Before the Fall(60)
Every day he faces pressure from his superiors in Washington, who, in turn, face mounting demands from the attorney general and from a certain angry billionaire to find answers, recover those missing, and put the story to rest.
There is an answer. We just don’t know it yet.
On Thursday he sits at a conference table reviewing the obvious with twenty-five bureaucrats, going over the things they already know they know. This is in the federal building on Broadway, home turf for Agent O’Brien of the FBI and Hex of the OFAC, plus the half dozen subordinates they control. To O’Brien this crash is part of a larger story—terrorist threats and splinter cell attacks targeting American interests. To Hex the crash is only the latest piece in a war story about the US economy and the millionaires and billionaires who devote massive capital to the breaking of rules and laws. Gus is the only one in the room thinking about the crash as a singularity.
These people on that aircraft.
Beside him, the CEO of the private security firm responsible for the Bateman family is describing the process they use to assess threat levels. He’s brought a six-man team with him, and they hand him documents as he speaks.
“—in constant contact with dedicated agents of Homeland Security,” he is saying. “So if there was a threat, we knew about it within minutes.”
Gus sits at the conference table, looking at his reflection in the window. In his mind he is on a Coast Guard cutter, scanning the waves. He is standing on the bridge of a naval frigate reviewing sonar imagery.
“I supervised a comprehensive review of all intel and activity myself,” the CEO continues, “for a full six months before the crash, and I can say with complete confidence—nothing was missed. If somebody was targeting the Batemans, they kept it to themselves.”
Gus thanks him, hands off to Agent Hex, who begins a review of the government’s case against Ben Kipling and his investment firm. Indictments, he says, were handed down as planned the day after the crash, but Kipling’s death gave the other partners the perfect scapegoat. So to a man, all have said that any trades with rogue nations (if they existed) were the brainchild of a dead man, laundered through their books as something else. They were duped, in other words. I’m as much of a victim here as you, they said.
Eighteen of the firm’s accounts have been frozen. Total value, $6.1 billion. Investigators have tied the money to five countries: Libya, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. They know from Kipling’s phone records that Barney Culpepper called him fifty-one minutes before the flight departed. Culpepper has declined to comment on what they discussed, but it’s clear the call was to warn Kipling about the indictment.
As far as Agent Hex and his superiors at the OFAC are concerned, the crash was a move by a hostile nation to silence Kipling and hamper their investigation. The question of exactly when the Kiplings were invited to fly back with the Batemans arises. The CEO of the security firm checks the logs. There’s a communiqué from the Batemans’ body man at eleven eighteen the morning of the flight, reporting a conversation with the principal (David Bateman, aka Condor) in which Condor stated Ben and Sarah would be flying back with them.
“Scott,” says Gus absently.
“What?” says Hex.
“The painter,” Gus clarifies. “He told us Maggie invited Sarah and her husband—it was earlier that morning at the farmers market, I think. And he’d already been invited—check the notes, but I think it was sometime Sunday morning. He ran into Maggie and the kids.”
Gus thinks about his last conversation with Scott, sitting in a taxi at the cemetery. He’d hoped to have a more detailed discussion, going minute by minute through Scott’s memories of the flight, boarding, the subsequent takeoff, and what he remembered from the air, but the conversation was hijacked by men looking for faces in the clouds.
In the absence of facts, he thinks, we tell ourselves stories.
This is clearly what the news media is doing—CNN, Twitter, Huffington Post—the twenty-four-hour cycle of speculation. Most of the reputable outfits are sticking to facts and well-researched op-eds, but the others—Bill Cunningham at ALC being the worst offender—are building legends, turning the whole mess into some giant soap opera about a lothario painter and his millionaire patrons.
Gus thinks of the boy, settled in now with his aunt and uncle in the Hudson River Valley. He drove out to meet them two days ago, sitting in their kitchen and drinking herbal tea. There is never a good time to question a young child, no perfect technique. Memories, which are untrustworthy even in adults, are unreliable at best in children, especially after a trauma.
He’s not talking much, Eleanor said, bringing him his tea. Ever since we got him home. The doctor says that’s normal. Or, not normal, but not abnormal.
The boy sat on the floor playing with a plastic front loader. After letting him get used to Gus’s presence in the room, Gus settled on the floor beside him.
JJ, he said, my name is Gus. We met before. At the hospital.
The boy looked up, squinting, then went back to playing.
I thought we could talk about the airplane, when you went on the plane with your mommy and daddy.
And sissie, the boy said.
That’s right. And your sister.
Gus paused, hoping the child would fill the silence, but he didn’t.
Well, said Gus, do you remember the plane? I know you were—Scott tells me you were asleep when it took off.