Chapter 28

They did it well, I have to give them that.

The first inkling I had was a hard knock at the front door. No prefatory e-mails, no phone discussions that Spook could intercept, nothing. Just the knock. And the simultaneous yell.

"John Joseph Heyward, this is the police! Come out with your hands up, you are surrounded!"

I had to suppress a laugh; of course I was surrounded, I'd set it up that way.

But I was no longer John Joseph Heyward, I was Jackson Edward Carstairs, and it was as Carstairs that I answered the knock, throwing open the door.

A smallish middle-aged man stood outside, dressed in a suit that my newly acquired fashion sense told me was probably from a discount house. Uniformed police flanked him. He frowned at me a little, and consulted a paper in his hand.

"Umm ... we're looking for Mr. Carstairs," he said hesitantly.

"You have found him," I said is my most courtly Charleston accent.

His face broadened into a smile. "Hello, then, Jack," he said. "I'm Richard Ashley."

So this was Richard, to whom I'd spoken so often on the phone but had never actually seen. At times I'd envisaged him as Goliath, this massive man of formidable powers and strength. Yet here he was in person, no larger or stronger or more imposing than the average man I'd meet in the street.

But I had a role to play.

"Good evening to you, Mr. Ashley," I said, still my adopted Charleston-ese to the core; over the years it had become second nature. "But I'm unaware that we've met. It's probably my fault, I'm forgetful of faces, will you remind me?"

"Give it up, Jack, it's me, Richard," he said. "We're here to take you in."

"'Take me in?'" I said, letting a little surprise creep into my tone. I pretended to notice the cops at his elbows for the first time. "Do you mean, to arrest me?"

"I mean exactly that," he told me. "It's over, Jack, you're busted. Save everybody a lot of trouble and own up, OK?"

It was right about then that the media showed up in the form of a TV truck that screeched to a halt outside. I'd been careful to tell Spook to make the calls—several more were on their way—when the external security cameras had shown me who was knocking. If Richard wanted a bust I needed to make sure it was a really public bust.

"Would you tell me on what charge?" I asked in my acquired drawl.

"Treason. Tampering with electronic communications. Identity fraud. We have a lot more, but that'll do to start," he snapped impatiently.

"I see," I said calmly. "Are you sure you don't have me confused with someone else?"

"You're John Joseph Heyward, are you not?" he demanded.

"No, sir, I am Jackson Edward Carstairs," I contradicted him. "I believe there are many who would attest to that."

"Whatever," he said dismissively. "Jack, it's finished. We have your fingerprints. Do you want to ride this out to the last minute? We've got you; I've got you. Now let's go."

"Sir, take my fingerprints, they will not tell you what you wish to know," I said.

"Where's your wife?" he asked, a bit rudely I thought.

Lee appeared behind me.

"Sir!" I snapped, real indignation mixed with ersatz. "Arrest me if you must, but leave my wife out of this. As you can see, she is near to bearing our child."

Ignoring me the cops pushed past me and one grabbed each of Lee's frightened—for real, in part, not just feigned—arms. "Ma'am, I'm sorry but you're under arrest," said one. "You have the right..." he continued with the rest of the Miranda litany.

Lee knew what to do. She wasn't my worry. For the next forty-eight hours, the time they legally were allotted to charge me, I was.

"John Joseph Heyward," Ashley began—

"I am not he," I protested.

"Very well," he said. "Jackson Edward Carstairs, if you prefer, I hereby arrest you for treason and other crimes. You have the right..." and, notwithstanding that I'd just heard it recited to Lee, he continued through the whole Miranda warning. I held out my hands and he cuffed me.

While the media trucks, all three of them now, recorded every moment.