Saving Faith

by David Baldacci

  like a super

  401(k). You know how Americans are so into their stocks. Danny worked them hard while they were on the Hill, but he would give them the best golden years money could buy."

  "How many of them have 'retired'?"

  "None, as yet. But everything is set up for when they do. Danny's been doing this only about ten years."

  "He's been in D.C. a lot longer than ten years."

  "I mean he's been bribing people for only ten years. Before then, he was a much more successful lobbyist. The last ten years, he's made a lot less money."

  "I thought guaranteeing results would bring him a lot more money."

  "The last ten years have been pretty much a charitable decade for

  "The man must have deep pockets."

  "Danny has pretty much gone through his money. We started representing paying clients again so we could continue what we were doing. And the longer his people do what they are told, the more they will receive later. And by waiting until they're out of office to be paid, the chances any of them will be caught go down considerably."

  "They must really trust Buchanan's word."

  "I'm sure he's had to show them proof of what's waiting for them. But he's also an honorable man."

  "All crooks are, aren't they? Who are some of the people on his retirement plan?"

  She looked at him suspiciously. "Why?"

  "Just humor me."

  Faith named two of the men.

  "Correct me if I'm mistaken, but aren't they the current vice president -of the United States and the Speaker of the House?"

  "Danny doesn't work with middle management. He actually started working with the vice president before he rose to that office, back when he was a House whip. But when Danny needs the man to pick up the phone and put the screws to someone, the man does."

  "Holy shit, Faith. What the hell did you need that kind of firepower for? Are we talking military secrets?"

  "Actually, something much more valuable." She picked up her wine glass. "We represent the poorest of the world's poor. African nations, in issues of humanitarian aid, food, medicine, clothing, farm equipment, crop seed, desalinization systems. In Latin America, money for vaccines and other medical supplies. The export of legal birth control devices, sterile needles and health information in the poorest countries."

  Lee looked skeptical. "You're saying you were bribing government officials to help third world countries?"

  She set down her wine glass and looked directly at him. "Actually, the official lexicon has changed. The rich nations have developed very politically correct terminology for their destitute neighbors. The CIA publishes a manual on them, in fact. So instead of 'third world," you have new categories: LDCs are 'less-developed countries," meaning they're in the bottom group in the hierarchy of developed countries.

  There are officially one hundred and seventy-two LDCs, or the vast majority of countries in the world. Then there are the LLDCs. They're the 'least developed countries." They're the bottom of the barrel, dead in the water. There are only forty-two of them. This may surprise you, but about half of the people on this planet live in abject poverty."

  "And that makes it right?" Lee said. "That makes bribery and cheating right?"

  "I'm not asking you to condone any of it. I don't really care if you agree with it or not. You wanted the facts, I'm giving them to you."

  "America gives lots of foreign aid. And we don't have to give a dime."

  She gave him a fierce look, one he had never seen from her before. "If you talk facts with me, you lose," she said sharply.

  "Come again?"

  "I've been researching this-living this-for more than ten years! We pay farmers in this country more not to grow crops than we do on humanitarian relief overseas. Of the total federal budget, foreign aid represents about one percent, with the vast majority of that going to two countries, Egypt and Israel. Americans spend a hundred times as much money on makeup or fast food or video rentals in a year's time than we do on feeding starving children in third world countries in a decade. We could wipe out a dozen serious childhood diseases in undeveloped countries around the world with less money than we spend on Beanie Babies."

  "You're naive, Faith. You and Buchanan are probably just filling the lining of some dictator's pockets."

  "No! That's an easy excuse, and one that I'm so sick of. The money we do manage to get goes directly to legitimate humanitarian relief organizations, and never to the government directly. I've personally seen enough health ministers in African countries wearing Armani and driving a Mercedes while babies starve at their feet."

  "And there aren't starving children in this country?"

  "They get a lot of aid, and rightfully so. All I'm saying is that Danny and I had our agenda, and ours involved the foreign poor. Human beings are dying, Lee, by the millions. Children all over the world are perishing for no reason other than neglect. Every day, every hour, every minute."

  "And do you really expect me to believe you two did this out of the goodness of your hearts?" He looked around the house. "This isn't exactly a soup kitchen, Faith."

  "The first five years I worked with Danny I did my job, represented the big clients and I made a lot of money. A lot of money. I'll be the first to admit I'm one materialistic hardass. I like the money, and I loved what the money could buy."

  "And then what happened? You found God?"

  "No, he found me." Lee looked bewildered, and Faith quickly continued.

  "Danny had begun lobbying on behalf of the foreign poor. He was getting nowhere. No one cared, he kept telling me. The other partners at our firm were getting tired of Danny's charitable endeavors. They wanted to represent IBM and Philip Morris, not Sudan's starving masses.

  Danny came to my office one day, said he was forming his own firm and wanted me to go with him. We weren't taking any clients, but Danny told me not to worry, that he'd take care of me."

  Lee appeared mollified. "That much I can believe: You didn't know he was bribing people, or at least planning to."

  "Of course I knew about it! He told me everything. He wanted me to go into this with eyes wide open. That's how he is. He's not some crook."

  "Faith, do you know what you're saying? You went along, even though you knew you'd be breaking the law?"

  She fixed a cold gaze upon him. "If I could fix it so that cigarette companies could keep selling cancer on a stick to anybody with a fresh set of lungs and gun manufacturers could roll out machine guns to anyone with a heartbeat, I guess I felt nothing was beneath me. And the goal here was something I could actually be proud of."

  "Materialistic hardass goes soft?" Lee said with contempt.

  "It's been known to happen," she shot back.

  "How did you two work it?" Lee said in a baiting tone.

  "I was Mister Outside, working all the people we didn't have in our back pocket. I was also good at getting celebrities to appear at some events, even travel to some of the countries. Photo ops, meet-and-greets with members." She sipped her wine. "Danny was Mister Inside. He worked all the people on the take while I pushed from the outside."

  "And you kept this up for ten years?"

  Faith nodded. "About a year ago Danny started running out of money. A lot of our lobbying expenses he paid out of his own pocket. It wasn't like our clients could afford to pay us anything. And he had to invest a lot of his own money into these 'trust' funds, as he called them, for the members we were bribing. Danny took that part very seriously. He was their trustee. Every cent he promised would be there."

  "Honor among thieves."

  Faith ignored the barb. "That's when he told me to concentrate on paying clients while he carried the torch on the other matters. I offered to sell my house, and this house, to help raise money. He refused. He said I'd done enough." She shook her head. "Maybe I should still sell it--believe me, no one could ever do enough."

  She fell silent for a bit and Lee chose not to break it. She stared across at him. "We rea
lly were accomplishing a lot of good."

  "What do you want, Faith? You want me to break out in applause?" Her eyes flashed at him. "Why don't you get on that stupid motorcycle and get the hell out of my life?"

  "All right," Lee said calmly, "if you thought so highly of what you were doing, how did you turn out to be a witness for the FBI?"

  Faith covered her face with her hands, as though she were about to start bawling. When Faith finally looked at him she seemed so distressed, Lee felt his anger slip away.

  "For some time Danny had been acting strangely. I suspected that maybe someone was on to him. That scared the hell out of me. I didn't want to go to prison. I kept asking him what was wrong, but he wouldn't talk to me about it. He kept withdrawing, became more and more paranoid, finally even asking me to leave the firm. I felt so alone, for the first time in a long time. It was like I had lost my father again."

  "So you went to the FBI, tried to cut a deal. You for Buchanan."

  "No!" she exclaimed. "Never!"

  "What, then?"

  "About six months ago there was a lot of news coverage about the FBI breaking a major public corruption case, involving a defense contractor bribing several congressmen to help it win a large federal contract. A couple of employees at the defense contractor contacted the FBI and revealed what was going on. They were actually part of the conspiracy early on, but were granted immunity in exchange for their testimony and assistance. That sounded like a good deal to me. Maybe I could get a deal too. Since Danny wouldn't confide in me, I decided to go for it.

  The lead agent was named in the article: Brooke Reynolds. I called her.

  "I didn't know what to expect from the FBI, but I knew one thing: I wouldn't tell them much right away, no names or anything, not until I saw what the lay of the land was. And I had leverage. They needed a live witness with a head full of dates, times, names, meetings, records of votes and agendas to make this work."

  "And Buchanan was ignorant of all this?"

  "I guess not, considering he hired someone to kill me."

  "We don't know that he did."

  "Oh, come on, Lee, who else could it be?"

  Lee thought back to the other men he had seen at the airport. The device in the man's hand was a high-tech blowgun of sorts. Lee had seen a demonstration of one at a seminar on counterterrorism. The gun and ammo were constructed solely from plastic to allow passage through metal detectors. You hit the palm trigger and the air compression fired a tiny needle either tipped or filled with a deadly toxin, like thallium or ricin, or the all-time favorite of assassins, curare, because it reacted so damn fast in the body that there was no known antidote. in a crowd, the act could be carried out and the assassin gone before the victim fell dead.

  "Go on," he said.

  "I offered to bring Danny into the fold."

  "And how did they react to that?"

  "They made it very clear that Danny was going down."

  "I'm not following your logic. If you and Buchanan were going to turn witness, who were the Feds going to prosecute: the foreign countries?"