The President's Brain Is Missing Read Online Free

him the files on the live guys, too. How about you? Up all night?”
    â€œOf course not,” Stein said. “I’m keeping my regular schedule, remember.”
    â€œThat’s right,” Alex said. “Another reason to put you on the list of people I hate.”
    â€œIt might interest you to know that the President is back in action today,” Stein said. “By the end of the night last night he said he was feeling good as he ever has, and this morning he was back in the pool by six am. So it’s his full schedule and then off to Ohio for that stupid town hall speech of his.”
    â€œCome on, Brad,” Alex said. “Town hall meetings are participatory democracy at its finest.”
    â€œWhen it’s thirty people talking sewage issues in New Hampshire, maybe,” Stein said. “When the President is trying to explain why the country needs to temporarily raise the marginal tax rate on millionaires in front of screaming yahoos who think all taxes are treason, well. Let’s just say I get nervous.”
    â€œThat’s what the Secret Service is for,” Alex said. “Yahoo management is their specialty.”
    â€œLet’s hope you’re right,” Stein said, and nodded at the piles. “You find anything interesting?”
    â€œYeah,” Alex said, rubbing his eyes again. “Yeah, I did. Not in the files, really, but around 3:00 A.M. I got a little loopy and decided to fire up the IRS database and look up some of these guys’ family members.”
    â€œWhy would you do that?” Stein said.
    â€œOh, you know,” Alex said. “See if any family members suddenly started paying taxes on millions of dollars of income, signifying ill-gotten gains.”
    â€œIll-gotten gains are not the sort of thing people usually pay taxes on,” Stein said. “Pretty much by definition.”
    â€œPoint,” Alex said. “Which is probably why I didn’t find anything. But then I found the opposite: The wife and adult child of one dead scientist stopped paying taxes entirely the year after he died. Here, look.” Alex plopped over a folder to give to Stein. “Louis Reynolds dies of a heart attack two years ago, right?” Alex then added some additional printouts to the pile. “The next year, his wife Lisa and kid Martha don’t pay any taxes at all. No reported income when both of them had jobs the year before. Lisa was an administrative assistant and Martha was a nurse practitioner. And no taxes filed this year, either.”
    â€œAnd they’re not dead,” Stein said.
    â€œNot that I can tell,” Alex said. “I didn’t call or anything, seeing as it was three in the morning.”
    â€œIf this Reynolds had life insurance and they were both beneficiaries, they could have lived off that money for a year or two and not had to pay taxes on any of that,” Stein said. “If you make no income in a year, you don’t have to file.”
    â€œMaybe,” Alex said. “But I don’t know. It still feels weird to me. People don’t usually just fall completely out of the IRS database, even if they do get a life insurance payout. They still have mortgages and bank accounts and 401(k)s and charitable contributions. If you fall out that completely, there’s got to be a reason.”
    â€œYou think they’re on the run,” Stein said.
    â€œMaybe,” Alex said. “Like I said, I don’t know. I’m not a forensic accountant, or an FBI agent, or spy. That’s your gig. You probably have people who could do this better than I could.”
    â€œIs that a hint?” Stein said.
    â€œIt could be if you want it to be,” Alex said.
    Stein smiled and held up the folder Alex gave him. “I’ll give this to some of my people and see what they come up with.”
    â€œIf you can have them do it quickly I would love you,” Alex said. “I have to