Stop at Nothing

by Michael Ledwidge

  “That’s crazy,” Gannon said. “That only happens in the movies.”

  Wheldon shook his head.

  “What do you think makes this world go round, Pete? Truth, justice and the American way?”

  “Yes,” Gannon said.

  “Lucky you,” Wheldon said, letting out a breath. “It’s power, Pete. Power.”

  46

  Gannon made a pained face.

  “So they’ve just gone crazy? At the top? At the FBI? Full-tilt corrupt?”

  Wheldon nodded.

  “Bought and paid for. An organization is only as good as the people in it, Pete. You ever hear of a dirty cop when you were on the force?”

  Gannon squinted at him.

  “On the force?” Gannon said, making a puzzled face. “What do you mean? You think I’m a cop?”

  “Let’s see,” Wheldon said. “Face like the map of Ireland, voice like a Yankee announcer and you actually want to return several million dollars of loot you found while fishing out on your boat. Is it such a crazy guess?”

  “No comment,” Gannon said.

  “Anyway,” Wheldon said. “The combination of the global money and influence and no one checking up on them is like nothing ever before seen on the planet. Now you add the technology, the NSA collection of all the global communication data, and now they have a trove of information and blackmail on virtually everyone.”

  “The NSA collection of what?”

  “You need to get out more, Pete. Since one month after 9/11, the NSA has been collecting everybody’s electronic sweet nothings and storing them in their computers for a rainy day. It was supposed to be just for checking on the terrorists, but now they don’t give a rat’s ass about the law. They’re using it against everyone. A blackmail Fort Knox.

  “And you can’t think of the FBI in terms of being a domestic law enforcement agency anymore. After they signed the Patriot Act, the FBI joined the CIA. Almost all of the alphabet soup agencies are now under the same umbrella.”

  “Like Big Pharma and Big Tobacco, we’ve got Big Intelligence now?” Gannon said.

  “Exactly.”

  “That can’t be right. There must be something in the Constitution, no? Where’s the outrage? Why the hell isn’t the press doing anything? Isn’t that their job?”

  “Pete, pay attention. Most media companies are multinational corporations, too. Everybody has secrets, Pete. All you need is a little dirt on some top key people in each of the media outlets, and every story you want tanked gets tanked.”

  Gannon looked at him.

  “Okay, so while I went out fishing, my country apparently turned into one massive corrupt racket. Now what? What do we do now?”

  Wheldon drummed his fingers on the table.

  “I think there’s someone you should meet. She told me the same story you just told me. Well, not exactly the same. But it all fits.”

  “She?”

  “Yes. She’s a navy lieutenant, an accident investigator who was sent out to the plane crash site before the cover-up started. At the site, she met a coast guard diver who showed her the video he had filmed of the inside of the plane. That’s why when you told me there were six people, I knew you were legit. She told me the same thing last night.”

  “So there’s another video?”

  “No. She doesn’t have it. She just saw it. And the diver who filmed it is missing now. The FBI tried to grab her down in Florida as well, but she was just able to get away.”

  “Holy crap. This is real. A full-scale cover-up. This is really happening.”

  “You said it. Which is why I’d like to interview the both of you and upload it onto my channel.”

  Gannon sat up straighter in his chair.

  “Now, hold up. I don’t want to be on a video.”

  “Don’t worry,” Wheldon said. “I won’t show your face or anything, and I can mask your voice. I could bring her here and talk to her in the bedroom, and you can stay in this room here so you don’t even have to see each other.”

  “That’s how it works? Just put it out there? Shouldn’t we get my GoPro tape first?”

  “No, the more visible the faster the better. The more visible the less likely they’ll target you for elimination. If the truth of Dunning’s death is out there, their mission will shift from plugging the leak to spin-doctoring the news narrative. Putting you six feet under after the truth is exposed will make less sense for them.”

  “Say that last part again?”

  Wheldon stared at him steadily.

  “There is no organization more deadly than a covert intelligence service. A politician tells a group of government workers to work hand in hand with violent military men to do unaccountable things in secret. Outside of the light of scrutiny, these men are told to eliminate people or to sell arms to foreign militaries. Without inventory or receipts. Without any way to check up on them.

  “The National Security Division of the Justice Department is not allowed to be inspected, we are told, because the inspectors don’t have the intelligence clearance. You see the problem here? What do you think happens?”

  Gannon shook his head.

  “We need to do this now, Pete,” Wheldon said. “The more hits we get, the better our chance of exposing this corruption to the public.”

  “You think this will go viral?”

  “It should, Pete,” Wheldon said, wide-eyed. “This is the biggest bombshell I’ve ever heard.”

  47

  For how on the ball and techy Agent Arietta seemed, his bare windowless trailer office looked like something out of one of those cable shows about hoarders.

  It had a cheap white plastic folding table for a desk and a couple of old gray metal file cabinets in the right-hand far corner. Instead of having a computer, the desk was covered in a mountain of paper, and in the corner opposite the metal cabinets was a big plastic trash barrel filled to the brim with greasy take-out containers and Dunkin’ cups.

  Reyland was sitting at the paper-covered desk reading the file on Eric Wheldon’s daughter away at William & Mary when Emerson popped his head in.

  “Boss, we got something.”

  When Reyland went back into the war room, the lobby of the Arlington Hotel was blown up on the big wall screen. He gazed up at the gold-lit sconces on its brown walls and the people standing by the white marble check-in desk. The feed was coming from one of their agents who’d gone in with a pin camera.

  “What’s up?”

  “The girl on the right. Brown hair. Might be her,” Emerson said.

  Reyland walked over closer and looked up at a girl in profile there at the check-in desk. He studied the photo that the surveillance team had taken of Ruby Everett in Times Square the day before.

  “Didn’t the outside camera with the facial recognition see her?” Reyland said.

  “Well, actually, only if she came in walking from the Seventh Avenue intersection where the camera is,” Arietta said. “If she got out of a taxi in front of the hotel, it’s probably too far for the camera to see.”

  “Now you tell me,” Reyland said, rolling his eyes at Mr. Geek Squad.

  “What do you think?” Emerson said.

  Reyland made a sour face as he stared back at the screen.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Same eye shape, same nose, but the video quality is garbage. It’s too hard to tell. Tell them to get closer.”

  “You need to get closer,” Emerson said into his phone.

  They waited. The live feed camera wobbled and swung around the other side of the target.

  “Wait a second, Arietta. What the hell are we doing?” Reyland said. “Can’t you get this feed into your damn supercomputer ID software to tell us if it’s her?”

  “Yes, of course. I didn’t think of that. Give me a second,” he said.

  If
you want something done, you have to do it yourself, Reyland thought, rolling his eyes again.

  He placed his hands behind his back as he watched the target head for the elevator. She was pressing the button when she turned, and the red computer box appeared around her face.

  “Okay. We’re linked into the computer now. Matching up,” Arietta said as the door rolled open, and the woman got on.

  “Should they follow her? Get in the elevator?” asked Emerson.

  “No. Hold up, hold up. Don’t spook her. Take it easy,” Reyland said.

  The elevator door had just closed when a ping came from Arietta’s laptop.

  Then Reyland smiled as Ruby Everett’s military ID appeared up on the screen as clear as day.

  48

  Ruby came out of the elevator onto the fourteenth floor into a hallway that smelled like weed and furniture polish. As the elevator door rolled closed behind her, she took out her phone. She checked the room number on the text Wheldon had sent her against the plastic plaque on the wall. Then she made a left down the dark-walled hallway.

  She’d just been dropped off by Eric’s friend Rebecca. She’d crashed at Rebecca’s apartment in Inwood the night before, and her hostess had explained that she had worked with Eric in the CIA when she was younger.

  Since then, she’d put up several of Eric’s whistle-blowers as they came into town. There were more and more these days, she’d said.

  Ruby counted the doors. Making a turn at the far corner of the narrow corridor, she suddenly heard the pornographic sound of a woman coming from somewhere.

  She shook her head as she zipped her fleece hoodie up to her chin. She still wasn’t sure about any of this. About being up in New York. About going underground like some kind of anti-government nut.

  Under normal circumstances, she liked to consider herself a good citizen. She always honestly paid her taxes, always voted, always went to jury duty whenever she was called.

  She would have gladly turned herself in to the FBI to work this all out, she thought as she came to the end of the sleazy hall, if it weren’t for the fact that it seemed to be the FBI itself that was the problem.

  14H was the very last door of all. It opened as she was about to ring its doorbell.

  “If it isn’t Mrs. Smith,” Wheldon said. “Entrez-vous?”

  The room inside was large but drab. Besides the bed and desk, there were two chairs, one just beside the door and another at the foot of the bed facing the desk. On the desk, there was a smartphone in a little tripod with its camera pointed at the bed.

  “I thought you said you weren’t going to film me,” Ruby said, looking warily at the phone as Wheldon locked the door.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not. Cross my heart,” Eric said. “You’re going to sit here by the door. I’m going to sit in the chair in front of the bed with the camera taping just me the whole time. I promise.”

  Wheldon thumbed at an almost-closed door on the room’s left-hand wall.

  “Now if I could direct your attention, Mrs. Smith. Like I texted you, there’s a man in the sitting room who’s also going to be part of this conversation. We’ll call him Mr. Smith. Say hello, Mr. Smith.”

  “Hello,” said a man’s voice through the crack in the door.

  “This is weird,” Ruby said, wincing at the almost-closed door. “Honestly, I don’t know, Eric. I don’t even know if I should do this.”

  “I know. You’re right,” Wheldon said. “All of this is an incredibly silly way to do anything. Unfortunately, these are some desperate times we’re living in, aren’t they? And if we want to get back to a semblance of sanity and normalcy and justice for our families and kids, it’s up to regular people like us to do the job.

  “Because the FBI apparently isn’t in the fidelity and bravery and integrity business anymore, is it? Or even the mainstream media when you consider how they’re covering everything up. I think it’s important that more and more people know that. But with that said, I can’t and won’t force you. You’re free to go whenever you want.”

  Ruby sighed.

  “You’ll disguise my voice like you said?” Ruby said.

  “Of course,” Wheldon said. “Your own mother won’t know it’s you once I get done editing.”

  “Okay, fine,” Ruby said, finally sitting in the chair by the door.

  Wheldon took his seat.

  “We’re going to keep it casual and just talk like we’ve been doing,” Wheldon said. “Nothing fancy. I’ll ask you guys questions and you answer them to the best of your ability, okay? I just need to set up my laptop, and we’ll be ready. Sound good? We’re all on the same page?”

  “Okay,” said Ruby.

  “Okay,” said Mr. Smith through the crack in the door.

  49

  Outside in the fusion center’s truck yard, the MH-6 helicopter’s red running lights pulsed like a campfire ember against the dark.

  In the high nails-on-chalkboard turbo whine, Ruiz adjusted his butt on the chopper’s ice-cold exterior running board bench and gave a last tug on his safety harness. Then he gave a knock on the curved glass canopy, and he and his men were up, up and away with their feet dangling off the helicopter’s skids into the pitch-black freezing open January air.

  Ruiz felt his stomach get left behind as the aircraft went out from under the turnpike overpass. Still gaining altitude, they skimmed smoothly up over a traffic-filled road, over a junkyard, then over a river.

  On the river’s other side was a lightless golf course, and as they turned to the left north over Hoboken, the magnificent sparkling sprawl of Manhattan’s night skyline came into view.

  Ruiz looked at the lights in the high black towers, the water of the Hudson below them like a plain of brushed steel.

  “Look, Paw. Them building scrapers are even bigger than our silo,” one of Ruiz’s commandos said in a hick drawl.

  “Can it, Boyer,” Ruiz said.

  “Less than ten,” the pilot called over the comm link.

  Ruiz smiled around the chaw of chewing tobacco in his mouth as they choppered east at about the height of the observation deck of the Empire State Building.

  He actually loved this shit. He had always been a daredevil. He was from the South Side of Chicago and used to train-surf the Loop along with his ghetto buds when he was a kid. Twelve years old, speeding out in the cold, holding on for dear life at the curves.

  Faster than a speeding bullet, he thought, chuckling as he spit. Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound.

  There was another crackle on the comm line as they flew over a tourist boat on the Hudson a thousand feet below.

  “Where now? That circular building?” the pilot called out.

  “That’s it,” Ruiz said, looking down at Madison Square Garden between his legs as they approached it.

  “Why do they call it a square garden when it’s a damn concrete circle?” the pilot said.

  “Beats the shit out of me,” Ruiz said, spitting down at the boat. “Remember, go in high then drop down to about thirty or so midbuilding at the back.”

  “Hover above the alley in between. Got it, bro. I can see it now.”

  Ruiz looked down at the old gray brick hotel as they swung downward toward it. He would have loved a fixed position shot at a distance, but Room 14H was in the back opposite a windowless warehouse. At least the FLIR body heat infrared scope on his rifle would be sharp as a razor out here in this cold.

  They went even faster as they lost some altitude.

  The comm line crackled again.

  “Okay, we’re a minute now. One minute.”

  Ruiz held up a finger to his three men beside him on the skids in the buffeting wind like an infielder reminding his teammates that it was one out.

  The pilot glanced at Ruiz through the bubble of glass between them and gave him a Tom Cruise sm
ile.

  “You guys do realize you’re all out of your minds, right?” he said.

  The wind snapped at the cloth of Ruiz’s black tactical pants as he tugged at the harness and the rappelling rope.

  “Just keep the black egg in the air,” Ruiz said as he clicked his M4’s selector off Safe with his gloved thumb.

  50

  “Okay. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the latest. What is this episode? Number 352, I believe,” Gannon heard Eric Wheldon saying.

  Gannon sat there in the side room beside the slightly cracked-open door, fidgeting in his kitchen chair. Even though it wasn’t TV and his voice would be disguised, and it wasn’t even live, he was still nervous about saying something stupid and screwing it up. A memory of being an altar boy came to him. Standing next to the priest, wide-eyed up on the bright altar with the eyes of the entire parish staring at him waiting for him to trip over his feet.

  “Tonight,” Wheldon said, “I have a really great info drop for all of you that relates to your favorite new subject and mine. The oh-so-mysterious death of—”

  In the suite’s little sitting room, Gannon sat up in his chair waiting for Eric to continue.

  Then there was a heavy thump through the crack in the door.

  “Eric?” he heard the Mrs. Smith woman say. “ERRIICC!”

  Gannon went to the door and pulled it open and saw the screaming Mrs. Smith down on the carpet. Eric Wheldon was down on his back beside her with the back of his neatly combed head half gone and the scarlet mush of the inside of it dumped out on the floor.

  Even over the woman’s screaming, Gannon suddenly heard a slight yet distinct sound in the air on his left.

  He’d heard it before.

  It was the soft yet unforgettable slight click that a high velocity bullet made when it just missed you.

  “Down, down, down!” Gannon yelled and immediately dropped to the carpet as the window above the radiator came in with a crashing rain of glass.

  A muffled clatter of silenced automatic fire made a constellation of ripping holes grow across the yellow shade as Gannon crawled low alongside the bed. He reached out and seized the screaming navy lieutenant by the back of her plaid shirt, and she screamed even louder as he yanked her around the other side of the bed away from the window.