Undercover Genius (27 page)

The Kirkuk bombing had involved
Paul Rose
? Man, that had been covered up in the stories I’d read. But
Kirkuk had been ten years ago, five years before Patra’s father died. Paul Rose
had been back home, winning elections, by then.

I grabbed the phone and trotted upstairs to Graham’s office.
His door was closed. For a change, he wasn’t expecting me. That probably meant
he’d found more important matters than monitoring our dinner table
conversation. Stupid man.

I knocked. I took his answering grunt as an invitation to
enter. He was in front of his bank of computer monitors as usual. He didn’t
turn to acknowledge my presence but manipulated his mouse, changing the many
screens so rapidly that I couldn’t process the images. I thought I caught a
glimpse of our lawyer’s office building, the prison where they’d kept Reggie —
and presumably Smythe now — and Sean’s newspaper office. The man had to be
autistic to focus on all those screens at once.

I leaned over his broad shoulder and dropped Patra’s phone
on the desk. “Can you debug it?”

He stopped scrolling through his screens and picked up the
equipment with interest. “Didn’t take Broderick long, did it? Hacking voice
mail is the usual method, but if he could plant spyware directly . . .”

His words trailed off as he hooked the phone up to a
computer, pried through the innards, cursed, and started deleting files. The man
was scary good.

“Your sister should know better than to leave her phone
where someone can get at it,” he said reprovingly. “And if she intends to snoop
in company files, she needs a stronger password on her voice and email. They’ll
go for those next.”

I didn’t waste time inquiring how he knew her password
wasn’t strong. As long as I had him talking, I went for the more interesting
question. “Why the helicopter?”

“I did my duty by Max by offering her the job in Atlanta.
She didn’t take it. If she intends to set herself up as a target in Broderick’s
office, I might as well take advantage while I can. The helicopter was just
payback for the information she’s providing.”

I clenched my fingers into fists rather than box his ears.
As soon as he put the back on her phone again, I jerked it away. “You don’t
care whose lives you risk as long as you get what you want, do you? Including
your own. Keep in mind that the world is full of petty dictators and evil overlords
and you cannot singlehandedly stop any of them. Get a life.”

I stalked out. I had no idea where that pithy speech had
come from. Sounded like one I’d probably thrown at Magda in the past. Made me
want to ask just what a life was supposed to be if one wanted to get one.

I returned downstairs and dropped the phone in front of the
Brownie Surprise Mallard had just served Patra. I hadn’t even eaten my salmon
yet.

“He says get a better password and quit leaving your phone
where others can hack it.”

I skipped the brownie and went back to my office to email
Magda. I hated doing it, but if Patra was determined to swim with the devil, I
needed to know where the demons were hidden.

Tuesday night, after everyone had scattered, I studied the
notes I’d gathered.

GENERAL DAVID SMEDBETTER
: Retired Army, served
in Iraq, commander of troops including Lieutenant Paul Rose’s squadron in Kirkuk
ten years ago. Promoted to general after Kirkuk and at command headquarters in Iraq
five years ago when Llewellyn died. Currently on executive board of Broderick
Media.

LT CHARLES WHITEHEAD
: Former British Army,
served in foreign theaters as communications director — read PR front man.
Left the service after coalition forces under Paul Rose’s command dropped a bomb
on a Kirkuk mosque, killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Joined the British
embassy staff in Kuwait shortly after. Arranged an interview between Smedbetter
and Bloom five years ago from his Kuwait office.

ERNEST BLOOM:
Broderick Media embed in Iraq five years ago. Died of apparent heart
attack overseas, a month after Patra’s father was shot. A member of R&P.

I detested Paul Rose enough by now to spin all sorts of
conspiracy theories from these few facts alone. Kirkuk stank of cover-up. Rose
came from a wealthy, politically conservative, well-connected family, just the
kind of man Broderick would support. The good ol’ boy network took care of each
other.

I scrolled up the article Patra had sent me on Ernest
Bloom’s interview with General Smedbetter — dated a week before Patrick’s
death. Bloom puffed the piece to make the general sound like a war hero who
enjoyed studying weapon history. Apparently Smedbetter was also an expert
marksman and John Wayne on steroids. No mention of the mosque or Kirkuk.

A short time later, Patrick and Bloom were dead. Not too
long after their deaths, Smedbetter was working for Broderick. And Paul Rose
was a damned senator. Money can buy anything. Don’t let folk wisdom persuade
you otherwise.

None of them seemed likely to have killed poor Bill. Reggie,
maybe, but we had Smythe for that. Patrick . . . his death had
to have been an execution we’d never prove. But Bill . . .

I added
LEONARD RILEY
to my time line. Journalist for
Broderick Media for most of his adult life. Indicted in vice presidential phone
hacking ten years ago, about the time Rose was blowing up a mosque and Dr.
Smythe was founding the R&P. Riley went to prison for tapping the VP’s phone
line. Five years later, Riley was out and Patrick and Bloom ended up dead.
Nothing connected the two events.

Leonard’s résumé became a little unclear after he left
prison. His credit report showed him as self-employed, what Magda would call a
contractor, working for anyone who paid him. Currently, he had an R&P
insurance card, so there was some connection.

Because of the initials in Patrick’s coded files, I delved
deeper. Smitty, in his vice presidential aide role, had the ability to give
Riley access to the VP’s phone during a war-time crisis ten years ago. Kirkuk? Riley
took the rap for the tap, but Dr. Charles Smythe had been forced to resign.
Instead of prison, he landed a cushy job at R&P.

I trolled through public records looking for more connections
between Riley and R&P. Non-profit corporations file copious records if one
knows where to find them. R&P had been no more than a disgruntled horde of
taxpayers until about five years ago, at which point they’d been heavily funded
and gone professional under Smythe’s direction.

Bingo.
Budget line
item with their first filing five years ago — R&P had covered Riley’s
travel expenses and provided compensation for
publicity.
Publicity? That smarmy slug couldn’t bum a cigarette with
his spin doctor skills.

Around ten, Magda got back to me. Since I didn’t know what
country she was in this week, I couldn’t calculate her time, but she sounded
bright and cheery.

“Ana, so good to hear from you! What are all my little
chickies up to these days?”

“No good, as usual. Patra nearly got herself killed by some
of Sir Archie’s goons. Has she been telling you about her latest endeavor?”

“I left her a message and then regretted it,” Magda said
with a sigh. “I tried to dissuade her from going after Broderick. Archie’s organization
is so invasive, that she’ll never be able to pull out all the roots. Tell her
I’m heading for Paris next, and she’s welcome to join me.”

“Really? And you think she’ll just come running?” I couldn’t
resist the snark. I didn’t bother to give her time to hem and haw. “I need more
info on Lt. Charles Whitehead, General David Smedbetter, and a Leonard Riley.
How did Smedbetter get from Iraq to Archie’s empire?”

“I’m sure you know as much about them as I do, and I’m not
encouraging Patra to dig into her father’s death by providing further
information,” she said crisply.

Which told me right there that she suspected they were
involved in his death. But I kept my mouth shut and let her continue.

“I do remember Riley as a creepy little man who ran errands
for Archie’s sycophants in Iraq,” she said. I could almost see her frown. “I
think he used to provide drugs and alcohol to most of the press corps, so he
was probably spying. Wasn’t he in prison at one time?”

I hid my glee that she’d revealed more than she knew. Riley
had
been overseas! Iraq . . .
not precisely where Patrick was killed but relatively speaking, not too far
away. “Yes, Riley went to jail about a decade ago for tapping the VP’s phone.
Typical Broderick stunt,” I said casually. “Apparently Archie couldn’t hire him
directly once he had a prison record, but hired Leonard as a private
contractor.”

“Oh, yes, that’s right. Has that phone tapping incident been
ten years already? Graham caught the tap and turned the glare on Broderick
instead of the war. That was back when Graham was still speaking to the world.
How’s he doing these days? Giving you any trouble?”

“He does his thing, I do mine. Riley’s been following
Patra,” I said, diverting her back to the topic at hand. “I assume if he was
running errands for the press corps, he probably had contact with Smedbetter as
well,” I said casually. “All the English speakers hang together.”

“Well, you can’t expect us to live in areas likely to be
bombed, can you?” she asked tartly. “But Patrick was killed in Lebanon,
Smedbetter was in Iraq, Whitehead was with the Brit embassy and not the
military, and I wasn’t in either place, so I can’t tell you anything.”

But willingly or not, she had told me Broderick’s flunkies
had been in the same part of the world as Patrick.

“Well, if you can think of any way of making Riley back off,
I’d be appreciative. Graham isn’t happy with lurkers,” I said.

“Oh, just light a firecracker up his posterior, dear. You
know how it’s done. How’s my baby doing in school?”

We’d had a fight over EG not too long ago, but apparently
Magda had given up in favor of letting EG know her dad. We had a brief
discussion on EG’s fascination with bats, and then she got another call and had
to cut off.

I know Magda loves us, but she was never the kind of mother
who hovered and took care of boo-boos. She’d always left that to me and
whatever nannies or ayahs she hired. I’d spent half my childhood resenting her
and the other half imitating her. Strong personalities like hers had that kind
of influence — which was why I was determined to give EG a different
experience. Except that nature/nurture thing was pretty impossible to separate.

But at least we were talking to each other again, sort of. I
needed to ask Magda about our African siblings sometime, but with the yacht
insurance and lawsuits still up in the air, it didn’t need to be immediately.

Someone had tried to kill my sister today. That took
priority.

Anyone could have bugged Patra’s phone. I had no way of
knowing who had heard Magda’s message about Rose’s atrocity, but I was pretty
certain that had been the lighted fuse. Orders had come down to cull her from
the herd. Was Smedbetter in a position to give orders?

But a white Cadillac had followed Sean and Patra after
they’d picked up Bill’s boxes and a black Escalade of thugs had come gunning
for them. And Patra had said the armed goon had wanted
her,
specifically, not just the boxes. To see what she knew about
her father’s papers? To see who else knew about Rose and the cover up?

And now they didn’t care what she knew, they just wanted her
gone?

My gut instinct was to put all the bad guys in one room and
let them tear each other to shreds, but I didn’t have that kind of power. I
only had sneakiness on my side.

I emailed the speech analyst to ask if they’d identified any
of the voices from the various files we’d sent them.

I emailed Sean to ask if any of Bill’s audio files matched interviews
with Smedbetter, Whitehead, or Leonard Riley. I wanted to add Sir Archibald
Broderick, but Archie wouldn’t leave his signature, or his voice, anywhere that
would muddy his image. Tape #1143 was a rarity.

Tired, stymied, and overwrought after the day’s excess of
terror, I puttered around while waiting for replies. I was wound too tightly to
sleep. The house above me was growing quiet as the inhabitants settled down for
the evening. I usually returned to my room and worked on my laptop at this
hour, but knowing someone could be staring into my window from the house across
the street sort of ruined my relaxation technique.

So I amused myself by scanning one of Crap Media’s scandal
sheets for the past few months, under the assumption that easy reading ought to
bore me into slumber.

The entertainment news nearly pushed me over the edge within
minutes. Having grown up without American movies or television, I’d never
developed the habit of watching them. So the busty bimbos and chesty gigolos
pasted all over the front pages were meaningless names and faces to me. Tapping
their phones and following their cars ought to bore any decent journalist into hara-kiri.
Overdramatizing the speculation derived from said tapping and stalking was the
work of a soap opera screenwriter.

But after a few minutes, my lizard brain clicked in, and I
got focused. When I looked at Archie’s scandal sheets all at once like this, a
pattern formed. Chesty Gigolo attended a conservative rally and sang the
national anthem to a roaring crowd and applause. Fine. Chesty wins some film
award. Chesty goes to London. Chesty can’t do wrong.

Busty, however, has a head on her shoulders. She sings at
the liberal president’s holiday dinner and makes speeches for a women’s rights
group. Suddenly, Busty’s alcoholic mother hits the newsstands with stories of
how her daughter broke her heart. Busty rallies the crowds to support gun
control. Busty’s teenage arrest for drunk driving hits the front page.