Bennett hadn’t answered, though he’d already heard the call himself. It was standard practice in a homicide to gather data from emergency responders. Since then he’d listened to it so many times he had it memorized.
“This is Special Agent Joseph Grant, FBI. Send an ambulance to the Flying V Ranch on Highway 290 exactly nine miles outside of Dripping Springs. I’m parked in a blue Chevy Tahoe. The victim is suffering from a gunshot wound.”
“What is his age?”
“He’s forty-two. Look, I don’t have time. I have to make another call.”
“Is the wound life-threatening?”
“I don’t know yet…I mean, yes, it is-possibly fatal. Send someone. Hurry.”
“Sir, do you know the victim’s name?”
“It’s me. Do you understand? Now do it. And hurry.”
Bennett winced at the memory. Joe Grant had known he was about to be killed and had called in his own evac. And the other call? It was to his wife. The voice message that had been mysteriously erased from her phone. The message that Edward Mason had ordered him to do nothing to help restore. And that was what had Bennett so upset: why hadn’t Joe called him or any one of the other agents at the Austin residency? Why had he called his wife instead?
Edward Mason went on. “Where are they now?”
“No idea. The police tried to follow them, but they didn’t have any vehicles able to keep up.”
“It’s a fire-engine-red sports car. There can’t be too many on the streets at this time of night. All right, then. Get a team out to her home, and to Potter’s, too. I want both of them brought in for questioning.”
“I doubt they’re there. I mean, given the circumstances…”
“She’s got to be somewhere. She’s a mother, not a criminal mastermind. Just do your job. Find her.”
“And the car, sir.”
Bennett could just make out a mangled expletive before the phone went dead.
–
Inside his home, Don Bennett poured himself a shot of whiskey. He took the glass and sat at the kitchen table, drumming his fingers on the surface. A minute later his phone rang. He checked the number and answered.
“You get that?” he asked.
“Every word.”
“And now?”
“Just do your job.”
82
Seated in the cockpit of ONE 1, Ian Prince completed his preflight checklist. Takeoff was scheduled for 0630. Weather en route was calm and clear. He forecast flying time to be two and a half hours, so he’d be arriving in Utah at approximately 0800 local time. He put down his clipboard and watched the sun creep over the horizon.
Today was the day.
Serena, the chief flight attendant, poked her head into the cockpit. “Everyone present and accounted for.”
“Mr. Briggs manage to find his way aboard?” It was a rhetorical question. Ian had seen Briggs arrive at the FBO and hurry across the tarmac, looking far worse for wear. Noticeably, Briggs had not come inside the cockpit to say good morning or to offer his usual briefing.
“He looks like he had a pretty rough night,” said the attendant.
“Well, we all know Peter.”
“Katarina is ready for you anytime after takeoff, but she says to hurry if you want to take all your fluids. Mr. Gold and Mr. Wolkowicz are sleeping in the guest compartment. Forward door is secured and ready for takeoff.”
Ian taxied to the main runway and radioed the tower for clearance. He received it, and a moment later eased the thrusters forward. As the speedometer touched 120, he eased the yoke toward him. The nose rose effortlessly. The wheels left Earth’s embrace. ONE 1 climbed into a cloudless blue sky.
Ian remained at the controls until the plane reached its cruising altitude of 38,000 feet, then handed off responsibilities to his copilot. “Stick is yours.”
“I have the stick.”
Ian made his way into the main compartment. Briggs sat upright in his seat, reading from his tablet.
“Interesting night?” asked Ian, taking the seat across from him.
“Had worse.”
“And Mary Grant?”
“Nothing to report. The ball’s in your court, right?”
“So it is. I don’t anticipate having any more problems with her.”
“If you say so.”
“See you when we get to Utah.” Ian patted Briggs on the shoulder and headed aft to his private quarters. He felt like a man whose vision had been restored after long years of blindness.
Finally he could see.
83
The cabin sat on a patch of grassland at the end of a dirt road, as lonely as the sole house on a Monopoly board. They’d passed the last dwelling several miles back, and that was already twenty miles due east of the highway.
“When you said ‘off the grid,’ you weren’t kidding,” said Mary as she got out of the car. “And you come here for what, exactly?”
“Quail hunting. I call it my lodge. Not much to look at this time of year, but in the spring the creek fills up and the grass grows waist-high.”
“And no one knows about it?”
Tank hauled himself out of the car and walked unsteadily to the house. “Plenty of people do. But they’re my buddies. There isn’t any paperwork or court records or deeds that Ian Prince or Edward Mason can check to give them the idea we may be hiding out here. Water comes from our own well. Power from my generator. Nothing they can trace.”
“I can see that.”
Mary stood behind him as he fished his keys out of his shorts. She was thinking about the poster on Jessie’s wall and its line about “information wanting to be free.” She believed she understood what it meant. Words, ideas, expressions, all had a life of their own-if not a life exactly, some inchoate animus that screamed for attention. You might keep them quiet for a while, but their very existence militated toward exposure and dissemination. The same went for the evidence Stark had put on the flash drive.
Tank threw open the door. “After you.”
Couch, table, potbellied stove, cabinets. “Nice,” said Mary. “Abe Lincoln would have felt right at home. You’re only missing a chamber pot.”
“Facilities are out back. This isn’t the Ritz-Carlton.”
“I noticed that. Even have the half-moon painted on the door.”
“We aim to please.”
Tank locked the door behind them before collapsing on the couch. “Coffee and mugs are above the sink.”
“You doing okay?”
“I’ll make it.”
Mary fed the stove with kindling and got a fire going, then heated a pot of water and made coffee while Potter sat with the tablet, immersing himself in Stark’s files. “He delivered the goods. No question.”
Mary sat beside him. There were the three folders, Merriweather, Orca, and Titan, each brimming with hundreds of files. They began with Merriweather.
The directory showed e-mails from Ian Prince to Edward Mason and from Mason to Prince; from Prince to Peter Briggs, and from Briggs to a Wm. McNair. (It was Briggs who’d texted McNair: “Done?”) There were also e-mails from Prince to Harold Stark. Next came a dozen FBI case files that should never have appeared on a private corporation’s server. Joe had worked the Merriweather case along with Randy Bell and Fergus Keefe, and it appeared that Ian Prince had obtained every witness interview, every progress report, every request for evidence the agents had ever filed.
A cursory examination showed that the Merriweather investigation had begun promisingly. Several key Merriweather shareholders gave sworn affidavits about intimidation tactics directed against them by individuals they suspected of working for ONE Technologies. Another shareholder spoke of an anonymous threat to expose his son’s drug addiction if he did not vote his shares for ONE. There was an affidavit from Merriweather’s chief financial officer that confidential sales data had been stolen from the company’s servers, and laterally, a complaint by the chief technical officer about the theft of secret engineering data for a project called Titan (which Mary and Potter presumed was the subject matter of the folder of that name).