Body of Evidence (Evidence Series) (40 page)

The door opened, and the agent looked amused. “What can I do for you, Ms. Garrett?”

“I need the secretary of state’s phone number.”

R
OBERT
B
ECK ANSWERED
the phone on the first ring; he’d been expecting this call.

The caller didn’t bother with pleasantries. “Are you watching the news?”

“Yes. Stevens rolled.”

“If he knows what’s good for the girl, he’ll take all the blame.”

It didn’t matter what was good for the girl. There was nothing Stevens could do to save Mara Garrett now. “The words of a desperate man are hardly proof,” Robert said.

“Your people fucked up. Your son most of all. We’ve managed to put the lid on the smallpox rumors, but if Garrett manages to produce proof, we’re screwed.”

“Without a blood test, they can’t prove a thing. Our intel into the Center for Disease Control hasn’t shown any tests for smallpox. To convince a judge, Dominick would have to go through the CDC.”

“Our only hope to move forward with the plan is to make Mara Garrett and her blood disappear from the face of the earth.”

Robert needed that bill to pass, and the smallpox bomb was the ideal shortcut to getting the votes he needed in congress. “The incinerator at the Virginia lab. We just need to get her there.”

“You need to take care of Dominick as well. He’ll never believe your son acted alone. And if he becomes attorney general, he’ll have enough power to destroy Raptor.”

“We need to find the fucking safe house where he’s stashed her.”

C
HAPTER
F
ORTY-TWO

C
URT FACED THE
former vice president across the conference table armed with pen and notepad. The man had refused to allow the conversation to be recorded.

“I didn’t know Raptor was after Mara,” he said.

“I find that hard to believe, sir. You aren’t a stupid man.”

Stevens raked his gray hair with his fingers and sighed. “Wanna bet?” He then sat up straight and focused his clear blue eyes on Curt. “I thought it was Evan, obsessing. I never really liked the little shit.”

“I beg your pardon, sir, but if you didn’t like him, why didn’t it upset you that your business partner paid him to date your niece?”

“He didn’t. He paid him to destroy the pictures she took in Egypt. Evan started to date her to get close to her, but he seemed to really care about her.” The man’s wrinkles seemed to have deepened in the last hour.

“If he was paid to destroy the photos, you really should demand a refund.”

“Mara must have switched the memory card, and he destroyed the wrong one. Scared the hell out of me when the Egyptian photos appeared on the AP wire.”

Curt smiled, figuring that must have caused a panic for him and Robert Beck. “Hadn’t you told Mara to release the photos to the AP?”

“Of course. I didn’t want her to think there was anything odd about the trip, and all my other trips had included a publicity photo shoot. But I didn’t think there would
be
any photos to release. Evan said he’d erased them.” The man flashed an ironic smile. “Think of the trouble she’d have saved you if she’d released the photo with the warlord.”

“No such luck.”

“JPAC returned to Hawai’i just days after the arms deal was completed. At that point, we realized she’d probably downloaded the photos to her computer. It was necessary for Evan to stay close to her.”

Curt’s hand clenched into a fist. “You paid an amoral sociopath mercenary to date your niece. You’re truly uncle-of-the-year material.”

“I didn’t know that’s what Evan was. He cared for her.
I
didn’t like him, but she was happy.”

He’d give anything to be able to punch this man. Evan had emotionally denigrated Mara to the point she’d lost sight of her own value, and after she ended the relationship, the man assaulted her. “Your definition of happy is seriously fucked.”

“I didn’t know.” He dropped his head into his hands. “I thought he loved her. When she broke up with him, he went nuts, so when I heard the jet had exploded, I thought he’d truly lost it.”

“You’re full of justification for ignorantly endangering Mara, but how do you excuse bringing a Janjaweed militia leader to a JPAC deployment?”

Stevens lifted his head from his hands and sat up straight. “I was trading arms for hostages.”

Curt set down his pen and stared at the man, incredulous at his audacity. “You’re claiming you pulled an Iran-Contra?”

“Yes.”

Curt didn’t begin to believe him but was curious about the story the man had obviously worked hard to fabricate. “Fine. I’ll bite. How did it start?”

The former vice president sighed. “I first got to know Raptor and Robert Beck during my downsizing government initiative—continuing the work Al Gore started when he was vice president. Beck’s organization interested me because they didn’t have to go through sixteen layers of bureaucracy to buy a ream of paper. They were more efficient, cheaper, and got results. Robert Beck began talks with me toward the end of my term about joining the organization as chief of operations. I liked the idea.

“Just before my term ended, those six reporters were taken hostage in Darfur. I worked with the State Department, trying to negotiate their release, and it became clear it wouldn’t happen through diplomatic channels. I also happened to be sick to death of diplomatic channels.”

The man glanced down at his hands, which curled into fists. “The president couldn’t do anything. The military couldn’t get close to the Janjaweed. The CIA was having their own problems. We benefited from their intel, but Raptor operates on different rules and could do more. I approached Robert Beck, and he and I worked out an arrangement.

“It took us months to pull it off—yes, after my Secret Service detail was gone. Two of Raptor’s top operatives posed as my detail so Mara and her JPAC team wouldn’t get suspicious.”

“Why go to all that trouble?” Curt asked.

“We wanted as many Raptor operatives to provide security as possible. The Janjaweed bastard wasn’t the most trustworthy.”

“Yet you gave him advanced weaponry.”

“It was the only way to save the hostages. Mara’s work provided the perfect cover. I had a reason to be there; the militia leader would go unnoticed by the JPAC team. While we were there, handing over arms, the hostages were being released in Sudan. And US government officials were, for the most part, unaware their lives were bought with guns. Not even the president knew.”

“Protecting him from scandal or yourself from prison?”

“Myself. We hoped if we operated outside government channels, no one would find out.”

“But I started investigating the influence peddling and picked up the trail.”

“We managed to destroy the paper trail, but it was too late. Then you had me on obstruction.” He paused and stared at Curt. “I’m not ashamed of what I did. If the hostages had been killed, the US would have become embroiled in another Middle East/North Africa conflict, and frankly, our military is stretched thin as it is.”

“So noble. But you still armed a known war criminal.”

Stevens shrugged. “In politics you have to make deals with the devil if you want results.”

Curt leaned forward and glared at the man whose covert deals had caused the woman he loved to face a firing squad. “Tell me about North Korea. I want to know about the smallpox bombs.”

T
HE PROSECUTOR’S WORDS
gave Andrew a jolt. “How do you know about the bomb?”

“Bombs. Plural. I know about them because your niece got sick while in a North Korean jail cell.”

That knocked the wind out of him. “Mara had smallpox?”

“Fortunately, she’d been vaccinated and only had a mild case.”

Blood left his face and gathered with acid in his stomach. “The North Koreans didn’t… They could have assumed she’d been sent to infect them. They would have killed her…”

“I believe that was their plan, but they didn’t know about her illness. She was able to keep it hidden.”

“She must have been terrified.”

The Shark nodded. “She wouldn’t have been there, wouldn’t have been terrified, if Raptor operatives hadn’t used her.”

Guilt swamped him. He’d failed Mara yet again. “I didn’t know about that until she said it on the stand. I’d only heard the official version—she’d fought with Evan and stormed off. Mara is…temperamental… It made sense.”

The younger man’s face reddened and his eyes narrowed. “Do you know your niece at all, sir?”

“Of course I do! She’s like a daughter to me.”

“I am so fucking sick of that line. From both of you. Obviously, neither one of you has taken a solid look at the other since she was in braces. Mara is not ‘temperamental,’ and you are not a goddamned saint.”

Andrew was taken aback. “She thinks I’m a saint?”

“Don’t take it to heart. She tends toward delusion at times and thought
I
was a superhero.”

Andrew smiled. For a moment—just one small instant—the stress that was his constant companion faded. “Is there something between you two?” He had to admit the prosecutor would be worlds better for Mara than the mercenary.

“Not anymore. Bringing her in to testify killed any heroic thoughts she had about me.”

“I’d offer to talk to her on your behalf, but I have a feeling she won’t listen to me after today.” He paused. “But I’m glad you put her on the stand, because I was about to go down silently to protect an ideal that doesn’t exist.”

“Explain.”

“You were right about everything. The arms deal, and the cover-up to hide it. Iran-Contra taught us even though the intention is good, the American people are not fond of arming enemies.”

“But you did it anyway.” Dominick remained impassive. The only flicker of emotion he’d shown was when Mara was mentioned.

“I did. Then your office began to investigate some of my previous political dealings. One thing led to another, and the next thing I knew we were shredding files and doing our best to make the arms deal disappear. It became clear my only hope was the cover-up would be enough to beat the charges.” Andrew looked at the man who’d put him through the wringer over the past year. “It wasn’t. My own lawyer thought I was guilty.”

“Because you are.”

“True.”

“Get to the smallpox, Mr. Stevens.”

“My initial plan for the Raptor/JPAC joint venture came about because JPAC had access to places where even the CIA can’t operate. I knew about the smallpox bomb—I made a point of learning whatever I could when I had access to state secrets in my capacity as vice president. My plan was for Raptor to locate the smallpox bomb and destroy it.”

“It’s a good story. Your niece might even buy it.”

“We’d already successfully destroyed two other bombs.”

Dominick tilted his head in interest. “Smallpox?”

“No. A Cold War–era anthrax bomb in China and a chemical weapon in Vietnam.”

“Can you prove this? That you located and destroyed them?”

“Of course not. We weren’t nearly so sloppy after the arms deal.”

Dominick sat back again. “I’m not fond of fairy tales, Mr. Stevens.”

Andrew sat forward. “I don’t give a shit if you think I’m guilty. I’ve already accepted I’m going to prison. What I need is for you to believe Beck is guilty. I realize now he developed his own ideas about our mission. He knows how to conduct covert arms deals, and now he’s got a smallpox bomb in his possession.”