Russell Andrews - Aphrodite

"That's right."

"She stopped feeding you info altogether?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"I don't know exactly. I think she was scared."

"Maybe, but that's not the reason. 'Cause she didn't stop e-mailing. She just started e-mailing someone else."

"Someone in the FBI?" Wanda asked.

"No. There was a string of e-mails back and forth between Helen and-I'm glad you're all sitting down-Maura Greer."

"What?" This came from both Wanda Chinkle and Billy DiPezio. And Justin thought he caught Deena's astonished voice in there, too.

"There's more. When my hacker went into the phone company, the phone records had been removed from the system. My guess is it was done by the FBI-I set them up a little bit to see how they'd respond. But my guy still managed to come up with a few interesting details. Wanda, you should know that your people are lazy. Or, more likely, incompetent. The computerized phone records were removed, but they didn't get the phone company to remove the electronic file for Helen's bill. Apparently, that's kept separately. She's made an enormous number of calls over the past three months to one number in Washington, D.C."

"Whose number?" That was Deena. She couldn't help herself.

"Don't know. Those records were blocked or erased. My guy couldn't get any more information."

"Did you call the number?" Roger asked.

"It's a beeper. I left three messages; no one's called back."

"But you've got an idea who it is," Wanda Chinkle said.

"I've got a few ideas," Justin told her. "But I don't have a clue what any of them mean. That's why I need some help."

"I'll take my gun now," Billy DiPezio said. "If I may."

Justin retrieved all three guns from the corner of the room, handed one of them back to the chief. "You want your bullets?" he asked.

"Not yet," Billy said. "I don't want to tempt myself any."

Justin looked at Wanda, who scowled. "You son of a bitch," she said. "You were always a better cop than I was."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"I don't know how much I can tell you. Or how much of what I thought was going on is even true. I have to do some checking. But I will. And I won't try to stop you from whatever you're doing next."

Justin looked at his father and smiled. He thought it was perhaps the first time in their lives that his father had ever smiled back. He glanced over at Roger Mallone. "What about you?" he asked.

"Me? I don't have a fucking clue what's going on," Roger said. "But this is the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. I am in." He turned to face Jonathan Westwood. "I'm not going to get fired for this, am I?"

"There might even be a bonus in it for you," Jonathan said.

"All right then," Justin told his newly formed team. "I took the liberty of making a few lists. And I've already got a few things to add to them."

He began handing out sheets of paper and explaining exactly what he wanted them to do. Billy had the resources to go to the old-age homes that had called in to Marion or Roag's phone machines. Justin asked him to dig up the names of all the patients there who were in contact with Marion or Roag. The goal was to find something Miller and Granger and anyone else who turned up might have in common. A town, a person, a job-anything. "We need a link," he said. "If we get that, we'll be able to find the next link, which I think will be to Kransten."

Mallone was asked to gather every bit of information he could on Douglas Kransten. Roger gave Justin a brief explanation of Douglas Kransten's holdings and Justin said that he wanted the name and location of every possible company under Kransten's enormous corporate umbrella, as well as what they did. He wanted the names of executives, products, and development projects, as well.

Justin asked Wanda to break through the secrecy at the FBI. The most important thing she had to do was find whose phone Helen Roag had been calling. Then she had to discover whatever game it was that Rollins seemed to be playing.

"You were always a tough guy, Jay," Wanda said. "But Rollins isn't someone you want to take on."

"I don't need you to tell me that," he said. "Believe me. Unfortunately, I don't have a choice."

When he was done, and the three people he was now trusting to keep him alive had left, Justin went to the phone, dialed the number of the photo store in East End Harbor. They were closed, but the answering machine picked up. After the tone, Justin left his message.

"This is Clint calling for Gary Jenkins. Please tell him to buy his little brother an ice-cream soda or a new body piercing or anything he wants, for that matter. And tell him it's on me."

Assistant director in charge of the New York office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Leonard Rollins had, during his nineteen years with the Bureau, been in many meetings, with many superiors, and given many briefings. None of those sessions, however, had ever been quite so high-powered or quite so tense. Or anywhere near this fucked-up.

It was his turn to be quiet now. So Rollins looked around the table and contented himself by imagining how genuinely miserable every other person at the table was.

To Rollins's left was Brewster Ford. Ford was, without question, the most revered Wall Street mind of the past forty years. He was the mentor to every treasury secretary post-David Stockman, regardless of party affiliation, and had been CEO of the two largest investment firms on the Street. Ford was given a huge amount of credit, by those in the know, for much of the backroom strategy that led to the remarkable economic boom of the nineties. He was now nearing eighty and was still an unofficial-but enormously valued-adviser to the current president of the United States.

To his left was Chase Welles, the recently appointed secretary of Health and Human Services. Welles was tapping his fingers nervously, distractedly, on the top of the conference table. He seemed out of place in this setting, out of his league socially and politically. Although he was in his early fifties and the only one in the group wearing a suit and tie, he gave the appearance of being a child sitting at the adults' dinner table.

On Welles's other side was Fred Hoagland, the president's chief of staff. This was Hoagland's second but nonconsecutive term in this position. He'd served twelve years ago and was considered a genius at subtly guiding, protecting, manipulating, and, in general, saving the ass of whoever was serving as commander in chief. Hoagland was the ultimate political insider, never totally out of the Beltway loop, no matter who was in power.

Next to Hoagland was Donald Mooney, the president's old friend, ex-governor of Maryland, and current secretary of Homefront Security. Mooney seemed uncomfortable, not restless or nervous like Welles but, rather, melancholy. He looked like a man who was hearing a confession he desperately didn't want to listen to.

The next two men sitting at the table were Ronald Mayberry and Patrick Arnold, CEOs of the largest and second largest pharmaceutical companies in the United States. Both men seemed confident and relaxed. They had the air of rich, powerful men who were used to being obeyed and had never in their lives been intimidated by anyone or anything.

Completing the circle was Christopher Dahlberg, Rollins's boss, the director of the FBI. Dahlberg was quiet and conservative, but Rollins knew just how deadly he could be. The director was a viper disguised as a common garden snake.

"I want to make sure one thing is understood," the chief of staff was saying. "The president knows nothing about what is transpiring. He doesn't know about this meeting and he has not been informed of any of the events relating to this meeting that have transpired over the past several months."