Free The Confessor by Mark Allen Smith Page A

‘Jesus . . . You’re gonna die from your own second-hand smoke. Can that happen?’
    There were Xeroxes of Veritas Arcana web pages taped on the walls: ‘US assault rifles found in Taliban hideout in Kandahar’ . . . ‘Classified US Department of Defense memos discuss secret bid-rigging in Iraq’ . . . ‘Secret CIA torture of Egyptian cabinet minister’.
    Harry strolled, leaning in, reading them. ‘The Veritas Arcana Hall of Fame?’
    Matheson went to a door and pushed it open. ‘Let’s get to work. And close the door. Keeps the smoke out.’
    Harry followed him inside. This room was twice as large as the first, smoke-free, and ten degrees colder. A row of four web servers went down its middle, and six laptops sat in a row atop a twelve-foot aluminum table. There were three wall-mounted monitors with CNN, MSNBC and FOX on and the sound muted. Matheson sat down at a laptop.
    Harry took a seat beside him and got the disk out of his coat.
    ‘Thank you for this, Harry. I know you didn’t want to go back to Brooklyn.’
    ‘I’m glad you asked. It was good for me.’
    ‘No bad guys waiting for you?’
    ‘Right. No bad guys.’
    Harry tapped the space bar and the desktop came on – a picture of Ezra, green eyes locked on the neck of the violin wedged under his chin. It wasn’t a recent image.
    ‘You speak to him lately?’ asked his father.
    ‘Uh-huh.’
    Matheson let out a clipped, bitter chuckle. ‘So you know I haven’t.’
    The emotional geometry of the three of them made Harry antsy. ‘He’s okay. Not great. Still pissed at you. Still in therapy. A lot of guilt about Geiger.’ Harry’s pulse did a short jig.
I wasn’t meant to be part of his life, Harry – and I shouldn’t be.
Geiger was wrong – but it wasn’t Harry’s secret to tell.
    ‘Christ, I miss him.’ Matheson sighed, but there was no trace of self-pity.
    ‘Well . . . I think he misses you too. He just also hates your guts.’
    Matheson nodded wearily. ‘As he should. Right?’
    Last 3 July, with the secret CIA torture videos finally in his possession, he had told his son to lock the apartment door behind him and then gone uptown, to this room, to prepare the disks for online access. He was pumped to the max. He knew the bad guys were close – but it would only take a few hours, and Ezra was safe at home . . .
    ‘David,’ Harry said, ‘you do good work. Important work.’ He slid the disk in the drive. ‘You made a decision because of the work. You didn’t think Ezra’d get snatched. Maybe you didn’t think long enough. I don’t know.’ The screen filled with a spyglass logo and
VIDEO VERIFY
in a chrome font. ‘Did you fuck up? Yes – and now you’re paying for it. That’s what usually happens, David. We fuck up and then we pay for it. Maybe when Ezra gets older he’ll see a bigger picture.’
    Matheson’s wistful smile returned. ‘How’d you get so wise, Harry?’
    ‘By fucking up – a lot. Where’s the e-mail?’
    ‘V–A–3 inbox, labeled X – X – X.’
    Harry clicked on the e-mail’s icon, clicked and it came up on-screen. There were six lines of text:
    Copy of email from Argent Industries to Kabul. Secret milions for gov contracts. email is one of 4. foto is 1 of 6 from cellfone on 24/2/2013. I am hide now neer paris. No mony. need mony to get wife and child out from Kabul. You want all fotos and emails must arang and come. Is 7000 euro enuf? you do good work. Seek truth. answer please.
     
    Harry scrolled down to a photo of two men. Beneath it was a copy of another e-mail, in a different font, below it. It read:
    Outlays to Sp and Gr shellcos will be substantial, so 600m is high as we go if still just talking o & ng lines & refi. If you reconsider pops we’re at 9. We feel it is important this be resolved before next election, for obvious reasons.
     
    Harry finished reading. ‘“600 million for rights to oil and natural gas pipelines and refinement”?’
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘“If you reconsider