Max Collins - Fate of the Union

The former professor gave Reeder a sideways look, the thin lips forming a rueful smile. “I’m supposed to be a leader. Not a victim.”

“Leaders can be victims. Ask the Kennedys.”

Benjamin sat slumped and silent for several long seconds, then he looked up abruptly. “Have you checked on my staff?”

“Where are they?”

“There’s an empty room on either side of me, then Frank, Lynn, and Lawrence in the next three rooms, down the corridor.”

Reeder called Rogers and told her what rooms to check. Several minutes passed, then his cell vibrated; he answered, and she gave him a report. He clicked off.

“Frank Elmore is dead,” Reeder said.

“My God. My dear God.” Benjamin’s marble-eyed stare saw nothing. Like that poor desk clerk. “Frank’s been with me for so many years. My right hand. My friend...”

He began to weep.

Reeder got him a tissue from a box in the bathroom, skirting the corpse again. Adding to the crap he’d get from the CSIs.

He brought several tissues to Benjamin, who dried his eyes and got control of himself. “What about Lynn and Lawrence?”

“Also dead. These are execution-style shootings.”

He clenched a fist around a tissue. “It’s a goddamn massacre. What in hell did any of us do to deserve this?”

“Adam... Barr and Schafer were on the floor, on either side of the bed, naked, where they fell after being shot, apparently. Were you aware they were in a relationship?”

He frowned. “I... I suppose I suspected , but I never gave it much thought. They were good at their jobs. Whatever their ‘relationship’ might be... it certainly didn’t compromise their work.”

Reeder’s cell vibrated: Rogers.

“The CSIs and detectives are here,” she said. “This is about to get very local and not our business, at least not yet. Just warning you that we’re about to become temporary bystanders.”

Reeder thanked her and told Benjamin to go ahead and get dressed. “Adam, you’ve got a long evening ahead. And prepare yourself for a circus.”

Soon the Holiday Inn Express, despite its many empty rooms, was at capacity: more uniformed police, a quartet of plainclothes detectives, fire department personnel, paramedics, and, before long, media vans. The CSIs came in a now-unsealed window of Benjamin’s room, took time only to scold Reeder and try to get him to turn over his shoes (he refused — the shooter had been outside the room, after all), and then America’s favorite hero and its richest man had to crawl out the window, escorted around front by uniformed officers.

Walking through the lobby, Benjamin kept his head down and didn’t take in the slaughter. He was led off to a vacant room for detectives to interview, while Reeder and Rogers cooled their heels in an employee break room. Rogers got hold of Miggie on her cell, which she set on the table between her and Reeder, putting Mig on speaker.

After filling him in, Rogers said to the computer guru, “Now, please tell us you’ve found something.”

“I have — quite a bit, actually. The buildings in Charlottesville were in fact owned by Barmore Holdings, as we thought. Both Lynn Barr and Frank Elmore were on the board of Chemical Solutions, Inc. — another CSI, like Common Sense Investments.”

“Please,” Reeder said. “We’ve already got enough CSIs swarming over this hotel.”

“None of this,” Miggie said, ignoring that, “tracks back to Adam Benjamin. On its face, it appears to be a cabal of trusted employees doing their own thing on their boss’s money. Embezzlement of a sort, on a crazy scale.”

Rogers asked, “What about Lawrence Schafer?”

“Never heard of him.”

“Benjamin’s personal accountant,” Reeder said. “One of the nine murder victims in this charnel house.”

“Hasn’t turned up in any of the records.”

Rogers said, “Elmore and Barr were who Joe and I came here to talk to, now both conveniently deceased. This Schafer could be collateral damage — he was in bed with Barr. Literally, I mean.”

Reeder asked, “Miggie, how is it the bad guys are always one step ahead of us? Could we have a mole on the task force?”

Rogers jumped in: “I trust my team.”

Reeder held up a single surrender palm. “Okay, Miggie — let’s say Patti’s right, and we’re all more honest than Eliot Ness. How about your computer system? Can you be hacked?”

“Joe, I’m good, and the government is careful. It’s doubtful.”

“But not impossible.”

“I’ll run diagnostics again. These guys have guys who have already done some pretty high-tech hacking.”

“Do that please.”

“So,” Miggie said, shifting gears, “was this another assassination attempt on Adam Benjamin?”

Rogers said, “It appears so.”

“‘Appears,’” Reeder said, “may be the operative word.”

Frowning, Rogers asked, “Why do you say that?”

“Something I’ve been mulling. If Benjamin’s the target, why leave him for last?”

Miggie said, “To take out the bodyguards. First deal with the guys with guns, right?”

“Bodyguards, yes, and maybe the majordomo... but why a pretty VP and an accountant? What if we’re supposed to think it was another assassination attempt? If your target is Benjamin, why kill anybody but watchdogs at all?”

Rogers, thinking out loud, said, “Our double-taps appear to be loose ends getting tied off, over a period of time. Now some sort of clock is running out, and maybe somebody is tying off more loose ends. Big ones now.”

Reeder nodded. “Somebody like Benjamin himself, maybe. Elmore and Barr owned a company making unstable next-gen plastic explosives. Conceivably, their scientists figured out how to stabilize Senk. If they whipped up a batch, where is it? The two people who could most readily answer such questions are both freshly dead.”

“Not a coincidence,” Rogers said.

“Something else to stir in the pot,” Miggie said. “Remnants of at least two 3-D printers were found in the debris of your exploded buildings in Charlottesville. Like it or not, Joe, you have the CSIs to thank for that.”

Reeder and Rogers were exchanging glances.

Reeder said, “Sounds like somebody figured out how to stabilize Senk. And printed out something, apparently. What? ”

“Neighbors at the industrial park,” Miggie said, “reported seeing trucks come and go this past summer and fall. No one has any idea what those trucks were hauling. Closest thing we have are reports of seeing pipe being loaded up.”

Rogers said, “And we have no idea where the trucks went?”

“None. But digging into the financials of Barmore Holdings, I see they have their fingers into all kinds of pots.”

“Such as?”

“Such as the construction firm that built the new furnace in the Capitol.”

Reeder frowned, but Rogers only shrugged.

“Then we may be fine,” she said. “We’ve already determined that the new furnace is just so much sheet metal and typical parts. Ackley’s people and our lab guys checked things out thoroughly. And, anyway, the Capitol maintenance crew installed it.”

“A crew,” Reeder reminded her, “led by the now murdered Lester Blake.”

Miggie jumped back in. “Blake was theirs — Barr and Elmore’s. His financials show substantial payments, over a period of a year, from another firm owned by Barr and Elmore.”

Again Reeder and Rogers exchanged troubled glances.

Miggie was saying, “And when I checked GAO’s Capitol records... don’t ask... Lester Blake came up as the guy who reported a problem with the old furnace, paving the way for its replacement.”

“Patti’s right,” Reeder said. “It’s not the furnace.”