Pine Island Coast Florida Box Set, page 74
part #1 of Pine Island Coast Florida Series
The photos could easily be dismissed as the Deputy Secretary of Energy conducting archetypal meetings with those at the forefront of global energy innovation and commerce. But the pictures did not stand alone. Reardon did not engage in off-the-books meetings without couching his language in cryptic terms—his own Newspeak, as it were. Nevertheless, the media, always looking for a new bone to pick the meat from, would cull his words.
His cold gray eyes fixated on the envelope as he considered the irony of its very presence. He had commissioned envelopes and packets just like this one dozens of times over the last three decades. Now, he supposed, it was his turn.
His recent move from the Defense Intelligence Agency into the Department of Energy had been strategic. After his predecessor had stepped down it didn’t take much maneuvering for the President to appoint Reardon to this new position. It afforded him the opportunity to be close to developing technologies and to forge new connections and relationships with those who were currently running the global energy markets, both existing and developing. The DOE was on the forefront of scientific research into new and innovative means of energy. Reardon wasn’t going to miss out on his share of the energy pie, a pie that had been, over the years, getting much larger.
His own path into the halls of power had been forged over thirty years ago when he was a summer intern for William Musgrove, the then governor of Indiana, at a time when Reardon was learning the advantages of being diligent and resourceful, idealistic and ambitious.
He and his girlfriend at the time, Wendy Hooper—and what a red-headed hottie she had been—had just returned to Indianapolis from Elkhart, where he had taken her, an aspiring photographer, to the Ruthmere Mansion. She had wanted to try her new camera out on the home’s stone cartouches, marble piazzas, and hand-painted murals. As he thought back to that evening, Reardon remembered the camera being a Canon T90. Some might think it an odd bit of detail to recall, but then does a Powerball winner easily forget his winning numbers?
That afternoon the two of them roamed the manicured grounds and the mansion’s interior, and when the bottom of Wendy’s satchel was full of undeveloped film they left and rode the three hours back to Indianapolis bathed in golden light from the west. When they pulled up to her home, her favorite cousin, who had been studying in Barcelona for the past two years, came bounding down the front steps. Wendy squealed, flew out of the car, and, in a hurried fashion that left Reardon mildly agitated, told him she would see him tomorrow. Then she and her cousin, arms locked, giggled all the way up the steps and disappeared inside.
Reardon pulled off her curb and wove his way through the subdivision. Wendy’s neighborhood was a typical middle-class arrangement, and the fastest way back to Interstate 465 was to cut through Ridgeline Estates, a community of upper-class townhomes, each possessing more square footage than three average homes on Wendy’s street.
He braked at a stop sign, turned right, and continued down the street. A couple was sitting in a car, talking. Nothing unusual there, except that his heart thumped a little faster when he realized that he recognized one of them. And not just anyone. So he drove around the block again and came back down the same street for a second glance.
William Musgrove was in the driver’s seat of that car.
He stopped thirty feet in front of them and flipped his visor down. He had only begun his short internship with the governor’s office three weeks ago—at the end of the summer he would head to D.C. to kick off his first year at George Washington University—so the odds were slim-to-nothing that the old man would even recognize him. Reardon had only met the governor twice. He had begun to understand that unless one looked very much like the young lady sitting in the car with him or had the potential to write a fat check toward his next campaign, the good governor was quite apt to forget you.
But there was Musgrove, his ample weight forcing the struts to give on the front of the car, alone with a woman who wasn’t his wife and who looked fifty years younger than the man’s mother ought to be. Reardon knew for a fact the governor did not have a daughter, although the young lady he was chatting with certainly could have been. There was no harm, of course, in having a friendly conversation with another adult. Expect that a tiny voice far back in the recesses of his mind was whispering that there was something here to consider and maybe even something to document, and that perhaps the universe had just endowed a magnificent gift upon him.
Those, of course, were the mid-eighties, prior to disposable Kodaks, digital cameras, or smartphones—before your phone, your television, your music player, and your camera were all the same device. Nevertheless, out of some frantic, unconscious impulse, Reardon looked around for something, anything that could help him record the next several minutes (what was he going to find, an Etch A Sketch?). And that was when he saw Wendy’s camera on the floorboard of his Celica. He grabbed it up, checked the film tray. It was empty. He quickly searched through the car—glove box, between the seats, under the seats, console—and came up empty. Hot little Wendy had left him with a weapon and no ammo. So Reardon had done what any aspiring politician would. He eased off the curb with his head turned away, passed up their car, and, after turning at the next stop sign, gunned his Celica out of the neighborhood and down Avery Avenue until he saw the Buy-Go Mart on the other side of the street. He tore a U-turn at the intersection and double parked in front of the store, where a sign in the window said that everything but dishware was currently ten percent off. Ninety seconds later he was back in the car, speeding up the street while he unwrapped the film and loaded it into the camera. Another half mile and he was screaming back into Ridgeline Estates, and when he glanced into his rear view mirror he saw an older man who was watering his grass, raising a fist toward him, yelling something Reardon couldn't hear but could easily deduce.
He slowed again at the stop sign and approached where he had seen the Hoosier State’s leader. A genuine surge of excitement shot through him when he saw that they were still there, still sitting in the car talking. Five minutes later, just as Reardon was beginning to think that the tiny voice had misled him and his aspirational zeal had gotten the better of him, both doors opened at the same time and the governor stepped out into the fading sunlight. He quickly produced a flat cap and set it low over his forehead. Looking briefly around—completely missing his intern less than ten yards away—with his hand across the lower back of his lady friend, he led her toward the door.
Reardon brought the camera up, watched the couple.
Walking quickly up the steps hand-in-hand. Snap.
Kissing in the living room. A living room with a fortuitously wide bay window. Snap.
Upstairs and the governor glancing briefly out the window before shutting the curtains. Snap. Snap.
The governor leaving an hour later, quickly walking down the steps with her standing in the doorway wearing a cotton bathrobe, blowing him a kiss goodbye. Snap.
At the time, Reardon had only seen twenty-two summers and his hands were shaking as he focused the lens and clicked away; not for fear of being caught or because of the vulgarity of what he was witnessing, but out of sheer anticipation for what this was going to mean for his career. He took the film to an overnight lab and, in the morning when he went to pick them up, was nearly gleeful at the quality of the photos, seeing that he had been nearly out of daylight at the time. If politics ever fell through for him—and he knew now that it wouldn't—he could be a photographer.
He had to wait for his moment until late that afternoon. The governor had been out of the office the first half of the day, speaking to a group of high schoolers in Bloomington about the social benefits of maintaining the moral conscience of America.
Reardon waited until he got back and, after clearing five minutes with the governor with his secretary, he went in, shut the door, and thanked the governor for giving him a moment.
“Of course. Now, tell me, who are you again?”
“I’m one of your summer interns, sir. Scott Reardon.”
“And what is it I can do for you?”
Reardon leaned forward and calmly set the photos on the desk. The governor picked them up and Reardon felt a surge of intoxicating adrenaline rush into him as the old man’s face registered the gravity of what he was holding.
“Where did you get these, boy?” he bellowed.
“I took them myself, sir.”
To that, the confounded governor gave a pause that was longer than his belt. “And what are you planning on doing with these? Are these the only copies?”
“What do you think, sir?”
“Son,”—the color in the governor’s face started to resemble that of a Red Delicious apple—“I’m not sure you understand the gravity of what you’ve just done. This is most inappropriate.”
Reardon nodded. “I totally agree, sir. One hundred percent. I wonder just how inappropriate your wife will think they are. Or your constituents.”
The governor stood, jammed a plump finger toward his intern. “Now I want you to leave and just forget all about this nonsense. You’re in way above your head, young man. And you are fired too. I don’t ever want to see your face again.”
“No.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, no. Get your ears checked, Governor. I’m not leaving. In fact, if you want to continue working behind this desk then you are going to do a few things for me.”
Snap—Snap—Snap—Snap. And that was how Scott Reardon got his career.
The years followed, and he worked strategically up the political ladder, doing so with a rare kind of finesse. He added value wherever he went, often with great commitment and energy, even helping to advance the political ambitions of those he had dirt on. Including the likes of Governor Musgrove. Reardon interned again in Indianapolis the next summer, and even though the zipper-happy governor held no future benefit for Reardon (he had already spent the last year making the necessary connections in D.C.), Reardon made sure to lead a charge among young professionals for Musgrove’s re-election. It was an irony that the men that Reardon put under his thumb ended up very much liking him, even if they were a little nervous about it. Getting behind their cause, whatever it was, made them feel that Reardon was, somehow, on their side.
The first decade he had never asked for money. Never. Not once. Didn’t matter who it was. Early on he had only asked for heartfelt introductions. Politics was about who you knew and what they thought of you. At twenty-two, if Scott Reardon had known only one thing, it was that. But eventually he came to see how many men in power had spines made of jelly, and he began to utilize his knowledge of their lesser morality to accumulate more power, pushing through deals that ended with Reardon making a great deal of money. The kind of money the IRS knew nothing about. The kind of money that smeared invisible blood across your palms.
Reardon stood, stepped over to his window, and looked out. The James V. Forrestal Building, home to the U.S. Department of Energy, sat along Independence Avenue, and from his window on the fourth floor of the North Building, Reardon could see the Smithsonian Institution and the National Mall beyond. At least “We the People” were easily distracted. One day's political gossip was quickly forgotten by the next day’s tragedy. Still, he didn’t like the temporary attention or the internal audits this information would bring. Attention often meant nosy people started poking around corners they previously didn’t even know were there. It meant that the wrong people started asking the right questions.
It wasn’t the leak that he was concerned about; it was who did the leaking—who had been following him, and why. Reardon went back to his desk and opened the middle drawer, reached in the back, and brought out an old cell phone manufactured fifteen years ago. He flipped back the cover and dialed. It was answered on the third ring.
“Tomorrow night,” Reardon said. “Ten o’clock under the oaks.” The line went dead, and, as he slipped the phone into the inside pocket of his suit jacket, his desk phone beeped and his secretary's voice came through. “Sir, I’ve got a Rita Simmons from Russia Today on line three. She said she was curious to know if you received the same information she did?”
Reardon’s heart stopped. He sighed. “Put her through.” He sat back into his chair. Out of an unconscious habit, he adjusted his tie before snatching up the receiver. “Scott Reardon.”
The lady at the other end introduced herself and then, “I want you to know that I am in possession of information that seems to have you working—how might you say it?—deals under the table.”
“Is there a question, Miss Simmons?”
“I would like to extend an invitation for us to meet tonight and offer you a chance to explain before we take this to the air.”
“I have no comment, Miss Simmons. Do what you will. I would, however, encourage you to ensure that you have your facts straight first. You of all people will know that you cannot have facts without context. Get the context wrong and your facts will be also.” Then he hung up. He would not meet with Rita. Doing so would, by its very action, indicate that he had something to defend, that the information she had been provided somehow needed to be cleared up, or that it even mattered enough for him to want to clear it up. No, she could run with her little story.
He would get out of this. It was only a hiccup. Still, he didn’t like hiccups, especially when they were about to be broadcasted on a major news network. He would make a few calls, and no one important would pursue it. The whole thing would fizzle out like a forgotten can of soda. And yet, it wasn’t going to run its course without his reputation taking a hit, and that was what really nagged at him. Public was never a good thing; not in his line of work, not where appearances were the most valuable of currencies.
Whoever had sent the packets had been smart, strategic; they knew just who could invoke the most damage. Had it been given to a major American network like Fox or NBC, Reardon would have had to make one brief phone call and it would have never made it on the air. It wouldn’t have even been filed at the bottom of some dusty drawer. It would have just disappeared. Justin Bieber, eight alarm apartment fires, bi-partisan politics, and live births of baby giraffes would continue to feed America’s incessant need for entertainment.
A knock at his office door.
“Come.”
Titus Clark stepped into the room. Clark, a former Army lieutenant, had functioned as Reardon’s personal assistant for the last eight years. He shut the door and walked across the polished wood floors.
“Sir, I know you’re dealing with this new situation, but I have some more bad news.”
Reardon waved him on.
After they received the envelope earlier that day, Clark had spent nearly an hour searching his boss’s office for bugs or wires. He found nothing. Even so, he lowered his voice. “The...research team that you sent to Arizona. They didn’t make it.”
“They were scheduled to be out there two nights ago. Why am I just now hearing that they didn’t arrive?”
“No, sir. I don’t mean they didn’t get there. I mean they didn’t make it. They’re dead.”
Scott Reardon was not a man to outwardly react. He had, long ago, made a habit of living behind an emotional shroud. But at this news an eye flinched and the edges of his nostrils rimmed white as they flared. His voice was steady, but behind his tie his heart had quickened. “Dead? Explain.”
After sharing the facts as he understood them, Clark said, “The man who killed Miss Cornish…” He trailed off.
“Out with it.”
“Sir, it was Number Four on the list. It was Virgil.”
Reardon’s eyes moved into slits. “How is that possible?”
“We don’t know. Intelligence less than two weeks old had him in Panama.”
“And where is he now?” Reardon asked.
“From what we’ve been able to dig up, Miss Cornish wounded him and also took out the driver of his getaway. Some old man living in a cabin in the woods. The truck flipped. It’s unclear at the moment who found Number Four. He was stabilized in Flagstaff yesterday morning and then flown out to Banner Hospital in Phoenix. That’s where he is now.”
Reardon slowly ran an open hand across his mouth. Finally, with his typical decisiveness, he said, “Move him up on the list. Get someone over to that hospital. Now.”
“Yes, sir. Should I green light anyone specific?”
Reardon steepled his fingers beneath his chin and looked through, not at, his assistant. He nodded. “Yes. Yes, you should.”
Chapter Twelve
Ellie stepped out from the cover of the dry dock building and walked across the wooden deck toward the bar. Her bright blonde hair shone in the September sun, and her sandals slapped quietly against her heels. Quinton Davis was still on a barstool, talking with Fu and Gloria, and Major was behind the counter replenishing the garnish tray with cherries, limes, and pineapples. A dish towel was draped across a shoulder. The bar’s tiki roof had been repaired, now made up of old and new palm fronds that made it look like the hut had received skin grafts.
