King and Maxwell

by David Baldacci

  “Yeah. Is it true? Was she a plant?”

  “It’s complicated, Tyler.”

  Now Tyler frowned and sat up straighter on the bed. “No, it’s not, Dad. Either she was or she wasn’t.”

  Wingo pressed his palms against his thighs. “Jean was assigned to stay with you while I was away.”

  “Assigned to stay with me? Were you two even married?”

  Wingo shook his head. “No. It wasn’t like that. It was just her mission. Her job was to be with you while I was gone.”

  Tyler looked dully at him. “So Mom was replaced with somebody who was doing a job?”

  Wingo flushed. “It wasn’t like that at all, son.”

  “And you kept all of this from me? Your son? For almost a whole year? I couldn’t know about any of it?”

  “It was classified, Tyler. I couldn’t tell anyone not in the loop.”

  “Great, I was out of the loop. Glad to know you had a good reason.”

  He stood and went over to the window, looking out.

  “Tyler, keep away from there!” exclaimed Wingo.

  “Don’t worry about me, Dad. I’m not in the loop. I’m not part of the mission.”

  “Tyler, please. I couldn’t tell you.”

  “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” Tyler turned to face him. “I didn’t even know you were still in the Army. I thought you had a job at some company.”

  “That was also part of the cover,” Wingo said miserably.

  “Right, cover. From everybody, including me.”

  “I took an oath, son. To serve my country to the best of my ability.”

  “Yep, and country trumps family every time, right. Maybe I’ll join the Army when I get out of high school. Then I can keep shit from you and you won’t be able to complain. Because I’m serving my country.”

  “I’m not proud of how I handled this, son. I feel awful how this turned out.”

  “Not as bad as me.”

  Wingo started to say something and then closed his mouth.

  Tyler looked back out the window. “What do we do now?”

  Wingo glanced at him. “I need to find out who set me up.”

  “How?”

  “I’ve got a few leads.”

  “And what about me?”

  “You can’t go back to school. Not now. You have to stay with me. I’ll be able to keep you safe.”

  Tyler turned to face him. “You killed a man. I saw it.”

  Wingo rose and stood next to him. “I’m sorry you had to see that. But I had to do it. He was going to shoot her.”

  “Michelle Maxwell. I like her. I like them both.”

  “Do you trust them?”

  “Yes. And you should too. They can help you. They’re smart.”

  Wingo pulled his son away from the window and sat him back on the bed.

  “I’m not sure we can trust anyone, Tyler.”

  “They can help you, Dad!”

  “They led those men right to us.”

  “That wasn’t their fault.”

  “There’s no room for mistakes, Tyler.”

  “Will you let them help?”

  “I don’t think I can,” said Wingo.

  “Then I’ll go to them.”

  “I said you had to stay with me.”

  “That’s what you said. That doesn’t mean I have to.”

  “You’re my son! I didn’t travel seven thousand miles to get back to you only to lose you again.”

  “But I’m out of the loop. You can’t tell me anything. So how can I help you?”

  “You need to stay with me so I can keep you safe.”

  “They can keep me safe.”

  “Tyler, this is not open for discussion.”

  “How can you keep me safe and find out who set you up? You’ll be putting me in danger if I come with you.”

  Wingo pressed his hand against his temple.

  “Face it, Dad. You need help. You need Sean and Michelle.”

  Wingo slowly sat down in the chair. “Do you really think they can help?”

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Wingo looked up at his son. “Do you trust me?”

  Tyler stared at his father. “I believe you when you said you did nothing wrong. But I’m not sure I trust you. At least not yet.”

  Wingo nodded and looked down. “After all this I guess I can’t blame you.”

  “But you’re still my dad. And we have to get through this. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  CHAPTER

  52

  SEAN AND MICHELLE WERE ON one side of the table while Agents McKinney and Littlefield were on the other. It was the next morning and they were in a conference room at a DHS satellite office in Virginia. Both agents looked dour.

  Sean said, “So still no Tyler Wingo?”

  Littlefield said, “We’ll get him.”

  Michelle interjected, “You better hope you do before somebody gets to him first.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” said McKinney.

  She replied, “Pretty simple, actually. People are after his dad. Means they might use his son to get to the father.”

  “Yeah, we’ve considered that,” said Littlefield. “So why the face-to-face now?”

  Sean said, “You know we met with POTUS. He made a request. We’re going to accept that request.”

  Littlefield and McKinney sat up straighter.

  “Okay,” said Littlefield.

  “But we have a little problem,” added Michelle.

  “What’s that?” said Littlefield.

  “The president wanted us to use our relationship with Tyler to get to his father.”

  Sean added, “But you lost Tyler. Now, I’m sure the president knows about that, right?”

  McKinney glanced at Littlefield, who directed his gaze at the floor.

  “Agent Littlefield?” began McKinney.

  Littlefield said, “The president is a busy man. We can’t interrupt him with every little thing.”

  “Little thing!” said Sean. “Tyler Wingo is the most important teenager in the country right now.”

  “Shit,” muttered McKinney, but a tiny smile escaped his lips, probably at the thought of the FBI’s plight in this case.

  Michelle focused her attention on him. “And I don’t think the president, when he finds out, will take the time to specifically assess blame, Agent McKinney. FBI? DHS? To him, it will all be the same. Alphabets that royally screwed up.”

  The smile faded from McKinney’s lips.

  Littlefield said, “Okay, you’ve shown your hand and it’s a strong one. What do you want?”

  “Some cooperation and information sharing,” said Sean.

  “Such as?” asked Littlefield warily.

  Michelle answered, “Such as all surveillance camera footage from Dulles, Reagan National, and BWI for the last five days.”

  “Why?” asked McKinney.

  “If Sam Wingo is back in the country we figure he came by plane—commercial, private, or cargo.”

  “We’ve already run that with facial recognition software,” said Littlefield.

  Sean looked at Michelle. “I’m not feeling the love here. What say we go back to the president and see if he’ll authorize it if these guys won’t?”

  “Sounds good to me,” said Michelle. She started to get up.

  “Wait, wait,” said Littlefield, holding up his hands. “I guess two more pairs of eyes on it won’t hurt. But it’s a lot of footage.”

  “Not if you know what you’re looking for,” said Michelle.

  “And you do?” asked McKinney suspiciously.

  “Secret Service. We’ve got the best eyes in the business,” answered Michelle.

  “Right!” snorted McKinney.

  Sean pointed to McKinney’s ear. “You got some shaving cream in your right ear. Guess you missed it this morning. Surprised your DHS buds didn’t point it out.” He looked at Littlefield. “Or your good friend at the FBI.”

  McKinney stabbed h
is finger in his ear and looked at the shaving cream on it.

  Michelle smiled. “That one was free of charge.”

  An hour later Sean and Michelle were sitting in front of a bank of computer screens.

  “Which airport first?” said Michelle.

  “Let’s dial up Dulles. It’s closest. And Reagan doesn’t handle international flights from the places Wingo would be coming from.”

  Six hours and three cups of coffee each later they sat back looking defeated.

  Michelle said, “Without facial recognition software this is going to take forever. There are just too many faces to do manually.”

  Sean nodded in agreement, thinking hard.

  “Let’s focus on cargo. Even with his new look I don’t think Wingo would chance flying commercial.”

  They dialed up that segment of the footage.

  They started watching when Sean realized something. “This footage is probably too recent. Wingo was probably already back in the country by then.”

  Michelle grabbed his arm. “Wait. Check out the car.”

  Sean sat back and focused on a car that was parked outside one of the cargo terminals. “That’s Wingo,” exclaimed Sean.

  “And it looks like he’s watching someone. Can you adjust the angle?”

  Sean hit some keys and the screen changed to show Wingo’s sight lines. A man was coming out of a building. He got into a car and drove off. Sean hit some more keys and they watched as Wingo pulled onto the road and started following the other man’s car.

  “He’s tailing the guy,” observed Sean.

  Michelle was typing in something in her phone. “License plate of both cars,” she explained.

  Sean nodded while he again changed the footage angle. “Heron Air Service,” he said, reading the sign on the side of the building from where the man had come.

  Michelle saw this and hit some more keys on her phone. “You think that’s the folks he rode back in on? I just Googled them. Among other things they run an international cargo service.”

  “But if he’d gotten a ride with them, why tail them?”

  “That’s true.”

  “Maybe he was running down a lead on the money,” said Sean. “Maybe Heron had something to do with transporting the billion euros.”

  “We need to run down the same lead then. How do you want to go about it?”

  “Deceit and lies, the usual template,” replied Sean.

  “I could go on bended knee to Edgar and see if he can run these plates for us.”

  “Good idea. And I’ll find out all I can on Heron Air Service.”

  “And the Feds?” asked Michelle.

  “We tell them we found nothing on the footage and we eat our humble pie.”

  “Not in a trusting mood?”

  “I haven’t been in a trusting mood for twenty-five years.” He leaned back in his chair. “But we have to keep in mind that those guys followed us to Wingo, Michelle. They’re still gunning for us. Which means we have to take evasive action.”

  “Tough to do while we’re investigating this,” she noted.

  “But we have to. Unless and until Sam Wingo wises up, we have to follow up everything solo.”

  “And wall the Feds off at the same time. And the president. Tall order, Sean.”

  “Where’s your usual can-do spirit that I know and love?” he said with a smile.

  “I think I left it back at either the blown-up motel room or the woods where we nearly got shot.”

  He shrugged. “You were the one who got us involved in this sucker. So, in for a dime, in for a dollar.”

  She drew a long breath. “Yeah, I know. I’m just wondering when we’re going to run out of change.”

  CHAPTER

  53

  MICHELLE SAT IN THE PASSENGER seat of the car staring down at her phone.

  Sean was in the driver’s seat. It was a vehicle they had borrowed from a friend. They had stayed the night at a motel, paying in cash.

  “And?” he asked expectantly, looking at her.

  “Edgar came through. The plates on Wingo’s car belong to a vehicle that was impounded by the D.C. cops about a month ago.”

  “He stole the plates off it to replace the ones on his. Probably a rental. He’s using a fake ID and didn’t want anyone to be able to trace it back and blow his cover.”

  “That’s right,” said Michelle absently. “He’s probably only got one ID and a credit card pack based on that. That gets blown, he’s out of resources.”

  “What about the other vehicle?”

  “Registered to a Vista Trading Group, LLC, based in D.C. Their office is over off L Street, Northwest.”

  “And what do we know about Vista Trading Group?”

  “Consultants in the defense contracting arena. They operate in lots of countries but they seem to have a specialty in the Middle East.”

  “Special enough to steal a billion euros?” asked Sean.

  “Maybe.”

  “Connection to Heron Air Service?”

  “Nothing mentioned on the site.”

  “Did you dig deeper on Heron?”

  “They’re a private charter service. They’ve got ten aircraft. All