The Inverted Pyramid (An Alex Vane Media Thriller, Book 2)

by A. C. Fuller

  "I can't believe you stood in a room with that bastard and didn't—"

  "Sadie, look. I don't have time for that, and I don't have time for you to be shocked right now."

  "I assume the police are doing everything they can?"

  "Yes."

  Sadie sighed. "Jesus! I just can't believe . . . what can I do to help?"

  "We've heard from enough people now that it's safe to assume the story on McGregor was leaked to cover up a bigger story. And Innerva Shah e-mailed James about a guy named Kenny White, who used to work for the Kerry campaign. So, we're wondering, do the two connect?"

  "Half of those low-level congressmen are taking what amount to legal bribes, the other half, illegal bribes. So, it wouldn't be a surprise if somehow the McGregor thing is connected to the campaign. I mean, I can think of a million ways it could be connected."

  "But, somehow Bice is involved," he said. "No one knows exactly what he's been up to, but it could well be this."

  "I'm happy to help if there's even a shred of possibility of screwing over that asshole. What do you need?"

  "Talk to everyone you know in Washington. Everyone who works for an NGO, every congressional aid, every waiter who once worked a fundraising event. Anyone who could possibly have anything to do with anything related to Bice, McGregor, the FCC, or Kenny White."

  "I can do that, but what am I looking for?"

  "I don't know, but something big. Something huge."

  "I'll make some calls to DC when we get to the B and B. But I can't promise anything. And I may be a bit tipsy when I do it."

  "Anything you can find out. Really. I'm worried about James."

  "Be okay, you will."

  38

  Camila joined Alex outside as the call ended. Together, they walked in silence down a narrow street toward the water.

  "How long until we meet Endo?" she asked.

  "He couldn't meet us 'til five, so we have an hour to kill." He pointed at a painted wooden sign that marked a dirt trail. "I wanted to show you Hawley Cove Park. Teenagers used to drink beer there back in high school."

  She took his arm in hers as they entered a short dirt trail. "What do you mean 'teenagers'? Weren't you a teenager in high school?"

  "Well, yeah, but I didn't often get invited to drink beer down there."

  "Why not?"

  "I don't know. I mean, I didn't really want to go, but I probably would have gone if I'd been asked. Does that make sense?"

  "You kind of go with the flow."

  "I guess."

  "I've been thinking something about you."

  "What?"

  "You're one of those guys who would have been good at anything. It's just the way you are. But you wander around wondering if you're destined for this or that, wondering what you should do. Some people are destined to just be good at whatever they happen to be doing."

  After a few hundred yards, the trail ended at the beach, which was covered in smooth black and gray pebbles and scattered with pieces of driftwood.

  "Are these sculptures?" Camila asked, sitting on a ten-foot-long log with branches at one end that jutted out at all angles.

  "No, that's just how the driftwood lands."

  "They look like antlers," she said as she ran her hand along a branch. "I just wish we could be doing something to help find James."

  "Any brilliant ideas?"

  "No."

  Alex sat next to her and stared out at the water. A ferry was making the crossing from Seattle, passing in front of Mount Rainier.

  "The mountain is out today," he said.

  "Huh?"

  "It's a thing we say here. It's gray and cloudy a lot, but when it's clear, like today, it's really clear. And Mt. Rainier gets super bright. So, we say, 'The mountain is out.'"

  After a minute, she kicked a few pebbles at his shoes. "There's another way of looking at it, which is probably more accurate."

  "At the mountain?"

  "No, the thing from before, that you go 'with the flow.'"

  "Oh, what's the other way?"

  "You don't pay attention to what you actually want. You get all sorts of things you want—probably always have—but you don't even know what you actually, truly want."

  "If I'm going for it, doesn't that mean I want it?"

  "Could just be habit, distraction, survival, or sexual instincts. Take me, for instance. A week ago, you were living happily with Greta, who is smart and talented and gorgeous. Now, a few days away from her, and there's a little piece of you that's having second thoughts, right?"

  Alex scoffed.

  "Tell me I'm wrong."

  He started to deny it, but couldn't muster the energy.

  She punched him on the shoulder. "So, I'm not wrong."

  "How are you so . . . psychic?"

  "Just because I know things that haven't yet been stated explicitly doesn't mean I'm psychic. It just means that I pay closer attention than other people do."

  "So then, how'd you know? About the . . . about the second thoughts thing?"

  "It just makes sense. We had a strong connection, we had sex for a while, then I disappeared. Now you're finding out all sorts of things about your parents, about yourself. Last time we were in a situation like this, we almost got killed. We're probably in some kind of danger right now. Situations like this—full of vulnerability, fear, and confusion—they build connection, connection that might feel deeper than it is. Plus, just look at me. I mean, I'm gorgeous."

  He picked up a handful of pebbles and threw one into the water. He watched as the ripple of thin, concentric circles spread outward from the spot where the pebble had splashed into the water. "So, you don't buy that I'm still interested in you?"

  "I can't answer that for you. In your way, maybe you are. But we made a terrible couple."

  "Why?"

  "We're both too full of ourselves."

  When the water went still, he threw another pebble. "Since you're psychic and all, tell me this: am I in love with Greta? Are she and I supposed to be together?"

  "There you go, looking for your fate again." She picked up a handful of pebbles. "I bet I can hit the center of the circle your rock made."

  "I bet you can't."

  Camila threw a pebble, which landed with a splash about a foot away from the outside of the circle.

  Alex said, "If you can't hit it, you have to answer my question."

  She threw another and missed again. "I can't answer that one."

  The ripples faded, and he threw another pebble, this time closer to the shore. "I made it easier on you," he said. "If you can't hit the center with three throws, you have to tell me what you think."

  She looked at him and frowned.

  "Just what you think," he said.

  "Okay, but throw another. That one disappeared."

  Alex threw a larger pebble farther out, so the rings were about twenty feet away from where they were sitting.

  "No fair," she whined.

  "It was an accident."

  She threw a pebble and missed wide to the right. "You're not in love with me. And, really, you never were."

  She threw a second pebble, missing by about a few feet. "You were infatuated with me. I'm different, older," she paused and smiled, "much wiser. But you were just infatuated with me."

  She threw a third pebble, which arched slowly, landed in the center of the ripple, then faded quickly under the water. "Ha! I don't have to answer, but I will anyway."

  She threw the rest of the pebbles all at once, and they dropped onto the water's surface with a pleasant splatter. As the dozens of tiny circles faded, she said, "You were infatuated with me, but you're in love with Greta. If I had to guess, you always will be."

  Alex watched the ferry disappear behind the curve of the island. "Is this like in Casablanca where you sacrifice love for the greater good?"

  "And in this analogy, I'd be Rick?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, no, because I'm not in love with you. And we're not sav
ing the world."

  He didn't say anything.

  After a minute, he stood abruptly and reached down to pull her up. "Let's go meet Endo."

  39

  Alex was looking around the guest room for the keys to Betty's car when his phone rang.

  "Here they are." Camila swiped the keys off the bedside table as he drew his Blackberry from his pocket.

  Sadie was practically shouting. "Alex, holy hell. I mean, seriously, holy hell!"

  He put her on speakerphone and sat down with Camila on his bed. "What?" he asked Sadie. "Slow down."

  "So, Congressman McGregor was taking bribes. Right, no big surprise, and you guys broke that when The Times buried it. When you called me, I figured I'd find someone above him, someone he was taking the fall for. The whole political mode is to cover up the fact that all the corruption goes to the top. It's basically, who can we feed to the media and public who they'll buy as 'responsible' and will insulate the higher-ups?"

  "So?"

  "So, this goes way higher up. Are you by a computer?"

  He grabbed his laptop from the desk and sat back down on the bed. "Yeah."

  "Check your e-mail. I just sent you something."

  With quick fingers, he opened his e-mail as Camila watched. "It's not here yet."

  "Buffering, it is."

  "Sadie, please stop with the Yoda thing. Can you at least try to be serious?"

  "Do or do not. There is no try."

  Alex sighed.

  "Is the e-mail there yet?"

  "Just coming in now."

  He opened the e-mail, which was blank except for an attached photo. When he clicked the photo, it began to load. One percent. Two percent. Five percent.

  "It's loading," he said. "What is it? And how'd you get something so fast? We just talked, what, two hours ago?"

  "I called a few contacts in Washington. People at smaller non-profits, some lobbying firms, a congressional staffer I know. Each time, I brought up your story, the story The Times ran on your story, and so on. Just kinda making small talk."

  "And?"

  "Nothing. I got absolutely bumblefuck nothing. And that's the thing. People are usually happy to gossip, happy to share stuff. They want me to tell them what's up in New York, and in return, they tell what they're hearing in DC. And we know this goes higher up. But no one knew anything. Not anything."

  He watched the attachment load. Twenty-three percent. Twenty-seven percent. Camila sighed and lay down in the window nook across the room.

  "People were telling me that McGregor was probably working alone. They were basically selling me a lone gunman theory. Like McGregor thought up the idea to stack the FCC by himself, a magic bullet straight from the book depository."

  Thirty-nine percent. Forty-two percent.

  "But it wasn't just that they were saying that. I know these people. It was how they were saying it. I swear to God, Alex. Within five minutes, two different people, who I know don't know each other, told me, 'Congressman McGregor gambled heavily and was known to be over one-hundred-ninety-thousand dollars in debt.' And they both mentioned a major contribution from some company called Plutarch Capital."

  "You heard of it?"

  "No. But the point is that they gave me, almost word for word, the same answer."

  "Who were the two people?"

  "One was Cedric Johnston. He's finance director at LPW, a lobbying firm that specializes in media issues. Other was a chick named Roni, who I knew in college."

  "And what does she do?"

  "Legal counsel for Senator Davis."

  Fifty-nine percent. Sixty-eight percent.

  "So, what you're telling me is that no one knows anything, and they're all saying similar things about how they don't know anything?"

  "Not similar. Exactly the same. If there's one thing I know, it's how information works and how it seeps into the press. So, I often know what's actually going on just by the pattern of leaks. The fact that I can't get anything on this really made me wonder."

  Seventy-two percent.

  "So, you're like a media whisperer?" he asked.

  "Check my old blog. I reported that we wouldn't find WMDs in Iraq a month before the Iraq war started."

  "And how'd you know?"

  "By studying every single article, every single public statement during the buildup. When you read everything, and you know how sourcing and leaks work, you can triangulate a version of the truth from what appears in the stories. I just watched all that coverage and asked myself, a) if the administration had any proof of WMDs, would they leak it? Of course they would. They were making a case for war both here and abroad. So, then I got to, b) what exactly has been said on record? And do you know what there was? Just about nothing. The BS The Times ran from Judith Miller. The Colin Powell fiasco press conference, after which he left the Republican party. And some crap about uranium from Africa. So, then I got to, c) the most powerful country in the history of the world can't find any evidence of WMDs, because, if they had it, it would have been leaked. That was my conclusion. I knew with one-hundred-percent certainty there weren't any."

  Alex was half listening while staring at the screen. Seventy-six percent. Eighty-two percent. Eighty-nine percent. He gestured to Camila, who was watching him out of one eye from across the room. "It's speeding up."

  She sat down next to him as Sadie said, "Good, but let me finish about McGregor. I made those calls right after we got to the hotel. And a half-hour later—a half-hour later—I get an e-mail. The one you're waiting on right now."

  "Who from?"

  "I don't know for sure because the e-mail address was scrambled, but I assume it's from someone I spoke with. Someone who didn't want to tell me what was going on over the phone, but wanted me to know."

  "What is it?"

  Ninety-eight percent. Ninety-nine percent. One hundred percent.

  The picture opened.

  "See it yet?" Sadie asked.

  "Looking at it right now."

  Right away, he recognized the seal of the CIA in the top-left corner, and under it, the CIA's address. The date read September 9, 2004, two days before he'd broken the McGregor story. Alex knees went weak for a moment, nearly allowing the laptop to slide to the floor.

  Camila leaned in, her head close to his, studying the screen.

  Nearly the entire letter was blacked out, but a few lines were still readable. Below the date, he read the subject line: Congressman McGregor FCC Ties.

  Halfway down the page, after five or six blacked-out lines, he read: Congressman McGregor gambled heavily and was known to be over $190,000 in debt.

  Alex shut his computer. "Did you really just e-mail me a leaked CIA document?"

  "You're welcome," Sadie said.

  His mind was racing. If the CIA had sent a memo regarding McGregor, it meant that there was an active effort to pin the story solely on him, either by the agency itself, or by someone adept at feeding them false information. "And your friends wouldn't tell you on the phone because—"

  "Because they were afraid they were being tapped."

  "And—"

  "And the effort to throw McGregor under the bus goes much higher than you thought."

  40

  Brewer's Tavern, Boston, Massachusetts

  Greta and Lance sat at an oak table in a small wood-paneled tap house near their hotel. The lights were dim, and though they were a mile from the stadium, drunken fans poured in and out of the front section of the bar, which is why they'd taken a seat in the back corner.

  Lance sipped fifteen-year-old Scotch in a heavy-bottomed glass. The thud when he set it on the table startled Greta, who was already nervous.

  "Tell me again what he said," Lance said.

  "Just that he knew something about the election he wanted to tell a reporter. Once he heard about Alex, and that I knew you, he just said he had something to say."

  "The game ended over an hour ago."

  "Who won, anyway?"

  Lance pointed out
the window and Greta followed his eyes to a mob of a few dozen people in Red Sox hats and jerseys passing by out front. A group of them poured into the bar chanting "Let's-Go-Red-Sox" and clapping along. A bartender asked them to quiet down and they sat at a cluster of tables near the window.

  "The Red Sox?" she asked.

  He sipped his drink again. "Yup."

  She placed her hands palms down on the table, as if to stabilize herself. Just as she did, she saw Darryl step into the bar wearing a black suit, sunglasses, and a black fedora—probably to disguise himself. She recognized his size and sensed the tension in his back and shoulders from the way he stepped through the door.

  He stood there for a moment, shielding his face from the table of fans. Once he saw Greta and Lance, he gave a quick nod to the bartender and said, "Budweiser," then pointed to their table and made his way back.

  Greta got up and scooted in next to Lance, giving Darryl his own side of the booth facing the back of the bar.

  Reaching out and patting Greta's hand, Darryl said, "Hey, girl." Then he locked eyes with Lance. "Hey, fat man."

  Lance laughed. "How are the Yankees treating their washed-up former star?"

  "Can't complain." Darryl nodded at Greta. "Feel a little stronger since our session."

  "That's good to hear," Greta said, leaning in. "What were you gonna say the other day, before the game?"

  A waiter approached and set down a pint of Budweiser. He paused for a minute, staring at Darryl, then returned to the bar.

  Darryl watched his retreat. "You think he recognized me?"

  "Yeah," Lance said. "But don't worry. If you get attacked by Sox fans, I have your back."

  "Darryl!" Greta said. "What's going on?"

  He took a long sip of his beer, glanced around him, and said, "Now that I've got elder-statesman status on the team, I get invited to more stuff. Team owners like to trot me out at season-ticket-holder events, charity things, and parties. About a week ago, after we won the Twins series, Jacobson invited me to a party at his house."

  "Who's Jacobson?" Greta asked.

  Lance said, "Yankees minority owner. Eccentric billionaire who owns a tiny portion of the team."