McIntosh made a hissing sound as he sucked on his tongue. “Why are you even involved in this? You are barred from operating in this country. I think you left me a hole to climb through.”
“We are an intelligence agency tasked with protecting this country from enemies both foreign and domestic. We have worked in conjunction with the FBI this entire time. They are the lead agency on this, we merely their very willing helpmate. That type of arrangement occurs all the time and has been thoroughly vetted in the courts. Thus you will find that not only is there no hole for you to escape through, but that the roof over your head for your remaining time on this earth will be provided by the federal government.”
“Roger, I think if we discussed this civilly—”
Blue Man spoke over him. “The long and the short of it is you are running a secret and unauthorized prison, using government funds that were meant to pay for a fully operational eye in the sky, with the result that you are charging the American taxpayer many times what it costs to house prisoners at Gitmo, which was an alarmingly high rate to begin with. In the last year your good CFO has calculated that, thus far, profits to Vector have exceeded nearly a half billion dollars, which is, by any standard, an outrageous margin of return. I trust you understand that Uncle Sam frowns on gouging like that. In fact, he frowns on it so much that there are multiple laws against it, all of which you have broken.”
“We were doing good, Roger. The information we received and passed along—”
“—has not resulted in anything positive. Almost all of it has been proven erroneous and thus useless. The rest of it was already known through legitimate intelligence sources.” He paused. “Let me be as clear as I possibly can be. This was not about helping this country. This was about lining your pocket. So please do not plead patriotism as your defense. You’ll only embarrass yourself and make me even angrier than I already am.”
As Blue Man had been speaking, McIntosh had sunk lower and lower in his very fine and very expensive chair.
Blue Man continued, “It speaks to the appallingly large and frustratingly complex footprint of the DoD that such a scheme could have worked in the first place, and that it’s taken so long for the truth to come out. But with an overall budget of nearly a trillion dollars, thousands of facilities all over the globe, millions of employees and contractors, billions of square feet of space, and enough divisions and departments and programs that the right hand literally isn’t even aware that there is a left hand, it wasn’t that difficult to hide this sort of thing. The budget at London, though obscenely out of whack, doesn’t even register as a blip on the Pentagon’s overall spending. You, of course, had allies within the Air Force, the Pentagon, and the Congress to help you bury the truth — whom your CFO has helpfully provided information about — including significant six- and seven-figure payoffs. My director has been fully briefed on this and has communicated this in writing to the director of the FBI and the IGs of the Air Force and the DoD. And lastly, again to be as transparent as possible, a warrant for your arrest is being issued as we speak.”
Blue Man rose and smoothed out his dress shirt and tie. “Now I’m going to leave before I do or say something I might regret. However, I would suggest that you make plans to sell your vacation home in Italy. I don’t see much opportunity for you to use it. And you might need the additional funds for legal fees. And please dissuade yourself from any thoughts of fleeing. As soon as you leave this room there will be multiple eyes on you, until your arrest warrant is executed. Thank you for your time.” He pointed at the empty glass. “And you might want to get yourself another drink, Patrick. Good-bye. We will not be meeting again.”
Blue Man closed the door behind him.
Chapter 56
The Douglas S. George Defense Complex was buzzing.
As Decker and Jamison drove there in their new rental SUV, they saw the line of vehicles heading in and some heading out. A line of choppers was coming in and a small jet was taking off. They passed the oil rig nearest the facility, the All-American Energy Company, and found workers standing there staring at all the activity going on with their neighbor. They also spotted several members of the Brothers riding on farm equipment in their fields doing the very same thing.
They were here because Robie had called Decker and told him to come here as fast as possible.
Someone had obviously authorized their clearance into the facility because they were passed swiftly through after presenting their creds.
Robie and Reel came out to meet them as they pulled to a stop in front of the building where they had initially met with Colonel Mark Sumter.
They followed the pair down the hall and entered a small room where Blue Man sat at the head of a small, battered conference table. He motioned for them to sit, then spent the next twenty or so minutes filling them in on recent developments including his confrontation with Patrick McIntosh back in Washington.
“Your agency is taking the lead on the law enforcement side, and the DOJ will of course deal with the prosecutions.”
“So it was prisoners, as we suspected?” said Decker.
“Yes. Some in positions of power and who should have known better deemed it a worthy project to restart what was done at Abu Ghraib prison and other locations, despite the complete debacle that turned out to be. I am cheered by the fact that my agency had learned its lesson and was not party to a second go-round with this sort of thing.”
“How many prisoners died?” asked Jamison.
“At least a dozen, if not more. Information is still coming in. It will take a while to dig through it all.”
“The locals are certainly curious about what’s going on here,” said Jamison.
“It will all be hushed up in due time,” said Blue Man. “This show of force is really for those out there who might have information. Or for those who are as yet unknown to us but are involved and will now panic and attempt to flee. Your director likened it to sending hunting dogs into the brush to flush out the quail.”
“But the truth will come out?” said Jamison.
“Not in the press, no. It would cause more trouble than is warranted. People need to have faith in their government.”
Decker said, “Well, maybe the government might want to consider earning that faith.”
“I’m utterly in agreement with you. But now we must move on.”
Decker gave him an appraising look. “This case is closed, but this was not the ticking time bomb. Purdy was gone before the prison became active. And I’m convinced this has to do with something that happened a long time ago.”
“Which is why I requested your presence here, in addition to wanting to fill you in on what had happened here. How can we assist you?”
“I’m surprised that you’re not packing up to go home,” said Decker.
“Let me explain it this way. If an international presence exists on American soil for a purpose to do harm to America and its citizens, then we can very clearly justify our continued presence in this matter. I don’t know about you, but I do not want a second 9/11 to happen because we got caught up in a bureaucratic tussle.”