Waking Gods (Themis Files #2)(58)

The driver had two prior convictions for driving under the influence. He was charged with vehicular homicide but was found not guilty because of a tainted blood sample.

—You must have been angry.

—I was. I was left with nothing. My wife and I had lots of friends, but they were her friends and they forgot all about me soon after she died. I had stopped going to work. I lost the house. All I had to hold on to was the anger. I withdrew whatever money I had left from my bank account—a thousand dollars or so—and I asked a friend of Henry’s to buy as much cocaine as he could with it. Then I found out where the driver lived. I put on my best suit, told his landlord I worked for the government, and asked to be let into his apartment. I hid the drugs and left. Later, I made an anonymous call to the police.

—Did it work?

—Of course not. I had made my discontent very clear to the police on several occasions. It did not take long for them to figure out who that mysterious government employee really was. They arrested me four hours after I made the call. I knew I was caught. I did not wear gloves. They would soon find my fingerprints all over the bag of cocaine.

—Then what happened?

—I was let go. Two men, both wearing a better suit than mine, picked me up and drove me home. A week later I received an invitation to the home of the senator.

—The father of the girl your son dated.

—Exactly. I did not know it at the time, but he was also the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. You do not get to that position without knowing the right people. Just one more favor called in and I was a free man. We had a long conversation about parenthood and the world we live in, some very good whisky.

—Did you talk about what happened?

—Not a word. It took nearly a month before I heard from him again. We met in a fancy Italian restaurant in Washington. That time we talked. He said I had shown both courage and stupidity, but that to achieve what I had set out to do— —To get some justice.

—No. What drove me was not a sense of injustice but pure, unadulterated rage. All I wanted was vengeance. The senator told me that to get it, my commitment would need to be much greater. I remember feeling ashamed when I told him I would not murder the man who took the life of our children. He then asked me what I would be willing to sacrifice. I felt such a relief. I had nothing left, not even the desire to live so I did not hesitate before giving him the answer he was looking for.

After dinner, I was taken to a small apartment outside the city and a nurse came in to draw my blood. I do not know how much blood I gave, but I had to lie in bed for two days afterwards. I got up when a man dropped a large envelope at the door. It contained five hundred dollars, a bank card, and a copy of the newspaper from that morning. On page three, it read: “Man arrested in murder of college professor.” The driver of the car that killed my son had been found unconscious in his own bed, covered in blood—my blood—with a knife on the floor. My home had been ransacked, there were signs of struggle, a large pool of blood on the living-room carpet. Witnesses said they saw his vehicle stopped on the side of the road near the Potomac River …

—Don’t stop!

—Apologies. I was distracted by the gas approaching your shoe.

—Oh my God!

—Perhaps we could continue our conversation on this desk, once we liberate it from all its … Dr. Franklin, you are trembling like a leaf.

—We’re gonna die, aren’t we?

—We were always going to die, Dr. Franklin. Would it be terribly inappropriate if I placed my arm on your shoulder? There. Where was I?

—You were dead.

—Oh yes. My body was never found. I watched my own funeral from a distance. Having so few people attend made giving up my former life that much easier.

—How did you end up working for … ? You never told me who you work for.

—I was not entirely sure myself, but it soon became clear I worked for the senator. He had his own private agenda and I was to help him advance it in any way that I could. My bank card gave me access to a CIA slush fund the senator had tapped into. He told me to find a quiet place to stay. I chose the small town in Northern Virginia where my wife was born. It took almost a year before I heard from him again. Several of the rebuilding contracts he had helped secure after the Iraqi Kurdish Civil War were getting some unwanted attention from the Defense Contract Audit Agency. He wanted me to “convince” the DCAA to look the other way. I refused, of course, but it was made abundantly clear to me that I did not have a say in the matter.

—What did you do?

—I bought a better suit. Then I met with the director of the DCAA.

—You just sat down with him.

—I thought I could persuade him.

—And?

—My powers of persuasion were not all that I thought them to be. He had me arrested, by the FBI this time.

—Was the senator able to get you out again?

—Indeed, he was. The director of the FBI came to see me personally. He took me out for a walk and asked if he could be of assistance. I told him I could use his help with the DCAA. The next day, the DCAA director was caught in some prostitution scandal and had to resign. After that, people in law enforcement and the intelligence community seemed to know who I was. I tried to find out what had happened at the FBI several times, to no avail. Years later, I was told that the director of the FBI received a call from the Oval Office saying that I worked for “an organization that has the best interests of the United States at heart.” I have heard it worded in various ways, but that is the one I like the most.