by J C Ryan
Somehow, that struck Carter as funny. He started laughing, and in a moment, she joined in.
Chapter 85 - Shaking one more tree
May 28
Part of the tension among the group came from the knowledge that Bill’s illegal surveillance of the NSC members had turned up not a shred of evidence. He was in danger of being in big trouble for nothing.
Out of desperation and a last-ditch effort to shake every tree they could find, Sean and Dylan told everyone they’d be out of touch for a couple of days and flew to Sean’s brother’s ranch.
It took them just over three hours to get to Colorado Springs with the CIA jet and another forty minutes or so to get to the farm by rented helicopter, which Dylan piloted. They landed on Jared’s farm shortly after eight a.m. Zulu, having followed the sun to arrive when the clock said they’d left less than an hour before. It promised to be a long day.
They had a quick word with Jared, who was surprised to see them, and then they took McCormick away from the house, far enough that no sound would reach where they’d asked Jared to stay, preferably with his sound system on loud.
Jared told them there was a small shed there, suitable for what he suspected they needed.
McCormick’s heart sped up when he saw the visitors. When he glimpsed their faces, he knew it was not the time to mess around. He searched his memory frantically. Telling these guys, he didn’t know was going to get him punished, even if it was the truth. And by punished, he expected jail, probably with broken bones and possibly with bullet wounds.
Both of them were carrying.
The only thing he could be grateful for, as he thought at the last minute before they reached the shed, was they hadn’t brought Kelly White with them. He suspected they were in a mood to treat him the same way she would, but he hoped that, as men, they’d be reluctant to resort to that crazy woman’s tactics.
When Sean started talking, McCormick realized he’d been wrong. Kelly’s option might very well have been better.
“I guess you know why we’re here, McCormick. Do I need to tell you we’re both in a hell of a bad mood?”
McCormick shook his head.
“Then you’re aware that if you don’t cooperate this time, we don’t particularly care if we kill you, right?”
Thinking broken bones, bullets, jail, and even missing his family jewels were probably the best he could hope for, McCormick started talking fast.
“Guys, please, I get it. I truly wish I could help. But I told you all I know last time. I swear it!”
“Let’s just test that theory, shall we? Let’s go through it again, from the beginning.”
Sean and Dylan both had really good memories, and in any case, they’d listened again to the recordings on the flight out. They asked him the same questions and compared the answers. To their frustration, they couldn’t find any incongruities except in maybe the word choices and order of sentences.
His story matched, and there was no escaping it.
It didn’t make sense, though. An asset in his position had to have more than he was telling them. Threat of bodily harm hadn’t produced anything but another unpleasant pants-pissing episode.
Disgusted, Dylan knocked McCormick down, but he still claimed he didn’t know.
Sean held Dylan back when he would have followed that punch with a kick to the ribs. “Wait. I believe him. I think he’s not deliberately hiding anything. We need to try something different.”
“Hanging for a minute?” Dylan asked hopefully.
“Maybe later,” Sean answered, distracted by his own thoughts. McCormick was telling the truth as he knew it, Sean was convinced. He wasn’t hiding anything, but there had to be something he just wasn’t thinking about. They were asking the wrong questions.
He said, “Now listen carefully, asshole. You’ve had time out here in peace and quiet in this lovely place, among your new friends, the alpacas, to think for more than twenty-five days.
“There is something you’re not telling us. So, let me be succinct – Dylan is going to kill you right here and right now, and I won’t lift a finger to stop him. The world will be a better place without you.
“Just so you know what your future looks like, you’re looking at the electric chair or the needle if you go to trial. I can’t save you from that, but I can help you out of a long wait to die by letting Dylan shoot you right now. He’ll probably get a medal for doing it, especially if he and I are the only ones remaining to tell the story of how it actually happened.
“On the other hand, we might also be able to help you out by telling the prosecutors how cooperative you were and how much remorse you showed for your wrongdoing.
“Hell, we might even tell them you were blackmailed into doing someone else’s dirty work. We can’t give guarantees, but with that sort of testimony and calling in a few favors, who knows?
“You might just escape the death penalty.”
Dylan grinned ferally and took his pistol out of his shoulder holster.
McCormick shook his head in desperation. “What do you want me to say or do? I’ve already told you everything, and I mean everything I know. I’ve been honest, I swear!” Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled down his cheeks.
“You must have some inkling who your handler is.” Sean overrode McCormick’s attempt to answer and continued, “Yes, I know you ‘saw him twenty-five years ago, once, for a short while in a poorly illuminated place’. You’ve said that. But I’m sure you must have wondered who that person was. You must have seen people that maybe looked like him or reminded you of him. Tell us about them.”
McCormick sat quiet for a long while. They let him, because they could see he was thinking hard—he was thinking for his life.
He had no doubt Sean or Dylan would execute him—he could see it in their eyes, and they could see that knowledge in his.
Finally, he said, “Yes, I’ve been thinking and wondering about that cursed man every day for twenty-five years. And I still don’t know… rather I can’t be sure... or… I just don’t know—”
“McCormick!” Dylan yelled. “Any more, silly rambling like that and I put a bullet between your eyes.”
McCormick looked up and slowly shook his head and said, “It’s not possible… it can’t be… I… it’s been driving me to the edge of insanity… For almost eighteen years I never saw or heard anyone that reminded me of that man, but for the last seven years or so—”
“Who? I’m not asking again,” Dylan yelled. He cocked the gun.
“Jason Sullivan… but it can’t be… him… it just can’t be… yet…” McCormick had been reduced to babbling, and they noted with disgust he’d pissed himself again.
Sean and Dylan looked at each other. The only Jason Sullivan they knew was the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, and… he was one of the President’s NSC members.
“Jason Sullivan, as in the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States?” They asked in unison, as if they’d been practicing it.
McCormick nodded slowly. “Yes. Every time the last few years I saw his face on TV and heard his voice and way of speaking, it reminded me of the man I saw twenty-five years ago, and who has been holding this sword over my head for all that time.
“But… it can’t be… him. It’s… not… it’s not possible.”
“Why not?” Sean demanded.
“I don’t know. I just can’t imagine a man in his position would do it. Also, he is known as a very good manager. The people in his department are crazy about him. He’s just not the type of person that could do something like this,” McCormick babbled.
“Well, he hasn’t been the Secretary of the Treasury for all of the past twenty-five years. He’s been in that position only about seven and a half years,” Dylan pointed out. “McCormick, we’re going to check up on that. And you might just have saved your own life. Honest to God, I was ready to kill you today. You have no fuckin’ idea how close you were to your death a few minutes ago.”
Sean nodded decisively. “Dylan, we need to check this out.” To McCormick, he said, “We’re going to leave now, but you stay put on this farm until I come and fetch you.
“Jared says you’ve been good so far and have been a big help. Just carry on doing that. Don’t even think about running away. We will find you, even if we have to go to the ends of the earth. We’ll find you and kill you. Understood?”
McCormick nodded.
“Okay, get your ass out of here, and go feed the alpacas. They must be missing you.”
After he left, Sean and Dylan stared at each other again. Jason Sullivan? He was known as one of the friendliest and most efficient high-ranking officials in President Grant’s administration. His staff and people in his department loved him. He was known as a fair and good-natured executive—in short, he would have probably been the last man they would have suspected.
“A friendly, good-natured, soft-spoken, people-pleasing, and beloved psychopath?” Dylan mused.
“Not unheard of. Remember Ted Bundy,” Sean answered.
“You have a point. Listen, we need to get back to DC immediately. There’s no time to lose.”
Chapter 86 - Sorry, you got bumped
May 29
Jason Sullivan had been thinking about his future for a while, but he got more serious about it when McCormick disappeared. And the last two days, with all the breaking news about the Nabateans and the crisis meetings he attended, he had read between the lines and recognized the signs the council found him too dangerous to let live.
An analytical man, he’d considered several options and narrowed them down to one. But it was going to require very careful planning.
There was only one man he felt could get him out of his predicament, and that man was Carter Devereux.
In Nabatean circles, Devereux had become legendary. He, and he suspected some others, had come to believe Devereux was a demi-god. In all their long history, the Nabateans had never been faced with so formidable an enemy. Not only did he beat them to every critical discovery, but he had somehow escaped every plan they’d made to destroy him.
Sullivan had one big problem in his scheme, though—how to contact Devereux without raising suspicion of his motives? More importantly, how to do so without the council learning of it?
But he was out of time—he had to act immediately. Between the news of late, the panic among the council members, and Graziella’s constant temper tantrums, his hourglass had only a few grains of sand remaining.
There was no time to ponder his next move any longer.
***
Sean and Dylan left the ranch mid-morning and were back in DC by afternoon. They didn’t even stop to eat, going straight to Bill with their information.
Bill leapt to his feet at the news. “Impossible! He’s lying. You guys probably used torture techniques, and that’s the trouble with them. McCormick would have said anything to save his skin and stop the pain.”
Dylan crossed his arms, and his face assumed a stubborn expression. Sean tried to explain. “We did threaten him, but I swear we didn’t touch him, just one little love-tap. All we did was threaten to shoot him.” He grinned, but Bill was in no mood for levity.
“Damn it, Sean, that’s just what I mean. Think about it! Sullivan has an untarnished reputation. He’s a gentleman in both senses of the word and highly regarded from both sides of the political fence.
“One of the few in this administration that gets things done without ruffling feathers. The President likes him for that, and relies on him.
“How am I going to go to the President and tell him a traitor under duress has named him as the mole in the NSC?” As he ranted, hardly drawing a breath, Bill paced his office and ran his hand through his grey hair.
Sean signaled Dylan to let him do the talking. “Bill, it’s the only—” He got no further.
“No! Just stop. There’s no way I’m taking this to the President. Shit, man, Sullivan is without a doubt the only Cabinet member who’s likely to continue in his position irrespective of which party wins the election. Even bone-heads like you must know about his good reputation.”
Sean and Dylan didn’t even risk a glance at each other. They just stared at Bill. What he was saying was all true, including the accusation of enhanced interrogation, though they hadn’t taken that as far as Bill assumed.
On the other hand, it was the only lead they had. There was literally nowhere else to look.
Bill wasn’t done, though. Apparently, they’d opened the floodgates of his stress.
“What’s more,” he said, “I’ve put my head on the chopping block by ordering the illegal surveillance of the NSC members.
“I did that based on a notion from you guys. And I admit, I agreed with it at the time, but you know as well as I do we couldn’t even find one of them having an argument with his wife.
“I study those wiretaps every goddamn day, and I’m telling you, Sullivan is squeaky clean. And you’re asking me to stick my neck out even further?”
Sean lifted his hands in frustration, but Dylan beat him to the answer. “Yes, that might be so. But remember the Nabatean’s superior technology. Just think about how they managed, almost successfully, to frame the Devereuxs.
“Think about how they were able to escape detection of our NSA—hell man, all our security agencies. And those of every country in the world for close on two thousand years.
“Just remember their almost-free access to our security agencies’ databanks. They have the ways and means to avoid any electronic surveillance techniques we can throw at them.”
Bill stopped to consider Dylan’s point. Then he answered, “Okay, that might be so, but it still doesn’t explain the discrepancy in personality traits. Psychopaths usually display disinhibited behavior, low anxiety, and feckless disregard—Sullivan displays none of that.”
Sean agreed. “You’re right. But we’re just calling these guys psychopaths. It doesn’t mean they necessarily fit the profile. And as I reminded Dylan earlier, we’ve seen some who don’t conform to the usual traits we as laypeople think they have, at least on the surface.
“Let’s call in one of the shrinks and hear what he or she has to say. We’re convinced McCormick wasn’t lying.”
Dylan nodded vigorously. “Bill, we did put a lot of pressure on him. Like Sean said, we threatened to shoot him, and I’ll admit he was convinced we would. But I swear, we didn’t use extreme measures on him. Yes, I hit him once, but not very hard, and only once.
“We didn’t even tie him up during the questioning. Sure, he could have been making it all up just to make us stop, but we’re convinced it’s not the case.”
Sean took up the refrain. “Bill, we were there. We spoke to him. Just trust us on this one.”
“Yeah, well, your definition of ‘speaking’ to someone and mine might differ, I suspect,” Bill growled.
Dylan snorted. “Bill, you’re harping on that, and we’ve both already said exactly what we did and did not do. Why not do as Sean suggested? What can it hurt? Just call a shrink in and ask!”
Bill threw his arms in the air. “All right! Shit, you guys are a pain in the ass. But I’ll do it, just to shut you up.”
He buzzed his secretary. “Get hold of Dr. Banks and have her come in here on the double.”
While they waited, Bill tried to relax. “How was Colorado?”
“Shit, Bill, we were only there a couple of hours. And we were a little too busy to notice the weather,” Sean retorted.
Dr. Banks arrived breathless. “You wanted to see me, Director?” She was a lanky, almost anorexic-looking woman; she had big black glasses and dark hair cut in a straight bob. She probably wouldn’t break any mirrors, Dylan thought, but neither would she turn any heads.
Without telling her what it was all about, they fired hypothetical questions at her for the next half hour. Her answers revealed that psychopaths could be master people-pleasers and manipulators. The skillful ones could get literall
y anything they wanted from people, which would be incredibly useful to them in furthering their self-serving nature.
“So, you’re saying not all psychopaths are killers,” Sean clarified.
“Yes, not all psychopaths are killers,” she answered. “Many of them, because of their people-pleasing and manipulative traits, are very successful business leaders, CEOs of big corporations, and even head government departments. Even some of the killers can appear normal and charming. Ted Bundy, for example.”
Sean shot a triumphant glance at Bill.
After dismissing the shrink with thanks, Bill immediately called for an appointment with the President.
As usual, it was a battle of wills with Scott Eadie to get in.
“All your appointments are urgent, Bill. You don’t have to tell me. Eight tonight, take it or leave it.”
***
Within an hour after Bill’s call, Scott took a call from Jason Sullivan.
“I need to see him on a personal and private matter, Scott,” Sullivan said.
“I can slot you in for next week sometime,” Scott answered.
“It’s urgent.” For the next ten minutes, Sullivan used every manipulative trick in his arsenal to persuade Scott to give him just a few minutes immediately. Scott soon felt so good about himself and Sullivan that he said he’d clear the President’s schedule for fifteen minutes. At eight p.m.
With that done, he called Bill. “Sorry, you got bumped. Best I can do is seven a.m. tomorrow.”
Bill exploded. “What the fuck! Who got my slot? This is serious stuff man! I’m telling you, this could be more serious than anything else I ever brought to the President. You know I’m good friends with Sam Grant. I want my appointment tonight, and if I don’t get it, I’m going over your head.”
Eadie wavered. He liked Sullivan and didn’t want to disappoint him. His business was urgent, too, he’d said. Yet, he feared Grant’s wrath if he blocked Bill from bringing a critical matter to his attention. He pushed back, and Bill pushed harder, finally demanding to know who was the person who got priority over him.