Forget what T. S. Eliot said about April—February is the cruelest month. Christmas vacation is long past, and spring break seems like a mirage in the distance. The weather is cold and sodden, snow melts in your shoes, your nose runs constantly, and every classroom and dormitory smells like wet dog. Students’ faces grow longer and grimmer with each passing week. The only good thing about February is that it’s also the shortest month, although this fact did not bring me much comfort in my first week of February as a teacher. My students were struggling through Macbeth, which I had loved as a fourth former, particularly the Roman Polanski film version. With cold winds and occasional sleet buffeting the windows of the classroom, I would circle up the class to read Shakespeare aloud, trying to instill in them a love of language and a sense of the passion and the evil in the play. In response, they ducked their heads and spoke into their books, as if mortified to hear their own voices.
Listening to Stephen Watterson attempt to read Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here” speech aloud, I looked out the window at the gray morning sky and the snow on the ground and wondered how much longer I could continue being the responsible English teacher. I was much more interested in my newer role of detective.
Fate must have been listening, like a jaded old gambler who sees a fresh mark he can play, because he dealt me an early win. My laptop pinged quietly, and I turned away from the window and glanced at my screen. I had a new e-mail, two words from Trip Alexander: Call me.
TRIP WOULDN’T JUST TELL me over the phone what he’d learned but insisted that we meet in person. This aspect of detective work hadn’t occurred to me—I’d envisioned an exchange of information via e-mail or a phone call, not driving across northern Virginia to meet Trip in a hotel room off the highway. But I had asked for his help, so on my free Saturday that month, I drove for two hours through sleet and bad traffic to a hotel outside of Culpeper. It was not a cheerful trip. Grimy snow and slush lined the roadside. Houses sat back from the road with a closed, brooding look. Knots of trees stood bare against a freezing rain that fell from a sky the color of iron. At one point, I passed a tow truck, its amber lights revolving, as it labored to pull a crumpled car out of a ditch.
By the time I got to Culpeper, I was in a foul mood. My shoulders ached from the stress of being hunched over my steering wheel and peering at the road through the frozen rain. I wondered why Trip was being so cloak-and-dagger. I’d asked him to find out all he could about Fritz’s disappearance, but I thought it must be the second request I’d made of Trip—to find out what he could about the Davenports and NorthPoint—that was behind this clandestine rendezvous. I glanced at the small duffel I had tossed in the front seat. At the last minute, I had packed the bag, not wanting to get stuck overnight in bad weather without a change of clothes.
The Hancock Inn was a graceless stucco box. Dark stains ran down the walls by the downspouts. If possible, an overnight visit was now even less appealing. The parking lot was half-empty. I pulled into a space near the front entrance and called Trip on my cell. “I’m here,” I said when he picked up.
“Room two-twelve,” he said, and hung up.
I stared at my phone, trying to formulate an appropriate response to this Mickey Mouse bullshit. Then I stuffed the phone into my coat pocket and got out of the car. I passed through the glass front doors and into the lobby with its heavy wooden furniture upholstered in a shocking maroon-and-green floral pattern. The desk clerk glanced up at me with a painted-on smile and then went back to her magazine when it was clear I wasn’t there to book a room.
When I found Trip’s room on the second floor, I knocked on the door, and after a moment, Trip opened it. He looked as if he had slept in his clothes, but he was grinning. “Hey,” he said, grasping me by the shoulder and drawing me into the room. “Thanks for coming. Bad drive?”
“Bad enough,” I said. “What’s with all this sneaking-around crap, anyway? We meeting with Deep Throat or something?”
I took a few steps into the room and froze. It was a typical hotel room—two queen-sized beds facing a long dresser with a built-in TV, and two chairs flanking a small table at the far end of the room. What was atypical was the man in a khaki-and-green uniform who stood up from one of the chairs. “Deep Throat, my ass,” he said. It was Diamond.
I stood gaping at him for a few seconds. I hadn’t seen Diamond since graduation. Now he was standing in front of me in a military uniform, rows of multicolored ribbons over his left breast pocket. His cornrows were gone, his hair shorn so close he was nearly bald. “Diamond,” I said. “What the fuck?”
He grinned. “Still haven’t cleaned up your language, have you, Fuckhead?” he said, and the sound of his rich, deep voice suddenly made it true—Daryl Cooper was standing in front of me. I held out my hand, which Diamond took and squeezed, and then he pulled me to him. Startled, I leaned back, resisting for half a second, until I realized he was trying to hug me. I relented, awkwardly clapping him on the back.
“So what the hell, man?” I asked, pulling back. “You’re in the army?”
Diamond punched me in the arm—it was playful punch, but it still felt like someone had whacked me in the arm with a baseball bat. “Marines, fool,” he said. “I’m no army doggie.”
Trip said, “This here is Captain Cooper, Matthias. Marine adjutant at the Pentagon.”
I stared at Trip and then at Diamond. “But . . . you were going to Duke,” I said. “On a football scholarship.”
“Still did,” Diamond said. “Then Nine/Eleven happened, and I talked to a recruiter and joined ROTC by December. When I graduated, the Corps sent me to Iraq.”
“You fought in Iraq?”
Diamond nodded. “Anbar Province, Ramadi, Haditha. Lots of places.”
Trip smiled faintly. “You really ought to read the alumni magazine, Matthias.”
I dimly recalled reading somewhere about Anbar being one of the more difficult areas of Iraq for American troops and their allies—the insurgents had been based there, or something. I’d shaken my head when I’d read in the papers about casualties from suicide bombers and the like in Iraq, but I’d had no idea Diamond was there. It made sense—if Diamond was going to be a marine, he’d want to be right in the thick of it.
“So,” I said, making an effort to be lighthearted, “you got moved stateside to a desk job. How’d you manage that?”
Diamond plucked at his right pant leg and lifted it up to reveal a metallic, skeletal limb. “Lost my leg below the knee from an RPG outside Ramadi,” he said. “Not exactly suitable for running across the desert after al-Qaeda.”
I stared at Diamond’s leg, or what was left of it. The rest of him looked fine—hell, he still looked like a bronzed Perseus come to life—and he’d spoken of losing his leg matter-of-factly, without a hint of regret or self-pity, but I was stunned. I couldn’t wrap my head around all of this. The indelible image I had always had of Diamond was of him running effortlessly on the football field, the ball cradled safely in one arm. Now he stood before me on a prosthetic leg. I had a sudden unpleasant image of Diamond and Pelham Greer, the Blackburne groundskeeper, comparing stumps. Diamond had been my roommate and my friend, and I hadn’t even bothered to try to see him after we graduated.
“Matthias, you okay?” Trip asked.
I nodded. “Just need to sit down,” I said. The room shimmered for a moment, like heat waves off summer-hot asphalt, and then I was sitting on the edge of a bed, blinking dazedly. “Water,” I managed to say. Trip ducked into the bathroom. I heard water running, and then he reemerged with a plastic cup, which he almost spilled in his haste.
Diamond looked at me and gave a short grunt of a laugh. “He’s all right,” he said to Trip. “Just smiled at something. Probably laughing at you running over here like his mother with a glass of water.”
“Drink this,” Trip said to me. “Ignore the marine. Come on, drink it.”
I took the cup and waved Trip off. “I can drink it all by myself, honest,” I said. “I just . . . got dizzy for a second. Lot to take in.” I took a sip of water and concentrated on breathing. “I guess I almost fainted,” I said after a few moments. “Never happened to me before.”
“Well,” Diamond said, “I have been known to have that effect on people. Though typically they look much better than you.”
Trip and Diamond pulled up chairs and sat across from me, perched on the edge of the bed. “So,” I said, feeling on the cusp of something momentous—a feeling that, at the same time, I found ludicrous. “Don’t take this the wrong way, guys, but why the surprise reunion? And why meet in some hotel outside of Culpeper? Why not in D.C.?”
“Because D.C.’s wired six ways to Sunday with surveillance,” Trip said.
I smiled. “What, Big Brother is watching us?”
Diamond’s mouth quirked. “You have no idea,” he said.
Trip said, “I called Diamond and asked if he would help me with a little research.”
“About Fritz?” I asked.
Trip looked at Diamond and then back at me. “About his father’s company, NorthPoint.”
I turned to Diamond, whose face was expressionless. “What do you know about NorthPoint?” I asked. I think I kept my voice relatively calm.
Trip and Diamond glanced at each other. “Just so we’re clear,” Diamond said, “I am saying and doing nothing that compromises national security.”
“Um, okay,” I said. “Do I need to take some kind of oath or something?”
In a low voice, Trip said, “He’s serious, Matthias.”
I raised my hands in mock surrender. “Okay, I get it. I’m not asking anybody to compromise national security, for Christ’s sake. I just want to know what happened to Fritz. Do you know something, Diamond? Trip?”
A few moments passed in taut silence. Then Trip and Diamond both leaned forward to talk, and then stopped, unwilling to interrupt each other. Curiously, it was Diamond who leaned back and gestured to Trip to start.
“Okay,” Trip said, running his hands through his hair as if slicking it back. “NorthPoint’s been contracting with the government for years, ever since Fritz’s father started it back in the eighties. But since Nine/Eleven, it’s mushroomed. More office buildings, more employees, lots of new areas of interest.”
“What does that have to do with Fritz?”
“I’ll get there,” Trip said. “Just follow me. NorthPoint was a privately owned company until 1997 when they went public. They needed investor money, and they got it. Allowed them to push through R and D in several areas, get more contracts with Uncle Sam, and become a major player. I couldn’t find any financials on NorthPoint before ’ninety-seven—one of the privileges of being a privately owned company up to that point—but I was able to find budget info for them after they went public. And in 2000, they had one curious item: a three-hundred-thousand-dollar increase in payment to Alliance, a private detective firm in Reston, Virginia.”
I tamped down my irritation and played along. “So they hired private detectives,” I said. “What’s the big deal?”
“Why would a security company earning millions of dollars a year hire private detectives?” Trip asked. “They’d have their own guys. Why hire outside people?” He looked at me encouragingly, but I shrugged, not getting it. “Corporate espionage,” Trip said. “Companies spying on companies, stealing trade secrets, research, technology. This isn’t like Pepsi trying to steal Coke’s formula, though. This is one IT company trying to steal another IT company’s latest project so they can develop it. Problem is, the latest project is a government contract, which means money and power and—if the wrong people get their hands on the project—maybe even a threat to national security. So companies like these will hire private detectives to dig up dirt on competitors, or find out who leaked details about the new gizmo to another company. In December of 2000, NorthPoint’s budget for private detective services spiked.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Don’t know. Which is why I called Captain Cooper.” Trip turned to Diamond with a light flourish. For his part, Diamond just sat in his chair, shoulders back, feet flat on the floor, hands resting on his knees. “He’s involved in military intel,” Trip continued. “Which is why he’s very clear about what he will and will not share.”
I shook my head. “The Marines are involved in . . . spying? I thought that was the CIA.”
Diamond snorted. “Every service branch has an intelligence service,” he said. “Army, navy, air force, coast guard. And most definitely the Corps.”
Trip leaned forward. “Matthias, this goes beyond the military or organizations like the CIA. There’s an entire community in America that thrives on top-secret work. And when I say community, I’m not talking about some secret town in the desert. I’m talking about more than a thousand government organizations, two thousand private companies.”
I took this in for a second. “Private companies like NorthPoint,” I said.
Diamond and Trip both nodded. It was Diamond’s turn to sit forward. “NorthPoint works with the Corps, the navy, NSA, DIA,” he said. “Cyber ops is one area they’re involved in.”
“Cyber ops?”
“Cyber operations,” Diamond said. “Digital espionage and warfare. Imagine attacking an enemy through his computer network, crippling his communications, his logistics. Or stealing intel by hacking into his database. Designing defenses to keep others from doing the same to your computer systems. That’s one area NorthPoint is into, big-time. Add in surveillance technology, satellite imagery, technical intelligence of all kinds, and NorthPoint is a player. Upward of a billion dollars in revenue a year.”
Stubbornly, I said, “I still don’t see what this has to do with Fritz.”
Diamond held up a finger, as if shushing me. “Three months before Fritz disappeared, NorthPoint dropped a lot of cash on private detectives. More than twice what they’d ever spent before.”
“That doesn’t mean the two are connected.”
“True,” Diamond said. “It’s simply a point of reference.” Now he held up two fingers. “Point number two,” he said. “After Fritz goes missing, the feds get involved. Then one week later, they drop it. That didn’t make sense to me. Your deputy friend was right—the FBI doesn’t get involved and then just walk away. So I talked to a buddy of mine at Justice, ex-marine. He did some digging and told me that the Davenports called an old friend of theirs at the FBI, two days after Fritz went missing. Friend’s name is Jeff Jacobsen. He was assistant director of the FBI’s cyber division. Soon after that, the FBI shows up at Blackburne.”
I was growing frustrated. “Diamond, we already know they called the FBI.”
Diamond shook his head. “Not they, Matthias. It was Mary Davenport who called.”
I frowned. “Mrs. Davenport? Fritz’s mother?”
Now Trip spoke. “Jacobsen wasn’t just an old family friend. He dated a girl named Mary Gillespie in college. She broke up with Jacobsen to go out with another classmate, Frank Davenport. And now she’s Fritz’s mother.”
I stared at him. “Exactly how much did you find out about the Davenports?”
Trip shrugged. “You asked me to dig. I dug.”
I got up off the bed and started pacing around. I’d discovered while teaching that I liked to do this when I thought, especially out loud. “Okay, so what? Mrs. Davenport calls up an old boyfriend at the FBI. Makes sense. Her son’s missing. I’d do the same thing.”
Diamond looked at me. “It was Fritz’s dad who called Jacobsen back and told him to drop it.”
I stopped pacing and sat down on the bed again. I felt I needed something solid underneath me. “Mrs. Davenport calls an old boyfriend to ask for help in finding her son,” I said slowly, “and within a week her husband calls the same guy and tells him to stop looking. Why the fuck would he do that?”
“Had to be difficult for both of them,” Trip said. “Mary Davenport calls up Jacobsen, who she dumped in college, and asks him for help finding her son, and then Frank Davenport calls Jacobsen and tells him to quit helping.”
“Why would Jacobsen listen to Davenport?” I asked.
“Money,” Diamond said. “NorthPoint had a contract with the FBI to help them upgrade their IT systems, which sucked, frankly. Jacobsen ran the cyber division, so he was in charge of managing the contract on the FBI’s end.”
“So, what, Davenport threatened to break the contract?”
Trip gave a wry grin. “Nothing like blackmailing the FBI,” he said. “And it worked. Would’ve cost millions if NorthPoint had walked away and the FBI had to start over. Jacobsen would’ve been demoted or fired.”
I stared. “You have proof of all this, I’m assuming.”
Trip snorted. “Legal proof, as in court of law? Not a chance. But it’s what happened, or something close to it. I’ve got my own sources at Justice that confirm what Diamond found out.”
I sat on the bed, rubbing my hands on my knees and trying to comprehend all of this. “This is the point where you tell me what this has to do with Fritz,” I said.
“Let’s assume,” Trip said, “that the Davenports really wanted to find out what happened to their son. Calling in the FBI makes sense. But when the feds start poking around—and they are nothing if not thorough, these guys—who knows what they might find.”
I stared at them both. “Something big enough to keep the Davenports from wanting to find their son?”
“Big enough to want them to get rid of the FBI, anyway,” Diamond said.
I shook my head, remembering Mr. Davenport’s anger and frustration almost boiling off him. “You didn’t see Fritz’s dad,” I said. “After Fritz vanished, he came to our room. He wanted . . .” I paused, searching my memory. “He wanted to know where Fritz was,” I said slowly, still thinking. “But he asked me—he asked me something else. Before he screamed at me, he asked me . . .” Various scenes cycled through my brain, and suddenly I was watching the right one. “He asked me what Fritz said. He wanted to know what Fritz and I had talked about.”
Trip frowned. “I don’t get it.”
“What if Fritz knew something, something about NorthPoint? And his dad wanted to know if he’d said something—something to me?”
Trip shook his head, still frowning. “Why would Fritz say something to you about his father’s business?”
I ignored him. “Three months earlier, NorthPoint hired private detectives and paid them for a lot of work. What if they were up to something illegal? Or they were helping cover up something illegal that NorthPoint had done?”
“And two months after Nine/Eleven,” Diamond said, nodding slowly in agreement, “NorthPoint wins a contract with CENTCOM. Had to do with miniaturizing electromagnetic spectrum sensors. The kind of thing used on Predator drones. You can guess how much that was worth. If that had fallen through, NorthPoint might have stalled and missed out on all that government cash.”
Trip raised his arms, palms up and spread apart. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”
“I’m looking for a motive,” I said.
“You think Davenport had his son disappear?”
“I don’t know, Trip. That’s why we’re meeting.”
“We’re meeting because you asked me to dig into the Davenports. And I found some evidence to suggest that Davenport called off the feds because they might find out something that would ruin his company, not that he . . . offed his own kid.”
I thought again about Mr. Davenport in my room, surging up in my face and screaming at me. Was this the behavior of a concerned parent at the breaking point? Or of someone desperate to hide something?
“Does Mrs. Davenport have anything to do with NorthPoint?” I asked.
Trip blinked, clearly not expecting this. “No,” he said. “She helps raise money for charities, organizes flower shows, things like that. Nothing to do with NorthPoint.”
“Okay,” I said, “so Mrs. Davenport just wants her son back, which is why she calls the FBI. But Mr. Davenport quietly arranges for the FBI to get off the case. He knows something his wife doesn’t. Another point in favor of NorthPoint being involved somehow.”
Trip shook his head again. “I don’t think Frank Davenport had his son . . . erased. I don’t buy it.”
“You’re telling me the thought didn’t cross your mind?”
“For about a second before it died a righteous death. The parents are the first people the cops look at. And Frank Davenport isn’t a fool. He could convince the feds not to look into NorthPoint, but he couldn’t keep them away if there was even a hint that he murdered his own son. There’s no way, Matthias. Diamond, help me out here.”
I looked at Diamond. His military uniform was crisp, his shoes polished so they shone like dark mirrors. He’s killed people, I thought suddenly. My old roommate had probably shot and killed insurgents in Iraq. The thought seemed to blow a fuse in my brain; for a moment, I couldn’t comprehend anything but the idea that Diamond had taken someone else’s life. Slowly, Diamond shook his head. “I’m with Trip on this one, Matthias. It’s not impossible, but I don’t think it’s likely. I’ve met Davenport a couple of times. He’s ruthless, and maybe he did something that he didn’t want exposed, but I don’t see him hiring someone to kill Fritz. Too risky, makes him too vulnerable.” He eyed me. “That doesn’t answer your question, though.”
“Question?”
He shrugged, almost sadly. “What happened to Fritz?” he said.
I glanced at Trip, who sat back as if my glance had pushed him back into his seat. “Don’t even think about asking me to look into that,” he said. “I’ve used up a lot of favors to get this info. No way am I going to start asking people whether or not they think Frank Davenport could have had his own son disappear.”
“I get that,” I said. “And thanks for what you’ve found. But you think Fritz’s disappearance might somehow be tied into NorthPoint?”
Trip shrugged. “Looks possible. Although we don’t know how.”
Slowly, I nodded. “Okay,” I said. “No worries. I’ve got another idea.”
A FEW HOURS LATER, evening fell as I drove into Washington. I’d been to D.C. several times, mostly on day trips from Blackburne when I was a student, and my view of the nation’s capital was complicated, a blend of postcard images of the White House and the Capitol with a kind of nausea of the soul, an inherent distaste for political machinations. Overlying all of this was a thin but bright layer of romantic idealism, like a coat of varnish on a moldering but beloved oil painting. No matter how cynical I could be, there was something about driving over the Potomac on the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge and seeing the crystalline blaze of the Kennedy Center reflected in the water, or the white columns of the Lincoln Memorial, or the obelisk of the Washington Monument thrust into the indigo sky—these sights gladdened and quickened something within me. It was not without regret that as soon as I crossed the river, I curved to the left, leaving the familiar sight of the Kennedy Center behind as I headed for K Street and Georgetown.
Soon I found my destination, an impressive brick town house near Twenty-Sixth and P Street. By a stroke of luck, I found a parking spot only two blocks away and walked through the bitter night air, my feet crunching on road salt and the icy remnants of the storm that had tapered off that afternoon. I felt as if a cold block of marble were lying against the exposed skin on the back of my neck. But the view of the town house was almost as salutary as a good fire. The structure was in the Federal style, neatly proportioned but clearly renovated and painted a dark terra-cotta. The windows gave off a warm glow, while the black shutters gleamed in the soft light thrown by the streetlamps. The brass knocker on the front door was the size of a ship’s anchor. After foregoing the knocker for the doorbell, I heard the muffled chimes of the opening passage of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro ring inside.
Footsteps, then a murmured exchange followed by laughter. The doorknob turned with a solid chunk, and the door swung open to reveal Wat Davenport in a charcoal-gray flannel suit, a highball glass in one hand. His smooth, tanned face creased in a smile. “Matthias, there you are. Get in here out of the cold.” He stepped aside, ushering me in.
In the foyer, which was flanked by white built-ins and mantled with a coffered ceiling, stood another man, shorter, less commanding than Wat. He wore the navy-blue suit of someone in government. Wat turned to the man and said, “Bob, this is Matthias Glass, an old family friend.”
Bob’s handshake and greeting were polite and perfunctory, and as he stepped past me for the door, he turned his head and said, “Thanks again, Wat. I’m forever grateful.”
Wat beamed. “A fact I shall surely remind you of,” he said. “Say hi to Doris for me.”
After the door shut behind Bob, I turned to Wat. “I didn’t interrupt anything, did I?”
Wat waved his hand, the gesture both a dismissal and a benediction. “Business. What else?”
“Is he a client?”
“Oh, no. A congressman.” Wat took me by the arm. “Let me show you around.”
The town house was a series of bright, open spaces anchored by neutral-toned couches and armchairs, with strategically placed throw pillows of vibrant orange. Modern, abstract artwork hung on the walls, creating the sense of a place that was somewhere between a gallery and a home. A stacked pile of logs burned cheerfully in a massive white fireplace. Classical music played from hidden speakers—Beethoven, maybe, or Tchaikovsky. We passed through a formal dining room with heavy drapes and slipcovered chairs and walked into the kitchen, a sleek affair of wood and chrome and marble countertops. Here, Wat topped off his whiskey and poured me a glass of wine. “Abby told me she’d seen you,” he said, corking the bottle. “At the Game.”
I took a rather large sip of excellent Shiraz, stalling. I had no intention of talking about how that meeting with Abby had gone. “Um-hmm,” I managed. “Yes, I did. See her.”
Wat chuckled and tucked the bottle into a cupboard. “Obviously it was a warm reunion,” he said. “All right, I won’t torture you about it, although I confess I am sad that you and Abby didn’t work out.” He gestured to the living room. “Shall we?”
We ensconced ourselves in a pair of armchairs by the fire. “So,” Wat said with the air of a man who has had a good meal and a good drink and is prepared to grant favors. “What can I do for you? Your call sounded urgent.”
Now that I was here, I hesitated. I had called him that afternoon because I needed to talk to somebody involved with NorthPoint, somebody who, I hoped, would be willing to talk to me and confirm what Trip and Diamond had told me. But now I felt like this was not the wisest course of action. I was about to invoke the Davenport family ghost, not to mention inquire about NorthPoint. Was this a patently stupid idea?
As if reading my mind, Wat smiled. “You can trust me, Matthias,” he said. “You were a good friend to my nephew, and no matter what my brother might think, you are my friend as well.”
“What your brother might think?” I couldn’t help it—the comment bothered me.
Wat glanced down at his glass, took a sip. “Frank is a difficult man,” he said. “Of course, Fritz’s disappearance took its toll on him. He sees enemies that don’t exist, plots that aren’t there.”
I saw Frank Davenport looming in front of me in my dorm room at Blackburne, screaming in my face. This from the man who had gotten the FBI to drop its investigation into his own son’s disappearance. I found I was clutching the stem of my wineglass so hard, I thought it might snap, so I set it down on the coffee table in front of me. Fuck him, I thought. “Actually, I need to talk to you about Fritz,” I said. “About his disappearance.”
Wat’s eyebrows rose, but only a millimeter or so, and he sat patiently as I told him the condensed version of Fritz’s disappearance and what I had recently learned: Fritz’s leaving his medal under my pillow, his father’s screaming at me in our dorm room, my interview with Pelham Greer and subsequent realization that Fritz had left campus much later than anybody had thought, Deputy Briggs’s story of the FBI. I left out Trip’s and Diamond’s contributions. Wat said nothing as I talked, just kept his gaze leveled at me and paid attention. When I finished, he got up, went into the kitchen, and came back with the wine and the whiskey and filled our glasses. Then he sat down. When he spoke, his voice sounded worn. “My nephew has been missing for nearly ten years,” he said. “An entire decade. And now you suspect that my brother may have kept him from being found.”
“I’m not saying it was intentional —” I started, but Wat cut me off with a sharp sweep of his arm.
“You want to know if I know anything,” he said. “If I can shed any light.” He took a good swallow of his drink and then looked at me. For the first time all evening, he seemed to be really seeing me. “I loved Fritz. I don’t have any children of my own, but he and Abby always filled that role. The day he disappeared . . .” He paused, blinking. The pain in his eyes was hard to bear, and I dropped my gaze before it.
After a moment, Wat continued, his voice under control. “You know that I no longer work for NorthPoint,” he said. He must have seen the surprise on my face. “I consult from time to time, but I’m not involved with day-to-day operations. I haven’t been for years. Not since—since Fritz disappeared.” He paused, seeming to gather himself like a diver at the top of a tower. “In 2000,” he continued, “I was chief operating officer at NorthPoint. That December, we found evidence that someone was trying to steal some of our research. Encryption software, mostly, although we also learned some work we’d done on miniaturization was at risk. My brother and I hired a private detective firm, as we weren’t sure we could trust our own security. Long story short, they found one of our technicians and a security officer were on a Chinese payroll. We fired them before they did any serious damage. But Frank was livid. We were negotiating contracts with the Pentagon right then, and if word had gotten out about these two NorthPoint employees passing secrets to China . . . well, in all likelihood I would be living in a split-level outside of Richmond right now instead of here in Georgetown. Those were our first real contracts, Matthias. They made NorthPoint.” He smiled wanly. “This all came to a head a month before Fritz vanished. You can imagine how that shook Frank and Mary, and Abby. And then when the FBI wanted to poke around . . .” He shrugged and finished his drink.
“You didn’t want them finding out about the private detectives and the Chinese spies,” I said.
Wat laughed, a short, bitter sound. “It sounds like a bad movie, doesn’t it? Chinese spies!” He sighed. “In my brother’s defense, he thought Fritz would turn up in a matter of days. The FBI didn’t seem necessary. Of course, he was wrong. I argued that we should let the authorities investigate, tell them everything. But Frank was scared. NorthPoint had gone public three years earlier, and we’d spent a lot of investor money to get to where we were in 2000. If we had lost those Pentagon contracts, NorthPoint wouldn’t even be a memory today. So Frank got the FBI to drop it.” He looked at me, and something in his stare—a cold certitude—made me catch my breath. “And because of that, I resigned. I left within the month, long enough for Frank to assure the Pentagon that he could cover for me.” Wat smiled acidly. “Mustn’t let anything happen to NorthPoint. Frank’s golden goose. Which he didn’t want cooked.”
I sat back in my chair, deflated. Wat’s story explained what Trip and Diamond had found, and it did so in a way that didn’t make Frank Davenport into some sort of a monster who would kill his own child. But I was still no closer to finding Fritz. Disillusionment washed over me. I realized I was actually disappointed that Frank Davenport probably had nothing to do with his son’s disappearance.
Wat leaned forward. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything more for you. Something that could help you find Fritz. That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it? Looking for him?”
I gave a resentful snort of laughter. “I’m beginning to think that’s all I’ve been doing since he disappeared,” I said. “Even when I didn’t know I was doing it, when I was actively trying not to do that. I’ve been waiting for him all these years like he’ll walk back in through the door. And he hasn’t.” I looked at Wat. “What do you think happened to him?”
Wat blinked in surprise. “I don’t know,” he said simply. “I’ve thought about it ever since. He must have had his reasons for leaving. I know . . . I know that my brother can be a hard man, and that he and Fritz did not always see eye to eye, but I don’t see Frank as capable of murdering his own son.” I stared at him, and he laughed weakly. “That’s what you were wondering, isn’t it?” he asked. “It’s all right. I’ve wondered it myself, lying awake at night. But . . . no. I can see him driving his child away. Not killing him.”
“Could the two guys you fired, the ones passing secrets to the Chinese—could they have had anything to do with Fritz’s disappearance?”
Wat shook his head. “Frank hired another firm to investigate them. They didn’t find anything. Frank made them look again, and they did. Still nothing. Just a couple of employees who got greedy. They weren’t kidnappers or anything like that.” He sighed. “Frank really wanted it to have been them,” he said softly.
Wat fell silent after that, but he sat with me while I stared into the burning logs, as if I’d find some augury there.