“But behind it all was the power of oil.” Nero fell silent, lost in thought.
Bailey had seen his boss do this before, think out loud to a certain point and then go inside his head, sorting through all that had been learned. He stood to leave and cleared his throat. He knew he should just leave, but he too had spent many years preparing for this. “The women?”
“Yes?” Nero was distracted.
“Are they—“ he left the rest of the question unsaid.
Nero nodded ever so slightly. “They just might be, Mister Bailey. They just might. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
CHAPTER 31
Pittsburgh was windy and chilly and raining. Morgantown, West Virginia was an hour and a half from the airport. Neeley had spotted their trailers before they got to the rental car counter. Pretty incompetent Neeley decided. As the women loaded the compact sedan the men kept well out of sight. Neeley decided to forget about them for the moment. She had not yet told Hannah what she had read in the papers.
Hannah pulled the small bag of cookies she had saved from the flight from her tote. She offered one to Neeley who refused. "So where exactly are we going?"
"To Morgantown, West Virginia. It's near the Pennsylvania state line. It's Gant's hometown."
"And the videotape is cached there?"
Neeley tried not to look exasperated. She had not slept the entire flight like Hannah had. "Yes, near there. It's also where Gant's wife and son live."
"Have you ever been there before? Do you think we could stop and get some coffee?"
Hannah was eating one cookie after another.
"Yes and no. Gant and I visited Morgantown every year. On the sly of course. We came at different times and surveilled the place. Gant wanted to make sure Jesse and his son, Bobbie, were safe."
"Why can't we get some coffee?"
Neeley shook her head in wonder. "Has anybody ever told you that you are an odd duck?"
Hannah stopped chewing, her eyes widening with surprise. "No, why?"
Neeley smiled. "You know, I believe you."
They drove for a few miles in silence before Neeley spoke again. “I’ve read the papers Jean-Philippe gave us.”
“And?” Hannah asked.
“The bomb Jean-Philippe gave me was made by Racine on orders from Collins in order to kill Gant and destroy the video and the papers which were supposed to be in the package also.”
“We knew that,” Hannah said. “We probably should have killed Racine in Kansas City.” She said it flatly, as if discussing the weather. Neeley realized Hannah had a very quick learning curve.
“Racine also used an RPG to shoot down one of the helicopters in Mogadishu thinking he was getting Gant’s chopper, along with Masterson, the video and the papers. He made a mistake.”
“That’s a good chunk of the iceberg,” Hannah murmured. “How many men got killed because of that?”
“Eighteen all together,” Neeley said.
“So what else were in those papers?” Hannah pressed. “There was more than just a note about Racine.”
Neeley nodded. “There were copies of money transfers. Stuff I used to do for Jean-Philippe. Collins was helping Cintgo negotiate for rights for two oil pipelines from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan. One would terminate in Pakistan and one on the Arabian Sea. The problem wasn’t so much the pipelines, but rather security for them. It would make no sense to invest billions of dollars in building them if they got blown up every other day as the Taliban had done to the Russian pipeline.”
“So?” Hannah said. “That’s all out there in the open. I even remember talking about some of that with my husband. The pipelines were never built.”
“True,” Neeley said. “But to get a guarantee of security from the Taliban—“
Hannah sat up straight. “They paid them off.”
Neeley nodded. “Three hundred million dollars. Fifty million of which was the good Senator’s own money, illegally redirected from campaign funds and pay-offs.”
“Geez,” Hannah whispered. “No wonder he wants this squashed. He paid that money to the people who blew up the Trade Center and Pentagon. He helped finance the 9-11 attacks.”
“Right. And we’ve been caught in the middle over a decade later.”
Hannah tapped a finger on her lip. “Nero didn’t know about the money transfer or Racine shooting the helicopter down.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Because Collins and Racine wouldn’t be around if he did,” Hannah said simply. Her finger continued to tap as she thought. “But—“ she drew the word out.
“But what?” Neeley pressed, glancing at the rear view mirror and catching a glimpse of the car that had been trailing them since the airport.
“There’s still more to this,” Hannah said.
“What more?”
Hannah shrugged. “I don’t know yet.”
“That’s helpful,” Neeley said, but without an edge of sarcasm.
“I will never again trust that what I see in front of me is the truth,” Hannah said. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
“Amen, sister,” Neeley said. She spotted the car once more. Neeley kept one hand on the wheel and put the other in her jacket pocket. She handed Hannah the small cassette recorder.
"What's this for?"
"The guys trailing us."
Hannah's head whipped around. "Where?"
"For God's sakes, they're not in the back seat. Let's just say they know where we are. I need to get rid of them. We need to get to Jesse alone. I have to talk to her."
Hannah was playing with the buttons on the recorder. "OK, what's the plan?"
She started to nod as Neeley told her. “You’re learning,” she said when Neeley was done. “We have to use our strengths and their weaknesses.”
CHAPTER 32
Jesse Gant was vacuuming so she didn't hear the doorbell. Bobbie had had some friends over the night before and they had left the kitchen littered with junk food remnants. Jesse enjoyed cleaning it up. It was a normal thing and normal things still gave Jesse great pleasure. She could remember a time in her life when there had been very little that would be considered normal.
She was a tall, slender woman with short red hair. Her face was etched with lines, most oriented in a way that indicated she smiled and laughed much more than she frowned. Freckles were liberally sprinkled on her skin and her green eyes were following the progress of the vacuum sucking up the remnants of chips and cookies.
Most women would have screamed the moment they felt the hand touch their shoulder, but Jesse merely reached down and shut off the vacuum as she turned to face the man standing behind her. "So he's dead?"
Bailey nodded. "Yes."
"When did he die?"
The dour face never changed expression. "We think a few weeks ago. We're not sure."
Now it was Jesse's turn to nod. "I knew Tony was sick. I was secretly hoping he would try to see Bobbie but he never did. How did I have a kid with such a screwed-up guy? It's really the most important decision a woman makes."
Bailey sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. Jesse pushed the vacuum cleaner away to give her access to her own chair. The man stared at her, trying to decide if she had changed much in the years he hadn't seen her.
"Anthony kept you both alive all these years."
"But if I had married a nice doctor or something I wouldn't have had to worry about that. You know not everyone has to worry about getting assassinated."
"I don't believe we can choose who we fall in love with." The words coming from Bailey were almost comical, but Jesse knew they were to be taken very seriously. Men like Bailey didn't stop by for chats and didn’t say things idly to make conversation.
Jesse rose and got a couple of cups for coffee. She still knew how he took his.