Saving Faith

by David Baldacci

  "I don't like you coming here, Thornhill."

  "I'm courteous enough to use your given name. I'd appreciate reciprocity on that point. A small thing, to be sure, but at least I'm not demanding that you address me as Mister Thornhill. That's the norm between master and servant, isn't it, Danny? You see, I'm not so bad to work for."

  The man's smug look was designed, Buchanan knew, to drive him to such distraction that he couldn't think clearly. Instead he leaned back in his chair and settled his hands across his middle.

  "To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit, Bob?"

  "Your meeting with Senator Milstead."

  "I could easily have met him in town. I'm not sure why you insisted that I go to Pennsylvania."

  "But this way you get one more opportunity to make your pitch for all those starving masses. You see, I do have a heart."

  "Does it even make a dent in whatever you call a conscience that you're using the plight of millions of men, women and children who consider it a miracle to see the sun rise, to further your own selfish agenda?"

  "I'm not paid to have a conscience. I'm paid to protect the interests of this country. Your interests. Besides, if having a conscience were the criteria, there would be no one left in this town. In fact, I applaud your efforts. I have nothing against the poor and helpless.

  Good for you, Danny!"

  "Sorry if I don't buy that."

  Thornhill smiled. "Every country in the world has people like me. That is, they do if they're smart. We get the results everybody wants, because most 'everybody' lacks the courage to do it himself."

  "So you play God? Interesting line of work."

  "God is conceptual. I deal in facts. Speaking of which, you powered your agenda by illegal means; who are you to deny me the same right?"

  In truth, Buchanan had no response to this statement. And Thornhill's in tractably calm demeanor only reinforced the helplessness he felt.

  "Any questions about the meeting with Milstead?" Thornhill asked.

  "You have enough on Harvey Milstead to put him away for three lives.

  What are you really after?"

  Thornhill chuckled. "I hope you're not accusing me of having a hidden agenda."

  "You can tell me, Bob, were partners."

  "Maybe it's as simple as wanting you to jump when I snap my fingers."

  "Fine, but a year from now, if you pop up like this, you may not leave under your own power."

  "Threats from a solitary lobbyist to me." Thornhill sighed. "But not so solitary. You have an army of one. How is Faith? Doing well?"

  "Faith is not a part of this. Faith will never be a part of this."

  Thornhill nodded. "You're the only one in the crosshairs. You and your fine group of felonious politicians. America's best and brightest."

  Buchanan stared coldly at his antagonist and said nothing.

  "Things are coming to a head, Danny. The show will be coming to a close soon. I hope you're ready to exit cleanly."

  "When I leave, my trail will be so clean, not even your spy satellites will be able to pick it up."

  "Confidence is inspiring. Yet so often misplaced."

  "Is that all you wanted to tell me? Be prepared to escape? I've been ready to do that since the first minute I met you."

  Thornhill stood. "You focus on Senator Milstead. Get us some good, juicy stuff. Get him to talk about the income he'll have when he retires, the nominal tasks he'll have to perform as window dressing.

  The more specific, the better."

  "It heartens me to see you enjoying this so much. Probably a lot more fun than the Bay of Pigs."

  "Before my time."

  "Well, I'm sure you've made your mark in other ways."

  Thornhill bristled for a moment and then his calm returned. "You'd make a fine poker player, Danny. But try to remember that a bluff when one is holding nothing of value is still a bluff." Thornhill put on his trench coat. "Don't trouble yourself, I can find my way out."

  In the next instant Thornhill was gone. The man appeared and disappeared at will, it seemed. Buchanan leaned back in his chair and let out a quick breath. His hands were trembling and he pressed them hard against the desk until the quivering stopped.

  Thornhill had thundered into his life like an exploding torpedo.

  Buchanan had become, essentially, a lackey, now spying on those he had been bribing for years with his own money, now collecting a wealth of material for this ogre to use as blackmail. And Buchanan was powerless to stop the man.

  Ironically, this decline in his material assets and now his work in the service of another had brought Buchanan directly back from whence he had come. He had grown up on the illustrious Philadelphia Main Line.

  He had lived on one of the most magnificent estates in that area.

  Stacked field stone walls-like thick gray brush strokes of paint--outlined the grass perimeters of the vast, perfect lawns, on which was situated a sprawling twelve-thousand-square-foot house with broad, covered porches, and a detached quadruple-car garage with an apartment overhead. The house had more bedrooms than a dormitory, and lavish baths with costly tile and the luster of gold on something as commonplace as a faucet.

  It was the world of the American blue bloods, where pampered lifestyles and crushing expectations existed side by side. Buchanan had observed this complex universe from an intimate perspective, yet he was not one of its privileged inhabitants. Buchanan's family had been the chauffeurs and maids and gardeners, the handymen, nannies and cooks to these blue bloods. Having survived the Canadian border winters, the Buchanans had migrated south, en masse, to a gentler climate, to less demanding work than that required by ax and spade, boat and hook. Up there they had hunted for food and cut wood for warmth, only to watch helplessly as nature mercilessly culled their ranks, a process that had made the survivors stronger, their descendants stronger still. And Danny Buchanan was perhaps the strongest of them all.

  Young Danny Buchanan had watered the lawn and cleaned the pool, swept and repainted the tennis court, picked the flowers and vegetables and played, in a properly respectful manner, with the children. As he had gotten older, Buchanan had huddled with the younger generation of the spoiled rich, deep in the privacy of the complex flower gardens, smoking, drinking and exploring each other sexually. Buchanan had even acted as pallbearer, weeping sincerely as he bore two of the young and the rich who had wasted their privileged lives, mixing too much whiskey with a racing sports car, driving too fast for impaired motor skills.

  When you lived life that fast, often you died fast as well. Right now Buchanan could see his own end rushing headlong at him.

  Buchanan had never felt comfortable in either group-the rich or the poor-since then. The rich he would never be a part of, no matter how much his bank account swelled. He had played with the wealthy heirs, but when mealtime came, they went to the formal dining room while he trudged to the kitchen to break his bread with the other servants. The baby blues had attended Harvard, Yale and Princeton; he had worked his way through night school at an institution his betters would openly mock.

  Buchanan's own family was now equally foreign to him. He sent his relatives money. They sent it back. When he went to visit, he had found they had nothing to talk about. They neither understood nor cared about what he did. However, they made him feel that there was nothing honest about his life's occupation; he could see that in their tightly drawn faces, their mumbled words. Washington was as foreign as hell itself to all that they believed in. He lied for money, large sums of it. Better he had followed in their tread: honest if simple work. By rising above them, he had fallen far below what they represented: fairness, integrity, character.

  The path he had chosen during the last ten years had only deepened this solitary confinement. He had few friends. Nevertheless, he did have millions of strangers across the world who deeply depended on him for something as basic as survival. Even Buchanan had to admit, it was a bizarre existence.

  And now, with th
e coming of Thornhill, Buchanan's foothold had dropped another rung on the ladder leading to the abyss. Now he could no longer even confide in his one indisputable soul mate, Faith Lockhart.

  She knew nothing about Thornhill, and she never would know of the man from the CIA; this was all that was keeping her safe. It had cost him his last thread of real human contact.

  Danny Buchanan was now truly alone.

  He stepped to the window of his office and looked out at majestic monuments known around the world. Some might argue that their beautiful facades were just that: Like the magician's hand, they were designed to guide the eyes away from the truly important business of this city, transacted usually for the benefit of a select few.

  Buchanan had learned that effective, long-term power came essentially from the gentle force of rule of the few over the many, for most people were not political beasts. A delicate balance was called for, the few over the many, gently, civilly; and Buchanan knew that the most perfect example of it in the history of the world existed right here.

  Closing his eyes, he let the darkness envelop him, let new energy spill into his body for the fight tomorrow. It promised to be a very long night, however, for in truth, his life had now become one long tunnel to nowhere. If he could only ensure Thornhill's destruction as well, it would all be worth it. One small crack in the darkness, that would be all Buchanan needed. If only it could be so.

  CHAPTER 4

  THE CAR MOVED DOWN THE HIGHWAY at precisely the speed limit. The man was driving, the woman next to him. Both sat rigidly, as though one feared a sudden attack from the other.

  As a jet, landing gear down, roared over them like a swooping hawk on its way in to Dulles Airport, Faith Lockhart closed her eyes and pretended for a moment that she was on that plane, and instead of landing, it was beginning some far-flung journey. As she slowly opened her eyes, the car took an exit off the highway and they left the unsettling glare of sodium lights behind. They were soon sailing past jagged rows of trees on both sides of the road, the wide, grassy ditches deep and soggy; the dull pulse of flat-looking stars was now their only source of light other than the car's twin beams stabbing the darkness.

  "I don't understand why Agent Reynolds couldn't come tonight," she said.

  "The simple answer is, you're not the only investigation she has going, Faith," Special Agent Ken Newman replied. "But I'm not exactly a stranger, am I? We're just going to talk, like the other times.

  Pretend I'm Brooke Reynolds. We're all on the same team."

  The car turned onto another, even more isolated road. On this stretch the trees were replaced by denuded fields awaiting the final scrape of the bulldozers. In a year's time there would be almost as many homes here as there had been trees before, as suburban sprawl continued its push. Now the land simply looked ravaged, naked. And bleak, perhaps because of what was to come. In that regard, the land and Faith Lockhart were as one.

  Newman glanced over at her. Although he didn't like to admit it, he felt uneasy around Faith Lockhart, as though he were seated next to a ball of wired C-4 with no idea when it might explode. He shifted in his seat. His skin was a little raw where the leather of his shoulder holster usually rubbed against his skin. Most people developed a callus at that spot, but his skin just kept blistering and then peeling off. Ironically, he felt that the twinge of pain gave him an edge because he never relaxed; it was a clear warning that if he let down his guard, that small discomfort could become a fatal one. Tonight, however, because he was wearing body armor, the holster wasn't scraping his skin; the pain and heightened sense of awareness were not nearly as strong.

  Faith could feel the blood rush through her ears, all senses elevated, the way they were when you were lying in bed late at night and hearing a strange, troubling sound. When you were a child and that happened, you raced to your parents' bed and climbed in, to be wrapped up, consoled by loving, understanding arms. Her parents were dead and she was now thirty-six years old. Who was out there for Faith Lockhart?

  "And after tonight, it'll be Agent Reynolds instead of me," Newman said. "You're comfortable with her, aren't you?"

  "I'm not sure 'comfort' applies to situations like this."

  "Sure it does. It's very important, in fact. Reynolds is a straight shooter. Believe me, if it weren't for her, this thing would be going nowhere. You haven't exactly given us much to go on. But she believes in you. So long as you don't do anything to destroy that confidence, you have a powerful ally in Brooke Reynolds. She cares about you."