Total Control

by David Baldacci

  Where'd you get the info?"

  "I found a bottle of chemotherapy drugs in the medicine cabinet at his apartment. Then I went right to the source. His personal physician. Told him we were just doing routine background inquiries.

  Lieberman's personal calendar evidenced a lot of doctor visits.

  Some visits to Johns Hopkins, another to the Mayo Clinic. Then I mentioned the medication I'd found. The doc was nervous when I asked him about it. I subtly suggested that not telling the whole truth to the FBI could land his keister in a shitload of trouble.

  When I mentioned a subpoena, he cracked. He probably figured the patient was dead, what the hell would he care."

  "What about the White House? They had to know."

  "If they're playing straight with us, they were in the dark too. I talked with the chief of staff about Lieberman's little secret. I don't think he believed me at first. Had to remind him FBI stands for fidelity, bravery and integrity. I also sent over a copy of the medical records to him. Word is the president went ape-shit when he saw them."

  "That's an interesting twist," Sawyer said. "I always understood Lieberman was some financial god. Solid as a rock. And yet he forgets to mention he's about to check out with cancer and leave the country in the lurch. That doesn't make much sense."

  Jackson grinned. "Just reporting the facts. You're right about the guy's abilities. He's a bonafide legend. However, personally, he wasn't in such great shape financially."

  "What do you mean?" Sawyer asked.

  Jackson turned the pages of his fat notebook and then stopped.

  He flipped the notebook around and slid it across to Sawyer. Sawyer stared down at the information while Jackson continued his report.

  "Lieberman was divorced about five years ago after twenty-five years of marriage. Apparently he was a naughty boy caught fooling around on the side. The timing could not have been worse. He was just about to go through Senate confirmation hearings for the Fed position. His wife threatened to shred him in the papers. The Fed chairmanship, which I'm told Lieberman coveted, would've gone bye-bye real quick. To get rid of the problem, Lieberman gave just about everything he had to his ex. She died just a couple of years ago. To complicate matters, rumor has it his twenty-something girlfriend had expensive tastes. The Fed job is prestigious, but it doesn't pay the Wall Street bucks, nor anywhere near. Fact is, Lieberman was up to his ass in debt. Lived in a crummy apartment over on Capitol Hill while trying to crawl out of a financial hole the size of the Grand Canyon. The stack of love letters we found at the apartment apparently came from her."

  "What happened to the girlfriend?" Sawyer asked.

  "Not sure. It wouldn't surprise me if she'd walked out when she found out her little pot of gold was full of the big C."

  "Any idea where she is now?"

  Jackson shook his head. "From all accounts, she's been out of the picture for some time now. I tracked down several colleagues of Lieberman's back in New York. The woman was beautiful but brainless according to them."

  "It's probably a waste of time, but make some more inquiries on her anyway, Ray."

  Jackson nodded.

  Sawyer looked at Barracks. "Any word from the Hill on who's going to take Lieberman's slot?"

  When Barracks answered, Sawyer was rocked for the second time in less than a minute.

  "General consensus: Walter Burns."

  Sawyer stared at Barracks for several moments and then wrote the name "Walter Burns" in his notebook. In the margin next to it he scribbled the word "asshole" and then the word "suspect" with a question mark next to it.

  Sawyer looked up from his notebook. "Sounds like our Mr. Lieberman was riding a streak of particularly bad luck. So why kill him?"

  "Lots of reasons," Barracks spoke up. "The Fed chairman is the symbol of American monetary policy. Make a nice little target for some third world crap-can of a country with a big green monster on its shoulder. Or pick from about a dozen active terrorist groups who specialize in plane bombings."

  Sawyer shook his head. "No group has claimed responsibility for the bombing yet."

  Barracks snorted. "Give 'em time. Now that we've confirmed it was a bombing, whoever did it will be phoning in. Blowing Americans out of the sky to make a political statement, that's what those assholes live for."

  "Goddammit!" Sawyer slammed his massive fist down on the table, stood up and started pacing, his face a sheet of vivid red. It seemed as though every ten seconds the image of the impact crater swept across his thoughts. Added to that now was the smaller but even more devastating vision of the tiny, singed shoe he had held in his hand. He had cradled each of his children in one big hand upon their birth. It could have been any of them. Any of them! He knew that vision would never fully leave his thoughts for as long as he remained on this earth.

  The agents eyed him anxiously. Sawyer had a well-deserved reputation as being one of the sharpest agents among a legion of them at the bureau. Through twenty-five years of seeing fellow humans gallop a crimson path through the country, he had continued to attack each case with the same zeal and rigor he had shown from day one on the job. He ordinarily chose carefully analysis over scattergun hyperbole; however, most of the agents who had worked with him over the years understood crystal-clearly that his temper was contained by a very slender catch.

  He stopped his pacing and looked at Barracks. "There's a problem with that theory, Herb." His voice was once again calm.

  "What's that?"

  Sawyer leaned against one of the glass walls, crossed his arms and rested them on his broad chest. "If you're a terrorist looking to make a big splash, you sneak a bomb on the plane--which, let's face it, isn't all that hard to do on a domestic flight--and you blow the plane into a million pieces. Bodies pouring down, crashing through roofs, interrupting Americans eating breakfast. Leave no room for doubt that it was a bombing." Sawyer paused and intently looked at the face of each agent. "That did not happen here, gentlemen."

  Sawyer resumed his pacing. All eyes in the room followed his progress. "The jet was virtually intact on its way down. If the right wing hadn't come off, all of it would be in that crater. Mark that point. The fueler from Vector is presumably paid to sabotage the plane. Surreptitious work performed by an American who is not, at least as far as we know, linked to any terrorist group. It would be hard for me to believe that Middle Eastern terrorist groups have started admitting Americans into their ranks to perform their dirty work.

  "We had the damage on the fuel tank, but that could as easily have been caused by the explosion and fire. The acid was almost all burned away. A little more heat and maybe we would have found nothing. And Kaplan has confirmed that the wing didn't have to come off the fuselage in order to crash the plane in the same manner. The starboard engine was destroyed from debris ingestion, critical flight control hydraulic lines were severed by the fire and explosion, and the aerodynamics of the wing, even if it had remained intact, was destroyed. So if we hadn't found the igniter in the crater, this thing might've gone down as some horrific mechanical failure.

  And make no mistake about it, it was a damned miracle that the igniter was found."

  Sawyer looked through one of the glass walls and continued. "So you add that all up, and what do you have? Arguably, someone who blows up a plane but maybe doesn't want it to look that way. Not your typical terrorist MO. But then the picture gets even more cloudy. The logic starts to cut the other way. First, our fueler ends up with a full clip in him. His bags ,ere packed, half a disguise on, and his employer presumably changes the plan on him. Second, we have Arthur Lieberman on the same flight." Sawyer glanced at Jackson.

  "The man went to L.A. every month, like clockwork, same airline, same flight each month, right?"

  Jackson, eyes narrowed to slits, nodded slowly. Each agent was unconsciously leaning forward as they followed Sawyer's logic.

  "So the odds of the guy being on the flight by accident are so high it's not worth debating. Looking at it cold, L
ieberman had to be the target, unless we're missing something really big. Now put the two pieces together. Initially, our bombers may have tried to make it look like an accident. Then the fueler ends up dead. "Why?" Sawyer looked sharply around the room.

  David Long finally spoke up. "Couldn't risk it. Maybe the chances are it goes down like an accident, and maybe not. They can't wait around until the papers report it one way or another. They have to take the guy out right away. Besides, if the original plan was to have the guy take a hike, him not showing for work would raise suspicion.

  Even if we didn't think sabotage, the guy skipping town would sure as hell turn us in that direction."

  "Agreed," Sawyer replied. "But if you want the trail to end there, why not make it look like the fueler's some fanatical zealot? Put a bullet into his temple, leave the gun and some BS suicide note behind filled with I-hate-America language and let us think the guy's a loner. You fill him full of holes, leave behind evidence pointing to the guy getting ready to run, now we know there are others involved.

  Why the hell bring yourself that kind of trouble?" Sawyer rubbed his chin.

  The other agents leaned back in their chairs, looking confused.

  Sawyer finally looked at Jackson. "Any word from the ME on our dead guy?"

  "They promised a top priority. We'll know soon."

  "Anything else turn up at the guy's apartment?"

  "One thing that didn't turn up, Lee."

  Sawyer flashed a knowing look. "No I.D. docs."

  "Yep," Jackson said. "Guy getting ready to hit the road after blowing up a plane will not be running as himself. Way this was probably planned out, he had to have phony docs, good phony docs ready."

  "True, Ray, but he could've had them stashed someplace else."

  "Or whoever killed him might've taken them too," Barracks ventured.

  "No argument there," Sawyer said.

  On those words the door to the SIOC opened and through it stepped Marsha Reid. Petite and motherly looking, with salt and pepper hair cut short and glasses riding on a chain over her black dress, she was one of the bureau's top fingerprint personnel. Reid had tracked down some of the worst criminals on the planet through the esoteric world of arches, loops and whorls.

  Marsha nodded to the other agents in the room and then sat down and opened the file she had carried in.

  "AFIS results, hot off the presses," she said, her tone businesslike but laced with a touch of humor. "Robert Sinclair was actually Joseph Philip Riker, currently wanted in Texas and Arkansas on murder and related weapons charges. His arrest sheet is three pages long. His first arrest was for armed robbery at age sixteen. His last was for second-degree murder. He served seven years. Was released five years ago. Since then he's been implicated in numerous crimes, including two murders-for-hire. An extremely dangerous man. His trail went cold about eighteen months ago. Not a peep from him since. Until now."

  Every agent at the table looked stunned.

  "How does a guy like that get a job fueling planes?" Sawyer's tone was incredulous.

  Jackson answered the query. "I spoke with representatives from Vector. They're a reputable company. Sinclair--or, rather, Riker had been with them only about a month. He had excellent credentials.

  Worked at several aircraft fueling companies in the Northwest and in southern California. They did a background check on him, under the name Sinclair, of course. Everything came out okay. They were as stunned by this as anyone else."

  "What about fingerprints? They.had to check his fingerprints.

  That would've told them who the guy really was."

  Reid eyed Sawyer. She spoke with authority. "Depends on who's taking the prints, Lee. A borderline competent tech can be fooled, you know that. There's synthetic material out there you'd swear was skin. You can buy prints on the street. Put it all together and a career criminal becomes a respectable citizen."

  Barracks piped in. "And :f the guy was wanted on all those other crimes, he probably had a new face put on. Five gets you ten the face in that morgue isn't the face on those wanted posters."

  Sawyer looked at Jackson. "How did Riker end up fueling Flight 3223?"

  "About a week ago he asked to be switched to the graveyard shift, twelve to seven. Flight 3223's scheduled departure time was six forty-five. Same time every day. Log shows the plane was fueled at five-fifteen. That put it on Riker's rounds. Most people don't volunteer for that shift, so Riker got it pretty much by default."

  Another question occurred to Sawyer. "So where's the real Robert Sinclair?"

  "Probably dead," said Barracks. "Riker took over his identity."

  No one commented on that theory until Sawyer pursued the issue with a startling query. "Or what if Robert Sinclair doesn't exist?"

  Now even Reid looked puzzled. Sawyer looked deep in thought when he spoke. "There are a lot of problems with taking over a real person's identity. Old photos, coworkers or friends who show up unexpectedly and blow your cover. There's another way to do it."

  Sawyer pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows as he thought his idea through. "I've got a gut feeling on this one that's telling me we need to redo everything that Vector did when they performed their background check on Riker. Get on that, Ray, like yesterday."

  Jackson nodded and jotted down some notes.

  Reid looked at Sawyer. "Are you thinking what I think you are?"

  Sawyer smiled. "It wouldn't be the first time a person was invented our of whole cloth. Social Security number, job history, past residences, photo identification, bank accounts, training certifications, fake phone numbers, dummy references." He looked at Reid.

  "Even false prints, Marsha."

  "Then we're talking some pretty sophisticated guys," she replied.

  "I never doubted they were anything less, Ms. Reid," Sawyer rejoined.

  Sawyer looked around the table. "I don't want to stray from SOP, so we'll still continue to conduct interviews of family members of the victims, but I don't want to waste too much time on that.

  Lieberman is the key to this whole thing." He suddenly changed gears. "Rapid Start running smoothly?" he asked Ray Jackson.

  "Very."

  Rapid Start was the FBI's version of the show on the road and Sawyer had used it successfully in the past. The premise of Rapid Starr was the veracity of an electronic clearinghouse for every bit of information, leads and anonymous tips involved in an investigation that otherwise would become unorganized and muddled. With an integrated investigation and pretty close to real-time access to information, the chances of success, the bureau believed, were immeasurably increased.

  The Rapid Start operation for Flight 3223 was housed in an abandoned tobacco warehouse on the outskirts of Standardsville. Instead of tobacco leaves stored floor to ceiling, the building now housed the latest in computer and telecommunications equipment manned by dozens of agents working in shifts who inputted information into the massive databases twenty-four hours a day.

  "We're gonna need every miracle it can produce. And even that might not be enough." Sawyer was silent for a moment and then snapped to attention. "Let's get to work."

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Quentin?" Sidney stood at the front door of her house, the surprise evident on her face.

  Quentin Rowe stared back at her through his oval glasses. "May I come in?"

  Sidney's parents were out grocery shopping. While Sidney and Quentin headed toward the living room, a sleepy Amy wandered into the room dragging Pooh. "Hi, Amy," Rowe said. He knelt down and put out a hand to her, but the little girl drew back. Rowe smiled at her. "I was shy when I was your age too." He looked up at Sidney. "That's probably why I turned to computers. They didn't talk back at you, or try to touch you." He paused, seemingly lost in thought. Then he started and looked up at her. "Do you have time to talk?"

  Sidney hesitated.

  "Please, Sidney?"

  "Let me put this little girl down for a much-needed nap. I'll be back in a few minutes." Sidne
y carried her out.

  While she was gone, Rowe slowly walked around the room. He studied the many photos of the Archer family scattered across the walls and tabletops. He looked over as Sidney came back into the room. "Beautiful little girl you have there."

  "She is something. A terrific something."

  "Especially now, right?"

  Sidney nodded.

  Rowe kept his eyes on her. "I lost both my parents in a plane crash when I was fourteen."

  "Oh, Quentin."

  He shrugged. "It was a long time ago. But I think I can understand a little better than most how you're feeling. I was an only child. There really wasn't anyone left for me."

  "I guess I'm fortunate in that regard."

  "You are, Sidney, keep reminding' yourself of that."