When Margo arrived at her office about three, the place looked as if it had been burgled. Files were turned out, stacks of paper covered the floor, maps of O’Hare Airport and the airport in Puerto Vallarta were spread out on the floor. A book about tides and currents and ship speeds found God knows where sat open atop the coffee maker.
Boxes of half-eaten pizza, empty cans of Red Bull, half-finished Slurpees, plus innumerable used coffee pods littered every available space. The place reeked of popcorn.
A custom bulletin board covered an entire wall. Margo and her team used this to lay out their cases. There had been nothing on it when she’d left. Now it was covered with photographs and clippings and timelines. What looked like a homemade Monopoly board turned out to be a map of offshore banks and their proximity to one another.
She should have known.
Margo found a semi-clean spot on the table and carefully put down the presents that Billy had provided. Then she called for her team.
One by one they slouched into the conference room, looking like puppies who knew they’d done something naughty. They were as dishevelled as the office.
‘We meant to clean up before you got here,’ Courtney said sheepishly. ‘But we got busy.’
‘Aren’t you early?’ Jason asked. ‘We thought you said four.’ It was an attempt at a reprimand but he couldn’t quite carry it off.
‘Want popcorn?’ Pete asked, smiling.
‘I’d love some, Pete,’ Margo said, fighting tears. ‘I know you all did this for me and here I am so self-involved I didn’t even know today was Christmas Eve.’
It was clear from the looks on their faces that none of them knew it either.
‘You got presents!’ Pete said, spotting the colourful stack. ‘I love presents.’
‘Well, technically they’re from me, but Billy chose them. I’m sure they’ll be much better than anything I could have picked out. Merry Christmas,’ Margo said, hugging each of them in turn. ‘Now what do you say we bulldoze some of this toxic waste so you can tell me what you’ve got.’
It took five minutes to clear the conference table and an hour and a half for them to give their reports. Thanks to the talent and effort of her amazing team, Margo finally had a picture of what had happened to Jack.
The ‘why’ of it all was still on the table.
Jason’s news had been hardest to take. He put a slide show up on the big television set in the office. It was a sort of This Is Your Life, Jack McCarthy. It confirmed all that Kyle Wainwright had told her.
Although Jack had formed his own legitimate company since he married Margo, the real Worldwide Water was a cover. The research company Jack and Marcus worked for was created to allow their employees to move around the world freely.
‘But the real work was in black ops,’ Jason said. ‘And Jack McCarthy was their star.’
‘So, occupation clandestine, untraceable, illegal. And also probably lethal activities,’ Margo said. ‘I can really pick ’em, can’t I?’
‘Jack’s pretty famous with the people who know about these things. Hands down, he’s the number one sharpshooter in the country,’ Jason said, ‘probably the world. Everyone reveres him. Or they did, till the bad thing happened.’
Margo didn’t interrupt. She knew they needed to get to things their own way and in their own time.
‘Pete helped me run this to ground,’ Jason said. ‘About a year ago Jack and his longtime partner, a guy named Marcus Kane, were sent to take out a guy. Some sources say it was one of the guys who masterminded Benghazi but I couldn’t confirm that. Like always, Jack was to take the shot and Marcus was logistics. Something went wrong and the guy they were after got away. But Marcus was taken out by what they think was an incendiary grenade.’
‘What do you mean, they think? Don’t they know?’ Margo asked.
‘Jack says he tried to get to Marcus to bring him home. But there’s no proof of that,’ Jason said. ‘Anyway, Washington pulled the plug and Jack was forcibly pulled out of the kill zone. Without the body they couldn’t confirm exactly what happened to Marcus. But surveillance photos confirmed he was dead.’
Jason, who had continued to work on his computer as he spoke, sneaked a peek at Margo to see if she could handle what he was about to tell her. ‘Some say Jack set him up. For money.’
Margo stood up without speaking and got herself some sparkling water. Pete shyly pushed a bowl of popcorn in front of her place at the table.
‘I don’t believe it,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t know why, since clearly I know nothing about the man I married. But it just doesn’t ring true.’
‘Here’s something I can’t figure out,’ Courtney said. ‘Why didn’t he leave any of your money offshore?’
‘What do you mean?’ Jason asked.
‘Usually in these cases, the embezzler stashes everything in one of those islands no one has heard of, or in Switzerland. That way no one can link them to the crime. But Jack turned your money into cash and negotiables and took it with him.’
‘What did he do with it?’ Pete asked. ‘Where are you going to stash gazillions of dollars? Guys like Jack, guys on the run, don’t have mattresses.’
‘Don’t know,’ Courtney said. ‘Yet.’
‘To me, the real question is, why did he leave like that?’ Margo said, pacing. ‘Just disappear from the airport? If he was planning to take my money all along, then why the drama? Why didn’t he just take off while I was at work?’
‘Margo!’ Jason’s shout scared everyone, including Jason. ‘I got it! I got in!’
‘What?’
‘I got into Jack’s phone,’ Jason said. He was bouncing up and down on his chair like it was a trampoline. ‘He got a text just before your plane was due to take off.’
Jason transferred an image to the big screen and blew it up as much as possible. It was a photo of a dark-haired man in his thirties. He was sitting at a table on what appeared to be a ship of some sort. It was too dark to really tell. Two nasty-looking guys holding semi-automatic weapons flanked him. Marcus held a small handwritten sign that read GET ME OUT.
There was a copy of Granma, the primary newspaper of Cuba, on the table. The date on the paper had been circled. It read catorce de diciembre, 2015.
‘It’s a “proof of life” photo,’ Pete said. ‘Someone wanted Jack to know this guy was alive on December fourteenth. No wonder he flipped out!’
‘Who is it?’ Margo asked, puzzled. ‘He looks familiar but …’
‘Tell her, Pete,’ Jason said.
‘It’s Jack’s partner,’ Pete said, staring incredulously at the photo. ‘His “dead” friend Marcus is alive!’
‘That’s why he left the airport.’ Tears were streaming down Margo’s face. ‘To save his friend.’
Courtney and Jason exchanged looks. Pete just looked at the floor.
‘What?’ Margo said, sensing the tension.
‘We told you about the rumours. That Jack gave Marcus up in the first place,’ Courtney said carefully.
‘How do we know,’ said Pete, who did not understand the meaning of tact, ‘if he was going to save him or finish him off?’
Margo inadvertently touched her belly where the new life was growing. ‘We don’t know, I guess. But we need to find out.’
Jason was already manning his computer. ‘What do you need?’
Margo said, ‘I want you to track down a guy named Robert Whitbred. He’s a CIA guy.’