“He once told me he was a god”—the lackeys immediately started writing on their notepads—“as well as an oracle, a time traveler, a visionary, a psychic, and what else, I know I’m forgetting some.” As Pete was listing them out, the lackeys realized the value of this information and put their pens down.
“And what do you think? If you had to pick one?” Huntley asked.
“I always had this odd feeling that he might be an alien, but then I realized he’s just sort of weird.”
“Mr. Morgan, I must insist on your cooperation.”
“I don’t know how he does it,” Pete said, throwing his hands into the air. “You want me to pick one, fine, he’s psychic. Sometimes he knows things about the future. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“Mr. Morgan, why aren’t you rich?”
“Excuse me?”
“You have this friend who can see the future. We’ve been over both your finances. You’re both well-off, but with his ability, you could both be extremely wealthy, yet neither of you is. Why is that?”
“Did he tell you about the time he convinced me to bet big on the Pistons and they lost?” Pete noticed their eyes widen at that remark, and continued, “Yeah, he’s not always right.”
“Perhaps he did that intentionally, to get back at you for something or to shake your faith in his ability?” Huntley asked.
“No, I don’t think so. He’s always done right by me.”
“Has he?” Huntley rifled through her files. “Tell me about your mother. She died young, did she not? Did Arnesto try to warn you?”
Pete frowned. “There’s an explanation for that. I told him beforehand not to interfere with my life.”
“Did you specifically order him not to warn you about immediate family members dying?”
“No. What exactly is your point?” Pete asked.
“My point, Mr. Morgan, is that your friend Arnesto seems to enjoy playing God. If he’s willing to sit by as his own friend’s mother gets cancer—”
“That’s hardly fair. He didn’t make her smoke.”
“But he could have stopped it. He could have saved her life.”
“There’s no way to know that for sure, Agent Huntley. But what about all the lives he did save?”
“Yes, let’s talk about Oklahoma.” The lackey on Huntley’s left handed her a file. Huntley opened it to the first page. “Timothy McVeigh a.k.a. The Oklahoma Highway Bomber. They estimate Arnesto may have saved fifty lives, many of them children.”
Pete put his hand up. “Hold on, fifty? Try almost four times that amount.”
Huntley took out a pair of reading glasses and put them on. She then flipped past a couple pages in the report. “According to our analysis, the Murrah building’s structure would have withstood the brunt of the blast. Two independent contractors agreed that no more than forty to fifty people would have died. Did Arnesto tell you the number was higher?”
“Much higher, yes,” Pete said.
“Perhaps he was lying, embellishing his heroics knowing you would never know the truth?”
Pete’s voice got quieter. “He wouldn’t do that.”
“He wouldn’t what, lie?” Huntley asked. “Did you know less than an hour before the explosion, he lied to a police officer? He told the officer that he and McVeigh stayed at the same hotel the night before. Minutes later, that same officer was murdered by McVeigh. Did you know that? Here, read the report for yourself,” she said, turning the report around and sliding it across the table to Pete.
Pete read the report, much of it being news to him. Still, he found nothing to contradict what little Arnesto had told him aside from Huntley’s speculation which he didn’t trust anyway.
“Seventeen people died in the blast,” Huntley said, “most of them federal agents. If he had given them just a little more notice… But Arnesto has proven himself to be reckless. Here’s one question I would love to have answered: What was he doing there?”
“I am happy to answer that. He told me he was worried that his warning was going to be ignored. Again. He went there as a last resort to try to stop McVeigh himself. Run him off the road if necessary.”
“Mr. Morgan, does that sound like someone who has worked so hard to maintain his anonymity? Does that sound like Arnesto?”
Pete again looked at his interrogator and her lackeys. They all stared straight back, awaiting his response. Almost in a whisper, he said, “No, it doesn’t.”
“Was Arnesto working with McVeigh?”
“Oh, come on!” Pete said, jumping up and sending his chair wheeling backward a couple feet. “To what end?!”
“You said yourself, he felt the government was ignoring him. Maybe he wanted to send them a message then changed his mind at the last minute, or maybe it got out of hand, I don’t know. Did he and McVeigh ever have any contact?”
Pete walked to the window and looked outside. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t avoid the question. “Yes. They spoke briefly in Waco two years earlier, during the siege. It was a chance encounter.”
“Ah, yes, Waco,” Huntley said as she opened up a different file. “Where Arnesto forged a disturbing recording in David Koresh’s voice, which he sent to two different news stations before leaving a third for the FBI. Again, Arnesto chooses the most reckless path.”
“It worked, didn’t it?”
“Did it? Several people still died. In the meantime, he meets McVeigh, they have a nice little chat about how much they hate the government, perhaps establish a partnership—”
Pete sighed and sat back in his chair. “At his worst, Arnesto’s actions were less reckless than your conjecture. I am cooperating with you, but I have to ask, how many more files do you have? Exactly how much more are we going to cover?”
“Mr. Morgan, I would suggest you cancel your appointments for the rest of the week and possibly the next.” As she said, this, the lackey on her right started pulling out boxes full of files from underneath the table and setting them on top. “We’ve only just begun.”
A Relaxing Conversation
Location: Unknown
Monday, April 29, 2013
Time: Unknown
The next day, Arnesto was brought back into the interrogation room where Whiteside was waiting for him.
“Good morning, Arnesto,” Whiteside said, holding up the L.A. riots flyer from the day before. “I thought we’d start at the beginning. April 29, 1992: the Los Angeles riots. I’m sure it’s not the beginning for you, but it’s the earliest we have anything on you. So far.
He read from the flyer. “‘If the officers who beat Rodney King are acquitted, the people may riot.’ Why didn’t you say, ‘…the people will riot?’ It’s more accurate, but I guess it also makes you sound more threatening. Were you afraid the people would take it as a call to arms? Or were you afraid that if you were caught, you would be charged with inciting the riot that nearly burned the city to the ground? Did you think that far ahead?”
After each question, he gave Arnesto time to respond, but Arnesto remained silent.
“Am I correct in assuming you’re not going to answer any of my questions? Alright, we’ll give you something to help loosen you up a bit.”
Two agents entered the room. One stood by as the other injected something into Arnesto’s arm. Arnesto never said a word and put up no resistance.
“Amobarbital,” Whiteside said. “Similar to Sodium Pentothal, though I couldn’t tell you their exact chemical compositions. I bet you could, though.
“Anyway, let’s get back to the riots. So, the night before, you stayed at that hotel, where you paid cash, but still gave them your license plate number, only with two of the digits transposed. You posted these flyers all over Koreatown, then got the hell out of town, went home, and watched the riots on television like everyone else as fifty-three people died. Did you feel that they brought it on themselves, that they deserved to die?”