Ten years ago someone may have corrupted the United States Lottery. At least once, possibly more. The ramifications were truly terrifying to think about. The federal government depended on the revenue from that lottery to fund a myriad of programs, programs that were now so entrenched politically that it would be impossible to repeal them. But if the source of those funds was contaminated? If the American People ever discovered that fact?
Masters’s mouth went dry with the thought. He swallowed some water from a carafe on his desk and downed a couple of aspirin to combat the beginnings of what would still become a torturous headache. He composed himself and picked up his phone. “Get me the director,” he instructed. While he waited for the call to go through, Masters sat back in his chair. He knew this eventually would have to go up to the White House. But he’d let the director talk to the attorney general and the A.G. could talk to the president. If his conclusions were right, so much shit would hit the fan that everyone would eventually be covered in it.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Jackson was again in his suite and was again staring at his laptop. LuAnn had met with Riggs several times now. Jackson would give her another few hours to call. He was disappointed in her nonetheless. He had not tapped LuAnn’s phone line, an oversight that he had decided was not worth remedying at this point. She had caught him a little off-guard by sending Lisa away so quickly. The associate he had retained to track LuAnn’s movements had been compelled to follow Charlie and Lisa, thereby depriving Jackson of a valuable pair of eyes. Thus, he did not know that LuAnn and Donovan had already met.
He had contemplated sending for more people so that all bases would be covered, but too many strangers lurking around town would probably raise suspicion. He wanted to avoid that if possible. Particularly because there was a wild card out there he was unsure of: Matt Riggs. He had transmitted Riggs’s fingerprints to the same information source and was awaiting a reply.
Jackson’s mouth sagged as the information spread over the screen. The name that appeared as the owner of the fingerprints was not Matthew Riggs. For a moment Jackson wondered if he could have lifted someone else’s prints in the cottage by mistake. But that was impossible; he had seen the exact area the man calling himself Matt Riggs had touched. There could have been no mistake there. He quickly decided to check the other source of a possible mistake. He dialed the number and spoke at length to the person on the other end.
“This one was tricky,” the voice said. “We went through normal channels initially to avoid any suspicions. We believe the request was kicked to senior level and we received back a ‘no-fingerprint-found’ reply.”
“But a person was identified,” Jackson said.
“Right, but only after we went back through other channels.” Jackson knew that meant hacking into a database. “That’s when we pulled up the information we transmitted to you.”
“But it’s a different name than the one he’s using now and it lists him as being deceased.”
“Right, but the thing is, when a criminal dies, the standard procedure is to fingerprint the corpse and transmit the prints to the FBI for verification. When that’s completed, the pointer—the linkage used to retrieve the print from the database—is deleted. The result is that there are, technically, no prints of deceased criminals on the database.”
“So how do you explain what you just sent me? Why would they want to have this person listed as deceased but under another name?”
“Well, that tells me that the name listed on the database is his real one and the one he’s using now is phony. The fact that he’s listed as dead tells me that the Feds want people to believe he’s dead, including anyone who might try to get access to their database to check. I’ve seen the Feds do that before.”
“Why?”
The answer the man gave him caused Jackson to slowly hang up the phone. Now it all made sense. He stared at the screen.