deep breath.
The calendar dates of the five times Arthur Lieberman had changed
interest rates on his own. The five times somebody out there had made
enough money to buy a country or maybe lost that much.
Sawyer’s question had finally been answered. He had one case, not two.
There was a connection between Jason and Lieberman. But what was it?
Another thought struck him. Edward Page had told Sidney he hadn’t been
following Jason Archer at the airport. The other person he could have
been dogging was Lieberman. Page could have been shadowing the Fed
chairman and walked right into Archer’s switch. But why follow
Lieberman? With a scowl, Sawyer finally put the message aside and
looked at the videocassette recording of Archer’s exchange at the
warehouse, which was sitting on the table. If Sidney was right about
Brophy knowing far more than Jason Archer, what the hell had been passed
off in that warehouse?
Could that be the connection to Arthur Lieberman? He hadn’t looked at
the tape in a while. He decided to fix that oversight right now.
He popped the tape in a VCR that rested under a large-screen TV in one
corner of the room. He poured some more coffee and hit the control; the
tape started. He watched the scene twice through. Then he watched it a
third time, in slow motion. A frown spread over his features. When he
had watched the tape for the very first time in Hardy’s off’ice,
something had made him frown then too. What the hell was it? He
rewound the tape again and then hit the start button.
Jason and the other man were waiting, Jason’s briefcase was visible.
The knock on the door, the other men came in. The old guy, the other
two in sunglasses. Real cute. Sawyer looked at the two burly men
again. They looked oddly familiar, but he couldn’t…
He shook his head and continued to watch. Here came the exchange, Jason
looking extremely nervous. Then the plane going over. The warehouse
was on a flight path to the airport, he had learned. Everyone in the
room looked up at the thundering sound. Sawyer jerked so hard he
spilled most of his coffee on his shirt. Only this time it wasn’t from
the sound of the plane.
“Holy shit!” He froze the tape. Then he planted his face a bare inch
from the screen. He grabbed the phone. “Liz, I need your magic, and
this time, Professor, it’ll be dinner.” He quickly told her what he
wanted.
It took Sawyer two minutes, running fiat out, to reach the lab.
The equipment was all set up, a smiling Liz standing next to it.
Sawyer, puffed hard, handed her the tape, which she put into another
VCR. She sat down at a control panel and the tape began to play. The
screen it appeared on was a good sixty inches across.
“Okay, okay, get ready, Liz. There! Right there!” Sawyer almost jumped
off the floor in his excitement.
Liz froze the tape and then hit some buttons on her panel. The human
figures on the screen grew until they spanned the whole screen. There
was only one person Sawyer was looking at. “Liz, can you blow this part
up right here?” His thick finger stabbed at a specific section of the
screen. Liz did as he asked.
Sawyer shook his head in silent amazement. Liz joined him in looking at
the startling scene. She looked up at him. “You were right, Lee. What
does it mean?”
Sawyer stared at the man who had identified himself to Jason Archer as
Anthony DePazza on that fateful November morning in drizzly Seattle.
More specifically, Sawyer zeroed in on DePazza’s neck, which was clearly
visible, since he had jerked his head up when the plane had gone over.
In fact, Sawyer and Liz were both staring at a clear break in the
neckline, real and false skin.
“I’m not sure, Liz. But why the hell is the guy with Archer wearing
some sort of a disguise?”
Liz stared wistfully at the screen. “I used to be into that when I was
a thespian in college.”
“Into what?”
“You know, costumes, makeup, masks. For when we put on a performance.