Дэвид Балдаччи - The Sixth Man

“You carried a Glock for a while, too.”

“You know what they say: some girls like shoes, some girls like guns.”

“I’ve never actually heard anyone else say that.”

She stuck a couple boxes of ammo in her bag and said, “Time to head to Portland to pick up the baby lawyer.”

They had traveled about twenty miles when Michelle said, “Possible tail.”

Sean kept his gaze straight ahead. “Where?”

“Dark sedan two hundred yards back. Lose it on the curves and pick it back up on the straights.”

“Could be nothing. He could be heading where we are.”

“We’ll see, won’t we?”

When they reached the cut over to the interstate the car kept going.

Michelle said, “Guess you were right.”

“Still, good to be alert. Now if the folks at Gray’s Lodge saw Bergin at around nine and he was killed around midnight, that still leaves him with nearly three hours or so to move around somewhere.”

“He didn’t go back to Cutter’s. It’s locked down after dark. So–”

The bullet broke through the passenger’s side window, passed in front of both Sean and Michelle, and shattered the driver’s side glass on the way out.

Sean ducked down and Michelle immediately cut the vehicle to the left. She rode the shoulder momentarily while Sean looked behind them.

“No other car?” he asked.

“No. Shot came from long range.”

“Pull the car down there,” he barked, pointing to the trees set off the road. “And keep down.”

She banked into the soft grass and pulled the Ford farther down to a stop next to a stand of trees. They slid out of the car on their bellies, keeping the metal of the car between them and where the shot had come from. Michelle had her Sig out and was scanning the possible firing lines. Sean edged his head over the hood and then ducked back down.

“No optics signature that I can see.”

Michelle eyed the broken windows. “Helluva shot with us going at speed.”

“I’m taking this as a warning.”

She nodded. “Anyone who could make that trigger pull could’ve easily killed us. I think I saw the damn round pass right in front of me, although I know that’s not really possible. And auto glass these days is not the crap it used to be. To shatter both and keep going takes some horsepower.”

Sean studied the surroundings. “Slight breeze, lots of trees, maybe some high ground where the shooter was. Sun behind him, which favored the shot. Still impressive. We’re moving perpendicular to the shot at sixty miles an hour.”

“Seventy,” corrected Michelle. “Shooter must be a hell of a mil-dot counter. That was some fancy reticle figuring.”

Sean nodded. “Military sniper?”

“Maybe. Only question is whose. If ours, it’s not a pretty picture. Question is why, and the answer is pretty obvious.”

“Edgar Roy,” said Sean. He put his back to the front panel of the car and slid down on his butt. “Government bean counter?”

“What the file said.”

“FBI watch list. Lawyer murdered. Cutter’s Rock hospitality. Long-range warning shot for us.”

“Doesn’t add up, does it?”

“Not in the world I live in, no.”

She said, “You think it’s safe to get going?”

“I guess we have to chance it. But you have my permission to drive like you’re auditioning for NASCAR.”

No more shots hit as they raced onto the interstate.

They retraced their journey from the night before and got to Portland ten minutes before the flight from D.C. landed. They took a couple minutes to clean out the shattered safety glass, which had acted as designed, shattering into a zillion pieces but staying together as a cracked whole.

Sean waited for the deplaning passengers while Michelle went to check on another rental car.

There were thirty-nine passengers on the flight.

Megan Riley was the thirty-ninth coming through the exit gate.

She probably didn’t want to get off the plane, he thought.

She looked over at Sean expectantly. He said, “Megan?”

She nodded and headed toward him.

Michelle walked up to him at that moment and whispered, “She looks like she’s about to start high school.”

Riley was petite, her red hair sprawled across her shoulders and her face heavily freckled. She was struggling with a roller and a heavy litigation bag that no doubt contained Ted Bergin’s old-fashioned paper files. Sean took the bag from her, shook Riley’s hand, and introduced Michelle.

When they got to the Ford, Riley saw the shattered windows and the broken glass still littering the floorboards.

“My God, what happened?”

Sean looked at Michelle, who said, “Could’ve been worse. Only problem is there are no more rentals available. Hope you brought a heavy jacket, Megan.”

“Was it an accident?” she asked.

“Not exactly,” said Sean, as he opened the rear door for her.

“WE GOT YOU A ROOM at Martha’s Inn, Megan,” said Sean, as Michelle drove them back. “A couple of guests checked out.”

Megan’s gaze had really never left the shattered windows. She tugged her thin jacket closer around her. “Did you report this?”

Sean glanced back at her. “Not yet. But we will. Unfortunately, the police are pretty busy with other things. Bullets that missed from an unknown shooter probably rank pretty low on their priority list right about now.”

“I know one FBI agent who’ll probably be sorry they missed,” added Michelle.

“Their priority is Mr. Bergin’s murder?” said Megan.

“You can call him Ted.”

“No, he’ll always be Mr. Bergin to me,” she said stubbornly.

Michelle asked, “Anything good in the docs you brought?”

“I’m not sure. I was in court all day yesterday and just got back to the office when I called you back today. But I brought everything that looked relevant.”

“We appreciate that,” said Sean.

“So are you working with the FBI?”

Sean glanced at Michelle and said, “Sort of.”

Michelle added, “What about Bergin’s house in Charlottesville? Has the FBI searched it?”

“I don’t know. Does it matter?”

Sean said, “If we can get there first, it might matter a lot.”

“But wouldn’t that be interfering in an official investigation?” Megan pointed out.

Michelle raised her eyebrows but held her tongue.

Sean turned around in the seat. “Do you have Hilary’s home phone number?”

She gave it to him off her cell phone contacts list. He punched it in, waited.

“Hilary? Sean King. Quick question.” He asked her about Bergin’s house.

“Okay, how far away are you from it?” He paused as she answered. “Do you think you can drive over there and let us know if there’s any activity? Okay, thanks a lot. We’ll wait to hear from you. Oh, one more thing. Did the FBI come by the office? Nobody? All right.”

He put his phone away and glanced at Michelle, who was swinging her gaze back and forth like a lighthouse beam. “See anything suspicious?”

She shrugged. “We won’t see any optics sig until the round hits. End of story.”

Megan must’ve overheard this remark because she immediately sank lower in the backseat. “Do you need me to stay up here long?”

“Maybe,” said Sean.

“I have to get back at some point.” Her gaze flicked to the darkness all around.

“We’re all hoping to get back home at some point. Unfortunately it’s too late for Ted,” he added, his tone a bit harder.

She obviously noted this. “I’m not trying to chicken out. It’s just that–”

Sean turned around in the seat once more. “You don’t look like a coward to me at all, Megan. You got on the plane and came up here. You saw what happened to our car and didn’t turn tail and run. That takes courage.”