The secretary motioned to the table where two piles of paper lay. A title sheet atop both read in bold letters, THE PATRIOT THREAT BY ANAN WAYNE HOWELL.
“It’s a printed copy of an ebook Howell published a couple of years ago. Just after his conviction.”
“About what?” Harriett asked.
“Taxes. What else? Howell fashions himself an expert on our system.”
“You don’t agree?” Stephanie asked.
“He’s a conspiratorialist and paranoid. Most of what’s in that book is garbage. But there are some tidbits that bear noting. I made two copies and marked the important passages.”
Stephanie glanced at Harriett. What choice did they have? They’d demanded an explanation and now they were being provided one. But Stephanie had a few more questions. “How did you know Malone was on that ship?”
“Like I said, I read his reports.”
“That’s not good enough. You came just after that cruise left port. You knew to come looking for those reports. How did you know Cotton was there in the first place?”
“You do realize that you’re interrogating a cabinet-level official.”
“Who broke myriad laws, all of which carry a prison sentence.”
“Answer the question,” Harriett said.
“Eyes on the ground, there to watch Larks, but we spotted Malone. So I sent some people over to learn what they could from your files. Hopefully, without drawing attention. But that part didn’t work out. As to those laws I broke, I considered the risk worth taking.”
She knew that Joe Levy had certainly never been in a fight like this before. His background was law and money. To Stephanie’s knowledge he’d never served in the military and had no training in intelligence operations. He was definitely in way over his head. So what had prompted him to take such chances?
“Are you’re managing this all on your own?” she asked. “An international intelligence operation run by Treasury agents?”
“I thought it best to keep it internally contained. Paul Larks gave me little choice. Neither did Kim Yong Jin.”
“Kim’s a nothing,” Stephanie said. “How’s he a problem?”
“He can read.”
An odd response.
Then she got it.
The paper stacks on the table.
“There’s also one other reason why I’ve chosen to involve you,” the secretary said. “This whole matter is … complicated. It has to be kept here, among us. After you read some of Howell’s book, I’ll explain further and hope that you agree.”
FIFTEEN
VENICE
Kim lay in the bed, the heavy gold curtains drawn, but his mind would not surrender to sleep. He sensed that he was closing in on his goal, the truth perhaps no longer out of reach. When he’d first stumbled upon Howell’s website he’d thought the whole idea fantastical. And his first email to Howell had gone unanswered.
His second, though, brought a reply.
So good to hear from a fellow sufferer. Sorry to learn, though, of your arrest. It’s a great injustice our country heaps on us. I was tried and convicted without me being there. I chose to leave the country before they could get to me. It’s a shame we have to pick between our freedom and our country. But the fight must continue and it can’t be waged from jail. That’s why I wrote my book, which outlines everything I believe. This quandary began long ago, in a different time, when some amazing things happened. Read the book and let me know if it proves helpful.
To garner a reply, he’d changed tack and posed as someone charged with tax evasion, thinking that the ruse might open the door to Howell.
And it had.
So he’d sent more questions, as Peter From Europe, all of which Howell answered. In his undergraduate studies, Kim had majored in world history and economics. Both subjects interested him. American history, though, was definitely something new, and he’d spent the past few months reading, readying himself for this moment. Unlike what his father may have thought, he was neither stupid nor lazy. Howell was right. Monumental things might indeed have happened long ago, the seeds of that conflict sown by a man named Andrew Mellon.
Whom he’d learned all about.
Thomas Mellon, a Scots Irish, immigrated to the United States from Ireland in 1818. There he set his sights high and attended college, then read law and became a successful Pittsburgh lawyer. In 1859 he was elected a local judge, a position in which he both excelled and profited. Ultimately he founded T. Mellon & Sons, a private banking concern in Pittsburgh. He fathered eight children, the sixth a boy named Andrew, a contemplative lad possessed of an undeniable confidence.
At age twenty-seven Andrew assumed leadership of his father’s bank. Over the next two decades he acquired control of more banks and insurance companies. He then branched into natural gas and aluminum, where he financed the creation of Alcoa. Energy was big business in Mellon’s day, and his venture into that realm became known as Gulf Oil. By 1910 the family fortune was over $2 trillion in today’s money.