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“Hamza believed Ford was involved in something. It was bigger than his companies. Very secret.”
Holy shit. Imagine if Ingram hadn’t intervened. What if Anton had recruited an arms dealer like Bin Khaled into the Masters? The organization could have gone from subtly manipulative to straight-up tyrannical.
“We believe Anton Ford intended to couple his telecommunications technology with the missiles he tried to buy,” says Eyal. “He would have been able to target whoever he wanted with an untraceable weapon. In your opinion, would that have been possible if he’d bought those missiles?”
“Yes,” says the man. “Absolutely.”
The video cuts out, and Ingram loads another.
This one shows a woman in her early twenties, one I recognize immediately: Astrid Thor, who has been presumed dead since the attack at the Waterston ranch that killed her father, Timo.
“Their families,” I say. “Thor and Waterston’s; they’re alive?”
“Yes,” Ingram replies, pausing the video.
That’s good news. Wrapped up in my own situation, I’d forgotten about them.
“Why haven’t you told anyone?” I ask.
Like the rest of the world, I’d written them off as gone.
“For their safety,” Ingram says. “And so we could use them later.”
I nod.
The wives and children of two famous men went missing and in no time at all, the world moved on. The idea doesn’t sit well with me. Sure, they’re spoiled and rich, but are they necessarily bad people? Do they know about Timo and Lincoln’s crimes, or were they just living off the wealth in blissful ignorance? I’d like to think that if I’d been a real journalist, they wouldn’t have been written off so quickly. Was keeping the story away from the headlines Anton’s doing, or did he not have to lift a finger?
Ingram resumes the video.
“What did you think when you learned the truth about your father?” Eyal asks.
“I was ashamed,” she says.
“Why?”
Astrid sighs.
“I thought my dad was a little shady. He cut deals that I could tell were not above board. I didn’t say anything, because what was I supposed to do? Blow the whistle on my own father?”
“If you had known how corrupt he was, would you have done anything differently?”
“Sure,” says Astrid. “Maybe I could have saved part of my inheritance by coming forward.”
“That’s your concern?”
She shrugs.
“Dad was an asshole. He destroyed my life. What am I supposed to say?”
“Before he died, did your father mention Anton Ford?”
“Yeah,” Ingrid snaps. “He said that’s who we were hiding from.”
Ingram shuts off the video.
“I have lots of these,” he says. “All of them pointing to Anton’s crimes. They’re all time-stamped and archived in thousands of hidden data caches, ready to be distributed at a moment’s notice, thanks to Brendan.”
My cheek trembles as tears threaten to fall.
