by Steven James
Metacognition.
The primate research. Could the Gunderson Foundation be doing transhumanism research? Gene splicing with animals?
Hmm.
Perhaps approach this from a different angle.
She’d heard that Vice President Fischer wasn’t exactly best buddies with his brother—resentful of how the congressman had tapped into his political clout to promote his own standing in the House. She decided it might not be a bad idea to have a chat with the former vice president.
It took a few calls, but finally she found out he was at a climate change conference in Tokyo. His people said he’d return her call as soon as he could, but she knew how soon “as soon as possible” could be for a politician, so she wasn’t about to hold her breath.
The congressman was pulling Rodale’s strings. She didn’t like—
Or maybe it’s the other way around.
She paused.
Now that was an interesting thought.
Yes. Very interesting.
She found Doehring and told him she was heading to her office at FBI headquarters for a couple hours to catch up on a few things.
“Don’t worry, I’ll hold down the fort,” he said.
“I know you will.”
She left the command post with a realization that she was on a trajectory that would either end her career or just possibly land her in the job she’d been eyeing since she joined the Bureau.
91
6 hours left . . .
3:29 p.m.
Brad opened his laptop.
He knew that the task force had unwittingly found the bomb.
And he knew that ever since the anthrax scare nearly a decade ago, the FBI Headquarters and all of the field offices had been x-raying all incoming mail, packages, shipments, and deliveries as well as checking them for traces of biological or chemical compounds.
However, the Bureau did not x-ray or bio-scan evidence that was collected at crime scenes unless the specific nature of a crime warranted such action, such as evaluating evidence from an arsonist’s or bomb maker’s home.
And so.
Good.
Brad sent the email that would start the computer’s internal timer.
An anonymous-looking Viagra ad.
In exactly six hours, the bomb he’d prepared on Wednesday morning, the one he’d left for the task force to find, would go off.
Now, he just needed to wait.
The explosion would set up everything for the perfect ending to the game.
He set his watch to vibrate at 9:29 p.m. so that whatever he was doing he would know.
Dr. Calvin Werjonic.
Gregory Rodale.
Annette Larotte.
A puzzle with so many interlocking pieces.
And Bowers would see all the pieces laid so neatly in place.
But only in retrospect.
Only after it was too late to save the girl.
The Law Offices of Wilby, Chase & Lombrowski
Suite 17
4:05 p.m.
“I’m sorry.” Paul Lansing’s lead lawyer, Keegan Wilby, shook his head. “We simply cannot allow her into the meeting.”
Wilby had a squarish face and a Clark Kent curl of black hair on his forehead that only served to make him look like a middle-aged middle-schooler. His clothes told me he had wealth; his smug grin told me he knew it.
We’d arrived on time, over half an hour ago, but incomprehensibly, Wilby hadn’t even shown up until 3:55 and had subsequently spent the last ten minutes arguing about letting Tessa attend the meeting. She was standing beside me, seething, but I had my hand on her shoulder to let her know she needed to keep quiet.
Missy said sternly, “Mr. Wilby, tell Mr. Lansing that this is not up for debate. She comes in or we are leaving.”
He drew in a sigh. “All right. I’ll go and speak with my client one last time.” He spoke condescendingly, as if Missy were a child. “But I am not guaranteeing anything.”
He left.
Tessa’s teeth were clenched. “I feel like I’m a piece of furniture people are trying to shuffle around.”
“I understand,” Missy said. “However, Mr. Wilby does have a point. It would be highly unusual for the child—for you—to be present at a meeting like this.”
“Yeah, well, unusual works for me.”
Five minutes later Wilby returned shaking his head. “I’m sorry, my client said he does not want to upset her.”
“Good.” Tessa strode toward the hallway to the conference room.
“No, I mean by having you attend the meeting.”
“This is upsetting me!”
“Tessa,” I said. “Come here.”
She didn’t move.
I signaled for her to join me. “Please.”
At last she came, staring at Wilby with blisteringly hot eyes the whole time.
“I’m sorry,” he said to her in that tone of voice people use when they’re not sorry at all. Then he directed his words to all of us. “I suppose if you insist that she be present, we will have to cancel this meeting.”
“All right.” Missy picked up her purse. “Good day, Mr. Wilby.”
However, I wasn’t so sure. I conferred with her for a moment and explained that I didn’t like the idea of putting this off. I wanted to hear what Lansing had to say, to clear up my questions regarding his Secret Service involvement. After a short debate, she gave in. “As long as it’s acceptable to Tessa.”
I assured Tessa that she could sit in on future meetings, but for now to just let it be. “We need to get a feel for what’s going on here. I promise I’ll fill you in.”
She was clearly not happy about it but finally complied. “When the meeting’s over you’ll tell me everything?”
“I will.”
As Wilby invited me and Missy to follow him, he had a satisfied look on his face that made it clear he felt like round one belonged to him.
A wooden cabinet with a dozen cubby holes hung just outside the conference room door. Wilby unpocketed his iPhone. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave your mobile devices here. After far too many interruptions in meetings in the past, our law firm had to create a policy. I’m sure you understand.”
That was definitely not going to happen and I was about to tell him so, but Missy beat me to the punch. “My client is a federal agent. His phone contains highly sensitive and confidential information, so quite obviously it cannot leave his person. And my phone contains his private number so I cannot leave mine either. I’m sure you understand.”
I was really starting to like this lawyer of ours.
“I’m afraid she’s right,” I said.
Wilby looked like he might argue, decided against it and opened the door.
Round two: Missy Schuel.
As we entered the room, she said to me softly, “Now remember, let me do the talking.”
I was switching my phone to vibrate.
She paused. “Will you let me do the talking?”
“I’ll try.”
“Succeed,” she said, and we entered the conference room and I closed the door behind us.
92
Lansing and two additional lawyers were waiting for us at the far end of a sprawling steel and glass conference table. A south-facing window offered a spread of natural light to the otherwise institutional feel of the room. A pitcher of water sat on the table with seven glasses poised beside it. I assumed that the additional door on the other side of the room led to more offices.
Seven glasses on the table.
Perhaps they had been expecting Tessa.
Either that, or someone else.
Missy and I took seats facing Lansing and his lawyers. After introductions, Wilby thanked us for coming, which seemed a little disingenuous since he hadn’t done so in the reception area when we first arrived, and we’d already been here for nearly forty-five minutes.
“All right.” Missy gestured toward me. “Our agenda today is to find out wh
at Mr. Lansing wants—”
“He wants custody of his biological daughter,” one of Wilby’s associates said tersely.
She looked at him with cool curiosity. “What was your name again?”
“Seth Breney.”
“Well, Mr. Breney, please refrain from interrupting me and this will no doubt be a much more productive meeting for all of us.” There was no question who was in control of this room.
Wilby cleared his throat. “Primarily, my client wants what is best for Tessa.”
“That’s good to hear.” Missy was writing something on her legal pad in that scribbly shorthand of hers.
In the momentary silence following her statement, Lansing spoke up, “Patrick, before we begin here, I’d like to tell you how thankful I am for all you’ve done for Tessa ever since Christie passed away.”
“It’s kind of you to say that.”
“Whatever the results of this custody case, I hope you will agree to stay involved in her life.”
Oh man, did I want to respond to that one, but I rounded a conversational corner instead. “You didn’t run for cover, did you, Paul?”
“Pardon me?”
“Six years ago. At the hotel.”
I watched his reaction.
Despite what you might see on TV, when detecting deception it isn’t so much what the subject does—looking into one corner of the room or the other, pushing up his glasses or peering over the top of them—but it’s that he does something different than when he’s telling the truth. There are always perceptible subconscious physiological changes that occur, even though they’re different for different people.
Now, as Paul looked at me, I could see his Secret Service training in the coolness of his eyes, but he was lightly tapping his right thumb and forefinger together, which he had not been doing a few moments earlier. “We can discuss this later, Patrick.”
“Yes,” Wilby agreed emphatically.
“No time like the present.” I shrugged. “We’re all friends here.”
Lansing said nothing.
“So, then . . .” Wilby said.
Lansing tapped his finger and thumb.
Thought so.
I jotted a note of my own on Missy’s legal pad.
She glanced down, read it. Nodded.
“Back to the matter at hand.” Wilby conferred with his stack of notes, although what he said afterwards didn’t seem all that difficult to remember. “My client is Tessa’s biological father. You do not dispute this, do you?”
“We’ll want another DNA test to be done by an agency of our choosing,” Missy said. “Just to make sure.”
Wilby glanced at Breney, obviously his subordinate, who made a note of it. The third lawyer who was sitting beside them said nothing, simply sat there looking clueless.
Wilby said, “When Agent Bowers and his stepdaughter showed up last month at my client’s home, they had a diary that contained a letter my client had written to Christie Ellis, the girl’s mother.”
“Tessa,” I corrected him. “The girl’s name is Tessa.” The whole letting-Missy-speak-thing wasn’t going so well.
“Yes,” Wilby said. “In the letter, my client stated that he wanted to play an active role in the upbringing of the as-of-yet unnamed child Christie was carrying. From the very beginning, even before she was born, Mr. Lansing willingly offered to care for both mother and child, both relationally and fiscally.”
“The letter only offers broad intention,” Missy responded, “not specific design. And he never made any efforts to follow up on those vague promises.”
“When Tessa’s mother left him, he searched for her, but seventeen years ago, without the Internet, it wasn’t easy to locate someone who didn’t want to be found. My client didn’t even know that the girl—Tessa—was alive.”
Missy waited, one eyebrow raised, and I could tell that her silence was a way of controlling the conversation. “Anything else?”
Wilby flipped through a stack of papers. “I have here a copy of Dr. Bowers’s work schedule for the first six months after his wife’s death.”
I felt a small quickening of my pulse.
How did he get that?
Then he addressed me directly, as if Missy were not in the room. “It looks like you spent quite a bit of time traveling, Dr. Bowers. Speaking at law enforcement and forensic science conferences.”
“I spoke some. Yes.”
“How many weekends did you leave Tessa with your parents while you went to consult on a case or speak at a conference?”
“This has nothing to do with—” Missy began.
“I traveled a couple weekends a month,” I said.
“Fourteen weekends,” Wilby pointed out. “Fourteen weekends in six months. That’s more than two weekends a month.”
“Which means,” Missy countered, “Dr. Bowers was home nearly 80 percent of the time. And whenever my client was gone, Tessa was well cared for.”
“I’m not here to argue about the competency of care that Dr. Bowers’s relatives are able to provide. That’s not the issue here.”
Okay, this guy was really starting to get on my nerves.
“Tessa needs a more stable and secure home life than an active FBI field agent can provide.” Wilby referred to his notes again. “According to police reports, last October she was almost killed by a serial killer whom Dr. Bowers was tracking in North Carolina.”
Anger rising.
“She was inside an FBI safe house when he attacked her.”
“And yet, this man, Sevren Adkins, was able to—”
“What is your point?” Missy said curtly.
“My client is concerned for the welfare of his daughter.” He was looking directly at Missy. “Dr. Bowers has a history of breaking FBI protocol—”
“This is outrageous,” she broke in. “At a press conference on Wednesday the FBI’s Executive Assistant Director called him one of the Bureau’s finest agents.”
Wilby folded his hands in front of him on the table. “Let me cut to the chase. If this case ends up going to court, we have a man who is willing to testify that Agent Bowers threatened his life.”
What?
“Agent Bowers would never threaten another person’s life,” Missy said.
Wilby wore that look again, the one that said he’d won a round, but it was Lansing who spoke up. “He’s here right now. We can end this discussion. Perhaps come to a—”
“I haven’t threatened anyone,” I stated unequivocally.
Missy read my eyes, saw truth in them. “If he’s here,” she was looking around the room, “let’s talk with him. Let’s settle this.”
Wilby rose and went to the door at the far end of the room. He swung it open and called, “Come on in.” Then he stepped back, and a man emerged.
Richard Devin Basque.
93
5 hours left . . .
4:29 p.m.
Two twisting, serpentine caverns came together.
So, that’s why Basque’s in DC.
Because of you.
For a moment, the cannibalistic killer gazed around the room with his usual air of gentle confidence, the blue-green depths of his eyes reminding me of dark, arctic water. As he took a seat, I quickly ran through how Paul Lansing might have made the connection between me and Basque.
When Tessa and I visited Paul last month, Basque’s retrial had only recently come to an end. At the time, the story of how I’d managed to thwart the attempt on his life was all over the news—as was my admission in court that I’d punched him—wait, technically, physically assaulted him—during his apprehension.
After Basque’s release, Lansing could’ve easily contacted him and asked him to tell the family court judge that I had a violent streak. And considering our history, I could only imagine how glad Basque would’ve been to accept the invitation. What better way to repay me for sending him to prison for thirteen years than by destroying my family?
But what’s this about threatening his l
ife?
Missy recognized Basque. “This meeting is over.” She stood.
“Just listen for a second,” Wilby said.
“No.” She was on her way to the door. “Come on, Dr. Bowers, we’re leaving.”
“Agent Bowers indicated to me,” Basque called, his voice remaining calm, resonant, “at Dr. Werjonic’s funeral last month, that he was intent on—”
Missy spun around. “Intent on what? Last month Agent Bowers saved your life when a gunman tried to kill you during your trial. Now you’re claiming he wants you dead?”
“Ask him.” He turned his gaze to me. “He won’t lie.”
Oh.
The room went quiet.
Everyone’s attention turned to me.
No, no, no.
Not good.
I hadn’t told Basque I wanted to kill him, but I had thought it.
Yes, I had.
Preemptive justice.
I took a moment to consider carefully what to say, but before I could respond, Missy exploded, “Did you say he won’t lie? Well, you’re absolutely right. Dr. Bowers is not the kind of man who would sit here and lie to you. However . . .”
She pointed to Paul. “Mr. Lansing lied to my clients about his previous job. He lied to Tessa about his reasons for coming to DC, lied about why he lives in Wyoming, lied about his friendship with a sculptor whose work appears in the Hirshhorn museum, and lied about his role in stopping the assassination attempt against Vice President Fischer six years ago. You are right, Dr. Bowers is not a liar. But in his dealings with my clients, Mr. Lansing has shown very little regard for the truth.”
Nice.
Well played.
She eyed the people in the room one at a time. “If Mr. Lansing comes anywhere near my clients or continues to harass Tessa with his emails, we will get a restraining order—and considering the pattern of deception and intimidation he has already engaged in, I can guarantee you that no judge would deny that request. I suggest you drop this ridiculous custody suit and save yourself the embarrassment of having all of this made public.” She swiveled on her heels, went for the door. “We’re done here.”
Wilby rose. “Agent Bowers is an angry, violent man who uses unnecessary force when arresting suspects—and he threatens innocent people’s lives. Tessa needs a more emotionally balanced father than that.”