Page 119 of The Session

“And what does that mean?” Jameson asked.

“Three missing bottles. I looked all around. They weren’t in the trash. They weren’t thrown over the side, as far as I can tell. If you wanted to create what looked like an overdose, you could put a couple pills of fentanyl inside one of Kevin’s beers. He could drink it without realizing. And that gets him drugged enough that it wouldn’t be difficult to take him out in the kayak and drown him.”

“What do you think?” Lightman asked Morris.

“I think if you look at any accidental death, you’re going to find a lot of unusual circumstances.”

“Sure, but why didn’t we find this?” Tru asked.

Lightman rubbed his temples. “This is very concerning. It’s one thing to deal with the fact that Kevin relapsed. It’s another to think . . .” He shook his head.

“We’ll look into this,” Morris told him.

“Nobody who worked with Nichols. I want a different team,” Lightman demanded.

“I’ll make sure of it,” Morris said.

“This would point toward the Qataris,” Jameson said.

“I’m inclined to agree,” Morris added.

“Why?” Tru asked.

“A message to us,” Morris replied.

“I don’t know how things work in your world,” said Mark, “but usually a message comes with a fucking message. This was a murder made to look like a suicide.” He shrugged and looked around the room.

“It is a very different culture,” Jameson told Mark.

“They’ve watched the same mobster movies we have. It’s not that fucking different,” Tru replied.

“We need to get to Nichols. We have to find him. Follow his family, follow his friends. I want surveillance on everybody he knows,” Lightman said.

“I’m sure he knows that’s coming. It’ll probably be a waste. I think our best bet is to see if there’s some sort of financial arrangement we can come to with him,” Morris said.

“No. No payoff. No blackmail. Nothing,” Lightman insisted. “I want surveillance on everybody he knows, everybody they know, and I want Andromeda on it.”

“Andromeda,” Jameson repeated.

“That’s expensive,” Morris replied.

Lightman stood up and pounded his fist on the table. “Do I care how fucking expensive that is right now? What’s the use of your own fucking private security force if you can’t use it?”

“Right now they’re deployed in Nigeria,” Morris said.

“Not all of them. I want a team put together, and I want them after Nichols now!” Lightman ordered.

“I’ll get on it,” said Morris.

“We still have the CEO retreat next week, with several dozen billionaires and their flunkies coming to the island,” Tru noted.

“And Conclave. The week after we have our board vote,” Jameson added.

“Why does this happen all at once?” Lightman asked the ceiling.

“Maybe that’s the plan,” Mark said.

“But whose plan?” Lightman asked.