“No, it wasn’t that,” said Decker. He pulled the notebook back to him. “We got the Sûreté to check on that too. It struck me as odd that someone like you, without any real money, could find her way into games of chance that would allow you to dig such a hole. You were never a high roller. You never went to the private areas of these casinos where the heavy hitters lose a hundred grand on a single roll. And most casinos would have put the kibosh on your gambling long before you got to ten million. Anyone runs up that much in losses, they already know that person’s financials. Casinos are not stupid. They’re in business to make money, not lose it. So there are letters of credit on file, methods of guaranteed repayment locked in to cover losses that large. You didn’t have any of that, so they’d know you could never pay it back. But I just took it for granted that it was true, because that’s what I was told.” He shot a sidelong glance at Brown. “But we finally decided to questio

n that conclusion because it made no sense. And conclusions that make no sense are very often wrong.”

Decker sat back and looked at Natalie. “The French police haven’t gotten back to us yet with the answers to that, but they will. And do you want to know what I think they’ll find?”

Natalie said nothing.

“I think they’ll find you had gambling debts, all right. Maybe hundreds of thousands. Enough to sink you. Enough to scare the shit out of you. But not millions.”

Brown said, “But Decker, we know that ten million dollars was moved from one account to another.”

Decker held up his hand and looked back at Natalie. “And you were approached by someone who was probably watching you the whole time, because of who your father was. And that person made a deal with you. It was your only way out, because I do think you’d borrowed money from some bad dudes to pay those gambling debts. And they would hurt you and your family if you didn’t repay that loan.”

Natalie had turned very pale.

Bogart took up the thread. “That person agreed to take care of your debts if you did something in return. You were to contact your father and sell him this story of millions in gambling debts run up by your French hubby, and you and your family’s life on the line if it weren’t paid. It couldn’t be hundreds of thousands, because your father would probably be able to pay that off himself. But not ten million. So what choice does he have? Where else could he get that kind of money so fast? He couldn’t sell his house or liquidate his other assets in a day or two. There was really only one way. So that was the bait, and he had no choice but to take it.

“Now, if you want to dispute that and come up with an alternate scenario that makes sense, feel free. We’ve got no place else to be.” Decker folded his arms over his chest, sat back, and stared at her expectantly.

A minute of silence ticked by until Natalie said curtly, “What kind of a deal can I get?”

CHAPTER

52

“BOY DID I blow that,” said Brown.

She, Decker, and Jamison were sitting in a conference room at the WFO.

Bogart, Milligan, and an attorney from the Justice Department were with Natalie in another part of the building going over the preliminary terms of a deal because of her cooperation in the case.

The woman had broken down in sobs when she’d been taken away from Dulles Airport. And even Decker could tell that this time the tears were real.

“We got that scenario totally screwed up. She set her own father up,” said Brown. “It never occurred to us. How did you figure that one?”

“Alex here actually made me think it was possible because of something she said about Anne Berkshire getting Walter Dabney under her thumb. Plus, there was no way someone like Natalie would have been allowed to run up millions in gambling debts. They would have cut her off long before.”

Brown looked over at Jamison with new respect. “I guess I just assumed that our intel on who was the gambler was true.”

Jamison said, “Amos and I have a policy of not believing anything unless we know it to be true. And that’s a high bar.” She shot Decker a glance after she said this, but he was lost in thought.

Brown said, “So Natalie described the guy who approached her. He sounded Russian to her. He made the deal of paying off her debts. It wasn’t like she could really ask her father. She said she owed about three hundred thousand. He might have been able to pay that off, but then she’d have to explain what it was for, and she didn’t want to do that. And she had borrowed the money she gambled with from some not-so-nice people who would have hurt her and her family if she didn’t repay.”

Jamison said, “So she sets her own father up.”

Brown said, “She says she didn’t know anything about her dad stealing secrets.”

“How could she not know?” retorted Jamison. “Where else was he going to get ten million?”

Brown said, “He might have mortgaged their house, cleaned out his retirement, sold every stock and bond he had. I wonder how they would have reacted if he had done that instead of stealing secrets.”

Decker interjected, “It was a chance they were willing to take. And if he did do all that, it would make him susceptible to selling secrets down the line. He wouldn’t have had any money left for retirement. So either way, they probably win. It seems that these folks are very patient about how they go about their work. They think long-term. But they didn’t have to worry about that, because he went for the sale-of-secrets route first.”

“But how do we track down this Russian guy?” asked Jamison. “He’s the only lead we have on this.”

Decker said, “We have his description and the name he gave Natalie, though it wouldn’t be his real one. They’re circulating that info to all the agencies here and overseas. Maybe something will pop.” He looked at Brown. “You said the money was untraceable?”

“Now that we know it wasn’t ten million in gambling debts we’re going to take another look at it. But don’t hold out too much hope.”

“Why not?” asked Jamison.

“First of all, in the digital age, moving money around the world is a lot easier to do and a lot harder to track. And my guess is that whoever struck the deal with Natalie paid off her debts. The ten mill for the secrets that Dabney stole was probably a sham transaction. We know money did change hands, but we lost it in the digital ether. It could have gone out of one account and bounced around the world before going into another account controlled by the same party. The proof to Dabney that the funds made it to where they were supposed to go would be in the form of Natalie and her family being alive and well.”

Jamison nodded, obviously disappointed. “That makes sense.”

“And if Natalie is telling the truth now, it doesn’t seem like she knows anything more that could help us.”

“So what sort of deal will she get?” Jamison asked Brown.

She shrugged. “If they believe that she didn’t know what her father was going to do, they might be lenient. There’s no crime in asking your parents to help pay off your debts. And gambling was legal where she did it. If you take the espionage piece out she may be looking at no prison time.”

“That hardly seems fair for what she did.”

“She lost her father over this,” said Brown. “She’s going to have to live with that the rest of her life. That might be more punishment than sitting in a prison cell.”

Decker said, “But what none of this explains is the core issue that began this case for us. Why did Dabney kill Berkshire and then himself? They have to be related to what Natalie did. But how are they connected? If we don’t answer that, we answer nothing. And what the hell is the point of that?”

He got up and walked out.

“The man is ticked off,” said Brown.

Jamison settled her gaze on the other woman. “He doesn’t like bullshit. He likes to cut right through that to get to the truth.” She paused. “How about you?”

“How about me what?”

“Do you like bullshit better than the truth?”

Brown looked at her coolly. “Do I take your aggressive tone to mean that Decker told you what happened between me and Melvin last night? And you’re upset about it?”

“He did tell me. And I was upset about it. But then you’re both consenting adults, so there you go. No, I was talking about your

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