The Last Justice (29 page)

"Or," Pacini said, "If you waited, you could get your nominees approved in the three-three deal. Then you could use the affair to pressure Carmichael to resign so the administration could nominate another justice-someone a lot more reliable than a swing-vote conservative like Carmichael."

"I won't lie," Wentworth said. "We thought about it. But our main concern was that nothing mess up what we've worked so hard to achieve. In the wake of Black Wednesday, this could well be the president's biggest legacy-the measure by which history will judge his presidency. If news about Carmichael leaked before the nominees were confirmed, it would upset the plan. The country's been through enough. The public needs closure."

Pacini looked at him in wonder. "We're investigating one of the biggest assassination conspiracies in the history of this country, so you'll have to forgive me if your political troubles don't find a warm place in my heart. Unless you have something more to say, we're taking you in."

"Griffin Nash," Wentworth blurted. "The documents withheld in the Nevel Industries litigation. "Wentworth seemed to realize that he could either give them something fast or land on the front page of the Post.

"Those would be the same documents that, just this morning in your office, you looked me in the eye and said were irrelevant?" Pacini said.

The two men locked eyes.

"When Nash was forced out of the White House, he got angry. Nevel, his company, was awarded some very lucrative government contracts, so we thought that would mend any hard feelings."

"A payoff, then."

"The company would have gotten the contracts regardless of Nash. We just ... well, made him think otherwise."

"So what do the documents say?" Pacini said.

"Nash wanted more contracts. And we couldn't."

"He threatened you? What was he going to tell?"

"Nash wasn't going to tell anything that actually happened," Wentworth said defensively. "But Nash threatened to leak to the press that McKenna had been bought off to keep quiet about the president's affair-I mean, alleged affair-with the intern. He said he would leak that the administration had secured McKenna's silence first by appointing McKenna as a judge, then as solicitor general. The e-mails spell it out."

"He wrote that down?" Pacini said in disbelief. Those skilled in politics usually lived by the following rule when it came to anything that could be used against them: "Don't write it when you can say it; don't say it when you can wink it."

"He spelled it out in detail."

"And you didn't think those e-mails were any big deal when we talked this morning?" Pacini said.

Wentworth looked down at the floor.

"Turn around," Pacini said. Wentworth turned, looking somehow smaller than when they first met.

Pacini unlocked the cuffs.

"I'd say you now owe us a favor, Mr. Wentworth. That's how it works in your world, right?"

Wentworth nodded.

Pacini held his gaze. "If you hear anything relevant to my investigation-and by that I mean anything-and you don't keep me informed, the next time I show up with the cuffs, it'll be at the West Wing. I don't think you want to be taking the first-ever perp walk out of the White House."

Pacini and Assad walked out the front door. As they got in the car, Assad said, "Damn! You don't mess around."

Pacini smiled as he put his cell phone to his ear. "I want the core teams at the office in an hour. Yes, I know what time it is. Just make it happen."

Offices of Task Force Investigator Group, Inc., Washington,

cKenna and Kate walked the two blocks from the metro station to St. Matthew's Cathedral. TFI's offices were in a converted house nearby. McKenna looked at the address he had written down on the coffee shop napkin.

"If they're a private investigation firm, don't you think they'll have a serious security system?" Kate said.

"I guess this is how to find out," McKenna replied.

They waited for a few cars to putter by before crossing the street and walking up the steps to a large front entrance with a small brass plaque that read "TASK FORCE INVESTIGATOR GROUP, INC."

McKenna debated how to get in the office. The door was old but solid, and the windows were too high to get in without something to stand on.

Kate suddenly grabbed his arm and pulled him back down the steps so forcefully that he stumbled and almost fell.

"Run!" Kate said in a loud whisper, pulling McKenna by the hand around the corner of the house and behind two big green trash cans.

"What-"

"Quiet!" Kate interrupted, trying to catch her breath. Crouching in the shadows with their backs pressed against the wall, they heard footsteps leaving TFI's offices. Two men in dark suits walked down the steps to a van parked nearby.

One of them spoke into a wrist mic: "Nothing. They're gone. File cabinet's empty. Shredder's full. They knew we were coming."

J Edgar Hoover Building, Washington,

acini erased one of the whiteboards in the commission war room. The FBI, Homeland Security, BATF, Secret Service, and other agency team leaders had arrived, and a speakerphone on the center of the table connected them to the New York office. Pacini's twentyfour-seven availability requirement was a pain, but such was the price of getting to work the Black Wednesday investigation-the sexiest assignment around.

Pacini sat in a chair by the speakerphone, and the agents, some standing, some sitting, formed a loose semicircle around him.

"I want to recap everything we know. Who wants to start?" Pacini said.

"Let's start with the obvious," a balding FBI agent said as he walked into the room holding a cup of coffee. "McKenna."

Pacini nodded at a young agent standing at the whiteboard, who quickly wrote "SG McKENNA" in black marker.

"Let's take it from the beginning," Pacini said. "What do we know?"

The balding agent considered the question, then said, "His former law clerk, Parker Sinclair-McKenna was supposed to meet him the night he was murdered, and Sinclair's blood was found in McKenna's hotel room. Preliminary DNA tests are a match. A reporter from the Post says Sinclair was the source for a story that McKenna had taken a bribe when he was a federal judge-a bribe paid by Griffin Nash. Nash was stabbed to death in a D.C. crosswalk, and McKenna was identified running from the scene."

The junior agent wrote "PARKER SINCLAIR" below and to the left of McKenna's name, and "GRIFFIN NASH" to the right, then drew a triangle connecting the names.

"theories?"

"Easy," another agent said. "Nash bribed McKenna, who was a judge at the time, to rule favorably on a case against Nevel Industries. Nash had been Nevel's CEO before he went to the White House and used the bribe to help the company out-probably because he knew he'd soon be headed back there. Sinclair was McKenna's law clerk, knew about it, and decided to come clean."

"Then why would Sinclair try and meet McKenna for dinner the night he was murdered?" the balding agent asked.

"We don't know for sure they were really planning to meet for dinner. That's just McKenna's version," Assad said. "That said, maybe Sinclair met with McKenna that night and told him he was reporting the bribe, and that's what got him killed."

"Then why meet with him? Why not just turn him in?" the balding agent retorted.

"And why now?" another agent chimed in. "The bribe supposedly happened years ago. And why kill Nash? It's unlikely Nash would report McKenna-he had just as much to lose as McKenna."

No one answered. Pacini waited a moment, then said, "What do we know about the victims? Start with Parker Sinclair."

"The people we spoke with at the court said Sinclair was squeaky clean," Assad said.

"Not necessarily," a thirtyish blonde female Homeland agent in jeans and a sweatshirt said from the back of the room. "MSNBC is reporting a story coming out in the Post tomorrow saying that Sinclair roughed up his old girlfriend and basically stalked her. She got an order of protection against him. Reporter won't identify the girl, but we'll have the court records by morning."

"What's domestic violence got to do with this?" Pacini said.

More agents had made their way into the office, and the room was getting crowded.

"It may have nothing to do with this," the blonde agent replied, "but Sinclair didn't disclose the restraining order in his background check, which is a felony. If he had, it likely would have taken him out of the running for working for Judge Petrov. Field agents missed it in their background check since Sinclair apparently got the court records sealed."

The agent at the whiteboard wrote, "ABUSED GIRLFRIEND/ NONDISCLOSURE," under Sinclair's name. He added "SPYWARE" when someone mentioned credit card records showing that Parker Sinclair had purchased a miniature video camera from a company specializing in the kind of surveillance gear used by private detectives to spy on cheating spouses, or by parents to watch their nannies.

"A hidden video camera?" Pacini said. "Could he have been responsible for the hidden camera at the Supreme Court?"

"Our tech guys say that the equipment he ordered is not consistent with the type of camera that was used at the court," the blonde Homeland agent said. "Also, there's a question of access.' here's been no indication that Sinclair would've had access to Justice Carmichael's chambers, where the pictures were taken. Douglas Pratt still seems the most likely candidate to have planted the camera, since he clerked for Carmichael."

"We'll talk about Pratt in a minute. First, back to the victimshow about Nash?"

"Uh, I have one thing to add on Sinclair," a young-sounding voice said from the speakerphone.

"Who's speaking?" Pacini snapped.

"Agent Simon," the voice replied. He was the most junior agent on the team, fresh from Quantico. It was a breach of protocol for such a junior agent to speak during the brainstorming meetings, so a few agents looked at one another, clearly hoping for the kid's sake that it was important.

Agent Simon cleared his throat. "I've been going through Parker Sinclair's e-mails, which the NYPD obtained from the courthouse computer system. About an hour ago I found an interesting one. It suggests that the day before he was killed, Sinclair was having a messenger service deliver a package to McKenna."