King and Maxwell

by David Baldacci

  “And yet you look so down.”

  “I ran into the general again.”

  “Did he take another swing at you? I hope this time you kicked his ass and—”

  He put a hand to her mouth to stop her.

  “Nobody kicked anybody’s ass. No punches were thrown.”

  “So what happened?”

  “He’s agreed to help us.”

  Michelle looked dumbstruck. “Well, that’s great too. So, why don’t you look happy?”

  “Because it might cost him his career.”

  “But it’s his choice.”

  “I actually might have shamed him into doing it. And there’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “The Pentagon. They can come down on us like a ton of bricks.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time we’ve ticked off the high and mighty, Sean.”

  “This time might be different.”

  “What do you want to do then? Cut and run?”

  He started to walk toward the building. “Not a chance. Just wanted full disclosure in case you wanted to call it a day.”

  She fell into step beside him. “You really think I’d just walk and leave you solo on this?”

  “No. I didn’t.”

  “Then why the little lecture?”

  “Maybe it was for my benefit. To show that when it all goes to hell I had thought it through.”

  The rooms here were accessed directly from the outside. They walked up a set of rusty steps to a balcony that ran around the front and sides of the second floor. They turned to the left, and then turned right as it wrapped around the outside of the motor court’s upper floor.

  “Number fourteen is right down here,” said Michelle.

  They reached a wooden door that was badly in need of fresh paint.

  Sean knocked.

  “I didn’t see Jean’s car here,” Michelle said.

  “Just being sure,” replied Sean.

  He waited a few more moments then said, “Got your pick tools?”

  Sean stood behind Michelle to cover her breaking and entering. Thirty seconds later she swung the door open with one hand. In her other was her pistol.

  She entered, followed by Sean. He closed the door behind them. Michelle checked the small attached bathroom while Sean opened the tiny closet and then looked under the bed. There were no other places someone could be concealed.

  Michelle was holstering her gun as she came back out of the bathroom. “All clear.”

  “She didn’t leave much,” he said as he opened a few drawers, revealing various articles of clothing. “There’re a few hanging things in the closet.”

  Michelle flipped up the mattress and then checked the box spring for anything hidden there. Wiping the dust off her hands, she rose. “I doubt she left anything of significance.”

  “Yet her having this place is significant in itself,” he replied.

  She said, “How hard do you want us to look? We can tear up carpet, peel off wallpaper, and dig the backing off the cheap prints on the wall. Check the toilet, the pipes, and the bath drain. The list goes on and on.”

  “Why have a second address at a place like this?”

  Michelle perched on the edge of the bed. “As opposed to what?”

  “Let’s assume she was a DoD plant. Presumably Wingo would have known that.”

  Michelle saw where he was going. “So why a crash pad? If she was brought in from out of the area, the military had to have a better place for her to stay than this dump. I mean, the Pentagon has a lot of facilities up here. You can’t turn around without bumping into space with their prints all over it.”

  Sean leaned against the wall. “Based on that, what’s the logical conclusion?”

  Michelle flicked her gaze around the room as she thought about this. When the answer dawned on her she said, “If you’re right, this sucker just got really complicated.”

  “Because maybe Jean Wingo was playing a two-sided game. Working for DoD and pretending to be Wingo’s wife.”

  Michelle picked up this thread. “And also working for the other side. The side that got the billion euros Wingo was supposed to deliver. So she’s a spy?”

  “I don’t know what she is. A spy. A criminal. Both.”

  “But who would she be spying for?”

  “Even our allies spy on us.”

  “Granted. But we have to make some progress on that question if we want to get any traction on this case.”

  “I’m hoping General Brown will come through for us there. And we might get really lucky and Sam Wingo will email his son back.”

  “Do you think Wingo went over to the dark side?”

  “For Tyler’s sake I hope not,” replied Sean.

  Michelle glanced toward the door. “Did you hear something?”

  Sean ran to the window where he could see outside through a gap in the drapes. Whatever he saw made him leap across the room and push Michelle into the bathroom. He grabbed the mattress and threw himself through the doorway into the same bathroom, where Michelle was now lying on the floor.

  “What the hell is going on?” she hissed.

  In response he pulled her into the bathtub with him and threw the mattress over them both.

  She didn’t have time to ask her question again because the bedroom they had just been in disappeared in a vortex of shock waves, choking fire, and flying debris.

  CHAPTER

  35

  SAM WINGO WAS WALKING FAST.

  He was back on American soil. He crossed the street, dodging traffic, reached the other side, and picked up his pace. He turned up his collar and kept his gaze, concealed behind glasses, swiveling in a 180-degree arc. Every few seconds he would check behind him. If he was taken now, he was convinced no one would ever see him again.

  And he would never see Tyler again.

  He ducked into a coffee shop as the rain started coming down. He ordered a cup of coffee and carried it to the rear of the space. He sat with his back to the wall and his sight line to the door unobstructed.

  He slid out a disposable phone loaded with minutes and data bytes that had been waiting for him in India courtesy of Adeel and gazed down at it. He had loaded his personal email account on the phone.

  The message had come in as soon as he turned his phone back on after the cargo plane landed. Once they touched down he’d expected to feel a hand on his shoulder, a gun in his ribs, a voice in his ear saying, “You need to come with us, Mr. Wingo.”

  But none of that had happened and Wingo began to think that others truly believed him dead.

  Well, let them.

  He gazed down at the email message again. It had come in from an unfamiliar Gmail account. But he knew it was from Tyler. It was written in their usual code. He easily deciphered it.

  His son wanted to meet with him, as soon as possible.

  Wingo wanted the very same thing. Only he knew it wouldn’t be that easy. His email account was known. There were others who had undoubtedly seen this message. Whatever he wrote back they would be able to see as well. There was no GPS chip in the phone he had so he wasn’t unduly worried about them tracking him down that way.

  But he would have to keep moving. He had drastically changed his appearance and was wearing clothing designed for maximum concealment. Yet he well knew the resources aligned against him. And it wasn’t just his own government after him. There were others out there, and he wasn’t even sure who they were.

  He took a few minutes to drink his coffee and compose his response to his son’s email in his head. Then he thumbed it in and hit the send key. He finished his coffee, rose, and headed out the other exit. He grabbed a cab and had it drop him off at a hotel near D.C.’s Chinatown where he had previously checked in.

  He had cash and a set of credit cards under an alias. There would be markers in the system so he could no longer be Sam Wingo. He hoped one day to return to his normal life. But he was a long way from there yet.

  Wingo went to
his room, sat on the bed, and stared out the window. Across the river was the Pentagon, the world’s largest office building, surprising since it was only a few stories tall. After the United States had been attacked at Pearl Harbor and needed a centralized command and control facility, it had been built in a little over a year using wheelbarrows, shovels, and American sweat. It was an achievement of which to be tremendously proud.

  Wingo was proud of his own service. He had always entered the doors of the Pentagon with an extra spring in his step. Now the thought of the place brought nothing but misery. He had a gut feeling that he had been set up somehow by folks in that very building. Why he didn’t know. But certainly the motivation was there.

  The journey of the forty-eight hundred pounds—representing a billion in unmarked five-hundred-euro notes that could be freely circulated—had been a complicated multistep mission. The delivery of the money had been the very first step. Wingo was one of the few privy to the entire scheme.

  In a way that was a good thing because the number of people who could have betrayed him had to be small. And he meant to find out who they were. He had tried to do his job. Someone had screwed him. He wasn’t turning the other cheek. He was a soldier. Soldiers were not wired for compassion or forgiveness. They were trained to strike back when struck.

  He left his room, walked four blocks to the west, and rented a car using his fake ID and a credit card that also had been provided to him in India. He drove out of the garage in his new wheels. The mobility felt good. He believed he could accomplish something now.

  But he had to take care of something first. He drove to a police impoundment lot and scanned the area. He saw no dogs, and the lone surveillance camera mounted on a pole wasn’t even connected to a power source. Budget cuts must be a bitch.

  He scaled the fence and dropped down inside. Keeping an eye out for any uniforms, he searched until he found what he needed. A car in the back that looked like it had been here awhile, its front right fender and driver’s door crumpled. He checked the plates—still valid. A minute later the plates were in his hand and he was back over the fence.

  He replaced the plates on the rental with the ones taken from the car in the impoundment lot. Now if someone keyed on his plate number and tried to run it down, Wingo’s alias would not be compromised.

  He drove back to his hotel, went to his room, punched in a number, and listened while it rang.

  The voice said, “South.”

  “It’s me,” Wingo said.

  There were a few seconds of silence as Wingo heard the other man start breathing hard, working himself up into a fury, no doubt.

  “Do you know what a shitstorm you’re in?” barked South.

  “Then you are too. It was your mission. The Army doesn’t pick fall guys, Colonel. They just shoot everybody.”

  “And you think I don’t know that, you son of a bitch? You have screwed me beyond belief.”

  “Did you find Tim Simons from Nebraska?”

  “The CIA never heard of him. And they knew nothing of our mission in Afghanistan. Dead end.”

  “So he was a fake.”

  “If he ever even existed outside your own mind. Now where the hell is the money, Wingo?”

  “I told you it was taken. Hell, you know it was.”

  “All I know is the team that was supposed to meet up with you was slaughtered. The truck with the money is gone. You’re AWOL. Are you really surprised by what we’re thinking about you?”

  “If I had taken it, why would I keep calling you?”

  “CYA.”

  “If I had a billion euros why would I have to cover my ass with anything?”

  “If you’re truly innocent, come in. I told you that last time you called. We can sit down and evaluate what happened.”

  “You mean you’ll bury me in some remote location somewhere so the truth never comes out.”

  “We’re Americans. We don’t make other Americans disappear.”

  “If the facts of this mission come out, you know as well as I do what will happen. It’ll be felt not just at the Pentagon, but also across the river on Pennsylvania Avenue. I know where those euros were going and what they were going to be used for and so do you. And the last place they’ll want to see it is on the front pages of the Post or the Times.”

  “Are you actually threatening me and by extension your government? What do you want, more money? Wasn’t the billion enough? Or do you blackmail for the fun of it?”

  “I’m just explaining to you why me coming in doesn’t work. Even if I did nothing wrong, and I didn’t, it won’t matter. I’ll never see the light of day again.”

  “Then why did you volunteer for the mission in the first place?”

  “To serve my country. I didn’t focus that much on the details of it not going according to plan. But now I’ve had the time to do just that.”

  “If you didn’t steal the money, who did?”

  “I’m going to find out. Count on it.”

  He clicked off and was about to put the phone back into his pocket when it vibrated. He read through the email that had just been deposited there.

  Tyler had written him back.

  CHAPTER

  36

  SEAN PUSHED THE MATTRESS OFF and gave a shuddering cough as the smoke engulfed them. “Are you okay?” he asked Michelle.

  “Thanks to you,” she said. “But we need to get out of here before we’re not okay.” She coughed, too.

  They climbed out of the tub and staggered over to where the door was, or used to be. There were gaping holes in the wall between the bathroom and the front room. As Sean stepped to the doorway he immediately drew back. Michelle crowded behind him and then drew back, too.

  The front bedroom was essentially gone. The edge of the bathroom was now the front of the room. An inch in front of them was a long drop to what remained of the unit on the first floor. They were cut off from the rest of the balcony so they couldn’t escape that way. And flames were creeping up the walls of the bathroom, and the smoke was growing thicker.

  Michelle peered over the edge.

  “We have to get down there,” she said.

  “I know. But how?”

  They could hear fire engine sirens. And a police car, its rack lights blazing, was powering down the road.

  “If we stay here we’re going to be burned alive.”

  The fire was starting to surround them.

  Michelle saw a fire truck in the distance, but she figured they would be dead long before it got to them.

  She grabbed up all the towels she could find in the bathroom. “Help me,” she said.

  They tied the towels together as tightly as they could, and then Michelle fastened one end around an exposed support beam in the wall.

  “I’ll go first,” said Sean. “If it’ll support my weight, it’ll be no problem for you.”

  “And if it breaks, you’re going to crack open your skull. Let me go.”

  But Sean had already clambered over the edge and grabbed ahold of the towel rope. “I hope they’ve maintained their towels better than the rest of this place,” he said as he dropped over the edge.

  He quickly climbed down and then Michelle even more quickly followed,