Saving Faith

by David Baldacci

  "If the guy's wounded, that should make it a little easier to track him down."

  "Maybe. If he required medical attention, he wouldn't be so stupid as to go to a local emergency room. They have to report gunshot wounds.

  And we don't know how badly he was hurt. Might have just been a flesh wound that bled like a bitch. If so, he bandages it up, gets on a plane and poof. Gone. I mean we've got all the bases covered, but if the guy was leaving on a private plane, then we got problems. The truth is he's probably already long gone."

  "Or maybe dead. Apparently he missed his primary target. Whoever hired him won't be happy about that."

  "Right."

  Reynolds folded her hands in front of her as she thought of the next topic she wanted to discuss. "Connie, Ken's gun was unfired."

  Connie had obviously given this line of inquiry some thought because he said, "Which means, if the blood is confirmed as human, we definitely have a fourth person at the cottage last night. And that party shot the shooter." He shook his head wearily. "Shit, listen to us, it all sounds crazy."

  "Crazy but apparently true under the facts as we know them. Think about this: Could this fourth person have killed Ken? And not the guy who was wounded?"

  "Don't think so. The VCUs are looking for shell cartridges in the woods where we think the other shot came from, as confirmation. If there was a gun battle between two unknown parties, then maybe we'll find another set of ejected shells as well."

  "Well, this fourth person being present may explain the door being unlocked and the cameras being tripped."

  He sat up straight. "Anything on the tape yet? We had to get some faces or something."

  "To put it simply, we have been degaussed."

  "What?"

  "Don't ask. For right now we can't count on the tape."

  "Well, shit! That doesn't leave us with much."

  "Specifically, it leaves us with Faith Lockhart."

  "We've got all the airports, train and bus stations, rental car agencies covered. Her firm too, although I can't believe she'd go there."

  "Agreed. Actually, that may be where the bullet came from," Reynolds said slowly.

  "Buchanan?"

  "Wish we could prove it."

  "If we find Lockhart, we still may be able to. We'll have some leverage there."

  "Don't count on it. Almost getting your head blown off can make you rethink loyalties," Reynolds said dryly.

  "If Buchanan and his people are on to Lockhart, then they must be on to us as well."

  "You said that before. A leak? From here?"

  "A leak from somewhere. Here or at Lockhart's end. Maybe she did something to make Buchanan suspicious. From all accounts, the guy's cagey as hell. He had her followed somehow. They saw her meeting with you at the house. He dug a little more, hit the truth and contracted to take her out."

  "I'd like to believe that more than someone here selling us down the river.

  "So would I. But the fact is every law enforcement agency has some bad apples."

  Reynolds briefly wondered for a moment if Connie was suspicious of her.

  Everyone who worked at the FBI, from special agents to support staff, had top-secret security clearance. When you applied for a job at the Bureau, teams of agents would show up investigating every single piece of your past, no matter how insignificant, talking to everyone who ever knew you. Every five years a full field investigation was conducted on on-board Bureau employees. In the interim any suspicious activity involving a bureau employee or any complaints of persons asking suspicious questions of an employee were to be reported to the security officer in the employee's division. That had never happened to Reynolds, thank God. Her record was clean.

  If there were suspicions of a leak or other type of security breach, it might very well be investigated by the Office of Professional Responsibility, and a polygraph exam might be ordered for the suspect employee. Other than that, the Bureau was always on the lookout for any signs that an employee was having undue personal or professional problems that might make him or her susceptible to bribes or influence by third parties.

  Reynolds knew Connie was doing okay financially. His wife had died years ago from a lengthy illness that had sapped their resources, but he lived in a nice house that was worth a lot more than he had paid for it. His kids' college educations were done, and he had his pension locked in. All in all, he had a nice retirement to look forward to.

  On the other hand, Reynolds knew her personal life and finances were in abysmal shape. College funds? Damn, she'd be lucky if she could continue to afford the private school tuition for first grade. And pretty soon, she wouldn't have a house to call her own. That was being sold as part of the divorce. The condo she was eyeing was about the size of the one she had rented when she had finished college. It had seemed cozy with one person. An adult and two energetic kids would quickly turn cozy into cramped. And could she afford to keep her nanny? With her hours, how could she not? She couldn't leave the kids alone at night.

  In any other occupation she would probably be on the top ten soon-to-crash-and-burn list. But in the FBI, the divorce rate was such that her mess of a marriage would not create a blip on the Bureau radar. A career in the FBI was often simply not conducive to a happy personal life.

  She blinked for a moment as she found Connie's gaze still upon her. Did he really suspect her of being the leak? Of causing Ken Newman to die?

  She knew it looked bad. On the very night when she'd had Newman substitute for her with Lockhart, he was killed. She knew Paul Fisher had been thinking that, and she was reasonably sure Connie was right now.

  She composed herself and said, "There's really nothing we can do about this theory of a leak right now. Let's concentrate on what we can do."

  "Fine. So what's our next move?"

  "Hit all our lines of investigation as hard as we can. Find Lockhart.

  Let's hope she uses a credit card for plane or train tickets. If she does that, we've got her. We need to at least make an effort to find the shooter. Shadow Buchanan. Unscramble that tape and see who was in that house. I want you to act as liaison with the VCU. We have a lot of threads, if we can only grab one or two of them and hold on."

  "Hey, isn't that always the case?"

  "We're in a really tight spot here, Connie.

  He nodded thoughtfully. "I heard Fisher was here. Figured he'd been by to see you."

  Reynolds didn't respond to this, and Connie plunged on.

  "Thirteen years ago, I was heading up a joint undercover drug operation with the DEA in Brownsville, Texas." He paused for a moment as if deciding whether to go forward or not. "Our official goal was to disrupt the flow of cocaine over the Mexican border. Our unofficial goal was to accomplish our mission without making the Mexican government look bad. For that reason, we had open lines of communication with our counterparts in Mexico City. Perhaps too open, since there was rampant corruption south of the border at all levels.

  But it was done that way so the Mexican authorities could share in the glory after we did all the work and scored the perps heading up the cartel. After two years of work, a huge bust was planned. But our plans got leaked and my guys walked into an ambush that left two of them dead."

  "Oh my God. I heard about that case, but I didn't know you were involved in it."

  "You were probably still cutting your teeth at Quantico."

  Reynolds didn't know if this was a backdoor barb or not, but she chose not to respond.

  "Anyway, after all that went down, I got a visit from one of the young ladder climbers at HQ who wouldn't know which end of his pistol to hold, and who politely informed me that if I didn't make things right, my ass was cooked. But there was one stipulation. If I found out our friends in Mexico sent us down the river, I couldn't use that as an excuse. International relations, I was told. I'd just have to fall on the sword for the good of the world." Connie's voice trembled a little as he said this last part.

  Reynolds found she was hold
ing her breath. It was not like Connie to talk this much. In the dictionary, the man's picture could well be found next to the word "taciturn."

  He took a gulp of coffee and wiped his lips with the back of his hand.

  "Well, you know what? I traced the leak right to the top of the Mexican police department and I put a big X on the bastards' foreheads and walked away from it. If my superiors didn't want to do anything about it, fine. But damn if I was going to take the fall for somebody's else's shit." He eyed her steadily. ""International relations,"" he said, a bitter smile spreading across his lips as he did so. He rested his elbows on her desk.

  Was this a challenge he was laying before her? Reynolds wondered. Was he expecting to leave an X on her forehead, or daring her to pin one on his?

  "That's been my official motto ever since," he said.

  "What's that?"

  "Fuck 'international relations.""

  CHAPTER 21

  THROUGH THE AIRPORT TERMINAL DRIFTED MEMBERS of both the FBI and Central Intelligence, with the former group completely unaware of the latter's presence. Thornhill's men also had the advantage of knowing that Lee Adams was probably traveling with Faith Lockhart. The FBI agents were only looking for the woman.

  Lee unknowingly passed a couple of the FBI agents dressed as businessmen with briefcases and Wall Street Journals. They were equally oblivious to him. Faith had passed by the agents a moment earlier.

  Lee slowed when he got near to the main ticket counter. Faith was up there speaking with a clerk. This was starting to look okay. He had a sudden feeling of guilt for not having trusted her. He edged over to a corner and waited.

  At the counter, Faith displayed her new ID and purchased three tickets.

  Two tickets were in the name of Suzanne Blake and Charles Wright. The woman barely looked at her photo. Thank God for that, although Faith supposed people rarely looked like their ID photos anyway. The flight to Norfolk International left in about forty-five minutes. The third ticket she purchased was in the name of Faith Lockhart. It was a flight heading to San Francisco with a stopover in Chicago. It left in forty minutes. She had spotted it on the monitors. West Coast, big city. She could lose herself, drive down the coast, maybe even sneak into Mexico. She wasn't sure how she would accomplish that, but she just had to take it one step at a time.

  Faith had explained that she was buying the ticket to San Francisco for her boss, who would arrive shortly.

  "She'll have to hurry," the clerk said. "She still has to check in.

  And they're going to begin boarding in about ten minutes."

  "It won't be a problem," Faith assured her. "She doesn't have any luggage, so she can check in at the gate."

  The clerk handed her the ticket. Faith figured she was safe using her real name on the ticket because she paid for all of them with her Suzanne Blake credit card. And the only other ID she had to check in with was her real one. It was Faith Lockhart or nothing. Everything would be okay.

  She could not have been any more wrong.

  As Lee watched Faith, a thought jolted him. His gun! He had to check it before going through security or all hell would break lose. He shot across to the counter and next to a startled Faith.

  He put his arm around her and gave her a quick kiss on the