Van sensed something peculiar here. Michael Hickok was a very scary guy, but he just didn’t feel like a smooth political operator who was out to play pin the tail on the donkey. Hickok just didn’t seem bright enough to be capable of a scheme that complicated. Maybe Tony Carew had never personally met Michael Hickok. Just possibly, there was some big, dumb, simple mistake here. Something that had gone wrong a long time ago, that Van could put right.