Lunn ran an airport wand around him, asked him to remove his watch, and then pronounced him clean.
Hillabrand gave a nod, and Lunn carried Walt’s briefcase and portfolio out of the room. Lunn pulled the door shut with a convincing click.
Hillabrand stood, with his back to the flickering gas fireplace. For several minutes, neither man spoke.
“Where to start?” Hillabrand began.
“I’d settle for something resembling the truth,” Walt answered. He carried his heavy belt over to a chair and placed it on the seat. The two men remained standing.
“It’s pretty cut and dried for you, isn’t it?”
“I suppose it is,” Walt said, still seething over Hillabrand’s manipulation of the hearing. “You drank that water.” He still couldn’t believe it. “You knew it was contaminated and yet you drank it.”
“It occurred to me you might be bluffing.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I forced myself to vomit just now,” Hillabrand confessed. “Hope-fully, that helps.”
“And if it doesn’t? If you’re contaminated?”
The man shrugged. It struck Walt as oddly arrogant, as if what made two people sick could have no effect on him.
“You can’t hide this forever,” Walt said. “I’m not going to be the only one to figure this out.”
“Have it all figured out, do you?”
“Pretty close, I suspect.”
“Another government contractor raking in the millions in fees and covering up his mistakes as fast as he can backfill.”
“Something pretty close to that, yes.”
“Let me clarify some things,” Hillabrand said. “The death of the vet, Randy Aker, not us. His brother going missing, not us.”
“I wish I could believe that.”
“You will.”
“I don’t think so. No.”
“You might want to sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Did you really see fifty head of sheep burning?” Hillabrand asked.
“Yes. You were sloppy.”
“Me? I don’t think so. It’s the damn ranchers over there. You want a glimpse of America a hundred years ago? Drive two hours east of Hailey. Jesus, what we have to put up with.”
“Must be a real hardship.”
“Read that,” Hillabrand said, pointing to Oozer’s desk, where a fax was positioned to face Walt. The hairs on his arms and neck rose, as he identified the federal government letterhead.
“It’s an NDA.”
“Yes. A federal nondisclosure agreement,” said Hillabrand. “Airtight. They’ll take your firstborn if you so much as think about what you’re about to hear. That’s right: it’s worth careful consideration.”
Walt read the opening paragraph. “I’m not signing this. I can’t use whatever you tell me.”
“Who said I’d tell you anything?” Hillabrand countered.
Walt looked between the man and the document on the desk. “It’s dated today.”
“It was faxed here about five minutes ago.”
“You work fast.”
“You’re kind of forcing my hand, Sheriff. I’d just as soon the hearing had stayed on the train shipments.”
Walt thought he understood. “There are no shipments from Russia,” he speculated.
Hillabrand didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.
“You created that-the new shipments-to keep that hearing where you wanted it: well off the recent events up there.”
“I signed one of those,” Hillabrand said, indicating the document. “I can’t go any further unless you join the club.”
“I’m not a big one for clubs,” Walt said. “The last thing I joined was Costco.”
“Just the same.”
“Why would I ever agree to sign this?” Walt asked. “I have ninety-nine percent of this in the bag. I don’t need this.”
“To know the truth. Your precious truth.” Hillabrand shifted in front of the fire. “And so I can tell you everything I know about your missing friend.”
Walt felt his face flush. “But signing this prevents me from acting upon it.”
“No, I don’t think that will be the case. I can almost promise you’ll be able to use that information. But one thing ties to the next, and… there you have it.”
“I don’t have anything.”
“But you will. Some will be prosecutable, some won’t.”
“Let me guess which part won’t,” Walt said.
“I understand how it’s in your nature to be suspicious. Rightly so. I’m not asking you to be someone you can’t be. And I’m not even asking you to trust me because I believe at this stage that’s beyond your instincts. Am I right?”
“You think I wouldn’t sign this even if it would mean saving Mark Aker?” Walt asked rhetorically. “You think I’m too…suspicious… proud… whatever?”
“Distrustful is the word, I think.”
“I’m certainly that.”
“It’s not that I can help you with Aker. Not really. But I believe it might help you to know what wasn’t done, who isn’t behind it, because sometimes that can lead one in the right direction. As an investigator, you must understand that better than most.”
“Yes, we call that misinformation,” Walt said sarcastically.
“But it’s not, you see? Once you sign that NDA, I won’t have to lie to you any longer.”
It was difficult for Walt to see Hillabrand as the victim of the government the way Hillabrand wanted him to. The portrayal seemed unlikely and insincere. He wanted to believe he could find the truth on his own-that he already had most of it-but the truth could take time, and Mark Aker had all but run out of it.
He pulled a pen out of his pocket and signed the document.
“Hand it to me, please,” Hillabrand said, taking no chances Walt might try to destroy it, burn it in the fireplace, once he had the truth.
Hillabrand carefully folded the document and slipped it into his suit coat’s inside pocket. He then stared at Walt and Walt stared back.
“It wasn’t a spill,” he said. “And it wasn’t my company’s money.”
“You paid off the ranchers to cover their losses, the same way Danny Cutter was made a similar offer.”
“My company made those arrangements, but the money comes from the taxpayers.”
“If not a spill, what, leakage? Seepage? Or what?”
“You’re still so determined to see me in a particular light you can’t quite wrap your mind around it, can you? What if I’m considered innocent until proven guilty? That would be a novelty.”
He was right: Walt had seen Semper, and Hillabrand in particular, as the perpetrators. He’d had little choice but to do so. The INL director’s rebuffs had been the icing on the cake. But now the existence of the NDA made itself felt: perhaps no one had agreed to meet with him because they’d been bound by the same contract.
“Sabotage,” Walt mumbled, stunned by the way the events suddenly looked so different when considered in this light.
“A domestic terrorist attack,” Hillabrand said, his voice low, his words carefully chosen. “Not a bunch of crazy Muslims. A bunch of crazy rednecks.”
Walt felt a sickening dread in his belly. “The Samakinn.” Walt recalled the alert that had been sent.
“You’ve heard of them?”
“Only recently.”
“They targeted a well-secured facility with the remnants of forty-two reactors spread over an area the size of Manhattan,” Hillabrand said. “They attacked an outlying building and caused a rupture. Thankfully, small, but it’s still radioactive material. We think it was accomplished by four people, maybe less. This comes at a time when this administration is in back-channel negotiations with Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran on their nuclear policies. We’re trying to dictate policy in order to control world safety. The last thing this administration needs is to be seen as a government that can’t secure its own fissionable material. When the breach was discovered, the administration informed us this would not go public. Any blowback would be covered by them. Thankfully, it happened in a mostly uninhabited area. The substrata contamination flowed north into the Pahsimeroi. It wasn’t until the livestock became ill that we even understood the degree of the sabotage. We’ve been working around the clock to repair the damage ever since. Thankfully, the few ranchers affected are patriots. They signed the same NDA that you did, took some money for their troubles, and kept their mouths shut. Two things we didn’t see coming.”