Gospel (28 page)

‘Geez, Cavanaugh,' said McKay. ‘I can see where you're going with this, but that's a very big leap.'

‘Maybe not,' said David, tossing the weathered ball across the office to Joe. ‘We've been assuming Bradshaw's death was largely motivated by a need to protect the activities and identities of the four, but what if it is bigger than that? What if Bradshaw's murder was
always
part of the original plan? What if John really does want to become . . .'

‘
President
?' asked Susan, incredulous.

‘Well, you know what they say about Latham, that if re-elected, he won't see out the term – which means his second in charge becomes the most powerful individual in the country. I know it's a stretch,' said David, sensing their scepticism. ‘But maybe Susan is right? Maybe those names weren't chosen at random and if they weren't then . . .'

‘Then whatever these guys are up to, killing Tom Bradshaw was just the beginning,' said Mannix.

They all said nothing, Joe tossing the ball back to David who snapped it into his mitt.

‘We need to think about this,' said Joe.

‘We need to sleep,' said McKay.

‘And after that,' said David, the adrenalin still flowing, ‘we need to work out how we can get in to see CIA Director Ryan. We have to find out what he knows – and maybe, if he is one of the good guys like we suspect, tell him what he doesn't.'

‘I
t was premeditated,' said Sara, blowing a loose brown ringlet away from her left eye. ‘The chair was tampered with at least three days prior to the accident,' she went on, taking a seat across from David's overcrowded desk and opening her yellow legal pad to where she had made notes from their independent technical advisor. ‘The modular extender bolt had been loosened and greased with motor oil and the oil in question was starting to coagulate which means it had been applied at least three days prior to Mulch's fatal trip down the Bridge Club stairs.

‘My guess is Roger Katz has the same information which means he'll be pushing for murder one.' She put down the pad and looked across at him. ‘Which
also
means Hector Gabbit is in some serious trouble, and at this point I have no idea what the hell we can do to save him.'

David looked across at her, hearing everything she had said and thinking about something else altogether. He felt so guilty for not sharing this with her. He loved this girl. He loved everything about her. Her passion, her determination, her tireless devotion to protecting those she cared about, her honesty, her openness, her trust. But deep down he knew he was terrified what his involvement in the Montgomery case might do to her – to
them
. For at the centre of this investigation was the woman he once called his wife, the woman he once loved more than life itself, and
he feared Karin's intrusion into what he had with Sara might jeopardise their future forever.

‘David? David, are you okay?'

‘What? Sure. I'm sorry, Sara. It's just, you know, Gabbit is a good guy and we . . .'

‘No,' she said.

‘What?'

Sara put her yellow pad on top of a pile of manila folders at the edge of David's desk and leant forward over the debris to take his hand.

‘Gabbit is a worry, that's for sure, but I know you, David, and it's more than that. For the past few days you've been quiet, distant, preoccupied. Is it the Montgomery thing? The press? Because if it is, we could finish the Gabbit trial and get away for a while. We could take a late summer holiday, trek west to Hawaii, make like beached whales for a couple of weeks and do nothing but swim, read and sleep as late as we like, or, maybe not sleep at all.'

She smiled then, and he knew she was hoping for one in return. But all he managed was a strained expression of agreement. He felt the now familiar sliver of guilt slip down his spine as her eyes seemed to cloud over with doubt, disappointment, rejection. He had to tell her, he had to . . .

‘What is it David?' she said at last. ‘Please. I want to help.'

He looked at her then, on the brink of telling her everything, about Joe and his staggering suspicions, about the motions to delay he had just filed to a Los Angeles court, about his ex-wife's incredible request, and about his strange compulsion to solve a mystery that could drag him into a quagmire from which there was no return.

But in the end he said nothing, for in that moment, one simple, all-too-clear fact flooded into his consciousness and wiped all the rest away. If these four Gospel guys were as evil as they suspected, then anyone,
everyone
who crossed them could be in imminent danger. Nancy Doyle was living proof of that, and now Joe and his two homicide friends, Croker and maybe even himself were walking on some seriously perilous ground.

And there it was
, he realised, the true crux of the matter, the real source of all his fears. He was afraid for Sara, afraid of involving her and even that she may already be involved by association.

But he was also afraid for Karin.

Karin, who had told him and Lord knows who else that her husband was being framed, Karin who seemed oblivious of the consequences of such accusations, Karin who was so sure of her husband's innocence that she had swallowed her considerable pride to ask him, to
beg
him, to represent the man she knew he had once hated more than any other.

Bottom line, he feared, if Karin went public with her claims of conspiracy, if she didn't have someone to advise her, to silence her, to
protect
her, then she could be . . .

‘
David
?'

David re-focused and took her hand. ‘I'm sorry, Sara. It's just some stuff Joe was telling me the other night, about a case he was working – about a woman who lost her husband and son in the space of a couple of months.'

A half truth.

‘And then this setback with Gabbit. Sometimes this job, well, sometimes it just gets you down, the injustice of it all.'

He felt sick.

‘I know,' she said squeezing his hand and he sensed her relief that that was all it was. ‘But just remember, whatever else, you have me and I'm always going to be here.'

At that point David looked into her eyes and hated himself more than he had ever hated himself in his entire life.

‘Sara,' he said at last. ‘Promise me that whatever happens, you will never forget how much I love you.'

‘Oh David, how could I?' she said, reaching across the table to touch his face as if in an attempt to wipe the doubt from his troubled expression. ‘Don't you see what you mean to me? How you have changed my life? Before I met you I was so afraid to see beyond life's limitations, so terrified to look in the mirror and see someone that had no place in this world.

‘But I was wrong. I
do
have a place. You made me forget what I
didn't
have and made me realise what I
did
.' She looked at him then and he could see the small pools of tears gathering slowly in her eyes. ‘Don't you see?' she went on. ‘You have shown me who I
am
, and better still, who I can be. I will
never
be able to repay you for that. You mean everything to me, David Cavanaugh, and nothing,
nothing
you could say or do will ever change the way I feel.'

G
od he was good
, thought Professor Stuart Montgomery. He could pick them, couldn't he? Brilliant actually, his
sense
for women – uncanny, genius! For it was he who had seen the potential in her in the first place, rescued her from the second-class obscurity that befell many of America's more intelligent members of the minority classes and taught her, by example, the art of ‘pulling one out of the box'.

Good Lord, he laughed to himself, as he sat sipping a rather diluted Earl Grey provided by an appreciative prison guard by the name of Jack (or was it Mack?) whose daughter was born with a hole in her heart and who was most grateful for some considered and learned advice. Jack had kindly granted him some further privacy in the cold seclusion of Suffolk County Jail's interview room three, despite Karin having left over half an hour ago.

At first her proposal seemed ridiculous. Totally obnoxious. But further consideration proved to it to be quite inspired. Cavanaugh of all people! He had no idea how she had managed it. I mean, what on earth would have convinced the poor sod to take him on? Perhaps she convinced him of her husband's innocence, perhaps he was still in love with her, perhaps they were bonking each other stupid in that $500 per night hotel suite the Professor was no doubt paying for, but in all honesty, he couldn't give a toss because his wife's first husband was just what he needed.

Cavanaugh was the highly respected, all-American goody-two-shoes who last year defended a black woman against the accusations of a powerful white Senator. He was the sandy-haired local boy with a reputation for defending the underdog, and the Professor was more than happy to play the underdog, if that was what the scenario required. After all, America loved an underdog and right now he was in need of the savviest PR make-over in history.

Cavanaugh was not the obvious choice – but as Karin had so astutely identified, that indeed, was the beauty of it. He was smart enough; charismatic in a middle class sort of way that reeked of that ‘sensitive but macho' sentimentality that Americans, in all their colonial immaturity, seemed to treasure. He was not from a blue chip firm – in fact, he was not even partner in his own, he had never sought high profile cases for the publicity, billed a client more than the going rate or, Montgomery suspected, worn an Italian suit in his whole entire life.

And then there was the obvious advantage – the fact that he was the first husband, the man unceremoniously dumped by his wife for a surgeon so much older, smarter and richer. If Cavanaugh, of all people, could not only acknowledge but fight for the Professor's innocence, then surely the rest of America could deign to do so as well? He was innocent until proven guilty, after all – a fact that every man and his star-spangled banner had failed, at least so far, to acknowledge.

And so he would play along for, in the end, he had nothing to lose for three very simple reasons.

Firstly, Karin would leave him – and it was necessary, at least at this point in time, to keep his wife firmly by his side.

Secondly, he knew Karin was right; he
was
an ambitious manipulator who knew how to work the Washington system – and as such also knew those who had orchestrated his demise must hold positions of significant power in the upper echelons of government. These were intelligent, covetous, influential people who, he had no doubt, had devised what they saw as a foolproof strategy to achieve their goals. He was not just a convenient fall guy, but a superlative scapegoat whose entrapment they had coordinated from the very outset, and as such, he knew these people were dangerous – extremely so, and would stop at nothing to reach their objectives. He had his suspicions regarding their identities but he would have
to tread carefully when it came to exposing them. For, and he was sure of this, one wrong move would end his life. That is why Karin's choice of attorney had been so intuitive. From what he knew of Cavanaugh, he was not afraid of taking on the ‘big guys' and big these guys were. As big as you get on the benchmarks of power and greed.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, he hoped that his wife was also right about one other thing, and as he sat here, alone, in this cold desolate space, he aspired to the notion that there
was
some small degree of compassion, some tiny morsel of humanitarianism somewhere deep inside of him that would ideally justify a . . . well, he supposed it was a miracle. He had witnessed miracles. His profession had given him the gift of seeing the unthinkable, observing the unexplainable and beholding a reality built entirely on faith. He was not a religious man, but he was smart enough to accept that logic and science did not always rule the day.

And so, he would sit and wait and pray that that
one
piece of action he undertook alone and under pressure on the night of Tom Bradshaw's death – that
one act
of hope of which no one was aware, would be enough to save him. It was idealistic nonsense, of course, for surely he would have known if what he had done had made a difference, but he prayed above all else that this was one of those times when reason and commonsense gave way to faith and conviction, when slim chances were given their time of day, and the pure power of ‘truth' was enough to set things right.

There it was again, the banging. But now it was getting louder, more aggressive.

Bang, bang, bang, bang
.

King had had enough. Ramirez was obviously not in his makeshift office which sat adjacent to King's own north-facing enclave in Boston's downtown FBI offices. He had no idea where his boss was, and was sick of taking his messages every time Deidre, his ‘none-too-happy to be displaced' Washington-based PA, decided to slip out for a fag.

‘Jesus, man,' said King, rounding his door to see his Evidence Response Team Chief Howard Hackenbacker pounding on Ramirez's locked office door.

An Evidence Response Team – or ERT – is a group of highly-trained and well-equipped FBI personnel who specialise in organising and conducting
major evidence recovery operations. They manage the identification, collection, and preservation of forensic evidence at crime scenes – and then send the evidence to the FBI's world-renowned Laboratory in Quantico for analysis.

‘He's obviously not in there, Brains, maybe you could leave a post-it on his secretary's desk instead of trying to break his door down.'

Howie Hackenbacker got the name of ‘Brains', not just because he was razor sharp, but also because he resembled the character of ‘Brains' from the 1960s hit TV show
Thunderbirds
. It did not help that the character ‘Brains' – an animated puppet with big blue ‘Coke bottle' eye glasses – had once given himself an alias of Mr Hackenbacker in one of his dangerous investigatory adventures, and that Howie sported a pair of turquoise-rimmed glasses of his own. Anyone would think the guy liked the moniker, and was just trying to play true to form. Which, knowing Howie and his genius eccentricities, was most likely the case.