The Winner (50 page)

The awe was clear on Donovan’s face, but then his features clouded. “Wait a minute: If the nine balls were coated with the same charge, why wouldn’t they be repelling each other in the bin? Wouldn’t that make people suspicious?”

“Wonderful question. I thrive on the details. I further modified the chemical so that it would be instantly activated by the heat given off by the air flow into the machines to make the balls gyrate. Until then, the balls would remain motionless.”

Jackson paused, his eyes shining. “Inferior minds seek convoluted scenarios; it takes a brilliant one to achieve simplicity. And I’m sure your background research revealed that all of my winners were poor, desperate, searching for a little hope, a little help. And I gave it to them. To all of you. The lottery loved it. The government looked like saints helping the impoverished like that. You people in the media got to write your teary-eyed stories. Everybody won. Including me.” Donovan half expected the man to take a bow.

“And you did this all by your lonesome?” Donovan sneered.

Jackson’s retort was sharp. “I didn’t need anyone else, other than my winners. Human beings are infinitely fallible, completely unreliable. Science is not. Science is absolute. Under strict principles, if you do A and B, then C will occur. That rarely happens if you inject the inefficiencies of humanity into the process.”

“How’d you get the access?” Donovan was starting to slur his words as his injuries took their toll.

Jackson’s smile broadened. “I was able to gain employment as a technician at the company that provided and maintained the ball machines. I was drastically overqualified for the position, which was one reason I got it. No one really cared about the geeky little techie, it was like I wasn’t even there. But I had complete and unrestricted access to the machines. I even bought one of the ball machines so that I could experiment in private as to the right combinations of chemicals. So there I am, mister technician, spraying the balls with what everyone thought was a cleansing solution to get rid of dust and other grime that might have gotten into the bins. And all I had to do was hold the winning ball in my hand while I did so. The solution dries almost immediately. I surreptitiously drop the winning ball back into the bin and I’m all set.”

Jackson laughed. “People really should respect the technicians of the world more, Mr. Donovan. They control everything because they control the machines that control the flow of information. In fact, I use many of them in my work. I didn’t need to buy off the leaders. They’re useless because they’re incompetent showpieces. Give me the worker bees any day.”

Jackson stood up and put on a pair of thick gloves. “I think that covers everything,” he said. “Now, after I finish with you, I’m going to visit LuAnn.”

Damn me for a fool for not listening to you, LuAnn,

Donovan thought to himself.

Through the glove Jackson rubbed his injured hand where the glass had cut him. He had many paybacks planned for LuAnn.

“Piece of advice, A-hole,” Donovan sputtered, “tangle with that woman and she’ll cut your balls off.”

“Thank you for your point of view.” Jackson gripped Donovan tightly by the shoulders.

“Why’re you keeping me alive, you son of a bitch?” Donovan tried to pull back from him, but was far too weak.

“Actually, I’m not.” Jackson suddenly placed both hands around the sides of Donovan’s head and gave it an abrupt twist. The sound of bone cracking was slight but unmistakable. Jackson lifted the dead man up and over his shoulder. Carrying him down to the garage, Jackson opened the front door of the Mercedes and pressed Donovan’s fingers against the steering wheel, dash, clock, and several other surfaces that would leave good prints. Finally, Jackson clinched the dead man’s hand around the gun he had used to kill Bobbie Jo Reynolds. Wrapping the body in a blanket, Jackson loaded it in the trunk of the Mercedes. He raced back into the house, retrieved his bag and Donovan’s recorder, then returned to the garage and climbed behind the wheel of the Mercedes. In a few minutes the car had left the very quiet neighborhood behind. Jackson stopped by the side of the road, rolled down the window, and hurled the gun into the woods before pulling off again. Jackson would wait until nightfall and then a certain local incinerator he had found on an earlier reconnaissance would prove to be Thomas Donovan’s final resting place.

As he drove on, Jackson thought briefly of how he would deal with LuAnn Tyler and her new ally, Riggs. Her disloyalty was now firmly established and there would be no more reprieves. He would focus his undivided attention on that matter shortly. But first he had something else to take care of.

Jackson entered Donovan’s apartment, closed the door, and took a moment to survey the premises. He was still wearing the dead man’s face. Thus, even if he had been spotted, it was of no concern to him. Donovan’s body had been incinerated, but Jackson had a limited amount of time to complete his search of the late reporter’s apartment. A journalist kept records, and those records were what Jackson had come for. Very soon the housekeeper would discover Bobbie Jo Reynolds’s body and would call the police. Their search would very quickly, largely through Jackson’s efforts, lead to Thomas Donovan.

He searched the apartment rapidly but methodically and soon found what he was looking for. He stacked the record boxes in the middle of the small foyer. They were the same ones Donovan had kept at the cottage in Charlottesville, filled with the results of his investigation into the lottery. Next he logged on to Donovan’s computer and did a search of the hard drive. Thankfully, Donovan had not bothered to employ any passwords. The hard drive was clear. He probably kept everything on disk for portability. He looked at the back of the computer and then behind the desk. No phone modem. Just to be sure, Jackson again checked the icon screen. No computer services like America Online were present. Thus there was no e-mail to search. How old-fashioned of Donovan, he thought. Next he checked a stack of floppies in the desk drawer and piled them all in one of the boxes. He would look at them later.

He was preparing to leave when he noted the phone answering machine in the living room. The red light was blinking. He went over to the phone and hit the playback button. The first three messages were innocuous. The voice on the fourth message made Jackson jerk around and bend his head low to catch every single word.

Alicia Crane sounded nervous and scared. Where were you, Thomas, she implored. You haven’t called. What you were working on was too dangerous. Please, please call me, the message said.

Jackson rewound the tape and listened to Alicia’s voice again. He hit another button on the machine. Finally, he picked up the boxes and left the apartment.

L
uAnn looked at the Lincoln Memorial as she drove the Honda over the Memorial Bridge. The water of the Potomac River was dark and choppy. Flecks of white foam appeared but then quickly dissipated. It was the morning rush hour and the traffic over the bridge was heavy. They had spent one night in a motel near Fredericksburg while they decided what to do. Then they had driven to the outskirts of Washington, D.C., and spent the night at a motel near Arlington. Riggs had made some phone calls and visited a couple of retail establishments preparing for the events that would take place the next day. Then they had sat in the motel room eating while Riggs had gone over the plan, the details of which LuAnn quickly memorized. With that completed they had turned out the lights. One slept while the other kept watch. That was the plan at least. However, neither one got much rest. Finally, they both sat up, one curled around the other. Under any other circumstances they would have probably made love. As it was they spent the night looking out the window onto the dark street, listening for any sound that might herald another wave of danger.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” LuAnn said as they drove along.

“Hey, you said you trusted me.”

“I do. I do trust you.”

“LuAnn, I know what I’m doing. There are two things I know: how to build things, and how the Bureau works. This is the way to do it. The only way that makes sense. You run, they’ll eventually find you.”

“I got away before,” she said confidently.

“You had some help and a better head start. You’d never get out of the country now. So if you can’t run, you do the reverse, you go right at them, take the offensive.”

LuAnn focused on the traffic at the same time she was thinking intently about what they were about to do. What she was about to do. The only man she had ever absolutely trusted was Charlie. And that complete trust had not come quickly, it had been built and then cemented over a ten-year period. She had only known Riggs for a very short time. And yet he had earned her trust, even in a matter of days. His actions reached her far more deeply than any words he could try to tempt her with.

“Aren’t you nervous?” she asked. “I mean you don’t really know what you’re going to be walking into.”

He grinned at her. “That’s the really great part, isn’t it?”

“You’re a crazy man, Matthew Riggs, you really are. All I want in my life is a little predictability, a semblance of tranquillity, of normalcy even, and you’re salivating over walking along the edge of the cliff.”

“It’s all in how you look at it.” He looked out the window. “Here we are.” He pointed to an open spot on the curb and she pulled over and parked. Riggs got out and then poked his head back in. “You remember the plan?”

LuAnn nodded. “Going over everything last night helped. I can find it with no trouble.”

“Good, see you soon.”

As Riggs walked down the street to the pay phone, LuAnn looked up at the large, ugly building. The J. E
DGAR
H
OOVER
B
UILDING
was stenciled on its facade. Home of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. These people were looking for her everywhere and here she was parked ten feet from their damned headquarters. She shivered and put on her sunglasses. Putting the car in gear, she tried to keep her nerves in check. She hoped to hell the man really knew what he was doing.

Riggs made the phone call. The man on the other end was understandably excited. Within a few minutes Riggs was inside the Hoover Building and being escorted by an armed guard to his destination.

The conference room he was deposited in was large but sparsely furnished. He passed by the chairs gathered around the small table, and remained standing waiting for them to arrive. He took a deep breath and almost cracked a smile. He had come home, in a manner of speaking. He scanned the room for any hidden cameras, and saw nothing obvious, which meant the room was probably under both audio and video surveillance.

He swung around when the door opened and two men dressed in white shirts and similar ties entered.

George Masters extended his hand. He was large, nearly bald, but his figure was trim. Lou Berman sported a severe crew cut and a grim demeanor.

“It’s been a long time, Dan.”

Riggs shook his hand. “It’s Matt now. Dan’s dead, remember, George?”

George Masters cleared his throat, looked nervously around, and motioned Riggs to sit down at the nicked-up table. After they were all seated, George Masters inclined his head toward the other man. “Lou Berman, he’s heading up the investigation we discussed over the phone.” Berman nodded curtly at Riggs.

Masters looked at Berman. “Dan”—Masters paused, correcting himself—“Matt was one of the best damned undercover agents we ever had.”

“Sacrificed a lot in the name of justice, didn’t I, George?” Riggs eyed him evenly.

“You want a cigarette?” Masters asked. “If I remember correctly, you were a smoker.”

“Gave it up, too dangerous.” He looked over at Berman. “George here will tell you I stayed in the ball game one inning too many. Right, George? Sort of against my will, though.”

“That was all a long time ago.”

“Funny, it still seems like yesterday to me.”

“Goes with the territory, Matt.”

“That’s easy to say when you haven’t watched your wife get her brains blown out because of what her husband did for a living. How’s your wife by the way, George? Three kids too, right? Having kids and a wife must be nice.”

“All right, Matt. I get your point. I’m sorry.”

Riggs swallowed hard. He was feeling far more emotion than he had expected, but it did feel like yesterday and he had waited half a decade to say this. “It would’ve meant a lot more if you had said it five years ago, George.”

Riggs’s stare was so intense that Masters finally had to look down.

“Let’s get down to it,” Riggs finally said, breaking out of the past.

Masters put his elbows up on the table and glanced over at him. “FYI, I was in Charlottesville two nights ago.”

“Beautiful little college town.”

“Visited a couple of places. Thought I might see you.”

“I’m a working man. Gotta keep busy.”

Masters eyed the sling. “Accident?”

“The construction business can be very hazardous. I’m here to strike a deal, George. A mutually satisfactory deal.”

“Do you know where LuAnn Tyler is?” Berman leaned forward, his eyes darting all over Riggs’s face.

Riggs cocked his head at the other man. “I’ve got her down in the car, Lou, you want to go check? Here.” Riggs reached in his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and dangled them in front of the FBI agent. They were the keys to his house, but Riggs figured Berman wouldn’t take him up on the offer.

“I’m not here to play games,” Berman snarled.

Riggs put the keys away and leaned forward. “Neither am I. Like I said, I’m here to make a deal. You want to hear it?”

“Why should we deal? How do we know you’re not working with Tyler?”

“What do you care if I am?”

Berman’s face turned red. “She’s a criminal.”

“I worked with criminals most of my career, Lou. And who says she’s a criminal?”

“The state of Georgia.”

“Have you really looked at that case? I mean really looked at it. My sources say it’s bullshit.”