That was without considering whether or not Earle could truly be damaged by such an allegation. His reputation would take a hit, certainly, but I couldn't see the man himself facing criminal proceedings. Where was the evidence? It wasn't as if Alena could be relied upon to testify in court about Earle's involvement, assuming he'd been directly involved in commissioning the murder at all.
I tried not to think too much or for too long about Kurt Hayner, whom Alena had taken money to kill for doing his job.
"Doesn't work," I said. The elliptical was on a random hill climb, and I took that moment to raise both the angle and the resistance I was working with. I tried to, literally, take it in stride.
Panno sniffed, squinting at me, as if surprised I had anything to offer. "You don't buy it?"
"This guy may be chief of staff, but he's been burning through favors and money for three-plus years now trying to get at us. That's a huge expense, not just in dollars but in influence. Jesus Christ, first the guy covers up murders in Cold Spring, then he dumps the media on us in Montana? That's not done through official channels, not most of it, at least. It doesn't track. You don't burn that much power just because you're afraid either she or I might go talking about something we probably couldn't prove to begin with."
"You're talking like you know the guy," Panno said. "You don't know the guy."
"I know the job," I said. "I know what the White House chief of staff does, at least in the abstract, and we're talking about a man who's been in that position for nearly seven years, now. Most chiefs of staff make it for, what, two or three? This guy's smart, he's discreet, he's not going to go to these lengths on the basis of something that never would happen."
"You both had heat coming down on you." Panno pointed a finger at Alena. "She had a goddamn book coming out about her. How long you think it was going to be before someone connected the dots?"
"Until the end of time. You hire one of The Ten, one of the things you're buying is their silence. That's assumed, it's part of the contract, or else the whole mechanism falls apart, nothing is ever done. Even if Alena had been taken into custody and interrogated, she never would have copped to the crime, nor named names. Not in a million years."
"I never met with Jason Earle," Alena added. "I would not have been able to indict him directly even had I desire to do so. The job you're speaking of was acquired through the channels. It was delivered by a woman named Audrey Daudin, a Swiss national and private banker. She had many clients, and I was unable to determine which of them I was serving."
From behind us, a voice said, "God, you're both such arrogant fucks, it disgusts me."
Panno grinned. Past him, in the reflection on the window, I could see Trent standing in the doorway behind us. He was dressed, a coffee mug in hand.
"Bowles called me the same thing," I said, without turning around.
"That's because Bowles knew more than the both of you put together about what's going on."
"Obviously," Alena remarked, still continuing her steady row.
Trent moved between the machines. Panno got to his feet as he approached.
"That's decaf?" he asked Trent.
"It's what was in the pot," Trent countered, and I took some pleasure in the fact that he sounded as bitchy to Panno in that moment as he sounded to me and Alena in every other.
"You want another heart attack?" Panno took the mug from Trent's hand and set it on the sill. "Lay off the caffeine."
"Greed," I said. "Money."
Both Panno and Trent looked at me. Alena didn't, but said, "It would have to be an incredible amount of money."
I switched off the elliptical, stepped down from the rails. I was sweating, and I didn't have anything to wipe my face with, so I used the front of my shirt.
"Money, sex, or power," I said. "Those are the reasons for murder."
"Protecting your own," Panno said.
"We call that self-defense. It's not sex, so it's either money or power. And Hayner, that's not enough to steal Earle's power, not all of it, at any rate. So it's money. And Alena's right: We have to be able to threaten an incredible amount of money for Earle to go to the lengths he's gone to."
Panno glanced at Trent, who was staring at me as if waiting to see how many more words the monkey could string together.
"Gorman-North, is that it?" I said. "We're not threatening Earle: We're threatening Gorman-North."
"All it took was spelling it out for you," Trent said.
"So why don't you spell out the rest?"
He made an almost contemptuous snort, then said, "John."
"The three of you aren't the only ones who want Earle taken care of," Panno told me. "There are other people who have an interest. People who have been trying to get him removed from his position of influence for a few years now, and who haven't been able to do it."
The sound of the oars slowed, Alena coming to a stop.
"Phoenix Resource Consultancy," I said. "Just who do you consult for, John?"
"Right now? Not working for anyone." He smiled at me. "This is a favor for Mr. Trent. But if you're asking for people I've worked with in the past, the only one who should interest you right now is a man at the Pentagon."
Alena got to her feet. "The conflicting reports."
I looked at Panno, at Trent, and then back to Panno. "Is there anyone who doesn't know we're planning to kill the White House chief of staff?"
"There are eight people who know," Trent answered. "Four of them are in this room."
"And the other four?"
"They're in the E-Ring."
"Jesus fucking Christ," I said. "You're using us for a coup." "It's called profiteering," Panno said. "Whether you like it or not, whether you even believe it or not, we are at war, and will be for the foreseeable future. There's something FDR said during World War Two that's relevant. He said, 'I don't want to see a single war millionaire created in the United States as a result of this world disaster.' Harry Truman called the act of war-profiteering treason.
"It is. People die as a result. Soldiers, civilians, ours, theirs. Our people don't get what they need, or when they get what they need it doesn't do what it's supposed to, or there isn't enough of it, or it falls apart because the suppliers are cutting corners, massaging the bottom line.
"Gorman-North provides services to American military personnel all around the world. They build our bases, they staff our bases, they supply our bases and our soldiers with materiel and support services. They are everywhere in the system.
"And they're making billions on the deal. Billions and billions of dollars, and when we talk about that much money, even one percent of it not reaching the battlefield is a problem. When we talk about that much money, we're talking about hundreds of millions of dollars. And like I said, this thing isn't going to end anytime soon. There are going to be more and more contracts. And more and more of that money isn't going to make it where it's supposed to go."
Panno stopped speaking, his eyes locked on mine.
"It's not a coup," Trent told me. "Don't make it worse than it already is."
"It's already pretty fucking bad," I said. "If the Pentagon knows, if four fucking people there know, then that's the fucking military moving against the civilian government. What else do you want to call it?"
"No one is talking about bringing down the government," Panno said.
"Earle has been in the White House shepherding contracts for Gorman-North? You guys know this for a fact?"