by Sam Bourne
So for all those reasons, Maggie’s working presumption was that Edith Kelly was a liar or seriously disturbed – and she would wait to be proved wrong.
‘Going on about the Garden of Eden, and talking about God as if he doesn’t exist one minute, as if he does the next, and you’re never quite sure, and all those fancy names, the experts and the writers, quoting this one and that one. When I read that on my iPad here,’ she gestured towards it, ‘it sounded like Martin was at the dinner table all over again. It was like he was right here talking to me.’
‘And have you told him this?’
‘What, Martin? I have not.’
‘Because you’re frightened of how he might react?’
‘Because I haven’t spoken to him in eleven years.’
‘Oh. I see.’
‘No. No, you really don’t.’
In the silence that followed, Maggie sat back and signalled that she was ready to listen, without interruption.
‘Martin was our only child. Imagine that, a Catholic family with just one. But that’s what the Good Lord intended and so that’s how it was. But my word, what a clever child he was. The cleverest boy in his class. I know every mother says that, but it happens to be true. This is when we lived in the city and there was no shortage of clever boys there. But Martin, we wondered if he was, you know, some kind of genius. Terry, my husband Terence, was convinced Martin would be president one day. I never thought that for one single moment. Never. He was far too shy. And he was a thin-skinned child. Hated being teased. He went on Scout camp in the summer, but I’m not sure he ever fitted in.
‘But Stanford! Well, that seemed to be the making of him. He was captivated by it. Especially by this man, Keane. It was “Professor Keane says this” and “Professor Keane says that”. Terry didn’t like it. I think he was jealous. But I was pleased. To see Martin grow like that, to see him spread his wings and soar. I thought it was wonderful, to be quite honest with you.’
Maggie nodded and smiled, topping up Edith’s glass with some water from the jug. Solicitous, interested, kind: Maggie was playing the Irish daughter-in-law-to-be.
‘Well, we all took it for granted that after Stanford – graduating summa cum laude, if you don’t mind – Martin would write his own ticket. He could do whatever he liked. But for some reason, things didn’t quite gel, if you know what I mean. He’d apply for jobs and he’d get them, but then he’d walk out in a huff. Or he’d have a fight with the boss.’
‘An argument, you mean?’
‘No, I mean a fight. With his fists.’ She held up her clenched hands, to demonstrate. ‘I think he had what these days they’d call “anger management issues”.’
‘And this was in California?’
‘Yes. At first. He said he wanted to be near Professor Keane, so he hung around Stanford a year or two. While Keane was still there. I didn’t think that was healthy.’
‘The attachment to Keane?’
‘Sticking around his old college. Like he was Peter Pan. Eternal student. “Time to move on, Martin,” I’d say. His father too. “Come on, Martin, time to grow up.” But he didn’t want to leave. I wouldn’t care, but it’s not like he had so many friends there.’
‘At Stanford?’
‘Yes. I mean, don’t get me wrong, there was a tight group. That history class. Keane’s class. Martin would mention all the names, this one and that one. But I was never convinced that the feeling was mutual, if you get my meaning.’
‘You weren’t sure that—’
‘I suppose I began to worry that Martin was a bit of a loner. Like he was on the outside looking in or something.’ She was gazing into the middle distance now, watching a swan at the water’s edge. ‘Anyway, he was drifting. He would pick up something, then drop it. He would learn everything there was to learn about computers and Terence and I would get our hopes up – “Pet, maybe this will be his calling, you know?” – but then he’d be disappointed or get bored, I don’t know what. Such a bright boy.’
‘And was he in touch with Professor Keane in this period?’
‘I don’t know. But he still talked about him plenty. The few times he came home. Though he came less and less often. And when he was here he started saying some strange stuff, winding up his father something rotten.’
‘Like what?’
‘He got into these conspiracy theories. “Everyone’s lying. What you think is true, Mom, is almost never true.” ’
‘What kind of things? JFK? The moon landings? That sort of thing?’
‘9/11: that was the main one. Hours he would spend on his computer, examining pictures of this side of the building, or that joist. Terry was in construction, you know. A foreman. He told Martin he was talking nonsense, but Martin wouldn’t listen. He knew best.
‘That was the last straw, for Terry. You see, Terry’s brother . . . he lost his brother in the towers. Michael, his name was. Terry’s brother. He was a fireman. Firefighter, you’re meant to say now, aren’t you? Well, that’s what he did. And of course he rushed down there like the rest of them. Only, he was one of those who went back in.’ The old lady’s eyes were starting to glitter.
‘Well, one day, Martin went too far, talking about the second tower and the “explosions” and that. “It’s all a lie,” he was saying. “The government staged a great big hoax and you all fell for it.” ’
‘Well, you can imagine. Terence had the rage of Samson himself boiling up in him. “How dare you say that,” he said. “You take that back, for the sake of your Uncle Michael, may God rest his soul.” And then Martin looks at him, his own father, and says, “Uncle Michael wasn’t a hero. He was an extra in a fucking movie.” Pardon my language, Maggie. But that’s what Martin says, to his father’s face. Well, Terry slaps him hard and Martin punches him straight back. Just like that. Knocks him out cold. And then he walks out and I’ve not seen him from that day to this.’
Maggie sipped her own glass of water and let Edith Kelly collect herself. She knew more was coming.
‘After that, I picked up the odd fag-end here and there. That’s all. No more letters, no phone calls. Even after Terry died. But reading that manifesto last night, I tell you: it was like I had a long letter from him. Like I was holding it in my hands.’
‘The way it was written?’
‘It sounded like him. Do you know what I mean? Just the way he talked. Crazy and so sure of himself, and so convinced that heaven was around the corner. That line about returning to the Garden of Eden? I can hear him saying it. And numbering every point? “Eleven . . . Thirty-four . . . One hundred and thirty-one.” Martin did that. In his letters, and he used to send me long letters. But he even did it when he was talking.’
‘So you’re sure?’
‘I wish I wasn’t. It’s a terrible thing to believe your own flesh and blood, the child you fed from your own breast, is capable of such wickedness. But I know it, Maggie. I know it.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because everything in that document is what Martin wanted most. A fresh start. A chance to start over. I know he’s talking in that manifesto about society and the human race and all that. But I think that’s what Martin wanted for himself. Every time he started a new job, he’d say it: “A clean slate. I want to wipe the slate clean.” It’s insane and it’s evil, but I think that’s what my son thinks he’s giving the world.’
Maggie nodded quietly and then, in a gesture that surprised herself, she reached out and placed a hand on the older woman’s hand. As if Edith Kelly were a Dublin aunt, grieving at a wake.
The next few minutes were taken up with practical questions. Did she know where Martin lived now? His last known address? His email or cellphone?
Finally: would Edith allow Maggie to share this information with the federal authorities, even if that meant Martin would be arrested and perhaps, eventually, charged with these crimes?
‘I’ve been thinking of nothing else since six o’clock this morning. I’ve been a
sking myself, what would Terry say.’
‘And what would he say?’
‘He’d say, “What do you think, love?” ’ She smiled. ‘And maybe he’d say we should ask the priest.’
‘And have you done that?’
She made a face. ‘What, ask advice from that slip of a lad who calls himself the chaplain here? You must be joking. He’s younger than you are, no disrespect, and the only thing he knows how to do is the last rites. Mind you, in this place he gets plenty of practice.’ A mischievous smile.
‘So what did you decide?’
‘I decided that I’m a mother and the last thing a mother should ever do is betray her own child. Her only child.’
Maggie could feel her shoulders slump.
‘But,’ Edith continued, ‘this can’t only be about my feelings. There are other mothers involved here too. The mothers of those historians killed in cold blood, those librarians, who died trying to save their collections. Those survivors of all those terrible wars, the Holocaust and what have you. And they’re just the ones who’ve been killed already. What about the others who are going to get killed today or next week? Those mothers’ feelings matter too. In what way, exactly, would I be doing my duty as a mother if I shield Martin, and that means all those other mothers’ children die? You don’t need to be a priest to see that that’s not right. So, yes. You tell the FBI what I know.’
Maggie nodded.
‘But will you do me one small favour, Maggie?’
‘Of course.’
‘Will you ask them not to be too rough with him? I don’t know exactly what he’s done, but he’s not as tough as he seems, whatever he likes to say. The truth is, he’s a gentle boy.’
As Maggie said goodbye, she was filled with the urge to praise Edith Kelly for her wisdom, for her act of human generosity, for her selflessness. She also wanted to give her a hug, as she guessed what pain she was about to endure. But instead she asked one last question.
‘Edith, you never told me. Before you retired, did you work?’ The woman nodded. ‘Can I ask what you did?’
‘Oh, I thought you might have guessed that one. Most people do, from the way I go on. But maybe it’s not as obvious now as it once was. I was a teacher, Maggie. I taught history.’
Chapter Thirty-Six
FBI headquarters, Washington DC, 6.35pm
There was the real one and there was a fake one. This was the real one. The giveaway was the absence of cameras.
Over at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the president and a few handpicked senior White House aides, all but one of them men, along with a couple of generals in uniform, were gathered in the Situation Room. The president was at the head of the cramped conference table, naturally, and his gaze, like that of the other dozen or so crammed around him, fixed straight ahead. They all appeared to be staring at a TV screen.
Maggie knew all this because she could see it. It was being televised and live-streamed online, by direct order of the president. ‘It’ll make great TV,’ he had said. ‘The ratings will be sky high.’
Which explained the presence of the uniforms. Of course the operation now unfolding in Montana, which they were watching so avidly on the Situation Room screens, had nothing to do with the army or any other branch of the military. But the president wanted them there anyway. For the pictures.
‘They look the part,’ he had explained.
The military were not involved, because this was an FBI show, directed and run from FBI headquarters. Which was why the real event was here, in the Director’s office. As it happened, here too they were gathered around a conference table, though it was slightly larger than the one in the Situation Room where, Maggie remembered well, your knees would touch those of the person opposite and you really hoped everyone had brought a supply of breath mints. Here too the tableau may have borne an uncanny resemblance to that image of an anxious president and his team watching a faraway raid by an elite unit, but in this case that similarity was entirely coincidental. Craig Lofgren was not staging this session for the cameras. This was for real.
‘Can you get closer on the aerial image, or improve the resolution maybe?’ the Director was asking. Instantly the central image on the video wall opposite began to change. Still bordered by a set of white lines and numbers – time of day, precise GPS co-ordinates – it now zoomed closer, so that Lofgren, Maggie and the rest of the command team of Operation Florian could see in precise detail what was on the roof of the isolated Montana cabin – hidden deep in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest, far off Route 200 – which Martin Kelly had called home for the last nine years. Unmistakable was the sight of an oversized satellite dish, perhaps the only means by which someone in that part of the rural, remote northwest could have high-grade access to the internet.
Andrea Ellis gave Maggie a glance which, despite its brevity, signalled affirmation. See the size of that thing? You weren’t wrong, Maggie.
That Maggie was here at all was proof that Andrea’s view was now the official one. Once Maggie had called the Deputy Director with what she had – the testimony of Kelly’s mother, validated by his presence on the Stanford alumni list – her transition from outcast to trusted member of the team was swift. She was put on the first flight out of Cleveland and told not to worry about her car.
It turned out that the tech team had been running the manifesto through the linguistic pattern recognition software, comparing the text with everything ever published online, and had narrowed the search down to a few hundred possibilities, but they had not yet lighted upon Martin Kelly. The trouble was, he had written so little that was available on the internet – a mere fraction of the number of words he had used in the hundreds of letters he had sent his mother, at least until they had broken off all contact. The computer barely had enough to go on. Once the machines had his name, of course they could see the match straight away. It was unmistakable. Once they’d found their needle, they knew it was theirs. But knowing where in the haystack, where in the millions of haystacks, to look, that had been Maggie’s achievement.
Maggie was happy to take the credit, if that meant rejoining the hunt for the Bookburner. But in truth, she knew that the person they – America and the world – needed to thank was Edith Kelly. It somehow warmed Maggie to think that, in this world of algorithms and artificial intelligence, it was a mother’s love, with its unique intensity, that had seen what the machines could not.
What about the money? That had been Maggie’s first question. But the Bureau team had an answer to that too. Preliminary analysis of online activity traced to Kelly’s cabin suggested manipulation of the crypto-currency market. ‘Enough to amass some serious cash,’ as Ellis put it.
There was a crackle on the speaker placed in the centre of the table. ‘This is gold command. Awaiting your order, sir.’ One of the nine screens on the video wall indicated that the gold team was in the woods east of Kelly’s cabin. ‘This is red command. Awaiting your order, sir.’ They were behind the cabin, close to a stream. And finally: ‘This is black command. Awaiting your order, sir.’ Those were the agents directly in front, the ones who would charge through Kelly’s front door.
Maggie saw Lofgren swallow, a motion visible chiefly because of his effort to hide it. ‘This is Director Lofgren,’ he said. ‘Do it.’
There was then a cacophony of voices, several of them saying, ‘We are a go, we are a go.’
Maggie watched the raid unfold from multiple angles, her gaze mostly focused on the images provided by black command, doubtless from cameras attached to their helmets, as they rammed the door. A second later the screen showed Kelly, in boxer shorts and a T-shirt, instantly fling his arms up in the air in a gesture of abject surrender. (That, Maggie thought, will be the image that goes around the world.) He had been at a desk, on a computer: online and yet utterly unaware of the fate that was about to befall him.
Now Maggie saw the federal agents, helmeted, encased in bulletproof vests and armed with semi-automatic weapons as they moved
to surround Kelly. At a guess, there seemed to be at least twenty of them jammed into the tiny space of this one-room cabin, with perhaps eight guns pointed directly at the man in his boxer shorts.
But then Kelly made a sudden movement, reaching with his right arm back to the desk. In almost that same instant, he fell forward – a move that happened so fast it took Maggie, and apparently everyone else in this room, a second or two to realize what had happened. Confirmation came from the voice on the radio.
‘This is black command. The suspect is down, repeat the suspect is down.’
The room around her seemed stunned into silence. Lofgren took off his glasses, closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Maggie’s gaze remained fixed on the screen, where the cabin seemed to have erupted into controlled pandemonium. Paramedics were now jammed into the small room, so that it was thoroughly congested, as packed as a subway train filled with bulked-up soldier-agents, the letters ‘FBI’ huge on their backs. The medics were trying to clear a space, but even from this distance, even from three thousand miles away, it was obvious: Martin Kelly was dead.
Maggie looked over to Andrea Ellis. She mouthed a suggestion. ‘Get them to find what he was looking for.’
Ellis mouthed back. ‘What?’
Maggie leaned in, so that she was whispering distance from the Deputy Director. ‘He was reaching for something. They thought it was a gun. But it was something else. See if they can find it.’ Ellis nodded and turned to Lofgren.
Maggie’s eyes returned to the monitor. It was hard to see through and beyond that thicket of people, forming a perverse guard of honour for Kelly’s stretchered body, but what Maggie could make out struck her.
The room was simple, monastic even. A metal-framed single bed; a table which seemed to serve a double function as a desk; a stiff, wooden chair. There was no bathroom she could see; perhaps Kelly used the stream out back. There were no pictures on the walls, and yet they were covered in colour.