Chapter Fifty Five – Poor Investment
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Senator Kade Woodley was furious. It was one in the morning and he had just been woken by the sound of his cell phone ringing. Swearing loudly, he reached through the darkness for his phone. As his fingers closed around it, Woodley saw his security advisor's name flashing in the caller ID.
"Fuck off, Palden," he muttered to himself.
Then, with another curse, he raised the phone to his ear and pressed the call button.
"What?"
The late hour negated any need for diplomacy. Besides, the Senator did not pay Brian Palden to speak nice to him.
"Sir, my apologies for calling at such a late hour-."
"-Cut the crap, Palden, what do you want?" Woodley barked again.
"We have a situation." the Security advisor replied.
"I'm in my goddamn hotel room, Palden – what possible security situation is there in here?"
"Not with you, sir. It's the DC house, they've had a break-in."
Woodley sat upright in bed and switched the bedside lamp on.
"A break in?"
"A single intruder, unarmed."
"Did you get him?"
"That's a negative sir, the intruder, uh, escaped."
"Goddamn it!" Woodley spat. "Well, did you at least get a good look at him?"
"No, sir. We have no positive ID."
"Didn't the cameras get a shot of him? I spent a fucking fortune on the cameras!"
Palden cleared his throat.
"The intruder seemed to follow the blind spots through the property. He got in and out without a clear shot of his face."
There was a pause.
"Can someone do that? I mean, how could someone know that?"
"They must have had some sort of inside knowledge, sir. They entered directly through the office window, took what they wanted and left the same way. The operation appears to have been executed professionally."
"Did they even trip the alarms?"
"No alarms were tripped, sir."
"Well, what did they take? Jewels, electronics, other valuables..?"
"It seems they were after information."
"The bastards were after campaign secrets?"
"Sir, they took the hard disk drive from the safe in the office." Palden cleared his throat meaningfully.
Woodley shrugged, surprised by the thief's lack of audacity.
"That's all?"
"The one in the office, sir." Palden repeated.
"Was it expensive?"
His security advisor sighed.
"It's the one you had me store the financial data on, sir."
"Does that mean they have all my bank details?"
"That's not a problem, sir. I keep your account numbers separate, on the office computer."
"So what's the problem?"
The Senator was beginning to get annoyed that Palden had called him at all. Surely this could have waited until morning.
"The problem, sir, is that the disk contains all ingoing and outgoing payments related to the campaign. Everything is on that disk, sir…" Palden proceeded slowly. "Our 'poor investment' is listed on that account."
There was a moment where neither of them spoke. Woodley might not have been very involved in the financial aspects of his campaign, but he knew exactly what investment Palden was talking about. Alarm bells were beginning to ring in his head. Inside his chest, his heart pumped faster. His 'poor investment' was a simple mistake – a money transfer which had been mistakenly made from his own personal account. A money transfer which now linked Woodley to a local crime boss.
"Why the hell is that on the disk?" he asked, voice low with threat.
"Sir, we discussed this. There is no way to erase such a transaction." Palden explained "Moving money leaves a paper trail, and-"
"-So what do we do?" the Senator cut him off.
He was gripping the hotel bed sheets tightly, his cheeks feeling suddenly hot. He wondered if he had blanched, like people did in the movies. Was his skin as white as sheet? Kade Woodley forced himself not to panic. The situation was reparable. After all, the disk did not contain his own account number. Any ties were only circumstantial…
"I've been in touch with local PD." Palden's voice pulled him back to reality. "I told them we had a false alarm at the house, that everything is fine."
"What do we do next?" Woodley asked. "Do we have any leads on the ID of the intruder?"
"There was nothing from the house cameras, but we had an idea." Palden cleared his throat again – a nervous habit. "We tapped your neighbor's CCTV footage for the time around the break-in, to try and find the intruder's escape vehicle. Unfortunately, we couldn't find where he parked - he must have been in another blind spot."
Woodley muttered darkly to himself.
"But," Palden continued, "we did pick out a vehicle - a pick-up truck - which had been spotted in the area three times over the last two days."
"Did you run the plates?"
"We did, sir." There was rustling of paper on the other end of the line, as Palden searched for a printout, or a file. "The pick-up is registered to a Benedict Vale. He's an FBI agent, sir, an ex-marine."
If Woodley's face hadn't been bloodless before, it certainly was now. Swearing loudly, he scrambled over to his desk and began to rifle through his papers.
"Fuck it, Palden, the Feds have access to it all! Back when Mendez escaped, I was called by an Agent... Ah-!" Woodley exclaimed as he found the business card. "Here it is, an Agent Clint Pearsall. He wanted a copy of my security staff and plans, to keep on record in case of a hostage situation."
"And you gave him complete copies of your security outlay?" Palden asked.
"He said he needed to know, Palden, what was I supposed to do? They were supposed to be protecting me!"
"You gave him complete copies of both the security staff rota and the camera layout?" Palden asked again, his voice annoyingly calm.
"Yes, damn it!"
Palden sighed.
"I was hoping you weren't going to say that, sir. It's going to make my job that much harder." The phone line crackled and Woodley heard Palden typing at a computer. "The good news is that there is no way this was an officially sanctioned mission."
"Why is that good news?"
"It means that this Agent Vale is working by himself."
A snort of disbelief came from Woodley's lips.
"What does he think he's going to accomplish by himself?"
"Extortion or blackmail, I can only assume." Palden cleared his throat. "He'll want money for silence – the usual deal."
"How does he know about the..." Woodley paused, loathe to say it aloud, even on his own "...the investment we made?"
"He probably has no idea, sir. The drive was in a safe. He probably just assumed it was valuable and decided to hold it ransom."
"Have you had a demand yet?"
"Not yet, sir, but it has been less than an hour."
Woodley nodded to himself, summing the situation up inside his head. He came to the conclusion that he should feel relieved.
"So its just one guy..."
"So far as we know, sir. There is no evidence that anyone else was involved." Palden coughed. "Obviously, we will follow up other lines of inquiry, as standard."
Another nod from the Senator.
"Well, the stupid bastard doesn't know what he's got himself in for." He laughed wryly. "We'll toast him alive. He's got nothing, really, you said my account number's not even listed on that drive. It wouldn't matter if he sent it to the Director of the FBI himself - its all circumstantial!"
"Believe me, sir," Palden murmured quietly. "You don't want this information floating around out there – incomplete or otherwise. Even a shadow of an accusation against you and the campaign would be in tatters. Not to mention that it would cast reasonable doubt on you." Woodley's security advisor sounded uneasy. "The FBI would investigate the claims - however circumstantial - and they have the resources to uncover evidence that is far more solid."
A few moments passed in uncomfortable silence. The Senator leant forwards on his desk, running his hand through his hair. How had the night turned so quickly sour?
He let out a heavy sigh.
"Okay, Palden, what do you suggest we do about it?"
"Let me take care of it." his advisor asnwered, immediately.
Another minute passed, each man listening to the other breathe over the telephone line. Woodley considered his options. Palden was right, he could not leave the information out there. And he only had one other option.
"Okay." The Senator said, quietly. "You take care of it."
"Right away, sir."
"Make sure this punk doesn't bother me again."
Palden cleared his throat.
"You can count on me, sir."
Woodley shut the phone with a snap.
Palden would take care of it. Palden was good at making problems go away. Walking back over to his bed, he sat down upon in, amongst the bed sheets. He rolled over and lay on his back, but did not close his eyes. Sleep would be elusive, tonight. And Kade Woodley was not a man who lost sleep over things lightly.
Palden would take care of it, he repeated to himself. He rolled over and closed his eyes. The pillow was soft and the sheets comfortable against his skin, but his heartbeat was beating a little faster than usual.
Palden would take care of it.
