The Sixth Man kam-5

by David Baldacci

  She said slowly, “I wouldn’t necessarily agree with that assessment. But nevertheless it’s the old question: What have you done for me today? The barbarians are at the gate. And do you realize what might happen if this all becomes public?”

  “That will not happen. I can assure you.”

  She closed the file. “Well, I’m not assured, Peter, not at all. And neither are the other people who matter. When the CIA director learned of it I thought he was going to have a heart attack. He thinks it’s a colossal time bomb waiting to explode. How do you respond to that?”

  Bunting took another swallow of coffee, giving him a few more precious seconds to think.

  “I believe strongly that we can turn this around,” he said finally.

  She looked at him with incredulity. “That’s your answer? Really?”

  “That’s my answer,” he said firmly. He was too exhausted mentally to think of any clever response. And it wouldn’t have mattered anyhow. The lady’s mind was obviously made up.

  “Perhaps I’m not getting across to you, Peter.” She paused, seeming to size up what she was about to say. “There are some who think preemptive action is necessitated by the circumstances.”

  Bunting licked his dry lips. He knew exactly what that meant. “I think that would be a most unwise move.”

  She hiked her eyebrows. “Really? So what’s your recommendation? Wait until the other shoe drops? Wait until the crisis engulfs us? Is that your strategy, Peter? Should I phone the president and let him know of this?”

  “I don’t think we need to bother him at this stage.”

  “For a smart man you are acting incredibly dense today. Let me make this as clear as possible. This will not blow back to us, do you understand? If it seems like it will, preemptive action will be taken.”

  “I will do everything in my power to make sure that does not become necessary, Madame Secretary.”

  The use of her formal title by him made the woman smile in amusement.

  She rose, put out her hand. He shook it. Her nails were long, he noted. They could scratch his eyes out. Probably reach through his skin and dig out his heart, too.

  “Don’t burn bridges, Peter. If you do, very soon you’ll have nothing left to stand on.”

  Bunting turned and walked with as much dignity as he could muster from the office. He only had one thought in his head.

  He had to go to Maine.

  After he was gone Foster finished her coffee. A few moments later the man walked in, responding to the text message she’d just thumbed summoning him.

  James Harkes stood at attention a few feet from Foster.

  Six foot one, he was perhaps forty years of age, a bit of white in his short, dark hair. He wore a black two-piece suit, white shirt, and straight black tie. He looked ominously strong, his hands thick and fingers rough as barnacles. His shoulders had muscles on top of muscles, but he moved like a cat. Smooth, not an ounce of wasted energy. He was a veteran of many missions on behalf of America and her allies. He was a man who got the job done. Always.

  He said nothing as she poured out another cup of coffee without offering him one.

  She took a sip and finally looked up at him. “Did you hear all that?”

  “Yes,” said Harkes.

  “What’s your take on Bunting?”

  “Smart, resourceful, but running out of options. The guy doesn’t chase windmills, so we can’t underestimate him.”

  “He didn’t ask about Sohan Sharma’s ‘accident.’ ”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “Such an unpredictably violent world we live in.”

  “Yes it is. New orders?”

  “You’ll get them. When the time is right. Just stay on top of it all.”

  She gave an almost imperceptible nod and Harkes departed. Then she finished her coffee and went back to her important work protecting herself and her country. And strictly in that order.

  CHAPTER

  16

  CUTTER’S ROCK.

  Close to midnight.

  Visiting hours long over.

  The tower guards patrolled their beats.

  The concertina wire glistened in the strong moonlight.

  The electrified middle fence was fully powered, ready to char anyone unfortunate enough to collide with it.

  The outer gates swung open and the Yukon drove through.

  No electronic checks, no vehicle sweeps. No requests for ID. No cavity probes. The Yukon raced down the road.

  Next, the hydraulic blast doors on the facility hissed open. At the same time the doors of the Yukon swung open. Peter Bunting was the first one out. As his long feet touched gravel he looked around and pulled his trench coat tighter around him. His young assistant Avery was the only person with him.

  Bunting’s private jet had touched down at a corporate jet park less than an hour away by car. They had come directly here.

  Carla Dukes met the pair at the entrance.

  “Hello, Carla,” said Bunting. “What’s the status?”

  “He’s never said a word, Mr. Bunting. He just sits there.”

  “Recent visitors?”

  “The FBI. And those investigators, Sean King and Michelle Maxwell. And of course Mr. Bergin.”

  “And he never said anything to them?”

  “Not a word.”

  Bunting nodded, somewhat reassured. He’d pulled many strings to get Carla Dukes assigned as the director of Cutter’s Rock. She was loyal to him, and right now he needed her as his eyes up here. Who Edgar Roy really was had to be kept from everyone, including his lawyers and the FBI.

  “Tell me about King and Maxwell.”

  “They’re persistent, clever, and tough,” she said promptly.

  “Former Secret Service,” said Avery. “So no surprise there.”

  “I don’t like surprises,” said Bunting. He nodded at Dukes. “Take us to him, please.”

  She escorted them back to the same room Sean and Michelle had been in with Edgar Roy. A minute later the man himself appeared. The guards escorted him in, set him down in the chair. He immediately extended his long legs and sat there, staring at nothing.

  Bunting glanced at Dukes. “That’s all, thanks. And kill the surveillance.”

  He waited until the video and audio equipment was shut down and then sat down in a chair near Roy, his knees almost touching the other man’s legs.

  “Hello, Edgar.”

  Nothing.

  “I think you can understand me, Edgar.”

  Not a blink from Roy. His gaze was positioned over Bunting’s shoulder.

  Bunting turned to Avery. “Please tell me his brain is undamaged.”

  “Nothing wrong with it that they can find.”

  He lowered his voice. “Faking?”

  Avery shrugged. “He’s like the smartest person in the world. Anything is possible.”

  Bunting nodded and thought back to the first time Edgar Roy had gone toe-to-toe with the Wall. It had been one of the most exhilarating times of Bunting’s life. It had been right up there, in fact, with the birth of his children.

  Inside the room, Roy, covered with the same electronic measuring equipment as the now-deceased Sohan Sharma wore, had studied the screen. Bunting noted that when the screen sometimes divided into two sets of images Roy looked at one set with his right eye and the other with his left. That was unusual but not unheard of for people with Roy’s intellectual ability.

  Bunting had glanced at Avery, who was working the information flow in front of a bank of computers. “Status?”

  “Normal.”

  “You mean normal but heightened.”

  “No, there’s no change,” said Avery.

  “On my command send the Wall to full power. We have to know if this guy can cut it sooner rather than later. We’re running out of time and options.”

  “Got it.”

  Bunting had spoken into the headset he wore. The first questions would just be warm-ups, nothing too taxing.

/>   “Edgar, please provide me with the logistical data you just observed from the Pakistani border, beginning with US Special Forces movements and the reactionary tactics taken by the Taliban on the fourteenth of last month.”

  Five seconds later over his headset Bunting heard an exact replication of this data.

  He turned to Avery. “Status?”

  “No bump at all. Smooth and level.”

  Bunting had turned back to look through the one-way glass. “Edgar, you just observed the encryption code for the relay link for DOD’s satellite platform over the Indian Ocean. Please provide me with every other number of that code up to the first five hundred digits.”

  The numbers came at him almost immediately in rapid succession.

  Bunting’s gaze was locked on his tablet where the correct digits were set forth. When the last number had rolled off Roy’s tongue, Bunting drew a deep breath. A perfect match.

  “Theta status?” he barked at Avery.

  “No change.”

  “Full power on the data flow.”

  Avery cranked it and the Wall flow accelerated markedly.

  Bunting had muttered, “Okay, Edgar, let’s see if you can play in the big leagues.”

  He had asked four more questions of Roy, all memorization tests, each quantitatively harder than the last one. Roy had aced all four effortlessly.

  “He’s very relaxed,” said Avery, his voice cracking with excitement. “His theta activity actually went down.”

  Relaxed, Bunting had thought. The man is relaxed and his theta went down and the Wall is at full throttle.

  Bunting tried to keep his growing euphoria in check. Memorization was one thing, analysis was quite another.

  “Edgar, you observed ten minutes ago both the military and geopolitical conditions on the ground in Afghanistan’s Anbar province. I want you to contrast that with the political situation in Kabul, factoring in the known current allegiances of the tribal and political heads in both sectors. Then, provide me your best analysis of what strategic steps the American military should take to solidify its holdings in Anbar and then expand that into neighboring regions over the next six months, while at the same time enhancing our control over the capital both militarily and politically.”

  Bunting had had four rock-solid scenarios on his tablet screen, the result of a hundred top analysts from four different agencies poring over this same data for weeks, instead of minutes. Any one of these four replies would have been more than acceptable. This was the real test. The man who would occupy this position was not called the Memorizer. He was called the Analyst. You earned your money by taking facts and turning them into something valuable, as an alchemist could purportedly turn iron into gold.

  Fifteen seconds passed and then it had come.

  However, Edgar Roy had not given one of the four responses he was expecting, indeed, hoping for. What he did provide made Bunting’s jaw drop nearly to the device he was holding. Not one person Bunting had ever talked to at the Pentagon, the State Department, or even the CIA had come up with such a revolutionary strategy. And this man had, after bare seconds of thinking about it.

  Bunting had looked at the men gathered around him who had heard this feedback as well. They too were all gaping. Bunting had gazed back at Roy, who just sat there as though he were watching a moderately entertaining movie instead of spearheading the American intelligence juggernaut.

  Peter Bunting had not been born with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth. He had grown up as an army brat; the family had moved each time his father’s duties and rank had changed. His old man was career-enlisted, had bled for his country, and he instilled a pride in his son to do the same. Bad eyesight had killed any chance Bunting had to join up, but he’d found another way to serve. Another way to defend his country.

  Bunting had been ecstatic on discovering that Edgar Roy was the greatest Analyst he likely would ever find. What had followed was six months of the best intelligence output the United States had ever had.

  And now?

  He stared at the six-foot-eight zombie sitting across from him.

  God help us all.

  He turned to Avery. “How is the investigation going on the death of Edgar’s lawyer?”

  “Slowly. Special Agent Murdock is in charge.”

  “And where does that leave Edgar?”

  “Bergin has a young associate, Megan Riley. And of course King and Maxwell.”

  “Right—persistent, clever, and tough. They discovered Bergin’s body, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “I had my head handed to me today by that bitch Foster. And I passed Mason Quantrell leaving a meeting with her. I know she timed it so I would run into him.”

  “Why do you think that?” asked Avery.

  “It’s obvious. She wanted me to know that she’s picked Quantrell as my successor. They’ve been looking for any reason to pull the plug on me and let Quantrell’s Mercury Group leap to the top of the pecking order. And they think they’ve found it.”

  “But why would they want to do that? The E-Program has been incredibly successful. Quantrell’s approach was same-old same-old and a disaster.”

  “They have short memories in Washington. And in order for the E-Program to do its thing, they all have to share their information with us. Most of them want their little fiefdoms right back where they’ve always been, so they’ve got built-in support from all the alphabet agencies that matter.”

  Bunting focused on Roy again. “Edgar, your country needs you. Do you understand that? We can make this all work out okay for you. But we need your cooperation. Do you get that?”

  Black dots. Nothing else.

  Bunting persisted. “I believe that you can understand me. And I need you to think very carefully how you want this all to turn out, okay? We have a window of opportunity. But that window can’t remain open forever.”

  A face of stone looked back at him.

  After a few more attempts Bunting sighed, rose, and left. As he and Avery walked down the hall Avery said, “Sir, what if he did kill those people?”

  “I’ve got over three hundred million people to protect. And I need Edgar Roy to do it.”

  CHAPTER

  17

  MICHELLE SAT ACROSS from Sean in his bedroom. They’d filled each other in on events.

  “Megan’s probably scared to death,” said Michelle.

  “She’s got guts. As they were leaving, she told Murdock that she knew her rights and that he couldn’t push her around.”

  “Good for her.”

  “But then she started to tear up and got the hiccups. I think Murdock might have sensed that as a sign of weakness.”

  “Right,” said Michelle in a disappointed tone. “So what now?”

  “We struck out with Roy. We can’t really investigate Ted’s murder because Murdock won’t let us near anything.”

  “So we investigate something else pertinent to the matter? Like is Edgar Roy guilty or not?”

  Sean nodded. “And also why does a guy like him garner so much attention from the Feds? Granted he might be a serial killer, but there, unfortunately, are lots of serial killers. They don’t warrant late-night chopper rides and this kind of full-court press.”

  “I think we need to look at what he was actually doing at the government.”

  “Ted told me he worked at the IRS.”

  “So we head back to Virginia?”

  “We need to take care of Megan first. And we need to find out who retained Ted Bergin.”

  “Seems like an attorney would check in with the paying client when he’s about to talk to the defendant.”

  “Dobkin told you he only talked to Megan and Cutter’s. What about e-mails?”

  “Dobkin didn’t mention any. A guy Bergin’s age might not be into smartphone e-mailing anyway.”

  “Maybe not. But you’re right. He must be in contact with the client in some way.”

  “Do you remember from the media reports whe
ther Roy had family? If so, they might be the ones who hired Bergin.”

  He said, “I recall reading that his parents were dead. I don’t remember the mention of any siblings. We’ll have to run it down some other way.” He opened his notepad and began scribbling. “Okay, Bergin’s investigation is closed off for now. We track down Roy’s background, the client, and then we need to get to the obvious point.”

  “Namely, did Roy kill those people?” replied Michelle. “That’s what it comes down to. Which means we have to poke our nose into that investigation, too.”

  “We were always going to do that anyway,” he pointed out. “But under discovery laws the prosecution has to provide the defense with all the evidence.”

  “Can we poke around at the crime scene, too?”

  “I think it would be malpractice if we didn’t.”

  “Do you think Roy is faking it? I’ve seen guys do that zombie routine before when I was a cop. Especially if they’re staring at the death penalty.”

  “If he is, he’s damn good at it.”

  “Maybe he is drugged up.”

  “I don’t know what purpose is served by the government keeping an accused killer drugged up so he can’t stand trial.”

  “Okay, when do you want to leave for Virginia?”

  “I told Megan to call me when the Feds were done with her.”

  “Considering Murdock will try to screw us at every turn, it might be a while before she surfaces. Can we afford to wait for that?”

  He looked at her. “What do you have in mind?”

  “How do you know I have anything in mind?”

  “We’re an old married couple, remember? Or at least we act like one.”

  “Don’t start finishing my sentences. You could get badly hurt.”

  “So?” he said expectantly.

  “So maybe I head to Virginia and start looking into the murders down there and Roy’s connection to the Feds while you stay up here, wait for them to kick Megan loose. And maybe you go back to Cutter’s Rock again, this time with Megan, and dig up what you can on Bergin’s murder. Then we rendezvous and compare notes in the near future.”