Last Man Standing

by David Baldacci

  stricken, terrified, ready to slice wrist or blow out temple. Yet in all his mug shots Harry Sullivan was smiling. The bastard was grinning, like he had put one over on the cops, even though he was the one busted. But his father had not aged well. He was no longer the handsome man he had been in the photos in the attic box. The last series of shots showed a very old man, though he was still smiling, albeit with fewer teeth. Web had no reason to care about him, yet it was difficult for him to witness the man’s decline in all its impersonal Kodak glory.

  As Web read some of the trial testimony of his father, he couldn’t help but laugh in places. One slick operator emerged from the lines of dialogue as the cagey con battled with prosecutors determined to put him away.

  “Mr. Sullivan,” asked one D.A., “is it not true that on the night in question you were—”

  “Begging your pardon, lad, but what night would that be again? Me memory’s not what it was.”

  Web could almost see the lawyer rolling his eyes as he answered, “The twenty-sixth of June, sir.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Go on, now, lad, you’re doing fine. I’m sure ye mum’s proud of yer.”

  In the transcript the court reporter had typed parenthetically, “Laughter in courtroom.”

  “Mr. Sullivan, I am not your lad,” replied the lawyer.

  “Well, forgive me, son, for I’m not quite experienced in such matters, and I surely meant nothing by it. Truth is, I don’t know what to be calling you. Though in the ride over from the jail to this fine courthouse I heard others call you names I wouldn’t be saying to me dearest enemy in the world. Words that woulda made me poor God-fearing mum roll over in her good Catholic grave. Attacking your honesty and integrity, and what man can be standing for mucha that?”

  “I could care less what criminals say about me, sir.”

  “Begging your pardon, son, but the worst of it be coming from the guards.”

  “Laughter again,” the stenographer had typed. Huge thunders of laughter, Web concluded, judging from the regiment of exclamation points tacked on the end.

  “Can we continue, Mr. Sullivan?” said the lawyer.

  “Ah, now, you be calling me Harry. It’s been me name since me Irish arse came into this world.”

  “Mr. Sullivan!” This came from the judge, Web read, and in those two words he seemed to sense a long laugh, though Web was probably wrong. But the judge’s last name was O’Malley, and perhaps he and Harry Sullivan shared a hatred of the English, if nothing else.

  “I certainly won’t be calling you Harry,” said the lawyer, and Web could almost see the righteous indignation on the man’s features for having to carry on such a conversation with a common criminal and getting the worst of it.

  “Well, now, lad, I know it’s your job to put me old, withered self into a cold, dark cell where men treat other men with no dignity atall. And all over a wee misunderstanding that might amount to nothing more than bad judgment, or perhaps a pint or two more than I should have had. But even so, you call me Harry, for though you’ve got to see this terrible deed through, there’s no reason we can’t be friends.”

  As Web finished the file on that particular chapter in his father’s life, he had to note, with some satisfaction, that the jury had acquitted Harry Sullivan on all counts.

  The last crime his father had been sent to prison for had gotten him twenty years, by far his longest sentence. So far he had punched fourteen years of the time in a prison in South Carolina that Web knew to be a sweat-hole one short step from hell, and he had six more years to go unless he got paroled or, more likely, died behind bars.

  Web took the final bite of his pastrami and the last swallow of his Dominion Ale. There was one more file to check. It did not take long to read and left Web stunned and even more confused.

  The Bureau was good; they left no stone unturned. When they checked somebody’s background out, damn it, man, you were checked out. If you were applying to work at the Bureau in any capacity, they talked to everybody you had any contact with in your entire life. Your first-grade schoolteacher, your paper route manager, even the pretty girl you had taken to the prom and subsequently slept with. And they had no doubt also spoken with her father, to whom you had to explain your miserable conduct afterward when the secret got out, even though it was his innocent little girl who had ripped off your pants and brought the extra-lubricated condoms. Your Boy Scout troop leader, your in-laws, the bank manager who had turned down your first car loan, the woman who cut your hair—nothing, absolutely nothing was sacred when the FBI was on the case. And damn if they hadn’t managed to track down old Harry Sullivan.

  He had been newly ensconced in his little South Carolina retirement cell, and he had given the background-checking agents his two cents on Web London, his son. “My son.” It was a phrase Harry Sullivan had used thirty-four times during the meeting because Web took the time to count them.

  Harry Sullivan gave “my son” the best damn recommendation anyone could give another person, though he had only known “my son” for the first six years of his life. But according to Harry Sullivan, a proper Irishman could tell if “my son” had what it took from nearly the day the diapers came off. And his son had what it took to be the finest FBI agent there ever was or ever would be and they could quote him on that. And if they wanted him to come up to Washington to tell the powers-that-be that very thing, he gladly would, though it would be with leg and arm shackles he’d be trooping in, yet his heart would still be bursting with pride. There was nothing on earth that was too good for “my son.”

  Web continued reading and his head dropped lower and lower as he did so, and then finally it almost hit the table with Harry Sullivan’s last written statement: “And would the good agents, the fine agents,” he’d begun, mind telling “my son” that his father has thought about him every day over all these years, never once letting him out of his heart, and though it was not likely that they would ever hook up again, that Harry Sullivan wanted “my son” to know that he loved him and wanted the best for him? And to not think too badly of the old man for how things had turned out? Would the good agents mind telling “my son” that, for he’d be much in their debt if they did. And he would be proud to buy them each a pint or two if the opportunity ever arose, though the prospects did not look at all promising for that, given his current living arrangements, though one just never knew.

  Well, they never had told Web anything. Web had never seen this report until right this minute. Damn the Bureau! Was there never any room to bend the rules? Did everything have to be lockstep, their way or the highway? And yet Web could have discovered this information years before if he had really wanted to. He just hadn’t wanted to.

  The next thought that hit Web made his features turn grim. If the Bureau had sent Claire Daniels Web’s file, was she already privy to some or all of this information regarding Harry Sullivan? If so, why hadn’t she bothered to tell him that?

  Web packed the file up, paid his bill and walked back to the Vic. He drove to one of the Bureau’s motor pools, switched vehicles and drove a late-model Grand Marquis out another gate not visible from the street he had come in on. The Bureau wasn’t exactly rolling in available Bucars, but the Grand had come in for a ten-thousand-miler, and Web had persuaded the supervisor that he deserved a nicer set of wheels than the twenty-year vet uptown at HQ the car was assigned to. If anyone had a problem with that, Web had added, go talk to Buck Winters, he’s my best friend.

  26

  Bates was still in the strategic ops room when the man entered. Bates looked up and did his best to keep the dismay off his face. Buck Winters sat down across from him. The crease on his suit was Bureau letter-perfect, the shine on his wing tips equally regulation. The insertion of his pocket handkerchief looked like it had been done with a ruler. The man was tall, broad-shouldered, with confident, intelligent features, a walking poster boy for the FBI. Maybe that’s how he had risen so far.

  “I saw London leaving the building

earlier.”

  “Just checking in per his orders.”

  “Oh, I’m sure he is.” Winters laid his palms flat on the table and seemed to study every feature on Bates’s face. “Why the hell do you care so much about that guy?”

  “He’s a good agent. And like you said, I was sort of his mentor.”

  “That’s not something I’d lay claim to, frankly.”

  “He’s almost gotten himself killed for this place a lot more than you or me.”

  “He’s a hothead. All those HRT guys are. They’re not part of us. They go their own way and thumb their noses at the rest of us, like they’re somehow better. What they really are is a bunch of alphas with big guns just itching to use them.”

  “We’re all on the same team, Buck. They’re a specialized unit that takes care of stuff nobody else can. Yeah, sure, they’re cocky, who wouldn’t be? But we’re all FBI agents; we’re all working toward the same goal.”

  Winters shook his head. “You really believe that?”

  “Yeah, I really do. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “They’ve also been the cause of some of the Bureau’s worst moments.”

  Bates dropped his file. “That’s where you’re dead wrong. The Bureau throws them into the fire on a moment’s notice and when something pops, usually because of knuckleheaded orders from the top that any guy on the front lines expected to execute said orders could tell you in a heartbeat won’t work, they take all the heat. I’m actually surprised they haven’t ask to be split off from us.”

  “You’ve never played the games you need to, to move up here, Perce. You’re at the glass ceiling or, in your case, the steel ceiling. There’s no getting through it.”

  “Well, I like right where I am.”

  “Piece of advice: When you stop rising here, you eventually start falling.”

  “Thanks for the career advice,” Bates said curtly.

  “I’ve been getting your memos on the investigation. Frankly, they’re pretty sparse.”

  “So are the results of the investigation.”

  “Cove, what’s the status? You were sort of vague on that.”

  “Not much to report.”

  “I trust you’re working under the assumption that any Bureau undercover who hasn’t shown after all this time is either dead, or if he isn’t dead, he’s been turned and the way we should be looking for him is through an APB.”

  “Cove hasn’t turned.”

  “So you’ve talked to him? Funny, I didn’t see that in any of your reports.”

  “I’m still feeling my way. But I did receive information from Cove.”

  “And what did our illustrious undercover say about this mess?” “That he thinks he was set up.”

  “Gee, that’s stunning,” said Winters sarcastically.

  “That he doesn’t want to come in because he thinks the rat is somewhere in the Bureau.” Bates stared hard at Winters when he said this, though he wasn’t really sure why. It wasn’t like Winters would be leaking secrets, would he? “He knows all about the leaks happening and the blown missions. He thinks what happened to HRT was another one of those.”

  “Interesting theory, but I’m assuming he has no proof of that.”

  That question struck Bates as odd. “None that he cared to share with me,” he answered. “I’ve got it under control, Buck. I know how busy you are, and I don’t want to clutter your legendary vision with small details. You have my word that if anything big is going down, you’ll know beforehand. That way you can do the media circus. You’re really good at that.”

  Winters could hardly have missed the sarcasm yet apparently chose to ignore it. “If I remember correctly, you and Cove were really tight at one time. California, right?”

  “We worked together.”

  “About the time his family got hit.”

  “That’s right.”

  “A disaster for the Bureau.”

  “Actually, I always thought it was a disaster for the Cove family.”

  “What’s got me puzzled is how all this went down. As I understand it, Cove had discovered a drug crew’s financial operations in that building.”

  “And HRT was called up to hit it,” said Bates. “There were potential witnesses in there. HRT specializes in getting those kind of folks out alive.”

  “Boy, they really did a bang-up job of that. They couldn’t keep themselves alive.”

  “They were set up.”

  “Agreed. But how? If not Cove, how?”

  Bates thought back to his meeting with Randall Cove at the cemetery. Cove believed there was a leak inside the Bureau that accounted for all the things going wrong. Bates studied Winters for a moment. “Well, in order to accomplish something like that I would suppose that somebody would have to have inside information of the highest order.”

  Winters sat back. “Of the highest order. From inside the Bureau, you’re saying?”

  “Inside is inside.”

  “That’s a very serious allegation, Bates.”

  “I’m not alleging anything. I’m just pointing out one possibility.”

  “It would be a hell of a lot easier to turn one undercover agent.”

  “You don’t know Randall Cove.”

  “And maybe you know him too well. So well, you can’t see the forest for the trees.”

  Winters rose. “No surprises, Bates. Nothing substantial goes down unless I know about it ahead of time. Clear?”

  As Winters left, Bates muttered under his breath, “Waco clear, Buck.”

  Web was in his car when Ann Lyle called.

  “Sorry it took me so long, but I wanted to get something solid for you.”

  “That’s okay. I just got some stuff on Cove from the Bureau; understandably it was like pulling teeth.”

  “Well, I got you someone.”

  “Who? Cove?”

  “I’m good, but I’m not that good, Web. I’ve drummed up a D.C. police sergeant who was a regular contact of Cove’s when he worked the WFO beat years ago.”

  “A local cop as a contact for an FBI undercover? How’s that?”

  “It’s not unusual for UCs to use a cop they trust to act as a go-between, Web. Cove had one of those during his first stint here, and the guy’s willing to talk to you.”

  He pulled the car over, grabbed pen and paper and wrote down the name Sonny Venables, who was still a uniform in D.C.’s First District. Ann also gave him the man’s number.

  “Ann, anybody else got hold of the Venables angle?”

  “Not that Sonny said, and I think he would’ve mentioned it. He was Cove’s informal contact on his first tour through D.C., and that was a long time ago. Some folks might not make the connection. Though Sonny Venables tends to stand out,” she added.

  “You sound like you know him.”

  “Web, honey, when you’ve been around as long as I have, you tend to know everybody. I worked a lot with the D.C. cops.”

  “And Venable’s willing to talk to me? Why?”

  “The only thing he said was he had heard of you. And I threw my two cents in, for what it was worth.”

  “But we still don’t know his take on things?”

  “I guess that’s up to you to find out.” Ann clicked off.

  Web called the number. Venables wasn’t in, and Web left his name and cell number. Venables called him back twenty minutes later and the two arranged to meet later that afternoon. Web also asked him another question and Venables said he would see what he could do. If the guy could give Web a handle on Cove, then Web might be able to follow it up. However, something was bothering Web about Bates, namely that he had never told Web that Cove had worked at WFO before his stint in California. Not that it really mattered. He had given Web a look at the guy’s file, and Web would have picked it up on his own, he supposed. He just hadn’t had enough time to go through the man’s entire history. But why not tell Web?

  Venables had asked Web to meet him in the early afternoon at a bar around the area of his beat, nothing unusual about that. Web knew that that way you could quench your thirst and maybe overhear some info that might help you crack a case later. Cops were nothing if not efficient with their time.

  Sonny Venables was white, mid-forties and a veteran of almost twenty years on the force, he told Web as they were buying their beers. He was over six feet tall and beefy, the kind of body mass one got from pumping lots of weights; the man looked like he could military-press a semi. He wore a baseball cap that read ALL FISHERMEN GO TO HEAVEN and wore a leather jacket with the NASCAR logo on the back. His neck was almost as thick as his very wide head. His voice had a twangy commonsense southern charm to it, and -->