The Sixth Man kam-5

by David Baldacci

  “Desires, but does not require,” was Harkes’s diplomatic reply.

  “Then we have an opening.”

  “I think we do. A very advantageous one for you if we play it just right.”

  Quantrell said, “You know what they’re doing, of course.”

  “They’re playing each of you against the other. Bunting called you to turn you against Foster. And Paul corralled Foster in that ladies’ room and did the same thing.”

  “Clever. Foster has clearly fallen hook, line, and sinker for it. I have to admit Bunting scared the crap out of me when he called.”

  “And Kelly Paul can be very persuasive.”

  “She’s the most worrisome pawn on the board right now,” said Quantrell.

  “I would hardly call her a pawn, sir. We can’t underestimate the woman.”

  “Had run-ins with her before?’

  “A couple of times. And each time the result was not one that I desired.”

  “If she can beat you, Harkes, she scares the shit out of me.”

  “She has to know I’m involved in this because Bunting would have told her, but they don’t know I’m working for you. No one knows that.”

  “My ace in the hole.” Quantrell gave a satisfied smile. “How quickly can you deploy the Riley angle?”

  “As soon as you say go, Mr. Quantrell.”

  “Go,” replied the CEO with Mercury-like quickness.

  CHAPTER

  80

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE I never thought of that,” said Bunting.

  He stared over at Kelly Paul as she sat in a chair and looked down at her phone. She had just gotten off a call with Sean King. She and Bunting were in her “shared” apartment in New York City, not that far from Bunting’s brownstone. The mansion was empty, his family safe, for now.

  “The satellite coverage,” Paul said.

  “Twenty-four/seven,” Bunting added.

  “Provided by DHS?”

  “I suppose. Although if they did it, they didn’t bother to tell me about it.” He looked out the window, where the rain beat relentlessly down. “But moving those eyes is not done lightly,” he said. “Edgar would’ve been a priority for them.”

  “It might very well require Foster’s signature,” agreed Paul. “That’s a paper trail.”

  “Now if we can just prove the satellite was watching and that order was issued.”

  Paul didn’t say anything.

  “What are you thinking, Kelly?”

  “What if it wasn’t moved?”

  Bunting looked away from the window. “What do you mean?”

  “What if the satellite saw exactly what happened?”

  “Are you alleging that your brother is indeed a serial killer?” Bunting said in a bewildered tone.

  “No.”

  “Okay. So the only other conclusion is that they framed him. They planted the bodies in that barn. If that were the plan, why would they allow the eyes in the sky to watch? It would prove that your brother was innocent. It would have destroyed their plan. And more to the point, that fact would have come out by now.”

  “Not necessarily. You know as well as I do that satellite platforms vary greatly. And who is to say it was a government one?”

  “You mean commercial?”

  “Or essentially a private one.”

  “Why?” asked Bunting.

  “If the sat was government-owned it would be harder to control the information, even for Foster. But if it were private eyes?”

  “Which she might have agreed to since she was planning this whole campaign with Quantrell against me and the E-Program outside of DHS channels.”

  “Or it might be more complicated than that.”

  “How?”

  “Mercury has a number of satellites, correct?”

  “Sure. Quantrell was one of the first in the field.”

  “So let’s say he has the bird on Eddie’s property too. They pick a weekday when Eddie is in D.C. Foster orders her sat to look away. They take the bodies in and bury them in the barn in a way that will be easily discoverable later. They phone in a tip to the police, and my brother takes the fall.”

  “But why wouldn’t Quantrell turn his bird off too?” asked Bunting. Before she could answer his question, he did. “In case things went to hell he’d have leverage with Foster.”

  “Exactly.”

  “So how do we confirm this?”

  “There are ways. I’ll get working on them.”

  “If we can get pictures of what actually happened, then Edgar goes scot free.”

  “But that doesn’t get us out of the woods yet.”

  “No, it’s only one piece, you’re right.”

  Bunting’s phone rang. He pulled it from his pocket.

  Paul eyed him. “Who is it?”

  “Avery.”

  He answered and put it on speaker so Paul could hear, too. “Talk fast, Avery.”

  The other man’s voice was strained. “Mr. Bunting, I received a call from someone.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. They didn’t leave their name. But they had a message they wanted me to convey to you.”

  “What was it?”

  “They want to make an exchange.”

  “What sort of exchange?”

  “A woman named Megan Riley in trade for Edgar Roy.” He paused.

  “Avery, is that all? Roy for Riley?”

  “No, sir. They also want you.”

  Bunting drew a quick breath and looked toward the window, as though they might be lurking right outside.

  Avery sounded near tears.

  “Calm down, Avery, it’ll be okay. Did they give you details?”

  They heard him swallow a sob and he said, “The day after tomorrow at the Mall in Washington, D.C. Twelve o’clock in the afternoon. Across from the Air and Space Museum. They said if you tried any tricks, called the police or anything, they’d kill Ms. Riley and shoot up the place. Lots of people will die.”

  “Okay, Avery, okay. I appreciate the call. You did good. Now you need to get somewhere safe.”

  Bunting flinched when the other voice came over the phone. “Too late for that,” said the voice. There was a single gunshot and they heard a body drop.

  “Avery!” screamed Bunting, as he snatched up the phone.

  The voice said, “If you and Roy are not at the Mall on the day after tomorrow in the requisite place at the requisite time, Riley is dead and so are a lot of other people. Do you understand?”

  Bunting said nothing.

  Paul took the phone from him and said, “We understand. We’ll be there.”

  The line went silent.

  Bunting stumbled over to the window and pressed his face against it.

  Paul said, “I’m sorry, Peter.”

  Bunting didn’t say anything for a while and Paul let the silence persist.

  “He was just a kid.”

  “Yes he was,” she conceded.

  “He shouldn’t be dead. He’s not a field agent. He’s an office geek.”

  “Lots of people shouldn’t be dead. But they are. Now, we have to focus on the day after tomorrow.”

  “Our plan didn’t work. We were turning them against each other but didn’t factor this possibility in.” He turned to look at her. “They have an army, Kelly. We’ve got what?”

  “I could say we have right on our side, but it seems a bit trite under the circumstances. Yet we still have to try.”

  “I want to strangle Quantrell and Foster with my bare hands, I swear to God I do.”

  “They forced Avery to make that call and they did it to throw you off, Peter.”

  “Well, they did a damn good job,” he blurted out.

  “They will expect your thinking to be clouded. They will expect you to act less than rationally. They will expect you to just give in.”

  “I don’t even know this Megan Riley. And they want me and your brother in return?”

  “They killed Avery. They will
kill her too. And they’ve sweetened the pot. Lots of other people on the Mall will die as well.”

  He sat back down, wiped his eyes and cheeks dry, and drew a long, replenishing breath. “Okay, the best I can do to avenge Avery is to think this all through. First, why the day after tomorrow? Why wait?”

  “The Mall is a popular place, always people around.”

  “But the day after tomorrow. Will there be more people around?”

  He performed a Web search on his phone. Paul looked at the screen.

  “I have to hand it to them. Shows some style.”

  “They’re going to do a hostage exchange in the middle of a peace rally,” said Bunting grimly.

  CHAPTER

  81

  IT WAS EARLY IN THE MORNING, and Michelle had driven most of the night to get them to D.C. Sean was asleep in the seat next to her. Roy had nodded off in the backseat. The sky was overcast and promised more rain from a storm system that had been pounding the East Coast.

  “Cold, wet, and dark. Sort of matches my mood.”

  Michelle glanced over to see that Sean was awake and staring out the window.

  He looked at her and smiled resignedly. “Tomorrow will be a busy day.”

  They crossed over a bridge and hung a right, following the directions Paul had given them when she’d called about the latest development involving Megan Riley.

  Michelle glanced over at a street corner. “I held a post on that street corner for twelve hours. It was the day after 9/11. Nobody knew what the hell was going on. I wasn’t even working protection back then. I was assigned to a forgery case in Maryland. They pulled a bunch of us in to supplement the protection detail for the president and the VP. By the time I was relieved every muscle I had was in a knot. But you know what?”

  “You didn’t want to leave your post.”

  She nodded. “How’d you know?”

  “When 9/11 happened I was practicing law, been out of the Service for a while. I watched it on TV along with every other American. I wanted to suit back up, come to D.C., and help out. That could never happen, of course.” He grew silent and then added in a low voice, “But I really wanted to come back and help.”

  “Things have really gotten screwed up, haven’t they?”

  “Actually, they’ve been screwed up for a long time. Which means we all have to work a little harder to fix them.”

  “That’s a good attitude to have.” Roy sat up and swept a hand through his hair. He looked at them. “The world is complicated, so people seek complicated solutions. And there’s nothing wrong with that because simple answers don’t usually work. But sometimes the answers are simple and people still refuse to see them.”

  “Meaning?” asked Sean.

  “Meaning the simpler approach in certain circumstances is better, if only because there’re fewer things that can go wrong.”

  “You know what they want,” said Michelle.

  “Me and Peter Bunting, yes. For Megan Riley. And of course their threat to kill many other innocent people.”

  “So what’s the simple answer to that?” asked Sean.

  “To give them what they want.”

  “Turn you and Bunting over to them? They’ll kill you both.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “They will kill you,” said Sean. “They have no other possible reason to do the exchange.”

  “One would think,” said Roy somewhat vaguely.

  “We’re meeting your sister and Bunting. Be there in about ten minutes,” said Michelle. “Do you think she’ll have a simple answer?”

  “I think she’ll have an answer. Kel usually does. To everything.”

  “Her options may be limited.”

  “She knows that, I’m sure.”

  “She’s not going to give you up, Edgar,” said Michelle. “You’re her brother. She’s not going to do that.”

  “But then a lot of people will get hurt.”

  “We’ll have to do something called damage containment,” replied Sean.

  “I’m familiar with the phrase. But that’s usually reserved for cases where you have multiple assets on the ground. We don’t have that luxury. Foster and by extension Quantrell have lots of resources.”

  “Do you think they’re working together still? Even after they were told one is trying to screw the other?” asked Michelle.

  Roy said, “They’re playing it on multiple fronts. They’ll prepare for the worst but execute any plan that seems feasible. Riley being a valuable asset is one they held in reserve. They may have intended on playing this one all along. That doesn’t mean they now trust each other. In fact, they probably don’t.”

  “So what’s the glue that’s holding them together?”

  “My sister talked to me about that. She thinks the glue is James Harkes. And I agree with her.”

  “Tell us about him,” said Sean.

  “Decorated veteran. Purple Heart. Bronze Star. Short-listed for the Silver. Been a field agent for the CIA and DIA. He’s good.”

  “Is he smart enough to play this all the way?”

  “You’ll have to ask my sister. She knows more about him than I do.”

  “So they’ve worked together? She mentioned something like that, I think.”

  “I’m not so sure they worked together.”

  “What then?”

  “I think they almost killed each other. And from the way she tells it she was lucky to walk away.”

  “If they’re both American agents why would that have happened?” asked Michelle.

  “It’s complicated, apparently. But Harkes being on their side is not good for us.”

  Sean turned back around and sighed. “Great.”

  A few minutes later they turned down a quiet residential street. The garage door opened at their approach, and Michelle drove into it. The door closed behind them.

  Kelly Paul was waiting at the door into the house.

  “Do we have a plan for tomorrow?” asked Sean, as they passed through into the house.

  “We have a plan,” replied Paul. “There’s just no guarantee that it will work.”

  CHAPTER

  82

  THE DAY SET FOR THE HOSTAGE exchange broke clear and cold. The masses on the Mall were in place by ten o’clock. There were speeches, demonstrations, songs, more speeches, portable toilets by the thousands, and lots of signs with the peace symbol on them.

  The Air and Space Museum was one of the most popular of the Smithsonian’s offerings. It was just down the street from the Smithsonian Castle.

  The museum was ground zero.

  Two hours to go.

  The cold weather helped, because everyone was dressed in coats, hats, and scarves, and thus disguise was made far easier.

  Sean and Michelle were on the Mall near the US Capitol. Edgar Roy, wearing a hoodie and with his face pointed downward, sat in a wheelchair that Sean was pushing. Sean used one hand to tug his coat tighter around him. It was a snug fit for a very good reason.

  Michelle’s gaze swept the area. She said, “Looks to be over a hundred thousand people out here at least.”

  “At least,” agreed Sean.

  “A hundred and sixty-nine thousand,” corrected Roy.

  Sean glanced down. “How do you know that? Don’t tell me you counted everyone?”

  “No. But I’ve seen enough grids of the Mall in my work with the E-Program. It’s a top target of terrorists. You can determine the number of people by how many grids are full.”

  “Regardless, it’s still a lot of people,” said Michelle.

  “And potentially a lot of casualties,” added Sean in a worried tone.

  * * *

  James Harkes was standing in probably the best observation post on the Mall: at the top of the Washington Monument with a pair of stellar optics. He surveyed the people down below and then made a call.

  Mason Quantrell was on his Boeing Dreamliner coming back from a meeting in California. He answered before the first ring had f
inished.

  “Status?” he asked eagerly.

  “The Mall is filling up. I have a prime post. All the players are in place or soon will be. When will you be on the ground?”

  “Three hours and twenty minutes.”

  “I hope to have good news to welcome you with, sir.”

  “Not that you need a reminder, but you pull this off, there’s fifty million dollars waiting for you, tax free. And I’ll throw in another ten million as a bonus. You’ll never have to work another day in your life.”

  “I appreciate that, Mr. Quantrell. More than you know.”

  “Good luck, Harkes.”

  As Harkes clicked off he thought, None of this will be about luck.

  He made another call.

  This too was answered on the first ring.

  Ellen Foster was at her home sitting on her bed. She was still in her nightgown, her hair unkempt and her gut full of acid. Today was Saturday. She had had an event planned for out of town but had her people reschedule it, citing illness. Which wasn’t far from the truth. She felt quite sick.

  “Harkes, how’s it going?” Her voice was high-pitched, riddled by nerves barely held in check.

  “Things are coming into place. But you need to take a few deep breaths and get yourself under control.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  He heard her following his advice. One-two-three deep breaths. When she came back on the line, her voice sounded almost normal.

  “Have you spotted them yet?”

  “No, but I wouldn’t expect to. They have a while yet. And knowing them, they won’t show themselves a second before it’s necessary.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Because if it were me, I wouldn’t either.”

  “You really think they’ll come?”

  “Frankly, I can’t control what they do, Secretary Foster. All I can do is create an atmosphere where the probabilities are that they will do what we want them to do. And I think that we have.”

  “How do you see it going down?”

  “They get Riley. We get Roy and Bunting.”

  “I disagree. Kelly Paul won’t let it go that easily. When she trapped me in that bathroom at Lincoln Center she was very clear. She wanted her brother back. If she has him she won’t let him go without a fight. It’s just not possible.”