Robert Bennett - The Company Man

“If he’s alive,” added Samantha. “And if Crimley is involved in McNaughton at all.”

To this Hayes said nothing. Just nodded again with sleepy, distant eyes.

She kept looking through the financial activity under SP-0417. For a long time there was nothing. No deposits or withdrawals whatsoever, not for nearly three months. Then, finally, another payment was made, this only one thousand, but to the same account. From then on one thousand dollars were paid monthly to the account, starting eleven months ago. Almost immediately after this SP-0417 began to be associated with something called Craftsman. Craftsman didn’t seem to be a person, as far as Samantha could see, but a project of some kind. The nature of Craftsman was never made clear, and the few details about it were carefully blacked out by some record auditor who had deemed them too explicit for the budgetary files. Eventually there was some sort of warning about financial deposits made to SP-0417 while Craftsman was underway, giving a number of other accounts and stocks to route the payments through before they arrived at the original account for SP-0417. It was some tricky financial math, but apparently whatever SP-0417 was doing necessitated dead secrecy and generous pay.

Until, finally, the payments were no longer made through an account or a series of cleaning fronts. This had happened abruptly, merely two months ago. From then on it was notated that the payments would go through a single person who would handle them himself on the behalf of SP-0417, that intermediary identified directly as one J. Colomb.

Samantha stared at this once she read it. Trembling, she read this aloud to Hayes, who shut his eyes fully.

“Colomb is the man who helped Mickey Tazz,” said Samantha softly. “Wasn’t he?”

“Yes,” said Hayes.

“And if I’m right, then… then he’s helping Crimley here.”

Hayes nodded.

“Then that means… That could mean that Crimley is Tazz, and…”

“And Tazz is company,” said Hayes. “Well done, Sam. Very well done indeed.”

“But why would they do that?” asked Samantha. “Why?”

“What better enemy to have than the one you own, lock and stock?” said Hayes. “What better foe to fight than the one you control with every move? They must have seen the union rising in the future and decided to act. They fabricated a union leader, from his past to his pamphlets, then found some poor bastard in prison and said, Hello, friend, we’ll happily give you a way out and pay you generously if you just wear this mask for a while and do what we say, whatever we say and whenever we say it.”

“How could that happen, though?” asked Samantha, still astounded.

“Through time,” said Hayes. “And money. My guess is they never intended Crimley to reach the very top. They probably just wanted him to be their agent in the unions, not their leader. But I guess fortune paved the way for him.”

“But what good would it all do? Haven’t people died because of this union business?”

“Yes, but there’s never been any big sabotage,” said Hayes. “Don’t you remember? Oh, a few have gotten killed, sure, but I bet it’s hard to control the hand of every man who pledges himself to the union, like Mickey himself said just a few days ago. But they’ve never done anything big, have they? Because someone at McNaughton told Tazz to keep them on a leash.”

“And that’s how he knew about what you can do,” said Samantha, realizing.

“Yes,” said Hayes. “I’d expect Brightly or someone told him themselves.”

“How long have you had this hunch?”

“Since we met him. The way he talked about being made, and owned. It seemed too familiar, for me.”

“All right. But then why are we investigating them? Why did they tell us to start tearing down the unions wherever we can? That doesn’t make sense at all.”

Hayes paused at that, thinking. “No, it doesn’t,” he said. He sighed. “God, I wish I could have caught him while he was here! I’d have put the screws to him and not stopped.”

“He’s not here?” asked Samantha. “He’s gone?”

Hayes filled her in on what he had seen the night before last. “Just jumped ship and shipped off,” he said when he was done. “Up and gone, like no tomorrow.”

“Why would he do that, I wonder?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t seem too pleased when we saw him. What he said about McNaughton, how they make people and use them… I think he was starting to crack after the murders. That he was starting to give up, or give in. It’s not easy, living deep cover. They start to believe it. You sink them in with people fighting for a cause, and your man starts to turn over time, if you’re not careful with him. I think Mr. Crimley may have actually started to believe the words he was preaching, maybe.”

“Maybe that’s why he started looking for the machines, down in the tunnels,” said Samantha. “He wanted to give them control. To give the union men something of McNaughton’s. Or to sabotage McNaughton entirely.”

“Yes. But you can see he gave up on it recently, when he told his company contacts to start sending money through Colomb. That way he can get his hands on fast cash and then get out. When I spooked him he must’ve figured enough was enough, and scarpered.”

“But do you think this Tazz business might actually be connected to the trolley?”

Hayes bit his lip. “Maybe. But Tazz seemed frightened, just as much as Brightly. It may not be connected at all.” He thought for a moment, then said, “Here, let’s keep looking through the file. If this Craftsman nonsense is the term for planting Crimley at the top of the unions, then surely we can find out more just by following it.”

Hayes was right. There was more. As Craftsman rolled along it began to accumulate payments to dock personnel, boat owners, and finally a new character, one referred to as Colonel. Samantha discovered that Colonel had been found through the ever-present Easterner, apparently an old friend of his who had brought him to the city for reasons and through methods unknown. It seemed, Samantha said, that Tazz’s last instructions for the unions had involved bringing something in to Evesden, shipped in by this Colonel from a McNaughton facility west on the Strait. The location of this facility was given more security than anything Samantha had ever seen previously: the word had not just been blacked out, but cut out of the report with a razor blade, and a blank tab of paper had been pasted in. There was a note inked in red in the margins of the paper, saying that all inquiries should be directed to L. Brightly, head of Security.

“There are no McNaughton facilities west down the Strait,” said Samantha. “None that I know of, at least.”

“What was Tazz shipping in? Or being told to ship in?”

“I’ve no idea. It just says ‘shipment’ over and over again and then gives the names for the people attending to it. Buying the boat and whatever.”

The heaviness returned to Hayes’s eyes again. “Hm,” he said.

“What?”

“I’m just wondering if it ever mentions who exactly was supposed to aid in this smuggling.”

She looked one document over again. “No, I don’t think it ever mentions that. Just who they bought the boat from and who they paid off. Why?”

“Because they would probably need a team of men. Men that had worked on docks before. Or who were used to manual labor, and were willing to get their hands dirty.”

Samantha cocked an eyebrow at him, then took a sharp breath. “The Bridgedale trolley?”

“Yes. I think it’s possible that all those dead men may have been tapped to bring in the shipment for Tazz. Probably did it for free, thinking it was for the union. Them, and maybe Skiller. That’s why there’s no payment record.”