“Check the time,” Kosinsky said. The bottom of the report showed the date and time of filing. “That’s about thirty-five minutes after I did my search. Plus that guy, Smythe. He’s dead, too. Pretty big coincidence, all these dead guys, huh?”
Maggie nodded but did not meet his stare.
Kosinsky sat back in his chair. “You better tell me what’s going on.”
Maggie looked directly into his eyes. “You don’t want to know.”
Kosinsky shook his head. “Not a good answer.”
She saw several other pieces of paper rolled in his fist. She reached out and tugged them free. “If my theory proves out, I’ll tell you everything.” She flattened out the pages and read about the New Jerusalem Fellowship, how it was based on a belief in the approaching End of Days, involving the cataclysmic battle of Armageddon and the Second Coming. When she finished she rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.
“Talk to me,” Kosinsky demanded.
“It’s inconclusive.”
Kosinsky studied her for a long moment. “Bullshit.” He reached into the rear pocket of his trousers and brought out several additional pages. He threw them face down on her desk. She continued to hold his stare, but she thought she knew what they were.
“Let me try,” Kosinsky said. He held up a finger. “Two days ago somebody stole eight hundred and fifty million dollars from a client account at Genesis Advisors.” He held up a second finger. “A recently hired portfolio manager was implicated in the theft.” He held up a third finger. “The client, a prominent Egyptian peace activist was found murdered.” He held up a fourth finger. “The same portfolio manager was implicated.” He held up his thumb. “The New Jerusalem Fellowship believes in this Armageddon and Second Coming stuff, which makes them the opposite of peaceniks when it comes to the Mideast.”
He paused, glanced at his extended fingers, and then held up the first finger of his second hand. “The CIA says those stolen missiles probably cost something short of a billion dollars once you add in the cost of a few pounds of depleted nuclear fuel.” He held up a seventh finger. “Oh yeah, almost forgot… the CIA said the Wahaddi Brotherhood, who supposedly paid for all that stuff, doesn’t have any money.” He looked at his seven upheld fingers and raised his eyebrows, as if amazed that he had made so many points. “Nice bit of detective work,” he said. “For a desk jockey.”
Maggie shrugged. “Told you it was kind of a crazy idea.” She couldn’t meet his eyes. Kosinsky reached out and flipped the pages he’d thrown on her desk. He slapped them with his palm. “Brings up the question, detective, of why you didn’t ask for anything on the one guy who seems to be implicated in all this stuff.” He let the silence hang, finally asking, “Well?”
“Well what?” Maggie asked.
“Is he guilty or innocent?”
She glanced down at the bulletin calling for Brent’s apprehension and arrest. “Innocent,” she croaked.
Kosinsky’s expression softened. “I did a background check on my own,” he said. He started to read, “Yale, played football, two years All-Ivy, Stanford Business School, worked for some fund manager in Boston, blew the whistle on some bad guys, and then went to work with Biddle. Sounds like a super-successful guy with unusually strong ethics. Not a nut or a criminal. He comes from Morristown, New Jersey—coincidentally, so do you. He seems to be approximately your age.” He looked up, his eyes narrowing. “Any chance this is the phantom boyfriend?”
Maggie held his gaze. “He was. We broke up a while ago.”
Kosinsky sighed. “You know where he is?”
She nodded.
“You’re betting everything on this guy. What if he’s guilty?”
Maggie felt her uncertainty vanish. “He’s being framed,” she said in a firm voice.
Kosinsky reached for the stack of papers, put them in his lap, and looked them over. “I think I see where you’re going with this. It’s not going to make you popular.” He gave her a skeptical look. “Fundamentalist Christians helping Muslim terrorists?”
“It’s consistent with their Armageddon philosophy.”
Kosinsky shrugged.
“It’s consistent with the amount of money involved and with the CIA’s claim that they’d frozen the Wahaddi Brotherhood’s accounts.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s consistent with targeting an Arab peace activist, and it’s consistent with framing someone else for the theft and murder.”
Kosinsky sat forward and put his chin on his hands. “The Christian Coalition is gonna want you burned at the stake.”
Maggie said nothing.
“I should turn you in,” Kosinsky muttered. “I should have turned you in ten minutes ago.”
“That’s your call.” She handed him a copy of the memo she’d sent to Jenkins two days earlier. “I tried to push this upstairs, but I’ve heard nothing.”
Kosinsky read it and shook his head. “Nobody’s gonna pursue this Biddle guy until the bombs go off.”
“Probably true.”
“If I keep my mouth shut I’m risking my career for a guy I don’t know and a woman who won’t date me.”
“That sounds about right.”
He gave her a humorless smile. “Damned if I’m not a self-destructive fool.”
FIFTY-ONE
MORRISTOWN, NJ, JULY 1
BRENT DROPPED THE LAST ITEM in the canvas bag he’d found in Maggie’s closet. It was a meager collection, but it contained everything he’d been able to find that looked potentially useful: a flashlight, crowbar, wire cutters, and several rusty screwdrivers. He had no plan for sneaking past Biddle’s security guards and minimal expectations for what he could accomplish even if he succeeded. But if Maggie’s theory was right and Biddle’s allies were anything like the people who killed Harry and took the down the Trade Centers, he had to try.
He put the bag on the kitchen table, then pulled up his shirt and checked the pistol stuffed in his waistband, ensuring yet again that the safety was on. He smiled bitterly, thinking his precautions would at least prevent him from shooting off his own balls. He’d leave that task to someone else.
He took a last look around. It was late afternoon, when weekend traffic would be building on the main roads and the best time to make his move. His hair was scruffy, and he now had the better part of a beard, so he no longer looked like his pictures. His first stop would be a nearby shopping center where he hoped to switch the Volvo’s New York plates with a pair snatched off a New Jersey car. It should allow him to make it to Long Island.
Last night, making love to Maggie and then holding her in his arms had changed everything. He understood the risks of what he was about to attempt, but also that he had no other choice. Ever since he’d awakened this morning he’d had the renewed sense of time running out, the last grains of sand dropping through the neck of the hourglass. Maggie had called twice to tell him she was working on things and not to lose hope, but he’d heard the increasing hollowness in her voice. Her superiors would never agree to go after Biddle, and that meant it was up to him.
The morning papers reported that Biddle had cut short his vacation and returned to the United States, and that meant he was within reach. Brent had visited Biddle’s estate, so he had at least minimal knowledge of the layout. Also, in spite of the psychiatrist’s report that called him, “very competitive, resourceful, highly intelligent, unusually devoted to principle but perhaps with insufficient impulse control,” he thought no one would expect a lone fugitive to attack. His goal was utterly simplistic: grab Biddle and force a confession. It was a desperate move, but the only chance he had.
He had the Volvo keys in his pocket and his hand on the doorknob when a sound came from the driveway. He froze. A car door opened and thumped closed. Sun flooded through the closed curtains of Maggie’s little kitchen, and he watched a man’s silhouette move past the side windows toward the back door.
He tiptoed out of the room, his heart hammering. If it was the police, he
had no chance. But what if it was someone Biddle had sent to kill him? He slid the pistol from his waistband.
The latch turned, and the door rattled against the lock. A knock followed. Brent tensed and waited for a boot to kick in the door, but after a few seconds he heard a loud whisper, “Goddammit, open the door!”
His uncle! Brent felt a wild blast of relief. He rushed into the kitchen, jerked open the door, and saw the familiar scowl. “Are you alone?”
“No, I brought the FBI,” Fred Lucas shot back as he stepped quickly inside. He went to the side window, pulled the curtain aside and glanced at the neighbor’s house. “The damn FBI will be here if people saw me creeping around the back door,” he snapped.
His uncle’s cantankerousness was a balm, and for a second Brent actually smiled. “What are you doing here?”
His uncle had a big paper shopping bag in one hand, and he hoisted it onto the kitchen table. “Maggie told me to keep an eye on you. She said you’re about to do something stupid.” He spotted the canvas bag beside the door then tipped it and examined the contents. “Looks like she’s got your number.”
“I’m getting out of here,” Brent said.
Fred Lucas leaned back against the door. “To do what?” His uncle shook his head. “These guys already tagged you for stealing the money and set you up for murder. Whoever they are, they ain’t stupid. You try something by yourself, they’re gonna plaster your ass on a wall.”
“There’s no other option,” Brent said, reaching around Fred for the doorknob.
His uncle didn’t move. “What do I do with the spade?”
Brent blinked. “The what?”
“You heard me—the giant kid. DeLeyon f-ing Jones.”
Brent stepped back at hearing the name. “He’s my Little Brother. Why?”
“Well, he ain’t little, and he’s got his black ass sitting in my buddy’s car right now.” His uncle hooked his thumb at the driveway. “He’s my lookout.” He smirked. “You know they’ve had these assholes sitting outside my house—well I know you know cause you had Maggie bring me that note.”
“It was her idea.”
“Figures.”
“Back this up a little,” Brent said. “How did DeLeyon get into your buddy’s car?”
“Why don’t you ask me first how the hell he got to Morristown?”
“Okay, how?”
“He took a bus.”
“From New York?”
“No, from Poland.”
Brent waved a hand in surrender. “Okay, he took a bus. How‘d he find you?”
“Went to the fire station and asked. They called me up from there. He came cause he wants to save your miserable ass. He’s apparently one of about three people in the entire United States who give a crap.”
Brent shook his head. “He’s a sixteen year old kid. You’ve got to send him home.”
“Pardon me, but Baby Huey’s eight feet tall. I can’t make him go anywhere.”
“Well, get him out of here. He can’t have anything to do with me.”
“Well, smart guy, that was my first thought, but since he’s come down here to hunt you up and since he knows Maggie’s name, this was gonna be his next stop. You think an old white man might draw some questions creeping around a young woman’s back door, what about your buddy DeLeyon?”
“Where’s your car?”
Fred shook his head. “My buddy’s car. I’m not as dumb as the later generation of my family. I got followed to the fire station.”
“You went out the back and took someone else’s car?”
“Bingo. Hopefully my tails are still watching the fire station.”
Brent sighed. “Well, you can’t just leave him out there.”
Fred scowled as he turned and went out the back door. “Finally a right answer! Anybody in your shoes better take all the help they can get!”
Thirty seconds later, DeLeyon shambled into the kitchen ahead of Fred. He wore a baggy basketball jersey, cut off shorts that reached mid-calf and a huge pair of Nike Air Huaraches. He hung his head in a self-conscious slouch and put out his hand for the ghetto handshake he’d taught Brent when they first met.
In spite of his anger, Brent grabbed DeLeyon’s bent fingers, followed by a quick bang of fists one on top of the other. “What the hell are you doing?”
DeLeyon didn’t meet his eyes. He shrugged his immense shoulders. “Hey, you know, man,” he muttered.
“Your grandma know you’re here?” Brent demanded.
“I gonna call her tonight.”
“What about school?”
DeLeyon raised his eyes and smiled. “Almost out for the year. I still got straight A’s. Don’t matter if I ain’t there a couple days.”
Brent looked away. As angry as he was, he was touched. “DeLeyon,” he said after a long silence. “I’m in some really big trouble.”
“You didn’t do it,” the boy said. “I know you.”
“Yeah, but being around me is a bad idea. It could ruin your chances for college.”
“I let you go down without lifting my finger, I don’t deserve no college. You taught me that.”
Brent shook his head. “You actually listened?”
“Seem like I did.”
“Look, DeLeyon,” Brent said, “Your belief in me means everything, but I have to do this myself.”
DeLeyon screwed up his lips and shook his head. “You ain’t guilty, but they think you guilty and they ain’t gonna give you no chance to prove nothing different. A black man know more ‘bout this than you. Don’t be trying to send me home and telling me you gonna do it all by yourself, cause you ain’t.”
Brent looked over at Fred who’d already helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator and plopped in one of the kitchen chairs.
Fred shrugged. “I didn’t go to some fancy-ass college, but one thing’s pretty clear—you got no business turning down help. I’m with the kid.”
“Look,” Brent said, feeling his temper rise. “You haven’t got a clue what I’m dealing with here.”
“I’m sure you got a great plan to take care of it all by yourself.”
“You can’t help.”
Fred’s attempt at good humor dropped away. “Aren’t you even gonna wait for Maggie?” He returned Brent’s scowl.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Brent demanded.
“A little bit ago, her cousin from the deli rings my doorbell and hands me some bread with another note.” Fred got up from his chair, fished in his pocket, and held out a folded piece of paper inside a plastic baggie. “It says to keep you here, that she’s got help coming. She’ll be here soon.”
Brent felt a surge of hope, mixed with suspicion. “What do you mean she’s got help coming? Why hasn’t she called to tell me that herself?”
Fred shrugged. “I donno.” He pointed to the bag he’d put on the kitchen table when he first walked in. “But she gave me a shopping list.”
FIFTY-TWO
MORRISTOWN, NJ, JULY 1
MAGGIE RACED WESTWARD OUT OF Newark, chafing at the traffic but wondering at the same time why she was in such a hurry. After all, wasn’t she about to risk her career, maybe even her freedom, on a wild speculation? She glanced in her rearview mirror and picked out Kosinsky’s truck, and her anxiety notched higher. She wasn’t the only one rolling the dice. She’d tried to talk him out of coming, but probably not hard enough.
Everything had started to snowball around midday when Ann Jenkins came into her cubicle. She had the memo rolled in her fist and looked exhausted, like she’d had maybe two or three hours sleep in the past several days. “DeVito, if it was my call, I’d go after Biddle yesterday, but I can’t convince any of these other bastards to back us. I’m really sorry.”
Maggie bit her cheeks. “They’re making a huge mistake,” she said. “I’ve done even more work on this and I can—“
Jenkins waved a hand for silence. “I gave it my best shot. Bottom line—nothing’s happened since 9/11
, and they all think I’m paranoid. I tried, but I lost. It’s finished, and I’m too goddam tired and pissed off to discuss it any further.” She tossed Maggie’s memo on her desk then turned and left.
A moment later, Kosinsky came into her cubicle. “I overheard.”
Maggie stared at the wall and shook her head. A single tear broke loose and trickled down her cheek.
“You gave it your best shot,” he said in a gentle voice.
She wiped the tear away with an angry swipe. “I’m right!” she said in a choked voice.
“Let’s think about it. Maybe there’s some way to run this by other people.”
Maggie turned and looked at him, her eyes narrow slits. “You don’t get it! Brent’s not going to wait!”
Kosinsky’s face wrinkled in disbelief. “He’d go after the terrorists alone?”
“He’ll go after Biddle, which may be the same thing.” She wiped her other eye.
“You could always arrest him.”
She nodded.
“But if you do arrest him, it does nothing to stop the bad guys.”
“Yeah.” Maggie put her elbows on the desk and covered her face with her hands. “Got any ideas?”
There was a long silence, and she finally took her hands away. Kosinsky was looking at her with a wry expression. “We’ll have to blame it on the boyfriend. We’ll say we were in hot pursuit. There’s really no other way.”
Now, as she finally exited the freeway at Morristown, Maggie’s thoughts switched to Fred Lucas. He was a poor choice for something like this—a loveable guy but a loose cannon. Still, when she’d talked it over with Kosinsky, they’d agreed they needed help, and the skills of a retired fireman were ideal.
She held her breath as she turned onto her street, afraid Brent might have departed even before Fred arrived. She’d seen it in his eyes that morning, and later she’d heard it in his voice when she’d called, his anger and desperation as he told her he wouldn’t wait any longer. His tone had suggested other things as well, but she couldn’t dwell on them until they got through the next twenty-four hours.
Armageddon Conspiracy bl-1 Page 20