a big cartel is going down the tubes. There’s probably going to be several international murder trials_ The whole intelligence community’s going to be thrown for a loop. But the best part of the story will never be told.’
‘And why is that, Lieutenant?’
‘Because nobody can prove it.’
Howe leaned forward, eyes aglitter.
‘But I have to deal with it,’ O’Hara went on, ‘for my own sake — do you understand what I’m saying? I have some feelings of my own about it.’
‘So?’
‘So, I don’t believe in coincidence . I don’t believe Falmouth just came to you because he liked reading the Boston Star. I was set up from the start.’
‘I don’t follow you, Lieutenant.’
‘Sure you do. You follow me just fine.’
Howe’s expression got cold. Anger tweaked the corners of his eyes. ‘You saying I had something to do with this?’
‘No question about it.’
‘You’re a bit smug.’
‘I feel smug.’ He moved some things off the corner of Howe’s desk and sat down. ‘It was Quill, or Garvey, whichever you wish, who started me thinking. According to him, do you know who really started the whole thing? Poor old Red Bridges, only he didn’t have any idea how it was going to turn out. In March 1945 a Japanese supply ship called the Kira Maru was limping toward Tokyo after our dive bombers crippled her. She foundered, and most of the crew made it to the Bonin Islands. Five years later an ex-sailor named Red Bridges was running a salvage operation off the coast of Japan. He signed on a couple of sailors that had been on the Kira Maru. They told him about the freighter, and they located her in shallow water off one of the Volcano Islands. He went down to take a look, and what he found was oil bubbling up through the ocean floor at less than twenty fathoms.
‘Only Red knew about it. He didn’t share the information with the crew, he shared it with one man, his old friend Alexander Hooker, who was military governor of southern Honshu. It made Red a rich man and it ultimately killed him. And it made Hooker one of two men in the world that knew the location of what turned out to be one of the richest oil strikes on earth.
‘So Hooker started building his empire. He got his financing for it from wealthy friends. People who were elitists like himself. Who believe that the spoils go to the victor. Like the robber barons you admire, Mr Howe. Fisk and Doheny and Morgan and all the rest of those pirates, people like some of your friends in the photographs on your boat, Hell, you even bought a yacht that once belonged to Doheny.’
‘Get to the point,’ Howe said.
‘The point? The point is, you were one of them. You anted-up along with a bunch of other people in key places. I think you were one of the bankers on this merry-go-round. You used your clout to call off the Winter Man because you were all afraid of Chameleon. Hooker convinced you that Chameleon was a real threat, and Falmouth convinced Hooker that I was the man who could find him. Hooker was too close to pulling it off to have it blow up after all these years of planning—’
‘Pulling what off?’
‘A financial panic. First, drive up the price of oil and ruin the automobile industry. When it goes, the steel industry goes with it. Then keep pushing up the prime rate and wipe out the real estate business. Force the unions to their knees. Hell, right there’s enough to start a wholesale panic. And when it’s over, who’s got the money? You’ve got the money. Prime stockholders in Master.’
‘Ridiculous oversimplification, Lieutenant. Not worthy of you.’
‘Hooker didn’t think it was. He was going for broke. I don’t know whether it would have worked or not, that depends on the numbers. And we’ll never know who all the Players were because Hooker was the only one who knew, and he’s dead.’
Howe leaned back in his wheelchair. ‘Pie in the sky, m’ boy.’
‘The bubble’s busted, Howe. There’s not going to be any more AMRAN. No more Master. No more Mr Quill moving his assassins around the board.’
‘I was never involved in that.’
‘I believe it. I don’t believe any of you knew what was really going on. All you wanted was results. But you did know Falmouth would kill me if I led him to Chameleon. You marked me, Mr Howe.’
The old man seemed to sag into his chair, to grow older as O’Hara watched him.
‘I suppose you’ve got some kind of silly bug in your collar, recording all this rot.’
O’Hara shook his head. ‘No bugs. Just you and me talking.’
‘I didn’t know they planned to kill you. Not until Eliza told me this morning. All I did was get you and Falmouth together. Hooker was falling apart. It was important to put an end to this Chameleon thing.’
‘And you didn’t know about the Thoreau? The Marza business?’
Howe did not answer.
‘You walk out of this one clean, don’t you, Mr Howe? Only one thing — you don’t get it both ways.’
‘What do you mean, both ways? That’s the second time you said that.’
‘I mean, you’re a newsman before anything else, Howe. Greed comes second. I think you figured no matter how it went, you couldn’t lose. If I turned up Chameleon, Falmouth would take him out and either Gunn or I or both of us would have the story for you. If Falmouth killed me, too, Gunn would still have the story for you. Both ways see what I mean?’
