Damage Control Read online

  “Oh, now this is interesting,” Venice declared when she was done. A new image appeared on the screen, this one showing two lists of names. “The list on the left shows the various contributors from twenty months ago, back when Crystal Palace was in its heyday. On the right is the list of donors from five months ago, during the darkest of their dark days. You can see there are way, way fewer donors.” She stroked the keys, and after only a few seconds, the computer spit out the number 0.992.

  “Okay,” she explained. “Of those remaining die-hard faithful, ninety-nine-point-two percent of them were on the original list of donors.”

  “Isn’t that to be expected?” Dom asked. “I can’t imagine that accusations of statutory rape are going to bring in a lot of new donors.”

  Venice pointed to the priest as if to indicate that he was her brightest pupil. “You just made my point,” she said. “Because look here.” More clacking and another screen change. “This is a list of the donors over the past three months, when they were making money again. If we match them against the original faithful, we get ...”

  More tapping and a new number on the screen. “Zero-point-four-six-four. That means that of the one hundred twelve recent donors, only forty-six-point-four percent gave money before the scandal.” She looked up. “Put another way, fifty-three-point-six percent of the newly inspired donors never gave to the Crystal Palace before.”

  “You tell us that with such grave emphasis,” Gail said. “What exactly are you suggesting?”

  Venice looked like she didn’t want to speak the thoughts aloud. “I think someone paid the church to allow the kidnappings to happen.”

  Gail’s jaw dropped. “What?”

  “I’ve heard Dig say it a thousand times,” Venice pressed. “There are no coincidences. How convenient to receive unique donations just before such a huge outlay. That money was given for a reason. The timing is what it is for a reason. Because of timing alone—the contributions coming right before a major outlay of ransom money—the two have to be connected somehow.”

  More furious typing. “Here it is. Those sixty new donors represent nearly ninety percent of the donations received, and wouldn’t you know it? While the individual amounts are all over the board, those sixty, isolated out and taken together, come to just north of six million dollars—almost exactly twice what the ransom was.”

  Dom squinted at the numbers. “It’s six-point-two,” he said. “I think you’re stretching.”

  “You have to correct for random givers,” Gail said. “Not all of them are going to be a part of whatever plot this is.” She turned to Venice. “What can you get us about those sixty donors? Almost all of them appear to be corporations.”

  Venice turned back to her friend the keyboard. “Give me a few minutes. Talk quietly among yourselves.”

  Dom watched, fascinated by the speed of Venice’s fingers, and by the variety of expressions on her face as she plowed through whatever databases she was invading. Her big brown eyes cycled among frustration, amazement, surprise, and awe.

  Ten minutes later, she was done.

  “Sorry that took so long,” she said. “Especially since I didn’t come up with anything useful. I’ve got All American Industries, CEO Dennis Hainsley, no record of either beyond individual white pages listings. I’ve also got a Global Transformations Inc., with an equally invisible CEO named Harold Scolari. Interestingly, it appears that Global Transformations is a subsidiary of All American Industries. I’ve got Tiger Creek Industries, also invisible, and Big Daddy Carpet Cleaning, run by an apparently nonexistent person named—wait for it—Nancy Drew. Every one of these companies has Federal Employee ID numbers, and every one of them pays taxes. All this, despite the fact that no one has ever praised them, blogged about them, or filed a DUNS request. Does this pattern remind you of any companies you know?”

  Gail and Dom looked at each other, and then they both got it at the same time. “The Family Defense Foundation,” they said in unison.

  Venice’s eyebrows danced. “Bingo.” Jonathan Grave was the king of the cutout corporation. He’d funneled millions of dollars to Resurrection House through the Family Defense Foundation.

  Dom decided to test-drive the theory. “Maybe these companies believe in the mission of the church but don’t want to be associated with the scandal.”

  It was obvious that Venice had already considered this, and had rejected it out of hand. “Where were they before the Pastor Mitchell was accused of boffing a child?”

  “They saw that the Crystal Palace was being run out of business, and they thought it was a witch hunt.” Dom realized that he was taking the role of devil’s advocate, but the stakes here were very high.

  “I don’t buy it, Dom,” Gail said. “That feels completely wrong to me. This feels more like government cutouts.”

  “Our government?” Dom said. “And why would they do that?”

  “I guess that’s what you need to ask Wolverine when you meet with her,” Gail replied. “When does that happen?”

  “This afternoon at three,” he said. “I guess I can float these names past her and see what she comes up with.”

  “Meanwhile, I’ll keep poking around the sources I can find,” Venice said. She looked to Gail. “Any and all assistance is appreciated.”

  “Not me,” Gail said. “I’m boarding the first flight I can find to Scottsdale. See if I can’t leverage an audience with Reverend Jackie Mitchell.”

  “Leverage?” Dom asked.

  “You like ‘persuade’ better?” Gail asked with a smile.

  “Reading your body language, I’m thinking ‘extort.’ ” She tasted the word. “I can live with extort,” she said. “In fact, I kind of like it.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  To call this rutted pathway a road was to overstate the case by half. Steep and unpaved, the dirt-and-grass clearing was barely wide enough for the Toyota, and it was steep enough to make the little engine scream. It was going to be a very long twelve-point-one miles. The jungle pressed in from both sides, and overhead, the canopy was so thick as to render Jonathan’s party invisible from the air. No wonder the aerial map was so unhelpful.

  “What are those plants with the great big leaves?” Tristan asked from the backseat. “They’re everywhere.”

  “I call them the plants with the big leaves,” Jonathan said. He’d never been a flora-and-fauna kind of guy. In his experience, terrain and indigenous living things were either tactical tools or they were irrelevant. As far as he knew, the plants with the big leaves weren’t a source of food, so their only relevance was their ability to provide cover for people who wanted to do him harm. They unnecessarily lengthened the trip.

  At this rate, Jonathan figured it to be at least a sixty-minute trip to the village. Every few hundred yards, the road bulged to the right, providing space to pull over to allow an approaching vehicle to get by, or for a faster vehicle to pass from behind.

  It turned out to be a ninety-three-minute trip.

  As Boxers drove the SUV up the steep hill into the village of Santa Margarita, people on the narrow street cast curious glances their way. Jonathan guessed that white faces were rare in these parts, and that a collection of three was unheard of. Throw in the cammies and the weapons, and the locals had every right to turn away as they did, pretending not to see. Some turned their backs, some stepped into buildings, but in general, everyone looked everywhere but at them.

  “These folks are scared,” Jonathan said.

  “What’s your bet?” Boxers asked. “Are they afraid of us, or are they afraid of getting caught in the act of something?”

  “Why are we letting ourselves be seen like this?” Tristan asked.

  “Because I don’t know how to be invisible,” Boxers quipped. To Jonathan: “The kid’s got a point. I don’t like all this attention. Scared people drop dimes on the people that scare them.”

  Indeed they do, Jonathan thought.

  Though small, the village was colorful, eve
ry building painted a different pastel. Jonathan figured that the colors helped to make their drab lives a little easier. Yes, that was jingoism, and no, he wasn’t going to apologize for it.

  “Drop a dime?” Tristan asked. “You mean call the police or something?”

  “That’s what I meant,” Boxers said, “but that ain’t gonna happen.” He pointed through the windshield to a squatty building on the left side of the road. “There it is,” he said. He turned the wheel and headed in that direction.

  “What are we doing?” Tristan asked.

  “Not now,” Jonathan said. As they pulled to a stop, he unbuckled his seat belt and opened his door while Boxers did the same, in his case grabbing his ruck.

  “That’s not a church,” Tristan said.

  “Stay put,” Jonathan ordered. “This won’t take long.”

  “What are you doing?”

  Jonathan winked. “Stacking the odds in our favor.”

  Digger and the Big Guy walked with purpose to the front door of the little brick and block building that they knew to be the telephone substation. He noted the concrete roof, which eliminated his biggest fear regarding what lay ahead.

  Boxers asked, “Do you have the key?”

  “Always.” Jonathan pulled a leather pouch containing his lock picks from a pocket in his sleeve. After checking to make sure that the door was indeed locked, he inserted the tension bar with one hand, and the rake with the other. Five seconds later, the door floated open, revealing the electronic guts of a telephone switching station. “Need help?”

  Boxers gave him an annoyed look. “I’m offended. Just keep an eye out.”

  While Jonathan stood at the open door, Boxers entered and walked to the far corner of the twelve-by-twelve single-room structure. The Big Guy pulled two orange thermite grenades out of his ruck. He placed one in a panel box that that looked like a knot of multicolored spaghetti, and staged the second one atop a larger panel that had to be the building’s main electrical supply, closer to the door. Moving back to the first one in the back of the room, he braced the grenade with his left hand, his thumb pressing the safety spoon, and pulled the pin with his right. Because thermite grenades had notoriously short fuses, he stepped back quickly as he let the spoon fly. Three seconds later, the grenade belched out a white-hot, forty-five-hundred-degree ball of fire that consumed the panel and its contents, filling the building with smoke.

  He repeated the process on the building’s power supply on the way out, and then rejoined Jonathan, closing the door behind him. “I hate those damn things,” he mumbled as he headed back to the truck. “They don’t even go boom.”

  “What did you do?” Tristan gasped. “Did you set the building on fire?”

  “Not the building,” Jonathan said. “Just the contents. The brick won’t burn.” They were moving again.

  “We can’t afford the risk of someone making a phone call,” Jonathan explained before Tristan could get the question out.

  “Aren’t the police going to come for the fire?” Tristan asked.

  “Who’s going to call them?” Jonathan countered. “It’s a gamble, but I think it’s a safe one.”

  “You think it’s safe?”

  Jonathan let it go.

  A few minutes later, they turned a corner to the left, and the hills flattened out to reveal what appeared to be a much older part of the town. A cluster of worn wooden homes surrounded a circular patch of ground—maybe a half acre—that probably would have been grass-covered if given a chance, but that frequent wear had left a churned mess of clotted mud. Presently, a scrum of children—boys and girls aged, say, seven to twelve—was playing soccer in the space, several displaying remarkable skill at the game.

  The church of Santa Margarita dominated the western edge of the circle, backlit by the late-afternoon sun. To Jonathan’s eye, the place looked more Methodist than Catholic, its thirty-foot steeple casting a shadow across the soccer field. No larger than twenty by thirty feet, the place had clearly been built with a lot of love. It gleamed with a fresh coat of white paint.

  “Those kids are good,” Tristan said of the soccer players.

  Boxers slowed the vehicle at the edge of the field and craned his neck to survey the area. Jonathan did the same, looking for unusual clusters of people, or physical movement that might indicate an impending ambush.

  “What are we waiting for?” Tristan whispered from behind.

  Jonathan ignored him. Nothing he saw gave him pause. Adults of varying ages sat in front of their tiny homes, watching the children either from stoops or from lawn chairs. Most seemed engrossed in the game.

  Jonathan pulled a digital monocular from a pouch on his vest and brought it to his eye for a closer look. In his peripheral vision, he saw Boxers doing the same thing.

  “I don’t see any weapons,” the Big Guy said.

  Nor did Jonathan. “I count eight adults plus the children.”

  “Agreed,” Boxers confirmed. “But there have to be more adults than that, just to account for the children.”

  “I wish I could see a priest,” Jonathan mumbled. He brought the monocular down, turned it off, and slipped it back into its pouch. “Okay, Tristan,” he said. “You ready to take a walk?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Father Dominic D’Angelo had known Jonathan Grave for more years than he cared to calculate—since the day they’d moved into long-condemned yet still-assigned Tyler-A dormitory on the campus of the College of William and Mary. Jonathan’s last name had still been Gravenow back then, during their freshman year. They were both jocks and party boys—Jon as a track star and Dom as a middling soccer player—and they’d bonded instantly, remaining roommates through their entire college careers.

  It’s funny, Dom thought, how similar the eighteen-year-old version of one’s self turns out to be to the adult version. Even then, long before the Digger handle had even been thought of, Jonathan had been an angry young man. There was a dark side to his competitiveness, a drive to prove himself. Haunted by demons of which Dom had only recently become aware, Jon had a sense of right and wrong—of justice and injustice—that was cast in shades of black and white. Traditional notions of authority meant little to him. Rules weren’t necessarily made to be broken, but they were certainly made to be evaluated for reasonableness and then followed or shunned accordingly.

  Perhaps that’s the natural outcome of having been raised by a mobster and a murderer. Dom always thought it was interesting that he’d known about Jonathan’s father’s ties to organized crime long before he’d learned that Jon was heir to hundreds of millions of dollars. While it was important to him that people know he was ashamed of his bloodline, the money seemed to embarrass him. Over time, as Dom earned his doctor of divinity, and then his PhD in psychology, he would come to understand the roots of Jonathan’s emotional peccadilloes, and he would grow to understand his friend’s worldview that right and wrong were absolutes, affording precious little room for relativity.

  Jon had been one of those teenagers who could transform from charming ladies’ man to ruthless fighter and back again in the space of a dozen heartbeats. All it took was for a person to victimize someone weaker than he. Dom had seen it happen with trash-talking bullies in bars, and he had seen it in classrooms when a professor bullied a student intellectually. Jonathan got away with it because his motivations were always pure, and because, in the end, he was always right.

  To Jonathan, the world was full of petty tyrants. He saw it as his life’s mission to protect people from them. Sometimes with his body, occasionally with his career, but always with his intellect.

  Dom had never known anyone quite like him. Supremely competent at everything he tried, and possessing a near photographic memory for things that interested him, Jonathan could talk anyone into doing anything. Including, it turned out, joining the Army.

  To this day, Dom wasn’t sure what he’d been thinking when he’d allowed Jonathan to talk him into enlisting, but reasons notwithstand
ing, he’d followed his friend from graduation to the recruiting station, and from there on to Officer’s Candidate School, from which neither would graduate.

  OCS turned out to be a bad billet for a young man who resented authority. After only a few weeks, Jonathan resigned and shifted gears to become an “honest soldier,” as he liked to call it, meaning a career as a non-commissioned officer. Dom, on the other hand, finally succumbed to the calling of the Church. He did his requisite three years as a grunt, and upon separation from the service moved on to serve the Lord.

  When the Bishop of Arlington contacted Dom to offer him the job as pastor of St. Katherine’s Church in Fisherman’s Cove, he’d jumped at the chance, marveling at the coincidence that he would be called to the oft-talked-about home of the friend with whom he’d fallen out of touch over the years. For as far back as he could remember, Jonathan had gushed about the bucolic community he’d called home as a child, and having served in some of the more unsavory corners of the Diocese, Dom had welcomed the transfer.

  He’d barely unpacked his bags in the rectory at St. Kate’s when his phone rang and he answered to find Jonathan on the other end. “Welcome to paradise,” he’d said, and then he invited Dom to dinner at his house.

  Actually, house didn’t touch it. Palace barely touched it. Easily the largest structure in town, the Gravenow mansion sat adjacent to St. Kate’s, atop a hill that made it the focus of everything. Grand as it was, there was a coldness to the place that made Dom uneasy. That summer night Jonathan had greeted him at the door barefoot, wearing shorts and a GO ARMY T-shirt. Within the first few words, the years had peeled away, and they were old pals again, reliving stories of wild parties and wild women that would have made the parish flock blush crimson if they’d heard.

  When the plates were empty, and the bottle of after-dinner Lagavulin was mostly gone, Jonathan leaned back perilously in his chair and gestured grandly with both arms. “So, Dom,” he said, “what do you think of the quaint cottage of my youth?”