Total Control

by David Baldacci

  ten million dollars, tax-free, of course."

  "Ensuring my economic stability now that I'm unemployable?

  And my silence?"

  "Something like that. You disappear to some nice little foreign country, raise your little girl in luxury. The CyberCom deal is consummated.

  Triton Global will continue on. Tyler, Stone will remain a viable firm. No one is the worse off. The alternative? Well, it's something considerably less pleasant. For you. However, time is of the essence. I need your answer in one minute." He 'stared at his watch, counting the seconds off.

  Sidney sat back in her chair, her shoulders slumped as she swiftly thought through the few possibilities left to her. If she agreed, she would be rich. If she didn't, she could and probably would go to jail.

  And Amy? She thought of Jason and all the terrible events of the past month. More than enough for several lifetimes. She suddenly stiffened as she looked at Goldman's triumphant features, felt the sneering presence of Paul Brophy behind her.

  She knew what course of action she would take.

  She would accept their terms and then she would play her own cards. She would give Goldman the information he wanted and then she would go straight to Lee Sawyer and tell him everything, including the existence of the disk. She would hope for the best deal she could get and she would expose Goldman and his client for what they were. She wouldn't be rich and she might be away from her little girl if she did any prison time, but she wasn't going to raise Amy with Goldman's extortion money. And, most important, she could live with herself.

  "Time," Goldman announced.

  Sidney didn't speak.

  Goldman shook his head slowly and lifted up the phone receiver once more. Finally, almost imperceptibly, Sidney nodded her head.

  Goldman rose from behind the desk, a broad smile on his face. "Excellent.

  What are the terms and the password?"

  Sidney shook her head. "My bargaining position is a little fragile.

  First the money, then the information. Or you can just go ahead and dial 911."

  Goldman hesitated for a moment. "Well, as you say, your position is precarious. However, precisely because of that fact, we can be somewhat flexible. Shall we?" He stood up and motioned to the door. Sidney looked confused. "Now that we've reached agreement, I want to fully implement the deal before I let you go. You may be difficult to find later," Goldman explained.

  As Sidney rose and turned, Brophy put the revolver into the back of his waistband and intentionally brushed lightly against her with his shoulder, his lips near her ear. "After you get settled down into your new life, you may want some company. I see myself having a lot more free time and more money than I know what to do with.

  Think about it."

  Sidney's knee slamming into his groin sent Brophy to the floor. "I just did, Paul, and I'm trying hard not to be sick to my stomach. Stay away from me if you want to keep what little manhood you've got left."

  Sidney walked briskly down the hallway, Goldman right behind her. Brophy finally managed to pull himself up. Clutching his privates, his face pale, he staggered after them.

  The limo was waiting for them on the lowest level of the garage next to the elevator bank, its engine running. Goldman held the door while Sidney climbed in. Brophy, still trying to catch his breath and painfully bent over, entered last and sat across from Goldman and Sidney; the darkened glass partition was fully raised behind him.

  "It won't take long to make arrangements. You may find it's in your best interests to maintain your present domicile until things cool down a bit. Then we'll fly you to an interim destination. You can send for your daughter and live happily ever after." Goldman's tone was openly jovial.

  Sidney's response was all business. "What about Triton and the firm? You mentioned lawsuits?"

  "I think that can all be taken care of. Why would the firm want to immerse itself in such embarrassing litigation? And Triton really can't prove anything, can it?"

  "So why should I deal?"

  Brophy held up the minicassette recorder, his face still flushed.

  "Because of this, you little bitch. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life in prison."

  Sidney's manner remained calm. "I'll want that tape."

  Goldman shrugged. "Impossible for now. Perhaps later, when things have returned to normal."

  Goldman looked at the glass partition. "Parker?"

  The partition slid down.

  "Parker, we can go now."

  The arm coming through the now open space between the front and back of the limo held a gun. Brophy's head exploded and he fell face down onto the floor of the limo. Goldman and Sidney were both splattered with his blood, among other things. Goldman's mouth dropped open and he yelled in disbelief as the pistol turned in his direction. "Oh, God. No! Parker!"

  The bullet slammed into his forehead and Philip Goldman's long career as an exceedingly arrogant attorney came to a decisive end. He jolted backward in the seat from the bullet's impact, blood covering his face as well as the rear glass of the limo. Then he slumped over against Sidney, who screamed as the gun now swiveled in her direction.

  Her fingernails dug into the soft leather seat in her panic. For an instant she stared at the face that was covered by a black ski mask and then her eyes zeroed in on the gleaming muzzle that hovered barely five feet from her face. Every detail of the pistol was seared into her memory as she awaited her death.

  Then the gun was pointed toward the right-side door of the limo.

  As Sidney sat frozen, the arm motioned more firmly toward the door.

  Trembling and unable to understand what was happening other than the fact that she apparently was not going to die, Sidney managed to push Goldman's limp form off her and started to climb over Brophy's body. While she awkwardly made her way across the dead lawyer, her hand slipped on a patch of blood and she fell on top of him. She instantly jerked back. As her fingers clawed for a solid grip, she felt the hard object under Brophy's shoulder. Her fingers instinctively closed around the metal. With her back to the gunman, she was able to tuck Brophy's revolver into her coat pocket without being observed.

  When she opened the door, something hit her in the back.

  Frightened out of her mind, she managed to turn around and eyed her purse where it had fallen on top of Brophy's body after bouncing off her. Then her eyes caught hold of the computer disk Jason had sent her as the hand holding it disappeared back through the partition.

  With trembling hands she picked up her purse, pushed open the heavy door all the way and fell out of the car. Then she staggered up and raced away with every ounce of energy in her possession.

  Back in the limo the man leaned through the partition. Next to him in the front seat, Parker was slumped over, a bullet hole in his right temple. The man carefully picked up the minicassette recorder where it had fallen on the seat of the limo and played a few seconds of it. He nodded to himself when he heard the voices and then carefully moved Brophy's body slightly to the side, slid the recorder several inches under his body and let him slump back to his original position. The disk was put away in the man's fanny pack. His last act was to carefully pick up the three shell casings ejected from the pistol. He couldn't make it too easy for the cops. Then the man exited the limo, the gun he had used to murder three people carried in a baggie for deposit in an out-of-the-way place, but not so out of the way that the police would fail to uncover it.

  Kenneth Scales took off the ski mask. Under the bright lights of the empty garage the deadly blue eyes twinkled with deep satisfaction.

  Another night's work successfully completed.

  Sidney punched the elevator button again and again until finally the doors opened. She slumped against the wall of the elevator car.

  She was covered in blood. She could feel it on her face, her hands. It was all she could do not to start shrieking at the top of her lungs.

  She just wanted to get it off her. Wth an unsteady hand she
hit the button for the eighth floor.

  As soon as she got to the ladies' room and saw her bloody image in the mirror, she threw up in the sink, then dropped to the floor, where she lay moaning, the dry heaves pounding her unmercifully.

  Finally she managed to pull herself up and wash off the blood as best she could. She continued to pour hot water over her face until its sting began to calm the shakes; she kept raking shaky fingers through her hair, probing for things that did not belong there.

  Leaving the rest room, she ran down the hallway to her office and grabbed a spare trench coat that she kept there. It effectively covered the remnants of blood that had refused to come off. Then she picked up the phone and prepared to dial 911. She gripped the .32 with her other hand. She could not shake the feeling that at any moment that gleaming pistol would be pointed in her direction again. That the man behind the black mask would not let her live a second time. She had keyed two of the numbers. Then her hand froze as the vision hit her. In the limo: the barrel of the gun staring her in the face. Then its image as it swung toward the door. That's when she saw it.

  The grip. The cracked grip. Cracked when she had dropped the gun back at her home. The man had her gun. Two men had just been murdered with her 9mm.

  Another vision burned into her brain. The tape of her and Jason's conversation. That too was back there, with the dead men. The reason why she had been left alive became abundantly clear to Sidney Archer: She had been allowed to live so that she could rot in jail for murder. Like a terribly frightened child, she scrambled back into the far corner of her office and slumped across the floor, her body quivering uncontrollably, tears and moans spilling out of her, with absolutely no sign of ever stopping.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Sawyer was still staring at the photo of Steven Page, the dead man's face looming larger and larger in his mind until he finally had to drop the picture and turn away before it completely engulfed him.

  "I just assumed it was a photo of one of Lieberman's kids. They were all on his desk together. I never thought to connect up that he has two, not three children." Jackson slapped his forehead. "It just didn't seem all that important. Then when the investigation shifted away from Lieberman to Archer--" Jackson shook his head in obvious misery.

  Sawyer sat on the edge of the table. Only those closest to him would realize that the veteran FBI agent was more stunned than he had ever been in his professional life.

  "I'm sorry, Lee." Jackson snatched another look at the photo and cringed. Sawyer softly patted his partner on the back. "It's not your fault, Ray. Under the circumstances it wouldn't have seemed important to me either." Sawyer stood up and started pacing. "But now it sure as hell is. We'll need to verify that it is Steven Page, although I really don't have any doubt about it." He abruptly stopped pacing.

  "Hey, Ray, NYPD could never figure out where Steven Page got all that money, right?"

  Jackson's mind clicked into high gear. "Maybe Page was blackmailing Lieberman. Perhaps over his affair. They were both in finance, same professional circles. That would explain the money Page had."

  Sawyer shook his head. "A number of people seemed to know about the mistress--not much opportunity for blackmail there. Besides, most people don't keep photos of their blackmailers on display, Ray." Jackson looked sheepish. "No, I think it cuts deeper than that." Sawyer leaned against the wall of the conference room, folded his arms and sunk his head on his chest. "By the way, what did you ever get on our elusive mistress?"

  Jackson took a minute to consult a file. "A lot of nothing. I found a number of people who had heard rumors. Unsubstantiated rumors, they were quick to point out. They were terrified of being named or involved. I had to do some quick soft-shoe to calm them down. It was the damnedest thing, though: They had all heard about her, could describe her pretty well, although each description I got was a little different than the last. But--"

  "But nobody could tell you definitively that they had ever actually met the mystery lady."

  "Jackson's face scrunched up. "Yeah, that's right. How'd you know that?"

  Sawyer took a deep breath. "You ever play that game as a kid, Ray, where somebody tells you something and you tell somebody else and they tell somebody else? By the time it gets to the end of the line, the information is nothing like it started out to be. Or how a rumor gets started and spreads and everybody believes it to be the gospel, could almost swear they had personally seen whatever it was, and none of it is true."

  "Hell, yes. My grandmother reads the Star. She believes everything in it and talks like she actually saw Liz Taylor getting it on with Elvis on the space shuttle."

  "Right. It's not true, not one bit of it, but people will tell you it is, fervently believe that it is, simply because they've read about it or heard it, especially if they've heard it from more than one person."

  "Are you saying..."

  "I'm saying that I don't think the blond mistress ever existed, Ray. More to the point, I think she was created for a specific purpose.

  "Like what?"

  Sawyer took a very deep breath before answering. "To cover the fact that Arthur Lieberman and Steven Page were lovers."

  Jackson dropped into a chair as he stared at Sawyer. "Are you serious?"

  "The photo of Page at his apartment, next to his kids? Those love letters you found at the apartment? Why not sign them? A week's pay says the handwriting matches Steven Page's. And last but not least, Page being a millionaire on a working man's salary? Very doable if you're by chance sleeping with a guy who's made lots of people millionaires."

  "Yeah, but why invent a story about a mistress? It could've blown Lieberman's chairmanship bid."

  Sawyer was shaking his 'head. "In this day and age, Ray, who knows? If that were the criterion, a big chunk of the political leadership in this country would have to pack up and go home. And the fact is it didn't stop him from getting the Fed's top post. But do you think the outcome would've been the same if it was discovered Lieberman was homosexual and had a male lover less than half his age? Keep in mind that the financial community in this country is one of the most conservative you'll find anywhere."

  "Okay, he would've been screwed, that's for damned sure. But talk about your double standards. It's okay to commit adultery, so long as it's with someone of the opposite sex."

  "Right, you invent a phony heterosexual affair to cover the true homosexual one. They used to do that out in Hollywood with leading men who weren't attracted to the opposite sex. The studios would orchestrate phony marriages. All a complicated sham to preserve a lucrative career. Lieberman's scam wasn't a perfect fix, but it gets him the brass ring. His wife may or may not have known the truth. But she gets paid off big-time, so she's not going to talk. And she's six feet under now. So no loose lips there."

  Jackson wiped his brow. "Jesus." He looked at Sawyer, puzzled.

  "If that's the case, then Steven Page's death was a suicide; there would be no reason to kill him."

  Sawyer was shaking his head. "There would be every reason to kill him, Ray."

  "Why?"

  Sawyer paused for a moment, looked down at his hands and spoke quietly. "Want to make an educated guess as to how Steven Page contracted HIV?"

  Jackson's eyes bulged. "Lieberman?"

  Sawyer looked up. "I'd be real interested to find out whether Lieberman was HIV-positive."

  Jackson's confusion suddenly cleared. "If Page knows he might be terminal, he'd have no reason to keep quiet."

  "Right. Getting a terminal illness from one's lover doesn't normally inspire loyalty. Steven Page held Arthur Lieberman's professional future in his hands. I think that equals sufficient homicidal motive, in my book."

  "So it looks like we need to approach this case from an entirely new angle."

  "Agreed. Right now we have a lot of speculation, but not really a damn thing we can take to a prosecutor."

  Jackson got out of his chair, started to tidy up the files. "So you really think Lieberman had
Page killed?"

  When Sawyer didn't answer, Jackson turned to find him staring off into space.

  "Lee?" Sawyer finally looked over at him.

  "I never said that, Ray."

  "But--"

  "I'll see you in the morning. Get some sleep, you're going to need it." Sawyer got up and walked to the door leading out of the conference room. "I've got somebody I need to speak to," Sawyer said.

  "Who?"

  Sawyer turned back momentarily. "Charles Tiedman, president of the San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank. Lieberman never got a chance to talk to him. I think it's about time somebody did."