CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
Nick Thomas had every right to be at
his desk, even if it was after one in the morning, just as he had
every right to be grazing through the computer files on his screen.
He’d written the damn things, in fact.
Why, then, did he feel like such a
criminal?
This was crazy, he told himself as he
pulled up the documents he needed, and printed them out. Topo maps,
prevailing wind patterns, daily work logs—everything that had
anything to do with the EPA’s cleanup of the Newark site. The more
he thought about this Sinclair character’s explanation of Jake and
Carolyn’s theory, the more ridiculous it sounded. Talk about
overkill. All of that destruction just to hide a corpse, which
could have been hidden, anyway? It was absurd.
There was a certain logic, he
supposed, that a blade of grass is best hidden in a bale of hay,
but could the same hold true of bodies? If you stacked bodies high
enough and violently enough, could you possibly hope to slip one
through a crack somewhere?
Every twenty minutes or so, he fought
a new urge to call the police and bring this all to a stop. To his
knowledge, Nick had never before broken a law—unless you counted
the occasional speeding violation. Even there, he allowed himself
ten percent over the speed limit, no more. Now he couldn’t
begin to imagine the
number of laws he was preparing to break.
If he ultimately found himself
explaining his actions to authorities, he’d cast Harry Sinclair in
the role of villain, threatening his own family with a horrible
fate. Given the telephone ruse, he thought it would get him past a
lie detector. Without such an excuse, people might figure out the
real reason he was going along with this foolishness. And when they
did, they’d know something that he’d only just figured out for
himself.
The reality of it all smacked him in
the head around ten o’clock—long after Sinclair had dropped him
back at the headquarters building. The ninety-minute drive was
over, and his assignment was clear. As Nick pieced together the
plan in his head, he realized that for the first time in years, he
felt truly alive. He’d stepped outside of his up-at-five,
homeby-seven routine, and the presence of a little danger felt
inexplicably invigorating. He felt guilty as hell for thinking such
juvenile thoughts, and then he realized that even the guilt felt
good. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt true emotion
like this, unburdened by second thoughts about what he
should be feeling or what
he ought to be
doing.
For at least these few brief moments,
he was working for himself. The only deadline he faced was the one
he imposed upon himself by accepting this assignment, and deep in
his heart of hearts, he knew that he was doing a job for which he
was uniquely qualified. No one else in this massive sea of
bureaucrats could dig up the details of Newark so efficiently—not
his boss; not the fresh meat from college. He alone knew what to
look for in these files, because he alone knew what he put
there.
Knowing the layout of the storage
magazine was crucial—too crucial to be left to memory. He and the
Donovans had to know how to get in, and how to get out if something
went wrong. Then there were the security concerns. He dove into the
project with a zeal he hadn’t enjoyed in years.
Reflecting further on it, Nick figured
that at the end of the day, this was about friendship
and about settling scores.
About facing the image in the mirror every morning. He’d allowed
himself to be railroaded into silence back in 1983, surrendering to
the political forces who wanted the Newark Incident to just
disappear. In his haste to cover his own ass, he’d sat quietly and
allowed the EPA and the FBI to construct an ironclad case against
his friends, never once speaking up to declare that the authorities
were full of shit. It was too easy to remain silent. Even now he
couldn’t point to a single action he could have taken or a single
speech he could have made that would have changed anything. But
fact was, he didn’t even try—and not only Jake and Carolyn but he
himself had paid the price.
Then there were the bodies: the worst
sacrilege of all. To this day, the entry team remained where they
had fallen, denied the simple dignity of burial, all because the
people in charge had placed their careers above human
decency.
Well, Nick could fix that now. He
could fix a lot of things, in fact.
It was one-thirty by the time he’d
printed everything he needed, and then it was time to go. He placed
the two-inch stack of papers into his briefcase and clicked it
closed. He’d told his family he was headed to Arkansas for
business, but left a note for his boss that he needed a few days
off to attend to a sick relative in Oregon. With an overnight bag
in one hand and his briefcase in the other, Nick walked briskly
toward the door. He’d still have a short wait for his ride, once he
reached the lobby, but that was okay. He knew the guard on duty
that night, and for weeks the guy had wanted Nick to see pictures
of his new baby.
As he headed for the elevator, Nick
marveled at the value of this gift he’d been given. How often, he
wondered, did a person get to travel back into his own past to set
the future straight?