Dead on Arrival

71

Nick Fine — Senator Nicholas Fine — beat them all to the punch.

Fine found out that Oliver Lincoln was going to be arrested long before the FBI placed the handcuffs on his wrists; he found out as soon as Bianca Castro gave him up. And as soon as he did, he called a press conference.

Fine looked very good standing behind the lectern, dressed in a gray suit, tall and lean, devilishly handsome with his arched brows and his perfectly shaped goatee. The cameras loved him — as did more than a few female reporters.

Fine told the assembled news hawks that he had just come to a ‘very disturbing realization.’ He said that after he was appointed to fill William Broderick’s seat in the U.S. Senate, he eventually got around to looking at how much money was available in Broderick’s war chest. Well, Fine said, he was shocked — absolutely shocked — to discover that Broderick had vectored approximately eight million dollars to an account in the Cayman Islands. The fact that the money had been sent to an offshore account — well, that just smelled of ‘monkey business,’ he said.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ Fine said to the reporters, ‘just two days ago I discovered that the account in the Caymans belonged to a man named Oliver Lincoln.’

A reporter’s hand shot up. ‘How were you able to find out that the account belonged to this man? I thought that’s why people put their money into offshore accounts, so nobody could figure out who the money belonged to.’

Fine chuckled. ‘A United States senator is not without influence, sir. I simply called up the president of the bank and told him that I very much wanted to know the name of the owner of the account. I don’t remember my exact language, but I may have hinted that it would be a grave mistake for the bank to, ah, annoy me.’ (The bank president later admitted that he did indeed tell the senator the name of the account holder, believing it was, in this very, very special case, in the bank’s interest to ignore its normal disclosure policies.)

‘Anyway,’ Fine said, ‘the name Oliver Lincoln tickled something in my memory. I remembered when Senator Broderick attended one of his first Senate Intelligence Committee meetings he asked me who Lincoln was, and I said I didn’t know. And I didn’t. As aide first to Senator Wingate and then to Senator Broderick, I didn’t attend all Intelligence meetings, because some of those meetings were limited to the principals, depending on the classification level of the subject matter. After that, I remember Senator Broderick asking me to provide him with the minutes from past Intelligence Committee meetings, some going back as far as ten years. I didn’t question why he wanted to see them. He was, after all, my boss.

‘I was just trying to decide what to do with the information I’d obtained when I was informed, this very morning, that the FBI had arrested Oliver Lincoln as the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks. I also found out that Lincoln has a history of carrying out complex operations, sometimes to help criminal cartels, and other times, unfortunately, to aid the American government, in particular the CIA. And that’s why Senator Broderick had wanted to look at past meeting minutes, so that he could research Lincoln’s past.’

The reporters started to buzz like angry bees around a ruptured hive. A dozen voices called out, which Fine ignored.

‘I believe-’ he said. Then he paused and repeated himself to increase the drama. ‘I believe — and I’ve told this to the FBI, and I say this with great regret — that William Broderick, in order to pass his bill, a bill as you all know I never personally approved of, paid this man Lincoln to orchestrate these terrorist attacks so American Muslims would get the blame.’

Whoa! the reporters cried. Why the hell would Broderick do that?

Fine said it was fairly obvious: Broderick was determined to make a name for himself in politics. He figured the best way to do it was to get his bill passed, and the best way to do that was by creating an atmosphere of fear and xenophobia caused by a series of terrorist attacks supposedly perpetrated by Muslim Americans.

But then why was Broderick killed? a reporter asked.

Fine shook his head. ‘My answer to that question, sir, is that I do not know.’ It was possible, Fine said, that a disgruntled Muslim had indeed killed Broderick just like the note found in his car had said. That would be ironic but also fitting. But it was also possible, Fine said, that there had been some sort of falling out among thieves, that Oliver Lincoln had killed Broderick for some reason. ‘I just don’t know why Senator Broderick was assassinated,’ Fine concluded. ‘That’s a mystery the good men and women at the FBI will have to unravel.’

‘One last question, Senator. Why on earth would Broderick have left records showing money going from him to this account in the Caymans?’

Fine hesitated. ‘Well,’ he said, and paused again as though struggling for words. ‘I hate to say this, but Bill Broderick was not the smartest guy I ever met.’