Page 78 of Mastermind

“If Heywood was able to reach out from a detention facility that he was specifically put in because he wasn’t supposed to be communicating, then that means somebody was doing their job pretty badly. I say we go talk to them.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

ACCESS

Theo and I pull up to a Tudor house in an affluent Virginia neighborhood where I’m fairly certain nobody has so much as touched the mowers that keep their Wimbledon-short lawns so well trimmed. Two trash cans sit out front—one for garbage and one marked for recycling, which will end up in the same place as the garbage.

It’s ten past seven in the morning, and at any moment we expect Nick Weir to leave his house and get into his car to go to work as general manager for Mesa Detention Facility.

Before Heywood escaped custody during the ill-fated transfer, he was an inmate at Mesa Detention Facility outside Richmond, Virginia. What makes MDF unusual is that it’s a small private prison that houses federal prisoners who are considered intelligence risks. The owners of MDF are part of a conglomerate that provides services to military installations and is allegedly the operator of numerous black sites overseas where suspected terrorists have been held and interrogated.

Heywood’s transfer caught even the FBI off guard, and—in retrospect—it had all the earmarks of something plotted by the intelligence community. Such exploits are not unheard-of. Sometimes a suspect in federal custody turns out to have information relating to the war on terror, like a drug-cartel accountant who has knowledge of illicit arms sales to the Middle East.

If the intelligence community’s powers that be decided Heywood was useful to them, there’s little they couldn’t do to make him available at their discretion. And, much as he probably gained privileges while assisting an intelligence agency in jail, he must have also been assisted by somebody high up inside the prison. Private facilities are scrutinized to make sure this doesn’t happen, but it happens. All the time.

In the case of Heywood, it’s not only that he could have been given access to a computer or even a phone that he could use to carry out his plans remotely, it’s also that the people who should have been monitoring his jail time closely didn’t do so.

Someone was looking the other way . . . a lot.

Theo made the case that all Heywood would have needed was an iPhone or an Android device with internet access. Therefore, any corrupt guard would have sufficed.

While Theo’s technically correct, I know Heywood better than that. He needs to control everything and everyone around him. He wouldn’t want to wait until late at night to use the phone when nobody is watching. Nor would he risk having a random search of his cell turn up the device. No, he’d want to do whatever the hell he wanted, when he wanted. And to achieve that, he’d need to corrupt the man in charge of the whole facility. But to corrupt an official who’s already well paid and works under the scrutiny of government officials, Heywood would have needed to come up with something incredibly persuasive.

“Here he comes,” says Theo, indicating the middle-aged man with a military haircut emerging from his house.

Nick Weir immediately notices us.

Prior to working for the company that operates MDF, he served as the commanding officer for several military prisons. From the look of the man, it’s easy to see why he’d be a good candidate to run a facility for federal inmates.

I climb out of the driver’s-side door. “Excuse me, Mr. Weir? I’m Jessica Blackwood with the FBI. I spoke to your office yesterday.”

I meet him at the bottom step. Theo hangs back in the car, texting on his phone, or at least making it look like he is.

“Yes, Agent Blackwood, I thought our appointment was supposed to be at 2:00 p.m. at the facility?”

He’s looking a little frustrated. That was the point of intercepting him here. I wanted to catch him off guard and see how he’d react. Right now, not so well. He keeps glancing over at Theo.

“That’s Dr. Theo Cray. He’s advising the FBI,” I explain.

“Advising them on . . . ?”

“The Void events. That’s why I wanted to speak to you.”

Weir was led to believe that I had some background questions on Heywood, which should have him alarmed but not panicked. If he has something to hide, he’ll want to be helpful . . . to a point. As a contractor running a federal facility, he can only be so defensive before it starts to look suspicious. Weir’s a smart man who will try to play it as safely as he can. It’ll be interesting to see at what point he tries to shut me down.

“Can this wait until later?” he asks.

“Unfortunately, no. We got an update and are under extra pressure. This will only take a few minutes of your time.”

“Okay,” he says, crossing his arms. “What can I help you with?”

“Do you know how frequently Michael Heywood had visitors at Mesa?”

“I sent your office the logs. All that’s in there. You know that, Agent Blackwood.”

He’s being condescending. That’s a tell. I need to play with his expectations a little and see how he answers.

“Yes. But I’ve been told that meetings with national security officials wouldn’t be logged. Is that correct?”