Mullins figured the full ramifications of what had transpired would take a few hours to circulate through the corridors of power. When Sullivan told Rudy Hauser that a former Treasury agent had gone rogue, Hauser would want to proceed cautiously. Mullins liked Hauser, thought he was a good guy, but also knew the deputy director was an administrator whose first reaction would be to protect the president and second reaction would be to protect the Secret Service. When Hauser learned Mullins had a recording of Amanda en route to the assassination attempt, he would love to cross paths with Mullins first and to hell with the investigative jurisdiction of the FBI and Homeland Security. Mullins was banking on Hauser wanting to give him some time to pursue his leads, knowing if Mullins had sent Sullivan to him, then Mullins himself would likely follow.
Both the FBI and Homeland Security would be clamoring to question Sullivan. Hauser might be able to hold them off for a while, but he had no chance of winning. In the meantime, Hauser would immediately tighten security on President Brighton and gain access to Brighton’s ear. If no further danger appeared imminent, Brighton would also agree they needed to proceed carefully if conspirators were within the government, especially the Executive Branch. The only thing more important than information was the control of that information.
Other than the existence of the recording, all these maneuvers could be anticipated. Mullins would be in place and in time because everything depended upon the desire to appear innocent.
Mullins cruised up Appleton for two blocks. He passed his Prius where he’d parked it. He was relieved that moving it away from Amanda’s apartment had been planned for after the bombing. Their number of operatives was limited. He didn’t see the black Tahoe he’d noticed the night before, the same model he’d seen leaving the bomb wreckage at Constitution Gardens.
He parked the Taurus around the block and walked down Albemarle Street, carrying the paper bag from his apartment. The route brought him to the alley where he could approach the entrance to the underground garage with less chance of being seen. The door stood open and he walked among the cars to the rear of the garage. No Tahoe.
A Volvo sedan pulled in and parked in a spot just inside the garage door. A young African-American woman with a large Neiman Marcus shopping bag got out. Mullins timed his walk to draw near as she opened the building’s door.
“Here, let me hold that for you.” Mullins grabbed the side of the door and pulled it open wider. “Your bag’s bigger than mine.”
She jumped at the sound of his voice, but relaxed when she saw his smile and neatly pressed suit. He let her walk on ahead and when she stopped in front of the elevator, he passed it for the stairs.
“I need the exercise. Big picnic tonight.”
“Enjoy your Fourth,” the woman said, and entered the elevator.
Mullins stood in the stairwell a few minutes, allowing time for the woman to reach her unit. He didn’t want to run into her again.
Amanda’s floor was quiet. At two in the afternoon, most people were away on holiday or inside enjoying their air conditioning. Mullins placed his bag on the floor, took his set of Peterson lock picks out of his pocket, and went to work.
***
Curtis Jordan wheeled his suitcase across the threshold and closed and locked the door behind him. His brain raced at a speed that happened only when he was in his best writing zone, the ideas coming so fast that he didn’t worry about spelling or punctuation. He just held on for the ride. Usually that occurred at the climax of a novel as events and characters cascaded to their inevitable conclusion.
But this time the challenge was greater because to be believable, his mind had to go completely blank. The shock would have to overwhelm him, leaving him speechless and nearly helpless. The irony was he had been shocked, speechless, and nearly helpless. Now he had to recapture that moment and play it back fresh.
He decided to leave the suitcase in the foyer, throw his coat over a living room chair, and forego a glass of wine for a stiff bourbon. He dropped two ice cubes in a crystal glass and went to the bar in the solarium. He poured himself a healthy shot of Maker’s Mark and stirred it through the ice with a swizzle stick. He took a long drink.
“You might want to make it a double.”
Jordan froze. He used the moment to transform fear into grief. Then he turned around.
“I know. I just heard about Amanda. I’m at my wit’s end. Is what they’re saying true? I hope you’ve come to tell me it’s not.”
Mullins stepped from the hallway into the living room. He pulled the nine millimeter semiautomatic pistol from his right coat pocket and leveled it at the author. “I’ve come to tell you it’s over.”
Jordan paled. First at the sight of the suppressor on the barrel and then at the sight of Mullins’ gloved hand. “Rusty. You’re making a terrible mistake. I didn’t know anything about this. Amanda and I’ve hardly seen each other the past six months.”
“Really? So that wasn’t you in the Tahoe last night or at the bomb scene earlier today?”
“God, no. How many Tahoes are in this town? Yes, I rented one yesterday. I got in late from Paris and didn’t want to disturb Amanda. Frankly, I wasn’t sure what I’d find here.”
“You would have found me. But surely she told you.”
“You’re crazy. Tell me she’s sleeping with another man?”
“Who said we slept together?”
Jordan forced indignation in his voice. “Well, she didn’t tell me anything, and I think you’d better leave. I’ll chalk this whole episode up to the strain you must be under.”
Mullins reached into his left coat pocket. “Fair enough.”
Both men stood still for a moment. Then a buzzing sounded from Jordan’s coat on the chair.
“You’d better get that,” Mullins said. “But if anything other than a phone comes out of that coat, then you’ll be permanently unavailable.”
Jordan set his glass on the coffee table and pulled the cellphone from the inside pocket. “Hello.”
“You lied.” Mullins held Amanda’s phone to his ear. “Amanda called you last night when she told me she was phoning Rudy Hauser. That was right after I revealed we’d discovered Asu purchased Cinderella’s Castle and wrapping paper. That was a surprise to her, wasn’t it? We were getting too close.”
“I never talked to her. She must have dialed my number by mistake.”
“Yeah, right. Sit down and let me tell you about the recording.”
Jordan sat on his suit coat and dropped the phone on the carpet. “What recording?”
“I’m afraid your wife had a propensity to brag. She thought I would be dead soon, so as we rode from the Federal Reserve to Henry Bacon Drive she had to tell me how clever you and she were.” Mullins reached back in his coat pocket and withdrew the flash drive. “It’s all here thanks to the microphone and recording chip I substituted for the collar stays in your shirt. By the way, thanks for the loan. I’m sorry the bomb blast ruined the shirt but the recording is quite remarkable.”
Jordan felt panic rising in his throat. “If that’s true, why haven’t you turned it over?”
“Because I think it’s worth a lot of money. And I think you control a lot of money, an incredible amount of money.”
A slight smile broke across Jordan’s face. Here was something he could deal with. “What’s your price?”
“We’ll come to that. But first aren’t you curious how your intricate plan went so awry?”
“I don’t know about any plan.” He leaned back in the chair. “But I love a good story.”
Mullins took a step closer, the flash drive in one hand and the pistol in the other. “Actually it was my wife Laurie who set me on the right path.”
Jordan looked confused. “Amanda told me your wife died. That’s why you left the Secret Service.”
“That’s true. But when you really love someone, their voice is never extinguished. Laurie told me I was looking at Luguire’s death upside down. That was so like Laurie to examine things from a different perspective.”
“Upside down?”
“Yes. Amanda said she told Luguire about the unusual payment that went from the Richmond Federal Reserve’s discount window to Laurel Bank. She claimed it triggered an alert she was beta-testing for the cyber-security of payment systems. Now I understand the payment system is a highly classified aspect of the overall Federal Reserve system. Any breach would be disastrous.
“But looking at it upside down, I thought what if Amanda hadn’t come to Luguire, but Luguire had gone to her with a confidential request to look into it. Once I started thinking that way, I thought of another possibility. Maybe Luguire was never involved. Maybe there never was a transaction from the Federal Reserve. Then I learned Luguire never dealt with member banks. Yes, Amanda said the record was erased, but what if it never existed in the first place. The money simply came to Laurel Bank from an offshore account.
“Why? Because real money was needed. Money for Khoury’s bomb materials and living expenses. Money for Asu. Money that could be tied to me. It was ingenious.”
Jordan nodded, visibly acknowledging the compliment.
“Paul Luguire and Hugh Radcliffe were preparing to testify at secret congressional hearings. Some people were unhappy with the direction Radcliffe and Luguire would be recommending. The further I looked into it, the more I understood the impact the Reserve has beyond our borders. The pressure on the Federal Reserve is not a domestic issue but has international consequences. Cheap dollars at almost no interest courtesy of the Federal Reserve.”
“So you’re saying Amanda fabricated her story to entrap you in this conspiracy?”
“I knew Amanda had to have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge regarding the Federal Reserve payment system in order to design firewalls and protocols to protect it. Her story was believable. I wanted to believe her. But I couldn’t ignore the other possibility, and I always have a contingency plan. So I set up a parallel investigation with an Arlington detective that she knew nothing about. She anticipated I’d investigate Luguire’s death so she used my motivation to set a process in motion that was designed to ultimately tie me to the assassination of Chairman Radcliffe. Then the suicide of Paul Luguire would be re-opened and I would be prime suspect for that murder as well.”
“And you got all this from your dead wife,” Jordan said. “Excuse me, but it’s pretty farfetched.”
“That’s true. But then there’s the puzzling part about the POD.”
“Print-on-demand?”
“Yeah, you’re an author. You’ll follow me on this.”
Jordan sneered. “It’s mostly used by people who self-publish. I know very little about it.”
“I know.” Mullins circled back around the coffee table and sat on the white sofa, keeping the gun on Jordan. “Ironic isn’t it? A detail about publishing tripped you up.”
“What detail?”
“POD books not only have a barcode on the back cover but also one on the last page. It’s blank except for that barcode, and in some cases, the date and city of publication are also printed.”
Mullins watched Jordan’s face change as he began to understand the error.
“Amanda told me to pick up a book at the counter of Barnes and Noble. This was before I knew I’d be meeting her. But why do that cloak and dagger stuff when she already knew me. She could have told me to buy any book and wait in the Barnes and Noble coffee shop. The book she left at the counter was
Betrayal at Jekyll
, a very accusatory and vitriolic attack on the Federal Reserve, just the kind of book to make me look like an anti-Fed zealot when my apartment was searched. But this POD book had a print date of June twelfth of this year. It wasn’t in Barnes and Noble’s inventory because Amanda ordered it before her alleged conversation with Luguire even occurred. That told me a plan had already been put in place.”
“Authors warehouse books all the time.”
“You’d know that better than me, but odd that the June twelfth copy was the only one printed within the last six months. Not exactly a big seller like you. Or maybe like you used to be.”
Anger flashed in Jordan’s eyes. “I’m read across six continents and translated into fifteen languages.”
“Really? I didn’t realize remainders were so widely distributed. But it’s not really books you’re interested in, is it? I’m judging an author by his cover and you’ve got a terrific cover. Jetting around the world. Moving from capital to capital. Are you an errand boy or an actual player in the game?”
“Let’s just say my best stories are the ones no one reads but have an impact around the world.”
“Then I would have thought you’d be a better judge of character motivation.”
For the first time, Jordan seemed genuinely interested in what Mullins said. “What do you mean?”
“You were right that I’d be focused on finding Paul Luguire’s killer. And you and Amanda provided a path for me to pursue, a path you controlled. But that wasn’t my only motivation. You didn’t allow for minor characters to exert their own influence. Fares Khoury was a man in pain, a man who pleaded for my help. You had him killed, and you were ready to sacrifice his wife and daughter. I couldn’t let that happen, and that motivation went beyond the bounds of your imagination. You might be a writer, but you’re a hack. You have no empathy and therefore all your work will,” Mullins paused, searching for the right words, “all your work will end up on the remainder table of history.”
Jordan’s face flushed. He leaned forward. “You don’t know what I’m capable of or what I’m in line to control. Cut to the chase. What do you want for the flash drive. A million? Ten million?”
“I’d say the price is tied to how many crimes could come to light. We know Luguire was injected with ketamine. But Luguire had to let someone into his apartment. Someone he knew. There’s Amanda again. But she couldn’t do it alone. That’s where the real mastermind of the whole scheme got involved. You went with her.”
“I was in Paris.”
“The next day. Amanda told me the name of your hotel. They said you checked in the afternoon after Luguire died and checked out last Thursday, in time to return to Washington for the grand finale.”