‘Listen, asshole, I pay you to manage security not to be my conscience or my PR agent. Joop knows how to deal with the natives. Let him. You just make sure the work continues.’
Zeb finishes reading all the papers, which contain many more emails in a similar vein, hands them across to the others and sits watching out of the window.
Broker looks at Connor. ‘These are genuine?’
‘All verified, authenticated by some of the best cryptos in the country, guys who analyze IP addresses, that kind of stuff.’
‘Well, hell, we just lost a Senator, then.’
Connor notes Chloe’s troubled expression. ‘Something bothering you?’
‘How is it that he wrote all this so openly? Surely he isn’t that stupid?’
‘He isn’t. He’s one of the smartest people on the planet. However, his blind side is that his wealth and power make him believe he’s untouchable, and it’s gone to his head. Power makes people do stupid things and behave as if they’re bulletproof.’
Anne, who has joined them, looks shaken. ‘This is so vile…so monstrous. It makes me feel sick that he can hold political office and go about his business while those he’s affected have no future or are dead.’ She sniffs and scrubs a tear away.
‘What will happen in all probability is someone from his office will lean on your editors, hush this up, and his life will continue on its merry way. Either that or he’ll denigrate your credibility, your sources — everything to discredit this story. You know it’s happened before.’
‘Won’t happen this time. For one, the NYT is not known for buckling under pressure. For another, this email trail is fully authenticated and verified by all kinds of technology specialists. There is absolutely no way Hardinger can deny he sent those mails. And finally, if the NYT does give in to pressure, then I’ll publish the story on the Internet. It’ll go viral and in many ways be more powerful than traditional publishing.’
He passes another sheaf of papers to Zeb. ‘This is as much of the story I’ve written so far. It still needs some editing and some tweaks, but is almost ready to go to press.’
Zeb speed-reads through the story and finds it a hard-hitting exposé of the mining industry in Africa with a special focus on Alchemy. Connor has neatly laid out Alchemy’s activities without resorting to emotion, letting the facts and the photographs tell their own story. The story is backed up by interviews, statistics and the damning email trail. Connor has also interviewed the specialists who have verified the emails.
Connor hands over a bunch of photographs. ‘These are going with the story. Not all of them will be printed. Most of them will go on the online edition.’
In several photographs, Connor has circled key characters and described their relationship to Hardinger and their role in Alchemy.
Broker takes some of the photographs and starts going through them and grabs the rest of the photographs that Zeb tosses over. Zeb goes to the windows and looks out, suddenly wondering what he’s doing here. He’s pretty sure Connor got them together so that he can have a sounding board and at the same time has some heavies around him to reassure Lauren and Anne.
The more time he spends here, the more time Holt gets to secure his witness protection status with the FBI or escape from the country.
He senses the sudden stillness behind him before he turns around.
Broker is staring hard at a photograph, and the rest are looking at Broker’s face.
Zeb strides across to him, and Broker hands him the photograph.
It’s a bunch of people gathered around Hardinger, all of them smiling or laughing as if Hardinger had cracked the funniest of jokes. There’s Hardinger’s head of security, Spadea, neatly ovalled by Connor, various security guards, and mining personnel. The photograph was taken at one of the mines, and Zeb can see the equipment in the background, the Kleig lights standing sentinel over them all.
None of those interest Zeb after he gives them a cursory glance. It’s the figure in the corner of the photograph who is shielding his face from the camera, unsuccessfully, who has his attention.
Carsten Holt.
Chapter 15
Connor sees his fingers whiten on the photograph, then relax, and curious, he steps across to look at the snap himself. ‘What’s it that has got you guys in a tizzy?’
‘Who’s that guy?’ Broker asks.
‘That? That’s Joop.’
Broker and Bear look at Zeb, while Connor, Lauren and Anne look increasingly puzzled.
‘Someone you know?’
‘Yup.’
‘Connected to whatever you’re doing now?’
No answer.
Zeb is still, yet Connor can sense something powerful swirling inside. ‘Zeb?’
Zeb tells him.
The story sounds grimmer when told in the middle of Manhattan, the background sounds of New York present though muted, with an uninflected voice-over by Zeb. Lauren disappears during his narration, and they can distantly hear sounds of her throwing up.
Zeb resumes when she returns, and the silence and the darkness in the apartment grows deeper. Connor lets out a long, loud breath when he’s finished and paces around the apartment, saying nothing. ‘So all this while…’ He begins and then stops.
‘You mean to say this guy and the others…’ He has no words. ‘Oh, fuck it,’ he finally says and pours himself a triple scotch. He offers the bottle to the others, then replaces it when all of them decline.
He composes himself and asks Zeb, ‘So this guy is here in New York? And being protected by the FBI?’
Zeb nods.
‘And you know where he is?’
‘We think we know where he could be,’ says Broker.
‘Just who’s this guy in Hardinger’s world?’ he asks Connor.
‘Joop is some kind of freelance Mr. Fix-It for them. He’s not an Alchemy employee, and he’s not a security contractor either — I wasn’t able to work out how he got paid, but he was always around when Hardinger was there and was very close to the security people. I never spoke to him. He took great care to distance himself when I was there.’
Broker looks at Zeb. ‘That’s why we couldn’t find him.’
‘Now what?’ asks Connor.
‘Nothing,’ replies Zeb, getting up and preparing to leave. Broker, Bear and Chloe start moving out along with him.
‘You go ahead with your exposé, but you leave Joop or Holt, or whatever name he goes by, to us.’
‘My story has wider implications now, hasn’t it? Now I can also prove that Hardinger associates with monsters. And there is the FBI angle, that they’re protecting this guy.’
‘Sir, Hardinger will just deny that he knows this person in the photograph. He can just as easily say that the Joop he is referring to is someone else. It’s not that uncommon a name in that part of the world. Don’t forget that there’s no record of this guy on Alchemy’s payroll or the payroll of its contractors. Broker checked that out thoroughly. As for the FBI, the Patriot Act was made for them. They can do anything under the name of terrorism prevention.’
Broker smiles grimly. ‘This guy is dangerous. I strongly suggest you don’t involve him in your series. Leave this guy to the authorities or to us.’
‘How about my going to the police or challenging the FBI with my story?’ Connor asks.
‘I can’t advise you on what you should do, other than telling you that if I were you, I would think twice about involving Holt in this story. The police? This is beyond their jurisdiction, I’d say. The FBI might just arrest you for obstruction of justice or whatever they can think of. We tried going to them and were warned off. Whatever you do, I strongly suggest that you get yourself and your family well protected.’