“What about Jesse?” Tyler asked. “What’s the latest on him?”
“His is a more challenging case,” Kilmer said, frowning. “He went to the Scale willingly, but due to the brain operation they performed, he remembers very little. I’ve given him a task. Sort of a loyalty test. One that could assist us in our hunt for the Scale’s kingpin.”
“What is it?” Tyler asked.
9
Jesse Hoag lumbered down the cement corridor, near enough to a wall to steady himself should he stumble. Two of Agent Steel’s men escorted him, but he didn’t trust them to catch his eight hundred pounds. Though the incisions from his brain operation—or reverse operation, as he understood it—had healed, his equilibrium wasn’t a hundred percent yet. Something to do with the part of his brain in the very back. His cerebellum, the white coats had called it.
“Remember, this first meeting is just to feel him out,” one of his handlers said. He was clad in body armor and holding a prod capable of delivering a few thousand volts. “See how he responds to you.”
“He won’t cooperate with the interrogators,” the other man said.
“Use whatever angles you think might work.”
“But don’t push. If he knows you’re after something, he’ll lead you in circles.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jesse said, raising a meaty hand before the first man could chime in again. “Kilmer explained all that. I got it.”
“Good. Any questions?”
They had stopped before what looked like a steel blast door.
“Just one,” Jesse said, cocking his head toward the door. “There gonna be something between me and him?”
“Five-foot-thick cast concrete, double rebar, all of it reinforced with a magnetic field. You’ll be talking to him through a special glass laminate window, bars on both sides. If he decides to get feisty we’ll hit him with more of the funny gas. Don’t worry, big guy. You’ll be safe.”
Jesse watched the other man spin the wheel on the blast door and pull it open. The description of the cell sounded a lot like the one Jesse had been kept in for several months. But he hadn’t been asking for his own safety. He’d been asking for Titan’s.
“Just a few paces in,” one of the men said. “There’s a bench if you want it.”
Jesse stepped past the blast door and felt the walls shudder as it closed behind him. A pressure pushed against his eardrums as the door was locked tight and sealed. He peered down the short, dim corridor. Ahead, to the left, he could see the glow of fluorescent lights through a set of window bars. Jesse plodded forward until he was standing in front of the bars.
Henry “Titan” Tillman sat on the edge of a large cot, elbows propped on his knees, fingers dug into the gray curls of his head. His skin appeared loose over the muscles of his forearms, as though he’d lost weight.
Beside the window was a speaker. Jesse flipped a switch beneath it.
“Rise and shine,” he said.
Titan twitched and lifted his head. His patch had been pushed from his puckered socket, and he tugged it back in place. He snorted and blinked his other eye. It was rimmed with redness and appeared to be trying to focus past the bars. Whether from the gas, sleep deprivation, his five-month incarceration, or some combination of all three, Titan looked like shit.
“That you, Jess?” he asked in a slur.
“Yeah.”
A slow smile broke over Titan’s stubbly face. “What d’ya say, son?”
“I’m not your son.”
“What’re you talking about?” Titan leaned forward in his orange jumpsuit. He looked like he was going to stand but then appeared to think better of it. “Course you are. We’re blood.”
“You’re a con,” Jesse said, remembering how Titan had used the same lines to get him on that helicopter in Saudi Arabia—“son” this, “blood” that. Titan then gave some song and dance about how his team was protecting humankind by balancing world powers. At a compound in Saudi Arabia, Titan had presented him to their team leader like he was some kind of game trophy. The Witch tried to get into his head. She wanted him to attack his former teammates. Jesse refused. When he tried to walk out, something hit his chin like a ton of bricks.
Jesse traced the long scar above his right ear. He had another on his left side to match. He didn’t remember anything after being taken down. The Program had helped fill in some of the blanks. The brain surgery, for one.
“You went into my goddamned head,” Jesse said.
Titan raised a hand in a gesture of drunken diplomacy. “Look, I know we came off bad…”
“Turned me into a frigging robot.”
“Not me, a little twerp named Techie. Knew he was bad news … should’ve pounded him the first time I saw…” Titan’s head dipped as his voice trailed off, but he came to again, hefting his body upright. “I should’ve done more, you’re right. I asked the Witch to give me some time with you, talk to you more about the Scale, why we’re vital to global security. But she was so damn anxious. Dunno what happened. Seemed she was starting to come apart in those last months … powers not what they were. Her clairvoyance sort of took a dump.”
Titan looked around his cell as though to confirm what he’d just said. When his eye focused on Jesse again, he seemed to notice that he was wearing an orange jumpsuit like his.
“Got you in here, too, huh?”
Though Jesse wanted nothing more than to step into Titan’s cell, rip the metal commode from the wall, and use it to pound him into the concrete, he reminded himself of his purpose.
Feel him out, Steel’s men had told him. Look for angles.
“Yeah,” he replied, playing along. “Thanks to you.”
A sliver of interest took hold in Titan’s blue-gray eye. He lurched to his feet and staggered forward until both fists were clenching the bars beyond the window. He tried to peer into the corridor, but the window space was too deep. “How come you’re getting to walk around?” he whispered.
“Good behavior.”
“And they don’t got you on the gas?”
“Not anymore,” he said, which was true. “Can actually think straight again.”
“They talking about letting you out of here?”
“If I keep playing along.”
“Play along, how?”
“Tell ’em what I know about the Scale.”
Titan released the bars and stumbled backwards until he landed seat-down on the cot. Jesse wasn’t sure how or why, but he had just lost him. Titan propped his elbows on his knees and dug his hands into his hair so that he was in the same position as when Jesse had first arrived.
Titan shook his head. “Your outfit’s so screwed, they don’t even know it.”
“The hell you talking about?”
“The Witch may have been a lot of things, but up till the end there, she had the sight. Knew what she was talking about. Do you know how many close calls we’ve had since World War Two?” He gave a loud snort. “Kilmer thinks he’s saving the world, but he’s sending it into a death spiral. I told you, it’s a balancing game. Every time the Scale managed to right the damned ship, there were the Champions knocking it off course again. And now with the Witch gone…” He shook his head hopelessly. “Probably already too late.”
“So what do you wanna get out of here so bad for?”
Titan lifted his head enough for the light to catch his eye. “I said probably. We’ve got a chance, but not much of one.”
“What chance?”
Titan must have heard the curiosity in Jesse’s voice because he stood and staggered to the window again. “The boss man,” he whispered into his speaker. “The one your outfit’s been trying to get me to give up.”
Jesse had Titan in a good place. Just needed to keep him talking about the kingpin without it looking like he was anxious for the information. It wasn’t the smash-’em-up approach Jesse was used to, but so be it.
“What about him?” Jesse asked.
“He assembled the Scale, didn�
��t he?”
“So?”
“Think about the Champions for a minute, you big idiot. There wasn’t just one team, was there?” His eye gleamed as he watched Jesse catch on. “That’s riiight. The boss man ain’t no dummy.”
“Another Scale team?”
“Don’t think he meant for us to know, but yeah, he’s got another one. The Witch saw them in a vision once. The boss man denied it, but anyone could see he was lying. We got a little worried. Thought he was aiming to replace us. When he finally fessed up, he said they were a reserve squad, for just in case.”
Jesse felt the muscles across his upper back tensing in suspicion. He couldn’t believe a word the man was saying, but neither could he come up with a good reason for why he would be lying about this stuff.
Either way, Jesse was tiring of the teasing-out game.
“Who’s the boss man?” he asked bluntly.
“Help me outta here,” Titan said with a smile, “and I’ll introduce you personally.”
“Sure you will.”
“Just gonna watch the world burn, huh?” Titan called as Jesse turned to leave. “Hell, maybe you ain’t my son. Maybe you’re more like that oil-stinking stump you’ve been calling your father.”
Jesse stopped.
“I’m giving you a chance to save the world,” Titan said.
“Thought there was another team. What do they need you for?”
“You kidding?” Titan asked in sloppy indignation. “It’s the B team we’re talking about. I don’t care who they’ve got on there, ain’t no one strong as me.” His gaze steadied. “Or you.”
10
Arlington, Virginia
Monday, June 9
9:16 a.m.
“Have I done something wrong?” Fred Friedman asked.
Director Kilmer studied the CEO of Viper Industries a moment before responding. Though Kilmer had seen his face in photos, the physical presentation of the man who presided over the world’s largest weapons manufacture was not at all what he had imagined. He was short with a plump, almost pleasant face. Permanent smile lines wrinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes. Instead of a bold power suit, he wore a tan tweed jacket with a white shirt underneath, tieless and open at the collar. Ceiling lights glistened from his balding pate, his graying fringe gathered and fastened in a wispy ponytail in back.
But appearances aside, Kilmer knew no one reached his position by being a pushover. And it was not outside the realm of possibilities that Friedman could also be the man behind the Scale.
“No, you haven’t,” Kilmer answered. “As I said, this is a random audit. Your name came up on the Securities and Exchange Commission’s computer, and here we are.” He glanced over to include Agent Steel.
“How long will this take?”
“It’s a cursory audit,” Kilmer reassured him. “Not long. And we do apologize for the inconvenience. We know how busy a man in your position must be.”
As Friedman looked from Kilmer to Agent Steel and back, the chill of winter seemed to take hold in his powder-blue irises. Ah, not so happy-go-lucky after all, Kilmer thought.
“What do you need?”
“A summary of your finances for the last fiscal year.”
Friedman nodded and picked up his phone. He punched a button. “Meredith? Have Ned bring up four copies of FY ’85.” As Friedman waited for a response, Kilmer looked around the office. He had been expecting glass and brushed steel, like in much of the rest of the building, but cherry wood dominated here, down to an executive desk populated with photos of cherub-faced grandchildren. The office, like the man, was not physically imposing.
“Thank you,” Friedman said and hung up. “Ned is our chief financial officer. He’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, would it trouble you if I asked to see your identifications? I know you were verified downstairs, but I always like to double check.”
“Of course,” Kilmer said.
Whether Friedman was trying to assert control or harbored genuine suspicion didn’t matter to Kilmer. Their IDs were perfect knock-offs, the information replicated in a government database should Friedman feel the need to take the extra step. Kilmer reached inside his jacket and returned with a slender wallet. He removed the card that identified him as an investigator with the SEC and set it on the desk at the same moment Agent Steel handed over hers.
Friedman pulled a pair of reading glasses from a shirt pocket and looked over the identifications like a professor assessing student midterms. He pushed their identifications back.
“In the past, I’ve dealt with Kurt Hawtin. He still over there?”
“Hawtin?” Kilmer said neutrally.
Deep in his ear, a transceiver vibrated. “Give me a sec,” Scott whispered over the clacking of keys. “The computer shows no Kurt Hawtin at SEC. I repeat, no Kurt Hawtin at SEC.”
A trick.
Kilmer cleared his throat. “I’m not familiar with that investigator, Mr. Friedman. He must be in a different department.”
Friedman waved a hand humorously, his eyes softening once more. “Must be, must be. I can hardly keep the people and departments in my own organization straight half the time. But here’s one I do know.”
The man who stepped through the opening door to the office embodied the danger Friedman lacked. He was tall and slender, dressed in a stiff blue suit that seemed to slice through the air. But it was his face that most impressed Kilmer: tight with eyes that matched the shoe-polish black of his steep widow’s peak. From the dossiers, Kilmer knew that at sixty years old, the man was four years Friedman’s junior. Both had been at Viper Industries since the mid fifties—long enough to organize the Scale.
“This is Ned Schwartz,” Friedman said, “Viper’s CFO.”
Kilmer stood and received his iron grip. “I’m Agent Kilmer,” he said. “Good to meet you.”
“Agent Steel,” she said beside them.
“I hope this won’t take longer than it needs to,” Schwartz commented as way of greeting. He had carried in four thick binders, which he proceeded to distribute. “Fiscal year ’85,” he announced in barely repressed contempt.
Kilmer and Agent Steel began reading through the statements, Steel more for show. Kilmer had brought her to help him study the reactions of the top two men in the organization.
Thanks to his years in government, Kilmer knew the byzantine language of financial statements. Viper’s earnings were staggering that year, just shy of one hundred billion. But Kilmer was more interested in the expenses. If Viper was behind the Scale, the exorbitant cost would be buried somewhere in the red. Kilmer studied headings and dollar figures: acquisition, restructuring, depreciation, payroll, miscellaneous…
He stopped at the last, then flipped to the breakdown. Schwartz must have seen the studious frown on his face.
“Something wrong?” he challenged.
“This seems an awful lot for lobbying and political donations,” Kilmer answered, raising his eyes. “Eight billion? That’s ten percent of your budget.”
Schwartz’s eyes narrowed over an aggressive white smile, but it was Friedman who spoke. “Well, yes,” the CEO said with a chuckle. “It’s an unfortunate but necessary aspect of our industry. The U.S. government is our biggest client. We have to keep them abreast of what we’re developing, convince them it’s in their best interest to make the forward weapons purchases—for the sake of international peace, security at home. Without our lobbying efforts, that money goes elsewhere.”
Kilmer nodded. He knew about lobbying—it was why the Champions Program existed. But his mind remained fixed on the “convince them” part. It seemed the Cold War suited that aim nicely.
“Look at the other companies in defense, and you’ll find the same percentages allotted to lobbying,” Schwartz cut in. “But don’t let me tell you how to do your jobs.”
“We won’t,” Agent Steel replied icily.
Kilmer closed his binder. “Do you mind if we keep these?”
“That’s what
they’re for,” Schwartz answered distractedly, studying Kilmer’s head of security.
Kilmer smiled to himself. Mr. Schwartz, meet Miss Steel. He turned his attention to Friedman. “Thank you for your time. We’ll go over these and call if we have further questions.”
“Of course,” Friedman said with a pleasant smile.
Schwartz left the departing handshakes to his chief executive, muttering something about getting back to the real work of the company. An even better candidate for Scale kingpin, Kilmer thought. His gaze touched on Steel’s. She was apparently thinking along the same lines.
Kilmer tucked his binder beneath an arm. They would look for answers in the donation and lobbying disclosures that Viper—and the other defense companies—hadn’t had to make back when Kilmer and then-Director Halstead came investigating. It was a matter of tracking down the eight billion. He didn’t care what Mr. Nice Guy CEO claimed. That was a hell of a lot of money.
Fortunately, Kilmer had some well-positioned Champions to help out. He patted his binder in farewell.
“Thanks again,” he said to Friedman.
Command and control
6:45 p.m.
“So, who’s the money going to?” Kilmer asked.
He had returned with Agent Steel that afternoon and was now peering between Scott’s and Janis’s shoulders, trying to read the data the two had pulled up and compiled at his request. It turned out the other defense companies did allot almost the same percentage to lobbying and political contributions as Viper. Meaning that snake of a CFO had been right.
“For starters, the U.S. president and pretty much every elected official,” Scott answered.
“We even found money going to Senator Collingsworth,” Janis said in barely repressed outrage. “And just last year she was up in Tallahassee, stumping alongside Star for ‘no more nukes.’”
“Welcome to the special interest system,” Kilmer muttered. “Collingsworth’s district makes some of the aerospace components for the big missiles. She can stump until she’s blue in the face, but she won’t do anything legislatively to undermine Viper and those jobs—not to mention her campaign contributions.”
XGeneration 7: Dead Hand (XGeneration Series) Page 6