“Yes, if you go along with their plan to spin off corporate restructuring,” he said as he stood up and began poking at the fire. “They don’t want to kill either one of you, if they can avoid it. I think their feelings of guilt over your father, especially Tate’s, are deeper than they expected.”
“Do you know where she is?”
“No one knows except Tate. Maybe Swatling,” Carter said, turning from the fire to look at Wilson.
Wilson leaned back on the couch and shook his head at Carter. “And you still think we can expose them?”
“Me, not you. Going along with their plan to divest corporate restructuring is your best chance of seeing Emily again.”
“But you’re not certain?”
“No, Wilson, I’m not,” Carter said, turning back toward the fire. “Tate arranged Emily’s kidnapping without any of the other partners knowing. To protect our deniability, was how he justified it.”
Wilson stayed silent, reliving his earlier lunch with Tate and waiting for the returning nausea to subside. What Hap had told him was true. Emily’s life depended on finding her before it was too late. To accomplish that, Wilson needed to know everything Carter knew or was willing to tell him about the secret partnership. “You’re not worried that Tate will have you killed?” Wilson asked.
“No,” Carter said firmly. “He no longer sees me as a threat.”
“Why?”
“Your father’s coma was enough for them. If I were going to challenge them, I would have already done so. That’s what they think,” Carter said with the same distant look in his eyes. “Truth is made true, Wilson. Remember your William James? My partners expect me to make sure you spin off corporate restructuring. As long as I continue to contribute to the game, they will not perceive me as a threat.”
Wilson studied Carter who was standing by the fire. “Is that why you invited me here? To convince me?”
“That is entirely up to you, Wilson. No more games.”
“It’s a little late for that, don’t you think?”
“Your father put you at the center of things, despite my efforts to dissuade him. Now we have no choice but to work together.”
“Why was my great-grandfather killed?”
“To keep him from publishing his memoirs.”
“Where are they?”
Carter shrugged. “Hidden. Stolen. Destroyed. I wish I could tell you, but I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
Carter frowned at him. “I’ve been trying to keep you alive.”
“I heard Tate’s version. Tell me yours. What exactly were you and my father trying to prove?”
Carter sat down again, his eyes piercing. “That freedom is a lie. That anyone with less than ten million dollars in liquid uncollateralized assets is an economic slave. That those at the top of the socioeconomic ladder are feeding on the weaknesses of those below them. Capitalistic Darwinism is our reality. Democracy is faltering because freedom and liberty are grossly inequitable. Everyone knows that the wealthy have infinitely more freedom and power to self-realize than the poor or the middle class, and the gap is widening. But no one’s addressing the underlying cause. Competition is the weakness, not the strength, of capitalism. What we lose from insufficient collaboration and cooperation dwarfs what we gain from rabid competition.”
A sudden burst of energy like a stroke of genius or moment of clarity took Wilson’s breath away. Trust him. Carter is not your enemy. For an instant, as if observing the scene from outside his body, he allowed himself to admire his father and Carter again. While the feeling lingered, Wilson asked the one question he knew Carter was waiting for, “What do we do now?”
Carter smiled, “I was uncertain you would ever ask that question of me again.” He walked over to a locked cabinet amid the bookshelves and gathered up eight large volumes, four at a time, and placed them in front of Wilson.
Wilson opened the first volume. It was two inches thick and slightly larger than a letter-sized binder. Inside was a well-organized collection of journal entries, company profiles, executive biographies, manipulation summaries, stock price fluctuations, financial analyses, press clippings, corporate memos, and extracts from annual reports. Thumbing through the other volumes, Wilson found more of the same. “Is this your disclosure?”
“These are the paper summaries of eight years worth of corporate manipulations and financial system abuses. The supporting computer files, audio and video clips, and detailed analyses are backed up by hard drives, thumb drives, and CDs. I’m still working on the final disclosure document. It should be ready for the FBI and the Justice Department within a few days,” Carter said, his face becoming dour again. He remained silent for a few moments, staring into the fire before adding, “If for some reason anything goes wrong, and I am no longer in the picture, someone will be in touch with you. Your father and I called him the Watcher. You can trust him. Focus on the money at the highest levels. Generations of concealed corruption have created unimaginable wealth and unparalleled institutional protection. If I didn’t think you’d already made up your mind about all of this, I’d tell you to walk away from it. But I guess it’s too late for that.”
Wilson looked at Carter curiously, wondering if he would ever be able to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. He simply nodded. It’s too late to keep me out or expect me to walk away, he thought. For the next few hours, Wilson studied the eight volumes of history, discussed disclosure timing with Carter, and mulled over dozens of contingencies. It must have been a trait he inherited from his father, Wilson thought.
Regardless, he knew that as soon as Wayland Tate placed his plan for divesting corporate restructuring into his hands, Hap and his people would have only a couple of days to find Emily. He prayed they’d made sense of her clues.
When Wilson left Carter’s home, he considered stopping at Brattle House to confront his mother, but he wasn’t ready for that. Hap had assured him that they were safe and that was enough for now. As he drove to the Back Bay apartment near the Fielder Building, he decided it was time to bring in the authorities, mostly because of what he’d read during the past several hours. His concern for Carter’s safety was growing.
49
Hap — Boston, MA
There was dead silence in the twenty-by-fifteen-foot bedroom where Hap Greene and his associates-Driggs, Jones, Potter, Irving, and an independent decoding specialist named Rachwalski-had set up a strategy room in Wilson’s Back Bay apartment. Coffee cups, water bottles, and paper plates with the remains of pizza and sushi were strewn over the round table in the center of the room.
Hap sat back in his molded plastic chair staring at the wall covered with hundreds of pieces of paper ranging in size from post-it notes to flip charts. Taped to the top of the wall written in black ink on folded flip charts were Emily’s three messages with potential keywords underlined:
Underneath the three messages were eleven columns of pieces of paper in various shapes and colors. Each column was labeled with a yellow three-by-five-inch index card bearing a keyword written in black ink. Under the “jet” column there were no names because everyone in the room had concluded that the word jet simply referred to jet airplane and airport. Under the “seesaw” column were the names of airports near the sea-i.e., Boston (Logan),
