Abuse of Power (16 page)

Where would they start looking?

Then it struck Jack. What if there was more to this than a night of simple overindulgence? After what he’d found hanging in his shower, he had to wonder if it was possible that this was some kind of a cry for help.

Could Copeland be in a different kind of trouble?

But when Jack thought it through, that didn’t make much sense. If Bob Copeland were in danger, why would he be calling in a drunken stupor? And there were plenty of people he could call besides Jack. The guy had once worked for the Pentagon, for God’s sake.

This was a simple case of drunk dialing, is all. And there’s nothing worse than a drunk dialer.

Maybe Jack wasn’t the only one who had demons to contend with. He just hoped the guy got home safely and was sober enough to make their meeting tomorrow.

They had a lot to talk about.

14

Jack went back to the
Sea Wrighter
the next morning. When he stepped onto the deck, he discovered he’d had another visitor in the night. He found a package about the size of a shirt box, wrapped in brown paper and tucked against the starboard pilothouse door. There was no name, no address, no writing of any kind.

Odd,
he thought. What the hell was
this
all about?

He raised it slightly, feeling with his fingers for a minelike depression plate underneath. Nothing. He kept it level as he raised it. There was no lopsided weight to indicate packed explosives, no faint chemical smell, no ticking, no wires that he could see under the wrapping. Snatching it up, he let himself in, then moved into the galley and laid it on the table. He tore away the brown paper. All he found inside was a briefcase containing a swath of papers. Government authorization forms, from the looks of them, generated by the Department of Defense.

Jack paused when he saw them.

Was this something he should be looking at?

The authorization involved a special transport mission. On August 20 of this year, a shipment of highly classified experimental hydrazine-based rocket fuel was to be carried from a facility Jack wasn’t even aware of, designated by number only. For security reasons, the fuel would be traveling by tanker truck rather than the usual rail transportation.

According to the timetable, part of that journey would involve passing over the Golden Gate Bridge at approximately 2200 hours that night, and Jack got the impression that the Bridge Authority had not been notified of this shipment. The truck itself would be marked as a milk tanker.

In other words, this was a so-called black shipment. Okay; Jack had no doubt that happened all the time.

The question was, why had this package been left on his deck, and who had left it?

Searching through the package again, Jack found a business card for a Linda Hodgkins of the Department of Defense. After mulling it over, Jack flipped open his cell phone and called the number.

It was picked up after three rings. “Yes?”

“Is this Linda Hodgkins with the Department of Defense?”

A hesitation. “Yes, who is this?”

“Ms. Hodgkins, my name is Jack Hatfield and it seems a package of yours has been left on my boat. Would you know anything about that?”

A longer hesitation. “Copeland said you can be trusted.”

“You know Bob Copeland?”

“Yes, I wanted him to take the briefcase but he told me to leave it on your boat.”

“Maybe you’d better back up a bit and tell me what this is about.”

She hesitated again, as if trying to gather her courage, then she said, “Yesterday afternoon my colleagues and I went to lunch at Fisherman’s Wharf and we left some sensitive materials in the back of our van. Somebody broke in and took everything except that briefcase, including a classified laptop computer.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “So what does this have to do with Copeland?”

“We’ve already been burned and are looking at some serious disciplinary action. I went to Bob for help and he suggested I stash the briefcase and documents in case I ever need to use them for leverage.”

“And he told you to give them to me?”

“Yes. He said he was too hot to be hanging on to them for now and that you’re the most trustworthy person he knows. But when I went to your boat you weren’t there, so I left them by the door.”

“Something
that
sensitive,” he said. “You just leave it like a UPS package.”

“That’s exactly right,” she replied. “It’s called a Poe Drop, after Edgar Allan. From ‘The Purloined Letter.’ Hide what people are looking for in plain sight and they’ll never see it.”

“If you say so. What are you expecting me to do with them?”

“Just keep them safe until Bob can take possession of them. That’s all I ask.”

“Okay,” Jack said. “I think I can manage that.”

“Thank you. Now, I really have to go. I don’t want to be on this line any longer than necessary.”

Then she abruptly hung up.

Jack stared at the phone for a moment, wondering how this played into everything that had happened so far, but couldn’t for the life of him make a connection.

Just another typical bit of Bob Copeland cloak and dagger, he supposed.

Taking the papers from the briefcase, he stuffed them into a manila envelope and put them in the safe in his cabin.

Yet another question to ask Copeland when he saw him this afternoon.

*   *   *

At ten past four, Hatfield stood in the central atrium of the Museum of Modern Art wondering if Copeland would ever show.

After the events of this morning and that bizarre phone call last night, he was concerned about the guy. Shortly after the second call, he’d remembered that Copeland had a house in San Mateo, and before going to bed, he’d called every number listed in the book. But all he’d succeeded in doing was pissing off a bunch of half-asleep strangers.

Jack sent his friend several text messages during the day, using their usual contact number, but so far there had been no response. Not that this was all that unusual. It often took Copeland a while to get back to him. And based on the guy’s behavior this morning, Jack wouldn’t be surprised if he was still passed out somewhere, in an alcohol-induced coma.

But none of this made him feel any better. He liked Copeland and hated to think of him that way. There were, of course, other matters to consider. Copeland wouldn’t have requested this meeting if he didn’t have information, and Jack was curious to know what that information was.

Like the building itself, the atrium of the Museum of Modern Art was a thing of beauty. Jack had always had a soft spot for great architecture, even if his knowledge about what was stored inside this place was limited. Fine art was more Rachel’s territory, and in their ten years of marriage they’d come here several times to see various exhibits.

The place had been a San Francisco icon for nearly two decades, and still had that edgy, modernistic look that made it stand out in a crowded urban environment. The atrium was cavernous, boasting a huge, tubular skylight, and you couldn’t help having a feeling of awe every time you entered the place.

Unless you had other things on your mind.

Jack checked his watch. Four-twenty, still no Copeland.

He stood there wondering if he should stick around a while longer or call it a day. Maybe check in with Maxine, see how the video was coming. Just as he made up his mind, his cell phone rang.

It was Tony.

Jack clicked it on. “Hey, Tony, I can’t really talk right now. I’m in the middle of—”

“You’ll want to talk about this,” Tony said. “Are you near a TV?”

“No, why?”

“Your friend Bob Copeland is all over the news.”

Jack’s gut tightened. “What do you mean? We’re supposed to be meeting right now. I’m standing here waiting for him.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll be waiting forever,” Tony said. “Copeland’s dead.”

15

It didn’t take long for the smear job to start.

Bob Copeland himself had said it best: “Nobody spews that kind of venom unless they’ve got something to hide.”

His body was found in a landfill in Oakland, when the driver of a garbage truck dumped his load for the afternoon. Copeland came tumbling out like an oversized rag doll, his three-piece suit stained and askew, one of his shoes missing, and enough bruises on his body to suggest he’d been beaten pretty badly.

The part about the shoe hit Jack hard. He couldn’t purge his friend’s slurred voice from his head, talking about the shoe, and he kept second-guessing himself, wondering what he could have done to prevent this from happening.

“Don’t start the blame game,” Tony told him.

But the truth was, if Jack hadn’t contacted Copeland in the first place the man might still be alive.

The initial reports on Copeland’s death were sketchy, but as the night wore on more and more sordid details came to light, and the more Jack heard, the more he wanted to break his TV.

Those initial reports had told of Copeland’s service in Vietnam, his work with the think tank, the Pentagon, and the two Bush administrations, his dedication to cybersecurity, and his regular appointment to the board of trustees for the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center.

In other words, Bob Copeland was a patriot, through and through. An outstanding human being on just about every level.

But once the news had gotten that part out, they were done with it and quickly moved on to the more salacious details, half of which seemed to have been cooked up by a bad mystery writer.

Every time you changed the channel there was a slightly different version of events. But as far as Jack was concerned they’d all gotten it wrong. This was, the news insisted, the story of a man who had had a mental breakdown, distraught over a lawsuit, a dispute with his neighbor about the building of an addition to the house across the street from his home in San Mateo.

According to police, several incendiary devices—smoke bombs, it turned out—had been set off at the construction site shortly after midnight, and they claimed they’d found Copeland’s cell phone buried under some construction debris.

Early the next morning Copeland was caught on video wandering the aisles of an Oakland convenience store, walking with a limp and missing that shoe. The proprietor said he was so drunk and disoriented he’d taken him for a homeless guy and had kicked him out.

There were conflicting reports on whether or not the police believed Copeland was murdered or his death had merely been an accident.

Some department spokesmouth—who seemed to have come from nowhere, and had no forensics credibility whatsoever—publicly made the claim that Copeland’s bruises were consistent with a fall. But the cops soon realized that nobody believed that a guy Copeland’s size—no matter
how
drunk he might have been—could accidentally fall into a chest-high Dumpster, and his death was officially ruled a homicide.

The question was, who had done it and why? The police weren’t talking, but according to reports, they were working on the theory that Copeland had gotten drunk and run into a gang of muggers or drug addicts who robbed and killed him before hastily disposing of the body.

The story was ludicrous, of course, but all the news channels seemed to be eating it up. The Big Bad City and all that. Stay in your homes and lock your doors. Derelicts and gangbangers want your wallets. Oh, and don’t forget to stock up on breakfast cereal and toilet paper.

Jack had contacted the Oakland Police about the phone call from Copeland this morning, but their interest in his story was minimal-bordering-on-nonexistent and Jack doubted there would ever be a follow-up.

The only ones making any real noise about the whole thing were the talk radio hosts and their listeners. Many of them were convinced that there was a cover-up afoot, and Jack certainly couldn’t disagree. But all they had were theories, from a mob hit to an SEC investigation conspiracy—and Jack knew the truth.

Bob Copeland had been killed by the very same people who had killed Jamal Thomas. The same people who had broken into his boat and put that noose in his shower stall. The very same people who were behind William Clegg and his ridiculous charge against the Constitutional Defense Brigade.

The way Jack saw it, those smoke bombs had been used as a distraction while Copeland was kidnapped from his home. He’d been drugged and interrogated and somehow managed to escape before he was found again and promptly eliminated.

Now three people were dead, and Jack was convinced it was all because of the message Copeland had left for him in Carolyn Cassady’s autobiography.

All because of Operation Roadshow.

*   *   *

“So here’s what I started with,” Maxine said.

Jack had phoned Tony and asked his friend to meet him at Max’s place. He didn’t tell him why and Tony was hooked. The two were looking over her shoulder as she punched a key on her computer. The large rectangular monitor on the wall came alive with the video that Leon shot with his cell phone. The image seemed less shaky than before, and on the big screen the guy with the sunglasses was easier to distinguish. About forty or so, with a muscular frame and a military bearing. And to Hatfield’s mind, there was something off about the guy. Call him crazy, but the man didn’t strike him as American.

South African, maybe?

“He looks private,” Tony said, confirming Jack’s earlier assessment. “Definitely no amateur.”

They were all sitting in task chairs, surrounding Max’s desk in her video editing booth, which was really nothing more than a spare apartment bedroom jammed full of specialized electronic equipment.

“This is normal HD resolution,” she said. “I applied a stabilizing filter to steady the image and try to cut down on Leon’s crappy camerawork. If he’d been thinking, he would’ve included the Escalade’s license plate and saved us all a lot of trouble.”

“If wishes were horses,” Tony murmured …

Max looked at him as if she had no idea what he was talking about, then pointed to a corner of the screen.