by Ed Markham
“What do Vince Beatrice and Kirill Mozgov have to do with this?” David asked.
“That’s part of the genius of it,” Gould said. “You need critics and scrutiny for something to seem legitimate. The people in charge of all this understood that. And so they installed plants, men like Mozgov and”—his emotion swelled, and he struggled to say his professor’s name—“and Vince, who would call things into question and make noise, but not about the stuff that matters. Vince worked to freak people out about constant Internet use and the hive mind—knowing most people won’t care about all that—while Mozgov was spouting off about the posturing and supposed beneficence of these Internet scions. It’s all designed to make critical thinkers think critically about exactly the wrong things—or to think about the right things in the wrong ways.”
“So where do you come in?” Martin asked him. “How does all this translate to you doing what you’ve done?”
Gould looked at him, as though the answer to his question was self-evident. “These people deserved to be punished. And what better way to punish them for corrupting our minds than by poisoning their own?”
He brought his eyes to David’s, and his expression was deadly serious. “I’m a very sick person, Agent Yerxa. I’ve known that for a long time. But these people got what they had coming to them.”
David considered Gould and what the student had told him. “What now, Derek?”
“Now we watch the fallout,” Gould said. “I’ve taken steps to ensure everyone—”
He stopped speaking when he heard it.
In the distance, faint but growing stronger by the second, the blades of a helicopter’s rotor beat the dawn air.
It turned out to be two choppers, not one, and both seemed to be on top of them in an instant. As one hovered seventy-five yards above the patio, its light encircling Gould, the other moved closer and swept the scene, its beam moving from Gould to David and Martin, and then to the empty stretches of hillside alongside and beyond them.
David called to Gould, but he was drowned out by the noise. From the air, an amplified voice commanded them to throw down their weapons and lace their fingers on top of their heads.
David slouched down, putting the patio wall between himself and the student, and then made a show of throwing away his weapon and placing his hands on top of his head. He looked to make sure his father was following suit, and was relieved to see Martin weaponless and mimicking his pose.
They sat motionless, watching the SWAT unit’s helicopter as it lowered itself toward the earth. Squinting, David could see a small mass of men in dark clothing, clutching weapons and preparing to exit the chopper. As he watched them, a quick burst of white light flashed from the center of the mass, and the tap tap of automatic rifle fire mingled with the sound of the helicopter’s blades.
Without thinking, David dropped his hands from his head and sat up to look over the wall. He saw Gould had fallen to one side, his hand splayed out and his gun lying a few feet away. His eyes were wide and frightened, and blood stained his lips and chin. His chest was a mess of ripped sweatshirt and scarlet blood.
“LACE YOUR HANDS ON YOUR HEAD NOW, OR WE WILL FIRE,” a voice shouted at David from the helicopter.
Slumping back down, David did as he was told.
.
Chapter 45
David and Martin sat at the conference table opposite Section Chief Andrea Dean, FBI Deputy Director Jonathan Hemingway, and six other men and women who had not identified themselves individually, but whom Dean had collectively referred to as “senior leadership and in-house counsel.”
One of these people—a man in his fifties with gray-black eyes and the creaseless face of someone who avoided expressive displays of emotion—had been questioning David and Martin in a courteous but cold tone.
“You failed to notify the proper support units of Mr. Gould’s possible whereabouts,” he said to them. “Why?”
Beside David, Martin shifted in his seat. David knew his father was itching to ask questions of his own—to grill these unidentified suits about the things Gould had revealed to them. But earlier in the day, when they’d had time alone, David had warned Martin that—if even fragments of what Gould had disclosed to them were true—their lives could be at stake.
At first Martin had scoffed at this suggestion, but eventually he had seen the scope and gravity of their situation. “So we just sit back and take it?” he’d asked his son.
Now, responding to his interrogator’s question, David said, “We thought it a long shot, at best, that Gould would be in La Honda. Our intent was only to surveil, and to call in support if necessary. When we arrived and discovered Beatrice dead and Gould isolated outside the house, we saw no reason to wait for backup.”
As he spoke, Dean regarded him closely from behind rimless reading glasses while the deputy director flipped through some papers he had brought with him.
“Why,” the interrogator went on, his expression blank, “did you fail to answer the repeated calls made to your phones by Section Chief Dean and others trying to ascertain your whereabouts?”
David had expected this question. “We’d both muted our phones while investigating Gould’s dorm room. When we discovered Weissman, things moved quickly. We forgot to take our phones off mute.”
Several of the people sitting across the table from him, including Dean and the deputy director, frowned at the absurdity of this claim. But only the interrogator spoke. “Please describe the interaction you had with Mr. Gould.”
David had the impression this nameless interrogator was an attorney gathering replies for an official record. The man seemed to have little interest in the replies he received.
“There really wasn’t much interaction to speak of,” David replied. “Gould stepped outside and began crying. We announced our presence and ordered him to throw down his weapon. He refused. He sat down on the ground and continued weeping until SWAT arrived, which was less than two minutes after we’d first engaged with him verbally.”
“He said nothing to you?” the interrogator asked. “No explanation for Vince Beatrice’s death?”
David shook his head. “No.”
“Any theories, Special Agent Yerxa?” This question came from the deputy director himself.
As he spoke, Hemingway flipped closed the stapled stack of papers he had been reading and stuffed them into an unmarked folder sitting in front of him on the table. “You were able to track him down. You must have some inkling of his motive.”
David regarded Hemingway closely before answering. He didn’t like what he saw in the deputy director’s face and posture. “It seems likely that Gould, like Peter Newton before him, had become enamored of Vince Beatrice and his theories. Beatrice seemed drawn to student assistants who lacked father figures, and who may have been especially driven to earn his approval. Gould may have had some kind of mental breakdown, and misinterpreted his professor’s ideas as justification to punish those he felt were acting nefariously.”
“So you don’t believe Beatrice was his accomplice in all this?” Dean asked them.
“That’s possible,” David said. “But we found little evidence tying Beatrice to this directly, and his death suggests he was not a participant. Whether he killed himself, as the preliminary ballistics indicate, or Gould murdered him, in either case it seems to us he did not know his student had committed these crimes until his final moments.”
“How do you explain his interaction with the FBI agent who tried to apprehend him at his home?” Dean asked.
“We suspect Gould was able to manipulate communication data—making his texts appear as though they were coming from one of the victims’ close friends or contacts. We have no way of knowing exactly what Gould may have texted Beatrice—or any of his other victims, for that matter—but whatever he sent must have spooked Beatrice and caused him to flee.”
David noticed Hemingway glaring at him, and now the deputy director interjected—apparently unable to control h
imself. Picking up the folder in front of him—the one he had put down only seconds before, Hemingway said, “I’ve got something here I’d like to read you, Yerxa.” He flipped open the folder, turned a page in the report it contained, and began reading.
Immediately, David recognized his instructions to Walker to tell no one about the property in La Honda—that he would notify his proper support units.
When he had finished reading the call transcript, Hemingway looked up at David. “You recall this conversation?”
“I recall it,” David said coolly.
He understood now where he and his father stood—that FBI leadership had been keeping tabs on them, and that Dean, Hemingway, and the people facing him on the other side of the table were likely aware of the public manipulation program Gould had described just before his murder.
A satisfied kind of slackening passed over Hemingway’s face, and the deputy director opened his mouth to speak. But an angry voice cut him off.
“What the hell is this?”
Martin was sitting forward at David’s side, and as he spoke he banged a fist on the tabletop.
Several of the people facing him, including Dean, either flinched or sat back.
Martin went on, “I’ve been a member of the FBI for almost forty years, and I’ve never had to sit through this kind of inquisition.” He glared at Hemingway. “You send us out here to California without any rhyme or reason, and expect us to keep our mouths shut and do our jobs even when the NSA or this one”—he pointed at Dean—“keeps throwing up road blocks to slow us down. You have the director talking us up in press conferences like we’re your goddamn show ponies, while at the same time you’re making us work with one hand tied behind our back. And now here we are, finding out you were recording our calls, and you have the nerve—”
“All right, Agent Yerxa, that’s enough,” Hemingway said, raising his own voice now.
“You have the nerve,” Martin went on, louder still and uncowed, “to interrogate us on this? To treat us like we’re out of line?” He hit the table again, this time with an open palm. “Yes, we wanted a head-start on finding Gould. Yes, we were hoping to get a few answers. We thought if we let Dean and everyone else back in San Francisco know where we were headed, we’d get broomed again by NSA, or something else would happen to keep us from talking with the kid. And it turns out our suspicions were right, weren’t they? As soon as the cavalry showed up, Gould was practically executed. He didn’t tell us a thing before that. He just wept like a baby. So we’re still in the dark.” He paused to glare from Hemingway to Dean. “If anyone should be asking questions and making accusations, it’s the two of us. So I’ll start. Just what the fuck is going on around here?”
The room was silent as the assembled brass waited to see how Hemingway would react to this.
The deputy director seemed at once irate but also uncertain—as though Martin’s attack had knocked him off balance. His jaw flexed, but he didn’t reply for almost thirty seconds. Finally he said, “I’d like the two of you to step outside. We’ll call you back in when we’re ready for you.”
Martin began to protest, but David stood and pulled him away from the table.
Outside the conference room, after the door had closed behind them, Martin put a hand on his son’s shoulder and said, “I’m sorry, boy, but when you’re my age and you’ve been through what I’ve been through, you can only swallow so much horseshit.” He winced, and squeezed his son’s shoulder hard. “Forty years I’ve been at this, and this is a first. I can’t believe it, David. My world is upside down.”
David nodded, but said nothing. The two stood silently regarding each other and the surrounding hallway for nearly ten minutes before they were recalled to the conference room.
“Don’t sit, this will only take a minute,” Hemingway told them when they entered. As he addressed them, his eyes roamed the top of the conference table. “I want to make it clear I’m deeply unhappy with the way you both handled the conclusion of this investigation. To disregard protocol so brazenly is unacceptable, and, to make matters worse, this kind of behavior is becoming almost a pattern for you two.” He sighed theatrically, taking a moment to let his scolding take effect. “But I also understand this was a challenging assignment, for many reasons—some of which I can’t share with you. And in light of your exemplary records, I’m going to look past it. Mostly. You won’t be formally reprimanded, but I’m putting notes in both your files regarding this pattern of disobedient conduct. If it happens again, there will be repercussions.” His eyes held David’s for a beat, but then slid away. “You’re both to head back to Northern Virginia. Immediately. There will be a car waiting for you outside of your hotel in thirty minutes to take you to the airport. You’re dismissed.”
Martin snorted. He seemed on the verge of saying something reckless to the deputy director, but then he let out a sigh and turned to leave.
David did not move. He stood looking at Hemingway as the deputy director busied himself making a literal note in a hard file, as though he were recording their transgressions in real time.
“Deputy Director, sir,” he said, forcing Hemingway’s eyes up from the file.
David withdrew something from the front pocket of his pants and placed it on the conference table.
Hemingway’s mouth turned down when he saw it was his agent’s FBI credentials. “Now hold on—” he began to say.
But David had already turned away from him.
Martin, standing near the doorway to the conference room, was looking at his son with a mixture of surprise and alarm. But seeing the expression on David’s face, his own features hardened and he withheld his protests.
Together, father and son turned their backs on the room and departed without another word.
.
FRIDAY, MAY 14
Chapter 46
Carl Wainbridge entered the bar with one hand forming a visor over his eyes.
David watched his section chief lower his hand and squint for a moment into the cool darkness, his eyes recovering from the bright afternoon sunlight.
When he saw David sitting at the bar, the creases in Carl’s forehead smoothed, though his face remained its usual mask of thoughtful composure.
The two men regarded each other for a moment before Carl made his way to the chair at David’s side. He sat down and crossed his arms over his chest. Neither man spoke until the bartender had come and taken Carl’s order for a Guinness.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” Carl said formally.
David could see bags beneath his former boss’s eyes.
“I trust all my agents,” Carl began. “If I didn’t, they wouldn’t be my agents. But there are very few in whom I have absolute faith when it comes to the soundness and ethics of their judgment.” He paused as the bartender set down his beer. He stared at the dark liquid but did not reach for it. “So I took what you said to me when you resigned—and what you declined to say to me—very seriously. Very seriously.”
David recalled his meeting with Carl, now eight days past.
After returning with his father from Northern California—a flight he had spent mostly trying to decide what was proper and prudent to say to his section chief—he and Martin had taken a car to David’s home in Alexandria.
It had been late when they’d arrived, nearly four in the morning. Butch was there, waiting for him in bed. He had refused to go into the details with her before or during his flight home, although word of his resignation had made it back to Quantico. But when he had climbed into bed she hadn’t questioned him. Instead she had pressed herself to his back, wrapped her arms around him, and held him until they’d both fallen to sleep.
The next morning, after waking, he had felt more clear-headed than he had in days. Lauren had already departed for work and Martin was still asleep, and he’d had several hours before his afternoon debriefing with Carl. He’d taken his coffee into the backyard to sit and think and make some calls.
He ha
d first checked in on the status of Mark Weissman. He’d learned that Weissman had expired during the night. Doctors had hastily attempted the Milwaukee protocol that Takagi, the medical examiner, had described to them in San Francisco. But the protocol had failed.
He’d also made calls to Wes Harris and Megan Brandt. Both had been up despite the early hour, and both had informed him that they’d been instructed not to speak with him. Both did anyway.
“They shut down everything I had going on this,” Harris said. “Dean told me a different CITU team would handle our analysis now that Gould’s dead. She asked me to write a report of my findings and to move on to active investigations. Actually, asked is the wrong word. She ordered me.”
Brandt had received a similar directive. “Write everything up, move on,” she’d summarized. “It’s ridiculous.” She told him the press had been swarming the lobby of their building all morning.
Later, when he and his father had arrived at Quantico, their normally active office had been subdued. They’d made their way to Carl Wainbridge’s office without speaking to anyone, and their meeting with their section chief had been brief.
“Help me understand this, David,” Carl had asked.
“I’m doing what I feel I need to do,” David had told his section chief. “Right now that’s all I can say.”
Carl had received this reply somberly. “Right now,” he’d repeated. Turning to Martin, he had asked, “And you, Special Agent Yerxa?”
“Working through some things,” Martin had said. “But I still consider myself an agent.”
That evening, when Lauren returned home from work, David had been more forthcoming with her than he had with his section chief. He told her what they’d encountered out west, and what Gould had told them.
