Four Arab men and two women were lying on the floor in a pile. All of their throats had been cut.
He told her to wait, not to move, and he made a quick search of the rest of the downstairs of the house. There was no one, either living or dead.
He made his way back to the kitchen, took her arm and guided her back to the foyer and the bottom of the stairway.
“The Realtor says there are fourteen rooms on the second floor and twelve on the third,” he told her. “We’ll go up together. At the top, you go left, go to the end of the hallway and work your way back, room by room. I’ll take the top floor.”
“Got it.”
“Reggie, be careful. It seems like we’ve missed him, but we don’t know that for sure.”
“Okay.” That seemed to be as articulate as she could manage.
They tiptoed up one flight. At the landing, he nudged her to the left and he kept climbing. Justin followed the same plan he’d just given Reggie. He went left, to the room at the end of the hallway, nudged the door open with his foot, stepped inside. Nothing. The same with the next room he came to. And he did the same at the third door. Stepped inside to a lavish bedroom suite. The front room was empty. The master bedroom wasn’t.
Sprawled on the bed, lying on and tangled in blood-drenched sheets and blankets, was a man he was certain was Mudhi al Rahman.
Justin stepped forward to the body. There was no point in checking vital signs. The man had been shot several times in the chest and face. Whoever had killed him had been brutal and thorough.
Justin was overwhelmed by a sense of emptiness and defeat. He’d lost his witness. Lost his proof.
He’d lost.
Justin sagged. Took a step back. .
And felt a prodding at the back of his neck. He didn’t need to be told what it was that was pressed against his spine. A gun barrel. Justin closed his eyes.
“Drop the gun,” Special Agent Hubbell Schrader said quietly. “Drop it now.”
Justin followed instructions. There was no other play.
The FBI agent poked Justin again. “Move away from the bed,” he said.
Justin moved until Schrader told him to stop. There was one goal and one goal only now: stay alive as long as possible and hope that something happened to interfere with the inevitable.
The gun in Schrader’s right hand didn’t waver, it stayed pointed straight at Justin’s head, while Schrader used his left hand to toss a second pistol on the floor by Justin’s feet.
“Bend down and take it,” Schrader said. “It’s empty, so don’t get any wild ideas.”
Justin crouched and picked up the gun. At the very least, he thought, he’d have something he could throw. Not much of a chance but better than nothing.
Schrader indicated the second gun. “If you don’t cooperate I can set it all up after you’re dead just as easily. So please don’t try anything. I’m already exhausted.”
“You want it to look like I shot him?”
“Very good,” Schrader said.
“Why?”
“Paranoid cop goes psycho,” the agent said. “Driven over the edge by treatment at Gitmo. I can see the headline now. Maybe ‘terrorist cop’ instead of psycho. It could go either way.”
“It’s over,” Justin said. “It’s too late for you. They know what’s going on.”
“Do they?” Schrader said with a smirk.
“You know how it works. You got in over your head, you trusted the wrong people. If you cooperate, it’ll go a lot easier on you.”
“I am cooperating,” Special Agent Schrader said, the smirk still on his face. “And you know what drives me crazy?”
“What?” Justin asked.
“Talking. Happens in movies and television all the time. Too much talking. I never had that urge.”
“What urge?”
“The need to explain. I just like to get things over with.”
There was no warning from Schrader, it was Justin’s instinct that made him move. He didn’t get far, just managed to twist his body because he sensed what was coming. The movement saved his life, at least momentarily, because Schrader fired without another word. Justin felt the fire in his left side. It spun him around and took his breath away. His hand reached for the wound at the same time he stumbled against the corner of the room, as if somehow his fingers could stop the flow of blood. They couldn’t.
Justin didn’t look up at Schrader. He didn’t want the smirk to be the last thing he saw.
So Justin didn’t see the smirk on Schrader’s face fade when he heard the word “Freeze!”
Reggie Bokkenheuser stepped into the bedroom, her gun aimed at Special Agent Hubbell Schrader. “Put it down,” she said.
His gun didn’t waver. It stayed pointing directly at Justin. Schrader took two quick, dancer-like steps to the side, swiveled his head to the right to glance back at Reggie.
“Shoot him,” Justin said.
She was frozen.
The smirk came back on Schrader’s face. To Justin he said, “Don’t get your hopes up. She’s not going to shoot.”
“Kill him,” Justin said. “Kill him now.”
“You won’t shoot,” Schrader said to Reggie. “Will you?”
There was no movement. The expression on the agent’s face turned into a full-fledged smile. He nodded toward Justin, a brief gesture of respect, an acknowledgment of a game well played. Justin tried to gather his legs for a lunge, if he could move maybe Schrader would miss, there was a chance the next bullet wouldn’t be fatal, and Reggie would have a chance to take him out. He prepared to fling himself sideways but he knew the burning in his side would slow him down. And the smile on Schrader’s face said it didn’t matter anyway, he wasn’t going to miss.
And then from downstairs there was a crash. A door being busted open. Footsteps running, many sets.
Justin heard someone, a woman’s voice, scream, “FBI! Jay, can you hear me?! Can you hear me, Jay?!”
Schrader looked disbelieving but still the smile didn’t fade completely. He had shifted his gaze toward the noise downstairs, it was impossible not to, but his inattention didn’t last long. Justin shifted his weight, screamed when the pain came, and threw himself directly at the agent, hurled his body as best he could, but he knew he’d blown it because Schrader had plenty of time to recover and fire. The agent was going to get him in midair, he wasn’t even going to get close, then Justin heard a gun go off, waited to feel the agony again, but it didn’t come. He looked up, saw Schrader staggering backward, heard another shot, watched Schrader go down. Justin looked at Reggie, whose arm was still extended, her gun still pointed at the agent, and she fired a third time, and then Wanda Chinkle burst into the room, followed by three FBI agents, guns in hand.
“Drop it!” Wanda screamed. “Drop it now!”
Justin saw Reggie release her gun and let it fall to the floor, and then watched her being forced to her knees. Two of the agents had their weapons pointed at her, Wanda and the fourth agent had theirs pointed straight at Justin’s heart.
“Call 911,” Wanda barked at one agent. Then, to Justin, quieter, but not gentle: “Put it down, Jay. Put it down and we’ll get you help.”
It didn’t even register that he was still holding Schrader’s pistol. All he focused on was that another man had come into the room, a man who stood behind Wanda and said, very quietly, “Put the gun down, Mr. Westwood.”
Justin stared disbelievingly at Jeffrey Stuller, the attorney general of the United States.
“Remember what I told you,” Wanda said. “Please.”
Justin remembered. Trust me, she’d said. And anyone who’s with me.
Trust me.
He remembered something else, too, as he tried to figure out what could have happened, how Schrader could have been lying in wait for him, how Wanda was telling him to trust the man he knew was behind Midas and the entire terrorist scheme.
He remembered a little nine-year-old girl saying, He was an assistant g
eneral.
You mean like a colonel? Justin had asked.
No, she’d insisted. An assistant general.
Ted Ackland.
An assistant general.
Assistant attorney general.
Ted Ackland had been in Hutch and Terry Cooke’s house with Mudhi al Rahman. Mudhi had played a game of jacks. Ted Ackland had been the one who frightened little Hannah Cooke.
“Put it down and get on the floor, Jay. Now,” Wanda said.
Ackland. The A in Midas.
Justin said, “It’s empty. Don’t shoot. It’s empty,” and he let the gun fall out of his hand.
The next thing he knew, he was falling to his knees and Wanda was saying to him, “You had to get cute. You had to lose me in the fucking college. I had your back, you asshole.”
And then Reggie was holding him and he was thanking her for saving his life and telling her to be careful, not to get his blood all over her.
“The ambulance’ll be here soon,” he heard Wanda say. “Just hold on.”
“What time is it?” Justin thought to ask.
Jeffrey Stuller, confused, looked at his watch. “Twelve-thirty,” the attorney general said.
Justin looked at Reggie, who had her arms wrapped around him now and was holding him as close to her as she possibly could.
“Merry Christmas,” he said.
36
At Southampton Hospital they kept telling him how lucky he was. Justin wondered what it would take for someone to be considered unlucky, but none of the nurses or doctors answered him.
The wound was a clean one; the bullet had gone straight through, doing relatively little damage. They told him he wouldn’t have to spend more than twenty-four hours there. After eating his first hospital meal-possibly chicken, he thought, and some kind of white tasteless custard-he thought maybe he actually was lucky after all.
Justin could tell how impressed the staff was when the attorney general of the United States showed up, posting two FBI agents at the door of the room to keep any potential visitors out. Justin hoped their newfound respect would translate into giving him a better meal when it came time for his next feeding.
Justin listened as the attorney general stood by the side of his bed and talked. It didn’t take long for the tale to unfold. Stuller had been investigating the conspiracy within the administration for months. He’d recently included Ackland in the investigation as he’d become aware of his deputy’s involvement. When Justin had called Wanda to set up a meeting with the assistant attorney general, she had checked with Stuller. They’d decided to use Justin to flush Ackland out. They’d decided to use him as bait.
“I’m sorry, Jay,” Wanda said. She was sitting in the straight-backed chair at the foot of the bed. “You wouldn’t tell me what you were up to, although I had a reasonable idea. I couldn’t tell you anything unless you’d confided in me.”
“I would have done the same thing,” Justin said. “No apology needed. But how long have you been part of this?”
She glanced at Jeffrey Stuller, who nodded his okay. “Not long,” she said. “But long enough. At some point during the attorney general’s investigation, he realized the level of corruption within the Bureau. He decided I could be trusted and he called me into his inner circle.”
“Good call,” Justin said.
“It’s one of the reasons I was able to help you out periodically,” she said. “I was under orders to. We thought you could prove things that even we couldn’t.”
“So you’re telling me not to get used to your assistance,” Justin said. And Wanda Chinkle nodded emphatically.
Stuller then ran through the rest of the story.
Justin had basically been correct in his assumptions and his conclusions. He’d just miscalculated on a couple of the players.
Stuller had been part of Midas. He’d been brought into the SPE because of his long ties to Phil Dandridge. There was nothing illegal about that, Stuller said, and he’d felt no compunction about making money from EGenco or his old friend’s connections. It was a legitimate business deal, his holdings had been placed in a blind trust, and he would defend his decision to this day to participate.
But he hadn’t known anything about the manipulation of oil prices. That was Dandridge. That was just pure greed.
Justin had been wrong, too, about President Anderson. The outgoing president had been duped and betrayed by his closest advisers, he was guilty of naivete and stupidity, but not of criminal behavior. His administration would now go down as the most corrupt in American history, but his punishment would probably have to come from future judgment, not from the legal system.
Dandridge’s situation was a little trickier. Stuller intended to prosecute him on several levels of financial fraud and misappropriations of government funds. There was no question he’d arranged for no-bid contracts for EGenco and violated the trust of the American people with his fraudulent energy policies. Morally it was repellent, but it was a vague and gray area of the law. Stuller said he’d already begun conversations with the vice president and with Stephanie Ingles and it was clear that, whatever their crimes, they had not instigated the violence or terrorist activity, although the attorney general believed that Dandridge had figured out what was going on somewhere along the line and had decided to do nothing about it. The man was not just weak, he was corrupt, and he belonged in prison, Stuller said, the disgust resonating in his words, but he wasn’t sure if he could put him there. Stuller told Justin he might have to settle for Dandridge’s and Ingles’s resignations and some form of plea bargain, along with his testimony about Midas and Ackland.
Ackland had already been arrested. Stuller had arranged that immediately after Justin left the Waldorf hotel suite. If Stuller had his way, Ackland would not just spend the rest of his life behind bars, he’d receive the death penalty.
Justin asked a few questions and Stuller gave him further background on his investigation.
Ackland had been made a Midas partner at the very beginning when the deal was structured. That was Dandridge’s choice. It was a reward for loyal service-and an attempt to ensure future service. But Ackland was more concerned with his future than anyone could have foreseen.
It was Ackland who first realized what would happen if Hutchinson Cooke talked and EGenco came tumbling down. Since it was all coming out of Justice, Ackland was privy to all the levels of the investigation; it was not difficult for him to circumvent it.
Dandridge had arranged for Cooke to fly for EGenco and Midas. But it was Ackland who’d arranged for Mudhi al Rahman’s release from Gitmo; it was Ackland who had drawn Cooke into flying Mudhi first to Washington and then to the East End airport. Chuck Billings had been right about the cargo. In addition to the Saudi radical, the small plane had transported Semtex that Cooke had picked up in Colombia before flying to Guantanamo. He hadn’t known exactly what he was involved in, but after the Harper’s bombing he’d quickly figured it out. He’d contacted Ackland, whom he’d trusted. It was a poor choice of allies. Ackland had immediately arranged for the pilot’s murder.
It was Ackland who’d conceived of the scheme to use Mudhi to destroy anyone who could have cut into Midas’s profits, and simultaneously to terrorize the country.
Ackland had realized that Dandridge was going to lose the election. And Ackland wanted the vice presidency. Not just the nomination. He wanted to win.
He knew if Dandridge’s Midas manipulations came to light, both of their careers were over. So he killed two birds with one stone. No one was around to blow the whistle on Midas. And Dandridge’s popularity soared in the midst of the nation’s fear.
After Harper’s, it was not difficult to repeat the process.
And when he realized his hand could be overplayed, Ackland arranged for the scenario he’d created to come to an end: the decimation of what he claimed was the key terrorist group.
The murder of Mudhi al Rahman was meant to close the circle cleanly and permanently.
&nb
sp; Except that Justin had gotten in the way.
Money and power, Justin thought. Nothing new, nothing different. The world will end over a battle for money and power.
When it was over, Stuller asked if Justin had any further questions. Justin said that he had a few.
“What about Hubbell Schrader?” he asked. “How did he get involved?”
“Ackland,” Stuller said. “Ackland drew him in slowly, got him appointed head of the New York bureau, which is quite a prestigious position. I’m sure Ackland promised him a shot at being head of the entire Bureau. And Ackland manipulated the man’s sense of patriotism. I believe that Agent Schrader was convinced he was doing something for the good of the country.”
“An awful lot of damage is done for the good of the country,” Justin said.
Stuller said nothing. Justin knew the attorney general’s political beliefs, knew what a hard-line patriot he was, and knew how torturous it must be for him to accept what had happened. The men he was bringing down weren’t just his friends, they were the core of his political and philosophical foundation. But Stuller was able to put his politics aside in this instance. Honesty and a commitment to his public duty had managed to win whatever ideological battle had to have gone on within him.
“It was Schrader who killed Billings, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” Stuller said. “We can prove that.”
“And Ray Lockhardt, too?”
“I believe so. But I have no conclusive proof yet. We’re still working on it, although I don’t know what kind of priority it will receive, now that Schrader’s dead. Anything else?”
Justin hesitated. And Stuller noticed.
“Is there something else you need to know?” the attorney general asked.
“I’m not sure,” Justin told him. “But I’d like to reserve one last favor if I need it.”
“What is it?”
“If I need some further information, I’d like to be able to get it from Agent Chinkle. I just need to ask a few questions before bothering her again.”
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