Ground Truth

by Rob Sangster

  “Mr. Strider,” Gorton said in a flat tone. Then he glanced at the other two. “Ms. Vanderberg. Mr. LeMoyne. Yes, I’ve been briefed on both of you, especially on Mr. LeMoyne’s unusual background.”

  Without a word, Jack held up his hands.

  Gorton signaled to a man in a brown suit and mirrored sunglasses who had come in right behind him. “Agent, get all those cuffs off.”

  The agent, his expression reluctant, retrieved the cuffs and backed into a corner where he stood stiffly. Gorton said, “You may leave us now.”

  “But sir—”

  “Now.”

  The agent left, and Justin Sinclair appeared in the doorway, wearing a black suit and looking completely composed. He walked straight to Jack. When he was within a few feet, he broke into a broad smile and stuck out his right hand. Jack didn’t want to shake it and didn’t. With no hesitation, the trajectory of Sinclair’s hand rose and gripped Jack’s shoulder briefly.

  “Strider,” Sinclair said, “your country is in your debt. Isn’t that right, Mr. President?”

  Jack stepped away from the hand on his shoulder. He knew Sinclair didn’t think the country owed Jack Strider a damned thing.

  “Correct,” Gorton said, “Let’s sit down and talk about that.” As soon as Gorton chose a chair, Sinclair hurried to sit on his right.

  Jack sat opposite Gorton, joined by Debra, who looked tense, and Gano, who looked ready for a fight.

  “I can’t stay long,” Gorton said, “so I’ll get right to it. Jack, there will soon be a vacancy on the 9th Circuit bench, and I’m going to appoint you to fill that seat. Quite a few Supreme Court justices have come from the 9th Circuit.”

  Jack blinked, surprised. That had come right out of the blue. Gorton was offering him an incentive, but what did he want in return? And why had he chosen the 9th Circuit? Then he got it. Someone had briefed him that a 9th Circuit judgeship would be appealing for exactly the reason Gorton mentioned. He’d never told Sinclair about his Supreme Court goal, but he had told Samuel Butler. So the idea of using the 9th Circuit as a carrot was based on information from Sam Butler. Gorton was offering to feed Jack’s ambition in return for his silence. To Gorton, the offer made sense—a win-win—so he would expect Jack to go for it.

  Now Jack understood why Sinclair was almost jubilant. If the deal shut Jack up voluntarily it would give Sinclair time to silence him permanently. Sinclair couldn’t get to him in this safe house, but he could after Jack, Debra and Gano were released and out on the streets. Gorton only wanted to avoid being embarrassed. Sinclair wanted to avoid life in prison.

  “Mr. President, I appreciate your confidence in me, but before I respond to your offer, I have a couple of questions about Mr. Sinclair.”

  Gorton frowned. “I don’t think questions are necessary, nor is rehashing our discussion aboard Air Force One. After you left for El Paso, the situation got damned tense, and Secretary Sinclair stepped up. At times like that, a president needs people he can trust around him.”

  Yeah, especially when you’re making the worst decisions of your undistinguished career.

  “There’s bad blood between you two,” Gorton continued, “but I want you to get past that. Secretary Sinclair has my full confidence.”

  Sinclair nodded his agreement with the benediction he’d just received. He had worked his magic again. Jack pictured a viper hissing in Gorton’s ear.

  There was another possibility, one that stretched his imagination. Maybe Gorton had actually approved Sinclair’s smuggling scheme in advance. If that was true, nothing Jack said would matter. But if it wasn’t, he had to confront Gorton before he left.

  “Jack, I’ve made you an attractive offer. I’d like your decision by close of business tomorrow.”

  “Mr. President, before you leave, will you clear up one thing for me?”

  Sinclair, on his feet and turning for the door, said, “Mr. President, you’ll be late for that meeting if—”

  “What can I clear up for you?” Gorton said with an indulgent smile.

  “When I called you from El Paso, you said you would send troops to the Palmer plant and have them wait outside the front gate. We agreed they wouldn’t come crashing onto the property and spook Guzman into poisoning the aquifer. Is that how you remember it?”

  “Things were moving pretty fast—”

  “Instead, Special Forces showed up with orders to shoot any so-called terrorist they saw, basically anyone on the plant grounds. Correct?”

  Looking perplexed, Gorton walked to a tall window. “I’m not sure that’s a fair way to characterize the orders I gave.”

  “Captain McIntyre told me those were his exact orders. Here’s my question. Did Mr. Sinclair persuade you to give those orders?”

  Gorton gave Sinclair a sharp look. “I was told that if I deployed the troops immediately, they’d finish their job before you got to the plant. Justin also reminded me that you and Mr. LeMoyne are untrained civilians who failed to stop Montana from bombing Albuquerque. He even suggested that you might have been helping Montana, but I didn’t buy that.” He spread his hands. “As President, I’m responsible for that decision.”

  Sinclair’s expression was filled with disdain. “Strider, you’re the one who insisted that poisoning the aquifer was imminent. The President acted to protect the people of El Paso.” He tilted his head back like a preacher concluding an irrefutable sermon.

  Jack pointed his finger at Sinclair. Time to go for the jugular.

  “If Special Forces had killed all three of us,” he said, gesturing at Debra and Gano, “you would have been in the clear. That’s why you persuaded the President to launch the attack.”

  Gorton looked shocked. “Hold on. You’re saying—”

  “It was a crisis,” Sinclair spoke over him.

  “It was a crisis all right, and you helped cause it. When I forced you to set up a meeting with President Gorton, you were afraid of what I might say. Rather than risk being exposed, you tried to have me assassinated.”

  He heard a low “Wow” from Gano to his left.

  “That’s slander per se,” Sinclair shouted, finally aware of how great a threat he faced. “I’ll have you—”

  “No, you won’t, because truth is a defense. You told President Gorton I’d be a no-show for my meeting with him on Air Force One. You thought I wouldn’t be there because your sniper had told you he’d killed me. You reached Air Force One before the media had the correct name of the man shot at the Westin Palo Alto. That’s why you thought you were safe in manipulating the President.”

  Sinclair screwed up his face, radiating outrage, but when Gorton sternly shook his head at him, Jack continued.

  “Aboard Air Force One, I said Professor McDonald had been, and I quote, ‘murdered.’ Right after that, you said he’d been, I quote again, ‘shot.’ And even though I’d said nothing about my car, you suggested he’d been shot in the course of a carjacking. You knew those details because you heard them from your assassin.”

  “This is driving me goddamn nuts,” Gorton snapped, fury in his voice. “I don’t remember Justin’s exact words, and we sure as hell don’t tape what goes on in my conference room on Air Force One. You say Justin intended to have you killed by sending in that Black Hawk, but I told you I made that call. You say he tried to have you assassinated, but you have no assassin and no connection to Justin. Your accusations, with no evidence, are appalling.”

  “I have conclusive evidence. Ms. Vanderberg will tell you about it.”

  “I’ve already listened to crap I shouldn’t have to put up with,” Sinclair objected to Gorton and moved close to where Debra sat. “This woman is only an associate in my firm, totally unqualified to say anything.” He leaned forward and said very softly, “Say one word about me, and your career is finished.”

&
nbsp; “Shut up,” Gorton barked at Sinclair. “Ms. Vanderberg, please get on with it.”

  Sitting across the table from Gorton, one seat to Jack’s right, Debra said, “Mr. President, because of what I’ve learned since Mr. Sinclair sent me to Mexico, I hereby resign from Sinclair & Simms.”

  Right between the eyes. Jack hadn’t seen that coming. What guts. What timing. Despite what she’d been through, and never having been in such a high-stakes drama, she looked and sounded completely unruffled.

  “Now I need to tell you about Dr. Heidi Klein, the CEO of D-TECH. I made an appointment with her by posing as a reporter writing a story about D-TECH. I said I was giving her a chance to suggest corrections prior to publication. When I got to her office I told her the truth, that I’d been sent by Mr. Strider. I then described what I knew about the nuclear waste smuggling she was doing. I also said her business partner would make sure she took the fall by herself. She got an odd look on her face and said, ‘I’ve known from the beginning he’d try that.’”

  “Jason,” Sinclair interrupted, “only an inexperienced lawyer, and a biased one, would attempt—”

  “Mr. Sinclair,” Debra snapped, “isn’t it true that Dr. Heidi Klein reported directly to you at the State Department?”

  Sinclair glared at her and didn’t answer.

  “Justin?” Gorton pressed.

  “The name sounds familiar. So what?”

  “Dr. Klein told me she had been solicited to join a smuggling scheme.”

  “I’d like to talk with Dr. Klein,” Gorton said sternly. He obviously got the drift.

  “I’m afraid that’s not possible. She was afraid for her life.” She looked steadily at Sinclair, leaving no doubt what she was implying. “However, because she didn’t trust her business partner, she kept detailed notes about every phone conversation between them and about every nuclear waste shipment that passed through D-TECH. I have a copy of those notes.”

  “That’s absurd!” Sinclair scoffed. “Klein could make up anything she wanted. What she couldn’t fake is correspondence from, or checks signed by, her alleged partner. Show those to us.”

  “The details in her notes would persuade any jury, Mr. President, but I have more than that. Dr. Klein described an urgent call she received from her partner ordering her to turn away all new shipments of nuclear waste and to ship anything already at D-TECH to Mexico immediately. In other words, her partner shut down the whole operation.”

  “That can be checked,” Sinclair said. “Get her phone records. See who called.”

  “No need,” Debra said. “Dr. Klein said her partner was paranoid about the phone and that his calls were untraceable. She’d already tried. But we do know what was said in that final call because she made what she called a ‘get out of jail free’ card, a recording of that call.”

  Sinclair stared at Debra who sat in her simple karate gi, no briefcase, nothing in front of her on the table. His pupils were dilated, almost wild-looking, like a gambler running out of chips in a no-limit game. Jack knew what was coming. However bad the odds against him, he had to push the rest of his chips into the pot as a bluff.

  “You obviously don’t have her notes or any recording, so shut up.” He was playing out the clock, counting on Gorton to cut it off so he could get back to the White House.

  “I obviously don’t,” she mocked his words. “I must have left them in my other pajamas. So instead, we’ll visit the website where I uploaded her digital recording and scanned copies of her notes. You really should keep up with technology, Mr. Sinclair.” She looked at Gorton. “Mr. President, can one of the agents bring in a laptop?”

  Jack glanced at Gano, who looked relieved. Events had moved so fast since Debra had joined them at the Aerolitoral Airlines hangar, he knew nothing about what she’d been doing.

  Gorton summoned an agent who arrived in seconds with a laptop and left.

  Debra brought up her website and turned the sound up.

  “You realize,” a woman’s voice said, “that shutting down this operation sticks me with expensive trucks and equipment that D-TECH can’t use.”

  Debra stopped the playback. “That’s Dr. Klein speaking. We’ll have no trouble finding her voice recorded elsewhere so experts can verify that.” She clicked PLAY and the woman spoke again.

  “I can’t just go on the Internet and offer nuclear waste haulers for sale. I demand—”

  “You can’t demand anything. This whole operation was my idea. You’re nothing but a slut running a truck stop.” The brutally sarcastic voice was familiar to everyone in the room.

  “Let’s call it severance pay,” Dr. Klein said smoothly. “Five million. Don’t you think that’s fair . . . Justin?”

  Zinger. Jack smiled. The woman had used the name on purpose to tag Sinclair.

  “I don’t have time to fuck with you,” the man’s voice said. “I’ll get the money to you the usual way. Just don’t screw this up, bitch.” A click followed. Debra closed the laptop.

  Sinclair’s face was reddish-purple as he pushed away from the table and rose.

  Gorton stood, followed by Jack, Debra and Gano, and poked Sinclair’s chest with his finger, “Don’t say one word. You are a goddamn disgrace to every lawyer, every politician, every, every—” Apparently he was so mad he struggled to come up with an image bad enough to describe what he was thinking. “—every decent American. You make me sick.”

  Gorton looked out the window for a few moments, gathering his thoughts, and then looked at Jack. “I’ve known Sinclair for thirty years, or thought I knew him. As I listened to that recording, I tried to tell myself it was a hoax, but it’s not. And the other allegations you’ve made, including murder, are also true, aren’t they?”

  Jack nodded.

  “But why did he do it? It can’t be just the money.”

  “When evidence first pointed at him, I didn’t believe it either,” Jack said. He looked at Sinclair. “You had everything. I couldn’t figure out why you would risk it all. Then I realized you gave me the answer on the day you interviewed me. You didn’t have everything. You no longer sat at the head of the table on the world stage. You were desperate to prove you could still pull off something big, something no one else had thought of.”

  “Don’t you dare psychoanalyze me.” Sinclair’s face was flushed.

  Jack crossed his arms. He was in the groove. “That’s exactly what I did. For the evidence to make sense, I had to understand what was driving you. I got an important clue from your Mexico City law partner. He said many Mexican leaders detest you for something you did while you were Secretary of State. That surprised me, so I did some research.”

  Sinclair had stumbled away from Gorton, clearly shaken. “That means nothing. Making some people angry comes with the job,” Sinclair said, “but you wouldn’t know about that. You’ve never played in the big leagues.”

  Jack ignored the jibe. “I found out what they were angry about. When Mexico had an economic crisis, you tried to stop the U.S. from supporting the peso. You failed, but you were able to impose conditions that forced Mexico into a recession. Here’s the clincher. A Wall Street Journal article reported that the President of Mexico, in retaliation, intervened with the Nobel committee to prevent you from receiving the Peace Prize. You also told me how much you resented not getting the Nobel. That’s why you hate everything Mexican. You didn’t give a damn that filling that cave with nuclear material was dangerous to Mexicans. And if the Juarez aquifer got poisoned, even better for you. You knew that maquilas would move away as soon as they saw how vulnerable the water supply was. That would break the back of the Mexican economy, unemployment would skyrocket, and the peso would crash. You’d have your revenge. Fact is, you have not a shred of conscience. You, sir, are a classic sociopath.”

  “Good God.” Gorton breathed as
he took it all in.

  Sinclair looked dazed, as though Jack had blindsided him by drilling into a part of his psyche he’d repressed. His stunned silence confirmed the truth.

  Finally, Gorton said, “Here’s my problem. If I bring a former Secretary of State to court on these charges, they’ll investigate every decision I made when he was involved. The UN will crucify me. Mexico might cut us off and sell its oil to China. I can’t let any of that happen.”

  “Mr. President. Jason.” The features of Sinclair’s Charlton Heston-like face sagged. His voice was weary. He’d become old in the solarium. “You have no right to talk about me like that. I’m a former—”

  “I don’t care if you think you were formerly Winston Churchill,” Gorton said angrily. “What you are is a traitor.” Gorton took a deep breath to reset. “You claimed the threat of dirty bombs was terrorism. Well, I say you are a terrorist, and that’s how I’m going to treat you.”

  “Terrorist?” Sinclair said in a suddenly shrill voice. He seemed not to believe the word “terrorist” could possibly apply to him. “I’ll fight you in court. You’ll regret this.”

  “You’re missing my point. I said ‘terrorist.’ There won’t be any court. I’ll have you held incommunicado while charges are ‘pending.’ You’ll be in isolation 24/7. No more seats on corporate boards, no yacht club, no Cuban cigars, no 25-year-old single malt scotch. You’ll be transferred through so many security screens even I won’t know where you are, except you won’t be in this country. That’s the same procedure you praised in your speeches on fighting terrorism.”

  Very shrewd, Jack thought. Gorton was going to make Sinclair disappear, a punishment that would also let Gorton escape without a scratch. It was obvious now that when Gorton walked into the solarium, he intended to let Sinclair go free. When the facts forced him to admit Sinclair’s guilt, he had altered course pragmatically. Had he come up with that solution on the spot? Not likely. Odds were good he had used “disappearance” as a solution in the past. That was a chilling thought.