Both women slowly stood, each with a damaged leg, but Michelle had blood pouring out of two large wounds. She could feel her heart pumping harder and harder with each clench of the muscle, throwing more and more of her blood onto the floor with nothing to replace the loss.
She drew a quick breath. She didn’t have much time left. She feinted a charge, and Megan stepped back. Michelle launched, aiming at Megan’s knife-wielding arm.
But in her weakened state she arrived a second too late.
Megan flipped the knife to her left hand a moment before impact. As the women fell backward Megan slammed the knife deeply into the other woman’s back.
They hit the floor and Megan kicked Michelle off, rolled, and stood on a single wobbly leg.
Michelle tried to rise but then fell back to her knees. The knife was still in her. The blood now poured from three wounds, the last one in her back being the most damaging. She was seeing fuzzy images in front of her, and her breaths were becoming increasingly labored.
I’m dying.
She reached behind her, and with her last bit of strength she pulled the blade free.
She eyed Megan, her breaths coming in quick gasps.
“You’re dead,” taunted Megan.
“So are you, bitch,” snarled Michelle, blood pooling in her mouth and garbling her words.
She threw the knife.
It missed badly and hit the wall, falling harmlessly to the floor.
As Michelle sat there helplessly on her haunches, her life rapidly draining away, Megan lined up the kill shot: an elbow strike to the back of Michelle’s neck that would shatter her medulla and instantly end her life.
She leaped to deliver this final shot.
And Edgar Roy pivoted.
In his one-of-a-kind brain it was suddenly thirty years ago and Edgar Roy, then only six years old and the object of his father’s sexual assault, pivoted. And struck. The man fell. The eyes turned glassy. The breathing ceased. The man died. Right there in the farmhouse kitchen.
Then, like an old black-and-white TV suddenly transformed to an HD flatscreen, the old images vanished and Roy was squarely returned to the present.
The six-foot-eight Edgar Roy slammed the kitchen knife he’d snatched off the floor into Megan Riley’s torso with such force that the petite woman was lifted a foot off the floor. A moment later the staggering velocity of Roy’s thrust catapulted Megan Riley violently against the wall. She struck it hard and slid down to the floor. She looked dumbly at the knife buried to the hilt in her heaving chest; the other end had cut her heart nearly in two. She attempted to pull it free. Her hands were around it. They gave one tug and then stopped. The fingers slipped off the handle. Her arms fell to her sides. Her head leaned against her shoulder. She gave one last shuddering breath.
And then she died.
Edgar Roy stood there for a few moments.
I pivoted. My sister did not pivot. I buried the knife into my father. My sister did not. I pivoted. I killed the beast. I killed my father.
His long-lost memory, his only such one, was finally back with him.
He rushed to Michelle’s side and checked her pulse.
He couldn’t find one.
The door burst open.
He turned to see Sean and his sister standing there.
“Please, help her,” cried out Roy.
Sean raced forward. They had phoned for an ambulance on the way over, just in case.
It had been a good call.
The EMTs flooded into the room seconds later and started feverishly working on Michelle. It did not look good. Too many pints of her blood already lay spilled on the floor. They rushed her out on a stretcher, and Sean climbed into the ambulance right before the doors clunked shut.
The FBI agents started assessing what had happened inside the safe house that had turned out to be anything but.
Roy sat slumped against one wall. His sister knelt down next to him. As an agent came up to them she said, “Give us a minute, will you?”
The Fed nodded and backed off.
Roy glanced at the bloodied Riley, who sat dead against the other wall, the knife still sticking out of her. She looked like a large, ghoulish doll on display.
“I killed her,” he told his sister.
“I know.”
“She was trying to kill Michelle.”
“I know that too, Eddie. You saved her life. You did the right thing.”
He shook his head stubbornly. “We don’t know that. She might still die.”
“She might. But you gave her a chance.”
He looked down, seemed as though he might be sick.
He looked up at her again. “I killed Dad.”
She sat down beside him, took his head, and leaned it against her chest.
He said, “All this time I couldn’t remember. I… I just thought you had done it. You’ve… always protected me.”
“That time, Eddie, you defended yourself. And you saved me. You did the right thing. You did nothing wrong. Do you understand that?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Eddie, do you understand that? You did nothing wrong.” She said this last part with urgency.
“I understand.” He swallowed a sob. “They took away my St. Michael’s medal.”
“I know. I can get you another one.”
He glanced over at dead Megan. “I don’t think I need it. Not anymore.”
“I don’t think you do, either.”
He started to cry and his sister held him.
The melancholy sounds of the ambulance carrying the horribly injured Michelle Maxwell dwindled away until there was only silence.
CHAPTER
88
THE HOSPITAL ROOM was colder than any morgue Sean had been in. It was dark, too. Most of the lights came from little machines that were making weird noises, signaling life or heralding approaching death.
He sat hunched over in the chair, his hands clasping hers, his forehead resting on the bed rail.
Michelle Maxwell was covered by a web of IV lines filled with things Sean had never heard of flowing into her body and carrying other things away.
She had died three times. Once in the ambulance. Once on the operating table. And once right here in this bed. She’d actually flatlined while he was holding her hand. The Code Blue was sent out and the crash team hurtled in and did their magic, pulling her back from the grave while Sean had watched helplessly from the doorway.
The doctor told Sean, “That knife did a lot of damage. She almost bled out. But she’s young and in incredible physical shape, otherwise she never would have made it this far.”
“Will that be enough?” he’d asked. “To bring her all the way back?”
“We can only hope,” the surgeon had said. “But frankly one more episode like that and we’ll be hard-pressed to hold her.”
And with that comment most of Sean’s hope had evaporated.
He lifted his head when he heard them come in.
Kelly Paul was with her brother.
Edgar Roy’s face still carried the wounds from his encounter with Megan Riley, or whatever her real name was. She was dead, that was all Sean cared about.
Paul drew close and stared at Michelle before touching Sean on the shoulder. “I’m sorry. It should never have happened.”
“Things happen,” said Sean in a low voice. “They happen all the time. Shitty things, to people trying to do the right thing.” He eyed her brother. “And she wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you. I owe you everything, Edgar, I really do.”
“I owe the same to you, Mr. King,” Roy said quietly.
Paul asked, “How is she doing?”
“Day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute. They can’t tell me if she’ll ever wake up. But I’ll be here when she does.”
He straightened and turned to look at her. “Quantrell and Foster?”
“Taking turns selling each other out. Even if the prosecutors didn’t have enough evidence before
, they do now.”
“Where’d they get the six bodies to plant in the barn?”
“From all over. People they knew were totally off the grid.”
Paul leaned forward and took Sean’s hand. “It was my mission to bring these people down, not hers. I accomplished the mission but I failed her. I failed both of you.”
“I came here to basically say the same thing.”
They all turned to find James Harkes in the doorway. He wore his black suit, white shirt, and black tie. His body was rigid, his features just as tight as his body. He moved forward to join them. He looked down at Michelle and then quickly glanced away.
“I thought we had every base covered,” he said apologetically. “But we didn’t.”
Paul added, “Her real name wasn’t Megan Riley, of course. It’s not important who she was. She was Foster’s fail-safe, one that nobody else knew about.”
“Was she even a lawyer?” asked Sean.
“Yes, among many other things. That’s why she was selected by Foster to work with Bergin.”
“And she killed him?”
“Undoubtedly. We always thought it was someone he knew or else he wouldn’t have pulled off the road like that. We knew there had been a phone call from Riley to Bergin that day. We just assumed she was in Virginia. How she explained to him her coming to Maine I don’t know.”
“So she took out Bergin so she could be lead counsel and spy on us?” Sean said.
“Right,” said Harkes. “And she killed Dukes because they couldn’t trust her to go along with the extraction scheme.”
“And of course she shot Eric Dobkin. That way she could be brought back in later as a Trojan horse. And it worked,” Paul added ruefully.
“I had a gut feeling that Foster wasn’t telling me everything,” admitted Harkes. “She said Riley was her ace in the hole. I thought she meant as an innocent hostage. She obviously wasn’t innocent or a hostage. Foster really outflanked me on that one.” He grimaced and shook his head.
“Don’t beat yourself up over it, Harkes,” said Sean. “You did a good job. No, you did a great job.”
“Frankly, it wasn’t good enough.” He paused and looked around the room. “Uncle Sam is footing the bill for all of this. She’ll get the best care in the world, Sean. And from what I’ve seen of the lady she’ll be up and kicking in doors before we know it.”
“Thanks for saying that,” said Sean.
Harkes slipped something from his pocket. “This is for you. For both of you.” He handed the envelope to Sean.
“What is it?”
“Peter Bunting and Uncle Sam felt strongly that a reward was in order for both of you. They contributed equally to the amount on that wire transfer receipt. The funds are already in your accounts.”
“But we were just doing our job.”
“No, actually, you two did a lot of our job,” said Paul.
Harkes explained. “We knew something was off about the E-Program after a guy named Sohan Sharma failed the Wall and ended up dead. At first we suspected Bunting, but when we started digging deeper, things got a lot more complicated. When the bodies showed up at Eddie’s house we called in Kelly. We knew she’d have every incentive to clear her brother’s name and get to the truth. But we would never have gotten there without your help. And that’s the God’s honest truth.”
When Sean saw the dollar amount on the slip of paper he gasped. He looked up at Harkes in disbelief. “This is way too much, Harkes.”
The man shot another glance at Michelle in the bed. “No, Sean, it’s not nearly enough.”
“I’d like some of this to go to Eric Dobkin’s widow,” said Sean.
“You can do whatever you want with it,” said Harkes. “You earned it.”
After the three of them left Sean continued to sit by the bed. He planned to sit here until Michelle woke up or… Well, whatever happened, he would be there.
He gazed around the room. They’d been through so much together. A maniac from his past who had blown up his house. A serial killer that had very nearly finished them both off. A CIA rogue agent who thought torturing fellow Americans was an entirely legitimate exercise. And political leaders who thought they were above the law. During these times the only person he had really counted on was Michelle. She had saved him countless times. She had always been there for him. Their bond was like a million diamonds strung together and then sheathed in titanium, nothing stronger.
He sat back and listened to the machines keeping Michelle alive. She was young. She was strong. She had survived so much. She shouldn’t lose her life because a traitor had literally stabbed her in the back. She just shouldn’t.
He put his head on the cool bed rail and gripped her fingers with his. He would stay here until one of them stopped breathing.
I hope it’s me.
Night turned to day. And day turned to night.
And Michelle still lay there.
And Sean still sat there.
The machines made their funny little noises.
Sean waited for a miracle.
The nurses and doctors came and went. They would look at him, smile, say some encouraging words, check Michelle’s vitals and charts, and then scurry away.
Yet he knew that each day she didn’t wake up lessened her chances of ever waking up at all.
Fluids pumped in and fluids pumped out.
The clock ticked.
The machines hummed and hissed.
The doctors and nurses came and went.
Sean sat. His fingers intertwined with hers.
He had imagined her suddenly rising up from the bed and smiling at him. Or him coming back from the bathroom to find her sitting in a chair reading a book. Or more likely, knowing her, performing push-ups and eating power bars and sucking down G2 by the quart. Occasionally he would dream that he would find her bed empty because she had passed, but he had mostly willed that thought away.
He lifted his head and looked at her. He blinked to clear his eyes.
He looked down at her hand. He looked at his. He shook his head and laid it back down on the rail.
That was the only reason he didn’t see Michelle open her eyes.
“Sean?” she said in a voice that was crusty and weak from long disuse.
He lifted his head once more. His gaze met hers.
The tears came.
From both of them.
“I’m here, Michelle. I’m right here.”
He had his miracle.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Michelle, Novel # 21, ready, load, launch! We did it again.
To Mitch Hoffman, my “Sixth Man.”
To Emi Battaglia, Jennifer Romanello, Tom Maciag, Martha Otis, Chris Barba, Karen Torres, Anthony Goff, Kim Hoffman, Bob Castillo, Michele McGonigle, and all at Grand Central Publishing, who support me in every way.
To Aaron and Arleen Priest, Lucy Childs Baker, Lisa Erbach Vance, Nicole James, Frances Jalet-Miller, and John Richmond, for helping with everything from A to Z.
To Maja Thomas, for realizing long ago that ebooks are definitely for real.
To Maria Rejt, Trisha Jackson, and Katie James at Pan Macmillan, for helping me to roll in the UK.
To Steven Maat at Bruna for taking me to the top in Holland.
To Grace McQuade and Lynn Goldberg, for superb publicity.
To Bob Schule, for your eagle eye.
To Kelly Paul, I made your character really tall, which you’re not, and also really smart and cool, which you definitely are.
To Eric Dobkin and Brandon Murdock, I hope you enjoy your namesakes’ roles, and the various charities certainly benefited.
To the Harkes Family, for the use of your name and for being great friends.
To Lynette and Natasha, and you know why.
And a special thanks and welcome to Kristen White, as the newest member of the team.
ALSO BY DAVID BALDACCI
Absolute Power
Total Control
The Winne
r
The Simple Truth
Saving Faith
Wish You Well
Last Man Standing
The Christmas Train
Split Second
Hour Game
The Camel Club
The Collectors
Simple Genius
Stone Cold
The Whole Truth
Divine Justice
First Family
True Blue
Deliver Us from Evil
Hell’s Corner
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Columbus Rose, Ltd.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
Grand Central Publishing
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New York, NY 10017
Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com.
www.twitter.com/grandcentralpub.
First eBook Edition: April 2011
Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN: 978-0-446-57307-8
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