Swagger said nothing.
“In his eyes, though,” said Ginger, “I seen the reflection of thought. They widened, narrowed, and looked to sky, signifying recognition and cognition. It’s in his brain. That’s a hell of a break you’re cutting the man, Anto, and he knows it. I’d never do it. Sniper, I’d put a Browning bullet through your head, I would. You’re lucky Anto’s running things here; he’s so much smarter than we are.” Then he turned back to Anto. “He ain’t ready to talk yet, but let him sleep upon it, and when he wakes up and faces either the water eating his lungs permanently or a world with more justice than he ever dreamed, maybe he’ll make the right choice.”
“Maybe he’s just tired, Ginger,” said Raymond. “After all, he’s been up longer than we have, and I know I’m tired.”
“All right, boyos,” said Anto, “get him trussed tight in flex-cuffs again, wrists and ankles; he’s got too much movement in them manacles. Take him to his cell; we’ll give him some sack time and take some for ourselves. Then we’ll get this thing finished, one way or the other.”
42
It was like being a movie star, only without the fun part. When the car pulled into the driveway, Nick was swarmed as he walked to it, amid a whirring buzz of digital Nikons, lit up by the flashbulbs and the Sony Steadicam lights, as if they expected him to wave and bow and escort a goddess to the car. Instead the bright blades of light cut at him and he winced and hunched furtively like a felon. The questions hung in the air, and though he pretended not to hear them, how could he not?
“Nick, how much gun company money did you take?”
“Nick, will you resign today?”
“Nick, was it worth it?”
“Nick, will this ruin your wife’s career as well as your own?”
“Nick, do you regret your love affair with guns? Has it ruined your life?”
“Nick, are you in the NRA?”
Nick ducked, bobbed, wove, sidestepped, and ultimately got into the limo with no dignity intact.
“Go on,” he said to the driver, “back out, kill ’em all, I don’t care.”
But the driver, a decent guy from the Federal Protective Service, just laughed and handled the issue coolly enough, and soon had Nick hurtling downtown along the parkwayed banks of the federal river amid the usual assortment of inspirational marble monuments, arching white bridges decorated with valiant steeds, and Greek-styled buildings that were designed, on such broad avenues, to glow white with the fervor of democracy. Yeah, well, whoever thought up democracy never heard of the Times, he thought.
The driver got him there a little early and in by an obscure entrance on H Street, so when he dipped into the fortress of the Hoover Building, he was spared the Evil Clark Gable treatment. With a little time to kill before the meet with the director, he headed up to the Major Case Section, curious to see if his various IDs with their computer chips still admitted him or he’d already been classified a nonperson by the hall watchers, who had their ear to the ground as stealthily and efficiently as anyone. Yet all doors opened, the elevator stopped at all floors, and in another surprisingly quick transit, he stepped into what had been the work area he commanded, and before they saw him, he saw them, Fields and Starling talking at her computer monitor, a dozen others on phone or monitor, all intently absorbed in their tasks, as if this huge cloud weren’t whirling about them. He looked, saw his own glass-enclosed office with its glory wall still intact—the photos of his career, all the stops in hick towns and taco circuit cities, the triumphs, the setbacks, the pics of himself and Sally at this vacation spot or that, the pics of himself and the four men who’d served as director in his time, a couple of grateful senators and other DC lizard species, so forth, so on. The Robot sat erect at his desk, and though Nick should have despised the Robot, he really didn’t, as a man did what a man did to keep a career running hard, and the Robot hadn’t made a fetish of clearing out all traces of disgraced former team leader Nick Memphis.
Fields finally saw him.
“Nick, hey!” said the big guy, and a dozen faces snapped toward his. It wasn’t like he’d been in a POW camp or anything and his unofficial exile had only run a week, but still there seemed to be a sense of welcome, as people rose and came forward to wish him luck.
“Good to see you back, Nicky,” said Fields warmly, his eyes brilliant but not with brainpower. “I know you’ll beat this shit. We all know who’s behind it.”
Starling smiled. He smiled back, and then others clustered about, so he uttered banalities like, “Oh, nice to see you guys. Hey, how’s it going? Great haircut. New tie, huh? How’s Mary?”
Finally he asked, “So can anyone tell me what’s going on?”
“Well,” Starling said after a pause, “I’m working on a case narrative, and we’ve gone through most of the names on the new list and are trying to close that out. Maybe one of the last few will break it open, but even that seems—”
But she trailed off as the Robot came over, leaned in, and said, “Nick, if you want to use your office, go ahead, I’ll take a hike. I tried not to disturb anything; most of my stuff’s in the corner.”
“Nah, thanks,” he said.
The quasi-reunion, strained as it was by the necessity of avoiding commenting directly on what had appeared in the Times and what brought Nick here today, went on for a bit and then, when Nick glanced at his watch and saw that it was now five till, had to end. He joshed a bit, then by body language indicated it was time to slide and began to make his way to the door.
He was somewhat surprised to see a lurker in the hall, someone clearly waiting to escort him to the elevator to the Seventh Floor. It was Ray Case, of Arson-Robbery, a legendary gunfighter who with Nick served on the oversight board to the Sniper Rifle Committee. He’d actually taken it seriously. What was he doing here? Was it just coincidence?
But no, it wasn’t, because Ray made eye contact aggressively, followed by a little nod signifying a need for a quick chat.
Nick pulled away, gave a last broad good-bye to the team he had assembled, proud of them that they had done such a totally professional job and stayed on task despite all the political bullshit and the flamboyant crash-and-burn scenario enacted by their leader, and then headed to the door, the hallway, the elevators, and his fate.
Ray Case slid next to him.
“Baby, we’ve got to talk,” said Ray.
So Nick was a few minutes late to his beheading. Still, the director, who wasn’t the sort of man who cared about little stuff like that, welcomed him with warmth, considering the situation. They stood in the director’s office making idiotic small talk, then the director led him to his private conference room.
“Nick, I asked Jeff Neely and Rob Harris of Professional Integrity to drop by. Their report isn’t due yet, but I wanted them to give us their preliminary findings before you and I try to figure this thing out, so we’ll know just what’s going on here and I have something to say at this press conference I’m scheduled to address in”—he checked his watch—“fifty-one minutes.”
“Sure,” said Nick, nodding to the two headhunters, who nodded back behind tight, professional, noncommittal office smiles.
Everyone sat, the director at the head of the table, Jeff and Rob on one side, Nick on the other.
“Okay, fellows,” said the director, “you’re handling the forensic document examination of the items the Times ran.”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Now, Nick, just for the record, although you aren’t under oath, this meeting is being tape-recorded, and I want it acknowledged that you’ve so far forgone legal representation and are here without counsel or professional advice.”
“Yes sir,” said Nick, loudly, as if to help the tape recorders do their job.
“And, although I hate to say this to a special agent of your seniority and brilliant record, you understand that any misrepresentations can be considered perjury, and if in the opinion of prosecutors it is necessary and appropriate, you
will be charged under statutes blah blah and yadda yadda if it can be shown you’ve willingly misrepresented.”
“Yes sir,” said Nick.
“So, for the record, you deny any trips whatsoever, either under your own expense or at their expense to Columbia, South Carolina, and the headquarters of FN USA, is that correct?”
“Yes sir.”
“And you maintain that these documents, which the Times uncovered and published, are some sort of fraud?”
“They’d have to be. Other than that I have no opinion on them.”
“So we asked Professional Integrity to run forensic document tests on them, to try to ascertain their authenticity. I’m speaking for the tape recorder: these are documents allegedly showing FN USA’s transcribed notes on Nick’s alleged trip to Columbia, as compared, for authenticity’s sake, to the proposal on their official stationery that accompanied their formal submission of their rifle to the sniper competition and was already logged in our files. You have compared them, to establish the authenticity of the notes, assuming the baseline authenticity of the
submission. I’m about to learn their results. Okay, Nick?”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay, guys,” said the director, turning to the two internal affairs specialists. “Are they authentic or not?”
Jeff looked at Rob, who looked back at Jeff, who looked at the director.
“We have been able to ascertain that both documents were, as the Times reported, prepared on the same word-processing system and printed by the same printer. That is, we find corresponding letter eccentricities, imperfections, spacing issues, and misalignments in each document consistent with the same in the other document. I can show you our courtroom presentation exhibits if you want, Mr. Director.”
“I’ll take your word for it. So that means they’re authentic?”
A brief look passed between Rob and Jeff, which then fluttered to Nick, then back to the director.
“That’s what the evidence suggests, sir.”
“Suggests? Interesting choice of word.”
“Yes sir.”
“What would suggests mean, as opposed to proves?”
“Sir, it means that wherever that word processor/printer is, that specific one, a Hewlett Packard 960 with the capacity to print in a font called MacPhearson Business 3, that is the origin of the letter and the copied-over notes and comments. As for the receipts, all are photocopies in various hands, which might be authenticated later on, assuming there is a later on.”
“Hmm,” said the director. “So if I get this right, what you’re saying is that the two key documents were from the same typewriter?”
“Word-processing system software, printer hardware, sir.”
“But the same machine. The same physical object, right?”
“Yes sir.”
“I see. And the fact that one of the documents was an officially notarized and authenticated submission from the factory headquarters itself—you wouldn’t regard that as proof? I don’t understand.”
“Well, I hate to say this, sir, but it depends on the meaning of is. Yes, the documents are—present participle collective declination of is—from the machine. Yes, that machine printed out a document located in our files and thereby officially designated as having come from the gun company. However—”
“However?” said the director. “I hate however.”
“Yes sir.”
“Okay, let’s have the however.”
“However, as the document was kept in the files of the Sniper Rifle Oversight Committee, which is held under extremely loose security in Admin and Logistics—after all, remember, someone leaked a copy of it to the Times—there’s no way of authenticating that document. I should say, no way accessible to us at this point in the investigation.”
“Our next step, sir,” said the one called Rob, or maybe it was the one called Jeff, “would be to obtain search warrants from the federal district court in Columbia, and examine each word-processing system on FN property, and determine if one of them—presumably in the CEO’s office—matches up. Then you’d have a good case that the origin of both documents was the CEO office in Columbia, South Carolina. But absent locating that machine, and given the lax security in Admin and Logistics—”
“I think I saw a memo on that,” said the director glumly. “But if the documents aren’t from Columbia, South Carolina, then that would lead to a highly implausible scenario, right? I mean, what are the odds on it being fake? Pretty remote, right? I mean, for it to be fake, one of our own people would have had to sneak into the files, filch the submission document, take it out of here, reprint the company letterhead in some convincing way, recopy the submission letter, then type up the commentary, replace the faked submission document in our files where it could later be found, and leak the commentary to the Times reporter. Then the reporter would have to find somebody to leak him a copy of the submission document. Pretty elaborate hoax. Is that logical to assume?”
“Sir, we can’t comment on odds. We don’t investigate odds. We can only prove that the docs came from the one machine. We need authorization to proceed, and while we have requested it, it is not forthcoming.”
“So basically, we have . . . nothing.”
“Not until we get that subpoena, find that machine. People think documents are magic, but the truth is, in cases of law their application is usually surprisingly limited. We need that application approved to get that subpoena.”
“I’ll see if I can’t shake it out of the tree for you,” said the director. “Okay, fellows, you can go. Good job.”
They smiled drily at Nick, collected their undisplayed exhibit, and trundled out.
“Well, guy,” said the director, “you dodged that bullet for a little while at least. I must say, I thought the Times had made a pretty convincing case, even without the photo.”
Nick nodded.
“Hmm,” said the director. “Well, let’s see what we can make of the photo itself. All right, Nick?”
“Yes sir.”
“All right, for the record, can I ask you to state categorically your position on the photo, which appeared today on the front page of the Times.”
“Yes sir. I have no recollection of ever having traveled to Columbia, South Carolina, and visiting the corporate headquarters of FN USA, not in 2006, not ever. I have no recollection of shooting a one-point-seven-inch three-hundred-yard group with what the caption identifies as an FN PSR .308 rifle at their firing range and no recollection of posing for a picture with any executives of that company.”
“Yet this photo exists that shows you doing exactly that. The photo has been authenticated by the newspaper.”
“Sir, let me point out, the photo hasn’t been ‘authenticated.’ It has been characterized by a photo lab as having ‘no fractal discrepancies suggestive of photo manipulation.’ It’s the same difference as the previous document situation. Lack of evidence doesn’t prove anything except lack of evidence. Photo interpreters and analysts, like document interpreters and analysts, don’t ‘authenticate’ in the pure sense; they only testify to the presence or absence of discrepancies and from that come to an inference, a best professional guess.”
“Noted. But again, for a photo to pass muster without discrepancies, it would either have to be authentic as stated or it would have to have been manipulated by technicians of such skill and with access to such sophisticated, not to say expensive, equipment that it is highly unlikely to be found in the private sector, right?”
“Sir, I have no opinion on that. I haven’t looked into what equipment is or isn’t available. It’s beyond my area of expertise. You’d have to get expert opinion.”
“Yes, I agree, and in fact, I’ve already started the process to obtain the original from the Times by subpoena and place it with top people in the field for a confirmation. I’ve also examined the reputation of the Times’s investigating entity, Donex Photo Interpretations, and it is top-rate. It’s bonded, gives frequen
t expert testimony in legal cases, and has a worldwide reputation.”
“Yes sir.”
“Nick, is there anything about this photo you want to tell me? This is the killer, you understand. I don’t know what I can do about this situation with this photo on the front page of the Times and leading every network news show tonight. The presence of the photo is pushing the action, and for the sake of the Bureau, I have to be ahead of the action, not behind it. If there’s anything, tell me now. If, for God’s sake, you made a mistake, tell me now. We can deal with it. A quiet resignation, a saved pension, recommendation to positions in the private sector. If I have to formally suspend you and Professional Responsibility files a complaint and it goes to formal hearing, there’s nothing I can do for you. Your record is so damned good, I’d hate to see it end like this.”
“Sir, I can only say, I have no opinion on the photo, and I have no recollection of ever traveling to Columbia, South Carolina. I didn’t do it.”
The director sighed.
“Okay, Nick,” he said, “then I have no choice but to—Nick, I have to say, you seem to be enjoying this. That’s what I don’t quite understand. I see, well, not quite a smirk, but a kind of look. Ace up the sleeve, I know something you don’t know, nonny-nonny-boo-boo, my class wins the Bible, that kind of look. A shoe waiting to drop look. Am I wrong?”