(The Mastodon in the Room)
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Max arrived in London with Parker and Rebecca was so happy to see her son. Once Max made sure Parker remembered to call his father as soon as he could, he left for a little mission that had been set up for him before he had left the States. Arriving in Cambridge, he made his way to The Cambridge Brew house where he ordered an apple and pears cider and a beer battered fish fingers and tartar sauce sarnie and sat down at a table in the corner. While he waited, he started to read a book he had picked up at the airport hoping it wasn't as cheesy as it looked.
"I'm surprised you came." Waving at the waitress, CIA agent Tom Jones sat down at the table, smiled at Max and ordered a bottle of beer with no preference for label. "I heard you don't travel outside the United States anymore . . . too old?"
Annoyed, Max closed his book, sipped some of his cider and slowly placed his glass down on the table. "You asked me to meet you here when I got to England, so here I am. I had to bring Parker back to his mother and now I'm on vacation, so if you're just here to waste my time, I'll head back to London."
Tom loved the old man's bravado. Nothing ever seemed to faze Max Keenan. "You killed Deputy Director Robert Kirby . . . and got away with it." He spoke quietly, but clearly. "That was very impressive."
The server delivered Max's food to the table and walked away. "I was acquitted." Max took a bite out of his sandwich and approved of the tartar sauce.
"Kirby wasn't just some murderous bastard that made money off of bank robbers and safe crackers." Tom smiled at the server who placed an opened bottle of beer on the table and moved over to the next to table to remove some dirty dishes. "He was part of something else. The thing is, we have no idea what that something else is yet . . . A federal agent was murdered a few months ago. Before he died he had pointed a finger at a traitor working at Homeland Security. He had proof, but at about the same time he died, his office was ransacked and whatever proof he had disappeared."
"You know I'm just a civilian, right?" Max sipped some of his cider and tried to figure out what was going on. "I don't work for any state or federal government agency. I'm just a retired electrician from Coos Bay, Oregon. All that bull about me being a bank robber and a murderer was just a set up or a case of mistaken identity . . . pick one."
Amused, Tom laughed. "Art McGregor, yeah I know. Worked fifteen years as an electrician in Coos Bay, Oregon and before that you were Mat Brennan, science teacher and before that a safety deposit thief named Max Keenan. You were a confidence man before that. Made a pretty good living too especially after you hooked up with Ruth." He snapped his fingers. "I meant Christine . . . It's a little confusing. Anyway, you killed Kirby and there are some people that are interested in you along with your daughter and her boyfriend, but probably for different reasons . . . you've been a very bad boy, Max. You didn't hand over all of the papers from Gus Harper's diary."
"Oh yeah and what makes you say that?" Max was suddenly wary. This conversation had taken an odd and disturbing turn.
After tasting his beer, Tom reached over and pinched off a piece of fish from Max's sandwich and popped it in his mouth. "Um, good . . . the pages were numbered. The last four pages of the diary were not completely intact. Someone was careless and the bottom of the pages were missing. A friend of mine at the Justice Department got me a copy of the pages and I've read them all. It's obvious that the last four pages were torn so we wouldn't notice that four pages were missing in the diary. There is a time gap. Two days are missing. My friend said they noticed it, but they thought Agent Harper just hadn't written anything on those two days . . . me, I don't think so . . . I want those pages, Max."
Surprised that anyone had bothered to read the diary that carefully, Max leaned back against his chair and stared at the CIA Agent. "And if you're right and there really are four more pages of the diary . . . why do you want them?" He didn't like that the CIA was interested in him. He could handle the FBI, he'd done it in the past, but the CIA made him nervous.
His eyes glinting, Tom pulled the plate across the table, took a bite out of the sandwich, chewed it slowly and then swallowed. "Bud Abbot . . . the Congressman." He didn't say anything else. He was sure that Max was going to see the futility of denying the existence of the pages sooner or later. He just hoped it was sooner.
"What about him?" This wasn't what he had wanted to hear. "Former FBI Agent, friend of Kirby . . . Booth mentioned him and said that the congressman is trying to shut down the partnership between the Hoover and the Lab. Seems a little nuts to me since Booth and Tempe have been solving cases that have made the FBI look pretty damn good. You think he was part of Kirby's gang after all?"
Silently eating more of the sandwich, Tom studied the calm man sitting across from him and decided to be at least a little honest. He needed Max to cooperate. "I think Gus Harper not only stumbled upon the fact that Kirby was running a gang of crooked agents, but he found out something that was extremely dangerous to him. I think Kirby was ordered to kill him and not just kill him, but set up Marvin Beckett as the murderer so no one would look too closely into Agent Harper's ongoing investigation. They needed Harper's silence and they needed it fast . . . Even when all of this was exposed, everyone concentrated on Kirby and his gang and once you handed over Gus' diary that seemed to close the case. Of course, you killed Kirby before he could be arrested for murder and everyone just washed their hands and concentrated on capturing Kirby's murderer. No one cared that four pages of the diary were missing because Kirby's gang was done, so they didn't need Harper's complete diary."
Apparently, the CIA had stuck their noses into the Kirby business because of Bud Abbot's interest in Booth and Temperance's partnership. Damn it! "I really don't know anything about missing pages. Like a concerned citizen, I gave Agent Booth the diary and the key to a safety deposit box which contained some damning evidence Agent Harper had kept about Kirby and his gang of thieves. That's all I know."
"Russ Brennan." Tom took the opportunity to finish the sandwich.
His blood ran a little cold. "What about Russ?" Tom's voice had sounded very threatening to him.
Tom wiped his lips with a napkin and moved the empty plate towards Max. "Nothing . . . just Russ Brennan."
"Are you threatening my boy?" Max was furious. "You saw what happened to Kirby the last time someone threatened my kids."
Amused, Tom laughed. "I'm more than one man, Max. I'm part of a very big organization and we don't play well with others. It's kind of our reputation."
He studied the agent for a few minutes and decided that he was cornered. "Let me check around the house and see if I dropped them behind a seat cushion or something. I'm not a good house keeper."
Finished with his beer, Tom set the bottle down on top of the plate. "I'd appreciate that Max. Someone will contact you when you get back home and ask if you found them. It won't be me, so if you're thinking that I might have an unfortunate accident and no one will ask for the pages . . . well, let's just nip that in the bud shall we? My boss doesn't have a sense of humor and when he wants something he usually gets it."
Max nodded his head. "Is my daughter and son in danger?"
"Not that I know of." Tom leaned closer. "So far it just looks like Congressman Abbot wants to shut down the pipeline between the Jeffersonian and the Hoover. My boss doesn't like that. It seems unpatriotic and he thinks the Director of the FBI is not paying attention like he should be."
"Alright." Max finished his cider. "You can pay the bill." He stood up and walked over to the door. He planned on talking to Booth and his daughter as soon as he could, but not on the phone. Who knew who might be listening?
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