King and Maxwell

by David Baldacci

  He said in a normal voice, “So you think you can do it, Edgar? This tracking thing?”

  “You gave me the license plate number of Grant’s vehicle. From that I can easily get the VIN. And from there lots of things open up.”

  His fingers were flying over the multiple keyboards.

  “Just curious, you ever get repetitive motion injuries?” asked Michelle as she watched him work away.

  “No,” said Edgar.

  “How long will it take to track him via the GPS?” asked Sean.

  “Not long,” replied Edgar. “I’ll contact you when I’m done.”

  They walked back to their car and drove off.

  Michelle said, “I think that he thinks we offered him a job.”

  “You mean he thinks you offered him a job.”

  “I wasn’t being serious. And we can’t afford him.”

  “I know that,” said Sean. “But we can’t just keep asking the guy to do all this stuff for us for free.” He paused and added with a tinge of hope, “Can we?”

  “No, we can’t,” she said firmly.

  Sean turned the radio on, and they caught the top-of-the-hour news feed. It was dominated by the growing scandal surrounding the Cole administration. The political opposition in the Congress was strenuously calling for investigative hearings; subpoenas were already being drawn up. One congressman had even mentioned impeachment as a possibility. The government of Iran was also rattling the sabers and denouncing the U.S. actions. And America’s allies were distancing themselves from the situation. Cole’s spokesperson was offering the standard spin, and all of it seemed weak and evasive.

  “Pretty bleak,” commented Michelle.

  “Well, what they did was pretty stupid,” said Sean. “You can’t buy a democracy, even with a billion euros.”

  “Very eloquent of you,” she said.

  “I have my moments.”

  “So what now? Just twiddle our thumbs waiting for Edgar to do his thing?”

  “No. We’re going to split up.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going to babysit Wingo so he doesn’t do something stupid.”

  “And me?”

  “Can you go by the hospital and check on Dana for me?”

  Michelle looked slightly panicked. “Me? Sean, they won’t let me see her.”

  “They will if she wants them to.”

  “But why not you?”

  “I’m… Can you just do it for me, Michelle?”

  She started to protest again but when she saw the look on his face she said, “Sure, I’ll go. Just drop me at my truck. But if something goes down you call me, okay?”

  “You got it. And, Michelle, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  An hour later Michelle walked into the hospital and made her way to the ICU. She was dreading running into Curtis Brown. She discovered, however, that the general was not at the hospital. A nurse informed Michelle that he had left earlier but planned to be back soon.

  The nurses’ station buzzed Dana’s room, and she agreed to see Michelle.

  The nurse admonished, “You can’t stay long. She needs her rest.”

  “Absolutely,” said Michelle.

  She entered Dana’s room and took a moment to look around at the array of tubes and machines hooked up to her, helping her to get better. It had not been that long ago that Michelle had been in a hospital bed with nearly the identical medical equipment hooked up to her as she fought for her life.

  She drew up a chair and sat down next to the bed.

  Dana looked over at her. Her coloring was better today, Michelle thought, even if she still looked very weak.

  “Sean’s not with you?” she said.

  “Not right now. I know he’ll be coming by to see you later.”

  Dana slowly nodded but looked disappointed all the same.

  “I understand that the general was here earlier?”

  Dana tried to sit up a bit, but Michelle put a restraining hand on her shoulder. “I’ll raise the bed instead, okay?”

  Michelle hit the lift control and Dana’s torso rose a few inches.

  “Curtis has been great through this,” said Dana.

  “I’m sure he has. But so have you.” Michelle gave her a reassuring squeeze on her arm.

  “Have you found out anything about all this?”

  “Still trying. But we’re getting there.”

  “Sean will get there, I’m sure of it.”

  “You seem to have a good relationship with your ex,” said Michelle, with just the tiniest of bites to her words.

  “Actually, we had no relationship at all. Not until he contacted me. I hadn’t heard from him since the divorce.”

  Michelle started to say something else and then caught herself. She glanced at the monitors and the drip lines and decided not to push it. The woman was still in precarious shape.

  “You can ask what you want to ask, Michelle.”

  She glanced over to see Dana’s gaze on her.

  “He’s a good man and I screwed up big-time in letting him get away.”

  “So, regrets?”

  “I’d prefer not to use that word. I have Curtis. I have to look forward, not back.” There was a minute of silence until Dana said, “Are you two more than just business partners?”

  “Does it matter to you?”

  “Could you hand me that cup of water please?”

  Michelle held the cup for her while Dana sipped on the straw. She sat back and took a few deep breaths. One of the monitors started alarming and Michelle quickly stood. “Should I get a nurse?”

  “No. That thing’s been chiming the last two days. They have the parameters set too low, or so they told me. No one’s been in to adjust it yet.”

  Michelle sat back down.

  Dana stared at her wrist, where an IV line was inserted. “I guess it does matter to me, Michelle, but probably not for the reason you think.” She eased her head to the right and looked at her. “I’m very happy with Curtis. I would like Sean to be happy too.”

  “He is happy.”

  “Being happy alone and being happy with someone are two different things. So are you more than business partners?”

  “I don’t know what we are, Dana.”

  “Is that your version of the facts or Sean’s?”

  Michelle scowled. “Look, I know you’ve been shot and everything, but this isn’t really your business, is it?”

  “Did Sean tell you why we split up?”

  “No, not really.”

  “Entirely my fault.”

  “Being married to a Secret Service agent isn’t easy.”

  “I cheated on him. Multiple times. I’ll never, ever forget the look on his face when he found out. I know he felt so betrayed.”

  Michelle eased back in her chair. “We don’t really have to go into this.”

  “If you love him, Michelle, make it easy on yourself and just tell him. I saw how he is around you. I know him. I know what he’s feeling for you.”

  “You just saw us together the one time and it wasn’t for long.”

  “I didn’t need long.”

  Michelle looked down and rubbed a hand through her long hair. “Thanks for the advice.”

  “But you won’t take it?”

  “I can’t make promises, sorry. But you delivered the message really well.”

  Michelle’s phone buzzed. She slipped it out, hoping it was Sean.

  It wasn’t.

  The name on the caller ID would have gotten anyone’s attention.

  It was the White House.

  CHAPTER

  74

  SEAN WAS SITTING ACROSS FROM Sam Wingo. They were in Sean’s car staking out Jenkins’s house.

  “What good will this do?” asked Wingo.

  “Three-quarters of what PIs do comes to zip. But you have to go through that to get to the other twenty-five percent that actually will result in something. Same sort of deal at the Secret Serv
ice. Ninety percent tedium, ten percent bedlam.”

  “Well, I don’t see this resulting in anything more than a waste of time.”

  “Are you telling me that when you were soldiering, you didn’t have to show patience?”

  Wingo sighed and shook his head. “Actually, it was ninety-nine percent tedium and one percent chaos.” He looked at Sean. “Sorry, guess my nerves are just running away with me.”

  Sean patted him on the shoulder. “Your son is safe for now. We bought some time. If we can just—”

  Sean broke off when his phone buzzed. He looked at the screen.

  “It’s Edgar. Maybe he worked his magic with the satellite or found a way to track Grant’s car.”

  Edgar, however, had not accomplished either of those things. Yet he did have something else.

  “I was looking through Jenkins’s file and found something that might help you.”

  “What?” asked Sean.

  “Real estate tax bill for a piece of property other than Jenkins’s home.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Ten acres in Rappahannock County, Virginia. I looked it up from an old real estate listing online. It’s a cabin. Very remote.”

  “Does it have an address?”

  “I’ll email you the directions right now. Good luck.”

  Sean clicked off and filled in Wingo on what Edgar had just told him.

  “You think it could be where they’re holding Tyler and Kathy?”

  “Rural and isolated. Maybe that’s where Grant was when our email flushed him out. It’s well over an hour away.”

  “What do we do? Go charging in?”

  “No. We have to do this the right way.”

  He glanced at his phone and then called Michelle. It went straight to voice mail. She might still be at the hospital with Dana, he thought.

  He punched in another number. A voice came on the line.

  “Special Agent Dwayne Littlefield,” said the voice.

  “Agent Littlefield, it’s Sean King.”

  “Did you just drop off the planet or what? My ass is sitting out with the president of the—”

  Sean broke in. “I think I might have a lead on Tyler and Kathy.”

  “Where?”

  “There’s going to be firepower if the kids are being held there.”

  “We have people who specialize in this, King. How solid is your info?”

  “Won’t know until we get there.”

  “We? No, you let the Bureau handle this.”

  Sean had the phone on speaker mode, and when Wingo heard this last part he snatched the phone before Sean could stop him.

  “It’s my kid and I’m going to be there. I don’t give a shit what you say.”

  “Who the hell is this?” Littlefield paused. “Sam Wingo? Is that you? Do you know how much trouble you’re in? And Sean King? Harboring a fugitive? Obstruction of justice. And I’m not even warmed up yet. Your ass is mine, King.”

  Sean jerked the phone back from Wingo and gave him a withering look.

  “Look, Dwayne, let’s just focus on getting the kids back safe and sound. You do that, I think the president will once more look favorably on the FBI. And then we can work out these other little details.”

  “Little details?”

  “Focus, Dwayne. The kids?”

  “I can send in HRT. They got firepower like nobody else.”

  “No, we’re not going to do it that way. You fight fire with fire, everybody ends up getting burned.”

  “Are you trying to tell me how to do my job?” snapped Littlefield.

  “The former president’s niece was kidnapped. Remember that?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, my partner and I were the ones who got her back safe and sound, so we’re not exactly thumb suckers on this. We can help.”

  “This is way out of protocol.”

  “This whole damn thing is way out of protocol.”

  “So how do you want to do this then?” asked Littlefield.

  “Me and Wingo. You and McKinney. We go in fast and with no warning and we get the kids.”

  “What about your partner, Maxwell? I hear she can kick ass like nobody’s business.”

  “I tried to get hold of her. But we need to move fast.”

  “I’d rather go in at night.”

  “And that’s right when they would be expecting something. We go in while it’s still light, we catch them off guard.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  Sean looked at Wingo. “We got a guy here who’s Special Forces. We got you, me, and McKinney. Not one of us is an amateur. These guys have to be running out of manpower by now, so I think the guns on their side might be a little light. We can do this, Dwayne. I’m getting floor plans of the cabin sent to me right now. We’ll walk through it, do our recon, and then hit it.”

  “If you’re wrong—”

  “Then my ass is yours. But for now, we do it my way.”

  “Okay. Tell me where and when.”

  Sean did and then put his phone away.

  Wingo looked over at him. “You as confident as you sound?”

  “Not even close.” Sean put the car in gear and tore off.

  CHAPTER

  75

  TWO HOURS LATER THE SKIES opened up and Sean looked to the heavens and thanked the man upstairs. It was a quick thunderstorm but it was making a lot of racket. It would be over and done in about thirty minutes; the skies would clear to a spectacular, cleansed blue, and the winds would calm. But right now bucketing rain, heavy, howling winds, and booms of thunder were covering every sound of their approach to the cabin.