Black Horizon (17 page)

“So you’re saying that the White House conspired with the oil companies to blow up the Scarborough 8?”

The man shrugged, not with confusion, but as if the answer were obvious. “Look at what they did to the World Trade Center on nine-eleven.”

It was a sensational theory straight out of the “infotainment mill”—enough to make Jack wonder, albeit only for a moment, if there wasn’t at least one advantage to sanitized Cuban television.

The oil spill disappeared from view, and Jack closed his eyes to rest. Before long, the overhead speakers crackled with the flight attendant’s announcement of their preparation for landing. It was a slow and gradual descent, and touchdown was just before noon. Law enforcement was waiting for Jack as he entered the international terminal. Two FBI agents escorted him through immigration and led him to a windowless room in which, over the years, several of Jack’s clients had been poked, probed, and otherwise examined. A psychiatrist was on hand for his counseling needs, as in any kidnapping case. There was only one person Jack wanted to talk to.

“Is my wife here?”

The supervisory agent spoke for the FBI. Agent Linton was a tall ex-Marine type with a hint of a Jamaican accent. “Henning wanted to fly down, but it was the Bureau’s judgment that stepping that far out of her role could jeopardize the operation.”

Jack was disappointed but not surprised.

“She did ask me to give you this letter,” Linton added.

Jack took it and read it to himself. It gave him the assurances he’d wanted—that she was doing fine, and that he shouldn’t worry about her or the baby. The final paragraph made him smile—how sorry she was about the honeymoon, and how she was going to make it up to him. When he was finished, Agent Linton steered him toward a chair.

“We have some questions, of course,” said Linton.

“No problem,” said Jack.

The agents sat on one side of a small rectangular table, with Jack on the other. He told them everything, from the suspected Russians who had followed him and Theo on their way to the airport on Saturday afternoon, to his ultimate release on Sunday morning. Eventually the focus turned exclusively to the kidnapper. Jack told them about the eye tattoo just below his wrist. But even more than distinguishing physical characteristics, the FBI seemed interested in evidence of his technical expertise. Jack gave the question careful consideration before answering.

“I can’t say that he comes across as some kind of computer genius,” said Jack. “But he did use what seemed like a medical app for mutes to speak to me. It disguised his voice. Whenever he wanted to say something to me, he typed it into his phone. Then I’d hear Siri’s voice.”

“Smart,” said the agent. “Did he use that to construct the ransom note?”

“Yes. It was highly scripted. He was on the phone beforehand. I think he was speaking Spanish.”

“That certainly narrows down the list of suspects, seeing as how you were kidnapped in Cuba.”

“My point is that I think someone was telling him what needed to be in my note.”

“So you think he was taking directions from someone on the phone?”

“Possibly,” said Jack. “On the other hand, I’ve met at least half a dozen death row inmates who have had absolutely delightful conversations on the telephone even though no one was on the line.”

Linton didn’t crack a smile. “Did your kidnapper seem delusional to you?”

“No more than he seemed like a computer expert.”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Agreed. But I’m curious: why are you so focused on his computer savvy?”

The agent hesitated. “I’m sorry, but we can’t get into that with you.”

“Why not?”

“Information on that subject is shared only on a need-to-know basis. There’s no need for you to know.”

Jack was undeterred. “
Sabotage
is a word that has been playing in my head ever since I was ordered at gunpoint to write it into the ransom note. Could it be that the FBI suspects computer sabotage as the cause of the explosion?”

“Sorry, Mr. Swyteck. Can’t discuss it.”

Jack wasn’t one to sensationalize, but the words of that old man on the airplane were suddenly replaying in his head—the theory that Jack had dismissed as entertainment news babble: “
It’s a White House conspiracy with Big Oil.
”

“I’m seeing a pattern here,” said Jack. “First came the strict order to keep the kidnapping out of the news. Now you won’t even share information with me—the victim.”

“Those barriers are sometimes necessary in a criminal investigation.”

“Sometimes,” said Jack. “But I’m starting to wonder if the firewalls are being put up by the FBI, strictly for reasons related to law enforcement. Or by the White House, for some other reasons.”

More silence.

There was a knock on the door. The agents seemed surprised, even annoyed, but when the door opened, the intrusion was more than welcome. Harry Swyteck was just off a plane from Washington. He rushed straight to Jack, who could feel the sense of relief in his father’s long embrace. Pools of emotion welled in the older man’s eyes, and at Harry’s request, the agents stepped out into the hall to give him a minute alone with his son.

“I can hardly explain it,” said Harry. “It was painful enough to hear you were held at gunpoint somewhere in Havana. But when Andie told me she was pregnant, all I could think of was you growing up without your mother. The thought of your child coming into this world without a father was . . .”

Harry stopped, unable to finish.

“It’s okay,” said Jack. “It’s all okay now.”

Harry took a breath, composing himself as he took a seat at the table. Jack sat across from him.

“Does the FBI have any leads on who did it?” asked Harry.

“They’re not telling me anything.”

“What?”

“I’m getting the line that information barriers are a necessary part of the investigation.”

“That’s true to a point. I agreed to keep the kidnapping out of the press so that we wouldn’t get five thousand bogus tips an hour from a bunch of crank callers looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. But keeping you and me in the dark was not part of the deal.”

“That’s not what the FBI is telling me.”

“Well, that’s bullshit. We have a right to know.”

“That’s how I see it,” said Jack.

“I’ll straighten this out with Jim Murphy right now.”

Harry had the chief of staff on speed dial, and Murphy took the call immediately. For the first two minutes, Harry did all the talking. It made Jack smile to himself to see his old man get his back up and fight for his son, laying out the “information” problem in blunt terms. The Swyteck family ties had been up and down over the years, and at times Jack had been less than proud of the governor’s politics. Ironically, on the heels of what could have been a family tragedy, this was a high point.

“Jim, you and I have been friends for a long time,” said Harry, “but let’s take that out of this. Someone put a gun to Jack’s head, chained him to the floor in a basement, and threatened to kill him. He has a right to know who did this to him. I’m going to put you on speaker so Jack can hear, and I’m hopeful that you will have something to say to him.”

Harry laid the phone on the table, halfway between the two of them. Jack waited, but there was silence.

“Go ahead,” said Harry. “We’re listening.”

Another moment passed, and finally the chief of staff replied. “I can’t tell you who the target of the FBI investigation is. But rest assured, the demand in Jack’s ransom note is being given serious credibility.”

“You need to do much better than that,” said Harry.

There was a long pause. Harry leaned closer to the phone, and Jack sensed that his father was ready to play his trump card.

“Jim, are you alone?” asked Harry.

“Yes, I am.”

“Good. I didn’t want to have to mention this, but maybe you’ve forgotten a certain phone conversation that you and I had about six years ago. It was right after you determined that Ohio was an even bigger swing state in the election than Florida. I’m paraphrasing, but as I recall, I was asked to state publicly that I had no idea if my name was on the short list of possible VP candidates, but even if it was offered to me, I would decline. Am I jogging your memory at all?”

“Yes, of course.”

“You may also recall that I was more than just a good soldier who did what was asked of him. All the way up until the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, I traveled up and down the state, campaigning my heart out for the ticket. The president ended up winning Florida by, I believe, eighteen thousand votes.”

Jack was dumbstruck, but moved. It was the first he’d heard that his father had truly
wanted
to be on the ticket. And now he was calling in whatever capital he’d earned—for his son.

“Seventeen thousand nine hundred sixty-one,” said the chief of staff. Murphy was truly a numbers guy.

“In a state of twelve million registered voters,” said Harry.

“Okay, Harry. Your point is made. Here’s what I can tell you: We have figured out the significance of the string of numbers that the kidnapper used to sign the note.”

Jack didn’t have the numbers memorized, but he’d combed through every line of the note with the agents, and a copy was still on the table. He checked the kidnapper’s “signature” once again:
3/6/11/17/9/42
. Jack leaned over the cell phone on the table between him and his father and said, “The FBI asked me a ton of questions about the kidnapper’s technical savvy. I’m guessing this is some kind of computer code.”

There was silence, which didn’t sit well with Harry. “Jack makes a fair observation. What do you think, Jim?”

The chief of staff breathed so deeply that Jack could hear the crackle on the speaker. “You’re asking for an awful lot,” he said.

“I’ve never asked for anything before,” said Harry.

There was a faint chuckle, and then the voice on the line turned very serious. “Don’t ask me how, but Homeland Security was able to ascertain the sequence of alarms that signaled in the final minute of the emergency on the rig. A computer malfunction caused the alarm to get stuck in a loop, making it impossible for the system to respond to the emergency at hand.”

“And these numbers in the ransom note?” asked Jack.

“Those numbers match the alarm sequence perfectly. It’s the exact pattern of the loop that ran over and over again, until the explosion.”

Jack and his father exchanged glances, silenced until the chills disappeared. “So my kidnapper is the real deal,” said Jack.

“Yes,” said the chief of staff. “It would appear that he’s for real.”

Chapter 27

O
n Tuesday morning, Jack and his client were back in the Key West courthouse.

Judge Carlyle’s courtroom wasn’t the zoo it had been the previous week, which was not to say that the battle over property damage and lost profits had abated. An estimated ten thousand barrels of spilled crude was creeping ever closer to Key West, the leading edge of it just twenty-five miles from shore. Calculators across Florida were overheating as Freddy Foman and his band of lawyers computed the potential losses. But Monday’s hearing was about Bianca and Rafael, exclusively. Jack needed a knockout punch for the oil consortium’s argument that his client was not Rafael’s widow.

“Mr. Swyteck, what evidence do you have for me this morning?”

Judge Carlyle was cordial enough, but her pointed words and harsh demeanor at the previous hearing were seared into Jack’s memory:
Mr. Swyteck, come prepared to convince me that your client was married to Rafael Lopez at the time of his death. Come very prepared.

There was no upside to waiting any longer. Jack’s evidence was as strong as it was ever going to be. Josefina—Rafael’s phony fiancée—would never be a witness in a U.S. court. Without her, a simple “hearsay” objection from the defense would prevent Jack from recounting her story. Rules of evidence aside, Jack couldn’t in good conscience betray her trust. Josefina had helped Rafael secure a coveted job on an oil rig by pretending to be his fiancée. She’d committed a crime—a fraud on the Cuban government—and by outing her, Jack could have landed her in a Cuban jail.

Throwing Josefina under the
autobús
simply wasn’t an option. Jack needed a different attack.

“Your Honor, I have two items of proof,” he said. “A certificate of marriage from the Cuban Ministry of Justice. And a photograph of Rafael and Bianca standing outside the Ministry of Justice after their wedding ceremony.”

The judge waved him forward to the bench. Jack handed up the originals and, on the way back to the podium, provided copies to opposing counsel.

“Any objection from the defense?” the judge asked.

Candela rose. The six other lawyers on his team remained in their Naugahyde chairs behind the defense table.

“No objection,” said Candela. “But this evidence misses the point. We don’t dispute that Bianca Lopez was at some time in the irrelevant past married to the decedent. Our point is that she was no longer the lawful wife of Rafael Lopez at the time of his death on the oil rig. The letters from Rafael Lopez to his fiancée, Josefina Fuentes, are proof of that.”

Jack glanced toward Bianca, who appeared ready to jump from her seat and tell opposing counsel exactly what she thought of him and those letters. A subtle gesture from Jack assured her that all was under control.

“Judge, this is painful and demeaning to my client,” said Jack. “But let me respond this way: even if Rafael was ‘engaged’ to another woman at the time of his death, he was still lawfully married to Bianca. At trial, any rift in their marriage may figure into the calculation of damages suffered by my client in terms of the loss of affections of her husband. But it doesn’t bar her from bringing this lawsuit as Rafael’s widow. The only bar at this stage would be an official divorce decree, which the defendants have not produced.”

The judge rocked back in her chair, eyes cast toward the ceiling, thinking before she spoke. “I tend to agree with Mr. Swyteck on this point.”