“Right. Prove it,” Hardy said with disgust.
“He went to you. The ‘outside’ guy. The former FBI agent with a list
of commendations as long as his arm.” Sawyer spat this last sentence
out. “He went to you so you could help him expose the whole thing. Only
you couldn’t let that happen. Triton Global’s your gravy train. Giving
up private jets, the pretty ladies and nice clothes wasn’t an option,
was it?”
Sawyer continued, “Then you all took me through the dog and pony show,
setting up Jason to be the bad guy. You guys must’ve been laughing your
asses off at how you suckered me. Or thought you had. But when you saw
I wasn’t buying all of it, you got a little nervous.
Was it your idea to have Gamble offer me a job? Between you and him I
never felt so popular.” Hardy remained silent. “But that wasn’t your
only performance, Frank.”
Sawyer reached in his pocket and took out a pair of sunglasses and put
them on. He looked quite ridiculous in the darkness. “You remember
these, Frank? The two guys on the video in the warehouse in Seattle?
They were wearing sunglasses, indoors, in a fairly dark room. Why would
anybody do that?”
“I don’t know.” Hardy’s voice was a mere whisper now.
“Sure you do. Jason thought he was handing over his proof… to the
FBI. At least in the movies all Feds wear shades and the guys you hired
to play the FBI agents must have liked going to the theater.
You couldn’t just kill Jason. You had to win his trust, make sure he
hadn’t told anyone. A top priority was getting back all the hard
evidence he had. The videotape of the exchange had to be in pristine
condition because you knew you’d be giving it to us as evidence of
Jason’s guilt. You only had one shot to get it right. But Archer was
still suspicious. That’s why he kept a copy of the information on
another disk and later sent it to his wife. Did you tell him he’d get a
big reward from the government? Was that it? Probably told him it was
the biggest damned sting in the history of the FBI.”
Hardy remained silent.
Sawyer looked at his old partner. “But unknown to you, Frank, Gamble
had his own big problem. Namely that Arthur Lieberman was about to
spill his guts. So he hires Riker to sabotage Lieberman’s plane. I’m
sure you didn’t know about that part of the plan. On Gamble’s orders
you arrange for Archer to get ticketed on the flight to Los Angeles, and
then you had him pull a switch and he gets on the flight to Seattle
instead so you could film your little videotape of the exchange. Rich
Lucas is ex-CIA, he probably had lots of ties to former Eastern European
operatives with no families, no past. The guy who went down in Archer’s
place wouldn’t be missed. You had no idea Lieberman was on the L.A.
flight or that Gamble was going to kill him. But Gamble knew it was the
only way the blame for Lieberman’s death could be thrown on Archer. And
with it, Gamble kills two birds with one stone: Archer and Lieberman.
You bring me the video and I switch all my efforts to catching Jason and
I forget all about poor old Arthur Lieberman. Except for Ed Page
wandering into the picture, I don’t think I would’ve ever picked up
Lieberman’s thread again.
“And let’s not forget old RTG, who got blamed for everything, with
Triton conveniently ending up with CyberCom. I told you about Brophy
being in New Orleans. You found out he was actually connected to RTG
and that they might actually accomplish what you’d set Jason up for:
working with RTG. So you had Brophy and Goldman followed and when the
opportunity arose, you took them both out and set up Sidney Archer to
take the fall. Why not? You’d already done the same thing to her
husband.” Sawyer paused.
“That’s a hell of a transition, Frank: FBI agent to participation in a
massive criminal conspiracy. Maybe I should take you on a visit to the