Дэвид Балдаччи - The Sixth Man

Sean glanced at Michelle. He said, “Twenty-four/seven? I don’t know. Why?”

Roy just kept staring at the fire and didn’t say anything.

Finally what he was getting at dawned on Sean. He said, “Hold on. If that’s the case, how did the satellite not see the people planting the bodies in your barn?”

Roy stirred and turned to him. “There can only be one answer to that, of course. Someone ordered the satellite to look away at the precise time it was being done.”

“That would leave a paper trail. And that would take some pretty heavy authorization,” said Sean.

“Like the secretary of DHS,” said Roy.

“GIVE ME THE status. Bad?”

Mason Quantrell sat in a deep leather seat of his luxurious private jet that was actually a Boeing 787 Dreamliner customized for its fortunate owner. It had a painting of the fleet-footed Mercury on its tail representing the symbol of Quantrell’s company. The jet was far larger and more costly than Peter Bunting’s Gulfstream G550. Yet as a billionaire Mason Quantrell could easily afford the most expensive toys on the market. And in truth Uncle Sam had footed a large part of its cost.

“Pretty bad,” replied the only other person in the passenger cabin.

James Harkes sat back and sipped a glass of water while Quantrell was already working on his second bourbon and water. The CEO looked haggard, with quarter-moon bags under his eyes.

“She’s going to come at you hard, Mr. Quantrell.”

Quantrell spread his hands helplessly. “But after our last meeting things seemed fine. And then I got the call from Bunting. Right in my office, no less. The ballsy prick. He dared us to trace him.”

“And you couldn’t?”

“No,” Quantrell said glumly. “The bastard was always good at the cloak-and-dagger stuff. Did you know I recruited him out of the PhD program at Stanford?”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“He was in Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship before that. He did college in less than three years. Was already on people’s radars for some white papers he’d published on the rising threat of global terrorism and how best to deal with it. The work was very specific. He very nearly predicted 9/11 twenty years before it happened.”

“So he came to work for you?”

Quantrell nodded as the plane banked left and began its initial descent. “For three years. He did a great job, really turned things around for us. Hell, I was grooming him back then to run the whole damn company. But he had other ideas.”

“The E-Program? Seems like you would have jumped on that.”

“I would have but he never gave me the chance. He left, started his own business, and quickly moved up the pecking order of contractors. I have to admit his stuff was good. No, it was better than good. And then he took it up to a whole other level with the E-Program.”

“Ecclesiastes,” said Harkes. “The E-Program?”

“What? Oh, right. Didn’t know the man had a biblical side to him.” Quantrell downed the rest of his drink. “And then he sold the concept to the folks that mattered in D.C. Now the rest of us have been eating his dust for years.”

“Ever think of suing?”

“No grounds. He developed the stuff after he left me and he never violated the noncompete we had. Way too smart for that. No, I hate him because I don’t like to lose. And with him around I’ve been losing. A lot.” He put his empty glass down and buckled his seat belt as the plane hit some turbulence. “But Ellen Foster can hurt me a lot more. And I’m not talking just dollars and cents.”

“Yes she can,” agreed Harkes.

“President gave her carte blanche.”

“Yes he did.”

“Collateral damage? Meaning me?”

“Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“But she has to tie it into Bunting and the others. How does she plan to get to them?”

“She has an ace in the hole,” noted Harkes.

“Who?”

“Megan Riley.”

Quantrell sat forward, looking astonished. “The lawyer? She’s one of Ellen’s people?”

“No. She was kidnapped from Maine. Foster is holding her somewhere.”

Quantrell rubbed his chin. “This really is extraordinary.”

“Yes it is,” agreed Harkes.

“She kept me out of the loop on that.”

“Me too, until now.”

“And Foster is planning to use her to get to Bunting and the others? How?”

“Playing on their guilt. And their conscience. Riley is an innocent victim in all this. If it’s played right, we can use her to draw them out.”

“And Foster wants to survive all this with her reputation and Cabinet position in place?”

“Yes she does. I told her it would be hard but not impossible.”

“Does she require my termination as part of the plan?”

“Desires, but does not require,” was Harkes’s diplomatic reply.

“Then we have an opening.”

“I think we do. A very advantageous one for you if we play it just right.”

Quantrell said, “You know what they’re doing, of course.”

“They’re playing each of you against the other. Bunting called you to turn you against Foster. And Paul corralled Foster in that ladies’ room and did the same thing.”

“Clever. Foster has clearly fallen hook, line, and sinker for it. I have to admit Bunting scared the crap out of me when he called.”

“And Kelly Paul can be very persuasive.”

“She’s the most worrisome pawn on the board right now,” said Quantrell.

“I would hardly call her a pawn, sir. We can’t underestimate the woman.”

“Had run-ins with her before?’

“A couple of times. And each time the result was not one that I desired.”

“If she can beat you, Harkes, she scares the shit out of me.”

“She has to know I’m involved in this because Bunting would have told her, but they don’t know I’m working for you. No one knows that.”

“ My ace in the hole.” Quantrell gave a satisfied smile. “How quickly can you deploy the Riley angle?”

“As soon as you say go, Mr. Quantrell.”

“Go,” replied the CEO with Mercury-like quickness.

“I CAN’T BELIEVE I never thought of that,” said Bunting.

He stared over at Kelly Paul as she sat in a chair and looked down at her phone. She had just gotten off a call with Sean King. She and Bunting were in her “shared” apartment in New York City, not that far from Bunting’s brownstone. The mansion was empty, his family safe, for now.

“The satellite coverage,” Paul said.

“Twenty-four/seven,” Bunting added.

“Provided by DHS?”

“I suppose. Although if they did it, they didn’t bother to tell me about it.” He looked out the window, where the rain beat relentlessly down. “But moving those eyes is not done lightly,” he said. “Edgar would’ve been a priority for them.”

“It might very well require Foster’s signature,” agreed Paul. “That’s a paper trail.”

“Now if we can just prove the satellite was watching and that order was issued.”

Paul didn’t say anything.

“What are you thinking, Kelly?”

“What if it wasn’t moved?”

Bunting looked away from the window. “What do you mean?”

“What if the satellite saw exactly what happened?”

“Are you alleging that your brother is indeed a serial killer?” Bunting said in a bewildered tone.

“No.”

“Okay. So the only other conclusion is that they framed him. They planted the bodies in that barn. If that were the plan, why would they allow the eyes in the sky to watch? It would prove that your brother was innocent. It would have destroyed their plan. And more to the point, that fact would have come out by now.”