Private Lives

8

After David’s liberal dose of cold reality, calling The Fifth Estate seemed almost pointless.

But it’s all I can think of doing to help the captain, Megan told herself. She sat down at her computer system and gave the orders for a holographic connection. Once again she was quickly connected to the newsmag’s professorial publisher.

Professor Wellman didn’t seem surprised to see Megan on the other end of the holophone line.

He didn’t seem very enthusiastic, either.

“More hypothetical questions, Ms. O’Malley?”

“Just plain, ordinary ones,” Megan replied. “Some people I talked with had interesting things to say about I-on Investigations. Seems they have a really creative touch with evidence. It appears like magic to back up whatever stories their clients want to sell.”

“Wellman nodded, but his expression still wasn’t encouraging. “If so,” he said, “they haven’t been caught at it yet. Otherwise, their license would have been pulled. That could merely be badmouthing by people on the other side who lost court cases.”

So, Megan thought, he already knows what I told him, but he probably can’t prove it.

“My second question goes more to motive — why someone would try to get James Winters in trouble. Hardly anyone outside of Net Force — and the Explorers — knew the captain before he went on Washington People. That’s where the interviewer tried that trick question and got the reaction everyone saw on Once Around the Clock. The local reporter, Jay-Jay McGuffin, took a lot of grief from Net Force Explorers after the show aired. Kids from all over the country wanted a piece of him.”

“You’re making a case for young McGuffin to seek revenge against James Winters,” Wellman said in his most professorial voice.

“I was wondering if he had a friend higher up in the network,” Megan said. “Someone on Once Around the Clock.”

“Someone like Tori Rush,” Wellman finished for her. Not only did he sound like a teacher, the teacher was clearly disapproving of his student’s answer.

“Tori Rush started out in HoloNews local outlets in the western states,” Wellman said. “She never worked in Washington, whereas Mr. McGuffin has only worked in the D.C. area. As far as we’ve been able to ascertain, there is no connection — friendly or otherwise — between the two of them.”

“Then where did she get the clip of Winters?” Megan asked in frustration. “She can’t scan every episode of every local news show—”

“An interesting question,” Wellman responded. “One I haven’t been able to find an answer for.”

That reminded Megan of the answers Anna Westering hadn’t been able to get. “Do you know anything about the foreign investors who bought up I-on Investigations? It seems like a weird investment, picking up a failing cop shop.”

“I-on has been remarkably profitable under its new management,” Wellman pointed out.

Yeah, Megan thought. Telling lies for fun and profit. That’s bound to pay better than catching errant spouses in the act.

“How about the new head honcho?” she asked.

“Ah, the elusive Mr. Kovacs.” Wellman allowed himself a slight smile. “There’s very little about him on the record — and what records exist are remarkably war-torn. The village where he was supposedly born no longer exists. His school records were wiped out when a cruise missile went off-course. There are some college records for a Marcus Kovacs, but he seems to disappear for years. And he wasn’t very forthcoming when we interviewed him.”

“The Fifth Estate actually went up and asked him questions?” Megan said. “Won’t that warn him that a story is coming out about his association with Tori Rush?”

“No,” Wellman replied. “He was under the impression he was being profiled by a small business journal.”

Megan stared at him. “After all the stuff you said about journalists abusing their power — aren’t you doing the same thing?”

“A profile will appear in that journal,” Wellman said stiffly. “But we’ll be able to use the information as well.”

“You did lie to him, though.”

“A stratagem.” Wellman’s pink face went pinker still. “We have to live in the world as it is. Kovacs would have boxed us out the minute he learned we knew he was working for Tori Rush. He’d claim client privilege, and we probably wouldn’t even have gotten any general information on his company. This way The Fifth Estate got information on I-on and images of Kovacs — he’s remarkably camera-shy — and The Review of Small Business got a story as well.”

“You have pictures of Kovacs?” Megan said.

“A few.” Wellman’s small smile appeared again. “He told our photographer he was a very busy man.”

“Could I see one?” Megan requested.

Know your enemy, she thought.

Wellman dug around on his desk and came up with a sheaf of flatcopy images. “This is the one we’re considering for our story,” he said, holding up one of the pictures.

Marcus Kovacs was a remarkably hairy man. A thick, full beard covered his jaw, meeting unfashionably long hair that brushed his collar. Both his beard and his mane of hair were dark, flecked with gray.

“He looks more like a poet than a private eye,” Megan said. “Much less the head of a company.”

Out of sight of the pickup, her hands danced on her computer’s keyboard, ordering an image capture from the holographic display. Now she’d have this picture of Kovacs, as well.

Wellman ran through a sequence of images. Apparently deep in thought over the answer to one of the interviewer’s questions, Kovacs ran a hand through his leonine mane, revealing that at least one ear hid behind all that hair. The next picture his hand was down, moving toward the camera. The third picture just showed the palm of his hand.

“That was the end of our photo session,” Wellman said dryly. “It seems Mr. Kovacs has the temperament of a poet, as well. His background, however, seems to be in finance. That’s what he told our interviewer. He had been hired by the takeover group to spruce up the company, probably with the idea of reselling it. But he proved himself to be a more than competent manager, not merely juggling the books, but actually making tremendous profits where none had previously been made.”

While pushing the company’s mission into the gutter of falsifying evidence, Megan thought.

“Two final questions,” she said. “When is your story coming out…and why are you telling me all of this?”

“You have a most refreshing directness, Ms. O’Malley — and a touching innocence, if I may say so.” Professor Wellman removed his glasses, cleaning them with a small piece of cloth. But out from behind the lenses, his eyes seemed even sharper as he looked at her.

“My dear young lady, you’re a source on a high-profile story,” Wellman said. “At some point, as this story develops, The Fifth Estate may turn to you for a reaction from one of Captain Winters’s protégés. We’ve already tried contacting the captain directly. He’s strictly incommunicado at the moment.

“Anyway, when the time comes for us to seek information, I hope you’ll remember that we were generous in answering your questions. Quid pro quo, you see.”

The only thing I see is that I’m bumping into a lot of Latin on this case, Megan thought grimly. And everything else is Greek to me.

“In answer to your first question, the Rush/I-on story is scheduled to come out in two weeks.” Wellman frowned. “Because we cover the media, we have to make sure all of our facts are absolutely true before we publish. I think we’ll end up regretting that policy. Events are moving faster than I’d wish. Instead of exposing the story, we may end up as a footnote in a much larger media frenzy.”

“Meaning?” Megan said, almost afraid to hear his answer.

Wellman tried to keep his tone gentle, but his words hit Megan like brutal blows. “Meaning our voice will just be lost in the stampede, once Captain Winters is indicted for Stefano Alcista’s murder.”

Leif took a call from Megan O’Malley and got a storm of worried anger as well as a few nuggets of information.

“Hey, what does a retired journalism professor know about the law?” he said, trying to make her feel better. But he had to admit that his words sounded hollow even in his own ears.

About an hour later Leif received a virtmail notice for another special meeting of the Net Force Explorers for the next day. Coming after Megan’s call, this looked ominous.

“Maybe that professor does know something,” Leif muttered grimly. “They’re probably getting us together now to soften the blow when Steadman’s report comes out.” Now he wished that no one had told him the nickname attached to the head of Net Force Internal Affairs. “Hangman Hank” didn’t sound like a joke anymore.

Leif barely picked at his dinner that evening.

“Are you feeling all right?” his mother asked.

“Just things on my mind,” Leif replied. Tonight was the night Once Around the Clock came on. Maybe today Captain Winters — and all the Net Force Explorers — would be lucky. Maybe Tori Rush would find a new target.

Of course, that dream was doomed from the start. Tori Rush was right up there in the first half of the show, trumpeting the damning findings of the as-yet-unreleased Net Force Internal Affairs report.

What a surprise that it should be leaked to her, Leif thought coldly. I wonder if newsdiva Tori got the report through her own connections, or did I-on hack it out of the Net Force computers in time for her to get it on this evening’s broadcast?

If the rogue investigators had hacked the report, that left them open to criminal charges. That illegal act would make a nice lead-off to the revelation that Tori — the supposedly pure and untarnished journalist — was hiring detectives to do her dirty work for her. It might even splash all over the media with a newsworthy bang.

The only problem was, it wouldn’t do a single thing to get James Winters off the hook. As Matt Hunter had heard from Agent Dorpff, I.A. had assembled a damaging, if circumstantial, case against Captain Winters. These days the whole world knew Winters had a motive for killing Stefano the Bull. He apparently had the opportunity — and no alibi. The tagging chemicals from the bomb that destroyed Alcista’s car and its occupant had also been discovered in the captain’s garage workshop.

But the worst part was the practice bomb. For one thing, it made Winters look like a cold-blooded killer, carefully tailoring the blast to get the best — or was that the worst? — out of it. As David had pointed out, the very existence of a test blast before Alcista’s murder and before the story was all over the national media made it unlikely that Winters was being framed for murder after the fact by someone who’d seen the various broadcasts. So it wouldn’t help to accuse Tori Rush of hiring detectives who provided evidence on demand.

Unless, Leif thought, the person who framed Winters was also the person who killed Alcista. Call him or her X, the mystery murderer. Who could it be? A tremendously wily organized-crime hit person? A former spy turned assassin? That led nowhere, or rather in too many directions at once. Try motive instead — why would someone do what had been done?

Had the captain been cold-bloodedly chosen as a convenient scapegoat by the real murderer? That could work. Suppose one of Alcista’s former associates didn’t want him pushing back into the business? It would be quite convenient to hand over James Winters to take the blame. It might even be satisfying. Winters had undoubtedly busted a number of mob types in his career. Maybe one of them set him up as payback.

It didn’t even have to be a professional hit, Leif realized. There were probably lots of other people out there who hadn’t been delighted to see Steve the Bull loose on the streets again. After all, the guy prided himself on breaking legs and killing people. Anyone who’d survived his business methods — or vengeful family members and friends of those who hadn’t — might want to take out Alcista, for obvious reasons. And once Winters’s furious face appeared on Washington’s holo displays courtesy of Jay-Jay McGuffin — anyone could have chosen him as a patsy.

If someone who planned to kill Alcista had watched Jay-Jay’s interview, they’d have had James Winters delivered to them as a scapegoat, just like the answer to a prayer.

Leif tightened his grip on the arms of his chair, trying to keep his confused thoughts from making his head whirl any faster.

Time to stop this, he told himself. These ideas are sounding more and more like plot lines from the afternoon holosoaps. None of them offered an avenue of investigation to clear the captain.

Vendettas, personal or business-related, might be colorful but didn’t help narrow down the range of possible murderers here. If anything, the idea added to the candidates. Leif doubted that he or even all his Explorer friends could check out such a mob of suspects. A job like that would require the talents and resources of a national law-enforcement agency dedicated to finding the killer.

Like Net Force, Leif thought bitterly. Unfortunately, Net Force already has a handy-dandy suspect — Captain James Winters.