had been a traitor who’d financed the hit on a Chinese general in Pyongyang, and before that was the moneyman behind a scheme to smuggle forty kilos of polonium-210 across the border with Mexico. When Todd’s father-in-law confronted the man in a safe house just outside Washington, the DDO had pulled out a pistol and it had been Todd who’d opened fire, killing him. There’d been a lot more to it than that, of course, but to this point they’d not been able to figure out where McCann had gotten the money. It was a puzzle.
“You have my attention, Josh,” he said carefully.
“I’m in the middle of something really big. Maybe even a shadow government. These guys have influenced elections, got federal judges removed from the bench, made sure some top banks and big financial companies got federal backing—bailouts just like what happened to Chrysler and just about everyone else a couple of years ago.”
“Planning a coup?”
Givens shook his head. “Nothing so messy or dramatic as that. I think they’ve already accomplished what they set out to do. They’re running things right now. Or at least the important stuff. Guys from the Federal Reserve are in the club, along with a couple of four stars from the Pentagon. This cuts right across the board.”
Givens looked away for a moment, apparently overwhelmed by what he was saying. When he turned back he’d come to some decision.
“What?” Todd prompted.
“Could be the bastards engineered nine/eleven.”
This was getting over the top for Todd. “Do you know how crazy that sounds? Just another conspiracy theory. Our guys deal with that kind of shit twenty-four/seven. Doesn’t get us anywhere.”
“Look what they’ve accomplished,” Givens said.
“Tell me.”
“A direct reduction of our civil liberties, for one. For Christ’s sake, libraries and bookstores are supposed to inform the FBI what fucking books we’re reading. Now you tell me who’s crazy?”
“What do your editors over at the Post have to say about it?”
Givens dismissed the question with a gesture. “These aren’t the Woodward and Bernstein days. We don’t run partial stories hoping the exposure will make other people come forward. Everyone’s gotten too smart.”
“Who have you shared this with?” Todd was having a lot of doubts. He and Givens hadn’t been close, but the guy had never seemed nutsy. And his investigative pieces in the Post had seemed first rate. But this now made no sense.
“No one. Not even my wife, Karson. Not until I have everything nailed down.”
“Okay, I’ll look at your disk,” Todd said. “Then what?”
“How did McCann die? What was he working on?”
Todd spread his hands. “Even if I knew something like that, which I don’t, I wouldn’t be able to talk about it.”
“Especially not with a reporter.”
“Something like that.”
“Give it to your father-in-law then. From what I hear he still carries some weight.” Givens looked down at the entryway again, as if he was expecting someone. “Hell, I don’t have anything solid yet. All I have are a lot of disconnected facts. Sudden changes in government policies, resignations of some key people here and there, upset elections in two dozen key states over the past couple of years. It’s all on the disk.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Todd said. “But I can’t promise anything. You’ve gotta understand that, Josh.”
“Do what you can,” Givens said. “What you think is right.”
His iced tea came, and he drank some of it then got up. “I trust you, man. I think you’re the only person in the world I can trust.”
“I’ll call you if I come up with something,” Todd said.
“Not at the paper,” Givens said. He handed Todd a business card. “Call me at home.” He gave Todd a long, hard look then turned, went downstairs, and left the restaurant.
TWO
Tim Kangas, thirty-one, medium height and build, thinning light brown hair and ordinary brown eyes, laid a twenty-dollar bill on the downstairs table after Givens hurried past and left the hotel. His partner, Ronni Mustapha, picked up the nylon sports bag on the chair between them and casually reached inside and switched off the shotgun microphone’s recording circuit. They’d heard everything.
They’d been following the Washington Post reporter for three weeks, waiting for the tipping point, which had apparently happened just minutes ago. An article in the newspaper would have meant next to nothing, but his meeting with a CIA officer, especially one with Van Buren’s connections, could possibly be devastating.
“Get the car,” Kangas said, and Mustapha, an ordinary-looking man in his late twenties with deep-set dark eyes and an easy,