Chapter 10 - The Other Investigation)
The word changed the scale of everything.
Counterintelligence.
Claire sat inside Reeves’ office the next morning while Grace slept against her chest.
“I thought this was real-estate fraud.”
“So did I when it started.”
“And now?”
“Now I think financial fraud may have been one piece of something much older.”
“Foreign governments?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You said counterintelligence.”
“Yes.”
“Why would they investigate my grandmother?”
“They may not have been investigating her.”
“Then who?”
“Victor.”
Claire looked through the glass wall at investigators moving between desks.
“What is Victor Hale’s real name?”
Reeves smiled faintly.
“That is becoming an interesting question.”
His team had discovered gaps in Victor’s history.
He appeared in New York banking circles at age thirty-one.
Before that, records were inconsistent.
Different universities.
Different birth locations.
Two social-security entries that should not have belonged to the same person.
A birth certificate issued late.
A passport renewed through an embassy under unusual circumstances.
“What do you think?” Claire asked.
“We think Victor constructed portions of his identity.”
“Why?”
“Unknown.”
“Is he a spy?”
“Unknown.”
“That word is doing a lot of work.”
“It’s an honest word.”
Claire appreciated that, even if she hated it.
The older counterintelligence file remained restricted.
But one retired agent agreed to speak with Reeves.
His name was Martin Shaw.
He met Claire in a secure government building that afternoon.
Shaw was seventy-two, silver-haired and slow-moving.
When Claire entered carrying Grace, his entire expression changed.
“You’re Eleanor’s granddaughter.”
“Yes.”
He looked at Grace.
“And that must be the great-granddaughter.”
Claire stiffened.
“How do you know anything about my family?”
Shaw sat.
“Your grandmother contacted us.”
Claire stared.
“When?”
“About nine months before she died.”
“Why?”
“She was frightened.”
“Of Victor?”
“Yes.”
“What did she know?”
“Not enough.”
“What did she suspect?”
Shaw looked toward Reeves.
Reeves nodded.
Shaw continued.
“Eleanor believed Victor used real-estate transactions to create financial channels for foreign clients who required anonymity.”
“Criminals?”
“Some.”
“Governments?”
“Possibly.”
“And my father knew?”
“Eleanor believed Charles understood the money was questionable but did not understand the larger network.”
Claire thought about the voicemail.
I thought I was protecting the company.
“What happened to the investigation?”
“Victor disappeared.”
“To Switzerland.”
“That was the assumption.”
“Why wasn’t he arrested?”
“We did not have sufficient evidence.”
“What about Grandma?”
“She suffered a stroke three weeks after our last meeting.”
Claire’s skin prickled.
“You thought Victor caused it.”
“We had no evidence.”
“Did you investigate?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Her private nurse disappeared two days later.”
Claire stared.
“Her nurse?”
“You remember her?”
“No.”
“Her name was Lydia Serrano.”
Reeves wrote it down.
“Was she found?”
Shaw shook his head.
“Not then.”
Claire heard the qualification.
“Not then?”
Shaw looked at Reeves again.
“Two years ago, remains were identified in New Jersey.”
Claire closed her eyes.
Grace moved against her chest.
Claire held her tighter.
“Victor killed her.”
“We cannot establish that.”
“Everyone around this man disappears.”
Shaw did not argue.
He opened an old folder.
“Eleanor gave me something during our final meeting.”
Claire looked at the photocopy he placed on the table.
A list of thirteen property addresses.
Most were Morgan-owned buildings.
One was Bernard Keene’s Queens property.
Another was Claire’s penthouse building.
Her breath caught.
“She listed my building?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Years before you bought the penthouse.”
Claire frowned.
“Why?”
“We never discovered what connected the properties.”
Reeves studied the list.
“Maybe development rights.”
“Perhaps.”
Claire read the addresses again.
Then noticed something.
“They form a line.”
Reeves looked up.
“What?”
“My grandfather used to talk about assembling parcels along infrastructure corridors.”
She opened a map on her phone.
One by one, they entered the addresses.
The properties formed an irregular path from Brooklyn waterfront industrial land toward Midtown Manhattan.
Not a straight line.
But close.
“What runs underneath them?” Claire asked.
Reeves contacted an infrastructure analyst.
The answer arrived that evening.
An abandoned utility tunnel system.
Built more than seventy years earlier.
Parts had been sealed.
Parts sold.
Parts forgotten.
Claire stared at the digital map.
The route passed beneath eleven of the thirteen properties.
Including the warehouse containing Unit 14.
“What are they hiding underground?” she whispered.
Reeves’ phone rang.
He answered.
Listened.
Then stood.
“What?”
Claire watched his face.
“We found your father.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“Brooklyn.”
“Is he hurt?”
Reeves hesitated.
“He’s unconscious.”
“Where in Brooklyn?”
May you like
Another hesitation.
“Inside one of the tunnels.”
