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“Jesus God. What happened?”
“Eight minutes later all systems returned to normal.”
A pair of images blasted into my brain. Five corpses on a vessel adrift at sea. A black-and-white print of a twin turbo prop plane.
“The Sea Ray SDX 270 found six hundred miles off course last week?” I prompted, speaking with as much calm as I could muster. “You think Benjamin was responsible for that?”
“Yes, we do.”
“The Piaggio P.180 that went down near Provo a few years back?”
Rossiter nodded glumly.
“A framed photo of that aircraft hangs in Joe Benjamin’s home,” I said.
If Rossiter was surprised, he hid it well. A beat, then, “It’s apparent that the two of you were already aware of some of the intel I’ve just shared. May I ask your source?”
Monck told Rossiter about Uncle Shlomo. About Avner and his two sons. About Yaakov’s injury and subsequent suicide. About Joe,néYosef.
When finished, Monck asked, “How long have you known about Cloke’s connection to Benjamin?”
Rossiter’s eyes again went to his partner. Reid’s body language made it obvious he didn’t like the openness with us. Not at all.
“A while,” Rossiter said.
“A while,” Monck repeated, caustic. “How’d they hook up?”
“In the interest of national security, I cannot disclose the means by which our special agent learned of Benjamin’s proficiency in coding.”
“Did Cloke know about brother Yaakov’s wee bomb incident?”
Reid made an odd noise in his throat.
“No comment,” Rossiter said.
“You come on to my turf, tell me a local is planning to blow planes out of the air, and say no comment?” Monck spit back, sharp, angry.
“We believe Cloke tracked Benjamin for some time, eventually traveled to Provo to propose his get-rich-scheme in person.”
“I’m hearing a lot ofwe believes. What is it youknow?”
“Back off, detective,” Reid snapped. “The clock is ticking, and Special Agent Rossiter has shared what he can.”
No need to be a psychologist to know Reid didn’t like us. I was mulling what his principal beef was when another image detonated in my overstimulated brain.
A serpentine track on a rainy ridge.
“I think Benjamin may have targetedmyphone,” I said quietly.
“What?” Monck’s eyes went wide.
I described my aborted drive to the synagogue. The rain. The Google Maps directions that sent me high onto a spiny ridge.
“How could he have accessed your phone?” Monck asked.
“Remember? I called him on our way to his house.”
“Sonofabitch!”
