Midas

29

No one showed up in the cell after that for some time. Justin had several hours of relative peace. During that time, he made a decision. Bruno’s message had had its desired effect. All they could do was hurt him, and he could survive that. There was no way to fight back, not in these circumstances, not in the condition he was in. There was only one thing he could do that would help him survive, or at least help keep him from going crazy.

He could use his brain. He could spend every moment sifting through information and putting the pieces together. He remembered Billy DiPezio, his onetime mentor in Providence, talking about the power brokers up there, saying, “You can only take what they give you.” Well, they were only giving him one thing: time.

So Justin decided he’d take it. And use it to try to figure out the puzzle.

He began by placing his finger in the dirt he was sitting on and slowly scratching out a series of names. To the left he put the dead men: Collins, Cooke, Heffernan, Billings, and Lockhardt. Below them, he dug out the name Theresa Cooke and under that wrote “Reysa” and “Hannah.” Hannah was still alive, but she more than counted as a victim. He moved his finger slowly, somehow drawing some importance from the texture of the visual in the dirt. To the right, he began tracing the names of the people he believed were connected to the deaths. Stuller and Dandridge.

To their right he put a new column. Justin listed every name he could think of in conjunction with the case. First, he tried to remember every person he’d spoken to: Martha Peck, Colonel Zanesworth, Hubbell Schrader, the son of a bitch. He hoped that someday he’d get a chance to get his hands on Schrader. Justin forced himself to stop thinking of revenge, then he calmly drew all those last names in the dirt. Then he added one more column. He tried to visualize all the names he’d come across in Roger Mallone’s reports and lawsuits, some of which he’d read, some of which Reggie had encapsulated for him. He did better than he thought: writing down the last names of the Yale attendees: President Thomas Anderson; the head of the EPA, Stephanie Ingles; Stuller and Dandridge again. He added Elliot Brown, the New York City comptroller. And he tried to think of the name of the Saudi, the one who was so connected to EGenco, but he could only recall the first name: Mishari. He remembered that it was followed by “al” something. . but he couldn’t come up with it. He knew he had all the time in the world, let himself relax, trying to visualize the name on Mallone’s report, but it wouldn’t come. So he just scratched out “Mishari” in the dirt. He was reasonably sure that Arabs didn’t go by their last names anyway, it was the first name that mattered, so he decided that was good enough.

And then he added one more word. They seemed so concerned with Midas. It was definitely worth adding. He gave it its own separate column.

He looked at the hastily drawn names as he’d laid them out:

Collins Peck Stuller Anderson Brown MIDASCookeZanesworth Dandridge InglesMishari Heffernan Schrader Stuller Billings Dandridge Lockhardt T. Cooke Reysa Hannah

He stared at them, not trying to make sense of anything, not trying to form any patterns, just memorizing them. Putting them into groupings inside his head so he could call them up at will. In his current state, it had taken him over an hour just to put the list together. He wanted to be able to do it in seconds, without having to think. So he burned them into his memory, until he felt himself falling asleep again, and before he conked out, he ran his hands through all the names, erasing them, leaving no trace, and then he fell asleep. Immediately the door burst open, two men came rushing in, and the torture began again.

Justin thought it was three days later, but it could have been two. Or four. Or even five. But to keep himself sane, he called it as three and decided that’s what it was, no matter what. Three days later-absolutely, three days, final, done deal.

That’s when he began to figure it out.

He started going meticulously, step by step, as he’d done many times by now, and each step focused him, kept his mind off the pain and the fear. Each step, each piece, bringing him closer to the puzzle’s solution. He turned every angle over in his mind. There was no limit to the amount of time he spent on any one aspect of the puzzle. Time was what he had. The longer the better. Every minute he spent thinking about the case was every minute he wasn’t going to go crazy.

Each exhaustive thought process began with an event. Then he tried to explain to himself the reality behind the event: exactly why it had occurred. Then he listed questions raised by each event and tried to formulate a coherent and structured line of reasoning to propel himself toward the most logical answers. With each answer, he felt as if he’d reached a level plateau after having climbed one small segment of a mountain. He viewed each plateau as a rest stop at which he then catalogued and isolated each one of the answers, keeping them separate in his mind, making them part of the next process, which would take him further up the mountain to the next plateau. At some point, the goal was to reach the peak. There at the top would be all the facts, neatly laid out, and all the names he needed to put the entire puzzle together. To that end, for every question he answered to his own satisfaction-at each new plateau-he tried to link a name to it, using the list of names he’d originally drawn with his fingers on the dirt floor. Every day, while he was thinking, he would redraw the list, sometimes in the original configuration, sometimes in different columns and rows. Whenever he moved the names around, he could find new ways to connect certain people to other people, and connect the right names to the right facts.

He understood that there was a chance it was all gibberish, that his mind was not functioning properly after his weeks of imprisonment. But he also understood that his only choice was to keep going. He often thought of the words uttered by Theresa Cooke: Everything’s muddy.

More than muddy, he decided quite a few times during the days and nights. Muddy, dirty, smelly, and painful.

Right. And on that note he had decided to begin.

Step One: An Iraqi walks into Harper’s Restaurant and detonates-or is used to detonate-a bomb, killing dozens of people, including himself.

Theory: The dozens of innocent people were decoys. The purpose of the explosion was to kill one person: Bradford Collins, CEO of EGenco. Maybe two. Elliot Brown, New York City comptroller, might have been a primary target, might have just been gravy. Or even an innocent lure to get Collins into the restaurant.

Theory: It was not a suicide bombing, as the FBI claimed. The Iraqi was a dupe. He did not expect to die (proof: he was moving away from the intended target when the bomb went off). The bomb was activated by someone outside the restaurant. Cell phone-activated.

Question: Why kill Collins?

Thought Process: Because he was going to talk. About what? About EGenco’s illegal business practices. And that’s worth killing over? At this level, yes. What would he talk about? The lawsuit brought against EGenco by the City of New York. He’d reveal the shell game and the dummy companies used so they could do business with terrorist-supporting nations. And? And he’d talk about the illegal deals EGenco has made with members of the administration. Why would he talk? To make a deal with the federal prosecutors and either cut or eliminate jail time. Okay. Makes sense. Definitely makes sense. But who would want to keep him quiet? Who would want to kill him? Anyone he implicated in the upcoming scandals. Anyone who had something big to lose.

Question: Why make the murder so elaborate? Why the devastation to kill one person?

Thought Process: Everything has a reason. We know the entire process, so work backwards. . What was the result of the Harper’s bombing? There were so many deaths that they hid the real purpose, which was to kill Collins. What else? Mass hysteria. General fear. Was that just an unplanned-for side effect or was that part of the intention? I don’t know. I just don’t know. Well, let’s say it was deliberate. Who did it benefit? Terrorists. It planted the seed that they were winning the war. Who else? To be cynical about it, certain politicians. The administration. The people in power. Why? Because the explosions created nationwide fear. And people don’t like change when they’re afraid. Who benefits from lack of change? The president. The vice president. The attorney general. Why?

That was a hell of a question. Justin figured the Triumph of Freedom Act had passed in Congress while he’d been incarcerated. It was on the verge of passing, and if it had, it made sense that he hadn’t been allowed to contact a lawyer or be in touch with the outside world. He had no rights whatsoever now-that’s what the T.O.F. Act was meant to accomplish. It was like the RICO laws put in place to stop the mob. There was no recourse.

So back to the question: Why did those three benefit? Because the government could do whatever it wanted now. If Anderson passes the Triumph of Freedom Act, it becomes his legacy, his holy grail of legislation. And it sets up his party as the one to turn to in times of fear and danger. There’s an even greater benefit for VP Dandridge: He’s running for president. He was losing-now he’s a shoo-in. Attorney General Stuller reaps the same benefit. The Triumph of Freedom Act gives him extraordinary power. Lots to gain for all three of them, particularly the last two. Lots to gain. .

But how can this be? The heads of the U.S. government perpetrating terrorist acts on their own people? It can’t be. It doesn’t make sense. It can’t make sense. There’s something wrong, there’s got to be a gap in the logic.

And yet. . Why the cover-ups? Why the misinformation? Why else would there be so much resistance to and so much obstruction in the way of the truth?

Okay. Let’s go with it for the moment. As crazy as it seems, say it’s real. It still doesn’t solve the second part of the Harper’s equation: Who’s masterminding the bombing? Who was on the other end of the cell phone? That’s the key because even assuming the crazy assumption that Anderson, Dandridge, and Stuller-or any combination of the three-are involved, they couldn’t possibly be hands-on. They’d have to be many times removed from the physical reality of the plan. The FBI? Hard to imagine. Even someone as bloodless as that guy Schrader. . no. Just can’t see it. They might cover up the investigation under orders, but to actually perpetrate a terrorist act. Uh-uh. .

Hold it. Take a break. Getting ahead of yourself. Getting too complicated. Keep things simple. One step at a time. Time to see where we are. .

First Plateau: The explosion at Harper’s Restaurant was designed specifically to kill Bradford Collins. Collins was murdered to stop him from talking about EGenco’s illegal business dealings. His revelations would have implicated people who could not afford to be implicated-the list possibly goes as high as the attorney general, the vice president, and the president of the United States.

Unanswered Questions: Who was actually behind the bombing? Who made the cell phone call? And what was the specific information that Collins had that was so dangerous to such important people?

Okay, go to the next step. It’s related. It’ll help pull you up the mountain.

Step Two:. .

The door to the room opened, Justin was so absorbed in his thought process that he didn’t hear the initial sound, but when he realized that someone was coming in, before he even looked up, he stretched out casually on the floor, obliterating his scribblings in the dirt. As he slowly stood, he dragged his foot over the same area, further obscuring any trace that he’d been doing something other than staring blankly off into space.

His interrogator stood just inside the doorway. He was still wearing fatigues. They’d been washed and newly pressed.

“Tell me about Hutchinson Cooke,” he said.

Justin nodded accommodatingly. “What do you want to know?”

“Why were you talking to Martha Peck?”

“Looking for information.”

“What information?”

“Cooke was killed in my town. I was trying to solve the case.”

“Who killed him?”

He thought about his answer, decided to go with the truth. He had nothing to gain by lying. Not now. “I’m not positive. I didn’t get far enough. But I think it was someone who worked for Martha Peck. Someone named Martin Heffernan. He either rigged the plane or knew who did it and decided to cover it up, I don’t know which.”

“Did you kill Hutchinson Cooke?”

“For Christ’s sake.” He would have screamed but his throat was still too raw. Then he just nodded and said, “Yeah. I killed Hutch Cooke, and to throw everyone off the track, I decided to spend the rest of my life pretending to find out who did it. I arranged for myself to get thrown in here ’cause I knew that would really confuse the hell out of everybody.”

Justin waited for the attack, but it didn’t come. The man in the fatigues didn’t change his expression, just waited a moment or two, then said, “Tell me everything you know about Midas.”

For a moment, Justin thought he might burst into tears. Forget the pain and the horrendous conditions. He was being driven mad by the idiotic repetition, the boredom. “Look,” he said, “I’d like to tell you about Midas. I’d really like to tell you about Midas. But I don’t know what it is, where it is, or who it is. All I know is they paid Hutch Cooke’s salary. That’s it. I swear to God.”

“Who runs Midas?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who owns it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where does their money come from?”

Justin shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”

“Tell me about Theresa Cooke.”

Justin closed his eyes for a moment. He opened them before answering. “Some stupid bastard killed her because he thought she told me something. That’s all I know about her.”

“What did she tell you?”

“Nothing.”

“What did Theresa Cooke tell you?”

“She didn’t tell me a goddamn thing.”

“You’d tell me, wouldn’t you? If you knew something, you’d tell me.”

“Yes.”

“Because you want to get out of here.”

“Yes.”

“You don’t want to be beaten anymore, do you?”

“No,” Justin said quietly. “I don’t.”

“And you’d like to be clean. And have a good meal.”

“Yes,” he breathed. “I would like that very much.”

“Then just tell me what you know.”

Justin took a deep, long breath. The air that came in through his mouth and his nostrils felt particularly tropical. Warm and wet. “I don’t know anything,” he said. “I don’t know a thing.”

The man in the crisp, starched fatigues looked at Justin, who’d stayed standing during the entire conversation, and said, “I almost believe you.”

Then he left Justin alone again. From the world outside his tiny window, Justin thought he heard a bird screeching. It was a high-pitched noise, piercing and mournful. When the sound came again, Justin wasn’t quite so sure of its source. It was piercing enough to be a bird. But it was also mournful enough to be a human being.

He scribbled all the names into the floor again. He’d done it so often by now, he didn’t have to think or pause while pushing his finger through the dirt. As he’d done each time, he rearranged them in a slightly different order than the previous time. Looking for patterns and connections. To the left he kept the victims in one column. For the first time, he added Elliot Brown’s name to that column. Next he organized any of the names connected to either the military or the FBI-anyone with a connection to the government’s investigation of terrorism. To the right of that column he listed all government officials. In a column all by itself, he listed the Saudi connection and, after a bit of hesitation, added a final column: Midas. At first he left it blank under the company name, then he added Cooke, who worked for them, and then he remembered that Colonel Zanesworth had told him that it was the vice president, Dandridge, who had made the call asking Cooke to be assigned to Midas as a pilot, so he put Dandridge’s name under that column, too.

Collins Zanesworth Stuller Mishari MidasCookeSchrader Dandridge CookeBrown Stuller Anderson Dandridge Heffernan CookePeck Billings Ingles Lockhardt Heffernan T. Cooke R. Cooke H. Cooke

He stared at the columns, saw no new connections to be made. Took a deep breath-almost reveling in the horrible smell; he’d seen how repulsed Mr. Starched Fatigues had been this last time and somehow it gave him a kind of strength to know he was used to it, was no longer overpowered by it-and he went back to the puzzle. .

Step Two: Hutchinson Cooke’s plane is rigged and he is murdered.

Theory: Cooke was on non-Air Force business. He was working for a company called Midas. Cooke flew into East End airport before the Harper’s explosion. Cooke was killed because he’d made a connection between his cargo on the plane and the explosion. He was killed so he couldn’t make that connection public.

Thought Process: What was the cargo? Two choices: the explosives used to destroy the restaurant or the man who used the explosives-the man who made the cell phone call. Or perhaps both.

Where was Cooke flying from? Unknown. Find that out and it should help to know who or what he was carrying.

Why was Cooke killed? Again, find out exactly who or what he was carrying and find out exactly why he was killed. Best bet: Cooke had been suckered into the flight-he didn’t realize quite what he was doing; when he realized the connection between his cargo and Harper’s, he panicked, maybe threatened to expose his bosses-the people who ran Midas? — and so he was killed.

Who killed Cooke? Heffernan either killed him or covered up the killing.

Justin looked at the list he’d drawn into the dirt. He’d put Heffernan down as a government official. True-he worked for the FAA. That counted. One more government connection. One more signal that this whole thing had to be government-connected. . and high up in the government to reach this level of manipulation.

Okay. Time to take a breath.

Plateau Two: Cooke was killed because he was a link to Collins’s murder and to the explosion at Harper’s. The link is the cargo. The key questions: Who or what was Cooke flying into East End Harbor? And for whom? If he was flying for Midas, what is Midas and who is behind it?

Time to start climbing again. .

Step Three: Martin Heffernan is killed in the explosion at La Cucina restaurant.

Theory One: Same as Harper’s. The explosion is an elaborate and deadly cover-up to mask the murder of one man: Heffernan.

Question: What did Heffernan know that got him killed?

Thought Process: He knew about Hutchinson Cooke. If Cooke was the link to Midas-and had to be eliminated to remove the link-then Heffernan was the link to the government. Heffernan had called the Justice Department to pass along information about Cooke’s death. But Cooke didn’t work for Justice-his boss was Martha Peck, FAA. She didn’t seem to be tied in to this. Although. . she was a link to the murderer or murderers. Despite Martha’s protestation, she knew who removed Heffernan’s file from the FAA office in Oklahoma City. She had to know. She had probably removed the file herself at the person’s request. Find that person, find a closer connection to the murderer.

Justin went through the next deaths quickly. Chuck Billings was clear-cut. He’d been brought in through official channels and, because of his expertise, he found out exactly what those officials didn’t want him to find out. He’d been lured to his death, most likely by the same bureaucrats he’d so distrusted. Justin would put money on Hubbell Schrader as Chuck Billings’s killer.

Lockhardt was also simple. He was killed because he was a final loose end in the murder of Hutchinson Cooke. He knew about Heffernan’s connection and that was enough to seal his death warrant. Justin mentally penciled Schrader into the blank space next to the question, Who killed Lockhardt?

Theresa Cooke was killed because she, too, knew something about her husband’s murder. Or, more likely, about her husband’s job. Theresa was dead, Justin was certain, because she knew something about Midas. .

Justin took another look at his markings in the dirt floor and decided to draw in a new column: Organizations.

So at the far right of his scribblings, he added:

Midas

U.S. government

Yale

Saudi government

He decided to go one subset further:

Midas

U.S. government

Executive

Justice

FAA

Yale

Saudi government

He went back and, remembering Stephanie Ingles and her Yale connection to Dandridge and Stuller, added “EPA” under his “U.S. government” heading. And then suddenly he decided to add another organization. A business that seemed to be at the center of all of this. EGenco.

He began scribbling separate columns for each listing:

MidasExecJustice EPAFAAYaleSaudiEGenco Cooke Anderson Stuller Ingles Heffernan Ingles Mishari DandridgeDandridge Dandridge PeckDandridge Cooke Stuller Anderson

What jumped out at him was Dandridge. He popped up everywhere. Justin twisted around so he’d have a clear space on the dirt floor-he’d begun to think of it as a giant blackboard-and he wrote the name Dandridge, and under that, every possible connection to the vice president that was relevant to the puzzle.

DANDRIDGE

Midas

EGenco

Cooke

Anderson

Stuller

Ingles

Mishari

He erased that list, rubbed it out quickly with the heel of his right hand. Then split the list into two-people and companies.

Cooke Midas Anderson EGenco Stuller Ingles Mishari

In his mind he went over the connections one more time:

Dandridge had made the call to Zanesworth to get the colonel to release Cooke from his Air Force duties so he could pilot for Midas.

Dandridge had been CEO of EGenco.

He’d been piloted by Cooke as vice president. He’d made the call to Zanesworth to get Cooke to come to work for Midas.

He was Anderson’s vice president. They’d known each other since their Yale days.

He knew Stuller from Yale. Stuller was reporting to Dandridge as point man in the government’s search for the suicide bombers.

Dandridge knew Ingles from Yale.

As CEO of EGenco, Dandridge had to have a close relationship with Mishari. EGenco did too much business with the Saudis for that relationship not to exist.

Dandridge was a connection between EGenco and Midas. Dandridge was a connection between Midas and the government.

Justin studied the names on the list. Rearranged them several times. Stephanie Ingles still seemed to be the weakest point: he couldn’t see any connection between the terrorism, the conspiracy he was convinced existed, and the head of the EPA. There just didn’t seem to be any political link between her area of expertise and the events of the past two months. So he erased her from his list and mentally shoved her off to the side.

After the third time he’d put the names in different order, something began to gnaw at him. Something was trying to burst through. He tried to empty his head so whatever was in the back of his brain could make its way forward. It felt close. Very close. .

But something else struck him now, rushed at him with a burst of clarity. As he saw the list of names, he realized there was a new piece to the puzzle that suddenly fit in. He’d been wondering one thing since he’d been brought to this godforsaken place: Why? Why had they done it? Whoever had given the order to take him couldn’t possibly want him to give damaging information to his interrogator. They didn’t want anyone to know what he knew. They wanted him silenced. So why question someone if you don’t want to know the answers?

Because, he thought, they don’t want to know what you know. They want to know what you don’t know.

So what didn’t he know?

What were the questions the starched little prick kept asking him: What was Midas? Who runs Midas?

They weren’t looking for those answers! Whoever was behind the questioning knew the answers! They wanted to make sure that he didn’t know.

So what the hell was Midas? Who the hell was Midas?

Goddammit, he was close. He could feel it coming. He was so close his brain felt like it was exploding. Information was rushing at him-the reports he’d read, the background on the lawsuits, the history that Roger Mallone had thrown out to him. It was there. It really was. It was all inside his head. .

He heard the familiar noise at the door, immediately ran his hands over the dirt, obscuring everything he’d written, and as he did he felt the bubble burst.

He felt his brain shutting down, the pieces of the puzzle dissolving into nothingness.

He sagged with disappointment.

That’s when the door swung open. Two soldiers stood in the doorway, both holding rifles. They didn’t seem to care about the obscured swirls on the floor or why Justin was on his hands and knees. Behind them was the man in starched fatigues. He didn’t seem to care either. And when the man spoke, Justin didn’t particularly care about them either.

“Clean him up,” the man in the starched fatigues said to the two guards. “He’s going home.”