Truth or Die

Chapter 104

Frank Karcher had been the master of making all sorts of things disappear. People. Problems. His moral compass. But the one thing he couldn’t cover up was his own death.

Instead, others were going to do it for him. At least, that was the way it was playing out.

There were a dozen witnesses to what happened outside the Mallard Café, and they all knew what they’d seen. When the police arrived and a couple of detectives fanned out to ask what had happened, each and every one had an answer.

But none of them knew why it had happened. Same for every news outlet that rushed to the scene. Karcher’s death was the stuff of headlines and lead stories, but the whole truth hadn’t gone public yet.

The question now was whether it ever would.

“I feel like a kid waiting outside the principal’s office,” I said.

Valerie leaned forward, glancing at the closed door to our right. “Yeah, and your parents are already in there having the adults-only talk, right?”

“Exactly.”

She nodded. “Par for the course, I’m afraid. The only way to know your worth in this town is the level of classified info you’re allowed to hear. The whole loaf or just a slice.”

“Or in my case, only a few crumbs,” I said.

“Hey, I’m not in there, either. That makes us both a couple of muzjiks,” she said.

“Muz-whats?”

“Peasants. The word for Russian peasants, actually.”

“Of course.”

“Also, one of the highest-scoring words in Scrabble.”

“Now you’re just showing off,” I said.

“Scrabble was big in our house growing up. My father played it every Sunday with my sister and me to build our vocabularies,” she said. “That’s one reason why I know the word.”

“Muzjiks, huh?”

“Yep. Use it on your first turn and it’s worth a hundred and twenty-eight points.”

I waited for her to continue. She didn’t.

“And a second reason?” I asked. She’d said that was one reason why she knew the word.

With the look she gave me, I suddenly realized this wasn’t mere idle chitchat. Valerie was finally answering the question I’d asked when we first met. Who are you?

There was no one around us in the hallway. Still, she looked both ways as if crossing the street. “I was stationed in Moscow,” she said.

But the way she said it, I knew. “CIA?”

She nodded.

“How long ago?” I asked.

“It feels like forever.”

“What happened?”

“Someone decided to tell the world our deepest, darkest secrets because he didn’t like the way we got them. Consequences be damned.”

So that was who she was. Valerie Jensen had been an undercover CIA agent. “And you were exposed...”

“Hundreds were, all over the world,” she said. “More than a few were killed, too. Not that it ever made the news. I was lucky. It wasn’t like a woman could ever be in Tehran or Kabul.”

“Still,” I said. “Moscow.” Putin had never struck me as the forgiving type.

“Thankfully, money will pretty much get you anything you need there, including a way out through Finland in the middle of the night,” she said. “Funny, though. After all that, where does our whistle-blower first gain asylum?”

Russia.

“So how did you end up with the NSA?”

“It was a bit like the Island of Misfit Toys. No one else had any use for us. All the covert training and nowhere to use it,” she said. “Except here at home, of course.”

“Another thing that will never make the news,” I said.

“That depends, I suppose.”

“On what?”

“On how well you can keep a secret.”

I had to laugh. “Imagine that,” I said. “You’re not even the best secret I’ve got going right now.”

“All the more reason why we’re sitting here.”

“Yep. A couple of muzjiks.”

Valerie laughed back, and for a minute, it was as if we were able to forget where we were and why.

Actually, it was only like ten seconds. Right up until the door opened next to us and an older woman with gray hair stepped out and peered over her horn-rimmed glasses with a perfunctory smile. She was Clay Dobson’s assistant.

“You two can come in now,” she announced.

Chapter 105

The only way I ever thought I’d set foot in the White House was on a guided tour with a bunch of people wearing fanny packs. Shuffling along the velvet ropes, I’d stare into all the capital R rooms. The East Room. The State Dining Room. The Blue, Red, and Green Rooms decorated by Jackie Kennedy.

Still, when the tour was over, the closest I’d ever get to the Oval Office was a postcard in the gift shop.

Now I was literally a few feet away from it in the West Wing — the office right next door. The office of the president’s chief of staff.

And if Owen was right, the man ultimately responsible for the deaths of Claire and our unborn child, as well as countless others.

But that was a big if. As in, if only there were some actual evidence.

“Ian, do me a favor and scoot over on the couch there for Mr. Mann,” said Dobson, orchestrating from behind his huge desk. Make no mistake. This was his office, his meeting, his seating chart. He’d already motioned for Valerie to take the other armchair next to Crespin.

Ian — as in Ian Landry, the president’s press secretary — promptly scooted over on the couch to make room for me.

“There you go,” he said. “Best seat in the house.”

It was a little strange to see Landry out from behind the podium of the Brady Room. To watch him take questions from the press was to know there wasn’t anything he couldn’t spin. It was a talent all the more remarkable given that, unlike previous press secretaries, Landry didn’t hide behind the façade of plausible deniability. Rather, he’d claimed from day one that he knew everything that happened in the White House.

After all, President Bretton Morris had won election by promising to level with America at all times. “Hard truths, and no easy fixes,” he was fond of saying in his campaign commercials. And with nearly a billion dollars spent on advertising, he’d said it an awful lot.

“Would either of you like any coffee?” asked Dobson.

“No thanks,” Valerie and I answered in unison.

“All right, then. Let me start by telling you what I told Jeffrey,” Dobson said, pointing to Crespin in his charcoal-gray suit. “The president has no knowledge of this meeting. If he did, it would never be happening. Instead, Ian would be in the press room telling the world everything about Operation Truthseeker, or whatever stupid name this damn thing probably had.”

Seamlessly, Ian Landry chimed in. “The president would sooner sacrifice a second term than try to sweep something like this under the rug.”

“And trust me, that’s not hyperbole,” said Dobson. “Unfortunately, though, this is about more than just favorability ratings and politics. This is about national security. And Frank Karcher has seriously threatened it.”

I listened very carefully to what came next.

Dobson explained the protocol of what happens after the death of active CIA personnel, especially someone on Karcher’s level as the National Clandestine Service chief. Basically, anything and everything having to do with his life gets searched, reviewed, raked over, and then raked over again.

“The problem in this case,” said Dobson, “is that it’s like having the fox guard the henhouse. We don’t know how deep this runs at the CIA — who was involved and how many — but if the guy shooting at you from that rooftop yesterday is any indication, it doesn’t bode well.”

“He’s an agent with the Special Activities Division, Karcher’s former unit within the CIA,” explained Crespin.

“Then, of course, there’s the young man at the center of all this.” Dobson looked down at an open file as if searching his notes for Owen’s name. “Yes, Owen Lewis,” he said. “Who, as of right now, is nowhere to be found.”

Damn, Skippy, nowhere to be found. Where the hell are you, Owen, and what’s with the secret fishing expedition? You’re up to something, but what?

I waited for Dobson to look at me in light of his mentioning Owen, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached for another file on his desk, this one featuring a bright red stripe across it.

“But back to Karcher and the issue of national security,” he continued. “I’m pretty sure I could lose my job, if not worse, for what I’m about to share with you, but since that’s the least of my problems this morning, we’ll be making an exception.” He paused to take a sip of coffee, staring at us over the lip of the mug. First at Valerie. Then at me. “Besides, according to Crespin here, if it weren’t for the two of you, things could’ve been a lot worse.”

And with that, Dobson opened the file.

Chapter 106

The first thing he held up was a color photograph, measuring roughly eight by ten. It could’ve been a head shot for a leading man, albeit one more suited for Bollywood than Hollywood.

“This is Dr. Prajeet Sengupta,” said Dobson, his exaggerated diction suggesting just a trace of xenophobia. He then read from the file in bullet-point fashion. “Born in India, educated here in the States. Stanford undergrad, Harvard Medical School. Currently a staff neuroscientist with the New Frontier Medical Institute in Bethesda, specializing in ionotropic and metabotropic receptor manipulation in the human brain.” Dobson paused, looked up. “If anyone knows what that actually means, be my guest.”

I didn’t. Not exactly. Still, it wasn’t hard to see where this was heading.

Sure enough, according to Dobson, Prajeet Sengupta was the missing link to the serum, the guy Karcher had used to turn Owen’s research into an injectable polygraph machine. One question, though, and I didn’t hesitate with it.

“How do you know this?” I interrupted.

Dobson nodded slightly as if he’d expected me to ask that. “Again, this isn’t for broadcast, but before the CIA could do its reconnaissance on Karcher’s apartment, including his hard drive, I got in there first.” He corrected himself with a raised palm. “Not me personally, but a special investigator with the FBI. Working unofficially, of course.”

All the while, Dobson was still holding up the picture of Sengupta. It was a posed photograph, most likely taken on behalf of the medical institute where the doctor worked. I could picture the website, complete with a glowing bio underneath his good looks and warm smile. Nowhere would his moonlighting efforts be mentioned.

Then — poof! — he was gone.

Dobson lowered the photo, only to lift another one from the file. Exhibit B, apparently.

“Now meet Arash Ghasemi,” he said.

The only thing the two pictures had in common was the size. Instead of a posed head shot, this one was courtesy of a zoom lens from an angle that suggested the photographer was somewhere in the Middle East he really shouldn’t have been. Black-and-white and a bit grainy, it was still clear enough to tell that Ghasemi was the opposite of Sengupta in the looks department. More to the point, Ghasemi had pretty much been hit by the ugly stick. Repeatedly.

Again, Dobson read from the file. “Born in Iran, educated in the States. Stanford undergrad; MIT graduate program, nuclear science and engineering. Then, days after accepting a job with General Atomics in San Diego, he suddenly split town and returned to Iran.”

The subtext of that last sentence was crystal clear. Arash Ghasemi was now working for the Iranian nuclear program.

Less clear was whether it was by choice. And even less clear than that was what this Iranian nuclear engineer had to do with Sengupta, the Indian neuroscientist.

Until I replayed Dobson’s descriptions of the two in my head. Word for word. And the one word — the one school — he’d mentioned twice.

“Stanford,” I said.

“Very good, Mr. Mann. You win the Samsonite luggage,” said Dobson. “You see, this is a tale of two roommates.”

Chapter 107

He had it all right there in the file, right down to the actual dorm where they first met freshman year. Arroyo House in Wilbur Hall.

Prajeet Sengupta and Arash Ghasemi had become fast friends at Stanford. Put them most anywhere else in the world and they had little in common. Under the bright glare of a California sun, however, they might as well have been brothers. Two strangers thrown together in a strange land.

By sophomore year they had become roommates, all but inseparable, including rushing Sigma Chi together.

“And if you’re looking for a reason why Ghasemi trusted Sengupta so much — even twenty years later — look no further than that fraternity,” said Dobson.

The handsome and more gregarious Sengupta had been tapped to pledge. But Ghasemi had been passed over. That is, until Sengupta made it very clear that they were a package deal. Sigma Chi couldn’t get one without the other.

Of course, who the hell was some pledge to be making a demand like that?

“A pretty damn clever one,” said Dobson. “In true frat-boy fashion, Sengupta challenged the rush chair to a drinking contest — shot for shot, last man standing. If Sengupta won, Ghasemi could become a brother. And if he lost? That was the clever part. The rush chair outweighed the skinny kid from Bangalore by nearly a hundred pounds. It wasn’t a fair fight. How could he ever lose?”

But he did.

Dobson smiled. “Like I said, it wasn’t a fair fight. Sengupta, who was premed at the time, had injected himself with a derivative of a drug called iomazenil. Apparently, it binds the alcohol receptors in the brain. In other words, it’s a binge drinker’s dream come true.” Dobson pointed at me. “Okay, now this is where you ask me that question again, Mr. Mann. How do I know this?”

For sure, I was about to. Not Valerie, though. She’d been around the block a few times in the world of intelligence gathering. All she could do was sigh in a way that had only one translation. We live in a very complicated world.

“CIA or NIA?” she asked Dobson.

“Both,” he answered. Then he explained.

Not long after Ghasemi returned to Iran — against his will — to work for the Iranian nuclear program, Sengupta was recruited by the National Investigation Agency of India, the NIA. This was at the urging of the CIA based on the greatest shared interest the US and India have as two nuclear powers: making sure Iran doesn’t become one as well.

“Sengupta knew that his good friend Ghasemi was miserable back in his homeland of Iran,” Dobson continued. “Iranians might despise what they see as US hegemony, but they do so having never spent time in this country. But Ghasemi had. We weren’t the enemy.”

I listened to Dobson, almost dizzy. It was hard enough to keep track of the names, let alone the motives and inferences.

Valerie might have had the pole position, but I was finally up to speed.

Ghasemi was giving Sengupta, his good friend and former roommate, Iranian nuclear secrets.

Dobson took another sip of coffee before leaning forward, his words coming slowly. “I understand you’ve lost someone very close to you, Mr. Mann, and that undoubtedly you want justice. I sure would. But I’m afraid justice means exposing Sengupta, and that would mean no more connection with Ghasemi. Thanks to that relationship, our government currently knows more about the Iranian nuclear program than the Supreme Leader himself. And I wish it were hyperbole when I say that the fate of the world could very well depend on that relationship continuing.”

Yes, indeed. We live in a very complicated world.

I wasn’t sure what I was going to say, only that it was something. Perhaps a feeble attempt to strike some sort of “justice bargain,” the way I used to with prosecutors after I went to the dark side, as Claire liked to call it, and became a defense attorney.

But before I could even push out the first word, the door of Dobson’s office opened. It was his secretary.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but there’s—”

Dobson cut her off. “I said no calls, Marcy.”

“I know, but it’s not for you. It’s for Mr. Mann,” she said. “Apparently, it’s an emergency. Someone named Winston Smith?”

That got everyone staring at me. Although, with Dobson, it was more like glaring. If looks could kill. “No one outside this room is supposed to know you’re here, Mr. Mann,” he said.

Immediately, Crespin cleared his throat. Maybe he could just sense it, that something was up and I desperately needed a lifeline. Or maybe it was more than a sense. Perhaps he, too, had read 1984.

“Sorry, Clay, my bad,” said Crespin. “Mr. Mann’s sister is being operated on this morning, and that’s his nephew calling to let him know how it went. For obvious reasons, Mr. Mann ditched his cell phone once this whole ordeal started.”

I watched and listened to Crespin with nothing short of amazement. He was so calm, so convincing. The guy could probably fool a polygraph, if he had to. He had to be the best liar I’d ever met.

Actually, make that the second best.

Dobson nodded to his secretary. “Put it through.”

As she disappeared back to her desk, he handed me his phone. The longest two seconds of my life followed as I waited for the call to be transferred.

Click.

“Winston, is that you?” I asked.

“Yes, it’s me,” said Owen. “And what Dobson just told you is bullshit.”

Chapter 108

The questions were bouncing around in my head so fast and deliriously I could feel my brain smushed up against my skull just trying to contain them all.

Where has Owen been? How did he know I was in Dobson’s office, let alone what was being said? And who’s the “new friend” he went on to mention, the one he wants me to meet?

The only thing close to an answer — or, better yet, what would get me closer to all the answers — was the address Owen gave me before hanging up. But not before first telling me I had to come alone. “For real, Trevor. I mean it. Just you.”

Of course, that went over like a fart in an elevator with Valerie and Crespin. Especially Crespin. He and his Spidey sense had bailed me out in Dobson’s office, and this was how I repaid him? I’m off to go meet the kid, but you can’t come?

“I’ll be back, I promise,” I said. “And I’ll do everything I can to have Owen with me.”

It was either detain me or let me go. They let me go.

Almost one hour to the dot after saying good-bye on the phone in Dobson’s office to my nephew, Winston Smith, I arrived at Fifteenth Street NW and Madison Drive.

If the Jeopardy! category is Well-Known Washington Addresses, I’ll admit that I tap out with 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Besides, who really needs to know the address of the Washington Monument? All you have to do is look up, right?

“Father, I cannot tell a lie,” came a voice over my shoulder.

I turned to see Owen, smiling at his own cleverness about the line and our location, although I knew he hadn’t chosen it for the irony. Just because I thought I’d come alone didn’t mean I actually had. The flat, sprawling grounds of the Washington Monument, with nothing but a circle of skinny flagpoles for cover, were his way of making sure that even if I had been followed, no one was within earshot.

Speaking of hearing things on the sly...

Owen pivoted to his right. “Trevor, I’d like you to meet Lawrence Bass,” he said.

I pushed aside what was now the latest question in the long queue — How the hell did these two ever meet up? — and shook the man’s hand.

I knew exactly who Bass was. Namely because of what he wasn’t — the next director of the CIA. Owen and I had watched him withdraw his name on television, standing in the East Room, flanked lovingly by his wife and two young daughters. We’d listened to him explain that he wanted to spend more time with his family. And we’d both known he was lying.

“Wait a minute,” I said, turning back to Owen. Gone fishing? Lawrence Bass? “This is where you went?”

“No one just walks away from being named CIA director,” Owen said. “There had to be more to it, not that I was really expecting Lawrence to divulge anything. But as it turns out, he was doing some fishing of his own.”

True to his military background, Bass took the cue and didn’t dillydally. Nor was there much emotion. The guy seemed to have everything wrapped in a blanket of calm and measured.

“Last week, I paid a visit to Clay Dobson in his office,” he said. “And I never really left.”

With that, Bass reached into his pocket and held out an iPhone. I recognized the app he tapped; it was the same one Claire always used to edit and organize her interviews. Voice Recorder HD.

Let the answers begin.

Chapter 109

Owen didn’t bother saying the actual words. That would’ve been redundant. One glance at him, the look on his face, was all it took.

What did I tell you, dude?

All I could see in my mind was the picture of Dr. Wittmer and his good ol’ college chum, Clay Dobson. And all I could hear now was Dobson’s voice telling someone in his office that Wittmer should’ve been killed sooner.

Of course, that someone was Frank Karcher — or Karch, as Dobson kept calling him in between rounds of cursing him out. For two guys in cahoots with each other, they sure weren’t seeing eye to eye on much. Cover-ups are a bitch.

“Jesus,” I said. “How...?”

“Well, I was the director of intelligence programs with the NSC,” said Bass, who somehow managed to convey that without a hint of bravado. It was merely fact. Same for the way he claimed he’d been able to hide the bug in Dobson’s office. “I just dropped it in his pencil holder when he wasn’t looking.”

Bass fell silent again so I could keep listening, but all I had were more and more questions.

“What about Landry?” I asked. Was the press secretary involved as well?

“Best we can tell, no,” said Owen. “There’s at least a half dozen times when the two are alone in Dobson’s office together and nothing ever comes up.”

“Anybody else?”

“Just Prajeet Sengupta,” said Owen.

The Indian doctor? “I thought you told me that was all bullshit.”

“Not all of it. Like with any good lie, there’s always a bit of truth. Sengupta exists, he’s a real person,” said Owen. “Come to think of it, the Iranian guy from Stanford is real, too.”

I clearly didn’t follow. Bass paused the recording, his thumb shifting to another file. He pressed Play.

For the next minute, with the flags around the monument whipping in the wind above us, I listened to Dobson on the phone with Sengupta asking about his friends in college, specifically if there was anyone from the Middle East.

“Sengupta was Dobson’s man for the serum, botched as it was,” said Owen. “Turns out, Sengupta has a brother back in India doing twenty years for drug trafficking. Or at least, he was until Dobson intervened with Indian intelligence officials. The serum in exchange for time served. The brother’s now a free man.”

“So Dobson discovers an Iranian roommate and invents the story about him,” I said.

“Yeah, and of all things, the guy — Ghasemi — actually did go back to Iran. According to Stanford alumni records, he owns a software company in Tehran — but of course, that wouldn’t prevent him from moonlighting for the nuclear program, right? Dobson had all the angles covered,” said Owen. He then turned to Bass. “Except one.”

Bass raised his palms as if to deflect the credit. “I knew nothing about this serum, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up. Especially when I heard Karcher’s name to replace me.”

“You were right. Hell, you were both right,” I said, giving Owen his due.

So why didn’t they look happier about it? Or even happy at all?

That was when I realized what they had already figured out. And to think, I was the only one with the law degree.

Chapter 110

“Damn,” I muttered.

Owen nodded. “Yep.”

The recordings. “They’re inadmissible. Not only that, they’re illegal,” I said.

Owen nodded again. “Yep.”

“I don’t care,” said Bass.

“He really doesn’t,” said Owen. “Believe me, I’ve tried to talk him out of it.”

“Out of what?” I asked.

Bass shrugged. “So maybe I risk doing a little time. It will be worth it to implicate Dobson. And once the investigation starts, something else will have to turn up,” he said. “The truth will come out.”

I had every intention of making a great counterargument, beginning with the reason why Owen hadn’t wanted to go public in the first place. He wanted Dobson dead to rights. We both did now. But I’d just come from the guy’s office, where I’d seen up close and personal Dobson’s ability to construct an alternate reality. Dobson was good at it. Too good. Without the recordings from his office, the odds of his seeing the inside of a jail cell were anything but a sure thing. He’d be ruined politically, but he’d probably still go free.

Yeah, that was the argument I was about to make. Point by point.

Instead, all I could do was listen to the echo of Bass’s last sentence in my head. The truth will come out, he said.

The truth will come out.

I turned to Owen. “You still have the notebook from the lab, right?”

It took him a second to figure out what I was asking, but only a second. The kid was a genius, after all. And when I saw him smile, it was suddenly as if he could hear the same echo.

“I’d say three days. Two, if I don’t sleep,” he answered. “But then what? How?”

I reached into my pocket. Never had a prepaid cell phone been put to better use.

“Yes, Operator, could I please have the main number for the New York Times?”

Sebastian Cole couldn’t take my call fast enough.

“Jesus Christ, you’re alive!” he said. “I was starting to wonder.”

“You and me both,” I said. “But yes, I’m alive. Very much so. Now, do you remember that envelope I gave you? The one you were only supposed to open if I wasn’t?”

“Are you kidding me?” said Sebastian. “I’ve been staring at it every day since you left. I was planning to kill you myself just so I could open it.”

“I’ll save you the time,” I said. “Go ahead... open it.”

“Are you serious?”

“As the Queen Mother,” I said. “And as you read what’s inside, I want you to keep one thing in mind.”

“What’s that?”

“You ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Chapter 111

Inside the White House, dead presidents are nothing more than old paintings. The real currency is the almighty favor, and I’d just done a big one for the Morris administration.

“Thank you again, Trevor, for making this happen,” said Dobson.

He had left the West Wing for the Westin and Sebastian Cole’s corner suite, where I greeted him at the door with a firm handshake and the assurance that “this” — as in, this meeting and what it was in exchange for — was in everyone’s best interests.

The deal I’d brokered was simple. I told Dobson that I’d already gone to Sebastian at the New York Times with the recordings of the serum being used at the black site in Stare Kiejkuty. But a lot had changed since that visit, most of all the revelation by Dobson that the CIA had a mole in the Iranian nuclear program who stood to be exposed. With Karcher now dead and his draconian operation disbanded, there was a choice to be made. A bombshell of a story for the Times versus our country knowing whether Iran had the bomb.

What was an American patriot to do?

Convince the Times editor to stand down, that was what. And in return, Sebastian got unfettered access to the president and his full cooperation for an unprecedented series of in-depth interviews culminating in a book detailing his first term in office. Guaranteed bestseller on the Times list itself. Number one with a bullet.

This meeting was simply to iron out the details.

“Can I get you something to drink?” I asked. I pointed over at a credenza. “They just brought up some fresh coffee, if you want.”

Of course he wanted it. Death, taxes, and Dobson chugging caffeine. “Sure,” he said. “Black, no sugar.”

Right on cue, Sebastian came over to shake hands, launching immediately into a conversation with Dobson about the last time they’d seen each other. It was last year’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner, just a few months after President Morris took office. Jimmy Fallon was hilarious.

“I thought the president was in good form, too,” said Sebastian, or something like that. Whatever it took to keep Dobson occupied.

“Here you go,” I said, returning moments later with the coffee. “Black, no sugar.”

Dobson took a sip. He shot a glance at the mug.

“I know, it’s a little strong, isn’t it?” I said. “Too strong?”

Which was like asking a guy if your handshake was too strong. What’s he going to say?

“No, not at all,” he said. “It’s good.”

“Good,” said Sebastian. “Shall we sit down?”

He led the way over to the hotel’s modernist take on a living room area — one couch opposite two armchairs, a black lacquered table in the middle. There were no place cards, but once Sebastian sat down in one of the armchairs, it was only natural that Dobson would take the couch. Better yet, he sat right in the center. Center stage, if you will.

“Nice room,” said Dobson, looking around.

You should see the other one, dude.

Or, at least, that was what I pictured Owen saying through the wall while watching on his laptop.

The kid really had a thing for adjoining rooms.

Chapter 112

From the other armchair, I watched and listened as Dobson laid out in detail the ways in which Sebastian would be able not only to conduct the one-on-one interviews with the president but also to travel with him once he began his reelection campaign.

“Not the press bus, Cole,” said Dobson. “I mean shotgun, right there next to the man. We’re talking the kind of access that would make Bob Woodward shit his pants with jealousy.”

Sebastian smiled and nodded. In fact, that was pretty much all he allowed himself as he deftly used the cover of his proper British upbringing to come off as agreeable as possible. Owen had made it very clear.

Faster than aspirin but slower than eye drops.

“Clay, do you want some more coffee?” I asked. Five minutes in and I’d already poured him one refill.

Dobson shook me off. “No, I’m all set,” he said.

We’ll see about that, I so wanted to say.

Instead, I simply peeked at my watch and shot a glance over at Sebastian. Finally, and once and for all.

It was time to hear the truth.

“So, any questions so far?” Dobson soon asked. It was clear he was only being polite. This was his end of the bargain, the quid to Sebastian’s quo, and he was sure he’d delivered in spades.

And, in fact, he had. Desperate men know no boundaries.

Sebastian sat back in his armchair, folded his legs, and used the few seconds of complete silence that followed to make it very clear that, yes, he actually did have some questions.

“Have you ever told a lie?” he asked.

Dobson’s reaction was as expected, his eyes narrowing to an incredulous squint. “What kind of a question is that?”

“A rather simple one,” said Sebastian.

Dobson looked at me for help with this suddenly crazy British journalist for the New York Times. I was the broker of this deal, after all.

But I was also a former prosecutor.

“Had you ever met Claire Parker?” I asked.

“What?” said Dobson. “Who?”

“Did you not hear me or do you not know the name?”

“I know the... I mean, I know who she is.”

“You mean was, right? You’re aware that she was murdered in Manhattan a little over a week ago, aren’t you?”

I watched as Dobson looked over my shoulder at the door. It was his way out. Escape. Freedom. From what exactly, he wasn’t sure yet. But it couldn’t be good.

That is, for a lesser man.

And in that moment, right there, a lifetime of ego and arrogance — of Dobson always thinking he was the smartest guy in the room — did exactly what we thought it would. It kept his ass seated square on that couch. Complete and utter inertia.

“Yes, it was all over the news,” he said calmly. “Claire Parker, the writer for the Times, was shot to death in the back of a taxi.”

“Do you know why she was murdered?” I asked.

“It was reported as a robbery,” said Dobson.

“Do you think that’s what it was?”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

The smug expression, the self-satisfaction... he looked like a kid who’d just figured out a board game without reading the rules.

“I don’t know, you tell me,” I said. “Do you know why she was really murdered?”

Dobson opened his mouth to answer, but it was as if the hinges of his jaw had suddenly jammed. Every muscle in his face and neck snapped to attention as if somewhere in his brain a switch had been flipped. And indeed it had.

“No,” he managed to push past his lips, but as soon as he did, it was as if the word had turned around and punched his lights out, his head jolting back and his legs shaking as if the couch had just become an electric chair.

His eyes darted to the table in front of him, the coffee table. He stared at his cup, the realization sinking in. He couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. But he had no choice. He was getting the ultimate taste of his own medicine, and it was going down hard.

So was he.

Chapter 113

“Did you instruct Frank Karcher to have Claire Parker killed?” I asked, and immediately repeated the question, full-throated, over the sound of Dobson desperately trying to fight against the pain. “Did you. Instruct. Frank Karcher. To have Claire Parker killed?”

Even if he wanted to leave now, he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t let him.

But he also had no intention of answering. Forget every word, it was every syllable that had become a struggle — and yet he somehow managed to string two together after sucking in a gasp of air.

“Fuck you!” he bellowed.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the flat-screen against the wall light up. Dobson turned to look, only to realize he was looking at a live feed of himself. Feeling pain was one thing, watching yourself feeling it added a whole new component. Owen was playing for keeps. We all were.

Fuck you back, Dobson. Have you forgotten how your serum works?

Only this wasn’t his serum.

This was the one he’d wished he had from the start. The one that didn’t kill people even if they were being honest. Better yet, it didn’t need to be injected. It could be absorbed into the bloodstream without being compromised by stomach acids.

The only thing Owen couldn’t do was make it tasteless. But strong black coffee was a pretty good masking agent.

I leaned forward, staring into Dobson’s eyes, which had turned red from burst blood vessels. He looked like a demon.

“The only thing that will stop the pain is telling the truth,” I said.

But as I looked at him, his body convulsing so violently it felt as if the entire room were shaking, I realized we both knew that wasn’t true. There was something else that could stop the pain.

Sebastian looked over at me, worried. I could read his face. Is Dobson that deranged? Is he crazy enough to do it?

I shook my head, but it was too late. Dobson had seen Sebastian. And of all things — as his eyes began to leak with red tears, his fists balled so tight I thought they would both snap off at the wrists — he did something that for the first time made me think that, yeah, maybe he was that sick in the head.

He smiled.

I turned away, only to see him again on the television, the smile seemingly wider. He wanted us to know. If I’m going down, I’m taking you all with me.

No. He was bluffing, I was sure of it. Sebastian, on the other hand, wasn’t. He was more than looking at me now. He was pleading.

“Do it,” he said. “Please.”

I put my hand in my pocket, feeling for the cylinder. I knew it was there; I must have checked it twenty times before Dobson arrived. But I had no intention of taking it out, let alone using it.

“Do it!” Sebastian repeated. He was scared to death. Or, more specifically, scared of the murder charge that would be slapped on all of us.

In the cylinder was the antidote. A small syringe with a spring-loaded needle and the ability to negate the effects of the serum in a matter of seconds. “Just in case,” Owen had said.

As in, just in case Dobson would sooner die than confess.

But I wasn’t having it. Or maybe I was simply too angry, too consumed by the desire to see him own up to what he’d done.

Suddenly, I heard the door flung open behind me, the sound of Owen bursting into the room. As fast as he was moving, he managed to keep his voice calm.

“Trevor,” he said. Just my name. That, and all the subtext that went with it. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?

And for the first time since this whole nightmare had started, I was.

I stood and walked slowly over to Dobson, sitting on the coffee table directly in front of him. There would be no more yelling from me, no more demanding that he come clean.

He simply needed to know that I was fine with his decision either way. He had everything to lose, and I had nothing.

“She was pregnant,” I told him. “She was pregnant with my child.”

And with that, I stood up and walked out of frame. The choice was his now, and only his.

Truth or die?