Murder at the FBI Read online

  Once they were gone, Saksis refilled her cup, settled back behind her desk, and slowly started to go through Pritchard’s phone book. Most of the entries were initials. There were few addresses. Most initials were followed by a single telephone number.

  She went to where Barbara Twain and the second computer operator were at work in front of their terminals. “Barbara, can you break away?” she asked.

  “Sure.” The chubby blonde followed Saksis back to her office, where Saksis handed her the small phone book. “Set up a program to compare the initials and names in here to the list of people who signed in to see Pritchard that day, or who were known to visit him in his office. Will it take long?”

  Twain shook her head and smiled. “Not long at all.”

  ***

  Hans Loeffler was a large, square man with sparse hair that he combed in wet strands across a bumpy bald head. He had high color in his cheeks and a bulbous nose. He wasn’t fat, but it was obvious that keeping his weight down was not easy for him. Back home in Munich, Germany, he was deputy commissioner of that city’s polizei, with its undercover division under his direct supervision. He’d been in Washington attending a special training program offered to foreign law enforcement officials at the bureau’s Quantico academy. He’d completed the Quantico phase of his training, but instead of returning directly to Germany had been invited by Assistant Director Jonathan Mack, who headed up the bureau’s law enforcement division, to spend two weeks at headquarters coordinating Munich’s link-up with the FBI’s CLIS program (Criminalistics Laboratory Information System), which shares a massive general rifling characteristics file with national and international agencies. Loeffler had a special interest in weapons and often bragged of his personal collection at home.

  Perone and Loeffler met in a small conference room on the Tenth Street side of the Hoover Building. Perone took a seat at one end of a six-foot-long teak conference table and invited Loeffler to sit in the first chair to his right. Instead, the bulky German sat at the opposite end of the table. He was overtly nervous. His face was moist, and Perone noticed that when he lit a cigarette—which he seemed to do constantly—his hand trembled. The small tape recorder Perone had placed on the table didn’t help.

  “Well, Mr. Loeffler, I’m sure you know why I wanted to see you this morning,” said Perone.

  “Pritchard,” Loeffler said bluntly.

  “Yes. We’re interviewing everyone who was in the building the night he—he died.”

  “You have a lot of interviewing to do. There must be thousands here at night.”

  “Yes, that’s true, but we’re starting with those who aren’t employees of the FBI.”

  “I see. Well, I can tell you nothing you do not already know.”

  Perone smiled and leaned back. “Frankly, Mr. Loeffler, I don’t know anything at this stage except that you were here that night. What were you doing?”

  Loeffler lit another cigarette and tried to make his large body more comfortable within the arms of the narrow chair.

  “Can’t you remember?” Perone asked.

  “Yes, yes, of course I remember, but I am not sure I am free to tell you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it involves secret matters.”

  Perone raised an eyebrow and leaned forward to see that the cassette tape was running. He sat back again and stared at Loeffler.

  “Please, Mr. Perone, try to understand the position you place me in. I wish to cooperate but…”

  Perone continued to stare. He’d been told over the years with the bureau that his stare could melt a diamond, and he used it effectively during interrogations. It had unglued the coolest of suspects.

  “I do not wish to break trusts,” Loeffler said. “I feel privileged to be here and to have been taken into the confidence of Assistant Director Mack and the others. Please, it is not right to ask me to betray that trust.”

  “That’s not what I’m looking for from you, Mr. Loeffler. I understand what you’re saying, and I respect it. Let’s forget about the nature of what kept you here so late that night. Just tell me who can vouch for your movements.”

  Another cigarette. “Many people, those I met with.”

  “Names?”

  He mentioned three people.

  Perone squinted. Smoke from Loeffler’s chain of cigarettes floated in his direction and caused his eyes to sting. He said, “I don’t think we have anything more to discuss, Mr. Loeffler. I’ll talk to the people you’ve mentioned and confirm what you’ve said.”

  Perone shut off the tape recorder and slipped a narrow notebook back into his jacket pocket. He glanced up at Loeffler, who looked as though he wanted to say something.

  “Is there something else?” Perone asked.

  Loeffler, who’d just ground out a cigarette and was lighting another, wiped his brow with the back of his hand, shook his head, and said, “No, nothing else.” He stood. Perone came around the table and shook his hand. “Thanks,” he said. “I understand you’ve had a successful stay here.”

  Loeffler smiled for the first time. “Yes, yes, most successful. What a tragedy this thing that happened to Mr. Pritchard. Shameful.”

  “Did you know him very well?”

  “No. Oh, yes, he taught one of the classes I took at Quantico but—no, not well.”

  “Did you like him?” Perone asked as they opened the conference room door.

  “Well, no, there was some trouble. Minor trouble.”

  Perone drew a breath, looked at the German, and asked, “Should we go back in and talk again?”

  Loeffler shook his head. “No, of course not,” he said. He laughed. Perone read it as forced. “It was a little conflict of personalities. Mr. Pritchard was—how shall I say it?—not the easiest man to like. Please, do not misunderstand. I had the highest regard for him as a colleague. It was more personal.”

  Perone decided to drop it for the moment. He’d check out Loeffler’s witnesses and ask around about any problems between him and Pritchard. “When are you due to go back to Germany, Mr. Loeffler?”

  “In two weeks.”

  “That’s good. You’ll be here in Washington, here in the building for the next fourteen days?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ll catch up again. Thanks.” He left him with a remnant of his famous stare and returned to the Ranger offices.

  ***

  Jacob Stein interviewed Walter Teng in an office adjacent to Director Shelton’s suite. Determining the place where the meeting would take place proved difficult, which Stein hadn’t bargained for. Obviously, there was official concern from high up that the Chinese gentleman be dealt with in a delicate and courteous manner.

  When Stein arrived at the office, Teng was there with a tall, slender, professorial man wearing a colorful madras jacket, white buttondown shirt, and bright yellow bow tie. He introduced himself as Hoyt Griffith.

  Stein shook his hand and asked. “Do you plan to be present during the interview?”

  “Yes,” Griffith said pleasantly. “It’s been cleared with the director.”

  “I wasn’t told,” Stein said. “Are you with the bureau?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I see your credentials, please?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary. Your director—”

  “I don’t want to be difficult, Mr. Griffith, but I’d be derelict to allow you to be here without instructions from someone in authority.”

  Teng said nothing during the exchange. He sat in a red leather easy chair and glared at Stein. Stein tried to ignore him, finally said, “Mr. Teng, I’m Special Agent Jacob Stein. I’m the one who’ll be talking with you. Maybe you can help straighten this out.”

  The severe expression of Teng’s face never changed as he said in perfect English, “Mr. Gormley wishes Mr. Griffith to be present during our talk.”

  “That may be true, sir, but I can’t proceed without his direct authorization.”

  Griffith, who’d sustained
his pleasant facade, now appeared to be losing patience. He said, “If that’s true, Mr. Stein, I suggest you obtain it or conclude this little get-together. Mr. Teng and I have busy schedules.”

  “So do I, Mr. Griffith. I’ll see what I can do in the next ten minutes.”

  Stein hurried to the Ranger suite and found Chris Saksis in the computer room reading a print-out Barbara Twain had just given her. He quickly explained the situation and they went to Lizenby’s office. He wasn’t there.

  “I don’t know what to tell you,” Saksis said. “Maybe Griffith is from the CIA. They’re the ones who brought Teng over here.”

  One of the secretaries came to the door and said, “Mr. Stein, there’s a call for you. Assistant Director Gormley.

  Stein looked at Saksis. “He’s never called me before,” he said, going to a phone and picking it up. “Special Agent Stein here.”

  “This is Assistant Director Gormley, Mr. Stein. The interview with Mr. Teng can go forward as scheduled with Mr. Griffith present.”

  “Yes, sir, I just wanted to hear it from higher authority.”

  “I appreciate that. You now have it from higher authority.”

  “Yes, sir. Mr. Griffith—is he agency personnel?”

  “No, but that doesn’t impact on you or your interview. Simply proceed and treat Mr. Teng with tact and courtesy.”

  “Yes, sir, I intended to do that from the beginning. Sir.”

  “Yes?”

  “I would like to call you back just to confirm that I’m speaking with you.”

  “Mr. Stein, that’s… Yes, of course.”

  The return call to Gormley’s number was picked up immediately.

  “Thank you, sir,” Stein said as he hung up.

  Saksis, who’d been standing behind Stein, started laughing.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked. “Standard procedure. How the hell do I know it isn’t somebody talking like Gormley and—?”

  “I’m not arguing, Jake, it’s just a first for me.”

  “Me, too,” he said, grinning. “I’ll be back.”

  Walter Teng’s face defined the word impassive, a flat mask of noncommitment. He wore a cream-colored Mao suit. On the pinky of his right hand was a large diamond ring. There was a small tattoo on the back of his right hand. It was blue and green, and looked to Jake Stein like a large dog, or wolf with its fangs bared.

  The first time Stein had seen Teng walking around the building he could think only of old war movies in which a Japanese camp commandant extracted information from downed American flyers. Of course, Teng was Chinese, not Japanese, but that was a minor hitch in Stein’s vision of the squat, powerfully built Asian.

  Stein knew why Teng had been in the Hoover Building for the past two months. The Central Intelligence Agency had arranged for Teng to receive training, first at Quantico, then at headquarters, so that he could return to China to update its own version of the FBI.

  It had been a top-secret project until columnist Jack Anderson broke the story and questioned whether the training would be used to enhance the secret and powerful police force to carry out Communist policies. George Pritchard, before his demise, had voiced loud objections to the project, which had not endeared him to the bureau hierarchy. He’d confined his comments, of course, to within the bureau, but he’d been vocal enough to receive a reprimand from Assistant Director Gormley, and to prompt a heated and not very private argument with the CIA’s liaison at the bureau, Bert Doering.

  Hoyt Griffith carefully arranged himself in a stuffed chair and quietly observed as Jacob Stein placed a yellow legal pad on his lap, cleared his throat, and said, “Mr. Teng, I appreciate you sitting down with me like this. As you know, one of our special agents, George L. Pritchard, recently died in this building under unusual circumstances. I’ve been assigned to a unit investigating that death, which is why I wanted to talk to you.” He checked Teng for a reaction. There was none.

  “We know, Mr. Teng, that you were in the building the night of Special Agent Pritchard’s death. Would you mind telling me why you were here, and what you were doing?”

  Teng looked at Griffith, who said, “Mr. Stein, it’s no secret that Mr. Teng is here on a very important mission for his country, and for the United States. His activities are the concern of those who are responsible for the success of his visit.”

  Stein looked at Griffith and smiled. “I’m well aware of that, but I’m sure you understand that it’s my job to pursue certain avenues of investigation regarding the death of Agent Pritchard.”

  Griffith returned the smile. “I’m not suggesting that you not investigate this matter, Mr. Stein. What I am saying is that interviewing Mr. Teng is, at once, unnecessary, unfruitful, and perhaps foolhardy.”

  “Foolhardy? Why is that?”

  “Because you are crossing the line into areas that are beyond your limited scope.”

  Stein let the comment go. He said to Teng, “Do you mind telling me of your movements the night Mr. Pritchard was—died?”

  “It is my position that I am not to speak of things within this bureau. I will tell you this, however. I did not kill your Agent Pritchard.”

  Stein laughed. “Of course not, Mr. Teng. I never suggested that.”

  “Then why talk to me?”

  “Because you were here, and you are not a member of the FBI.”

  Griffith chuckled. “That’s it, is it?”

  “What’s it, Mr. Griffith?”

  Griffith sighed and shook his head. “The old protect-your-own syndrome.”

  Stein sensed his temper rising. He put the cap on his pen, stood, and offered his hand to Teng. The Asian shook it without getting up. Stein glanced over at Griffith, decided not to bother, and left the office.

  “How did it go?” Saksis asked him when he’d returned to Ranger.

  “Wonderful. Mr. Teng told me he didn’t kill Pritchard, and I think it’s hands off our Asian colleague for the duration. He had a spook with him.” He told Saksis of Griffith’s participation, and of his picking up on looking outside the bureau for a suspect.

  “He’s right,” Saksis said.

  “I know. I just don’t like people like him being right. You know what crossed my mind while I was sitting there?”

  “What?”

  “I doubt if Walter Teng would have murdered George Pritchard, but what about the CIA?”

  “Why?”

  Stein sat on a couch and examined the fingers of his right hand. He said, “George Pritchard had a reputation of being a big mouth around here. I also happen to know that he’d been slapped down a few times for giving interviews to the press without clearance.”

  “So?”

  “So, maybe it was Pritchard who leaked the China story to Jack Anderson. Maybe he was talking out of school to other people. Maybe he had to be shut up.”

  Saksis wanted to dismiss the theory as pure James Bond, but she couldn’t. The same scenario had flashed through her mind a few times. In her version, however, there was an added incentive for the CIA. By creating an incident that pointed to an FBI agent being murdered by one of its own, it cast a long and dark shadow over the bureau.

  “Remember,” Stein said, “the CIA is not one of our biggest boosters.”

  “I’m remembering, Jake, I’m remembering.”

  An hour later Ross Lizenby received a call from Assistant Director Gormley. “Walter Teng is not to be approached again,” he said.

  “Well, sir, he was included on the list because he was in the building and was not bureau personnel.”

  “I don’t care about the ‘whys,’ Mr. Lizenby, I’m simply telling you to leave Mr. Teng alone. That comes from the director himself.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Joe Perone interviewed Sergio Nariz at four that afternoon. Nariz was a Paraguayan who was also attending the FBI academy training program for foreign law enforcement professionals. Physically, Nariz came off to Perone like a young Caesar Romero, very handsome and smooth, impeccably dres
sed in a dark blue vested summerweight suit, shoes shined to a mirror finish, every salt-and-pepper hair perfectly in place. Nariz lacquered his fingernails, a habit Perone disliked in men. He also wondered whether Nariz wore facial makeup. It looked it, although if he did he was skillful at it. You couldn’t be sure.

  They talked for an hour. Nariz was expansive in his answers, gregarious, charming. He frankly admitted that he disliked Pritchard.

  “Why?” Perone asked.

  “Because he was an arrogant and abusive man, Mr. Perone. He insulted me on a number of occasions. Because I am a guest here, I did not retaliate, but had it happened in my own country, I would have.”

  “How would you have retaliated?” Perone asked.

  Nariz smiled broadly and offered Perone a cigar. Perone accepted it. They both sat back and enjoyed the taste and aroma. “Excellent,” Perone said.

  “Cuban,” Nariz said, “but don’t tell anyone.”

  Perone laughed. “I wouldn’t even consider it.”

  “Good. How would I have retaliated? Not by murdering him and hanging him in a target range.”

  “No?”

  “No.”

  Perone thanked Nariz for the cigar at the end of the interview, packed up his recorder, and returned to Ranger.

  “Well?” Saksis asked.

  “He can account for his actions that night, but I’ll check it out. By the way, I asked the people Loeffler, the German, said he was with that night.

  “What’d they say?” Lizenby asked.

  “He disappeared for about an hour, said he was sick.”

  “He didn’t tell you that?” Saksis said.

  “Nope.”

  “Ask him about it,” Lizenby said.

  “I intend to. By the way, Nariz carries damn good Cuban cigars.”

  Later, Lizenby sat with Saksis in his office. He was pensive, and she asked why.

  “I was just thinking about George Pritchard and his life. You know, he just about single-handedly infiltrated and disrupted that terrorist group operating out of New York. Remember, when he was with the Long Island field office?”