The irony was he had believed her. He had been prepared to let her walk away. LuAnn had confided in Riggs, that was clear. Riggs knew her real name. There were few actions that angered Jackson more than prevarication by his own people. Disloyalty could not and would not be tolerated. If she had lied about Riggs, it was more than probable that she had lied about Donovan. Jackson had to assume that the Trib reporter was closing in on the truth. Thus, he had to be stopped as well.
As these thoughts were going around in Jackson’s mind, his portable phone rang. He picked it up. He listened, asked a few questions, conveyed some clear instructions, and when he hung up, a deep look of satisfaction graced his true features. The timing couldn’t have been better: His trap had just been sprung.
Chapter forty-seven
The Bell Ranger helicopter landed in a grassy field where three black sedans bearing government license plates were waiting. George Masters alighted from the chopper, another agent, Lou Berman, right at his elbow. They climbed in one of the cars and started off. Riggs had seriously underestimated the quickness of the response time from Washington.
Twenty minutes later the procession made its way down the gravel road and stopped in front of Riggs’s home. Car doors swung open and serious-looking men, weapons out and ready, swarmed the front and back of the house and barn.
Masters strode up to the front door. When his knocks were not answered, he motioned to one of his men. The burly agent planted one foot directly against the lock and the door flew open, crashing against the interior wall. After they searched the house thoroughly, they finally converged in Riggs’s office.
Masters sat down at the desk and quickly rustled through the papers, his eyes alighting on one set of notes. Masters leaned back in the chair and intently studied Riggs’s scribbles on LuAnn Tyler and someone named Catherine Savage. He looked up at Berman. “Tyler disappears and Catherine Savage reappears. That’s the cover.”
“We can check the airports, see if Catherine Savage flew out ten years ago,” Berman said.
Masters shook his head. “We don’t need to do that. They’re one and the same. Tyler is here. Find out Savage’s address pronto. Call up some of the high-end real estate agents around here. I don’t think her highness will be living in another trailer.”
Berman nodded, pulled out a portable phone, and went to confer with the local FBI agents who had accompanied them here.
Masters ran his eyes around Riggs’s office. He was wondering how Riggs fit into all this. He had it nice here, new life, new career, peaceful, lot of good years left to live. But now? Masters had been at the White House meeting with the president, the attorney general, and the director of the FBI. As Masters had outlined his theory, he had watched each of their faces go sickly pale. A scandal of horrific proportions. The government lottery, fixed. The American people would believe that their own government had done it to them. How could they not? The president had publicly announced his support for the lottery, even appeared in a TV commercial touting it. So long as the billions flowed in, and a few lucky people were elevated to millionaire status, who cared?
The concept of the lottery had received attacks claiming that what it spent on furthering the public welfare was largely negated by what it cost in others: breakup of families, gambling addiction, making poor people even poorer, causing people to eschew hard work and industriousness for the unrealistic dream of winning the lottery. One critic had said it was much like inner city kids striving for the NBA instead of an MBA. However, the lottery had remained bulletproof from those attacks.
If it came out, however, that the game was fixed, then the bullets would rapidly shatter that bubble. There would be a tremendous blood-letting and everyone from the president on down was going to take a major hit. As Masters had sat in the Oval Office he saw that clearly in all their features: the FBI director, the nation’s top lawman; the attorney general, the nation’s top lawyer; the president, the number one of all. The responsibility would fall there and it would fall heavily. So Masters had been given explicit instructions: Bring in LuAnn Tyler, at any cost and by any means possible. And he intended to do just that.
“How’s it feel?”
Riggs climbed slowly into the car. His right arm was in a sling. “Well, they gave me enough painkillers to where I’m not sure I can feel anything.”
LuAnn put the car in gear and they sped out onto the highway.
“Where are we going?” he asked.
“McDonald’s. I’m starving and I can’t remember the last time I had a Big Mac and fries. Sound good?”
“Sounds good.”
She pulled into the drive-through of a McDonald’s, ordering some burgers, fries, and two coffees.
They ate as they drove. Riggs put down his coffee, wiped his mouth, and nervously fingered the dashboard with his good arm. “So tell me, how badly did I screw things up for you?”
“Matthew, I’m not blaming you.”
“I know,” he said sheepishly. He slapped the seat. “I thought you were walking into a trap.”
She stared over at him. “And why’s that?”
Riggs looked out the window for a long moment before answering. “Right after you left I got a call.”
“Is that right. Who from, and what did it have to do with me?”
He sighed deeply. “Well, for starters, my name’s not Matthew Riggs. I mean it’s been my name for the last five years, but it’s not my real name.”
“Well, at least we’re even on that score.”
He said with a forced grin, “Daniel Buckman.” He held out his hand. “My friends call me Dan.”
LuAnn didn’t take it. “You’re Matthew to me. Do your friends also know that technically you’re dead and that you’re in the Witness Protection Program?”
Riggs slowly withdrew his hand.
She flipped him an impatient look. “I told you that Jackson can do anything. I wish you’d start believing me.”
“I was betting he was the one who tapped into my file. That’s why I followed you. If he knew about me, I didn’t know how he’d react. I thought he might kill you.”
“That’s always a possibility with the man.”
“I got a good look at him.”
LuAnn was exasperated. “That wasn’t his real face. Dammit, it’s never his real face.” She thought of the rubbery flesh she had held. She had seen his real face. His real face. She knew what that meant. Jackson would now do everything in his power to kill her.
She slid her hands nervously over the steering wheel. “Jackson said you were a criminal. So what’d you do?”
“Are you telling me you believe everything that guy says to you? Just in case you didn’t notice, he’s a psycho. I haven’t seen eyes like that since they executed Ted Bundy.”
“Are you saying you’re not in Witness Protection?”
“No. But the program isn’t just for the bad guys.”
She looked at him, puzzled. “What does that mean?”
“Do you think criminals can pick up the phone and get the sort of info I got on you?”
“I don’t know, why can’t they?”
“Pull over.”
“What?”
“Just pull the damn car over!”
LuAnn turned into a parking lot and stopped the car.
Riggs leaned over and pulled out the listening device from under LuAnn’s seat. “I told you I had bugged your car.” He held up the sophisticated device. “Let me tell you, they almost never give out equipment like this to felons.”
LuAnn looked at him, her eyes wide.
Riggs took a deep breath. “Up until five years ago, I was a special agent with the FBI. I’d like to think a very special agent. I worked undercover infiltrating gangs operating both in Mexico and along the Texas border. These guys were into everything from extortion to drugs to murder for hire; you name it, they were doing it. I lived and breathed with that scum for a year. When we busted the case open, I was the lead witness for the prosecution. We knocked out the entire operation, sent a bunch of them to prison for life. But the big bosses in Colombia didn’t take all that kindly to my depriving them of about four hundred million a year in disposable income from the drug operation component. I knew how badly they’d want me. So I did the brave, honorable thing. I asked to disappear.”