The Sixth Man

by David Baldacci

  and stabs of narrow beams as guards with flashlights raced around trying to secure the perimeter. Battery-powered sirens shrieked.

  One of the men held up his badge. “FBI. We’re here for Edgar Roy. Now.”

  “What?” said a bewildered guard.

  The man shoved his creds and badge into the uniform’s face. “FBI. You have a total security meltdown. Roy is a Level One Federal Prisoner. That was part of the paperwork when he was remanded here. His security is the jurisdiction of the Bureau in the event of a crisis at Cutter’s Rock. Now open the gates or we’ll arrest your ass right now.”

  The guards seemed paralyzed as they stared out at the flood of armed men wearing FBI windbreakers and body armor.

  The guards turned and manually pushed open the gates and the SUVs raced through the gap.

  When they reached the main entrance, the new director who had replaced Carla Dukes was there to greet them. He ordered the guards to open the last set of doors and to immediately release Edgar Roy into the custody of the FBI.

  Edgar Roy heard the doors opening and closing. He heard the sounds of heavy boots racing through the facility. He didn’t look up when the sounds stopped at his cell. He didn’t turn his head when the cell door was manually opened. He let his body go limp when the strong hands reached for him.

  He was yanked upward, his head banging on the combat helmet of one of the men who had come for him. They half-carried him down the hall.

  One man said into his ear, “Move your feet, asshole, or I’ll put a round right in your skull.”

  Edgar Roy started to move, his weakened legs scissoring in painful little hops.

  The darkness raced past them. Sounds, voices, sirens. He wanted to cover his ears, but the men had death grips on his arms.

  He saw faces as they reached the front entrance. The new director stared at Roy, barely concealing his triumphant smile. The massive front doors stood open.

  For the first time in months, Edgar Roy was outside. He could smell the ocean; he could see the moon.

  He had no time to enjoy this small taste of freedom, particularly because he knew he wasn’t free at all. He was thrown into the rear seat of one of the SUVs, and men crammed in after him. Turbo engines started, wheels gripped asphalt. Roy was thrown backward in his seat as the SUV whipped around, hit sixty a few seconds later, and catapulted toward the exit.

  They crossed the causeway. The truck turned left and slowed. The two trucks behind them did the same. Ten minutes later they followed a road that was their natural way out of the area. It was isolated, dark, nothing around except a long ribbon of asphalt and trees.

  Their natural way out.

  Roy felt a bump as the truck hit something in the road. There was an explosion, though Roy felt no concussive force. The truck wasn’t lifted into the air, but it was suddenly engulfed in a wall of fog.

  Someone yelled. Roy felt the SUV lurch to the right and then the left. Men around him gagged. Something tugged at his arm. He felt a metal barrel against his cheek. He thought he heard a click, like a gun hammer being pulled back.

  The smoke poured through crevices in the vehicle. Roy could see nothing. It was like they were in an open-cockpit plane and had just flown into a cloud. He heard the other trucks whipping and sliding around behind them. Men screamed, cursed, choked.

  He jerked as the shot was fired. Glass exploded next to his head. Some of the shards hit him, cutting his face.

  He took one deep breath, and that was the last thing he remembered doing.

  CHAPTER

  71

  SLIGHT MOVEMENT.

  Slight nausea.

  He saw his sister pivot in the old family kitchen. Then the memory shifted to something far more recent.

  He saw the face in the dirt staring up at him from the barn floor.

  Back to his sister pivoting.

  Then his father’s face.

  Then the face in the dirt.

  It seemed all connected, though it couldn’t be.

  His mind was a mishmash.

  It had never been that before. Never.

  Edgar Roy opened his eyes once and then quickly closed them as a pain tugged at his brain. He opened them once more. Something pulled at him. He slid upward, as though being yanked from deep water. Everything around him felt slick, wet.

  “Eddie?”

  His eyes closed once more.

  “Eddie?”

  He forced his eyes open. He felt slow, stupid, drunk. Feelings he had never before had in his life.

  “Eddie? Can you sit up by yourself?”

  With an effort he righted himself and looked at her.

  Kelly Paul sat next to him in the rear seat of a van that had tinted windows. There were other people with him and his sister. The van was not moving.

  The tall man was in the front passenger seat. The skeptical dark-haired woman was in the driver’s seat.

  Peter Bunting sat on the other side of Paul.

  Bunting said, “Edgar, are you all right? You were bleeding when they got to you.”

  Roy touched the side of his head and felt the bandage there.

  He mumbled, “Shot. Missed. Glass.”

  His sister said, “It’s okay, Eddie. Close call, but it’s okay.”

  “K-el?” he said, the name coming out thick and disjointed.

  “Just take it easy, Eddie. You breathed in some nasty stuff. No lasting effects, but it takes a while to run its course. Once it’s out of your system you’ll feel much better.”

  “You did that?”

  “I’m afraid it was unavoidable.”

  He felt something at his ankle. Well, more accurately, he didn’t feel something at his shin. He looked down. His restraint anklet was gone.

  Paul said, “I didn’t think you’d want that on any longer.”

  Roy looked at the dark-haired woman.

  Michelle stared back at him in the rearview mirror. She wore a shoulder holster and an anxious expression. Sean was next to her, looking equally concerned.

  Sean said to Paul, “Let’s just hope that really wasn’t the FBI who came to get your brother.”

  Roy rubbed his face and willed his mind to clear itself of all the smoke, the rubbish, and the inefficiencies.

  “It wasn’t the FBI,” he said.

  “How do you know that?” asked Sean.

  “Because one of the men said to me, ‘Move your feet, asshole, or I’ll put a round right in your skull.’ ”

  This came out more like a playback of a recording and both Michelle and Sean looked relieved.

  “Okay,” Sean said. “Definitely not the Bureau.”

  Michelle said to Paul, “How did you work out that was going to happen?”

  “The men watching the facility? That was the first clue. Then a maintenance crew went in recently to do some routine work. Only that work had been done less than a month ago and wasn’t due to be done again for another three months. They spent a long time with the backup generator.”

  “Then why did they even let them in the building?” asked Sean.

  “Because the man who replaced Carla Dukes as director at Cutter’s authorized it. And he was being paid off.”

  “And that work was really to sabotage the electrical systems and the backup generator,” said Michelle.

  “And as we saw, they were successful in doing so,” replied Paul.

  “So you called some… friends?” prompted Sean.

  “Acquaintances,” she corrected. “They came, they saw, and they kicked ass.”

  “They were going to do what, kill him?” said Michelle, eyeing Roy.

  “Eventually, yes, and blame it on Peter or me or some other convenient target.”

  She turned to her brother. “When I visited you at Cutter’s I asked you to think about some things. Have you?”

  Roy nodded. He adjusted his glasses and said, “You asked me about patterns. I detected four different ones but all were connected to some degree. What we’ve learned recently
has given me new information which I’ve now plugged into these scenarios.”

  Roy’s speech now was firm, straightforward, more machinelike than human.

  “Four patterns?” said Michelle.

  He nodded. “First, Agent Murdock was killed because he’d discovered the existence of the E-Program. That’s not a deduction. He actually told me that when he came to see me at Cutter’s. He said something was definitely wrong and that he needed my help to get to the people responsible. Carla Dukes was eliminated because she wouldn’t go along with the extraction plan, whereas we know now that the new director had no such compunction. I saw him looking at me as we left Cutter’s. He has a terrible poker face; his guilt couldn’t have been plainer.”

  Paul said, “He obviously didn’t believe you’d be in a position to tell anyone.”

  “Right. Next, Hilary Cunningham was killed to incriminate Ms. Maxwell and distract you and Mr. King from the case.”

  “And Bergin?” asked Sean.

  “Obviously by someone he knew.”

  “Why do you say that?” asked Sean.

  “The window being rolled down and then back up by the killer.” He glanced at his sister. “She told me about that in the Morse code.”

  “And Sean told me that,” said Paul.

  “I guess great minds think alike,” noted Michelle.

  “But I don’t know who killed him,” admitted Roy. “Not enough data to go on. The likely scenario was to remove him from the case so it wouldn’t move forward. They were buying time.” He paused. “But that doesn’t really make sense.”

  “Why?” asked Michelle.

  Sean answered. “Because the case wasn’t moving forward anyway, not with Edgar sitting at Cutter’s.”

  “That’s exactly right,” said Roy.

  “But at least Foster and Quantrell must be throwing fits,” said Bunting with a grim smile. “That’s a positive for our side.”

  “But that means they’re also going to come after us,” added Paul.

  “And do we sit back and wait for that?” asked Sean.

  “Of course not,” she answered. “Now we go on the offensive.”

  “How?” asked Sean.

  “I know exactly how,” said Paul. “In some ways, I think I’ve been waiting my whole life to do this.” She looked at Bunting. “What about you, Peter?”

  “Oh, I feel the exact same way.”

  CHAPTER

  72

  THEY DROVE to a safe house arranged by Kelly Paul.

  “Everyone will be looking for my brother,” said Paul. “This place is far enough away from the action, but we still have to take maximum precautions. If they recapture Eddie, our plan won’t work.”

  As he looked around the new space Sean said, “We’re all felons now. Aiding and abetting. That’s not really something we signed on for. And it sure as hell isn’t something we’re comfortable with.”

  Paul turned to face him. “I understand. If you have a problem with that, you and Michelle can leave right now. No one knows you were involved in any of this. I would ask that you not turn Eddie in. If you do then it’s really over for him.”

  “You think he can’t get a fair trial?” asked Sean.

  “He’ll never make it to court, Sean. They’ll never let him. They broke him out of Cutter’s to kill him. If he goes back they’ll find him in his cell dead from some unknown cause. That’s just the way it’s going to happen.”

  Sean glanced at Michelle.

  She said, “Rock and a hard place.”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “Other things being equal, we’ve come too far on this to let it go now, Sean,” she said. “And we still don’t know who killed Bergin. I know that’s important to you.”

  Sean eyed Paul, who was watching him intently.

  “Okay, we’ll stay in. But we will not use force against federal agents or state law enforcement.”

  “Bona fide federal agents,” said Michelle. “I already laid out a few bogus ones in Central Park and in a diner in Charlottesville.”

  Sean kept staring at Paul. “Do we have an understanding?”

  She nodded. “We do.”

  Bunting gripped Sean by the shoulder. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet. We’ve got a long way to go.”

  After the others retired to their rooms to get some sleep, it was just Paul and her brother left in the room.

  “It’s so good to see you, Eddie,” she said. “I’ve missed you.” She paused. “I just wish it were under different circumstances.”

  “I’ve missed you too, Kel. A lot.”

  She looked down. “I should have come to see you a long time ago. Before all this…”

  “I know you’ve been busy.”

  “Not that busy.” She looked up. “I’m the reason you’re with the E-Program. I recommended you for it.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised.”

  “Analyzed the situation, did you?” she said with a weak smile.

  “I’m pretty good at it.”

  “Bunting’s done nothing but rave about you.”

  “But it’s… it’s not easy being…”

  “God?”

  “You understand then. It’s not a role humans, no matter how smart, are designed to play. We have doubts. We have prejudices. We make mistakes.”

  “You keep a lot of people safe, Eddie.”

  “I also kill a lot of people.”

  “Not directly you don’t.”

  “That’s simply splitting hairs.”

  “What you do is try to make the world better and safer and more just. Yes, your decisions result in people dying, but only so that many, many more people can live. What’s wrong with that? What does your amazing mind tell you about that?”

  “Logically, there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s a no-brainer. But it’s also not that easy.”

  She sat back. “I know it’s not.” She gazed at him. “Do you want to continue doing it?”

  “I don’t know. I need to see whether I survive this or not first.”

  “Whether we survive it. You and me.”

  “You and me,” he said quietly, though it was obvious her words had