End Game

by David Baldacci

  “Plus a wife that I seriously doubt would have married him if he wasn’t rolling in dough,” added Reel.

  “We took a look at some of his recent financials and they do show that he has come into a lot of wealth lately. But it’s tied to shell companies and offshore accounts, and it’s hard to see what the source of the money is.”

  “You think he’s laundering money for a criminal enterprise or foreign interest through some of these companies?” suggested Reel.

  “It’s possible. One other thing, he renounced his U.S. citizenship and is now a citizen of Ireland. Thus his time in this country is restricted and access to his financial data by us is limited. He pays his taxes in Ireland unless any is due in this country.”

  “We know he owns properties here,” said Robie.

  “There’s nothing against the law about that,” said the man. “But fuller details of his wealth and what taxes he pays would have to be gotten from Ireland.”

  “We don’t have time to do that,” said Robie. “But one more thing. There’s an old Atlas missile site in southeastern Colorado. We know of one that was sold and developed by a guy named Roark Lambert into luxury condos. But we need to know who bought the other one. Can you dig that up?”

  “Purchasers of Atlas missile sites should be easy enough to track down. I’ll get right on it and call you back.”

  “Thanks.”

  “And good luck. We all want Blue Man back.”

  “Roger that,” said Reel, who then clicked off and looked at Robie.

  “So Rich Boy blew Daddy’s money but then got the dollars back somehow.”

  “Do you think he’s the one who bought the second missile site?”

  “Well, we have the map from the cabin he was staying at. And the boots I found, with all the grime and chemical smells on them? I bet a missile site that hasn’t been renovated would have all kinds of yuck down there.”

  “And Blue Man’s drawing and leaving it in the muzzle of his gun,” added Robie.

  “All points to a silo. We just thought it was Lambert’s but maybe it’s this one. It would make a lot more sense and also it would explain away the problem of having so many people in on it, including Lambert and the guards at his silo.”

  “So if he’s not building something, what could Randall be doing there?”

  “Holding prisoners, maybe.”

  “For what reason?” said Robie. “We were thinking human trafficking, but Agent Sanders said he had heard nothing about that.”

  “That’s why we’re heading there now. To find out.”

  “So this might be the ‘bunker’ the skinhead said Dolph could be hiding in. If Randall does own this place, he might be involved with Dolph somehow.”

  They had driven another twenty minutes when the phone rang again.

  It was the same man from the Agency. He told them that he had completed a quick down-and-dirty on the sale of the Atlas site by the federal government.

  “It was purchased several years ago by a company based in Jamaica. There’s very little information about it. No listing of Scott Randall anywhere, but he could be using that as a subterfuge to hide his involvement. It’s a pretty common tactic.”

  Reel said, “Do we have an approximate date on when Randall’s financial fortunes started to turn? Like when he bought the jet and all that? That would be very helpful if we could pinpoint when his money issues started to turn around.”

  “FYI, he doesn’t own the jet. It’s leased, although it still costs a pretty penny. That lease was signed two years ago. The house in the Hamptons was purchased eighteen months ago. The luxury condo you mentioned was bought by him about a year ago.”

  “So maybe all the money and properties came in after he bought the silo,” said Robie. “Or if he bought the silo, since you can’t confirm that.”

  “And he got married twelve months ago. I dug into that, too. His wife was a lingerie model before their marriage, with a reputation for being very difficult to work with.”

  “What a shock,” said Reel.

  “So maybe the silo is his financial golden goose somehow,” said Robie.

  “Well, it would have to be a pretty big goose,” said the man. “The house in the Hamptons has a twelve-million-dollar mortgage on it. The plane lease is millions more. He must have had sound financial resources for the bank and aircraft lessor to do those deals.”

  “Plus he laid out about four million for the luxury condo,” said Reel. “And I think his wife will end up being his most expensive purchase. What was the purchase price for the other site?”

  “Eight hundred thousand.”

  “That’s double what Roark paid for his,” noted Reel.

  “That’s a lot of money for basically a hole in the ground that has no use unless you pour millions of dollars into it,” said Robie. “There aren’t many people competing to buy these suckers.”

  “That’s true,” said the agency man. “But someone wanted this site. I looked at other places in the Midwest and this fetched one of the highest prices.”

  “We’re going to have to find out why that is,” said Reel grimly.

  She clicked off.

  Robie said, “We’ll have to recon the site first, size up the security overlays.”

  “If this place has a blast door like Lambert’s I don’t see how we get in.”

  “Maybe if we’re patient enough someone will let us in.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t think we’re that lucky.”

  “I didn’t think luck had anything to do with it.”

  “I think now it does.”

  “Well, then we’ll make our own.”

  Chapter

  61

  THERE COULDN’T HAVE been a greater contrast between the second silo site and the one Lambert had turned into luxury condos. There was an old chain-link fence, but there was no perimeter security. The road into the site was barely graveled and in poor condition. From here they couldn’t even see the entrance to the silo.

  There was no sign that anyone was around.

  “Could the residue you saw on those work boots be from that gravel?” asked Robie.

  “Pull up a little bit,” said Reel.

  He did so, and she climbed out of the car with the rag she had used to take a sample from the boots.

  She knelt down over the gravel and dabbed it with the cloth. She climbed back into the car and used her phone light to compare the marks.

  “It’s sort of gravelly but it’s not the same, Robie.” She sniffed the fresh sample. “And there’s no chemical smell.”

  “Where would there be gravel with a chemical smell around here?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s park the truck behind those trees and have a look around.”

  After leaving the truck hidden, they scaled the fence and dropped down onto the other side.

  There were no sounds, no lights, no one.

  They skittered forward, keeping low to the ground.

  “Why would you pay eight hundred thousand for this place and do nothing with it?” asked Robie.

  “When Lambert paid half that for his site and did something with it to make money,” added Reel.

  They made their way forward staying parallel to the gravel road, and about a quarter of a mile later they crossed a small knoll and there it was.

  “Blast door straight ahead,” whispered Reel.

  Robie stopped and nodded. He slipped his night optics out and took in a full view of the area in front of them.

  “Looks deserted,” he said. “The gravel hasn’t been disrupted. I don’t think a vehicle’s been along here.”

  “Then why buy it in the first place?” said Reel. “If not to use it somehow. And if you’re going to rehab it, you have to go inside.”

  “And there would be lots of evidence of that sort of activity.”

  “Maybe there’s another way into the place.”

  He looked at her incredulously. “Another way into an Atlas missile site? Doesn’t tha
t sort of defeat the purpose?”

  “I didn’t say it had always been there. Maybe whoever bought it made another entrance somehow,” pointed out Reel.

  Robie pulled out his phone.

  “What are you doing?” asked Reel.

  “Trying to find a back door.”

  He phoned the Agency again and made his request.

  When he clicked off Reel said, “You think another entrance is possible then?”

  He looked around. “I think anything in this godforsaken place is possible.”

  Ten minutes later his phone buzzed. Robie listened, asked a few questions, and then clicked off. He turned to Reel. “Let’s go find Blue Man.”

  Chapter

  62

  “AN ABANDONED ROCK quarry?” said Reel. “I didn’t know they even quarried rock here.”

  They were hunched down in the darkness, staring at the quarry on the west side of the former Atlas missile site perhaps owned by Scott Randall. Reel had her sniper rifle slung over one shoulder and a small duffel over the other.

  Robie said, “The Rockies aren’t that far away. And while this area is pretty flat, there are elevated portions. We passed that ridge right before we got there. So there’s got to be lots of deposits of rock around here. That quarry is really deep, but there’s an access road around its top lip and also a road to get there. Let’s go.”

  They made their way toward the top edge of the quarry site and looked around.

  “Lots of ‘no trespassing’ signs,” said Robie.

  “Not that anyone would want to come up here.”

  “Which probably makes it ideal if you’re doing something illegal.”

  “How do we tell if this is the right place?” asked Reel.

  In answer, Robie stooped, rubbed his hand across the rocky ground, and then sniffed it. He held it up for Reel to smell.

  “Same chemical odor,” she observed. “Must be from whatever they were using here at the quarry.”

  “Look at your shoes.”

  He hit her shoes with his flashlight.

  “Like the residue I took from the boots at Randall’s place.”

  Robie nodded and rose. “So that means those guys came here. The Agency satellite zoomed in on this place as a possibility when I told them about the chemical smell and the sort of soil residue we were talking about. The quarry was the only place in the area that might fit that criteria, they concluded.”

  “But they couldn’t find an entrance?”

  “No. But it would be well hidden, since that’s the whole point.”

  “What do you think they’re doing in there?”

  “I have no idea, but I intend to find out.”

  He pulled out his gun, and using a flashlight he’d taken from the truck, he moved forward with Reel on his right flank.

  The darkness was made complete by low-level clouds, which managed to fully obscure a three-quarter moon.

  They had moved about fifty yards forward when Robie’s light hit on something. “There have been vehicles over here,” he said, pointing down at the slight ruts in the dirt.

  “Well, they must be heading somewhere then,” replied Reel.

  They followed the ruts past a small stand of trees.

  “Robie, somebody’s cleared this area enough to run this ‘road’ through here.”

  Robie nodded and looked around. “And I doubt anyone would even notice, because there’s no reason to come here.”

  Another hundred feet in they cleared the trees, stopped, and knelt down. Robie powered up his optics and took a look around. A few moments later he said, “Son of a bitch.”

  “What is it?”

  He pointed into the darkness. “There’s a rock wall a hundred feet down there. And there’s a damn door built right into it.”

  “Let me have a look.”

  He slipped her the optics and she saw what he had.

  Robie said, “This is the other end of that ridge we passed. Most of this area is flat, but they have these elevated portions, too.” He shined his light on the ground. “And the vehicle tracks run all the way here.”

  Reel added, “Okay, if my geography is right this ridge backs onto the eastern edge of the Atlas silo facility.”

  “I think you’re spot-on.”

  “That door has to be really secure, Robie. And maybe monitored.”

  “They might already know someone is here,” he said.

  “So do we stealth it or do a bull run?”

  Robie said firmly, “I don’t like bull runs.”

  “Well, neither do I. I like as much intel as possible before I commit myself.”

  “So where do we get intel from? Unless the Agency’s satellite can look through rock I don’t think they’ll be much help.”

  “What about Derrick Bender?” said Reel.

  “You think he knows something about this?”

  “If he knows about the door he might be in on whatever’s going on in there. But I don’t think he is. He was genuinely pissed about what happened to Malloy. And he seemed totally surprised when we told him what had happened to Luke and Holly.”

  “But how can he help us?” said Robie.

  “He gives us a third gun and the weight of the law.”

  “The weight of the law apparently means jack shit here.”

  “And he can give us some local information. Maybe about how this door can hook up with the Atlas missile site.”

  Robie thought about this in silence for a few long moments. “But just him. We don’t need the state police charging up here. For all we know they’ll screw everything up or else get us all killed.”

  “And their response time in the past hasn’t been exactly stellar. By the time they got here, we might be ready for retirement.”

  “You want to call him?”

  “No, you do it,” replied Robie.

  “Why me?”

  “He likes you better.”

  “Okay, but just so you know, I haven’t slept with the guy.”

  Chapter

  63

  TO HIS CREDIT Bender didn’t ask many questions when Reel called him on his cell phone. He said he would be on his way in a few minutes after Reel told him exactly where they were located.

  Robie kept a watch on the door with his optics while Reel went back down the road to await Bender’s arrival.

  One hour later Robie heard someone coming. As they rounded a slight bend and came into full view, Robie relaxed the grip on his gun. He stepped out so Bender and Reel could see him, noting that Bender had a shotgun with him along with his sidearm.