Дэвид Балдаччи - King and Maxwell

At this simple question Hesse seemed perplexed. “I’m not really sure.”

“You’re not really sure? You told me you worked with him.”

Her face paled, and for an instant Sean thought she might be sick.

“Take a sip of water and catch your breath,” he advised.

She gulped some water and wiped her mouth with her napkin.

“You okay?”

She nodded. “You see, he wasn’t really working for us.”

“So what was he doing?”

“I was teaching him Pashto and Dari. At least building on what he already knew.”

“You were teaching him to speak the languages primarily used in Afghanistan?”

“And other countries in the Middle East as well, including Pakistan. And in Iran, Dari is known as Farsi. It’s a very useful language to know over there, along with Arabic of course.”

“So if he wasn’t a salesman and he wasn’t qualified to be a translator, were you teaching him to be one?”

“No. We have immersion schools for that. What I did was work with him one-on-one three hours a day, every weekday. I did that for nearly a year.”

“Did you ever do that with anyone else?”

She shook her head.

“He was a reservist headed to Afghanistan. Maybe he wanted to speak the languages?”

“But he wasn’t paying us to do it. We were paying him a salary to learn the languages.”

Sean sat back, obviously flummoxed by this statement. “How do you know that?”

“Our company bookkeeper, Sue, is a friend. She told me. But the thing is we were getting fully reimbursed for his salary.”

“Who by?”

“Some unit at the DoD. I’m not sure which, there are so many. But we were definitely getting paid back. It wasn’t costing us a dime. Our company’s owner is not known for his generosity. He wouldn’t pay for an employee who had no duties.”

“Did you ever talk to Wingo about this… this unusual arrangement?”

“I was told not to. I considered him a friend because we spent so much time together. He told me about his son. I told him about my family. I was stunned when he didn’t show up one day. I knew he was leaving for Afghanistan at some point, but I didn’t know he had been deployed. And I didn’t know he was in the reserves.”

“He was regular Army. I think you were helping prepare him for a mission that required those language skills.”

“What was the mission?” she asked in a whisper.

“Good question. I wish I knew.”

“You said you didn’t think Sam was dead? But it was in the paper.”

“No, I don’t think he’s dead.” Sean leaned forward. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not in danger or trouble or both. Did he mention anything to you that might help me? Anything at all?”

“He told me he hoped to retire soon. He wanted to spend more time with Tyler.”

“Anything else?”

“Well, there was something strange right before he left DTI.”

“What?” said Sean sharply.

“He said he was going back to Afghanistan soon. I told him to be careful. That I didn’t want him to die from an IED [20] IED – improvised explosive device. or a sniper. That I prayed he got back soon.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He said that IEDs and snipers were the least of his worries.”

Sean rubbed his chin. “Meaning what? That something else even worse might happen to him over there?”

“I guess, yes.” Her features shifted to alarm at what this actually meant. “What other things could be worse than being blown up or shot?” she asked.

“There might be something,” replied Sean.

He confirmed some other information with Hesse and then left her there staring into her coffee cup.

He was halfway to his car when his phone buzzed. It was Michelle. She filled him in on her meeting with McKinney.

“A billion euros?” he said, his voice heavy with skepticism. “That’s about a billion three U.S. dollars at current exchange rates.”

“I’ll take your word for it. And it apparently weighs forty-eight hundred pounds, crate not included.”

“And why would McKinney come to us and offer up this information?”

Sean slid into the front seat and clipped his seat belt on before starting the engine, the phone wedged between his shoulder and ear.

“I think he feels hemmed in. Not trusting anyone, meaning on his side too,” she said.

“Still, it was a stretch for a DHS guy to come to us and convey that sort of information. He could get his ass canned for that.”

“No argument there. I was as surprised as you are.”

“How did you leave it with him?”

“I didn’t really. He just left and I got on the horn with you.”

“I’ll be there in about forty minutes. Hang tight.”

Sean put the car in gear.

He didn’t look in the rearview mirror.

If he had, he might have noticed the red dot flitting across his forehead.

ALAN GRANT LOWERED HIS PISTOL with the laser sight on the Picatinny rail as Sean drove off.

It would not be as simple as a trigger pull, although the time would come when it would be something that basic. He slipped his gun back into its shoulder holster and sat there with the engine running while he thought through some things.

Mary Hesse, a DTI grunt. Worked with Sam Wingo teaching him how to speak languages of the Middle East. She was a dead end. But there were other trails out there that could lead King and Maxwell somewhere.

He put his Mercedes sedan in gear and drove out of Chantilly, heading west toward the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. The roads turned from interstates to highway to state routes and finally to rural road switchbacks.

He finally turned onto a gravel road, drove up a hill, turned left, and skidded to a stop in front of a small, ramshackle cabin. He climbed out of the car and checked his watch; it was nearing midnight. Time was meaningless to him. He had long ago ceased to operate on a nine-to-five schedule.

He popped the trunk and looked down at the woman lying there.

Her hands and feet were bound with flexi-cuffs, mouth taped, eyes blindfolded. All these steps were probably unnecessary since she was drugged. But he was a cautious man. Cautious people, he had found, lived to fight another day.

He lifted her up and carried her to the porch. He set her down, unlocked the front door – triple locks and a security system run off a propane-fired generator that also provided lighting – picked her back up, and carried her over the threshold.

There was nothing matrimonial about the gesture.

He walked into the back room where the window had been blacked out.

There was a metal table in the middle of this room. He laid her down on the table, removed her blindfold, and stepped back. He took off his coat and laid his pistol aside. It would just get in his way. He turned on the overhead light.

As he watched, she started waking up. He looked at his watch. Right on time.

Jean Wingo’s eyes fluttered once, twice, and then remained open. Her look was confused at first; then she looked to the side and saw him.

She stiffened, her eyes instantly filling with apprehension.

Grant gently removed the tape covering her mouth.

She said breathlessly, “What are you doing?” She looked around. “Why did you bring me here?”

“To talk.”

“You drugged me, tied me up, and now I’m lying on a metal table. You could have just called, for God’s sake.”

Grant could tell the woman’s courage was returning.

She tried to sit up. He put on a pair of leather gloves and forced her back down on the table. With her legs and arms bound it was not a difficult thing to do.

“Please let me up.”

“Not until we’ve talked. I need a debrief.”