Verrick shook his head. “Just keeping my guard up. But don’t worry, Quinn. Everything’s going to get turned upside down in this town—and soon. I’ll be on top. And so will you—if you work with me. And Aiden Pearce? I’m looking for him right now. I’ll shoot him myself, if necessary. He’s going down. No extra charge.”
“What’s this turning upside down you’re talking about here?” Quinn demanded.
Verrick shrugged. He hadn’t told Quinn about Purity’s plans. Wouldn’t be prudent, as the elder George Bush used to say. “I’m just making some moves, is all. Business stuff. But believe me—Pearce is going down. Aiden Pearce will be smoked, dusted, snuffed. And soon. And as for Grampus screwing up—and the tone of this conversation…” He made a very slight bow. “I apologize. You’re the boss in this town now, Quinn. I haven’t forgotten it…”
Niall Quinn stared at him. “Then he sniffed and said. “I never forget it. And I don’t forget a debt. You see you take care of this—and soon.”
He turned and walked out the door. His bodyguard followed him, but backing toward the door.
When they were gone, Verrick fixed himself another drink, and washed down half an Oxy with it.
He smiled to himself.
You’re the boss in this town now, Quinn…
For now. Just for now.
Blindfolded, Bullock was sitting on the sofa. They’d blindfolded him about a quarter-mile away, and made him lay on the floor so no one would call in a police report about it.
Now Wolfe sat turned toward Bullock, letting him wait in uncertainty for a minute. Seline, a gun in her hand, was standing nearby.
Finally, Wolfe removed the blindfold.
Their captive blinked at the safehouse room. He looked at the curtained and shuttered window. Licked his lips. Glanced at the door.
“There’s no way out of here except past me, Bullock,” Wolfe said. “And even if you could do that—then you’d have to get past her. And she’s actually scarier than I am.”
Seline nodded gravely, playing the part. “I am, really. I have some surgical saws in those drawers over there. I think, Wolfe, we should skip the bullshit and just gag him and get the saws out. There’s some plastic tarp we can put down on the floor.”
Bullock’s eyes widened. “Now wait a minute—”
“Bullock—the more I look at you,” Wolfe said musingly, “the more I feel I’ve seen you before. In person. Somewhere.”
Wolfe meant it. He couldn’t quite place the guy.
Bullock cleared his throat. “I was the General’s secretary. When you came in for your hearing. I was in uniform then.”
“Ah yes. You worked for Van Ness. And you still do. With Purity.”
Bullock’s face went blank. It was a careful, studied blankness. “Purity?”
“It’s okay, Bullock,” Seline said. “We know all about it.”
“I was there,” Wolfe said. “At the lodge on 77th Street. I heard Van Ness. I didn’t see you there. Chances were you were backstage. But I got a lot of information. And we got more through hacking. Now we can either dig the rest of the information out of you now, the way Seline suggested… I think I’d have to tie you up and leave, it makes me sick to watch that stuff… or we can turn you over to the Justice Department. Now, I know—that sounds better to you. But you’d still be facing years in prison. Because I am pretty sure I can convince them to hold you until after the attack… we know the attack is coming… and no way they’re going to let you go. They learned their lesson from the Boston Bombing, Bullock. They’ll hold you and they’ll tie you in with it and then it’ll be all about them trying to keep Van Ness and Verrick from trying to kill you in prison. But there’s a third option—I can call up Verrick and sell you to him. He was just trying to kill you—remember? How long do you think you’d last, without protection? So…”
“Wait, Wolfe!” Seline said, snapping her fingers. “We could do a combination of option one and three! We could slice him up, get the info, then sell whatever we have left of him to Verrick!”
Bullock groaned.
“Let’s call that option four, Seline,” Wolfe said. “There you have it, Bullock—those are the cards you’ve been dealt. How you going to play them?”
“You were there that night…” Bullock looked at him doubtfully.
“Yeah. I was there. Socialism pops its ugly head up any time you don’t flush its holes out with poison. Remember when Van Ness said that, Bullock?”
Bullock swallowed, blanching.
“And you remember there was a guy on the roof. And someone knocked him out and got in. One of the Graywaters went down… but the guy escaped.”
Bullock stared. “That was you!”
“Yes it was. I know about Purity. Your only hope is to tell me how the attack is going to happen. And then I won’t call up Verrick, and sell him to you. And I won’t give you to the Justice Department. Or… her.”
“And if I tell you, you’ll let me go?”
“I’ll get you to O’Hare. You can leave town. But if you talk to Verrick… I’ll talk to the Justice Department. If you don’t… you’ll go free. If I can confirm what you tell us.”
“I don’t know…”
“Would a drink help?” Seline asked.
“A drink? You mean liquor? No. I’m diabetic.”
“Crap. We’ll have to get insulin for him, Wolfe. I mean—if we keep him alive.”
“No, no,” Bullock muttered. “You won’t have to get insulin. I have an implanted insulin injector. There’s enough concentrate in its storage unit to keep me going for months.”
“Okay then,” Wolfe said. “Coffee?”
“Yes. Yes please…”
They reheated a cup of coffee—sick of instant, Seline had gotten a coffee maker and some good roast.
She brought Bullock the cup, and he stared at it. “You didn’t poison it, did you? Or put some kind of drug in it?”
“No, no, I didn’t. Here.” She took a sip and handed it back to him.
He sipped the coffee and then said, “Purity is… pretty big. It’s supported by a small group of billionaires—and people like Verrick. He invested most of the money he stole in Somalia in Purity, after he laundered it, he socked most of it into Iceberg.”
“What is Iceberg, just a shell company?” Wolfe asked.
Bullock hesitated. Then apparently decided to go whole-hog with the facts. “No. Iceberg… it’s called that because, you know, the tip of iceberg.” He put his coffee cup down on the small table in front of the sofa. “Iceberg is more than a shell company. It’s the organizing group for Purity, the financial group, the board of directors. Purity’s been around for decades, very hush-hush and all. A group of very rich families set it up. They’ve been stashing money for Purity for a long time. Billions! Some of them were invested in top oil and tech companies—and they did make a killing. That gave them funds to divert to Purity. You know—through Iceberg.”
“What’s their long-term plan?” Wolfe asked.
“It’s in several stages but essentially it’s a ‘from the inside out’ takeover. They’ve started it by ‘astroturfing’ media. Van Ness says controlling media is controlling mind; controlling access is controlling hope. ctOS can do that, once they take control of it completely. Hell, controlling ctOS can even be controlling money flow.”
“So they start with media—and set the stage with that?” Seline asked.
“Sure. But they got impatient. They’re working up another plan. See, they feel that North America should be a bastion of purity related to western European culture—and American culture. And that means resisting this so-called ‘cultural diversity’ thing. They want to resist the liberal agenda, the gay agenda, the immigrant agenda, and above all the socialist agenda. You know, the whole ‘tax the rich’ paradigm, all the regulations and pollution controls…”