Dead on Arrival

Nick Fine had cut the legs right out from under Oliver Lincoln.

Lincoln was sitting in his cell, on the lower bunk, dressed in a plain white T-shirt and a pair of too-short jeans. On his feet were flip-flops. Above Lincoln, another man lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, doing nothing. The man was a child molester named Martin Cole. The first day they placed Lincoln in the cell with Cole, Cole had been sitting on the lower bunk. Without saying a word to Cole, Lincoln had pulled him off the bunk, dragged him over to the foul-smelling, shit-splattered toilet in the cell, and bashed out two of Cole’s teeth against the toilet bowl. He then instructed Cole to move himself — and the mattress he’d been lying on — to the upper bunk, and he further instructed him that whenever Lincoln was in the cell, Cole was to lie on the upper bunk, doing and saying nothing.

Oliver Lincoln was a very angry man, and Martin Cole had been taught a lesson that many others had learned before him: Lincoln may have appreciated the soft and finer things in life, but there was nothing soft about him.

As it had done with Bianca Castro, the FBI had laid out its case against Lincoln. It had Bianca willing to testify that he had paid her to kill Jubal Pugh. Based on that testimony, they would then build the box around Lincoln, which would be constructed like this: Jubal Pugh had given statements prior to his death that a man named Mr Jones had paid him and directed him to coerce Muslim Americans to commit terrorist acts, the results of which had been the deaths of a number of people, two of them children. One of Pugh’s men took a photograph that the FBI had used to identify Lincoln. Previously, the photo had been of questionable value as evidence, but since Bianca had testified that Lincoln had ordered her to kill Pugh, the FBI now had the link between Pugh and Lincoln that it needed. So, as a minimum, the FBI could send Lincoln to jail for life for Pugh’s murder — and the murder of the poor man who ran the junkyard where Pugh had worked. But now, thanks to Senator Fine, the FBI could put the bow on the package: it could convict Lincoln for being the mastermind behind the terrorist attacks. All the Bureau had to do was to get him to admit that he’d worked for Broderick.

But he wouldn’t.

‘Nick Fine hired me,’ Lincoln said.

‘You’re lying,’ the Bureau responded. ‘You know that in order to save your rotten ass you gotta point the finger at somebody, and you knew if you pointed the finger at a dead senator you’d be screwed. So instead, you lying bastard, you’ve decided to accuse Nick Fine.’

‘I’m telling you it was Fine,’ Lincoln said.

‘Can you prove it?’ the Bureau said.

And that was the rub. He couldn’t prove it.

As a minimum he was going to spend the rest of his life in jail. His days of Rubinacci suits and champagne were over. He might be able to avoid the death penalty — the case that he’d organized the terrorist attacks wasn’t airtight, but it was tight enough that he’d never see the outside of a jail cell again.

73

On a glorious day in mid-June, Mahoney met with Emma and DeMarco at Emma’s house. It being Mahoney, DeMarco knew there was some selfish reason for this. Mahoney may have been in the neighborhood for some other purpose — a lot of wealthy Democrats lived in McLean — or he may have been on his way to Dulles to take off on some taxpayer-funded boondoggle. All that DeMarco knew for sure was that Mahoney had selected the location because it was best for Mahoney and not because it was convenient for anyone else.

Emma, DeMarco, and Christine — and Christine’s dog — were sitting on the patio, drinking lemonade and enjoying Emma’s garden, which was in full bloom. When Mahoney arrived, the first thing he did was charm the pants off Christine as well as any philandering, chauvinistic, lecherous male can charm the pants off a lesbian. He took Christine’s little dog from her hands, held it up like a campaign-stop baby, bussed it on the head, and proclaimed the animal to be the cutest little bundle of fur he’d ever seen.

‘What’s his name?’ Mahoney asked, correctly identifying the dog’s gender. He must have spotted the minuscule organ hidden amid all the hair.

DeMarco immediately swiveled his head to hear what Christine would say.

Christine looked at DeMarco, smiled slightly, then said, ‘It’s Jo-Jo. I had a dog named Jo-Jo when I was a little girl.’

‘Well, he’s just as cute as a bug’s ear,’ Mahoney said.

Christine excused herself by saying that she had to practice. As she walked away, Mahoney, oblivious to the daggers that Emma was looking at him, admired Christine’s legs and backside. He flopped down on the chaise lounge that Christine had vacated and said to Emma, ‘You got anything to drink around this place?’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ Emma muttered. But she got up and said, ‘What do you want, bourbon?’

‘With a wee bit of ice, that would be lovely,’ Mahoney said.

When Emma returned with Mahoney’s drink — and a bottle of bourbon that she placed on the patio table next to him — he said, ‘So you guys think Fine set this whole thing up?’

‘Yeah,’ DeMarco said. ‘I never considered him for one simple reason. He didn’t have the money. Somebody had to pay Pugh and Lincoln big bucks to do what they did, so I figured it had to be Dobbler or Edith Baxter or even Broderick. But not Fine.’

‘But it turns out he did have the money,’ Mahoney said.

‘Yep. He had access to all Broderick’s contributions. In other words, Fine did exactly what he accused Broderick of doing, but he set it up so if something went wrong, it would appear that Broderick had organized the whole thing.’

‘So what was Fine’s motive?’ Mahoney said.

‘I think at first it was money,’ DeMarco said. ‘This is all conjecture, but I think Fine’s the guy that sucked Dobbler in. If Broderick’s bill had passed, Dobbler would have gotten a contract worth a few billion, and I think Dobbler would have given Fine his cut. I think, in the beginning, Nicky Fine said, “Screw it. These white bastards won’t let me be a senator, and I’m sick and tired of working for chicken feed.”

‘So I think what happened is this,’ DeMarco went on. ‘The two guys in Baltimore tried to blow up the tunnel, and Fine, not Broderick, came up with the Muslim registry idea. He talked Broderick into launching his bill, and then he tells Dobbler how they can both get rich if the bill is passed and convinces Dobbler to give him a bucket of cash to grease the wheels.

‘He knows, however, that two guys trying to blow up a tunnel won’t be enough. So Fine, who knew about Lincoln — he lied to the media when he said he didn’t — hatches the idea to coerce Muslims to do things like fly planes into the White House and paid Lincoln to execute his plan.’

‘But why did he have Broderick killed?’

It was odd, DeMarco thought, but Mahoney appeared completely relaxed as he asked his questions. Maybe it was the bourbon, but he didn’t think so.

‘To get the bill passed,’ DeMarco said, in response to Mahoney’s question. ‘Broderick’s bill almost had the support it needed. It had already passed in the Senate, it looked like it might pass in the House, but there you were, gumming up the works. Fine figured he just needed one more little thing to get it over the hump: kill Broderick and turn him into a martyr. Remember, all Fine wanted at this point was the money he’d make off Dobbler. But then Fine thinks, Why not go for the whole enchilada? Why not replace Broderick in the Senate? The Republicans almost gave him the job when Wingate retired, so Fine cozies up to the governor of Virginia and in return for appointing him to fill the Senate seat, he gets the governor a teaching job at UVA. Or, for all we know, maybe Fine gave the governor an even bigger payoff.’

‘But then the bill doesn’t pass because you nailed Jubal,’ Mahoney said.

‘Right,’ DeMarco said, ‘but Nick Fine still got the consolation prize. He got to be a U.S. senator.’

‘So why can’t they get to Fine through Dobbler?’ Mahoney said.

‘Because Dobbler would have to admit he was in collusion with Fine to rig a government contract. Dobbler’s gotta be madder than hell right now, about all the money he invested to get Broderick’s bill passed, but he’s not gonna incriminate himself by pointing the finger at Fine.’