Body of Lies

  "Too well. Why are they doing it?"

  "The power generated by the dam will be a tremendous boost to the Chinese economy. The economy is moving too fast under the present regime, and the Cabal is having problems controlling it." Her lips twisted bitterly. "Control is clearly the name of the game with the Cabal."

  "And, if the dam fails, the regime could fall with it."

  "That's the plan. And the new regime would have a few high-placed Cabal members. Control."

  "Nasty."

  "Tragic." She closed her eyes. "God knows how many people will die as a result of the sabotage..." Her lids flew open; she straightened in the chair and put the piece back in her ear. "Let's see if they have any more dirty tricks in the works. We can't stop them if we don't know what—"

  "Dirty tricks?" Nathan asked from behind them. He shut the door and came into the van. "What's happening?"

  "Sabotage of the Three Gorges Dam in China," Joe said.

  Nathan gave a low whistle. "So that's the agenda."

  "That seems to be the subject of everyone's conversation." Eve turned another knob. "I'm trying to find out if there's anything else crucial going on."

  "I'd bet it's gonna get more interesting," Nathan said. "Melton should be the next to get here. I followed him as far as the perimeter road and then cut around here. Did you get a count?"

  "Fifty-two," Eve said. "And Joe got a shot of every one of them."

  "Be sure you get Melton." Nathan lifted binoculars to his eyes. "Here he comes..."

  "Bingo," Joe said as Melton disappeared into the building. "The good senator recorded for posterity."

  "Your bright light is shining clear and true," Eve told Nathan.

  "Truth is a beautiful word, isn't it?" Nathan's gaze fastened on the concrete building. "So clean and simple."

  "Looks like that's it." Joe stood and headed for the door. "I'm going to scout around and make sure those guards are sticking inside the fence. We don't want to be surprised."

  "Good idea." Eve adjusted another dial. "Because the meeting's come to order. Melton is giving a welcome address."

  "They must all be here." Nathan moved toward the door. "I'll go and give the FBI a call and then see if I can help Quinn."

  "Wait, Nathan."

  "We have to move fast now, or the whole show is—" He stopped as he saw the gun in her hand. "Eve? What the hell are you doing?"

  "Franklin Copeland was a very good man. Didn't you feel even a twinge of conscience when he died?"

  He gazed at her in bewilderment. "Why should I? I didn't kill him."

  "You didn't kill him. You just let him die."

  He went still. "I beg your pardon? I went to the Secret Service. They wouldn't listen to me."

  "Joe called the Secret Service again this afternoon and did some more in-depth questioning. You went to them four hours after I called you. Four hours, Nathan."

  "It took me a while to get in to see them. Red tape. It wouldn't have made a difference, anyway."

  "It might have made a difference if you hadn't deliberately made the Secret Service agents think you were unbalanced. Agent Wilson said you were raving when you came to the house. No wonder they didn't believe you."

  "I was frantic, dammit. I couldn't get them to listen. Not that they would have found anything suspicious, anyway. Hebert was too smart for us."

  "Actually, they did find something—once Joe persuaded them to go to the house with him for a search earlier tonight. It was the filter on the vent in Copeland's bedroom. It was coated with a substance that reacted in his lungs like mold. Every breath Copeland took weakened his lungs and helped to bring on his asthma attacks."

  "Diabolical."

  "Hebert said it was planned down to the last gasp. I'm sure the doctors in the Cabal measured out the irritant to cause a final seizure no later than the twenty-seventh. That way the funeral could be scheduled for two days later, and it would be perfectly natural for all the members to be flying into the area before the twenty-ninth." She paused. "Copeland was a fine man. You shouldn't have let him die."

  "I told you that—" His gaze narrowed on her face. "That's the second time you said that. Ridiculous. Why would I have let him die?"

  "Because you didn't want the Cabal meeting to be canceled. You wanted them all here. You've been planning this from the moment Etienne told you that the Cabal was meeting in Boca Raton."

  "But he didn't tell me."

  "Yes, he did. Why wouldn't he tell you? He liked you and trusted you. You'd been working on him for two years to make sure he'd feel that way."

  "Two years?"

  "Since he came to work for you at the research center."

  "What?"

  "Oh, for God's sake, no more pretense. It's over. You're not Bill Nathan."

  His brows lifted. "I'm not?" He tilted his head. "Then who am I? Now, let me see. A good reporter should be able to make a decent guess at where you're going with all this. You believe I'm Thomas Simmons?"

  She shook her head. "Another red herring. How long did you think you could keep me from knowing that you were Harold Bently?"

  A flicker of expression crossed his face. "What? Are you crazy?"

  "Joe got a call from his precinct about the explosion that killed Jennings. The car wasn't rigged. The bomb was in the skull itself, and triggered by a remote device." She paused. "And the skull wasn't the one I worked on. It wasn't a human skull at all. It was a very good imitation, made of plastic and coated with clay. Now, it was obviously switched. I had to ask myself who had the opportunity to substitute the plastic skull for Victor, and why. Then Galen called us and told me Hughes had caught a glimpse of some kind of metal glinting beneath the porch at the lake cottage. He found a very small, very sophisticated long-range listening device. The rains had washed away the pile of leaves it was hidden under. Someone wanted to know exactly what was going on in our cottage, and there was no way Hebert could have gotten that close. But you were out there on the porch most of the evening, and you were on the steps when I came out of the cottage when Jennings's car blew up. You could have monitored Jennings's conversation with Rusk and then blown the car. It all began to come together. I asked Galen to find some pictures of Simmons and scan them into the computer. Lo and behold: Victor wasn't Harold Bently at all, but Thomas Simmons."

  Bently was silent a moment. "Too bad. It seems the jig may be up."

  "And you did some more swapping last night when you gave us the shots of the man you called Simmons. Computer substitution on those pictures from Cal Tech. It's easy these days, with a photo program. Who was the man at the church?"

  "Just someone I picked up and hired on the local skid row. He cleaned up pretty well, didn't he?"

  "Why did you go to so much trouble?"

  "I thought you might become suspicious if I didn't give the 'shadow' substance."

  "And when did you do the switch on the skulls?"

  "When I packed up your equipment when we left Galen's house. That's why I had to go with you. I had to make sure you didn't take the reconstruction out of the case to do any more work on him."

  "Because the plastic reconstruction was of you, and Victor was Simmons. You took a big chance."

  "Not so big. You were so upset about the threat to your daughter that you weren't thinking of Victor. It helped that you always refuse to look at photos of your reconstructions. I knew you'd find out eventually, but I hoped it would be long enough."

  "You mean you hoped Hebert would kill me before I did a photo comparison of the reconstruction."

  "Hope didn't enter into it. It was just another tragic necessity in an already tragic situation." Bently grimaced. "I knew you'd have to die from the moment Hebert brought you into the picture. It's not something I wanted to happen. I respect and admire you."

  "Is that why you bribed Marie to poison me?"

  "I was playing for time. If you'd died, then they would have had to get another forensic sculptor. It would have delayed them. I needed that delay." br />
  "But Hebert rushed in and killed Marie so that I wouldn't suspect I was targeted and be frightened enough to stop the work."

  "Yes, damn his soul. You started the reconstruction, and I knew time was running out. If the Cabal found out I was alive, then they'd turn loose all their bloodhounds to find me. I know what kind of power they wield. It wouldn't have been a week before they tracked me down. I couldn't let that happen. All I needed was that two weeks and the Cabal would be here."

  "And that's why you killed Jennings, too?"

  "At first, I was only going to use him to throw the Cabal off my trail and onto Simmons. I was going to get him to ID the skull, and then blow it up and have Hebert blamed. But I could tell Jennings was getting too close to knowing about Hebert's plans for Boca Raton. I needed to stop him in his tracks."

  "So many deaths." Eve shook her head. "Why the hell didn't you just take your fuel cell and leave the country? Work on it somewhere else?"

  "Because I realized after the Cabal tried to kill me that they would never stop. That they'd find a way to bury me, the way they buried Simmons and his invention." His lips tightened. "Do you know what a miracle that fuel cell would have been? How many millions of people it would have helped? It would have cleaned up our planet. But the Cabal wouldn't let us do it. We were interfering in their profits, their control. They crushed us the way they crushed every other advancement that got in their way." Bently smiled bitterly. "Think about it. How many marvels of invention have you read about that just disappeared from view? Do you remember reading about the car down in Daytona with a super-efficient electric engine that met all the problems posed by the environmentalists? It was bought by Detroit and never heard about again. The inventors are always bought out, or scared out, or held up to ridicule by the media, consumer groups, or the government. They fade away as if they had never been. Well, Simmons and I weren't going to fade away. I had the funds and he had the fuel cell. We were going to make final refinements, and then I'd contact a few influential backers and we'd be on our way."

  "Until Hebert set off that explosion."

  He nodded. "Simmons was killed instantly. I was burned, but I crawled out into the mud and put out the flames. Etienne found me there."

  "And helped you?"

  "He took me to a shack in Houma and nursed me for months. I had plenty of money in a safe on the island, but he was afraid to call in a doctor. I almost died several times. When I was on the mend, I tried to think what was best to do. I wanted to try to continue Simmons's work, but it was too dangerous to confront the Cabal alone. Then the solution occurred to me: the media. What would a secret society fear most? The light of public attention glaring on them. I had Etienne phone Bill Nathan and ask him to meet me in secret, because I thought he'd be sympathetic to my cause."

  "He wasn't?"

  "Oh, he was sympathetic, as long as there was no risk involved. He was a miserable coward. I knew he'd probably go straight from me to Melton. I couldn't let him do that. Not after all I'd suffered."

  "You killed him and took his identity."

  "It wasn't too difficult. He was divorced and worked freelance, so he moved around the state a lot. I had a few facial burns and had to have plastic surgery anyway. I had Etienne buy a phony driver's license and passport for me, and I went to Antigua and had some work done. Nathan and I had similar features that only had to be made more similar."

  "And you had the plastic skull made there?"

  "No, that was later. After I failed to remove you from the picture, I realized it might be necessary."

  "Might? I can't imagine you taking anything for granted. I'd bet you planned every detail."

  "Well, I did know buying the fuel-cell components might attract attention. I knew enough about Simmons's invention to complete it, but I had to be prepared, in case the Cabal became dubious about my demise."

  "Prepared to blow me up?"

  "If the bomb wasn't used for you, I thought it might be a nice gift to give to the Cabal at their next meeting. But, as it happened, circumstances dictated that I use it in another way. Jennings. Kismet."

  "Murder."

  "Call it what you like. I was doing what I had to do to survive and bring something decent into the world." He shrugged. "The Cabal taught me that I couldn't be squeamish about the means of doing it."

  "So you became like them."

  "No!" Bently tried to temper the violence of his voice. "I gave up my wife and my children and a life I loved because I wanted to help the world become a better place. The Cabal tried to butcher me, and then made me hide like a wounded animal. I didn't even dare go home because I knew they'd target my family. Every act of violence I've committed is their fault."

  Eve shook her head. "Murder is murder."

  "It's easy for you to say. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good."

  "You sound like Hebert. In your way you're as twisted as he was. And you brainwashed Etienne until he was willing to do anything you told him to."

  "Not anything. I couldn't persuade him not to take Simmons's skull to Jules. He was a simple soul; he wanted to please all of us."

  "You knew Jules would kill him."

  "If he hadn't, I would have had to do it myself. That's why I followed Etienne to Baton Rouge. I couldn't risk him talking."

  She shook her head in amazement. "You're incredible. He saved your life. If you were there on the spot, you could have helped him."

  His lips tightened. "But I needed the time. After Etienne told me what was going to happen here, I knew that opportunity was knocking. The only way to guarantee that the Cabal couldn't stop the research was to bring them down. And the only way to get them all was to make sure they gathered in one place like the vultures they are." His gaze went to the concrete building. "And now I have them all in there, roosting. Fifty-three of the most powerful and egocentric bastards on the face of the earth."

  "They won't be there for long. Joe's calling the Secret Service man he talked to this afternoon. He asked Pete Wilson to be on the alert."

  "I'm surprised he left you alone with me for the great confrontation."

  "He didn't know about the confrontation. He thought I was just going to play along with you until the Secret Service came."

  Bently smiled. "But you wanted some other recordings to give to the law, besides those of the Cabal. You've been getting our little conversation on tape, haven't you?"

  "If you guessed, why did you talk to me?"

  "Because I don't care. It's not going to matter. I have a boat waiting at a dock near here. I'll be on it and heading to a lab I have set up in the Caribbean. I watched Simmons every minute while he was creating the fuel cell. I can re-create his invention. Besides, you deserved to have some answers after all your hard work."

  "Christ, I'm pointing this gun at you. It will matter. You'd have to be nuts not to—"

  "Eve." The door had swung open and Joe stood in the doorway of the van. He resignedly shook his head as he stared at the gun in her hand. "I was a little worried about this happening."

  "So you rushed back to safeguard the lady," Bently said. "And is the Secret Service on its way?"

  Joe nodded. "Ten minutes, tops."

  "Do you really think those Secret Service agents will do anything about the Cabal? No way. Hell, the Cabal will say they're having a private memorial for Copeland, and the authorities will question them very respectfully and then go away with apologies."

  "But they'll know who was there. We'll have tapes and videos. They'll all be marked men. The Secret Society will no longer be secret. It's hard to organize the kind of power plays they've been doing when everybody suspects them. That bright light will push them out into the open."

  "Spotlights don't last forever."

  "Nothing lasts forever," Eve said.

  "You're wrong. One thing is very permanent indeed." Bently looked back at the concrete building. "I became very skilled with explosives during my recuperation period. Etienne was an excelle
nt teacher. He'd learned from a master. He knew how to rig bombs and place them where they'd go undetected. Do you know there are even ways to mask the scent from dogs? He was very proud of his knowledge."

  Eve tensed as she realized he wasn't talking about the explosive in the skull. "You're bluffing. There was no way you could get near that building with all the guards."

  "But the guards weren't here three weeks ago."

  God, all the half-lies, half-truths. "Etienne told you exactly where the meeting was being held."

  Bently nodded. "Did I forget to mention that? When you figured everything else out, I would have thought you'd guess."

  She headed for the door. "For God's sake, you're going to—"

  The tech van rocked as the night exploded.

  The gun flew out of Eve's hand as she was hurled against the wall and the van lurched drunkenly. Joe was thrown backward from the door to the ground, stunning him.

  Bently was already at the door as Eve straightened. He glanced back over his shoulder, his face alight with fierce satisfaction. "Death is forever, Eve. Nothing is more permanent. No more Cabal."

  Then he was gone.

  She grabbed up the gun, tore across the van and out the door.

  "Stay here." Joe was shaking his head to clear it as he got to his feet. "I'll get him."

  "Dear God." Eve stopped in shock as she saw the remains of the concrete building. What was left of the concrete was spread in huge chunks about the grounds; the remainder of the structure was enveloped in flames.

  She tore her gaze away. Bently.

  He was racing toward the drainage ditch. She started after him.

  Joe was ahead of her, closing on Bently at a dead run.

  Bently waded through the ditch. He was out and plunging into the brush.

  Joe glanced over his shoulder at her. "Dammit, I told you to stay in the van. He could have set another—"