CHAPTER TWELVE: Darby Explains

Voyles sent East down to New Orleans to learn the truth about Verheek’s death. Lewis brought the news to his office.

‘Denton, when are we going to start taking this Pelican Brief seriously?’ he asked. ‘People keep dying because of it. We’d better investigate it. It must be Mattiece.’

‘I know,’ Voyles said. ‘We’ll send down a team of men, but I don’t want the fool in the White House or Coal to hear that we’re investigating it – I want to surprise them. When the President told me to leave the brief alone, I was carrying a small recorder in my pocket. I’ve got every word, loud and clear. If we find that the brief is accurate, the press will love us, and we can let them know that the President told us not to investigate it.’

‘That’ll be the end of him and Coal,’ Lewis said happily.

‘I know. He’ll have no chance in the election next year. We’ve got him.’

They smiled at each other. ‘But what about Mattiece?’ Lewis said. ‘If he hadn’t killed all -those people, we wouldn’t have thought the brief was right. He must be crazy.’

‘There are rumours that he is,’ Voyles replied. ‘I’ve spoken to the CIA. They had men in New Orleans. They don’t know where Mattiece is. He’s probably not in this country. He owns houses all over the world. We’ll need their help to get him. They were following the girl too, but they lost her in Chicago airport. She could be anywhere by now.’

‘She could be dead,’ Lewis said. ‘Mattiece’s men are following her as well.’

Grantham traced two old photographs of her – one from her high school, one from her first university. He pinned them up beside his desk. She was beautiful.

She called him as she had promised. He had read about the killing of a lawyer in New Orleans, and she told him the true story. She also told him about the other killing, which had not appeared in the newspapers. Then she said, ‘Can you come to New York tomorrow, Grantham?’

‘Of course. It’ll only take a few hours. But please call me Gray.’ He looked at the photographs of her.

‘I’ll ring tomorrow morning to tell you where to meet me. And tomorrow I’ll tell you who killed Rosenberg and Jensen.’

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘I know who paid for the killings. I know his name. I know his business and his politics.’

‘And you’ll tell me tomorrow.’

‘If I’m still alive.’

A pause. ‘Perhaps we should talk immediately,’ he said.

They met in her room in the St Moritz Hotel in New York. They chatted for a while, getting to know each other. It was the first normal conversation Darby had had for a week, and it was a great pleasure. They sent out for some food, and after they had eaten he switched on a recorder and she told him a story:

‘For centuries, the Mississippi River has been carrying mud down to the sea. Where the river meets the sea, marshes have spread out over an enormous area. These marshes are the home for a great many rare and unusual animals, birds, reptiles and fish.’

‘Then oil was discovered there in 1930. The oil companies began to destroy the marshes. Where the river mud had been creating new land, now the sea was able to wash the land away. Since the discovery of oil, tens of thousands of acres of Louisiana marshland has gone. Every fourteen minutes, another acre disappears under water.’

‘In 1979 an oil company owned by Victor Mattiece found a very rich oilfield, worth thousands of millions of dollars. Mattiece wanted it all. He knew that others would buy the surrounding land if they heard there was a major oilfield there, so he pretended that nothing had happened. He stopped work there, and waited. Slowly and patiently, as the years passed, he bought the surrounding land. He created new companies, lots of them, so that no one would know that he was the buyer. At last he was ready to begin drilling.’

‘Then a small environmental group called Green Rescue made a legal request to the courts to stop the drilling. The request was un-expected, because for so long Louisiana had profited from the oil companies. The court in Lafayette agreed that all drilling should stop until the case was settled.’

‘Mattiece knew that this could take years. He was dangerously angry. He spent weeks with his lawyers, making plans. But every move they made was disallowed by the courts.’

‘People were sympathetic to Green Rescue’s case. A lot of wildlife was at risk. The marshland where Mattiece wanted to drill was home to a great many rare and beautiful sea birds, including brown pelicans. There were very few of these pelicans left. When people thought about the case, they thought about the pelicans.’

‘At last the case came to trial. Green Rescue lost, and that was not surprising: Mattiece had spent millions of dollars and had the best lawyers in the country. But the judge still forbade the drilling to start. The pelican was a protected bird under Louisiana law, and Green Rescue weren’t finished yet: they would take the case all the way to the Supreme Court.’

‘How long would it take to reach the Supreme Court?’ Gray asked.

‘Between three and five years.’

‘By then Rosenberg would be dead anyway.’

‘Yes, but it might be a Democratic President who was choosing the judge to take his place; Mattiece couldn’t take that chance. And Jensen was always soft on environmental cases. Mattiece needed two Republican judges in there, both of whom were supporters of big business.’

‘Can you prove that all the companies involved in buying the land in Louisiana are owned by Mattiece?’

‘It’s in the brief, and I’ve written it all out for you. And then there’s the photograph.’

‘Tell me.’

‘Seven years ago, before the President was elected, he was in New Orleans getting money for the Republicans. Although Mattiece stays out of the public eye, he was there that day, and some clever photographer got a picture of him shaking hands with the President. Both of them are smiling, and they look like old friends. It’s beautiful.’

‘I can easily find a copy of that. This whole thing is beautiful. It’s the biggest story since Watergate – maybe even bigger.’ Gray turned off the recorder and sat back in his chair. They were silent for a short while. Then he asked, ‘Do you think Mattiece himself chose Rosenberg and Jensen?’

‘No, I’m sure he had advice from a lawyer. He’s got lawyers all over the country.’

Gray sat up again. ‘Does he have any in Washington?’

‘Yes, there are two firms there who do some work for him – Brim, Stearns and Kidlow is one of them; the other is White and Blazevich, a very old, Republican firm. But why are you interested?’

Gray quickly told her about Garcia. ‘Maybe he works at one of those two firms,’ he said. ‘That would make it much easier to find him.’

They were both tired. She asked him to sleep on the sofa in her room that night, so that she could get a good night’s sleep for the first time for days. He agreed. She was so beautiful that he would do anything to be close her; he would even sleep on a five-foot sofa.