Saving Faith

by David Baldacci

  "What are you doing?" she asked.

  "Go up on the sidewalk and walk as calmly as you can. And keep your eyes open."

  "Lee-"

  "Just do it, Faith!"

  She spun around and went up on the sidewalk, paralleling his movements as he walked on the other side of the parked cars, his eyes scanning each of the vehicles. He finally stopped at a new-looking luxury model.

  "See anybody watching us?" Lee asked. Faith shook her head.

  He walked over to the car and held the tennis ball against the key lock, the hole in the ball facing the lock's opening.

  Faith looked at him as if he were insane. "What are you doing?" In response, he slammed his fist against the tennis ball, driving all the air out of the ball and into the key lock. Faith watched in amazement as all four door locks popped open.

  "How did you do that?"

  "Get in."

  Lee slid into the car, and Faith did the same.

  He poked his head under the steering column and found the wires he needed.

  "You can't hot-wire these new cars. The technology-" Faith stopped talking when the car started.

  Lee sat up, put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. He looked at Faith. "What?"

  "All right, so how did the tennis ball unlock the car?"

  "I've got my professional secrets."

  While Lee waited in the car with his eyes sharply on the lookout, Faith entered her bank, explained what she wanted to the assistant manager and managed to sign her name, all without falling over in a dead faint.

  Steady, girl, one step at a time. Fortunately, she knew the man.

  The assistant manager looked curiously at her new appearance. "Midlife crisis," she said, responding to his stare. "Decided to go for the youthful, streamlined look."

  "It's very becoming, Ms. Lockhart," he said gallantly.

  She closely watched him as he took her key, inserted it and the bank's duplicate key into the lock and pulled out her box. They left the vault and he set the box inside the private booth across from the vault reserved for safe-deposit box tenants. As he walked away, Faith continued to watch him.

  Was he one of them? Was he going to slip away and call the police or the FBI or whoever was running around killing people? Instead he sat down at his desk, opened a white bag, extracted a glazed donut and proceeded to devour it.

  Satisfied for the moment, Faith closed and locked the door. She opened the box and stared at the contents for a moment. Then she swept it all into her bag and closed the box. The young man put the safe-deposit box back in the vault and Faith walked out as calmly as she could.

  Back in the car, Faith and Lee headed down Interstate 395, where they exited on to the GW Parkway and headed south to Reagan National Airport. Going against the morning rush hour, they made good time.

  Faith looked over at Lee, who stared straight ahead, lost in thought.

  "You did really well back there," she said.

  "Actually, we cut it closer than I would have liked." He paused and shook his head. "I'm really worried about Max, as stupid as that sounds under the circumstances."

  "It doesn't sound stupid."

  "Max and I have been together a long time. For years it's been only me and that old dog."

  "I doubt they would have done anything to him with all those people around."

  "Yeah, you'd like to think so, wouldn't you? But the fact is if they'll kill a man, a dog doesn't have a chance."

  "I'm sorry you had to do that for me."

  He sat up straight. "Well, a dog is still a dog, Faith. And we've got other things to worry about, don't we?"

  Faith found herself nodding. "Yes."

  "I guess my magnet trick didn't work so well. They must have identified me through the video. Still, that was awfully fast." He shook his head, his expression a mix of admiration and fear. "Like scary fast."

  Faith felt her spirits sink. If Lee was scared, at what level of sheer terror should she be operating? "Not very encouraging, is it?" she said.

  "I might be a little better prepared if you tell me what's going on."

  After the man's heroics, Faith found herself wanting to confide in him.

  But then the phone call from Buchanan came flashing back, ringing in her ears, like the shots last night.

  "When we get to North Carolina, we'll have it all out. Both sides,"

  Faith said.

  CHAPTER 16

  ROBERT THORN HILL REPLACED THE PHONE RECEIVER and looked around his office, a disturbed expression on his face. His men had found the nest empty, and one of them had even been bitten by a dog. There had been reports of a man and woman running down the street. This was all just a little too much. Thornhill was a patient man, used to working on projects for many years, but still, there were limits to what he could tolerate. His men had listened to the message Buchanan had left on Lee's answering machine. They had taken the tape and played it back for Thornhill over his secure phone line.

  "So you've hired a private investigator, Danny," Thornhill muttered to himself. "You'll pay for that one." He nodded thoughtfully. "I'll make you pay."

  The police had responded to the burglar alarm, but when Thornhill's men had flashed official-looking IDs they had quickly backed off. Legally, the CIA had no authority to operate within the United States. Thus, Thornhill's team routinely carried several types of identification and would select one depending on who confronted them.

  The patrolmen had been sent off with instructions to bury deeply all that they had seen. Still, Thornhill didn't like it. It was all too close to the edge. There were holes there, ways for people to gain an advantage over him.

  He went to the window and looked outside. It was a beautiful fall day, the colors starting to turn. As he studied the pleasing foliage, he primed his pipe, but unfortunately that was all he could do. CIA headquarters was a nonsmoking building. The deputy director had a balcony outside his office where Thornhill could sit and smoke, but it was not the same. During the Cold War, the CIA offices had been as foggy as steam baths. Tobacco helped one think, Thornhill believed. It was a minor thing, yet it symbolized all that had gone wrong with the place.

  In Thornhill's opinion, the CIA's downfall had accelerated in 1994 with the Aldrich Ames' debacle. Thornhill still winced every time he thought of the former CIA counterintelligence officer being arrested for spying for the Soviets and later the Russians. And of course, as fate would have it, the FBI had broken the case. After that, the president had issued a directive ordering an FBI agent to be made a permanent employee of the CIA. From then on, this FBI agent oversaw the agency's counterespionage efforts and had access to all CIA files.

  An FBI agent on the premises! His nose in all their secrets! Not to be outdone by the executive branch, the idiotic Congress had followed with a law requiring all government agencies, including the CIA, to notify the FBI whenever there was evidence that classified information might have been improperly disclosed to foreign powers. The result:

  The CIA took all the risk and gave the prize to the FBI. Thornhill seethed. It was a direct usurpation of the CIA's mission.

  Thornhill's rage was building. The CIA could no longer even put people under surveillance or wiretap. If it had suspicions of someone, it had to go to the FBI and request surveillance, electronic or otherwise. If electronic surveillance was desired, then the FBI had to go to FISC, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, and obtain authorization.

  The CIA couldn't even approach FISC on its own. It had to have its hand held by Big Brother. Everything was stacked in the FBI's favor.

  Thornhill's thoughts went into a tailspin as he reminded himself that the shackles on the CIA weren't just domestic; the Agency had to get authorization from the president before commencing any covert operations overseas. The congressional oversight committees had to be told of any such operations in a timely fashion. And with the world of espionage becoming more and more complicated, the CIA and FBI found themselves continually running into
each other over jurisdictional squabbles, use of witnesses and informants and the like. Though it was supposed to be a domestic agency only, the FBI, in reality, did considerable work abroad, where it focused on antiterrorism and anti-drug operations, including the collection and analysis of information. Again, that hit right at the CIA's home turf.

  Was it any wonder Thornhill hated his federal counterparts? Like a cancer, the bastards were everywhere. And to drive the nail a little farther into the CIA's coffin, a former FBI agent now headed up the Center for CIA Security, which conducted internal background checks on all current and prospective personnel. And all CIA employees had to file annual financial disclosure forms that were damn well exhaustive in their content requirements.

  Before he suffered a stroke thinking any more on this sore subject, Thornhill forced himself to turn his attention to other matters. If Buchanan had hired this PI person to follow Lockhart, then he very well could have been the man at the cottage last night and the person who had shot Serov. There had been permanent nerve damage to the man's arm from the gunshot wound, and Thornhill had ordered the Russian to be finished off. A hired killer who could no longer hold a weapon steady enough to kill would look for other ways to make money and could pose a small threat. It was Serov's own fault, and if there was one thing Thornhill demanded from his people, it was accountability.

  So this Lee Adams was now in the mix of things, he mused. Thornhill had already ordered a complete background search on the man. In these days of computerized files, he would have a full dossier in half an hour, if not sooner. Thornhill did have Adams's file on Faith Lockhart; his men had taken that from the apartment. The notes showed that the man was thorough, logical in his approach to investigation.

  That was both good and bad for Thornhill's purposes. Adams had also given Thornhill's men the slip. That was not an easy thing to do. On the good side, if Adams was logical, he should be amenable to a reasonable offer, meaning one that would allow him to live.

  Presumably Adams had also escaped from the cottage with Faith Lockhart.

  He had not reported in to Buchanan about this, which was why Buchanan had left that phone message. Buchanan was obviously unaware of what had happened last night. Thornhill would do all he could to make sure this state of affairs continued.

  How would they run? A train? Thornhill doubted it. Trains were slow.

  And you couldn't take a train overseas. Now, a train to an airport was a more intriguing possibility. Or a cab. That seemed certainly more likely.

  Thornhill eased back into his chair as an assistant entered with some files he had requested. While everything at the CIA was computerized these days, Thornhill still liked the feel of paper in his hand. He could think much more clearly with paper than when he was simply staring at the pixe led screen.

  So all the usual bases were covered. What about the unusual? With the added element of a professional investigator, Adams and Lockhart might be fleeing under false identities, even disguises. He had men at all three airports and the train stations. That would only go so far. The pair could easily rent a car and drive to New York and take a plane there. Or they could go south and do the same thing. It certainly was problematic.

  Thornhill hated these sorts of chases. There were too many places to cover and he had limited manpower for these "extracurricular" activities of his. At least he had the advantage of operating more or less autonomously. No one from the director of central intelligence on down really questioned him as to what he was up to. Or if they did, he was able to dance around any issue they threw at him. He got results that made them all look good, and that was his biggest weapon.

  It was much better to coax the runners out, bring them to you, which was certainly possible with the right sort of bait. Thornhill just had to come up with that bait. That would take some more thinking.

  Lockhart had no family, no elderly parents or young children. He didn't know enough about Adams yet, but he would. If the man had just hooked up with the woman, he couldn't possibly be willing to sacrifice everything for her. Not just yet. Other things being