Faith shook her head. "I don't know. A week, maybe."
Lee sighed. "I guess I can have the lady downstairs take care of Max."
"Then you'll do it?"
"Just so long as you understand that while I don't mind helping somebody who needs it, I'm not playing the world's greatest sucker either."
"You don't strike me as someone who would ever play that role."
"If you really want a laugh, tell my ex-wife that."
CHAPTER 11
OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA was located in northern Virginia next to the Potomac River, about a fifteen-minute drive south of Washington, D.C.
The waters were the primary reason the city had been established, and it had flourished as a seaport for a very long time. It was still an affluent and desirable place to live, although the river no longer played a prominent role in the town's economic future.
It was a setting of both old wealth and freshly monied families nestled within the graceful brick, stone and wood-frame structures of late eighteenth and early nineteenth century architecture. A few of the streets were covered in the very same rolling cobblestone that had supported the treads of Washington and Jefferson. And of the young Robert E. Lee at his two boyhood homes, which were set across from each other on Oronoco Street, itself named after a particular brand of long-ago Virginia-grown tobacco. Many of the town's sidewalks were brick and had buckled up around the numerous trees that had shaded the homes, streets and inhabitants for so long. A number of the wrought-iron fences that encircled the courtyards and gardens of the homes were painted the color of gold on their European-inspired spikes and finials.
At this early hour the streets of Old Town were quiet except for the drizzle of rain and the rush of wind among the branches of the aged, knobby trees whose shallow roots clutched at the hard Virginia clay.
The street names reflected the colonial origins of the place. Driving through town, one would pass King, Queen, Duke and Prince Streets.
Off-road parking was scarce here, so the narrow avenues were lined with virtually every make and model of vehicle. Placed against the two-hundred-year-old homes, the chrome, rubber and metal hulls seemed oddly Out of place, as though a time warp had whisked the automobile back to the era of horse and buggy.
The narrow four-story brick townhouse that was wedged among a line of others along Duke Street was by no means the grandest in the area.
There was a lone, tilting maple in the small front yard, its split trunk covered with leafy suckers. The wrought-iron fencing was in good but not superb condition. The home had a garden and courtyard out back, yet the plantings, dripping fountain and brickwork there were unremarkable when compared with others located but a few steps away.
Inside the home, the furnishings were far more elegant than the outside of the place would have led the observer to expect. There was a simple reason for this: The outside of the home was something Danny Buchanan could not hide from curious eyes.
The first traces of the pink dawn were just starting to nudge at the edges of the horizon as Buchanan sat, fully dressed, in the small oval-shaped library off the dining room. A car was waiting to take him to Reagan National Airport.
The senator he was meeting with was on the Appropriations Committee, arguably the Senate's most important committee, since it (and its subcommittees) controlled the government's purse strings. More importantly for Buchanan's purposes, the man also chaired the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, which determined where most foreign aid dollars went. The tall, distinguished senator with the smooth manners and confident tones was a longtime associate of Buchanan's. The man had always enjoyed the power that came with his position and he had consistently lived beyond his means. The retirement package he had waiting from Buchanan would be almost impossible for a human being to exhaust.
Buchanan's bribery scheme had started out cautiously at first. He had analyzed all the players in Washington who even remotely might further his goals, and whether they could be bribed. Many members of Congress were wealthy, but many others were not. It was often both a financial and familial nightmare for people to serve in Congress. Members had to maintain two residences, and the Washington metro area was not cheap.
And their family often did not come with them. Buchanan approached the ones he figured he could corrupt and began a long process of feeling them out on possible involvement. The carrots he dangled were small at first but quickly grew in size if the targets showed any enthusiasm.
Buchanan had selected well, because he had never had a target not agree to exchange votes and influence for rewards down the road. Perhaps they felt that the difference between what he proposed and what occurred in Washington every day was marginal at best. He didn't know if they cared that the goal was a worthy one. However, they hadn't gone out of their way to increase foreign aid to any of Buchanan's clients on their own.
And they had all seen colleagues leave office and grab the gold of lobbydom. But who wanted to work that hard then? Buchanan's experience was that ex-members made terrible lobbyists anyway. Going back hat in hand to lobby former colleagues over whom you no longer had any leverage was not appealing to these overly proud folk. Much smarter to use them when they were the most powerful they would ever be. Work them hard first. And then pay them grandly later. What could be better?
Buchanan wondered if he could really hold it together during the meeting with a man he had already betrayed. But then, betrayal was doled out in large doses in this town. Everyone was constantly scrambling for a chair before the music stopped. The senator would be understandably upset. Well, he would have to stand in line with the rest.
Buchanan suddenly felt tired. He didn't want to get in the car or climb on another plane, but he had no say in the matter. Still a member of the Philadelphia servant class?
The lobbyist focused his attention on the man who was standing before him.
"He sends his compliments," the burly man said. To the outside world he was Buchanan's driver. In reality he was one of Thornhill's men keeping close tabs on their most important charge.
"And please send Mr. Thornhill my sincerest wishes that God should decree he not grow one day older," said Buchanan.
"There have been important developments of which he would like you to be aware," the man said impassively.
"Such as?"
"Lockhart is working with the FBI to bring you down."
For a brief, dizzying moment Buchanan thought he would vomit all over himself. "What in the hell are you talking about?"
"This information was just discovered by our operative inside the Bureau."
"You mean they entrapped her? Made her work for them?" Just like you did to me.
"She voluntarily went to them."
Buchanan slowly regained his composure. "Tell me everything," he said.
The man responded with a series of truths, half-truths and outright lies. He told them all with equal, practiced sincerity.
"Where is Faith now?"
"She's gone underground. The FBI is looking for her."
"How much has she told them? Should I be making plans to leave the country?"
"No. It's very early in the game. What she's told them thus far would not warrant prosecution of any kind. She's told them more of the process of how it was done, but not who was involved. However, that's not to say they can't follow up what she's told them. But they have to be careful. The targets aren't exactly flipping burgers at McDonald's."
"And the vaunted Mr. Thornhill doesn't know where Faith is? I hope his omniscience isn't failing him now."
"I have no information about that," said the man.
"A poor state of affairs for an intelligence-gathering agency,"
Buchanan said, even managing a smile. A log in the fireplace let out a loud pop, and a fat wad of sap shot out and hit the screen. Buchanan watched it dripping down the mesh face, its escape halted, its existence over. Why did he suddenly feel the remainder of his life had just been symbolically played out?
&nbs
p; "Perhaps I should try to find her."
"It's really not your concern."
Buchanan stared at him. Had the idiot really said that? "You won't be the one going to prison."
"It'll work out. You just continue right on."
"I want to be kept informed. Clear?" Buchanan turned to the window.
In its reflection he studied the man's reaction to his sharply spoken words. But what were they really worth? Buchanan had clearly lost this round; he had no way of winning it, actually.
The street was dark, no visible movement, just the familiar sounds of squirrels corkscrewing up the trees and then leaping from branch to branch in their never-ending game of survival. Buchanan was engaged in a similar contest, but even more dangerous than hopping across the slippery bark of thirty-foot-tall trees. The wind had picked up some; the beginnings of a low howling sound could be heard in the chimney. A bit of smoke from the fire drifted into the room with the back draft of air.
The man looked at his watch. "We need to leave in fifteen minutes to make your flight." He picked up Buchanan's briefcase, turned and left.
Robert Thornhill had always been careful in how he contacted Buchanan.
No phone calls to the house or office. Face-to-face meetings only under conditions such as these where it would not raise suspicions, where surveillance by others could not be maintained. The first meeting between the two had been one of the few times in Buchanan's life that he had felt inadequate in the face of an opponent. Thornhill had calmly presented stark evidence of Buchanan's illegal dealings with members of Congress, high-ranking bureaucrats, even reaching inside the White House. Tapes of them going over voting schemes, strategies to defeat legislation, frank discussions of what their fake duties would be once they left office, how the payoffs would occur. The CIA man had uncovered Buchanan's web of slush funds and corporations designed to funnel money to his public officials.
"You now work for me," Thornhill had said bluntly. "And you will go right on doing what you are doing until my net is as strong as steel.
And then you will stand clear, and I will take over."
Buchanan had refused. "I'll go to prison," he had said. "I'll take that over indentured servitude."
Thornhill, Buchanan recalled, had looked slightly impatient. "I'm sorry if I wasn't clear. Prison isn't an option. You either work for me or you cease to live."
Buchanan had paled in the face of this threat, but still held firm. "A public servant embroiled in murder?"
"I'm a special type of public servant. I work in extremes. It tends to justify what I do."
"My answer's the same."
"Do you also speak for Faith Lockhart? Or should I consult her personally on the matter?"
That remark had struck Buchanan like a bullet to the brain. It was quite clear to Buchanan that Robert Thornhill was no bully. There was not a hint of bluster in the man. If he said something as innocuous as, "I'm sorry it's come to this," you would probably be dead the next day. Thornhill was a careful, deliberate, focused person, Buchanan had thought at the time. Not unlike himself. Buchanan had gone along. To save Faith.
Now Buchanan understood the relevance of Thornhill's safeguards. The FBI was watching him. Well, they had their work cut out for them, for Buchanan doubted they were in Thornhill's league when it came to clandestine operations. But everyone had an Achilles' heel. Thornhill had easily found his in Faith Lockhart. Buchanan had long wondered what Thornhill's weakness was.
Buchanan slumped in a chair and studied the painting hanging on the library wall. It was a portrait of a mother and child. It had hung in a private museum for almost eighty years. It was by one of the acknowledged-but lesser known-masters of the Renaissance period. The mother was clearly the protector, the infant boy unable to defend himself. The wondrous colors, the exquisitely painted profiles, the subtle brilliance of the hand that had invented this image so clearly evident in every brush stroke, never failed to enrapture anyone who saw it. The gentle curl of finger, the luminosity of the eyes, each detail still so vibrant almost four hundred years after the paint had hardened.
It was perfect love on both sides, uncomplicated by silent, corrosive agendas. At one level it was the simple thread of biological function.
At another it was a phenomenon enhanced by the touch of God. This painting was his most prized possession. Unfortunately, it would soon have to be sold, and perhaps his home as well. He was running out of money to fund the "retirements" of his people.
Saving Faith Page 12