“Someone definitely heard that shot,” I said to the governor. “They’ll be coming for you.”
He shook his head. “Don’t think so.” He let his gaze wander around the suite. “Presidential suite, remember? Bulletproof glass. Soundproof rooms. Welcome to the waters where the big fish swim.” Then he tapped the Glock’s barrel against his palm. “Let’s see… So, how does this sound? Stressed-out FBI agent who lost his wife and got stuck behind a desk for six months finally gets back into the field but hasn’t quite recovered from his bouts with depression. Everyone in the office has noticed his erratic behavior and angry flare-ups. He concocts a wild conspiracy theory about the governor of North Carolina being involved in the Jonestown tragedy some thirty years earlier and despite being warned off the wild goose chase by his superiors, he takes things into his own hands and tries to assassinate the governor in his hotel room just one day after threatening him at his private residence. But thankfully, the private investigator who Governor Taylor had hired to investigate the rogue agent killed him before he could carry out his deadly plans.” Sebastian Taylor looked down at Trembley’s body. “Unfortunately for the PI, Dr. Bowers was able to squeeze off one final round, killing him, before expiring.”
OK, that actually sounded kind of believable to me.
“It’ll never fly,” I said.
“Oh, you seem to be forgetting, I’m very good at what I do.”
“Gunshot residue,” I said. “It’s all over your clothes, your face, your hands.”
“I was in the room when you shot him. It would be natural for some residue to be on me.”
That was actually a good point. How ironic. Location and timing of a crime were going to be the death of me. Literally.
Keep him talking.
“I still can’t believe that even you would be willing to sacrifice nine hundred innocent people,” I said.
He shook his head. “Never part of the plan. You should have figured that out by now. Ryan was the target. We knew we could pin the assassination on Peoples Temple, shut Jones down, show the world how crazy and unstable communists are. His followers were just collateral damage.” He smirked. “We weren’t sure exactly how Jones would react, but we figured he’d self-destruct-which he did. In the end it just went further than we thought it would.”
“That’s what you call the death of all those people? Going further than you thought it would? Collateral damage?” I felt anger pacing back and forth inside me, ready to pounce. “You used him. You used them all.”
“We did what we had to do. Ryan was a threat to our country, always fighting to limit the way the CIA did its work. We did it to protect freedom, not to limit it. We just created the perfect storm and waited to see how it would play out. I wasn’t sent in to make sense of it, just to help recast the story.”
“Remove the evidence, leave the rumors.”
“Eloquently put.”
“So what about the truth?” I said. “That doesn’t matter?”
He wet his lips with the tip of his tongue. “Rumors, Dr. Bowers, not truth, are what matter in the end. Rumors start wars, topple regimes, ruin marriages, end careers. The driving force behind world commerce is innuendo, not truth. Everything from the stock market to the futures market to the price of oil is determined by guesswork and gossip. Control the rumors, Dr. Bowers, and you control the world.”
“And in the case of Jonestown, you controlled the rumors.”
A smile writhed across his face. “We influenced them. After all, those people really did kill themselves off; we had nothing to do with that. All we did was shape the way their story was told.” He raised the Glock, pointed it at my chest. “Just as I’m going to shape the way your story will be told.”
Think fast… think fast…
“But then why’d you leave the tape behind? At least tell me that much.”
“I was interrupted before I could finish editing it.” He shook his head. “It’s that simple. Someone just showed up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Gotta hate those interruptions.” He took aim. Faster. Faster.
“Ralph and Lien-hua know.”
The governor scoffed. “They can’t prove anything.”
“No,” said a voice from behind me. “But I can.”
Governor Taylor and I turned to see a gentle-looking man in his early forties step into the room from where he’d apparently been hiding on the balcony.
“Hello, gentlemen,” he said. “My name is Aaron Jeffrey Kincaid. And I have something to give you.”
Tessa faced the door, her heart ready to explode. It was the last door in the hall. The killer would try it next.
911 hadn’t helped. Who? Who could she call?
She saw a cell phone recharging on the dresser. The phone Patrick had been using. It would have the phone numbers of the other FBI agents! She grabbed it.
It was turned off.
Pressed power.
Waited.
Heard the killer moving through the hallway.
Waited.
There.
She scrolled to the recent calls. The first name listed was Brent Tucker.