Authors: Charles Sheehan-Miles
“Is Jackson in? This is Anthony Walker, I just got back in the office.”
“Oh! Mr. Walker! Mr. Barlow’s in conference room A. He told me if you called to send you right there. The meeting just started.”
“On my way,” Anthony said, already rising to his feet and grabbing his laptop.
As he did, his eyes fell on one of the several monitors mounted not far from his desk. The screen showed a CNN news feed. Prince George-Phillip, the head of the SIS, was standing in front of a podium speaking into a microphone as reporters waved their arms. The headline flashing across the bottom of the screen read:
Terrorists attempt to assassinate British Intelligence head.
Anthony shook his head as he turned away, heading toward the elevator. He’d interviewed the tall, gangly George-Phillip four years before, when the Prince became the first head of the Secret Intelligence Service to ever give a public address. The London newspapers liked to make fun of George-Phillip’s admittedly ridiculous eyebrows, which were constantly in motion whenever he talked. But it was clear enough to Anthony that the newspapers missed his most important features—the intelligence behind those cool blue-green eyes was fierce. George-Phillip Windsor was a worthy head of the Intelligence Service.
As he walked from the elevator to the conference room, Anthony thought he’d have much preferred to be covering the story of George-Phillip’s assassination attempt instead of whatever was going on with the Thompson family.
Then he froze, his hand on the door to the conference room.
Wasn’t it an odd coincidence that someone had attempted to assassinate the head of British intelligence at the same time the children of the US Secretary of Defense were attacked?
Anthony’s mind raced as he opened the door, and he didn’t really pay attention to the dozen or so people in the room as he entered. He thought about the photographs he’d seen of Carrie Sherman and her sister, Andrea. Two remarkably tall women with very dark hair and blue-green eyes.
Was it possible?
What an incredible scandal that would have been: the wife of an American diplomat, pregnant not once, but
twice
, with children of a member of the British royal family.
Jackson Barlow stood at the head of the table. “Welcome back to Washington, Anthony. Nice of you to join us.”
“Uh … thanks, Jackson.”
Anthony forced his attention back to the present. He glanced around the room, taking note of the occupants.
Jackson Barlow, the executive editor of the paper. David Samuel, the National Desk editor, plus four reporters from his team. Jim Hsu, Anthony’s old boss on the World Desk. Bill Leiby, and several other foreign correspondents. Two legal reporters and a politics reporter.
From the people in the room, it was easy enough to deduce which story
this
meeting was about.
“Have a seat,” Barlow said. “I understand you spent yesterday and this morning with Julia Wilson?”
“And her husband, Crank,” Anthony said, giving Barlow an insincere smile. “He’s got a new album coming out soon.”
Barlow met Anthony’s eyes. “Understood. You still have access to them?”
Anthony nodded. “Yes. Especially after the IRS seized their offices this morning.”
“Okay. I want to hear your take.”
Anthony looked around the room. He didn’t know what anyone else in here had. Some of them would undoubtedly be buying the special prosecutor’s story—that somehow Richard Thompson was involved in money laundering and more, and had enlisted his daughter’s aid. Anthony didn’t buy it.
He looked Barlow in the eyes and said, “We don’t have enough information. But the idea that Richard Thompson somehow enlisted his children in a giant money laundering scheme is doubtful. Honestly, I don’t think Julia Wilson is that stupid.”
Barlow nodded, then said, “Okay—if that’s the case, what’s the real story?”
Anthony looked around the room. Why the hell was Barlow putting him on the spot like this?
“I don’t know, Jackson. I’ve been stuck in moving vehicles since early this morning. But I think that’s what we need to find out. What’s the real story?”
Barlow shook his head and smiled. “All right. Here’s what we’re going to do. Legal team—I want you guys to concentrate on the actual investigation. What does the independent prosecutor know, or what does he think he knows? What’s the IRS doing? Why did they seize Julia and Crank Wilson’s assets? National desk—you guys follow up on the political side. What’s going on with the Pentagon? Is Richard Thompson going to step down? Is Congress getting involved? What else?”
Anthony said, “I want to know if there’s a link to the assassination attempt on the head of SIS.”
Barlow’s eyes nearly bugged out. “
What?
There’s no link there, Anthony.”
“Probably not. But the timing is curious.”
“There was probably an earthquake in Mumbai last night too. That doesn’t mean it’s linked to Richard Thompson.”
“No … but this is different. How often are there attacks on multiple people at high levels of intelligence agencies of different countries on the same day?”
“Richard Thompson isn’t—”
“He’s CIA. Not State Department.”
“Bullshit. Where do you get that?”
“From his own files. When Julia and Crank Wilson busted into his office last night they had me along for the ride. There’s more here than meets the eye, Barlow.”
Barlow gave Anthony a cool look. Then he took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
“Fine, Anthony. You’re off the entertainment desk. I want you in charge of the team for this story.”
Anthony tried to fight back a grin. And failed. He was going to be back in his element. As he stood up, Linda Halloran stirred in her seat.
“Jackson,” said Linda. “Anthony’s got live assignments on the entertainment desk. He needs to finish those.”
Barlow dismissed her with a casual hand wave. “This is priority, Linda. Anthony—your show. What do you have?”
Anthony felt remarkably little tension in his stomach. This was a chance to get his life back. He was going for it. He walked around the conference table, picked up a dry erase marker, and wrote in large bold letters:
Same-day assassination attempt
Wakhan massacre?
R. Thompson - sexual assault of his wife 1991?
The others in the room stirred as he wrote the second and third line. To Anthony’s right, Jackson Barlow frowned.
Links between GP and R. Thompson?
R. Thompson - CIA career
Missing: Adelina Thompson, Dylan Paris, Andrea Thompson, Jessica Thompson
He stood back and looked at the white board.
“What am I missing?” he asked.
“What the hell is that about Wakhan? And sexual assault?” Barlow’s voice was harsh as he asked the question.
Anthony said, “What we found in Thompson’s office was … serious. First, Adelina Thompson was only sixteen when she conceived her first daughter. Richard Thompson married her when she was seventeen and already pregnant.”
“Holy shit,” someone muttered.
“Second—we found a report of a paternity test, determining that Carrie Sherman was not Thompson’s daughter. The very next day, after the report was written, we have a police report. Adelina Thompson was assaulted and raped in February 1990. She refused to press charges, but according to the San Francisco Police, her husband was the prime suspect.”
Silence had fallen across the room. “Finally—and this is the most confusing part for me—Thompson had a file with information about the Wakhan massacre in his office. Nothing classified there, everyone knows the massacre took place. What I want to know is this: did he know about it when it took place? Richard Thompson was assigned to the US Embassy in Pakistan in 1983.”
“Motherfucker,” Jackson said.
“I’ll look into the Pakistan stuff,” said Bill Leiby. “And the links with Prince George-Phillip. That’s really interesting. Did you know he was involved with the SIS investigation into Wakhan?”
Anthony’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”
Leiby nodded. “My timing may be off—it was, I don’t know—’84 maybe? The results never made the light of day, but I remember George-Phillip asking questions one day—”
Leiby’s eyes widened and met Anthony’s.
“What?” Anthony said.
“Understand, he was a kid then. Twenty-one maybe? I was on the diplomatic beat at the time. And there was some fuss—the British Embassy made a formal complaint to the paper.”
“About?”
“Our society page columnist wrote something about George-Phillip and Adelina Thompson being seen having a private lunch together.”
Barlow nodded. “Yeah, that happened. Maria Clawson wrote the story, I think.”
Anthony frowned in distaste. Maria Clawson was a gossip blogger, specializing in destroying people’s lives. “Clawson worked for the
Post
?”
“Until the late 90s,” Barlow said.
Anthony shook his head. “Jesus. Before my time. So—George-Phillip and Adelina Thompson had lunch in the 1980s. Anything more?”
Barlow shrugged. “No idea.”
“We’ll find out,” Leiby said.
“All right. We need to find out what the British concluded in their investigation of Wakhan. And I think we need to do our own investigation again.”
Linda Halloran said, “What about the political implications? Does anyone know if the President will keep backing Thompson’s nomination?”
Barlow shook his head. “I’ll be stunned if he does. And that’s going to get ugly.”
Anthony responded, “Everyone else will be covering the political angle. Does it hurt the President? How will this affect polling numbers? They’ll all miss the real story.”
Barlow pointed a finger at Anthony. “You better get the real story for us.”
Anthony nodded. “I’m on it.”
Julia. May 2. 2 pm.
The phone rang four times. Five. Six. Then it cut over to voicemail.
“You’ve reached the personal line of Richard Thompson. I can’t take your call right now. Please leave a clear message and a phone number.”
Julia clicked disconnect. She’d left messages already. Several of them, in fact. Her father wasn’t answering his phone.
Of course, he was the Secretary of Defense.
Plus,
he’d gotten news that morning that the Justice Department was investigating him under charges that were clearly ridiculous.
But he still needed to answer his damn phone.
She put her cell down and looked around the suite they’d checked into in Arlington. She needed to
do
something. She needed something to fix, something concrete to put her hands on. Carrie was back at the safe house, but neither she nor Julia knew the address. Her lawyer was meeting with the Internal Revenue Service, and there was absolutely nothing Julia could do to help that situation. She’d spent an hour on the phone with employees, both reassuring them and making sure their immediate needs were taken care of. But she felt a pit in her stomach. Payroll was in a few days, and the corporate accounts had been frozen, along with her and Crank’s savings and investment accounts. Their cash account had a lot of money in it, but not enough to cover payroll for any length of time.
Julia stood and paced. In the next room, behind a closed door, she could hear Crank practicing. He had the volume low, which was good. He’d been working on several new songs, and she’d been pushing. Pushing, because in some ways, the most recent songs he’d written seemed like rote. Morbid Obesity had been together more than a dozen years, and had released 8 albums. They’d done so many tours that the hotel rooms and suites across the globe had long since merged together into a hazy mess. But the music had always been cutting edge, emotional, deeply connected to who they were as people. Lately, though, it felt like they were following a formula.
She stood for just a second, tilting her head and listening to the tones of the guitar through the closed door. Hard to hear, but whatever Crank was working on, it had an odd, catchy, syncopated beat.
She reached for her phone again. Maybe Carrie had gotten clearance to meet.
It rang before she could touch it. She froze. The word “Dad” appeared across the front of her phone.
Answer. Decline. The two choices felt like the choice between good and evil, and she didn’t know which was which.
She stared at it. Her tongue felt like copper. She picked the phone up, tapped on the “answer” button and spoke without a pause for thought or breath, her words as much of a surprise to her as they would be to her father.
“Where’s my mother?”
Stunned silence at the other end. Then he said, in a perfectly calm, placating voice, “I don’t know, Julia. I don’t know where she is.”
A cold rage wrapped around her heart. “Why did the IRS close my offices this morning? What the hell is happening to our family,
Father
?”
“Julia, I am returning your call. I did not expect to be spoken to this way.”
“I didn’t expect to find out that—that…” She couldn’t say the words.
“Find out what?”
“I read the police report.”
“What police report? I have no idea what you are talking about.” His voice sounded damnably reasonable.
“Let me refresh your memory, Father.” Her voice was cutting and sarcastic and bore thirty years of lies and hurt. “The day after you found out Carrie wasn’t your daughter, Mom was beaten half to death and raped. Does that ring a bell?”
“Julia, where did you—”
“In your office, Father. You don’t even deny it?”
His response was unexpected, both harsh and insistent. “
In my office? When?”
“Yesterday. Right before two thugs broke into the house, tried to kill us, then set off a bomb.”
Silence. After a few seconds, he said, “There’s a great deal more to this than you realize, Julia. You mustn’t jump to conclusions.”
The bedroom door opened, and Crank appeared in the doorway. “Hey,” he said. “You won’t believe this song—” He froze and stopped talking when he saw her expression.
“What else can I do, Father? Apparently neither of my parents can be bothered to tell me the truth about anything. What else am I supposed to do other than come to my own conclusions?”