The Sixth Man

by David Baldacci

  People in this field could devote their entire careers to a certain quadrant of airspace over the Middle East, dutifully studying the relatively same satellite imagery until their hair changed from brown to white and their skin sagged toward retirement. Specialists, good, sound people for their little sliver of the plot. But that was all they knew, their incremental slice of the intelligence rainbow. And that was hardly good enough.

  But Edgar Roy’s specialty was omniscience.

  He was tasked to know everything. And the man had!

  Bunting never expected to find another Edgar Roy, a genetic freak to end all genetic freaks. A perfect memory and an astonishing ability to see how all pieces came together. He wished that the man could live forever.

  His phone buzzed. He looked annoyed but answered. “What?” He hesitated. “All right, send him in.”

  It was Avery. The young man had finally gotten his hair cut, but he had never learned how to dress properly. He looked like he had just woken up at his frat house after a keg party. But he was smart. Not an E-class mind but certainly useful.

  “I see you’re back from Maine.”

  “Just this morning. I wanted to tell you that I followed Carla Dukes home two nights ago. I wanted to speak with her about some issues.”

  “Okay. Did you?”

  “No, because I noticed someone following me.”

  Bunting sat up straighter. “What? Who?”

  “I didn’t get a good look at him because it was dark. I nearly ran over him while I was trying to get away.” He paused. “But I think it was that investigator, Sean King.”

  “Sean King? What was he doing there?”

  “Apparently following Dukes and/or me.”

  “Did he see you?”

  “Not clearly, I’m sure of that.”

  “Did he get your license plate number?”

  “Probably, but I switched the plates out with a pair of fake ones. They’ll lead nowhere.”

  “I’m impressed, Avery.”

  “Thank you, sir. I just thought you should know.”

  “Is that all?”

  Avery looked nervous. “Actually, no. The Wall backup is bordering on cataclysmic.”

  “That I already know. I’m recalling a pair of E-Fives to duty. And after I got blindsided by Foster I arranged a phone call with the president to reassure him. I just finished it. That will give us some time. If Foster tries to go over me now she’ll look pretty stupid.”

  “But that won’t last.”

  “Of course it won’t last.”

  “But if Edgar Roy is proven innocent and we get him back on the job, all of our problems go away.”

  Bunting rose, went over to the window, and looked out, his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets. “That’s not necessarily true.”

  “Why?”

  He whirled around. “Do you really think the US government will let Edgar actually go to trial?”

  Avery said slowly, “But what’s the alternative?”

  Bunting turned back around and watched a flock of birds heading south for the winter.

  I wish I could fly, he thought. I wish I could get the hell out of here.

  “What do you think, Avery?” he said over his shoulder.

  “They’ll kill him?”

  Bunting sat back down and switched topics. “So King was in Maine two nights ago following you. What about Maxwell?”

  “She wasn’t with him.”

  “And what have their movements been since?”

  Avery took a small step back. “Surveillance was lost for a bit but it has now been regained.”

  Bunting rose out of his seat once more. “Lost for how long?”

  “A few hours.”

  Bunting snapped his fingers. “More precise than that, Avery.”

  “Eight hours and four minutes. But now they’re headed, at least it seems, to Edgar Roy’s farm.”

  “Did it occur to you that when we lost sight of them they might have been going somewhere that could have been highly enlightening?”

  “Yes, sir, but I wasn’t in charge of that task.”

  “Fine. I am now making it your task to ensure that surveillance is not lost again.” He refocused. “The six bodies at the farm?”

  “Yes?”

  “Not one ID made? Strange, isn’t it?” Bunting’s expression signaled that it was far more than strange; it was impossible.

  “Yes, you would think they would be on some database somewhere.”

  “And there’s something else.”

  “Sir?”

  “The number.”

  “Number?”

  “Of bodies. Now go do your job.”

  Avery looked very confused as he closed the door behind him.

  Bunting sat back in his chair, swiveled around, and stared out the window.

  Six bodies. Not four, not five, but six.

  Ordinarily, Bunting was a man who embraced numbers. He loved statistics, analysis, conclusions based on solid building blocks of data. But the number six was starting to haunt him. He didn’t like it at all.

  Six bodies. The E-Six Program.

  That hit very close to home.

  Someone was really playing with him.

  CHAPTER

  28

  THE TRIP to Edgar Roy’s home took a number of hours. Michelle drove, as usual, while Sean stared moodily out the window.

  “Are you curious about what Kelly Paul did while she was out of the country?” he asked.

  “Of course I am. But she has a point about focusing on the investigation into her brother. He’s the one facing the death sentence. Not her.”

  He didn’t seem to hear this. “And she never said how her stepfather died.”

  “Easy enough to check, but that seems a little far afield, Sean.”

  He turned to look at her. “Unless it’s all connected.”

  “You’re talking a long time period, then.”

  He looked back out the window. “Why would a woman like that move to a ramshackle house in the middle of nowhere? She’s not farming. And her country accent was a bit too well done.”

  “Well, she did grow up in Virginia. And they do have accents down here,” drawled Michelle.

  “Lot of questions,” said Sean absently.

  “What do you think about her advice with the Bureau?”

  “It was good actually. Riley is a lawyer for the defense. You just can’t detain her indefinitely. In fact…”

  He took out his cell phone and punched in a number. “Still no answer. Okay, let’s do this the hard way.”

  He keyed in another number. “Agent Murdock? Sean King here. What? Yeah, we took your advice and went home. But we’re coming back. But that’s not why I’m calling. You’re holding the defense counsel in a case you’re investigating. That breaks about a dozen ethical and other laws I can think of off the top of my head. I either hear from her in five minutes that she’s free and on her way to Martha’s Inn, or the next time you see me it’ll be on CNN talking about Bureau overreach.” Sean paused as the other man said something. “Yeah, well, try me. And you now have four minutes.”

  He clicked off.

  Michelle glanced at him. “And what did he say?”

  “Basic blustery bullshit.” He looked at his watch. Ten seconds past the deadline Sean’s phone buzzed.

  “Hello, Megan, how are you doing?” He paused. “Excellent. I thought Agent Murdock would see it my way. We’re down in Virginia but we’ll be heading back up very soon. Go to Martha’s Inn and stay there. No visitors. Do nothing. And if Murdock comes near you again, call me.”

  He clicked off and put the phone in his pocket.

  “What have they been asking her?”

  “She didn’t say. From the background noise I think she was in a Bucar getting a ride back to the inn.”

  “Do you think they told her about Hilary?”

  “No, at least she didn’t mention it.”

  “Wait till she finds out I was the one w
ho probably shot her.”

  “Michelle, you don’t know if it was you, so stop driving yourself crazy about it.”

  “Easy for you to say.”

  He started to make a retort but then stopped and patted her arm. “Actually, it is easy for me to say. I’m sorry.”

  “So when are we heading back up to Maine?”

  “As soon as we check out Roy’s farm and talk to the local authorities.”

  “Doubt they’ll be much help.”

  “No, I think they will.”

  “Why?”

  “Up to this point it seems everyone believed that Roy was guilty. Now, with Bergin and Hilary dead, something Roy could not have been involved in, it might make people take a second look. And cops are no different.”

  “Who do we deal with on the federal side in Virginia? Not Murdock?”

  “I know the RA in Charlottesville,” Sean said, referring to the Resident FBI Agent. “He’s a good guy. Owes me a favor, in fact.”

  “Lots of people seem to owe you. What’s his debt?”

  “I wrote a recommendation letter for his daughter to get into UVA Law.”

  “That’s all?”

  “Well, I got him tickets to the Skins-Cowboys game in D.C. He’s originally from Dallas.”

  “Now that is valuable.”

  The FBI agent was suitably cooperative. And he told them something that was particularly intriguing.

  “I know Brandon Murdock. He’s a good guy. But I don’t know why he would be involved in something like this.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Sean.

  “He doesn’t work VICAP,” the man said, referring to the Bureau’s Violent Crime Apprehension Program, which also dealt with serial killers.

  “What does he do?”

  “Went to D.C. a while back.”

  “So, Hoover, WFO?” asked Michelle, referring to the FBI headquarters and the Bureau’s Washington Field Office, respectively.

  “No.” He looked doubtful. “I shouldn’t be talking about this with you, Sean.”

  “Come on, Barry. I’m not going to go blab it. You know me.”

  “And he got you the Cowboy tickets,” Michelle reminded him.

  The man grinned wryly. “Okay, Murdock is with the counterterrorism unit. Really specialized stuff.” He pointed a finger at Sean. “And I expect tickets for this. And better seats.”

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  Next, Sean and Michelle spent time with the local prosecutor, who had heard about Hilary Cunningham’s death.

  “You’re right, Sean,” the prosecutor had said. “This thing is really starting to stink.”

  They were given copies of the file on the Roy case and then drove out to the farm. It was isolated, with one dirt road in and out, the Blue Ridge Mountains as a backdrop, and not another house, car, or even stray cow in sight. Michelle pulled her Land Cruiser to a dusty stop in front of the one-story, wood-planked house, and they stepped out.

  Though the crime scene had long since been released, strands of yellow police tape still hung down from the front porch posts. Twenty yards west of the house was a two-story barn painted dark green with a cedar shake roof. In the back they could see a chicken coop and a small split-rail corral that looked far too small for horses.

  “Pigsty,” noted Michelle, as she glanced at it.

  “Thanks for the insight,” said Sean. “I thought they might have been breeding really small horses.”

  “Bodies in the barn.”

  “Six of them. All men. All white. All John Does as of now.”

  They found the front door locked, but a minute later it was unlocked due to Michelle’s delicate manipulations of the deadbolt.

  The house had a simple floor plan, and it didn’t take them long to make their way through it. Michelle picked out one of the books from a wall shelf full of them. She looked at the spine. “The only word I recognize in this title is the.”

  “Well, you’re not a genius.”

  “Thanks for reminding me.”

  “No pictures of family. No testimonials from work. No college degrees. Nothing to show the guy even lives here.”

  “Except for the books.”

  “Right, except for them.”

  “Well, this was his parents’ house. Maybe he just has his stuff somewhere else.”

  “No, Paul told us their parents bought the place after they got married and before their son was born. This is the only home Roy has ever known.” He looked around some more. “I suppose if he had a computer the cops took it.”

  “Good bet.”

  They headed to the barn. The doors were unlocked. They opened them and went in. The space was big and mostly empty. There was a hayloft reached by a wooden ladder, some workbenches, and an assortment of rusty tools hanging on pegs on the walls. An old John Deere tractor was parked at the far end of the ground floor.

  Michelle studied a patch of the dirt floor that had been dug up on the left side of the barn to a level of about five feet.

  “I’m guessing the burial ground was here?”

  Sean nodded and walked a perimeter around the turned-up soil.

  “How’d they know to look here?” she asked.

  “File says an anonymous tip was called in to the police.”

  “That’s really convenient. Anybody try to run down this tipster?”

  “They probably tried. But it also probably would have led nowhere. Throwaway phone card. Untraceable. That’s standard operating procedure for homicidal maniacs these days if the tipster was actually the murderer.”

  She circled the site carefully, studying it like an archaeological dig. “None identified as of yet. Were their faces disfigured or their prints burned off somehow?”

  “Don’t think so. They’re just not in any database, apparently. It happens.”

  “Kelly Paul seems convinced of her brother’s innocence.”

  “Half brother,” Sean reminded her.

  “Still a sibling.”

  “I find her more interesting than her brother in some respects. And I noted there were no pictures of her in Roy’s house, and no pictures of him in her house.”

  “Some families aren’t that close.”