Дэвид Балдаччи - The Sixth Man

Ellen Foster and her ilk were unforgiving. They would cut him off without a second thought. They might be plotting against him right now. No, there was no “might” about it; they were plotting against him. And Mason Quantrell was probably helping to orchestrate the entire scheme. The worlds of public and private sector had meshed into a single organism in the national security field. Players from both sides hopped back and forth with increasing frequency. It was now nearly impossible to tell where the government side ended and the for-profit machines began.

When he had first decided to make the intelligence field the place where he would make his mark, the arena was a disaster. Too many agencies with too many people writing too many reports, often about the same thing, that no one had time to read anyway. Too many eyeballs watching the wrong things. And, most critical, no one wanted to share information for fear of losing budget dollars or hard-won turf. DHS didn’t talk to CIA. DIA didn’t interface with the FBI. NSA was its own country. The other alphabet agencies did their own thing. No one, not one person, knew it all, didn’t come close to knowing it all. And when one didn’t know it all, one made mistakes, enormous ones; the sort where lots of people died.

That was how Bunting had commenced building his grand plan. Combining the basic tenet of the entrepreneur and the motivation of a patriot wanting to protect his country, he had seen a national security need and filled it. Once the concept had been tested and approved, the E-Program had been expanded and upgraded every year. It was no academic exercise. In that Mt. Everest of information collected every day by America and its allies, there could be one or two pieces of data located far apart in the gathering baskets of the intelligence community that might very well prevent another 9/11.

The successes of the E-Program had been early and often. Some could argue quite persuasively that the world was basically in a shitty state. But Bunting was one of the few who knew that things could be far worse. How close the United States and its allies had drawn to the precipice. How narrowly they had avoided events that would have resulted in greater devastation than when those jumbo jets had slammed into those buildings. In six months alone Edgar Roy’s analysis had prevented at least five major attacks on both private and military targets around the world. And a host of lesser but still potentially deadly incidents had been broken up because the man could stare at the Wall and get it to reveal its secrets like no other analyst in history. And the results of his strategic conclusions could be felt around the world in a thousand different ways.

But it all came down to finding that one right person. That was always the challenge. The average career of the Analyst was only three years. After that even the mightiest of minds had had enough. And then they were given golden retirement packages and put out to pasture, like stud horses – only, unfortunately, without the possibility of siring their replacements.

The phone rang. He licked his lips and tried to remain calm. It was a scheduled call. It was the primary reason he was in the office today. He lifted the receiver.

“Yes? Yes, I’ll hold.”

A moment later the man’s voice came on. Bunting drew a shallow breath and answered. “Mr. President, thank you for making time for me, sir.”

The conversation was swift. It had been pretimed for five minutes. And it was only because Peter Bunting was such an important player in the intelligence community that the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue had bothered to call at all.

“It’s been my pleasure and honor to serve my country, sir,” said Bunting. “And I give you my word that all of our goals will be met, on time. Yes, sir, thank you, sir.”

The men then got down to the details.

As the phone timer clicked to five minutes, he said good-bye, set the receiver down, and looked up at his assistant.

She said, “I guess you really know you’ve made it when the president calls you.”

“You’d think that would be the case, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s not?”

“Actually it only means you have a longer way to fall.”

After she left he put his feet up on his desk and interlaced his fingers behind his neck. Bunting personally knew hundreds of intelligence analysts, smart people from the best schools who operated in specialties. People in this field could devote their entire careers to a certain quadrant of airspace over the Middle East, dutifully studying the relatively same satellite imagery until their hair changed from brown to white and their skin sagged toward retirement. Specialists, good, sound people for their little sliver of the plot. But that was all they knew, their incremental slice of the intelligence rainbow. And that was hardly good enough.

But Edgar Roy’s specialty was omniscience.

He was tasked to know everything. And the man had!

Bunting never expected to find another Edgar Roy, a genetic freak to end all genetic freaks. A perfect memory and an astonishing ability to see how all pieces came together. He wished that the man could live forever.

His phone buzzed. He looked annoyed but answered. “What?” He hesitated. “All right, send him in.”

It was Avery. The young man had finally gotten his hair cut, but he had never learned how to dress properly. He looked like he had just woken up at his frat house after a keg party. But he was smart. Not an E-class mind but certainly useful.

“I see you’re back from Maine.”

“Just this morning. I wanted to tell you that I followed Carla Dukes home two nights ago. I wanted to speak with her about some issues.”

“Okay. Did you?”

“No, because I noticed someone following me.”

Bunting sat up straighter. “What? Who?”

“I didn’t get a good look at him because it was dark. I nearly ran over him while I was trying to get away.” He paused. “But I think it was that investigator, Sean King.”

“Sean King? What was he doing there?”

“Apparently following Dukes and/or me.”

“Did he see you?”

“Not clearly, I’m sure of that.”

“Did he get your license plate number?”

“Probably, but I switched the plates out with a pair of fake ones. They’ll lead nowhere.”

“I’m impressed, Avery.”

“Thank you, sir. I just thought you should know.”

“Is that all?”

Avery looked nervous. “Actually, no. The Wall backup is bordering on cataclysmic.”

“That I already know. I’m recalling a pair of E-Fives to duty. And after I got blindsided by Foster I arranged a phone call with the president to reassure him. I just finished it. That will give us some time. If Foster tries to go over me now she’ll look pretty stupid.”

“But that won’t last.”

“Of course it won’t last.”

“But if Edgar Roy is proven innocent and we get him back on the job, all of our problems go away.”

Bunting rose, went over to the window, and looked out, his hands stuffed into his trouser pockets. “That’s not necessarily true.”

“Why?”

He whirled around. “Do you really think the US government will let Edgar actually go to trial?”

Avery said slowly, “But what’s the alternative?”

Bunting turned back around and watched a flock of birds heading south for the winter.

I wish I could fly, he thought. I wish I could get the hell out of here.

“What do you think, Avery?” he said over his shoulder.

“They’ll kill him?”

Bunting sat back down and switched topics. “So King was in Maine two nights ago following you. What about Maxwell?”

“She wasn’t with him.”

“And what have their movements been since?”