A wry smile came to his face. “Are you asking me if I told them?”
“Did you?”
“Jesse, down deep I’m an honest person. I’ve made some mistakes, but it’s time that I own up to those mistakes and atone for them. I’m not going to be part of the game anymore. I’m not going to let them get away with this.” He paused and looked into her eyes. “And I care about you. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
It was a wonderful speech, but she wasn’t going to give him the benefit of the doubt so fast. “You just told me the average portfolio manager who has been at Sagamore five years earns two million dollars annually. You said it was easier to play the game and earn the money. I imagine telling them about that file would get you the two million pretty quickly.”
“If I had told them about the file, why would I be here telling you all this?” He shook his head. “Besides they wouldn’t have sent me back, they would have sent a professional. You’d be dead by now. If you erect the infrastructure they have and take the risks they have, you play for keeps. Killing an IRS agent to maintain secrecy of the conspiracy isn’t something you even think twice about. You just do it.”
Slowly Jesse brought her hands to her face. Sara. The lost glove at the river house. Had they been trying to trace her and found Sara instead? “No,” she said aloud. She was letting her imagination run away with her. Sara had simply gone AWOL for twenty-four hours and would show up today.
“No, what?” David asked curiously.
“Nothing.” But somehow she knew something awful had happened to Sara. “What about a check from Doub Steel to LFA, signed by you?” She had to ask the question.
“Check?” David asked hoarsely, clearly taken off guard.
“Yes,” she said evenly. “I have a copy of a check made out to the organization known as Liberation for African-Americans. It’s a Doub Steel check and it’s signed by David J. Mitchell. You told me that afternoon we were sailing that Doub Steel was one of your portfolio companies.”
“I know what I told you,” he answered, suddenly upset. “How did you get a copy of that check?”
“You don’t want to tell me which senator runs the black budget. I’m not going to tell you how I got the check. But I have it, the file you saw, and a good deal of other pertinent and damning information stored in a safe place.”
“Jesse, that isn’t my signature on the Doub check. It’s a forgery. You’ve got to believe me.”
“I saw your signature that night at the restaurant and at the marina when you paid for the sailboat. I’m no expert, but you have a distinct signature. The one on the Doub check looks a lot like yours.”
“I’ll admit that. I was as shocked as I’m sure you were when you first saw it.” His pulse was racing. How in the hell could she possibly have stumbled onto the check? Sagamore would only use it against him if he tried to expose what was going on. That was clear. But there was no telling what Jesse would do with it. “They set me up.”
“I’m really supposed to believe that?” She saw the desperation in his eyes again. Its intensity was screaming truth. And if he was here to do her bodily harm, wouldn’t he have done it already? Why would he bother talking this long?
“You have to believe me,” he said through gritted teeth. “Look, I want to take these people down—”
“So do I,” she cut in angrily. “I think they killed Neil Robinson. A man I cared very much about. Not to mention the fact that they’re trying to manipulate an election and they’ve broken more laws than you and I could imagine.”
“I want to help you, Jesse. Please believe that.”
“Everything I’ve heard you say is based on assumptions. If you want to help me, tell me what you know.” She turned away from him.
He couldn’t tell her about his meeting with Webb so long ago. Couldn’t explain how he knew so much about the A-100 and the GEA contract, couldn’t explain his relationship with Jack Finnerty, couldn’t explain that they had framed him with the offshore accounts. And couldn’t tell her what he believed were the true motivations behind Elizabeth Gilman’s odd behavior. He needed Jesse to trust him, but telling her everything would make him too vulnerable.
“Give me just a little more time. There’s more information I can get,” he said. He saw her anger. “You have to trust me,” he said earnestly.
This was where it got tricky. “Trust you? You could be setting me up.” Suddenly she felt his hands gently massaging her shoulders. “My God, you steal my keys and let yourself into my apartment. You admit to going through a personal file of mine. You won’t tell me how you know about Sagamore’s contact in the Senate, or who it is. You admit to SEC violations.”
“I never admitted to SEC violations,” he corrected her.
“You didn’t have to. I can draw that conclusion for myself.” She felt his arms coming around her waist. “David, stop.” But suddenly she didn’t want him to stop. Suddenly she realized how truly scared she was, and his strong arms felt wonderful and comforting around her. “Stop,” she said. But there was no conviction this time.
“No, I won’t.” Slowly David turned her so she was facing him. He gazed deeply into her eyes. “I’m going to take care of you. But I need your help too. We’re going to beat these bastards. But we have to depend on each other.”
It was so dangerous to trust him—to trust anyone, for that matter. But he could be so convincing. And wasn’t he right? If he had told them about the file, they wouldn’t have sent him back.
“All right,” she said softly.
* * *
—
Through the early-morning light Jesse followed David’s BMW in her rental car. As she focused on his taillights, she felt her attraction to him growing stronger. It was crazy, but she couldn’t help herself.
“We’re going to beat these bastards.” He had said the words with such intensity. But that tiny seed of doubt was still there as well, as much as she tried to convince herself it shouldn’t be. Two million dollars was a lot to throw away. He could be setting her up so easily. There was a manipulative side to David Mitchell. She couldn’t deny that. But how strong was that side? That was the question. When she had looked into his eyes in the apartment, she had seen sincerity. Or perhaps he was simply an actor giving the performance of a lifetime. But why would he be protecting her now? Why would he have told her to get out of the apartment?
They pulled up in front of the Towson Sheraton Hotel. David jumped from the BMW, jogged back to her car, and opened the door, holding her hand as she stepped out.
“That’s very gallant of you,” she said.
“Thank you.” He kissed her on the cheek. “I really am going to take care of you.” She was trusting him now. Against the odds, he had persuaded her to do so. But then he had always been able to do that when he really needed to. It was a God-given talent. Something about his eyes, a woman of his past had murmured. “Let’s go inside, Jesse. I’m going to get you a room, then I have to go. But I’ll be in touch.” He took her by the arm. “I think it would be a good idea if you didn’t go to work today.”
Jesse nodded. She would follow his orders to the letter now.
“And don’t call anyone from the room. They might have caller ID. If you have to use the phone, go to the mall next door. But don’t stay away from your room too long. That might be dangerous.”
She nodded again.
David reached into the backseat of her car for the bag she had packed hastily at the apartment, started toward the door, then stopped. “Jesse, I need to know where that Elbridge Coleman file is. And the other things you said you had as well.”
She had agreed to help him. She trusted him now, didn’t she?
He took her hand in his. “What if, God forbid, they find you? I’d be the only one left who could stop them. It sounds like that file would help a great deal.” He hesitated. “Will you tell me?”
Todd Colton watched as Jesse said something into David’s ear, then kissed him deeply. He had watched them leave her apartment fifteen minutes ago. He had watched Jesse disappear into her mother’s house sometime before dawn this morning, only to reappear minutes later. He had never really left her after tearing out of the parking lot in his Corvette. Instead, he had followed her everywhere she had gone. And now, as he watched them enter the Sheraton arm in arm, his anger rose to a level he had never experienced. Jesse had lied to him about her feelings for David Mitchell. She cared about Mitchell deeply.
That was the real reason she had spurned his advances, had pulled away from his attempt to kiss her in the parking lot. Her feelings for Mitchell. How could she do this to him when he had always been there for her?
* * *
—
“You wanted to see me?” Monique stepped into Malcolm Walker’s office warily.
Walker sat in his office chair, head back, hands covering his face. “Come in.” His voice was hushed.
She coughed nervously, then moved across the thick carpet to the chair in front of his desk and sat down. He must know by now that the communiqué between Cowen and Webb was gone. Her lip curled involuntarily at the thought of Webb. The bastard had kept her at the Four Seasons until four this morning, taking her over and over.
“What’s the matter?” Walker asked.
“What do you mean?”
“You look like you just bit into a lemon. And you look exhausted too.”
She felt as if his eyes were searching her for clues. “I’ll be fine,” she answered. “I think I ate something for breakfast that isn’t agreeing with me.”
“Maybe you should go home.”
“I’ll be fine, Malcolm.” She hated herself. She had been with Malcolm for ten years, and now she had given Webb the note from Cowen to keep the pictures with the blond woman off tabloid front pages. She had ruined Malcolm’s chance to nail the black budgeteers and probably his chances for reelection as well just to save herself. “Why did you want to see me?”
“Have you turned on your television this morning?”
Monique shook her head.
“The tape of yesterday’s abortion of a press conference is playing everywhere. It’s the lead story on all the local newscasts and many of the network broadcasts as well. Was it really that important? Do they really have to show it that much?”
“It’s the conservative machine flexing its muscles.” Sometimes there was no way to fight the system. It was frustrating as hell, but you just had to learn to accept it.
“You think the local stations are being paid to play it, don’t you?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there was something going on.” Her voice was a monotone murmur. She wanted to tell him what she had done. She owed it to him. But there was no way to pull the trigger. And what would it accomplish, anyway? She had already handed over the Cowen note. Malcolm would know that she was a turncoat, and her body would be splashed all over every sleazy magazine, wrapped around an equally sleazy blond. “They’ll do anything to destroy you, Malcolm. You surprised them last time and won before they could do anything. They’re out to get you this time.”
Walker gazed at Monique strangely. She had never been so forthright. “Morty Andrews over at CNN called me first thing this morning. They conducted a poll last night, after the tape had started playing on all the newscasts.”
“And?”
“Coleman’s lead is twelve points now. I’ve solidified my position within the black community, but the white vote is abandoning me.” It was over, he knew. There would be no coming back from this.
“As if you needed to solidify your position with the African-American population. Great. Because you showed unity with LFA yesterday your approval rating in the black community went from ninety-five to ninety-six percent. Big deal.”
“That’s what I don’t get.” Walker put his head in his hands. “Elijah Pitts must have known this would happen. Why would he want me to lose?”
* * *
—
David pulled the extra set of keys he had made out of his pocket as he climbed the steps to Jesse’s apartment. What she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. He glanced around to make certain no one was watching, then guided the key into the lock, turned the knob, and pushed.
For a moment he could not comprehend the full extent of the damage, and then it hit him. It was as if a tornado had ripped directly through the middle of the living room. Chairs and sofas were overturned and shredded, their insides spilled all over the carpet. Pictures had been torn from the walls and lay shattered on the floor. In places the carpet had been slashed and pulled from the plywood. And in the corner, Jesse’s cat lay dead, gutted and disemboweled.
David stepped back against the outside railing, suddenly shaking. There was no reason to search inside. They had certainly found anything of interest. Without shutting the door, he headed back down the stairs and ran to his BMW.
Gordon Roth bent over, rolled up his pant leg, and replaced the hunting knife in the leather sheath affixed to his calf. He pulled the living-room curtain back slightly and checked the parking lot one more time but saw no one. Too late, as he hid behind the bedroom door poised to kill whoever had entered the apartment, he had realized that the person had run at the sight of the mess without closing the door.
Chapter 28
“I call the meeting to order,” Webb growled, glancing down the table at the other members. “It’s so nice to see you, Ms. Gilman,” he said sarcastically.
“I’m sorry for not being here last time,” she said apolegetically. “I had Sagamore business.”
“Don’t make it a—”
“I think congratulations are in order,” Finnerty spoke up.
The others looked up, surprised by the interruption.
“I trust you all either saw or heard about our friend Mr. Walker’s press conference yesterday,” Finnerty continued. “I believe we owe a rather large debt of gratitude to Senator Webb for his incredible foresight in setting up LFA. We fortuitously destroyed a career yesterday, and we have the senator to thank.”
The other members snapped their fingers in agreement.
“Thank you.” Webb acknowledged the praise quickly. “But we have serious business to attend to, and we need to get started.” He nodded subtly to Finnerty as a gesture of thanks. “I must report to you that we have received several pieces of bad news in the past twenty-four hours.”
The room fell still as the mood turned suddenly apprehensive.
“I told you at the last meeting we were going to take care of our security leak.” Webb’s voice was dead calm. “Gordon Roth disposed of a young woman named Sara Adams. She was a revenue agent in the Baltimore IRS office. Gordon believed, based on strong evidence, that Ms. Adams was the individual who had stolen the file from Neil Robinson’s house on the Severn River. Ms. Adams, as it turns out, was not the individual responsible for that act.” It didn’t bother him that the wrong person was dead. The tragedy lay in the fact that the real target, the one who could potentially damage them, was still running around out there.
“Oh, God!” Cowen brought his hands to his face.
“These things happen, Admiral Cowen.” Webb was clearly annoyed at Cowen’s show of emotion. “We just have to accept that and move on. It’s all part of war, as you ought to know.”
Cowen’s mouth set into a grim straight line.
“It seems the person we were looking for,” Webb continued, “is really a woman named Jesse Hayes.”
Art Mohler turned instantly toward Elizabeth, but she ignored his glare.
Webb noted Mohler’s look but said nothing. “Ms. Hayes is also a revenue agent in the Baltimore branch of the IRS. In fact, she and Ms. Adams were friends, which may account for Gordon Roth’s regrettable error.”
“Are y
ou sure this time?” Cowen blurted out. “Are you absolutely certain this Hayes woman is the right person? Christ, are we going to kill this one too? When does it all stop?”
“I’m positive this time,” Webb snarled. “Listen, Admiral, I don’t need you questioning my orders. You certainly don’t mind the benefits of being included in this circle. Just as with any other endeavor, if you are willing to enjoy the spoils, you have to bear the losses as well.”
“Maybe we should take things slower, Senator Webb,” Cowen said forcefully. “Maybe we shouldn’t be so quick to pull the trigger. That’s one thing you learn in the military. To take your time.”
“Maybe you’d like to tell us how you were taking your time near Fort Myer last Saturday night at three in the morning.”
Cowen’s face turned instantly to stone. He picked a spot on the far wall and concentrated on it. How could Webb possibly know about the young man he had met in the woods near the Iwo Jima Memorial?
“I didn’t think so,” Webb snarled.
The others shifted uncomfortably in their seats. They had never seen an exchange like that in this room. And they had never seen Webb so visibly agitated.
“How did you find out the perpetrator was Jesse Hayes?” Finnerty asked. “How do you know she’s the one and not Sara Adams?”
“Last night there was a break-in at LFA. Two files were stolen.” Webb slammed his palm on the table in disgust. “One contained a copy of a check to LFA written out of a Doub Steel account. One of the checks Art had cut using Mitchell’s signature.”
“What?” Art Mohler leaned over the table. “You’ve got to be kidding me. That could lead somebody right back to Sagamore. Right back to me.”
“Precisely.” Webb was angry now. “Why the hell Pitts had his people make copies of that stuff and keep it in such a vulnerable place I’ll never know. The other piece of information taken was a personnel file concerning one Gordon Smith.”
The Inner Sanctum Page 25