Free The Front by Patricia Cornwell Page A

her backing for a BBC endeavor. She’s quite bold.”
    â€œI don’t know how we can help her prove such a theory, since there’s no certainty as to the identity of the Boston Strangler. And probably never will be,” Killien says.
    The commissioner sips his whisky. “Her political agenda is unimportant. I know her type all too well. Ordinarily, her attempt to drag us into such a matter would be politically ignored. But it seems there’s an angle she’s unaware of, and that’s why you and I are having this conversation.”
    The waiter appears with the pint of stout. Killien takes a big swallow.
    â€œWhen she first approached the Yard about her very old case, as a courtesy, if nothing else, I had the matter looked into, which included finding out something about her. Just the routine checks,” the commissioner continues. “And we’ve come up with a disturbing bit of information—not about the case, which frankly matters very little to me. But about Monique Lamont herself, and cash transactions and donations that have come to the attention of the U.S. Treasury Department. Turns out her name is in the Defense Intelligence Agency’s database.”
    Killien abruptly sets down his pint of stout. “She’s suspected of funneling money to terrorists?”
    â€œIndeed.”
    â€œRight off, what comes to mind is some bureaucratic blunder. Perhaps she suddenly made large wire transfers for legitimate reasons,” Killien suggests.
    Happens more often than people realize. Based on what he read in her dossier, like the commissioner, she’s got millions she didn’t acquire on her own, likely moves around a lot of money, pays cash for big purchases in America and abroad, makes generous donations to various organizations. Then he remembers something else he just reviewed. Last fall she suddenly changed political parties. In and of itself, that might well have motivated whoever felt betrayed or offended to seek revenge.
    â€œOf most concern, it seems,” the commissioner is saying, “is a sizable contribution she recently made to a children’s relief fund in Romania. A number of these groups, as you know, are fronts for terrorist fund-raising. The one she gave to, in particular, is suspected of trafficking in orphans, supplying them to Al-Qaeda so they can be used as suicide bombers and such.”
    He tells Killien there was quite a lot in the press about the donation, about Lamont’s compassion for orphans, which leads Killien to suspect that if the relief fund really is a terrorist front, it’s doubtful Lamont knows. If she knew, why would she hold a press conference about it? Doesn’t matter. You don’t have to have intent or awareness to be guilty of a crime.
    And the commissioner says, “She’s on a no-fly list but is probably unaware of it since she hasn’t tried to book a commercial flight in the past several months. When she does, she’ll begin to realize she’s being watched. Which is why we need to look into this immediately.”
    â€œIf her assets have been frozen, certainly she would know it.”
    â€œCIA, FBI, DIA leave numerous accounts off the freeze list so possible terrorist funding can be monitored. It’s likely she has no idea.”
    This piques Killien’s own private fears. You never know who’s riffling through your bank account, e-mails, medical records, or favorite sites on the Internet, until one day you discover your assets are frozen or you can’t get on a plane, or agents show up at your business or flat and haul you in for questioning, perhaps deport you to a secret prison in a country that denies it uses torture.
    â€œWhat’s all this got to do with the murder of Janie Brolin and our sudden urgency to look into it?” he inquires.
    The commissioner motions for the waiter to bring another whisky, says, “It gives us an excuse to look into Monique