Russell Andrews - Midas

Justin went through the next deaths quickly. Chuck Billings was clear-cut. He’d been brought in through official channels and, because of his expertise, he found out exactly what those officials didn’t want him to find out. He’d been lured to his death, most likely by the same bureaucrats he’d so distrusted. Justin would put money on Hubbell Schrader as Chuck Billings’s killer.

Lockhardt was also simple. He was killed because he was a final loose end in the murder of Hutchinson Cooke. He knew about Heffernan’s connection and that was enough to seal his death warrant. Justin mentally penciled Schrader into the blank space next to the question, Who killed Lockhardt?

Theresa Cooke was killed because she, too, knew something about her husband’s murder. Or, more likely, about her husband’s job. Theresa was dead, Justin was certain, because she knew something about Midas. .

Justin took another look at his markings in the dirt floor and decided to draw in a new column: Organizations.

So at the far right of his scribblings, he added:

Midas

U.S. government

Yale

Saudi government

He decided to go one subset further:

Midas

U.S. government

Executive

Justice

FAA

Yale

Saudi government

He went back and, remembering Stephanie Ingles and her Yale connection to Dandridge and Stuller, added “EPA” under his “U.S. government” heading. And then suddenly he decided to add another organization. A business that seemed to be at the center of all of this. EGenco.

He began scribbling separate columns for each listing:

MidasExecJustice EPAFAAYaleSaudiEGencoCooke Anderson Stuller Ingles Heffernan Ingles Mishari DandridgeDandridge Dandridge PeckDandridge Cooke Stuller Anderson

What jumped out at him was Dandridge. He popped up everywhere. Justin twisted around so he’d have a clear space on the dirt floor-he’d begun to think of it as a giant blackboard-and he wrote the name Dandridge, and under that, every possible connection to the vice president that was relevant to the puzzle.

DANDRIDGE

Midas

EGenco

Cooke

Anderson

Stuller

Ingles

Mishari

He erased that list, rubbed it out quickly with the heel of his right hand. Then split the list into two-people and companies.

Cooke Midas Anderson EGenco Stuller Ingles Mishari

In his mind he went over the connections one more time:

Dandridge had made the call to Zanesworth to get the colonel to release Cooke from his Air Force duties so he could pilot for Midas.

Dandridge had been CEO of EGenco.

He’d been piloted by Cooke as vice president. He’d made the call to Zanesworth to get Cooke to come to work for Midas.

He was Anderson’s vice president. They’d known each other since their Yale days.

He knew Stuller from Yale. Stuller was reporting to Dandridge as point man in the government’s search for the suicide bombers.

Dandridge knew Ingles from Yale.

As CEO of EGenco, Dandridge had to have a close relationship with Mishari. EGenco did too much business with the Saudis for that relationship not to exist.

Dandridge was a connection between EGenco and Midas. Dandridge was a connection between Midas and the government.

Justin studied the names on the list. Rearranged them several times. Stephanie Ingles still seemed to be the weakest point: he couldn’t see any connection between the terrorism, the conspiracy he was convinced existed, and the head of the EPA. There just didn’t seem to be any political link between her area of expertise and the events of the past two months. So he erased her from his list and mentally shoved her off to the side.

After the third time he’d put the names in different order, something began to gnaw at him. Something was trying to burst through. He tried to empty his head so whatever was in the back of his brain could make its way forward. It felt close. Very close. .

But something else struck him now, rushed at him with a burst of clarity. As he saw the list of names, he realized there was a new piece to the puzzle that suddenly fit in. He’d been wondering one thing since he’d been brought to this godforsaken place: Why ? Why had they done it? Whoever had given the order to take him couldn’t possibly want him to give damaging information to his interrogator. They didn’t want anyone to know what he knew. They wanted him silenced. So why question someone if you don’t want to know the answers?

Because, he thought, they don’t want to know what you know. They want to know what you don’t know.

So what didn’t he know?

What were the questions the starched little prick kept asking him: What was Midas? Who runs Midas?

They weren’t looking for those answers! Whoever was behind the questioning knew the answers! They wanted to make sure that he didn’t know.

So what the hell was Midas? Who the hell was Midas?

Goddammit, he was close. He could feel it coming. He was so close his brain felt like it was exploding. Information was rushing at him-the reports he’d read, the background on the lawsuits, the history that Roger Mallone had thrown out to him. It was there. It really was. It was all inside his head. .

He heard the familiar noise at the door, immediately ran his hands over the dirt, obscuring everything he’d written, and as he did he felt the bubble burst.

He felt his brain shutting down, the pieces of the puzzle dissolving into nothingness.

He sagged with disappointment.

That’s when the door swung open. Two soldiers stood in the doorway, both holding rifles. They didn’t seem to care about the obscured swirls on the floor or why Justin was on his hands and knees. Behind them was the man in starched fatigues. He didn’t seem to care either. And when the man spoke, Justin didn’t particularly care about them either.

“Clean him up,” the man in the starched fatigues said to the two guards. “He’s going home.”

He was thrown into an outdoor shower stall that was big enough for ten men.

The sun at first burned his skin and scorched his eyes, but the fresh air enveloped him like a lovely ocean wave. As he was propelled to the shower area, he was vaguely aware of steel mesh pens that looked like animal cages. It took him a few moments to realize that they were for humans. These were the human voices he’d heard drifting into his cell.

The cleansing water made him aware of the sores on his legs and the bruises on his arms and chest and face. But they didn’t really hurt. Or if they did, the pain seemed unimportant. He let the warm shower water stream into his mouth and drop down his chin and thick beard. He scrubbed himself with soap, scraping off feces and layers of dirt and dead skin, and used some shampoo provided for him to wash his hair three times. He’d been handed a toothbrush, too, already slathered with toothpaste, and he ran the brush across his teeth over and over again until the paste was long gone, periodically spitting water and foam and blood from his mouth in the direction of the drain. The minty taste of the toothpaste tasted like fine wine. It was as if the sun and water were breathing life back into him.

They let him stay in there maybe fifteen minutes. At some point, he was too weak to stand under the hard and steady water flow, but he didn’t want it to end, so he just sat down and let the shower pelt down on him. A guard came to help him stand, and when he dried himself off, he was presented with new clothes. A crisp and clean blue work shirt, an equally fresh pair of chinos, thick white sweat socks, and a pair of sneakers.

He ran his fingers through his long hair, relishing the fact that it was no longer matted and gnarled. He kept grasping his beard with his fingertips; what felt normal in the isolation of his cell now felt coarse and strange and unnecessary. He wanted to rip the thick, bushy growth right out of his chin, and he started to pull it, hard, until he forced himself to close his eyes and relax, told himself that it was over, that he was going home, that he could deintensify his reactions and wait until he was in his own bathroom with a can of shaving cream and a razor. It was just a beard, he told himself, not a symbol of all he’d been through. It was something that could easily be removed when the time was right.