.”

  “And you’re saying that the sorghum syrup manufacturer Powell and Keen were investigating was going to get a zero tariff rate?”

  “It was looking that way,” Vladimirovich said. “I mean, anything can happen in these cases. New information can be discovered that changes our analysis or calculation. But yeah, they were looking like they were in good shape.”

  “You sound skeptical,” Zhang said.

  “Their lawyer, Holloman … .”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s sharp.”

  “Definitely one of the smart ones,” Bergman added, nodding.

  “I mean, a lot of the lawyers we deal with are smiling meatheads,” Vladimirovich said. “Guys who got into Harvard and Yale because of connections instead of merit. Better at slapping backs than understanding the nuances of our investigations and the underlying law. Anyway, Holloman definitely read chapter two of the manual, as they say. Definitely knows his stuff. He does really well, consistently. Has clients in a bunch of different antidumping cases. And they all tend to come out in pretty good shape.”

  “What’s wrong with that?” Zhang asked. “The cases are fact-driven, right? And I gather that Holloman’s services are in demand. Maybe he can afford to be selective in who he takes on as a client. Maybe he only accepts clients who he reckons are charging fair prices on their U.S. sales.”