Max Collins - Fate of the Union

“Right,” she said. “Until the hotel shooting, at least. But otherwise, months, maybe years have gone into this. I was relieved, frankly, to hear they went back two years to check on any work done.”

Reeder’s face was typically blank but his eyes were moving. “The plot has accelerated. Tying off loose ends started at an almost leisurely pace. But even that frontal attack on that Holiday Inn — it was planned to the second. Doesn’t it seem like we stumbled onto their Senkstone surprise package a little too easily?”

She goggled at him. “Are you kidding, Joe? Nothing’s been easy about this investigation.”

“That’s because everywhere we go, the bad guys are a step ahead of us.”

“No argument there.”

His upper lip curled in a bitter smile. “So then is it just a ‘happy coincidence’ that our blond prick turns up in the basement of the Capitol, at the precise moment you and I are there?”

Her chin came up. “So that’s what’s got your smeller twitching. You don’t think...”

“Don’t I?”

“Did he want us to see him?”

“Oh yeah.”

“But why?”

“So we’d think we caught him in the act. Setting the fuse, so to speak.”

“Joe, I’m not sure I’m following...”

“Patti, a conspiracy this large, with this many moving parts? Whoever’s behind it had to plan for the possibility that someone would begin putting the pieces together.”

“Triggered by the double-taps, maybe.”

“Yeah. So, if you anticipated that, why not have a dummy bomb set up?”

Her eyebrows climbed. “A bomb that we would find!... And then assume that the threat had been removed.”

“Threat removed,” he repeated. “Guard lowered.”

“So it could still be in there.”

He nodded gravely. “I think it is. And in this whole great big government... with its alphabet soup of law enforcement and antiterrorist agencies... nobody but us is looking for it.”

At the task force bullpen, the team pored over everything relating to Barmore Holdings, should anything have been overlooked. Again, all hands were on deck, Hardesy and Nichols pitching in, behaviorist Ivanek, too, everybody following Miggie’s lead.

As the day dragged on, a long list of companies that Barmore had interests in had come to light: Clayton Pharmaceuticals, Davis Construction, Elgin Computer Services, even a one percent holding in ABC Security, Reeder’s company.

“You’re shitting me,” he said.

“It’s right here,” Rogers said, showing him the updated list. “Maybe somebody was keeping an eye on you. Does your company send out e-newsletters and quarterly reports?”

“Of course.”

“Well,” she said, and shrugged.

“Damnit!” Miggie said.

Every head in the room turned the computer god’s way, their expressions confirming that this was the first such outburst anyone here could remember from him. Rogers gave the room a look that said get back to what they were doing, and she and Reeder went over to Miggie’s desk, pulling chairs up alongside him.

His voice down, his expression embarrassed, Mig said, “You were right, Joe. We were hacked. Sort of. Anyway, I figured out how they’ve been a step ahead all the time... They’ve been lying in the weeds, remotely monitoring everything I do.”

Rogers frowned. “That’s possible?”

“Absolutely... but they were buried so deep, it took me forever to even figure out they were there.”

Reeder asked, “Can you track them?”

“I’m honestly not sure.”

Rogers and Reeder exchanged surprised expressions — they’d never heard Miggie admit defeat so readily.

He was saying, “They’re cloaking themselves well and have a revolving IP address that changes every thirty seconds. Tracking them will be next to impossible.”

“Well,” Rogers said, “how about shutting them down?”

“That I can probably do... but they’re going to try to find another way in.” He shook his head. “Most likely, we’ve been their best intelligence source about who’s trying to stop them.”

Rogers said, “Well, then, let’s slam the door in their damn face, now!”

Reeder held up a hand. “Let’s not be in too big a hurry... Do they know you’re onto them?”

“Not necessarily. I spotted them when I was digging into the diagnostics, but backed out before letting them know I was there. Pretty sure of that, anyway.”

“Perfect opportunity for some disinformation, don’t you think?”

Rogers held out an open hand. “What about in the meantime? If things don’t look like business as usual, we’re blown.”

Miggie shook his head. “No, Joe’s right. We can do this. I go ahead and use my computer just like I have been, looking into aspects of the case. Every time I find something that might be helpful, I switch to a non-FBI device before pursuing it further. Rest of the time, they see me running into dead ends.”

“Giving them more confidence in our incompetence,” Reeder said. “I like it.”

Rogers said, “Me, too. Pursue that approach.”

By the end of the day, with everybody thoroughly beat, Rogers and Reeder gathered the team in the conference room to kick around theories, share discoveries, and exchange thoughts.

Ivanek, the deep-set eyes frowning under the shelf of brow, asked Reeder, “How did your friend Bryson get involved in this, anyway?”

“My guess? Chris was likely offered the same top security job I was, which Jay Akers had already taken — the kind of high-dollar position that discourages much due diligence before saying yes. But Chris Bryson started digging, and putting things together. Me, I turned ’em down flat, due diligence not an issue. Akers jumped in with both feet, but still noticed things that didn’t seem kosher. That’s why he wanted to talk to me... and maybe why he got killed.”

Rogers said, “What Chris Bryson noticed, among other things, were the double-tap victims. Anne, you and Luke have been working on that. Anything?”

Nichols said, “Michael Balsin, the congressional aide, was looking into the sale of Senkian Chemicals. Must have been enough to get him killed.”

Hardesy — his shaved head dark with five o’clock shadow — said, “Harvey Carroll did some accounting work for Senkian. Another loose end tied off.”

“Presumably,” Reeder said, “the factory foreman, William Robertson, was in some way moonlighting at Senkian, weekends maybe.”

Hardesy said, “Now it gets really interesting. DeShawn Davis aka Karma Sabich was Frank Elmore’s lover. Somebody in the conspiracy, not necessarily Elmore, considered the transvestite a poor security risk... or possibly an embarrassment... and she was next.”

Reeder nodded. “Jay Akers may have been collateral damage in the first assassination attempt, although I tend to think he’d already learned too much. Like Chris Bryson. And like Chris, he tried to talk to me.”

Ivanek said, “Lester Blake, Capitol maintenance man, did what he was paid to do... and his bonus was getting eliminated.”

Reeder nodded. “People who will sell out for a buck forget that those they sell out to? Know that.”

“Which brings us,” Rogers said, “to the massacre at the hotel. Do we think Lawrence Schafer, Benjamin’s personal accountant, is just more collateral damage?”

No one had an opinion on that one.

Going on, she said, “Then we have Lynn Barr and Frank Elmore, the putative coconspirators at the top... but if so, who ordered them killed?”

“The only person who can answer that one,” Reeder said, “is their killer. Our ever-popular blond mercenary. It all comes down to him.”

“We skipped one,” Rogers reminded them. “Why was Carolina Uribe killed? Our reference librarian. No ties to anyone or anything else in the case that we know of.”