Stephen Frey

by Trust Fund

  The man’s eyes flashed to Scully’s. “What did you say?”

  Scully suppressed a smile. He had heard panic in the other man’s voice and seen his posture stiffen, even through the gloom. “I know all about Denver, and about your rendezvous at the motel near the airport with a woman named Sharon Jones.”

  “I . . . I don’t know what you’re . . .” The other man’s voice trailed off.

  “You were supposed to be downtown at the Brown Palace. In fact you checked into your room, but you didn’t sleep there. You see, you couldn’t, because there were four other people from your company on the trip with you, and all of you were staying on the same floor. They might have seen Mrs. Jones going into your room.” Scully paused. “What would your wife and three children have thought?”

  “I’m not going to listen to any more of this.” The man brushed past Scully and began walking away.

  “You better listen,” Scully snarled. “Or your wife and Mrs. Jones’s husband will find out everything. As will your boss.”

  The man cringed and stopped short.

  “I’ll make certain they both receive copies of the e-mails you’ve been sending Mrs. Jones from your office computer. They’ll both enjoy the explicit content. I know I did.”

  The man whirled around. “Who are you?” he yelled.

  “I believe you and Mrs. Jones are planning another gettogether next month in St. Louis,” Scully went on calmly. “She has a client there and you have a supplier. How convenient.”

  The man removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “What do you want?” he whined.

  “One simple thing.” Scully walked to where the man stood. “Your silence.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You are a senior executive of a large defense contractor.”

  The man gazed down at the sidewalk, his brain pounding. He was still amazed and frightened at how much the other man knew. “Yeah, so?”

  “You’ve come to Washington from Boston to testify,” Scully continued. “You’re going to tell the Senate Armed Services Committee all about significant overbilling on a new attack submarine project. Code name, Tiger Shark.”

  “How did you find out?” the man asked, his voice hoarse. “That project is classified top secret.”

  “The prototypes are almost complete and in preliminary tests the subs have performed even better than expected,” Scully said, ignoring the man’s questions. “You testify and the entire project will grind to a halt only a few months from the finish line.”

  The man’s eyes darted around, searching for the people who were supposed to be protecting him.

  “That can’t happen,” Scully said firmly. “The United States needs that submarine. It’s light years ahead of what any other country has.”

  “I still don’t understand what you want,” the man said lamely. Doves in high places were counting on his testimony tomorrow. In return he was to receive a large sum in cash.

  “Tomorrow morning you will go to Union Station instead of the Capitol. At the station you’ll board a Metroliner and return to Boston. If any word of the overbilling ever officially reaches anyone on the committee, I’ll hold you personally responsible. Your wife will find out all about your affair. Your children too. Every sordid detail. How you and Mrs. Jones occasionally pay other people to be involved in your trysts.”

  The man stared straight ahead, his mouth open.

  “Women and men.”

  “All right, all right.” The man held up his hands as if he were being arrested, petrified at the prospect of his secret life being laid bare for all to see.

  “Don’t underestimate me,” Scully warned, his voice rising.

  “I won’t,” the other man answered meekly.

  “Get back to your hotel and never mention this encounter to anyone. If you do, I’ll know.” Scully watched the man slink away and a smile came to his lips. RANSACK had gone operational.

  CHAPTER 6

  “Sir!”

  Bo stopped, his hand on the doorknob. A sturdy-legged nurse pressing a clipboard to her chest was hustling down the linoleum-tiled corridor toward him, rubber soles squeaking on the freshly waxed floor. “Yes?”

  “That’s a private room,” she called, still several doors away. “No visitors allowed.”

  “Yes, but I’m—”

  “No exceptions.”

  Bo smiled reassuringly and tried again. “I’m Mr. Hancock’s son.”

  “You could be the son of God,” the nurse snapped, “but I have my instructions.”

  “Look, I’m going in to see my father,” Bo said firmly. “That’s all there is to it.”

  “I’ll call security,” the nurse warned.

  “It’s all right.” A short, dark-skinned man emerged from a doorway across the corridor. He was dressed in a white shirt, rumpled blue tie, dark pants, and a long white coat. “Bo can go in. He’s family. Don’t give him a difficult time.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Dr. Silwa.” The nurse smiled nervously, then scurried away.

  Bo shook Silwa’s hand. “Hi, Doc.” Silwa had been Jimmy Lee’s physician for as long as Bo could remember.

  “Hello, Bo,” Silwa said, his naturally sad gaze taking in Bo’s appearance. “You look terrible.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  Silwa forced a smile. “Perhaps I should be attending to you as well.”

  “I’m fine.” Bo avoided medicine, doctors, and hospitals whenever possible. The smells reminded him too much of death—from somewhere in his past, though he couldn’t have said precisely where. “I haven’t had much sleep since yesterday,” he explained. “I flew here to New York as soon as I got word of my father’s condition, and I came to the hospital straight from the airport.”

  “You were in Montana, right?”

  “Yes.” Everyone seemed to know about his exile. “So how is my father?”

  Since last night Bo had been unable to get any information concerning his father’s condition other than the fact that Jimmy Lee had collapsed a few minutes after eating dinner. Meg, visiting her parents on Long Island, wouldn’t have known about the emergency because she wasn’t close to any of his siblings. For some reason the Hancock family hadn’t taken to her. Bo had told her the news himself when he’d talked to her from the Gulf-stream IV he had chartered out of Jackson Hole just before midnight. His sister Catherine would have been a mess and unable to provide any reliable details, so he hadn’t called her at all. And, as usual, Paul and Teddy hadn’t bothered to return any of several voice-mail messages he had left.

  Silwa’s expression turned grim. He clasped Bo’s elbow, as was his custom when he was about to deliver difficult news to a patient’s family. “I’m going to be blunt.” Silwa was speaking in a low voice even though there was no one else in the corridor. It was quarter to six in the morning and the hospital was just beginning to stir. “Your father has a malignant tumor in the left frontal lobe of his brain. The tumor is inoperable.”

  “A brain tumor,” Bo said in a hushed voice.

  “Yes,” Silwa said with an air of gentle but firm finality.

  “But—”

  “Your father was complaining of a migraine headache and blurred vision to his valet after dinner Saturday evening,” Silwa said, letting go of Bo’s elbow. “Fifteen minutes later, the valet found Jimmy Lee in his study chair, slumped over his desk. He had suffered a massive hemorrhage into the tumor. We located the mass in the left frontal lobe after performing a CAT scan late Saturday evening.” Silwa pointed to the left side of his own forehead with a pencil he’d taken from the top pocket of his hospital coat. “Last night I ordered an MRI, and we found three more tumors that hadn’t shown up on the CAT scan.” He hesitated. “Your father is on steroids and diuretics. The situation turned critical this morning. I alerted Catherine and your brothers a half hour ago. They are on the way to the hospital now. I’m sorry to have to tell you all of this, but it’s better that you know the truth.”

  “Of course
I want the truth,” Bo murmured.

  “One thing.” Silwa took Bo by the elbow again.

  “Yes?”

  “He may say things he doesn’t mean while you’re in there with him, what with the drugs we have administered. He isn’t lucid.”

  “I understand,” Bo said, still numbed by the terrible news.

  He slipped from the hallway into a dim, windowless room, lighted only by a low-wattage lamp on a corner table and a bluish hue coming through a long glass partition, behind which he saw a nurse in the next room carefully monitoring several computer screens. He shivered as he looked around. It felt cold as hell in here.

  He took slow, hesitant steps toward the bed, and as he neared it, felt his stomach churn. The man lying before him was his father, yet he wasn’t. During Bo’s year in Montana, Jimmy Lee had deteriorated from a vibrant being into a frail old man. His hair had faded from its distinguished silver to a dull gray. His cheeks were sunken, his neck was covered with ugly brown spots, and his teeth were crooked and yellow. He was no longer the strong patriarch Bo had locked horns with so often since childhood. For several moments Bo stood beside the bed without moving, hating the fact that he and his father had never found common ground, not even through Warfield Capital. Despising the fact that Paul and Teddy had allowed Jimmy Lee to wither away without calling him in Montana.

  “Paul.” Jimmy Lee’s voice was barely audible. “Is that you?”

  Bo glanced down. His father’s eyes were mere slits etched into wrinkled skin above parched lips. “No, it’s Bolling.”

  “Come closer,” Jimmy Lee moaned, reaching for Bo with a gnarled hand.

  Bo sank into a chair beside the bed and took his father’s cold fingers. “I’m here, Dad.”

  “It is you, Bolling.” Jimmy Lee was able to speak only a word or two at a time before gasping for his next breath. “I always recognized your hand.” He tried to smile. “It’s so much rougher than Paul or Teddy’s. They never were ones to get their hands dirty, were they? But you always would. You are a good son.”

  Bo felt tears flood his eyes and he looked up at the lights.

  “I don’t have much time, Bolling.”

  “You’re fine, Dad,” Bo said comfortingly.

  Jimmy Lee squeezed Bo’s fingers hard. “No, I’m not, God dammit. Don’t patronize me.”

  “Save your strength,” Bo urged.

  Jimmy Lee began coughing, a deep grinding hack. “Listen to me”—he was struggling to get the words out—“please.”

  Jimmy Lee would fight to the last breath, Bo thought. That was the attitude that had bound his parents together. Never give in, fight to the last. Thank God he had inherited that trait. “I’m listening, Dad.”

  Jimmy Lee tried to rise to a sitting position, then collapsed back onto the pillows, exhausted by even this small effort.

  “Dad, take it easy.”

  “Dammit!”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “I’ve lost my sight again.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t—” Jimmy Lee’s coughing intensified. “It happens from time to time. My eyesight comes and goes since I had the attack Friday night.”

  Bo checked the nurse’s station behind the window. Silwa was standing beside the woman now, studying the computer monitors intently. The attack had occurred Saturday night, according to the doctor. As Silwa had warned, Jimmy Lee was confused, Bo reasoned. “Should I get Dr. Silwa?”

  “He can’t help me.”

  Bo watched his father’s eyes slowly close and felt his grip weaken. “Jesus Christ!”

  “Bolling,” Jimmy Lee gasped, tugging at his son’s hand with a sudden burst of strength. “Don’t leave me.”

  “You need help.”

  “Don’t go.”

  “All right, all right.” Bo sank back into the chair. “I’m here, Dad.”

  Jimmy Lee patted the back of his son’s hand gently. “Thank God you got the message.”

  Bo looked up from the floor. “The message?”

  “About getting back here.”

  “Yes, Michael Mendoza was—”

  “Michael Mendoza?”

  “That’s what you meant about a message, wasn’t it? Michael was out West this weekend and told me about your attack when he got the call.” Bo hesitated. He’d spent most of the flight back this morning thinking about the two men who had dragged him from the Jeep at Little Lolo’s. And about how Mendoza had claimed that aides had found him in a nasty motel with Tiffany just outside the Libby town limits, when he had no memory of the motel at all. But there was the Polaroid shot that proved he had been there. He shook his head. He’d been set up, plain and simple. “I would never have known about your condition if Michael hadn’t told me.”

  “What?” Jimmy Lee struggled for breath. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t spoken to Michael in a week.”

  Despite Silwa’s warning that the drugs could cause confusion, Jimmy Lee seemed lucid enough.

  “I had a Hazeltine operative in the area,” Jimmy Lee continued. “He was supposed to—” He shut his eyes tightly and groaned, arching his back as a sharp pain shot through his head.

  “Dad!”

  “I’ll be all right in a minute,” Jimmy Lee moaned, clutching Bo’s fingers tightly. “It’ll pass.” Slowly the pain began to ease.

  “You were saying that you had a—”

  “I’ve never told you how much I care about Meg,” Jimmy Lee interrupted, opening his eyes. “She’s a wonderful woman, Bolling. I know I didn’t make her feel comfortable at times, but then, I didn’t do a lot of things I should have. I didn’t say some things I should have said either. You hold her close, Bo. Never let her go.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Jimmy Lee hesitated, aware of what he wanted to say, but not sure how to say it. “I know you always felt that Paul and Teddy were my favorites. I know I was always harder on you. I’m sorry. I’ve appreciated your work at Warfield. I’ve appreciated your contributions.” He hesitated again. “I know I didn’t spend enough time with you while you were growing up. I’ve always regretted that.”

  “It’s all right, Dad.”

  “Remember that fishing trip to Canada when you were twelve?” Jimmy Lee asked, a faint smile coming to his face. “Just you and me. Remember what a wonderful time we had?”

  Bo could remember the trip as if it were yesterday. It was the only time he and Jimmy Lee had ever spent an extended period of time alone together.

  “I love you, son.”

  Bo shut his eyes tightly. He’d waited a lifetime to hear those words.

  “Bolling.”

  Bo felt the tears poised at the edges of his eyelids. “Yes, Dad.”

  Jimmy Lee licked his dry lips. “I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t left me.”

  “I won’t leave you.”

  “Where are Paul and Teddy?”

  “On their way.”

  “And Catherine?”

  “She’s coming too.”

  “I wish Ashley were coming. But I suppose she isn’t.”

  “I don’t know.” Bo could find no other words. He had tried to call Ashley in Europe from the G-IV, but had only reached her answering machine. It hadn’t even been Ashley’s voice at the other end of the line, just a computer-generated greeting.

  Jimmy Lee gazed at a glass of water on the nightstand. He didn’t have the strength to reach for it. “Bo, you must take care of the family after I’m gone. Take care of Paul, Teddy, and Catherine. Ashley too, but especially Paul.”

  Bo recognized his father’s need and brought the water glass carefully to Jimmy Lee’s chapped lips. “Of course I will. Though I think that out of all of them, Paul is the one who can probably take care of himself.”

  Jimmy Lee sipped the water, then pushed the glass away, spilling some of it on the white sheet. “No,” he gasped. “You must take special care of Paul. Promise me that you will, Bo.”

  Bo said nothing.

&nbs
p; “Bolling, please.”

  “I will.”

  Jimmy Lee touched Bo’s hand once more. “I treated you terribly by sending you to Montana. I let myself get swept up in the election and Paul’s opportunity. Swept up in a nightmare. I didn’t see what was really happening.”

  Bo leaned forward. “What do you mean, Dad?”

  “There are those who would destroy Paul.”

  “Of course there are,” Bo agreed. “Any man in Paul’s position has enemies.” A long coughing spell shook Jimmy Lee. Out of the corner of his eye, Bo saw the nurse in the next room stand and point to something on one of the monitors. “Deep down, I know you were right to send me away. I was losing control. I was drinking too much. I really might have done something to damage Paul’s campaign.” He was rattling on, he knew. But these were the last few moments—somehow Bo understood that—and there was so much to say. “You were right. You were simply looking out for the family.”

  Jimmy Lee reached up with one hand and grabbed Bo’s shirt. “You must go back to Warfield, Bolling. You must take charge of the family’s affairs.”

  “I will, Dad.” Bo’s mind was reeling. On his deathbed Jimmy Lee had reversed his decision. Now he wanted Bo back at Warfield’s helm.

  “You must return to Warfield as soon as possible. Teddy can’t run the place. I realize that now. And Frank Ramsey is— Oh, God!” Jimmy Lee let go of Bo and collapsed onto the mattress, then arched his back as pain knifed through his skull once more.

  “Jesus, Dad, let me get the nurse.”

  Jimmy Lee grabbed Bo’s shirt again, pulling him down with a death grip. He was trying to say something, but Bo couldn’t make out what it was. With his dry lips close to Bo’s ear, Jimmy Lee whispered the word again as Silwa and the nurse burst into the room. Then the nurse grabbed Bo by the wrist and dragged him into the corridor. Bo’s final image of his father was Silwa administering something into one of Jimmy Lee’s limp arms from a long syringe.

  “What the hell’s happening?”

  Paul was sprinting down the corridor, several steps ahead of two bodyguards in dark suits.

  “Dad had a seizure,” Bo explained as Paul came near. “Dr. Silwa is in there with him.”