True Fiction (Ian Ludlow Thrillers #1)(64)
“One of the four Blackthorn operatives killed by police in Los Angeles was in Honolulu at the time of the crash,” Healy said. “He stayed in a Diamond Head hotel that would have given him a clear view of Honolulu Airport and Waikiki. We believe he was the one who actually hacked the jet and crashed it.”
“Surely there were more than just two people involved in this conspiracy,” Tolan snapped. “What about them?”
“We believe there were a little over thirty people directly involved, all working out of Blackthorn’s Bethesda headquarters,” Healy said. “All but one of them perished in the fire that destroyed the building, which we’re telling the public was the result of faulty wiring. But the fire wasn’t the only cause of death. Our autopsies have confirmed that they were all shot by one of their own before the blaze.”
“Sweet Jesus,” Senator Hazeltine said.
“The one survivor managed to give us the broad outlines of the plot in the few hours before she died,” Healy said. “Since then, we’ve managed to fill in most of the blanks.”
“What were they doing at that actor’s house in Los Angeles?” Hazeltine asked.
“That’s one thing we still don’t know. Cross must have believed that Ronnie Mancuso figured out that Blackthorn was involved, in some way, with the plane crash or that he presented some other threat to them,” Healy said. “But we’ll never know for sure because the key players at Blackthorn are dead, the computers were wiped, and Mancuso is crazy.”
“When are you releasing a redacted version of your report to the media?” Senator Stowe asked.
“I’m not,” Healy said. “As far as I’m concerned, this matter is closed.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” Senator Holbrook said. “The scandal would be devastating for the country.”
“It would be devastating for us,” Senator Hazeltine said. And the North Carolina politician, more so than anyone in the chamber, had the experience to back up that opinion, having weathered so many corruption scandals of his own.
“It’s not his decision to make,” Stowe said, gesturing to Healy. “It’s ours. We can still reveal what really happened.”
“You’re right, of course,” Tolan said to Stowe. “But we’re the only ones left alive that the public can blame for what happened. If the truth comes out, we’ll all end up in prison and the president will be impeached . . . and that’s if we all get off easy.”
“We had nothing to do with crashing that plane,” Stowe said. “And we haven’t committed any crimes.”
“That doesn’t make any difference,” Tolan said.
The seven men were all experienced politicians. They knew that Tolan, who’d made his name as a showboating Texas prosecutor, was right.
“God help us,” Hazeltine said, more to himself than to anybody else in the room. “So how do we explain to the country what happened?”
“We already did,” Healy said. “We stick with the brilliantly constructed story that Cross created, and that everyone here and abroad firmly believes.”
“But it’s all false,” Stowe said. “Our government will be taking all kinds of major actions, domestically and overseas, based on a foundation of lies.”
“Let me ask you a question, Senator,” Healy said to Stowe. “Are the Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyya, and the terrorist groups under their umbrella, our enemies? Do they present a clear and present danger to America?”
“Yes,” Stowe said.
“Then who cares if they are blamed for something they didn’t do? It just means that some good will come out of this horrific event. The terrorist attack justifies the strong, decisive military action that the president has always wanted to take, and that we all know is necessary to protect our country, but held back doing because the American people haven’t had the stomach for it,” Healy said. “So you have a choice between a scandal that will cripple our country and turn the public against the government for generations, or gaining widespread public support for an aggressive campaign against terror that will make us all safer. But that, gentlemen, is your decision to make, not mine.”
Healy knew the senators would accept his argument, because it was politically expedient and the right thing to do for the country. But it was a hollow victory, one that truly frightened him, because in his heart he knew that this was how it started. This was how a man like him became a man like Wilton Cross.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
If aliens from another planet, perhaps contemplating whether to make friendly contact or to invade our world, were curious about how our culture and government worked and randomly sampled American news broadcasts over the fourteen months that followed the events that July night in Tarzana, these are some of the clips they would have seen:
From Nancy O’Dell on Entertainment Tonight:
The former star of Hollywood & the Vine, now undergoing psychiatric evaluation, is pleading innocent by reason of insanity to charges of assault with a deadly weapon, reckless driving, and a string of other charges related to the high-speed chase that ended in a shootout at his Tarzana home.
From Jake Tapper on CNN’s The Lead:
The Senate has confirmed Michael Healy as director of the CIA, a post he’d previously held on an interim basis after the resignation of Jonas Schepp in a scandal involving his extramarital affair with an agent’s wife. Healy’s unanimous confirmation was widely expected after his swift identification and killing of the terrorists responsible for the TransAmerican 976 crash within days of the attack.