The Accused (20 page)

O'Brien looked startled, and after a momentary pause he invited the two detectives into the library and closed the sliding oak-paneled doors behind him.

“Now, can you tell me what all this is about?”

The men displayed their IDs. “Senator, you have a private computer here in your residence?”

“Of course I do. Why do you ask?”

“We're wondering if you might consent for us to check your computer. You have privacy rights—of course—and you need not agree to our inspection at this time. But you're free to consent, and if so, it would just take us a few minutes to check your computer. We would like to see if we can clear you regarding our investigation.”

“Well…can you tell me what your investigation is about?” the senator asked.

“Unfortunately, we can't. The decision is entirely yours.”

O'Brien momentarily entertained the thought of getting his private legal counsel on the line.

On the other hand, he knew he had nothing to hide—and he was well aware of the increased suspicion that usually accompanies a demand for legal counsel at the early stages of an investigation.

“All right,” the senator said. “But my consent is based on what you just told me—this is a limited search, and you just want to check out my computer, is that right?”

The detectives both nodded.

O'Brien walked over to an oak-paneled cabinet, opened the doors, and then swung out a retractable computer desk with his equipment.

“I'd like to stay in the room and watch while you check the computer,” he said.

The senior detective agreed, and then his partner sat down at the keyboard, booted up, and typed in a series of commands. Then he pulled out of his suitcoat a small USB/flashdrive and hooked it up. After two clicks on the mouse the screen-saver disappeared, and the monitor screen flashed an image.

The senator stepped closer to the monitor and stared at it in disbelief.

The image on the screen depicted a horrifying and violent sex act between an adult male and a small child. Both detectives turned and stared at the older man.

“I don't know what you did—or what command you just gave my computer—but I have never seen this disgusting, vile, degrading image on my computer before. You have to believe me when I tell you that…” O'Brien said, his voice trembling with rage.

“Does anyone have access to the computer other than you?” one of the detectives asked.

O'Brien shook his head vigorously. “No—absolutely not. My wife never touches a computer. The only one in this house besides my wife and me is our maid. And I keep the door to my library locked. And my wife and I are the only ones who have the key. I do that because I keep a lot of my Senate papers and information here when I'm working at night.”

“Senator O'Brien,” the senior detective said, “I suggest you contact your attorney and speak to him about this matter. There could be a number of explanations. But we're going to want to impound the computer and take it with us so we can let some of our cyber experts take a look at the hard drive. So call your attorney, and we'd like to—if we may—start analyzing the entire computer tomorrow in our lab.”

The senator nodded somberly.

There was a knock at the library door. He walked over and slid it open. His wife was in the front foyer with the maid.

“Wayne, I'm letting Juanita go for the night. Is that okay?”

O'Brien nodded and then quickly closed the door behind him. “Officers,” he said with passion in his voice, “my attorney is going to be in contact with you tomorrow. But I'm telling you right now—I am going to tell him I want this computer analyzed by you so we can get to the bottom of this. I am innocent—it is clear that somebody is trying to sabotage me. Either that or…well, or else there is some other explanation.”

“We prefer to impound this computer tonight. We will do no further testing or analysis on it without the consent of you or your lawyer.”

O'Brien agreed. After unplugging the computer and removing it from his library, the two detectives carted it out to the squad car on the street.

The senator and his wife watched from the front porch. O'Brien looked around the neighborhood nervously. He noticed one of his neighbors walking his dog directly past the front of his house as the officers loaded everything into the trunk of their car.

He and his wife quickly retreated into the sanctuary of their townhouse, closing and locking the door behind them.

The senator was still clutching the card from the senior detective in his right hand. He glanced down at it, and then at his wife. She had tears in her eyes, and was clasping her hands together. In her husband's anguished face, she was looking for an explanation.

“This is a nightmare—an absolute nightmare,” he said.

31

I
N THE SECOND-STORY CONFERENCE ROOM
of the restored palace in Bern, Switzerland, Warren Mullburn was seated at the head of the ornate marble-topped conference table. He was listening to the last of the presentations by his in-house economists.

Mullburn leaned forward to make a point, and the participants, with their neatly indexed and tabbed financial reports, grew silent.

“I'm disappointed. I told you, and I will repeat myself—a practice, by the way, in which I rarely indulge, and never enjoy—that I wanted two-, five-, and seven-year projections of the impact of the Mexico project on the prices of
non-
OPEC as well as OPEC producing sources. Further, I can appreciate your desire to hedge your forecasting regarding oil prices within the OPEC nations after we begin full-scale production from the Mexico site, given the geopolitical complexities. But then again, that's why I'm paying each of you enormous sums of money—to figure that out.

“Now, do I need to take this little assignment from you and do it myself? And do I need to send you ladies and gentlemen back to your miserable teaching posts at obscure universities—or back to the bottom-shelf corporations you were working for before you came here? I'm giving you seven days—
seven days
—to give me your best picture on what the price response from OPEC will be if we decide to flood the market, based on our new oil venture down in Mexico.”

The nine advisors rose quietly and respectfully and filed out of the conference room.

A subtle chime sounded, and Mullburn reached for his personal video pager.

On the screen was the face of his scheduler. “Mr. Mullburn, your special projects manager is here. Would you like to speak to him?”

“Absolutely,” Mullburn rapped out.

Within seconds a tall, square-shouldered man with black horn-rimmed glasses and a look about him of all business entered the room, carrying a small metal briefcase. He nodded respectfully toward Mullburn, then took a position behind a chair at the conference table.

“Sit down, Himlet, and tell me where we stand.”

The billionaire rose and walked to the other end of the conference room, where he poured some herbal tea into a cup and saucer of Austrian crystal.

Himlet adjusted his glasses and began.

“Mr. Mullburn, the Justice Department and the DC U.S. Attorney's office feel you definitely breached your agreement with them. The word within those agencies is that you were expected to
personally
divulge everything you knew about the scandal involving former Undersecretary of State Sharptin—his suicide, alleged influence-peddling, illegal payoffs, and any conspiracy involving OPEC. And so forth.”

“I sent my attorneys to be debriefed,” Mullburn barked. “My attorneys are my legal agents. They speak for me. That should have been sufficient.”

“It wasn't.”

“They are imbeciles. Government morons.”

“Perhaps,” Himlet replied, “but the government prosecutors wanted to personally debrief you—to interview you, not your lawyers. It appears that their agreement not to extradite you back to the U.S. will be withdrawn. They will probably be impaneling a grand jury to investigate you.”

“Let them. Let them,” Mullburn sneered. “I have bigger concerns than a bunch of puny-brained federal bureaucrats who want to prosecute a rich man so they can all get a promotion and a pay raise.”

“Of course,” Himlet replied.

“Tell me about the software.”

“We've finished the program, Mr. Mullburn. You can access it anytime—anywhere in the world. It will give you daily global positions on every facet of the oil markets, even those still in R and D.”

“Including the Mexico project?”

“That too. It will give you every factor—industrial, technological, geopolitical, legal—that may have an impact on your Mexico activity
and your expected revenues. With an emphasis on the American markets.”

Mullburn sipped his tea and reflected. “You're positive I will have absolutely complete data on every contingency impacting our Mexico oil project?” he asked.

“Yes, sir—I would bet my life on it.”

Mullburn turned and smiled at the man with the black horn-rimmed glasses, and then he spoke.

“Be careful, Mr. Himlet. I take bets like that very seriously.”

32

D
URING THE LUNCH BREAK IN THE
deposition of Dr. Ibrahim Agabba, the conference room in the Raleigh, North Carolina, law office was empty, except for Will Chambers. The North Carolina firm representing Dr. Agabba—and all of the other attorneys involved—had decided that this would be the most convenient location to conduct his deposition. The Sudanese government had already threatened to hit Agabba with a suit for libel, slander, and defamation regarding his anticipated testimony in the deposition. As a precautionary measure, he had hired the Raleigh law firm—a firm that Will had worked with on prior cases.

General Nuban and the Sudanese government had already lost their two original law firms from Washington, DC. Both offices had quietly withdrawn as defense counsel a few weeks before the deposition and had been replaced by a large international law office from Miami, Florida.

No reason had been given for the substitution of law firms—but Will had his theories. He speculated that, as the atrocities of the Sudanese government had become more and more clear, the two original firms had felt increasingly uncomfortable in their relationship with their clients. Will also theorized that Nuban and his government had been lying to their lawyers about their lack of complicity in the missionary murders. When the lawyers had finally discovered, shortly before Agabba's deposition, the extent of their clients' lies to them, they had bailed out immediately, Will guessed.

He had not planned on taking lunch but on working through the noon hour to get ready for the afternoon's session.

He snapped open the flaps of his second large briefcase to retrieve some papers. When he did, he noticed a small brown bag inside. He
opened it and found a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich, carrots, and a small note, all prepared by Fiona. The note read,

Hope your deposition goes well—I know you don't take lunch, so I made one for you. Hope you like it! I love you truly, madly, forever!

All my love,

Fiona

Will smiled and chuckled loudly. He walked to the end of the conference room and fished a cold can of soda out of the ice bucket, popped it open, and sat down at the table with his sandwich.

But his mind drifted back to Colonel Marlowe's case. It had been several weeks since the military criminal charges had been formally dropped against Marlowe, but he had never received a call back from the now-retired marine colonel.

The lack of disclosure from his client was one thing. But something else haunted Will. He recalled Marlowe's repeated references to the fact that he still had to complete his “mission”—whatever that was.

As he finished his sandwich, Will was still thinking about Marlowe when the lawyers, followed by Dr. Agabba and the court reporter, started filing back into the conference room.

Will wasted no time firing off the final category of questions, which related to the militantly anti-Christian terrorist groups that Nuban and his government had permitted to flourish within Sudan's borders.

With little effort Will was able to establish, through Dr. Agabba, that Nuban had charged the terrorist groups a monthly fee to establish and maintain their training camps. Nuban would also attempt to skim off a portion of the illegal income of the terrorist groups—income from gun-running, drugs, illegal immigration trade, and some limited piracy along the African coast.

The new defense attorney for Nuban and the Sudan, Cesar Linton, was objecting to nearly every question—on every conceivable grounds.

“Dr. Agabba, would you tell me the names, if you know them,” Will asked, “out of the various groups involved in international illegal activity that were sponsored by General Nuban within the Sudan—out of them, which groups openly articulated hostilities against Christian missionaries?”

“Objection,” Linton shouted. “Your lawsuit is not about a collective of terrorist groups within Sudan. Dr. Agabba has already given his opinion—which, of course, I consider to be outlandish, unsupported, and defamatory—that a specific group known as the ‘Arm of Allah' was involved in the death of these missionaries. What he has to say about any other groups is totally irrelevant and immaterial.”