by A. C. Fuller
"I'd have to see it from the inside to be one-hundred percent sure," Alex said. "I never saw the outside. But, yeah." He pounded the dashboard. "Damnit. He's screwing with us, and has been for years. Can we go in the house, at least?"
"Not until the evidence unit comes out. You're just gonna have to sit tight for a while."
"Damnit," Alex said again, quietly this time.
Endo leaned in the driver's side window and spoke to Alex. "You're safe. Your friend is safe. Officer Nors will continue working. They have stills from the surveillance video circulating in Seattle and the island. We have—"
"You have nothing." James shook his head. "He's gone."
"Whatever he wanted with you, he must have gotten it," Endo suggested. "Or he wouldn't have let you go. You should be thankful."
"I don't know what he wants," Alex said. "But I know he didn't get it yet."
50
After booking flights to New York leaving the following day, Alex, James, and Camila headed out to dinner. The sun was just setting as they stepped out, but the sky still held some blue-gray color and a little light.
The cool air felt good on Alex's skin. "Kinda makes me appreciate not being locked in a metal shed."
James chuckled. "Yeah, being kidnapped is overrated, too."
"James, how'd they get you to walk out of the hotel?"
"I don't want to talk about it."
"It might help," Camila offered, as they passed the ferry parking lot.
"Help what? I already told Officer Nors all about it."
"No, I meant it might help you. To feel better."
"After dinner . . . I went up to his suite. I'd met with Innerva, and . . . wait, I didn't tell you about Innerva yet."
"We saw her e-mail to you," Camila said.
"How'd you—"
"Jolt cola."
"We'll have time to talk about that," Alex said. "But tell me how Bice got you to—"
"I went up there. I think he was hoping you were going to try to interview him that night. Once I figured out what was going on, I locked myself in the bathroom. I called and left you that voice mail. They broke the door down, punched me in the stomach, and tied my wrists with duct tape.
"Then they had me sit on the bed while that big bald guy watched me for half an hour. They gave me an ultimatum: walk out of the room and take the elevator out—by myself—then wait for them a block away. Or, they'd kill you and Camila. They knew you were in the hotel. They said they already had you."
"You had no choice," Camila said.
"Right," Alex agreed.
James glanced at each of them, but stayed quiet as they passed the bookstore and the five and dime. Finally, he said, "I had a choice. I walked out, and a few minutes later, the bald guy came up to me on the corner. A minute later the redheaded mullet guy pulled up in a car. Some random station wagon. They told me to get in, and I did.
"Then he told me to take a pill. He said it would put me to sleep, and if he wanted me dead he'd just kill me. I hesitated at first, but I believed him. I took the pill and we drove through Seattle a bit. I rested my head on the seat belt, and the next thing I knew, I was in a metal shed."
"Wow," Alex said. "I don't know what to say. I guess you know now that they didn't have us, but—"
"They're going to catch him." James was adamant. "There's no way they don't."
Alex frowned. "Bice is crazy. I mean, really crazy."
"What did he do to you?" James asked. "Why did he let us go? It's like he wants us to catch him."
"He does."
"Why?"
"You know how you feel when you stutter? That kind of rush of anxiety? I think he has that, times a million, mixed with murder."
"Does he feel guilty about the election thing?" James asked. "I don't know the details, but he's trying to do something with the election."
"We know." Alex skipped a few paces forward, then turned to face James and continued walking backwards. "And no, I don't think he even cares about the election." He paused, then said, "First, we get some pizza. After that, I was hoping you'd be up for breaking this story with me."
James stopped walking and stood staring across the street into a crowd that was coming out of a restaurant.
"James, what are you doing?" Alex asked.
He followed James's stare to a woman across the street wearing black jeans, a denim jacket, dark sunglasses, and a black head scarf.
"James, who is that?"
"It's Innerva Shah."
Twenty minutes later, the three of them sat with Innerva at a corner booth in Stan's Pizza, the only pizza place on the island. Innerva and James sat on one side, Alex and Camila on the other. A large pitcher of beer and four glasses sat between them.
"Why are you here?" Alex asked. "And how did you find us?"
"I told you," James said. "We can trust her. She's the one who gave me the information on Bhootbhai in the first place."
Alex filled the four glasses with beer.
Innerva took off her sunglasses and drank half of her beer in one sip, then stared at Alex.
"She's going to do a thing where she stares into your soul," James said.
"No," Innerva said. "I already did it."
"How'd you find us?" Alex asked again.
"You e-mailed me three days ago, from James's account."
"That e-mail bounced back."
"No, it didn't. I have a fake bounce-back on that account. Tracing your IP address and tying it to the B and B took about five minutes, once I got the e-mail and got into the News Scoop server."
The pizza arrived. An extra-large rectangle covered half in veggies and half in pepperoni and sausage. They ate in silence for a minute until Camila asked, "But why? Why come here?"
Innerva was cutting her veggie slice with a knife and fork. "Two reasons. First, when I heard James had been kidnapped, I stayed in the area. I wanted to be sure he was safe."
She smiled at him as James slid the cheese and vegetables off the crust part of his pizza in large swaths, cut them up with his knife and fork, and ate them.
"Uhh, James?" Alex said. "Remember when you said that you didn't know how to tell when someone was flirting with you?"
James swallowed hard, blushed, then looked in Innerva's direction.
"It's okay," Innerva said, smiling warmly. "He's shy."
"But what was the second reason?" Camila asked.
"I have something for you. Bhootbhai was murdered by Denver Bice. You all know this already. But you—"
"I almost forgot," Camila interrupted. "I talked to Lance. Bhootbhai spoke with someone on the Kerry campaign named Kenny White."
Innerva swallowed a bite of her pizza. "That's right."
Camila continued, "Lance even told me what was in some of the documents."
Alex took a long swig of beer. "Do we want to know?"
"You do," Innerva said. She reached into her pocket, retrieved a tube of lipstick, and applied it slowly, before nodding at the table, where a silver zip drive sat between her plate and James's.
James quickly put his hand over it. "What, w-what is it?"
"Calm down," she said. "There's no reason to be anxious."
"Bhootbhai's research?"
"Not exactly," she said. "After I got his e-mail, I started doing a little digging. First, I tried to get into his systems, but of course, I couldn't. He was brilliant. Other than the e-mail he sent me, nothing was left. As far as the Internet knows, he never existed."
"Oh my God, you got it yourself." James was smiling ear to ear.
"What you have on that drive are eighty-six thousand pages of documents on both presidential candidates. Most likely most of the same stuff Bhoot dug up for Plutarch Capital. The only thing I couldn't find out is whether your political parties' opposition research is inept enough not to find the stuff I found, or if they found it and just didn't care." She waved at the waiter. "Can we get another pitcher over here?"
They sat in silence until the waiter brought the
beer, and Innerva refilled their glasses.
Alex said, "Can you give us an example of the kind of stuff you found?"
"Like I said, there's eighty-six thousand pages of documents. But I'll give you one quick example. Say you have every phone number—office, home, cell—for a person. And say you also have evidence from a grand jury that never made it to court, and say that, in that evidence is a list of phone numbers used to call a high-end prostitution ring in DC. And, just for argument's sake, let's say one of the phone numbers you have shows up over and over in those records. And then, let's say that you also have bank information, and you can see that withdrawals of eight-hundred to two-thousand dollars always happened within twelve hours of those calls. And let's also say that you have credit card information that shows suites at posh DC hotels being reserved as well."
"Okay, I get it," Alex said, pulling out the envelope from Bice. "And that reminds me."
"What is it?" Innerva asked.
"Not entirely sure, but it looks like a webpage that has something to do with Plutarch Capital."
Innerva reached into the inside pocket of her denim jacket and pulled out a miniature laptop of about five by seven inches.
Alex handed her the notecard.
"How do you get Wi-Fi on that?" James asked.
She smiled as she typed. "I have a roaming, cellular-to-Wi-Fi signal box in my other pocket."
"Now I think she's flirting with me," James said, and his face reddened.
Innerva scanned the screen for a few seconds, then swiveled the computer around to face Alex and Camila.
"Read it out loud," James said. "And don't use that stupid news-anchor voice, Alex."
"Yes, don't," Camila added.
"I honestly can't believe I didn't find that," Innerva said. "I researched the hell out of Plutarch once I found Bhoot's second e-mail. Most likely, they just uploaded it."
"Bice probably uploaded it recently, just for me," Alex said.
"What is it?" James asked.
"Looks like a photo taken of a newspaper article," Alex said. "The Cayman Business Journal. January 9, 2003. Headline reads: Plutarch Capital incorporates, Public Notice. Then it says: Plutarch Capital, LLC, has formally registered for incorporation within the Caymans' Special Economic Zone. Officers are listed as follows on the incorporation documents."
"I checked the Caymans," Innerva sighed. "I checked everywhere. Couldn't find Plutarch Capital."
"You got beat by a newspaper," Alex said. "Most likely they have some law about local public notice for new companies."
"Obviously," Innerva said. "But why couldn't I find it?"
James laughed. "Well, did you search the database of the Cayman Business Journal?"
"No."
"And my guess is that they're not part of lexus-nexus."
"There's more," Alex said. "Let me read the rest. It lists the officers of the corporation."
"Denver Bice?" James asked.
"Yeah, he's listed as treasurer and CEO. Other two are: Chair: William Gathert, Secretary: David McGregor. Then it says, Papers were filed by Island Business Relocation Consulting."
"Wait, holy hell," James said. "William Gathert?"
"That's what it says."
"That's . . . insane. He's the chairman of Standard Media."
"What does that mean?" Innerva asked.
"It means that Bice is still working for Standard Media," James replied. "That Plutarch Capital is just a dummy company, a front for Standard Media's attempts to rig the election. And that they've been working with McGregor and others to stack the FCC."
Alex finished his beer, then set his empty glass on the table. "And it means that Bice wants us to take down Gathert as well."
51
Inn on the Sound, Bainbridge Island
Alex stuck the zip drive into the USB port of his laptop, then glanced at Innerva, who was looking over his right shoulder. "Where do we start?"
James was looking over his left shoulder, and Camila lay on the bed.
"I split it up into categories," Innerva said. "Bank records, Internet searches, business holdings, police records. Name your pleasure."
"But how do we sort it? We need some sort of top sheet. We need a way to know what's important."
"Just name a key word, and I can search for it."
"How about 'bribe'?" Alex asked.
James laughed. "You think people who bribe people put 'bribe' in the subject of an e-mail?"
Innerva and Alex swapped places and Innerva tapped away at the keyboard. "Bhoot probably had a system set up to cross check all the key words with controversial things. Porn sites, strip clubs, offshore banks, and so on. But I just have basic search within the folders. To really make sense of this will take weeks of checking and cross-checking."
"Why don't we drop it?" Camila called from the bed.
Alex glanced at her, but said nothing.
"Look," James said. "Here's something. Senator Kerry wrote personal checks totaling twelve-thousand dollars to a person over a two-month period back in 2001. And she comes up again in an e-mail from 1995."
"Awwww, he had a Hotmail account," Innerva said. "That's cute."
James smiled at her, and she put her hand on his shoulder.
"What's the e-mail say?" Alex asked.
"Something about a book deal. Waiting until after the senate elections."
Camila stood up and walked over to them. "How do we even know it's real?"
"This stuff is out there," Innerva said. "You just have to know where to look. Just because he deleted the Hotmail account doesn't mean that there is no trace of it on their servers, or on her computer."
James was smiling broadly. "This is what journalism is going to become. This is—"
"Guys!" Camila shoved her way between them and blocked the screen with her hand. "Maybe we just shouldn't look at it. We heard from Lance that Jacobson said there was enough stuff on both candidates to swing the election, right?"
No one responded.
"On both of them." She sighed and closed the laptop. "We have Bice to worry about. We know that Plutarch Capital, led by Gathert and Standard Media, is trying to rig the election. So why don't we just let this part of the story go?"
James stared at her, open mouthed. "Let it go? We have what could be the greatest scoop since Watergate. Enough to bring down a sitting president or derail the campaign of a former governor or five-term senator. People who are supposedly serving the people. And we should let it go?"
"But in about six weeks, one of them is going to win anyway," Camila said. "So, they both have checkered pasts. Who doesn't? What's actually newsworthy about any of this?"
Alex got up and paced the small room, running a hand through his hair. "I don't know. We have a great story without this, and to turn Innerva's data into narrative would take weeks. We don't need to reveal any of the information to tell the story of Bice, of Bhootbhai, of Plutarch Capital."
"I can't believe what I'm hearing," James said.
Alex came back and sat on the bed next to Camila. "I hate to say it, but I think I'm with Camila. It doesn't feel right."
"Oh my God," James said. "For the first time, ordinary people have access to information that . . . and you want to—"
"It's not the information age," Innerva said. "It's the transparency age. At least, it will be soon. You guys are diddling around with your little investigative bits that will have no effect on society whatsoever. So, you run your thing on Bice, and maybe you pin the whole thing on Gathert. What then?"
"Well," Alex said. "I—"
"Nothing happens. Maybe Gathert resigns as Chairman of Standard Media and some other psycho takes his place. The citizenry has to protect itself from the powerful and the corrupt. The media haven't done their job. That time is ended. Total transparency is the only option now."
James turned to Alex. "Didn't we get into this to report the stuff the media was burying?"
"Yeah," Alex said, "but they didn't bury this. We kn
ew Bush and Kerry both had stained pasts. Plus, we don't even know what this is."
"I didn't go to a fancy journalism school," Innerva said. "But publishing this is what journalism is going to become."
James took her hand as he spoke to Alex. "We can run it next to the story. Within hours, people from around the world will be data-mining it, making connections to stuff we can't even imagine."
"And what?" Alex asked. "Like Camila said, one of them will be president anyway. Plus, there's the legal side."
"Legally, we'd be okay," James said. "Even though Innerva broke laws to uncover the information, we can still publish it. We just say that we received it from a source."
"But we can still get hauled into court to name our source. We could go to jail if we don't. Trust me, I've been down this road before. And with the weight of the White House on the judge . . ."
"Plus, there's the invasion of privacy issue," Camila said.
"Well, they're public figures," James said, "so that wouldn't be an issue."
"I meant for all the other people who undoubtedly appear in those documents. Mistresses, business associates, random kids of friends, or colleagues."
"She has a point," Alex said. "Individuals could have good privacy cases against us if we publish all this."
"But it all falls under the umbrella of newsworthiness," James said.
"Not if we publish it without a filter. Indiscriminately."
"That'll be for the law to decide."
Innerva spoke up. "You guys have a chance to be pioneers on this."
"It could tangle us up in legal issues for years," Alex said. "I say no."
"I say yes," James countered.
Alex sighed. "This could sink News Scoop, James. But Lance is the third vote. Tomorrow we get back to New York, and we let him decide."
52
105th and Broadway, New York City, Monday, September 20, 2004
Greta was making the bed when Alex came in.
He'd arrived home late the previous evening, but had collapsed into bed and fallen asleep holding Greta gently in his arms. He'd left again before she'd awoken, and had spent the last few hours being interviewed by the NYPD and talking with his partners about whether to publish the material Innerva had uncovered. Lance had been a solid "no" from the beginning, and hadn't budged despite James's most impassioned arguments about "radical transparency" and "the future of journalism."
