He stared at the columns, saw no new connections to be made. Took a deep breath-almost reveling in the horrible smell; he’d seen how repulsed Mr. Starched Fatigues had been this last time and somehow it gave him a kind of strength to know he was used to it, was no longer overpowered by it-and he went back to the puzzle. .
Step Two: Hutchinson Cooke’s plane is rigged and he is murdered.
Theory: Cooke was on non-Air Force business. He was working for a company called Midas. Cooke flew into East End airport before the Harper’s explosion. Cooke was killed because he’d made a connection between his cargo on the plane and the explosion. He was killed so he couldn’t make that connection public.
Thought Process: What was the cargo? Two choices: the explosives used to destroy the restaurant or the man who used the explosives-the man who made the cell phone call. Or perhaps both.
Where was Cooke flying from? Unknown. Find that out and it should help to know who or what he was carrying.
Why was Cooke killed? Again, find out exactly who or what he was carrying and find out exactly why he was killed. Best bet: Cooke had been suckered into the flight-he didn’t realize quite what he was doing; when he realized the connection between his cargo and Harper’s, he panicked, maybe threatened to expose his bosses-the people who ran Midas? — and so he was killed.
Who killed Cooke? Heffernan either killed him or covered up the killing.
Justin looked at the list he’d drawn into the dirt. He’d put Heffernan down as a government official. True-he worked for the FAA. That counted. One more government connection. One more signal that this whole thing had to be government-connected. . and high up in the government to reach this level of manipulation.
Okay. Time to take a breath.
Plateau Two: Cooke was killed because he was a link to Collins’s murder and to the explosion at Harper’s. The link is the cargo. The key questions: Who or what was Cooke flying into East End Harbor? And for whom? If he was flying for Midas, what is Midas and who is behind it?
Time to start climbing again. .
Step Three: Martin Heffernan is killed in the explosion at La Cucina restaurant.
Theory One: Same as Harper’s. The explosion is an elaborate and deadly cover-up to mask the murder of one man: Heffernan.
Question: What did Heffernan know that got him killed?
Thought Process: He knew about Hutchinson Cooke. If Cooke was the link to Midas-and had to be eliminated to remove the link-then Heffernan was the link to the government. Heffernan had called the Justice Department to pass along information about Cooke’s death. But Cooke didn’t work for Justice-his boss was Martha Peck, FAA. She didn’t seem to be tied in to this. Although. . she was a link to the murderer or murderers. Despite Martha’s protestation, she knew who removed Heffernan’s file from the FAA office in Oklahoma City. She had to know. She had probably removed the file herself at the person’s request. Find that person, find a closer connection to the murderer.
Justin went through the next deaths quickly. Chuck Billings was clear-cut. He’d been brought in through official channels and, because of his expertise, he found out exactly what those officials didn’t want him to find out. He’d been lured to his death, most likely by the same bureaucrats he’d so distrusted. Justin would put money on Hubbell Schrader as Chuck Billings’s killer.
Lockhardt was also simple. He was killed because he was a final loose end in the murder of Hutchinson Cooke. He knew about Heffernan’s connection and that was enough to seal his death warrant. Justin mentally penciled Schrader into the blank space next to the question, Who killed Lockhardt?
Theresa Cooke was killed because she, too, knew something about her husband’s murder. Or, more likely, about her husband’s job. Theresa was dead, Justin was certain, because she knew something about Midas. .
Justin took another look at his markings in the dirt floor and decided to draw in a new column: Organizations.
So at the far right of his scribblings, he added:
Midas
U.S. government
Yale
Saudi government
He decided to go one subset further:
Midas
U.S. government
Executive
Justice
FAA
Yale
Saudi government
He went back and, remembering Stephanie Ingles and her Yale connection to Dandridge and Stuller, added “EPA” under his “U.S. government” heading. And then suddenly he decided to add another organization. A business that seemed to be at the center of all of this. EGenco.
He began scribbling separate columns for each listing:
MidasExecJustice EPAFAAYaleSaudiEGenco Cooke Anderson Stuller Ingles Heffernan Ingles Mishari DandridgeDandridge Dandridge PeckDandridge Cooke Stuller Anderson
What jumped out at him was Dandridge. He popped up everywhere. Justin twisted around so he’d have a clear space on the dirt floor-he’d begun to think of it as a giant blackboard-and he wrote the name Dandridge, and under that, every possible connection to the vice president that was relevant to the puzzle.
DANDRIDGE
Midas
EGenco
Cooke
Anderson
Stuller
Ingles
Mishari
He erased that list, rubbed it out quickly with the heel of his right hand. Then split the list into two-people and companies.
Cooke Midas Anderson EGenco Stuller Ingles Mishari
In his mind he went over the connections one more time:
Dandridge had made the call to Zanesworth to get the colonel to release Cooke from his Air Force duties so he could pilot for Midas.
Dandridge had been CEO of EGenco.
He’d been piloted by Cooke as vice president. He’d made the call to Zanesworth to get Cooke to come to work for Midas.
He was Anderson’s vice president. They’d known each other since their Yale days.
He knew Stuller from Yale. Stuller was reporting to Dandridge as point man in the government’s search for the suicide bombers.
Dandridge knew Ingles from Yale.
As CEO of EGenco, Dandridge had to have a close relationship with Mishari. EGenco did too much business with the Saudis for that relationship not to exist.
Dandridge was a connection between EGenco and Midas. Dandridge was a connection between Midas and the government.
Justin studied the names on the list. Rearranged them several times. Stephanie Ingles still seemed to be the weakest point: he couldn’t see any connection between the terrorism, the conspiracy he was convinced existed, and the head of the EPA. There just didn’t seem to be any political link between her area of expertise and the events of the past two months. So he erased her from his list and mentally shoved her off to the side.
After the third time he’d put the names in different order, something began to gnaw at him. Something was trying to burst through. He tried to empty his head so whatever was in the back of his brain could make its way forward. It felt close. Very close. .
But something else struck him now, rushed at him with a burst of clarity. As he saw the list of names, he realized there was a new piece to the puzzle that suddenly fit in. He’d been wondering one thing since he’d been brought to this godforsaken place: Why? Why had they done it? Whoever had given the order to take him couldn’t possibly want him to give damaging information to his interrogator. They didn’t want anyone to know what he knew. They wanted him silenced. So why question someone if you don’t want to know the answers?