Page 38 of Mastermind

“That’s not how we operate. Now, let’s focus on you and what you know. Did he say anything that could possibly be incriminating or make someone suspect that he was involved in the events in Manhattan or Seoul?”

“No. Absolutely not,” I reply, deciding that incriminating is a subjective term that I won’t interpret to their benefit. “In fact, the suggestion is completely absurd. He’s spent the last five months providing medical treatment to refugees in Myanmar.”

“Our sources there say he was working with a terrorist faction,” says Shafner.

“And as a reasonable person, you know that’s complete bullshit. Your sources have been shoving people into mass graves for years.” I turn to Kieren. “Do you have any reason to believe Cray’s involved in this other than his name showing up on a list?”

She doesn’t respond.

I push. “We know who’s behind this. It’s Michael Heywood. I keep saying that, but everybody pretends it can’t be him. Why? Instead, you’re chasing down a man who was half-dead when this happened, beaten within an inch of his life because he was trying to vaccinate babies so the next epidemic didn’t wipe an entire group of people off the face of the planet.”

“Is that what you think of Dr. Cray?” asks O’Donnell. “There’s a side to him you don’t know. I’ve seen images of the bodies of some of the people he’s ‘helped.’”

“Were these images taken from the same drone that was used to supply information to the Myanmar military so they could kill him? Which, if I’m not mistaken, might be a breach of our current sanctions on them? Never mind that using such intelligence to target a US citizen without oversight is probably something the FBI could investigate. At the very least, it’s a story the New York Times would like to hear. How long after I put that out on Twitter before it blows up?”

“Let’s just cuff her and put her somewhere until she’s ready to talk,” says Kieren to the men. She turns to me: “You tipped off Cray. Helped him escape and then stole our plane. That’s pretty cut-and-dried. Isn’t it?”

“Is it? Last I checked I was assigned to find the whereabouts of Dr. Cray. You were there, remember? My supervisor understood that. You knew that. I then took him into protective custody. I don’t recall anyone identifying themselves as IDR. And as far as I can tell, you didn’t let the locals know what you were doing. How is Willets’s leg?”

O’Donnell glances at Kieren. “Who?”

I interject. “She didn’t tell you? One of her men got shot by a Burmese cop in that little screwup. I guess she didn’t tell you who bandaged the wound and saved that man’s life . . . That would be Dr. Cray.”

“For all I know, Cray pulled the trigger,” she replies.

“No. I was there. I’ll happily go on the record and explain what happened. As far as the plane? When I looked, the three letters of the agency it belongs to are FBI and not IDR.”

She smirks. “I don’t think you understand the way the game is played out here. Your little paperwork tricks and bureaucratic jujitsu only work to a point. If I say I found text messages on your phone that have you talking to Dr. Cray and giving him information about the case, those text messages appear. If I say there’s a hundred thousand dollars in your bank account you can’t explain or a Bitcoin wallet on your phone, who are they going to believe?”

I look to O’Donnell. “Is this how it works here? You openly threaten to manufacture evidence? To what end?”

“We want Cray. We have strong intel about him. That’s all we can say.”

And now you’ve got him. God, I’m going in circles here. Why can’t they see it? Or . . . what can’t I see?

Okay . . . Theo’s name shows up on a list, and I’m convinced that Heywood had something to do with that. The problem is, I never took that to its logical conclusion.

Heywood gets mysteriously transferred to a different facility.

Then Gerald tells me there’s a mole inside the FBI.

Oh jeez.

The whole mole thing that Gerald’s concerned about? That was Heywood. I have no idea how, but I think I get the big picture.

“Theo Cray’s name shows up on a list,” I tell my hosts. “You all buy into it because that same source has provided you with other information, right? Names of spies? Counterintel operations? You’re so used to working with scumbags, it doesn’t bother you that source is Michael Heywood, a.k.a. the Warlock. Right now, he’s pulling your strings, and you don’t even see it.”

Shafner’s eyes lift from his phone. He glances at O’Donnell. I might have gotten to him, at least. I don’t know what good it will do, though.

“This is how Heywood works,” I go on. “He fed you what he did so that when the time came, he could misdirect you.”

Kieren slaps a hand on the table. “I’ve had enough. Can we just stuff her somewhere for now?”

There’s a knock at the door, and a soldier comes in and whispers something to O’Donnell.

“The ambassador’s here,” he says.

Before Kieren can respond, another knock comes at the door, and an elderly man with a dark complexion and silver-tinged temples enters.