Capitol Reflections (53 page)
“To borrow from Mark Twain, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. You know those fancy hammers they sell? The ones with the seatbelt cutters? Well, they really work. I figured that as long as my car was sitting in the creek and people thought I was inside, I might as well stay dead. It was clearly no accident that my steering went out when it did, and I wasn’t going to wait around for round two. I tracked down Rick here, who got me under cover. I know it must have been hard, especially on you, Gwen, but I thought it wise if the people on our tail thought I was out of the picture. It left me free to review some literature and talk with colleagues, as I originally planned.”
Gwen’s face fairly radiated with relief. Mark found himself nearly as happy for her as he was for Karn.
“And you, Rick,” said Mark. “How did you escape the helicopters?”
“I was apprehended on the highway and put into a dark blue sedan by the same guy who picked you up in front of the bed-and -breakfast. But then the damnedest thing happened. I woke up this morning in an apartment building—didn’t have a clue as to where I was—and my captors were gone.”
Lane Chase was a fifty-two-year-old man who looked like a thirty-five-year-old George Hamilton. He wore a subdued gray suit, and spoke in careful, measured sentences. “Representative Mecklenberg has filled me in on the Henry Broome and Mickey Spangler situation. He’s also detailed your suspicions about Pequod’s coffee and the unorthodox practices of Transpacific Coffee Imports, as well as the files implicating Gregory Randall’s involvement. It’s only a hunch at this point, but my guess is that someone with a great deal of power decided to back off and let Rick go. They think that you have too much information and that they either had to kill all of you—not easy, as we’ve discovered—or implicate themselves further with whatever murders they manage to commit. I would imagine there are quite a number of document shredders working at maximum output right now … Oh, and I’ve already checked for a Transpac warehouse in Pedregal—it’s no longer there.”
“Makes sense,” said Mark, who’d seen his share of nefarious activities from a reporter’s point of view. When Enron started to resemble the
Titanic
, both people and documents had disappeared with amazing rapidity.
Titanic
, both people and documents had disappeared with amazing rapidity.
“We’ve got an update on the coffee, though,” Gwen said. “Ted Gallagher over at NIH has confirmed that Pequod’s beans have a mutation, one that Peter says originated from Jamie Robinson’s experiments at Princeton in 1977. The caffeine molecule is the mirror image of the one that occurs in nature; it’s called dextro-caffeine. Gallagher thinks that it might be acting similarly to an amphetamine in the way it binds to receptor sites in the brain. He’s running further tests now.”
Karn had a troubled look on his face. “I’ve been looking at the issue of caffeine as an optical isomer. I’ve also spoken to Mr. Chase about the matter. The verdict isn’t in, of course, until we get more scientific data, but some might argue that, under the law, d-caffeine is still just caffeine. Everyone here knows where my sympathies lie, but coffee is a whole food. The molecule is organic, and Pequod’s does absolutely nothing to it, as far as we know.”
“I’m going to speak with the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services,” said Chase. “We’re in uncharted legal territory here. There’s no telling how high in the FDA this conspiracy goes. Right now, our more immediate problem is Senator Henry Broome.”
Mark looked puzzled. “In what way?”
“He’s disappeared,” replied Chase. “No one can locate him.”
“He may just be shacked up with one of his girlfriends,” offered Peter.
“If he knows what’s up with Transpac,” said Mark, “I think he’s busy taking care of business.”
“By the way,” Chase said, “I’ve released Mickey Spangler to his family. New Jersey authorities didn’t argue with my decision given his cost to their hospital unit. They were even more accommodating when I told them it was related to a federal investigation. I have people looking for Broome, but I’m not going to go public with our suspicions regarding the death of Jamie Robinson or the two college cheerleaders since the only evidence we have is a few words from a dying man. Given Broome’s complicity in Transpacific affairs, I’m inclined to believe Mr. Spangler. That said, we have to proceed with caution.
“If you’ll excuse me now, I have some meetings to attend. I’ll provide each of you with undercover protection, but my guess is that you aren’t on anyone’s hit list at this point. I suggest that we meet here two or three days from now and discuss where we stand. In the meantime, we will hopefully have a line on Senator Broome and some further reports from Dr. Gallagher.”
“Thank you, sir, for your time,” Rick said.
Chase smiled and stood, the sign that he had to move on with his scheduled appointments.
Rick turned to his colleagues. “Time to get some food and rest.”
“I can finally visit Jack,” said Gwen.
Mark smiled faintly as everyone filed out of the office.
75
Aboard the Gulfstream V, Henry concentrated on his drink. His fifth scotch on the rocks had done nothing but take the barest edge off his somber musings, and he was getting frustrated.
He thought about poor, stupid, dying Mickey Spangler. He paid employees of the New Jersey correctional facility well to keep him abreast of Mickey’s status through the years. Even before that, Henry hired local PIs to keep Spangler in his sights. Now, in light of the latest news, Henry had to believe that the old truck driver and petty criminal had spilled his guts. Why else would he be released into the attorney general’s custody? Spangler had nothing left to lose. Jamie Robinson meant nothing to him. He had no idea of how the events on Washington Street in 1977 had changed the course of so many lives.
The lone flight attendant served Henry his sixth scotch silently and left him alone. Henry peered out the window at the earth below.
The plane was cruising over the Smokey Mountains as it sped toward Oklahoma where Anne still maintained the Davidson family ranch. Henry vaguely recalled enjoyable moments early in their marriage when the two of them had used it as a vacation spot.
It was another lifetime.
Spangler wasn’t Henry’s only problem, though. Eddie Karn was back from the dead and getting cozy with the attorney general. Chase would no doubt want to question Henry about the botched attempt on Karn’s life. Henry played no personal role in the accident—that was Tabula Rasa’s doing—but he’d still be questioned and he’d still come out looking bad. With Spangler’s testimony, it wouldn’t help to have a suspicious auto accident on his doorstep, too. It would be all too easy to assume that Henry had perceived Karn as a threat to his commercial interests, and that he had decided to do something about it.
And then there was the debacle with that damned reporter stumbling onto Transpac files. Deleting files and shipping the coffee straight to Seattle was a simple enough adjustment, but Henry knew that Stern had seen sensitive documents and would stop at nothing to get to the nitty-gritty details about Transpacific Coffee Imports—and about Dieter Tassin’s role as well.
He drained his scotch and chewed on an ice cube, signaling the attendant for another.
Then, of course, there was Anne. Henry still couldn’t believe that his own wife had such boldness in her. Forcing his chief aide to resign, threatening to reveal his dalliances, and then meeting with Phillip Trainor—clearly, she was deluded enough to see herself as capable of filling Henry’s shoes and carrying on the family business. Ridiculous.
He’d have to deal with all of it. On his own if necessary. He wasn’t going to let anything in his past screw up his future.
The jet landed ninety minutes later on a stretch of flat terrain in the northwest corner of the Davidsons’ two-thousand-acre Wildcat Ranch.
Henry’s thoughts centered on how to get his derailed career back on track. The powers that be wouldn’t let him fall all the way—they had too much at stake, but he’d have to call in every single one of his markers from over the years. Luckily, there were lots of them.
His plane was met by a Jeep, driven by a Mexican man who’d worked for the Davidson family since Anne’s grandfather hired him three decades earlier.
“Hello, Señor Henry,” said Reynaldo Rohin. “The main house, sir?”
“Yes, Reynaldo. The main house. How are your grandchildren?”
“Very well, Señor Henry. Very well, indeed.”
Henry’s BlackBerry buzzed as he entered the enormous recreation room in the main house. An e-mail from Eddie Karn. How the hell did that maggot get Henry’s most private e-mail address?
Henry was too curious to delete it without a look at its contents. The brevity surprised him. Karn was normally such a loquacious bastard.
TEXT MESSAGE: Henry … who’s in the dumpster now?
Henry dropped his BlackBerry on the mahogany desk and proceeded to open a bottle of thirty-year-old scotch. He poured two ounces into a glass, and went into his private study.
Karn’s message got to him. More than he would have expected. It also made one point clear—the buzzards were circling overhead. Karn couldn’t have gotten the e-mail address without access deep within Henry’s organization—some of the people who’d covered for him in the past had dropped their protection.
With a chill, Henry Broome realized that they were setting him up to be the fall guy.
Well screw all of them. Maybe he’d never realize his dream of occupying the Oval Office, but he could leave his enemies guessing—and his “friends” as well. Henry hadn’t allowed anyone to bully him at Cottage, and he wasn’t going to allow anyone to do it now.
Henry finished his scotch. He reached for the bottle again, but it was empty.
Good thing I have such a capacity to hold my liquor, he thought. I don’t feel a thing.
Good thing I have such a capacity to hold my liquor, he thought. I don’t feel a thing.
He stood and unlocked a drawer, taking out his 1860 silver-plated Colt revolver. Oh, but it was a beauty. Very old, but impeccably maintained and rebuilt over the years. It was his legacy from Henry Broome I, who claimed to have taken it off a Union Officer in the last days of the Civil War.
Always clean, always ready.
Henry called the airstrip, ordered the jet fueled, and requested a flight plan for Lanai. The pilot with whom Henry spoke started to say something about his duty-day and FAA-required rest periods, but Henry brushed aside his objections.
Less than an hour later, the ranch car delivered Henry back to the airstrip and he climbed aboard the jet.
The trip promised to be a calm one, and Henry allowed himself to relax.
The Gulfstream V, fueled for an hour’s reserve beyond its intended destination, navigated its way toward Lanai, the most distant of the Hawaiian Islands.
Henry’s mirth was tempered only by occasional glimpses of his pilots’ slumped-over bodies. They disturbed his sense of order. He sat in the owner’s armchair, sipping scotch and feeling the power of the Rolls Royce BR719 engines behind him. As the cabin altitude climbed through fifteen thousand feet, he began to experience a sense of power and euphoria. Whether induced by hypoxia or by the knowledge that he was checking out on his own terms, Henry was at peace and satisfied to be playing the last act. He would keep them guessing forever.
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