“Do you know anything else about him?”
Devereaux shrugged. “Got his start with a software company he sold for a ton of money. Politically connected. Owns a bunch of trophy properties and likes to throw parties. A weakness for beautiful women.”
Was Devereaux being just a touch too nonchalant? Hobbs couldn’t be sure, but he thought so. Good.
“Well,” Hobbs said, “he does like to appear at parties with models half his age or younger. But that’s a smokescreen. His real interest is in girls. As in, underage girls.”
Other than a judicious sip of coffee, Devereaux didn’t react. Hobbs admired his discipline. You had to be careful with these intel types. Devereaux had been career CIA before his ascension to the top job, and he understood the power of silence to loosen tongues.
Or to conceal his own fear.
“In fact,” Hobbs went on, “six years ago, he was indicted in South Carolina. A joint FBI-local law-enforcement investigation. He was having teenaged girls brought to his Kiawah Island mansion at an almost industrial scale. The indictment wasn’t just for sex with underage girls. It was for trafficking.”
Devereaux peered at him over his glasses. “Wasn’t that when you were the US Attorney in that district?”
Hobbs was glad for the riposte. It felt fearful, like a veiled Maybe I’m implicated, but then so are you.
“Level with me,” Hobbs said. “Have you ever heard of Schrader’s indictment?”
“No.”
“Well, that’s good. Because we buried it. We let him plead out—one charge of solicitation of a minor. A non-prosecution agreement. No prison time. No publicity.”
Devereaux set down his coffee and cocked his head, as though unsure why Hobbs would offer up something so incriminating. “Like what they did with Epstein in Florida.”
Hobbs nodded. Everyone knew about Jeffrey Epstein. Which was of course part of Hobbs’s concern about Schrader. “Something like that.”
“That would have been a big case for you, if you could have made it stick. A celebrity prosecution like that.”
“You want to know why I buried it?”
Devereaux offered a tight smile at the directness of the question. “Sure.”
“Schrader is one of the world’s great networkers. A lot of powerful friends he’s been collecting for decades. Politicians. Corporate titans. Media barons. Friends of ours.”
Devereaux nodded in appreciation of the gravity of what he had just heard. The thing was, what he thought he understood wasn’t the half of it.
“What, then?” Devereaux said. “You were protecting the innocent from embarrassment? Guilt by association?”
“I was protecting them from videos.”
Devereaux’s expression was neutral, but Hobbs detected the effort behind it. I’ve got you, you son of a bitch, he thought.
But Devereaux said nothing, so Hobbs continued. “Schrader had hidden cameras installed in every bedroom of his six homes, to which he was always happy to fly his rich and powerful friends on his private jet.”
“That’s appalling.”
Hobbs wasn’t sure whether Devereaux was referring to the cameras, to the behavior they recorded, or to the stupidity of anyone who would allow himself to be captured in such compromising circumstances. Probably there was self-reproach in the mix, as well.
“But how did you know . . . ,” Devereaux started to say, then caught himself.
Hobbs offered a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay, Pierce. This is explosive stuff. If you want to pretend it doesn’t matter to you, it’s fine, but I’ll know you’re full of shit.”