Lady Liberty (21 page)

Dark circles, sunken eyes; apparently everyone had had a rough night.

What had kept Cap awake? Austin Stone sat down on a visitor’s chair in front of the senator’s desk. Sybil being dead or alive wouldn’t do it, though Cap wouldn’t be sorry to learn she was dead. Certain of that, Austin found this summons even more mysterious. Cap rarely scheduled appointments before eleven. “Morning.”

“Morning.” Cap waited for Jean to set down their coffee cups and leave the office. When she closed the door, he went on. “This is a damned awkward situation with Sybil, Austin. I’m not sure what to say. Are you grieving or celebrating?”

“Neither, yet. I’m going insane, waiting for final word on whether or not she’s dead.”

“I met with President Lance this morning. It’s genuine. He’s grieving.”

An even earlier meeting? This was serious. “For Sybil, or for the others?”

“I think for Sybil.” Cap sipped from his cup. His hand trembled. “There’s no sense in pussyfooting around. Is there anything in Sybil’s past that would leave her open to blackmail?”

Austin didn’t need to reminisce to respond, but Cap expected serious consideration, so he gave it. His life would have been easier if there had been something he could have used as leverage to wrestle controlling interest in Secure Environet from her clutches. But even the best detectives money could buy hadn’t been able to find a thing on her.

Her refusal to sell him the stock baffled him and them. The divorce had been final for over a year, but she still wouldn’t sell or revoke that damned blind trust. One thing everyone agreed on was that money never had motivated Sybil. She’d always had more than she could spend, and she spent judiciously—mostly funding charities that helped kids anonymously.

When Sybil was eighteen, her parents had crossed paths with a couple of lions on safari in Africa and lost. Being an only child, she had inherited their fortune. Before marrying, she had made some wise investments and had earned a second fortune. Her stock in Secure Environet wasn’t essential to her financial stability, it only added to the heap. Instead of being a member of the “have” class, his bitch of an ex-wife was one of the “have mores.” Austin had known she was filthy rich, but who could have predicted she’d be an ambitious, bleeding heart who wanted nothing more than to do altruistic things? Such a waste.

Austin had brought his own fortune to the marriage, though most of his assets had been on paper. Since then he had secured sufficient Department of Defense contracts for his security devices and systems to make him an extremely wealthy man. He also had done well at selling his secure-system devices to the private corporate sector,
though they only accounted for about 17 percent of Envi-ronet’s gross income. The rest came from contracts only Austin knew existed—contracts facilitated through Gregor Faust. Austin had been in a position to buy back Sybil’s stock for years, but she had consistently refused to sell. Even his divorce attorney hadn’t found out why, and the judge had refused to order her to cite her reasons. Stone couldn’t force her to sell, short of murdering her. He felt certain her decision had nothing to do with spite; she wasn’t built that way.

“Austin?” Cap cast him a questioning look.

“I’d have to say blackmail is extremely unlikely. There’s nothing hidden in her past that could be used against her. Not that I’ve been able to uncover.”

Cap frowned. “Then why has she been passing envelopes to an old man at the Vietnam Wall every morning? Any insight on that?”

“You suspect her of treason?” Austin chuckled.

Cap didn’t appreciate the humor. Deep creases lined his face, nose to mouth. “It’s possible.”

“It’s outrageous, Cap.” Austin shifted on his seat. “Trust me. The only thing Sybil allows herself to love is this country. She’s a bitch, a pain in the ass, and she might do a lot of things, but committing treason just isn’t one of them.”

“So you have no insight to offer, then?”

“Only that whoever told you she’s crossed over is wrong.” Austin’s mind whirled. What exactly was going on here? The senator wasn’t sharing information, he was on a fishing expedition. “She wouldn’t do anything that even gave the appearance of any wrongdoing.” That was a safe bet. Otherwise he wouldn’t be crippled by her damn blind trust. “Think about it, Cap. Sybil? Jeopardize her precious career?”

“I agree that she wouldn’t, but she is giving him something, damn it.” The deep lines crept up his face and creased
Cap’s forehead, and the tremor in his hand grew stronger. He set his steaming cup down. It chinked against its saucer. “Odds are slim he’s blackmailing her over anything like a secret lover.”

A lover? Sybil?
The senator might permanently employ half the PIs in D.C. to dig up everything possible on her. He might have moles inside the White House and the inside track to her office through a source he refused to name. But for all his information, Cap Marlowe still didn’t know Sybil at all. Not at all. “Zero odds on that.”

Cap hiked a gray brow. “Is that your opinion, or Richard Barber’s?”

“It’s mine and Winston’s, actually” Austin revealed a secondary White House source.

“Winston? I thought Barber was your inside contact.”

“He is, and he agrees with us. She lives like a nun. No lovers, no discreet liaisons, no occasional dates. Not even an escort to professional functions.”

Cap picked up a paper clip, flipped it end for end. “Is she a lesbian?”

“No evidence of that, either.” Stone sighed. To maintain credibility with Cap, he had to give a balanced view, though defending Sybil irritated him. “For the past year, she’s had nothing that could even loosely be termed a personal relationship.”

“That’s abnormal.”

“It’s her fulfilling a promise,” Austin said, passing along White House, grapevine gossip. “When she filed for the divorce, she made Lance some promise about her personal conduct. Her only regular contact is with Gabby Kincaid. They still phone each other twice a month.”

“Who the hell is Gabby Kincaid?” Cap shoved aside a stack of files, centered his cup on his desk blotter.

“Gabrielle Kincaid,” Austin said. “She’s a judge down in Florida, a righteous do-gooder like Sybil. They were roommates in college.”

“Any evidence of a relationship between her and Sybil?”

“Oh, yes.” And Austin had hated both of them for it, for making him feel like an outsider who would never be invited in. “A strong friendship—more like sisters. But nothing romantic, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“So this Gabby could be involved in the Wall business.”

“I have no reason to believe that, but if Sybil’s ass is in a jam and she calls for help, Gabby is the only person she would call. And maybe Westford,” he amended. “But to call anyone, she’d have to feel she had no other option.” Sybil had always been maddeningly independent. That was one of her worst traits.

“Unless she’s dead.”

Austin agreed. “Unless she’s dead.”

Cap digested and seemed to have heartburn from the results. He paused a moment, as if working through something in his mind. “Before I discuss anything more, I want you to know that I’m counting on your complete discretion.”

Finally they were getting to the reason Cap had summoned him. Austin had been feeding him information to use against Sybil since she had been elected and had forced him into putting their assets into that blind trust. Most of Austin’s Department of Defense contracts were approved by the Armed Services Committee, which Cap chaired. Nothing in the defense budget got through appropriations without his seal of approval. Hadn’t Austin continued to feed Cap inside information on Sybil through his White House associates? By this time, shouldn’t his discretion be a moot point? It should be, but Cap evidently needed reassurance, so Austin gave it to him. “Discretion is a given between us.”

“Almost everyone thinks Sybil is dead.” From the flat line of Cap’s lips, he could say more, but didn’t. “I’d have to see her body to be convinced.”

So would Austin.

Cap tossed the paper clip onto his desk, stood up, and then opened his combination lock wall safe. “Something else is going on here. Maybe you can help me figure it out.”

Austin memorized the tumbles:
Twenty. Six. Forty.
“I’ll do what I can.”

“I’m counting on that.” Marlowe withdrew an envelope, removed a silver key.

Austin’s heart skipped a beat, then plummeted. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “What is that?”

“I’m hoping you can tell me.” Marlowe passed the key.

Austin took it, stunned and furious and doing his damnedest to keep his voice noncommittal. “I’m not sure,” he lied. He knew exactly what kind of key he held in his palm.

“Can you find out what it’s for, or what it opens?” Cap stood rigid, as if a sharp movement would crack his spine. “I need to know”

Stone looked up at Cap. “Where did you get this?”

“I don’t know.” Marlowe blinked hard. “A messenger from Ground Serve delivered it, but when Jean checked, they had no record of a delivery to my office.”

“When was this?” Austin struggled to keep his tone civil.

Cap hesitated, as if debating the wisdom of telling him. “Two months ago.”

“Two months
?
”
Austin’s stomach furled and cold rage seeped out of his every pore.

“I didn’t report it.” Cap smacked the heel of his fist against the back of his chair.

By regulation, the report was mandatory. “Why not?”

“Because I didn’t know who sent the damn thing, what it was to, or why I’d received it.”

Austin could enlighten the man. He knew the answers to Cap’s questions only too well. And his knowing changed everything.

Sybil could be alive.

Faust, the double-crossing son of a bitch, was going to regret this. Everyone was going to regret this. He was sick of people putting the screws to him; as sick of it as he had been of living in Sybil’s shadow. He wanted power, and, by God, he would have it. “I see.”

“You really don’t. Not yet.” Cap sank down in his chair, swiveled to face Austin. “A couple hours after the delivery, Jean took an anonymous call. What the man said was unusual enough that she felt I should speak to him personally. I don’t know who he was, but he said that when the time came, I’d know what to do with the key”

“And you think the time has come now?”

Cap nodded. “I haven’t been officially notified, but I’ve had some people checking on why Lance pulled Sybil out of the peace talks and ordered her return.”

“Media reports say the talks broke down.” Including Cap’s friend, Sam Sayelle.

“My ass, they broke down.” Cap leaned forward over his desk. “If talks had broken down, Lance would be on his way to Geneva. No one, including the UN, wants a damn world war. Peris and Abdan both have nukes. What nation is going to sit with its thumb up its ass and wait to see if they use them?”

None. No nation could afford to be wrong. “But the diplomats haven’t left Geneva. Maybe they’re waiting for Lance to bury Sybil and then go over.” That seemed logical—provided Sybil was dead.

“You’re hearing the public version. But give it the litmus test. There haven’t been any significant changes in Lance’s schedule. Nothing’s happened to lead anyone to believe he’s going anywhere. No one else has been rushed to Geneva to take her place at the table. And no one is talking about why she left the table and was on that plane in the first place.” Cap rocked forward in his chair, intense. “The reports are hype.”

“So why are Peris and Abdan’s premiers waiting in Geneva?”

“Chocolate chip cookies and milk.” Cap looked totally disgusted. “And a daily dose of guilt.”

That response Austin hadn’t expected. “What?”

“Sybil’s having cookies and warm milk sent to them and a message that the children are depending on them to find a peaceful solution to their challenges. Guilt is enormously powerful, and, as I hear it, she’s given them solid reasons to pause and reconsider, if not enough to assure that they stay and wait for her return.” Cap pursed his lips. “But she also ordered everyone possible off her flight. She even classified Grace as unessential, which had her pissed to the gills until she heard the plane crashed.” Cap gave him a knowing look. “Not too wise, to piss off staffers. They’ll bury you—especially dinosaurs like Grace. She’s been on the Hill longer than Murphy’s had a law”

“Grace works for you?” Was there anyplace on the Hill where Cap didn’t have a mole?

“No. She’s strictly by the book. But she and Jean talk the way people with clearances do. They can’t bitch or gloat to family or friends, so they talk to others with clearances. After Sybil bumped Grace off the plane, she called Jean to vent.” Cap pursed his lips. “Payback is going to be hell.”

How much had Cap deduced? How much did he know about A-267? Austin shifted on his seat. “So what do you think is happening?”

Cap stared at the key in Austin’s hand. “I’m not sure. But I think it’s something that forced Lance to get Sybil home to help him handle it. And I think whatever that something is, it involves Gregor Faust and Ballast or PUSH, and it involves that key”