level, had Pope not done what he did, he was confident they would have won the election. It would have been tight and they would have gone late into the night, but they would have won. He would not lose any sleep of those who said that but for the scandal, Thomson wouldn’t have won. The Judge viewed that as bullshit and he’d make that argument every day of the next year if he had to. He took a cigar out of his suit coat pocket and twirled it in his fingers.
Thomson emerged from the polling place and he and his wife turned back for a moment and posed for pictures for reporters and he made a few perfunctory comments before returning to the motorcade.
“Would it be bad form for me to smoke one of those right here?” the governor asked, admiring the cigar, desperately wanting one, jovial in the fact that he would win today, he would be president of the United States.
“It would, but you know what?”
“What?”
“I have a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue back at the house. I’ve been saving it for the right occasion, Governor. Tonight is the proper occasion but I think we ought to go back, have a good lunch and allow ourselves one little touch off that bottle.”
Thomson slapped the Judge on the back as they climbed back down into the limousine. “Will our two friends who saved this thing for us make it back tonight?”
Dixon thought of what Wire and Mac were doing and looked at his watch, “They’re still working the case. I have a good feeling that there will be more developments today.”
* * *
The interrogation of Foche took all day. Given his condition, he required two lengthy rest breaks but he told them everything. Foche was the driver of the Suburban that killed Martin in Milwaukee. A man named Vigneault, who died in the car chase in Milwaukee, was in the passenger seat. In addition to killing McCormick and Montgomery, he also killed Stroudt.
He was fully aware of the scheme to rig the Presidential Election and understood the reason he was ordered to kill those four men was to protect Pope’s plan.
Ten years ago, Christian Pope had rescued Foche and Kristoff after they’d been shunned by French Intelligence due to the failure of a mission in Afghanistan. Once they went to work for Pope, they operated out of an office in the Cayman Islands on the direction of the Bishop since much of his business involved using Cayman banks, businesses and addresses. However, Kristoff also maintained a satellite office in Morocco that Foche didn’t think Pope knew about. The FBI was already working with the US embassy and Moroccan government to access the office.
Foche was a fountain of knowledge. He’d been active for ten years. Judge Dixon was right about Younger Investments. Foche and Kristoff killed the Hedge Fund manager. In the end, Foche gave them six other bodies that Pope had them eliminate over the years for various business purposes. Two of the killings were in the United States. Others were in Russia, Kazakhstan, Brazil and Chile.
“So why did people call Christian Pope, the Bishop?” Mac asked towards the end of the interrogation. “There is clearly nothing holy about the man.”
Foche shrugged. “He said that’s what we could call him. I asked him why and he said he had two good friends when he was kid growing up in Kansas that called him that. They gave everyone in the neighborhood names and because his name had religious elements of Christian and Pope, they called him the Bishop. It’s as simple as that.”
“I thought it might have something to do with chess,” Wire speculated. “All these shell companies with post office boxes use chess pieces for their names.”
“That was Pope’s idea,” Foche answered.
There was one more mystery solved. Wire kept going. “I’m amazed,” she remarked, “that given what you’ve told me about his holdings, his wealth, that it is so much more than oil and gas that he somehow managed to keep that all so quiet.”
Foche nodded. “He was, what’s your American’s term? Anal?”
Mac nodded.
“Yes then, he was anal about his privacy and security. That was part of our job, to help protect his identity from being exposed in those other business ventures. If people came sniffing around, we warned them off. If a warning didn’t work, sterner measures were obviously taken. Once you start unwinding all of his affairs you won’t believe what he’s into business wise, it’s