The Winner

by David Baldacci

  They were silent and still for a moment and then Riggs stirred. “We may only have one shot at getting out of this relatively intact.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “The FBI can be accommodating to people who cooperate.”

  “But, Matthew—”

  He broke in, “But they can be absolutely forgiving to people who give them what they really want.”

  “Are you suggesting what I think you are?”

  “All we need to do is deliver Jackson to them.”

  “That’s good to hear. For a minute there I thought it might be something difficult.”

  They drove off in the Honda.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  It was ten o’clock in the morning. Donovan stared through a pair of binoculars at the large Southern colonial home set amid mature trees. He was in McLean, Virginia, one of the most affluent locales in the United States. Million-dollar properties were the norm here and that was typically only on an acre of land or less. The home he was staring at rested on five secluded acres. You had to have substantial wealth for a place like this. As he looked at the columned portico, Donovan knew without a doubt that the current owner had more than enough.

  As he watched, a brand new Mercedes drove down the street from the opposite direction and approached the massive gates to the property. As the Mercedes nosed toward the entrance, the gates parted and the car entered the private drive. Through the binoculars, Donovan eyed the woman driving. In her forties now, she still matched her lottery photo from ten years ago pretty well. Lots of money could slow down the aging process, Donovan figured.

  He checked his watch. He had gotten here early just to scope things out. He had checked his answering machine and had listened to LuAnn Tyler’s warning. He wasn’t going to run yet, but he had taken her advice quite seriously. He would’ve been a fool to think there weren’t some serious forces behind all this. He took out the gun from his pocket and checked to make sure it was fully loaded. He scanned the area intently once more. He waited a few more minutes to give her time to get settled, then tossed his cigarette out the window, rolled it up, and drove toward the house.

  He pulled up to the gates and spoke into an intercom. The voice answering him sounded nervous, agitated. The gates opened and a minute later he was standing inside the foyer that rose a full three stories above his head.

  “Ms. Reynolds?”

  Bobbie Jo Reynolds was trying her best not to meet his eye. She didn’t speak, but simply nodded. She was dressed in a way Donovan would describe as very put together. You wouldn’t have suspected that barely ten years ago she had been a starving actress wannabe hustling tables. She had been back in the country for almost five years now after a lengthy sojourn in France. During his investigation into the lottery winners, Donovan had checked her out thoroughly. She was now a very respected member of the Washington social community. He suddenly wondered if Alicia Crane and she knew each other.

  After failing to get anywhere with LuAnn, Donovan had contacted the eleven other lottery winners. They had been far easier to track down than LuAnn; none of them were fugitives from the law. Yet.

  Reynolds was the only one who had agreed to speak with him. Five of the winners had hung up on him. Herman Rudy had threatened bodily harm and used language Donovan hadn’t heard since his Navy days. The others hadn’t called back after he had left messages.

  Reynolds escorted him into what Donovan figured was the living room — large, airy, and filled, presumably under an interior designer’s tasteful eye, with contemporary furnishings, sprinkled here and there with costly antiques.

  Reynolds sat down in a wingback chair and motioned Donovan to the settee across from her. “Would you like some tea or coffee?” She still didn’t look at him, her hands nervously clasping and unclasping.

  “I’m fine.” He hunched forward, took out his notebook, and slipped a tape recorder from his pocket. “You mind if I record this conversation?”

  “Why is that necessary?” Reynolds was suddenly showing a little backbone now, he thought. Donovan quickly decided to squelch that tendency before it gained any further strength.

  “Ms. Reynolds, I assumed when you called me back that you were prepared to talk about things. I’m a reporter. I don’t want to put words in your mouth, I want to get the facts exactly straight, can you understand that?”

  “Yes,” she said nervously, “I suppose I can. That’s why I called you back. I don’t want my name besmirched. I want you to know that I’ve been a very respectable member of this community for years. I’ve given generously to numerous charities, I sit on several local boards—”

  “Ms. Reynolds,” Donovan interrupted, “do you mind if I call you Bobbie Jo?”

  There was a perceptible wince on Reynolds’s face. “I go by Roberta,” she said primly.

  Reynolds reminded Donovan so much of Alicia he was tempted to ask if they knew each other. He decided to pass on that impulse.

  “All right, Roberta, I know you’ve done a ton of good for the community. A real pillar. But I’m not interested in the present. I want to talk about the past, specifically ten years ago.”

  “You mentioned that on the phone. The lottery.” She swept a shaky hand through her hair.

  “That’s right. The source of all this.” He looked around at the opulence.

  “I won the lottery ten years ago, that’s hardly news now, Mr. Donovan.”

  “Call me Tom.”

  “I would prefer not.”

  “Fine. Roberta, do you know someone named LuAnn Tyler?”

  Reynolds thought a moment and then shook her head. “It doesn’t seem familiar. Should I know her?”

  “Probably not. She won the lottery too, in fact two months after you did.”

  “Good for her.”

  “She was a lot like you. Poor, not a lot to look forward to. No way out, really.”

  She laughed nervously. “You make it sound like I was destitute. I was hardly that.”

  “But you weren’t exactly rolling in dough, were you? I mean that’s why you played the lottery, right?”

  “I suppose. It’s not like I expected to win.”

  “Didn’t you, Roberta?”

  She looked startled. “What are you talking about?”

  “Who manages your investments?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Well, my guess is it’s the same person who manages the money of eleven other lottery winners, including LuAnn Tyler.”

  “So?”

  “Come on, Roberta, talk to me. Something’s up. You know all about it and I want to find out all about it. In fact, you knew you were going to win the lottery.”

  “You’re crazy.” Her voice was trembling badly.

  “Am I? I don’t think so. I’ve interviewed lots of liars, Roberta, some very accomplished. You’re not one of them.”

  Reynolds stood up. “I don’t have to listen to this.”

  Donovan persisted. “The story’s going to come out, Roberta. I’m close to breaking through on a variety of fronts. It’s only a matter of time. The question is: Do you want to cooperate and maybe get out of this whole thing relatively unscathed or do you want to go down with everybody?”

  “I . . . I . . .”

  Donovan continued in a steady voice. “I’m not looking to wipe out your life, Roberta. But if you participated in a conspiracy to fix the lottery, in whatever manner, you’re going to take some lumps. But I’ll offer you the same deal I offered Tyler. Tell me all you know, I go and write my story and you do whatever you want to do until the story hits. Like disappear. Consider the alternative. It’s not nearly as pretty.”

  Reynolds sat back down and looked around her home for a moment. She took a deep breath. “What do you want to know?”

  Donovan turned on the recorder. “Was the lottery fixed?” She nodded. “I need an audible response, Roberta.” He nodded toward the recorder.

  “Yes.”

  “How?” Donov
an was almost shaking as he waited for the answer.

  “Would you mind pouring me a glass of water from that carafe over there?”

  Donovan jumped up, poured the water, and set the glass down in front of her. He sat back down.

  “How?” he repeated.

  “It had to do with chemicals.”

  Donovan cocked his head. “Chemicals?”

  Reynolds pulled a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped at a sudden cluster of tears in her eyes.

  As Donovan watched her, he figured she was near the breaking point. Ironic that the one to call him back would be the nervous Nellie type.

  “I’m no scientist, Roberta, give it to me as simply as you can.”

  Reynolds gripped the handkerchief tightly. “All but one ball, the one with the winning number, was sprayed with some chemical. And the passageway through which the ball traveled was sprayed with something. I can’t explain it exactly, but it made certain that only the one ball that wasn’t sprayed with anything went through. It was the same for all the other ball bins.”

  “Damn!” Donovan stared at her in amazement. “Okay, Roberta, I got a million questions. Do the other winners know about this? How was it done? And by whom?” He thought back to LuAnn Tyler. She knew, that was for damned sure.

  “No. None of the winners knew how it was done. Only the people who did it knew.” She pointed to his tape recorder. “Your recorder’s stopped.” She added bitterly, “I’m sure you don’t want to miss one word of this.”

  Donovan picked up the recorder and studied it as he reflected on her words. “But that’s not exactly right, because you knew how the lottery was fixed, Roberta, you just told me. Come on, give me the whole truth.”

  The crunching blow to his upper torso sent Donovan over the top of the settee. He landed hard on the oak floor, his breath painfully gone. He could feel shattered ribs floating inside him.

  Reynolds hovered over him. “No, the truth is only the person who came up with the whole scheme knew how it was done.” The feminine hair and face came off and Jackson stared down at the injured man.

  Donovan tried desperately to get up. “Christ.”

  Jackson’s foot slammed into his chest, knocking him back against the wall. Jackson stood erect. “Kick-boxing is a particularly deadly art form. You can literally kill someone without using your hands.”

  Donovan’s hand slipped down to his pocket, fumbling for his gun. His limbs would barely respond, his broken ribs were prodding internal organs they weren’t meant to touch. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath.

  “Really, you’re obviously not feeling well. Let me help you.” Jackson knelt down and, using the handkerchief, pulled the gun out of Donovan’s pocket. “This actually is perfect. Thank you.”

  He kicked Donovan viciously in the head and the reporter’s eyes finally closed. Jackson pulled plastic locking binds from his pocket and within a minute had Donovan secured.

  He pulled off the rest of the disguise, packed it carefully in his bag pulled from under the couch, and went up the stairs two at a time. He raced down the hallway and opened the bedroom door at the far end.

  Bobbie Jo Reynolds lay spread-eagled on the bed, her arms and legs tied to the bedposts, tape over her mouth. She looked wildly up at Jackson, her body twitching in uncontrollable fear.

  Jackson sat down next to her. “I want to thank you for following my directions so precisely. You gave the staff the day off and made the appointment with Mr. Donovan just as I requested.” He patted her hand. “I knew that I could count on you, the most faithful of my little flock.” He looked at her with soft, comforting eyes until her trembling subsided. He unloosened her straps and gently removed the tape.

  He stood up. “I have to attend to Mr. Donovan downstairs. We’ll be gone very soon and won’t trouble you anymore. You will stay here until we’re gone, do you understand?”

  She nodded in a jerky motion, rubbing her wrists.

  Jackson stood up, pointed Donovan’s gun at her, and squeezed the trigger until the firing pin had no bullets left to ignite.

  He watched for a moment as blood spread over the sheets. Jackson shook his head sadly. He did not enjoy killing lambs. But that was how the world worked. Lambs were made for sacrifice. They never put up a fight.

  He went back downstairs, pulled out his makeup kit and mirror, and spent the next thirty minutes hovering over Donovan.

  When the reporter finally came to his head was splitting; he could feel the internal bleeding but at least he was still alive.

  His heart almost stopped when he found himself staring up at . . . Thomas Donovan. The person even had his coat and hat on. Donovan refocused his eyes. His initial impression had been one of staring at his twin. Now he could see subtle differences, things that weren’t exactly right. However, the impersonation was still remarkable.

  Jackson knelt down. “You look surprised, but I assure you I’m very adept at this. Powders, creams, latex, hairpieces, spirit gum, putty. It really is amazing what one can do, even if it is all an illusion of sorts. Besides, in your case it wasn’t all that difficult. I don’t mean this in a negative way, but you have quite an ordinary face. I didn’t have to do anything special and I’ve been studying your features for several days now. You did surprise me by shaving off your beard, though. However, instead of beard we have beard stubble courtesy of crepe hair and adhesive.”

  He grabbed Donovan under his armpits and lifted him up to the couch and sat down across from him. The groggy journalist listed to one side. Jackson gently propped him up with a pillow.

  “It certainly wouldn’t pass the closest of scrutiny; however, the result isn’t bad for a half hour’s work.”

  “I need to get to a doctor.” Donovan managed to get the words out through blood-caked lips.

  “I’m afraid that’s not going to happen. But I will take a couple of minutes to explain some things to you. For what it’s worth, I believe that I owe you that. You were quite ingenious in figuring out the bankruptcy angle. That, I admit, had never occurred to me. My main concern was to ensure that none of my winners would want for money. Any shortage of funds might give them motivation to tell all. Fat and happy people rarely double-cross their benefactor. You found the hole in that plan.”

  Donovan coughed and, with a sudden motion, managed to sit up straight. “How’d you pick up my trail?”

  “I knew LuAnn would tell you basically nothing. What would you do next? Ferret out another source. I phoned all my other winners and alerted them that you might call. Ten of them I instructed to blow you off. I told Bobbie Jo — excuse me, Roberta — to meet with you.”

  “Why her?”

  “Simple enough. Geographically, she was the closest one to me. As it is, I had to drive through the night to get here and set everything up. That was me in the Mercedes, by the way. I had a description of you. I thought that was you in the car watching the house.”

  “Where’s Bobbie Jo?”

  “Not relevant.” Jackson smiled both in his eagerness to explain and in his triumph and total control over the veteran reporter. “Now, to continue. The substance applied to nine of the ten balls was a clear light acrylic. If you care for precise details, it was a diluted solution of polydimethyl siloxane that I made a few modifications to, a turbocharged version if you will. It builds up a powerful static charge and also increases the size of the ball by approximately one thousandth of an inch without, however, a measurable change in weight or appearance or even smell. They do weigh the balls, you know, to ensure that all are of equal weight. In each bin the ball with the winning number on it had no chemicals applied to it. Each passageway through which the winning ball must travel was given a small trace of the modified polydimethyl siloxane solution as well. Under those precisely controlled conditions, the nine balls with the static charge could not enter a passageway coated with the same substance; indeed, they repelled each other, much like a force field. Thus they could not be part of the winning combination. Only the unc
oated ball would be able to do so.”

  The awe was clear on Donovan’s face, but then his features clouded. “Wait a minute: If the nine balls were coated with the same charge, why wouldn’t they be repelling each other in the bin? Wouldn’t that make people suspicious?”

  “Wonderful question. I thrive on the details. I further modified the chemical so that it would be instantly activated by the heat given off by the air flow into the machines to make the balls gyrate. Until then, the balls would remain motionless.”

  Jackson paused, his eyes shining. “Inferior minds seek