“You’d make a great godfather,” Trish said.
DeSantos was off in thought, staring at the wall. He had lived his life avoiding responsibility. He had to be damn near threatened at gunpoint to marry Maggie. He chuckled at the thought, for it had turned out to be the best “decision” he had ever made. He looked at the Archers and smiled. “Sure, what the hell. It’ll be good for me.”
Trish smiled. “See?” she said to her husband. “We didn’t even need to threaten him with a shotgun.”
“You told her about that?” DeSantos boomed. “You promised, that was a secret!”
“Speaking of secrets, we need to get back to business.” Archer looked over at Trish, who took the hint.
“I’m leaving. You boys with your hush-hush spy stuff, when are you ever going to grow up and get real jobs?” She moved over to the stairs and slowly ascended them. “Join us for dinner next Saturday, okay?”
“I’ll check with Maggie.”
“From macho commando to whipped husband. The transformation has been quite amazing,” Archer said.
“Fuck you.”
“So tell me what was in that document,” Archer said as he heard Trish close the upstairs door.
“We got most of the memo,” DeSantos said in a low voice. “This con was good, but some of it was just too jumbled to make out. Seems the Intelligence Support Agency is engaged in some sort of research project with the CIA and DOD. Knox was mentioned but it’s not clear what his role is.”
“What kind of research project? And what does Scarponi have to do with it?”
DeSantos shook his head. “About the only thing we definitely get from it is that Scarponi is a target. Even though it’s in code, they were still stingy about what they were putting down on paper. Basically, it seems as if Scarponi’s going to be their guinea pig.”
“Guinea pig? For what?”
“You want my theory on all this?”
“If you’ve got one.”
“I gave it some thought during my run before you got there, put my paranoid psychosis to work. It suddenly all came together.” DeSantos moved the bench closer to Archer. “What if the CIA-ISA-DOD group is planning to do some kind of experimental medical research on Scarponi without his consent?”
“The government involved in clandestine research on unsuspecting citizens? Gee, that’d be a first,” Archer said.
“Let’s accept for a moment that for whatever reason, Scarponi has whatever it is they need for this study. Except that in Petersburg, being such a high-profile inmate, he’s watched over by prison rights groups and there’s no way they can move on him. And let’s assume that Knox is an important piece to this puzzle. As chief counsel on the Select Committee, he had access and contacts and ties to all sorts of people. And being director of the FBI, he has big-time resources there, too.”
“So Knox lucks out,” Archer said with a nod. “When this new evidence comes out, he goes along with it and does some magic behind the scenes to make it easier for Scarponi to get released.”
“Meantime, the U.S. Attorney joins in and tells the Bureau it needs Harper Payne to take the stand again to impeach this new evidence Scarponi’s attorney has come up with.”
“But,” Archer said, “the marshal’s office tells the Bureau that Payne’s left WITSEC and is freelancing it. DOJ throws a fit, and Knox jumps because the boss roared. So he kicks everyone’s butt and the Bureau goes ass-wild trying to find Payne.”
“Right. Now here’s where my paranoia kicks in. What if this ‘new evidence’ is bullshit. What if Knox arranges it, fakes it, manufactures it. He sets up this whole scenario so Scarponi is released under the cover of an official court ruling. Behind the scenes, he uses the Bureau’s latest electronic surveillance technology to place a device in Scarponi so he can be tracked at all times within a few feet of wherever he is.”
“And Knox plans for it to appear as if Scarponi escapes. Knox’s group would then secretly recapture him and hand him over to the researchers running the study. As far as everyone is concerned, Scarponi has slipped underground and disappeared the way anyone would expect a world-renowned hit man to do.”
“But Knox’s plan backfires when Scarponi finds a way out of the device,” DeSantos said. “And he really does escape.”
Archer nodded slowly. “And now the heat is on Knox. His alliance is pissed because he’s let Scarponi slip through their fingers. The DOJ wants him back because if the president finds out about his escape, the shit will hit the fan. The DOJ will look like incompetent idiots and give ‘the system’ a huge black eye. If we can’t keep a killer like Scarponi in prison, other countries won’t trust us with extradition of future criminals. It brings all sorts of international political pressure to bear.”
“And to top it all off, Knox gets this threat letter from Scarponi. His daughter’s kidnapped to send a strong message. His family’s in danger.”
“So what does a guy like Knox do?” Archer asked.
DeSantos looked at Archer. “You’re the guy with a kid on the way, Brian. You tell me. Who does he put first?”
“His family,” Archer said without hesitation.
“So now all sorts of shit is going on. Everything and everyone is coming down on Knox. Does he arrange for Scarponi to get a clear shot at Payne so the threat is removed?”
“Or does he intend to protect Payne and instead use him as a pawn to lure Scarponi?”
The two men were quiet for a moment as they processed what they had just discussed.
Finally, Archer broke the silence. “Are we getting a little too far out here? I mean, Knox, an appeals court justice, the CIA, ISA, DOD… it’s a hell of a conspiracy theory, Hector.”
DeSantos chewed on his lip for a moment. “I know it reeks of paranoia, but we’ve seen shit like this before. Hell, look at OPSIG. We’ve been part of stuff like this. It’s just that in the past, it’s run a whole lot smoother and on a much smaller scale. They were sloppy. When Scarponi got away, everything got all fucked up.”
“So what do we do with this?”
“I guess we try to find out if we’re on the right track.”
“Here’s another piece of paranoia for you. Did Knox intend for us to figure this stuff out? I mean, he gave us those codes and let us hack away.”
DeSantos chewed on his lip some more. “Better yet, is he relying on us to figure it out, to save his ass?” He ran both hands through his hair. “What a fucking mess.”
“I thought you said you lived for this stuff.”
“That was before I was a godfather. Now I’ve got to be more responsible. Shit like this is just too dangerous. Have you thought of that, Brian?”
Archer smiled. “Looks like godparenthood has had a positive effect on you already.”
51
Harper Payne’s eyes popped open. He stared at the water-stained ceiling in the dim light, wondering for a moment where he was. He propped himself up on an elbow, then switched on the bedside lamp and looked around. The motel. Bethesda.
He showered and redressed in his partially torn suit, stripped off the bed sheet, and tossed it in the Dumpster in the parking lot. Although he couldn’t hide that he had stayed there, he did not want to make Waller and Haviland’s job too easy for them. They would be stuck trying to run down the night manager to show him an identifying photo before they would know for sure that this is where he had spent the night.
Even if they picked up the electronic trace on Waller’s Visa, they would have to confirm that it was in fact Payne who had used the card and not someone else he had sold it to. Of course, by the time they had verification it was him, he’d be long gone. But that Payne was still in the area would give them a trail and a place to start — infinitely more than what they had at the moment.