The Stolen hp-3

by Jason Pinter

  It was no secret that the construction industry had some shady underpinnings, since the majority of contracts were doled out to the lowest bidder. The problem therein was

  that the lowest bidders often miscalculated their budgets, necessitating a six-million-dollar property costing north of seven million. Yet the smarter, or shadier companies

  (amazing how often the two went hand in hand), worked out sweetheart deals to rig bids. The contractor would offer a bid far lower than any of his competitors, which was of course accepted. If they ran over budget, which was almost guaranteed, the bill would be settled under the table. This meant projects were bid on for far less money than they actually cost, keeping other companies out of the loop, but allowing the illegal parties to get rich based on the sheer number of developments they partnered on.

  Reggie Powers himself had quite an interesting story.

  According to his online biography, he was the most influential black construction owner in the entire country.

  Born in Crown Heights in 1959, Powers had little formal education and had worked various construction jobs throughout his formative years. Then after the Crown

  Heights riots of 1991, Powers decided he was tired of seeing his neighborhood torn apart by violence, and was tired of seeing good men and women live in housing that was akin to inhumane treatment. Within five years, Powers had taken his own earnings, and with the help of lenders, bought out a company known as TBC-Thomas Blakeman Construction-renaming it Powers Construction.

  One of his first rebuilding projects was tearing down a number of projects in which drugs and violence were rampant. These buildings were replaced with low-income housing. According to Powers, it was the end of the dark days, and the beginning of a new Brooklyn.

  Within a few years, Powers had become known not only as one of the wealthiest and most influential private contractors on the East Coast, but one of its biggest phi-298

  Jason Pinter lanthropists. He donated time, money and manpower to numerous towns, and was credited with helping to lower crime rates across the board.

  Of course, official biographies often swept more than their fair share under the carpet. Not to mention that

  Powers's relative inexperience made his volcanic rise even more shocking. I had to think that simply due to the sheer size of Powers Construction, it would be strange if they didn't have some sort of bid-rigging system going on.

  Once I'd done some digging around regarding the company profile, I decided it was time to meet the man face-to-face. Reggie Powers. See what, if anything, he knew. And whether he was aware that one of his employees, Raymond Benjamin, was a murderer.

  I called the main switchboard at Powers Construction, and a pleasant secretary picked up the phone. She sounded as if she'd been there a long time, even had a cadence nailed down.

  "Po- wers Con- struct-ion, how may I direct your call?"

  "Well, first I was wondering if you could give me the extension for one of your employees. The name is

  Raymond Benjamin. And after that I'd like to be transferred to Reggie Powers's office."

  "One moment, sir," the woman said. I heard typing on the other end. Then I heard her mutter, Hmm, that's odd.

  "Ma'am? Are you still there?"

  "Yes, sir, sorry about that. According to our database, we do employ a Raymond Benjamin, but he doesn't have an office or an extension."

  "Is there any contact information for him?"

  "I'm sorry, sir, not that I have access to. You'd have to speak to our human resources department."

  "That's all right. Can you transfer me to Mr. Powers's office?"

  "Sure thing, just a moment."

  She put me on hold. A minute later, a young man's voice came over the line.

  "Mr. Powers's office."

  "Hi, my name is Henry Parker and I'm a reporter from the New York Gazette. I'd like to come in and speak with

  Mr. Powers today. It's a pretty urgent matter."

  "Mr. Powers has a very busy schedule today. He's not in the office right now, but if I can pass a message to him,

  I'll see if he has some free time."

  "Absolutely," I said. "Tell him I want to speak to him about Raymond Benjamin and Dmitri Petrovsky."

  "Can you spell those for me, sir?"

  "Just remember the names."

  "Um…okay. I'll call Mr. Powers right now. Is there a number where I can reach you?"

  I gave the secretary my cell phone number. He said he'd get back to me ASAP. I hung up the phone and began to play the waiting game again.

  I tried to think how Reggie Powers might be connected to all of this. Powers Construction employed Raymond

  Benjamin, though the fact that he was a ghost at the office pretty much confirmed that he was there to do dirty work, collect a W-2, and that was all. But why would Reggie

  Powers want anything to do with Dmitri Petrovsky? He seemed like the least likely person on earth to want to have anything to do with a kidnapping, especially given his background. The more the pieces came together, the more trouble I had making them all fit.

  Ten minutes later, my cell phone rang. I picked it up.

  "Mr. Parker." I recognized the voice as Powers's secre-300

  Jason Pinter tary. "Mr. Powers is at a job site all day today, but he said if you can meet him there at six o'clock, he'd be happy to speak with you."

  "Where's the site?" I asked.

  "He's overseeing the construction of a mall in Hobbs

  County, New York, today."

  Hobbs County. Why was I not surprised. I checked my watch. It was three-thirty. I had plenty of time to drive up to Hobbs County.

  "Give me the address," I said. I jotted down the information, thanked the secretary and hung up. I chewed on the tip of my pen. I had no idea what Reggie Powers would know. I sure as hell had a few questions he needed good answers to.

  I put my tape recorder and notebook into a small backpack, stopped in to Wallace's office to tell him where

  I was going. He told me to check in once I was done with

  Powers. I got the sense Wallace understood how big this story was getting. And that scared me.

  I took the subway Uptown to my apartment, got in the rental car and began the drive up to Hobbs County.

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  "Tomorrow," Paulina said. She was sitting at her desk, leaning back in her desk chair, the one the assistants commonly referred to as the "bitch throne." She'd caught

  James Keach referring to it as such one day, but rather than admonish the boy, she merely laughed and told him not to be shy about it. From that day on, James commonly referred to the chair with that moniker, using the slight whisper of a child who can't believe his parents permit him to curse in the house.

  The copy was set. The pictures had been laid out. She'd pored over every inch of the article with greater focus than any story she could remember. She couldn't say for sure whether this piece would be her crowning moment as a journalist-in fact, she wasn't sure she'd want it to be-but in many ways it meant the most to her. It represented a clear turning point in her career, and would mark perhaps the first official shot of the war. To this day it had been the newsprint version of Russia versus the U.S. No casualties, lots of trash talk and hidden agendas everywhere they turned.

  Paulina's article would change all of that. So while nobody quite knew just who fired that first shot at Lexington and Concord, in the future they could pin this one to her blouse. The Parker stories had been small potatoes.

  Going after a baby fish as though people would care. To this point, Henry hadn't been in the game long enough for people to truly care. Like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, the sting would have been worse if they had the tenure of, well… Paulina laughed.

  A bottle of Dom was waiting in her fridge. Myron's phone number was on her cell phone. At first she debated calling him again-the last thing she needed tonight was another pity party-but ending the night with a good drink and a great lay would be the perfect capper
. The end of the beginning, the beginning of the end.

  And even though she hadn't seen him in many months,

  Paulina rather wished she'd be able to see the look on

  Henry Parker's face in the morning.

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  The sun bathed Hobbs County in a beautiful melange of reds and golds. This could be such a breathtaking town, I hated to think so much evil had taken place here. When I parked the car in the lot by the construction site, I took a moment to take it in, to breathe it in. You didn't get many views like this in the city, one of the trade-ins you had to make to live there. I didn't mind so much. Spending my whole childhood growing up way out West, I'd seen enough sunsets to quench a lifelong thirst. Living amid the steel and bustle of New York didn't quite feel like home yet, but it was getting there.

  I turned off the car and parked outside the site.

  The mall was coming up well. Steel beams were exposed everywhere. Tools and wheelbarrows and mixers were scattered about. I had no idea where I was supposed to meet

  Reggie Powers. I figured there would be some sort of office structure set apart, or he'd just be waiting for me outside.

  Yet as I took a quick look around, there was no sign of him.

  As I walked through the construction area, dipping under low beams, peeking around corners, I felt a queasy sensation in my stomach when I realized there wasn't a single person in sight.

  Powers's secretary had told me Reggie would be at the site all day. But there were no other cars on the lot. No discarded papers or bags. No sign that any human beings had even set foot here today. Why would Reggie be here all day if nobody else was?

  A terrible suspicion grew that I was alone here. Or even worse, not as alone as I thought.

  "Hello?" I called out. My voice echoed through the structure. A chill ran through my body, and I held the backpack tighter. "Mr. Powers?"

  Still nothing.

  I exited the structure, walked around the exterior.

  Several cranes were standing tall over the skeleton, long steel beams lying at their feet. The cement trucks were quiet, side elevators dark.

  "Reggie Powers!" I called again. When again there was no answer, I decided it'd be best to get the hell out of there.

  I began to jog back toward the car, winding my way around the side of the building. As I passed a blue van, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. My breath caught.

  Beside the van I could make out a human hand splayed out on the ground. As I crept closer, I could see the fingertips coated with blood. The hand belonged to a black man.

  The body was on the ground in an awkward position.

  The right hand was splayed out above the man's head, the left arm at a ninety-degree angle. The legs were crumpled, one stuck beneath the man's torso. A single hole was in the center of his head, and a pool of blood had begun to dry.

  I didn't need to check the wallet to know that Reggie

  Powers had been murdered.

  I whipped around, looking for something, anything.

  He'd clearly been dead a little while, so whoever had done it had either fled the scene, or was waiting for me.

  I took the cell phone from my pocket. Dialed 911. I felt panicked as I waited to be connected, every second not knowing what the hell was happening. Was Powers already dead when I called his office? Or had he come here with the intent to meet with me, then was murdered by someone who knew…

  Then I knew it. Powers meant to set me up. He knew nobody would be at the construction site. He must have told somebody before he arrived. And that somebody took him out. Somebody who'd begun to think Powers was better off dead. Somebody who felt he'd become a liability.

  And when I heard the click of a gun safety being removed, I knew immediately that Raymond Benjamin had killed him.

  "Step away from the van, Parker."

  I put the cell phone in my coat pocket. Every muscle in my body was numb.

  I recognized the voice. I'd heard it that night at the house on Huntley, as this man tried to torture information out of me.

  I slowly turned around. Hands above my head.

  Raymond Benjamin was standing ten feet away from me. He held a gun in one outstretched hand. The scar on his cheek seemed to glisten in the darkening sky. His face was a mask of anger and frustration.

  "I didn't want it to come to this," he said. "Killing is an ugly, ugly thing. If you'd just let it be, Parker, this wouldn't be happening."

  "Petrovsky. Powers. You killed them both, and for what? To hide your dirty secret? I know what all this is,"

  I said. "All this by your hand."

  Benjamin took a step closer. "Parker," he said. "I'm sorry you won't have a chance to know any better."

  The sky exploded, a yellow blast echoing in the night, and I shut my eyes and waited to die. When after a moment

  I felt no pain, felt nothing at all except the wind on my face, I opened them. Raymond Benjamin was dead on the ground. Smoke wafted from a bullet hole in his back, right where his heart had beat its last breath. And standing there, smoking gun in his hand, was Senator Gray Talbot.

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  "It was you all along," I said, staring into the senator's cold eyes. "You were behind the kidnappings. Hobbs County and

  Meriden were your pet projects so you could look good come voting season. That way you could come off looking like some great savior, when in reality you were feeding people the same poison you claimed to be eradicating. You and Raymond Benjamin found children who were born with diabetes, whom you could subject to these sick experiments to rob them of years of their lives. You take them away, then use their disappearances as leverage to get good press, gentrify the towns. The crime rate plummets. Property values go up. In come landowners who are more willing to vote for you. You bring in Reggie Powers to rebuild the town.

  You steal lives for political gain, you fucking monster."

  Talbot shook his head like a teacher whose student was too stupid to understand a simple equation. "That's the black-and-white version," Talbot said. "But who's really losing here? These kids lose a couple years of their lives, but when they come back their towns aren't criminal beehives anymore. Their schools aren't run-down. Drugs aren't sold on their blocks. It's a small sacrifice for a lifetime of happiness, for them and their families."

  "So one life is worth shattering if it saves another, is that right? The ends justify the means?"

  "They always do," Talbot said. "And if I'm reelected because of it, if this leads me to the governor's mansion or, heaven look upon me, the White House, it will be because I take steps weaker men aren't willing to take. If you can sacrifice one life to save others, don't you have to do that? As a human being?"

  "I don't buy that," I said. "Reggie Powers contributed thousands and thousands of dollars a year to political campaigns. Want to bet if we looked up his history of donating to your fund, we'd find a little more than 'Good Samaritan' money?"

  "Reggie had a good heart," Talbot said, and I detected a hint of real sadness. "He was a true hero. But he was compromised. Just like the Reed family, it was only a matter of time before Reggie's heart got the best of him."

  "So you're tying up your loose ends," I said. "Dmitri

  Petrovsky. Reggie Powers. Ray Benjamin. Everyone who knew about this is dead. And if we hadn't found them first, the Reeds would be, too. All those lives, you're actually trying to say these people's deaths are worth furthering your demented cause?"

  "Without a doubt, absolutely. You cannot put a value on one life, Henry. But I can tell you that a hundred lives, a thousand lives, are worth more than a simple few. The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. Those children, these men, were our patriots. They gave their lives to prevent others from suffering in the future. Men like Raymond Benjamin are our tyrants. He represents everything wrong with our culture. And so while he was a means to an end, so, too, did his blood need to water the ground."

  "And D
aniel Linwood," I said. "Michelle Oliveira.

  Caroline Twomey. Their blood funds your campaign, too."

  "If my platform must stand on a column these children have provided, so be it. I can live with that. I am sorry, Henry.

  Consider yourself a patriot. Your death will save lives."

  "One thing before I, you know, go," I said.

  "Yes, Parker?"

  "The blood might choke the ground," I said, taking my still-connected cell phone from my coat pocket. "But with my plan I get a signal pretty much anywhere."

  Talbot looked at me with horror, and right as he raised the gun to fire, I heard the sound of several sirens approaching. Talbot turned around to see a police cruiser pull into the construction site, followed by half a dozen more along with two ambulances.

  A dozen cops leaped from their vehicles, guns raised, pointed at the silver-haired senator.

  "Drop your weapon!" a cop yelled. "Drop it now or we will take you down!"

  Talbot looked at me, and for a moment I saw a fear and confusion in his eyes that brought terror to my heart. He raised the gun an inch, aiming straight and true at me, and for a moment I believed the senator would end my life along with everything else.

  Then he lowered the gun, his eyes dropping to the ground, and the gun clattered on the gravel.

  Instantly he was pinned down by three police officers, who handcuffed him and then picked the man up. Standing by one of the cruisers were the two detectives who'd questioned Amanda and me after we'd escaped from Huntley.

  Their faces were blank, unbelieving, as they watched

  Senator Gray Talbot pushed into the back of a police car, which then pulled away.

  I stood there in the waning daylight, looked up at the sky and took a long, sweet breath. There was one more task to be done. One more terrible question that needed to be answered.

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