David Baldacci - Divine Justice

"How did you become friends and why were you staying at his cottage?"

"Simple enough. He helped me with a problem I had and after he left I wanted to keep his home going for him in case he came back."

"So your problem was with Jerry Bagger, now deceased?"

"I see you do your homework."

"Wasn't that hard actually. What exactly was your beef with Bagger, Ms. Hunter?" Knox didn't believe for a moment that that was her name but he was willing to play along, for now.

"What's it to you?"

"Humor me."

"Why the hell should I?"

He pointed to the cup she was holding. "How about I take the prints off that and run them through a database. Would I pull up the name Susan Hunter?"

"There's no law against changing your name."

"Right, but the reason for changing your name, now that might be illegal."

"Bagger hurt someone I cared about and I wanted to nail him for it and I did."

"With Alex Ford and Oliver Stone's help?"

"Yeah. Bagger was a crook and a sociopath. The FBI and Justice Department had been after him for a long time. He got what he deserved. So what's wrong with that?"

"I don't really give a crap about Jerry Bagger. I want Oliver Stone. Or John Carr. I don't know which name you refer to him as."

"I only know him as Oliver Stone. I have no idea who John Carr is."

"When was the last time you saw him?"

"About six months ago."

"You heard about Carter Gray's and Senator Simpson's murders?"

"I watch the news."

"Stone had a relationship with Gray."

"Didn't know that."

"Alex Ford never bothered to tell you? Because he knew all about it."

"We're just friends, and friends don't share everything."

"Why'd you leave the cottage?"

"Got tired of living with dead people."

"You wouldn't have happened to have heard from Stone? Maybe he told you to take it underground?"

"Why would he do that?"

"You tell me."

"How can I tell you about something that didn't happen?"

"I think your buddy's on the run."

"From what?"

Knox stood. "Okay, my BS alarm is clanging so hard it's hurting my ears. So like I told your friend, Ford, I'll be in touch. And don't try to leave the city. That would not make me happy." He walked off.

MACKLIN HAYES did not seem particularly pleased. He and Knox were sitting in front of a fire in the library of a luxurious late-nineteenth-century brownstone in the heart of D.C. that Hayes had access to 24/7. Spy kings, it seemed, had gold-plated perks.

"So you've run around interviewing all the usual suspects today and have no progress to show for it."

"I'm not just going through the motions, General. I did my little dog-and-pony show with all of them except for the Reuben Rhodes character, and I'll catch up to him at some point. They're all lying. They all know more than they'll admit. That's progress right there as far as I'm concerned. At some point they'll make a slip and then we move in."

"I seriously doubt the man left them a copy of his travel itinerary."

"I doubt that too, but Carr is a loyal guy. If we can nail his friends on something, put them at risk for prison time, then that may flush him out."

"Meaning he'll come running back here to save his friends? You really believe that will happen, Knox?"

"I've studied the man, gone over his career, talked to his friends. Yeah, I think that might happen. And what's the downside if it doesn't work?"

Hayes finished off his glass of wine and stared into the fire. "Let me speak frankly, Knox. Hopefully it will be instructive and won't bore you too much."

"I doubt anything you have to say would bore me, sir. And you know I'm a sucker for truthful information."

Hayes ignored the barb. "Carr is a killer, clearly. He was at the Capitol Visitor Center that night. We know he murdered Gray and Simpson. That part is simple, the rest is not."

"And do I finally get to hear the rest?"

Hayes rose and poured himself another glass, this time of scotch, and sipped it while standing in front of the fire. Gazing at this tall patrician figure dressed in a three-piece suit with his beautiful snowy hair, square jaw and twinkling eyes and holding his cut-crystal snifter made Knox fantasize he was in a Hollywood spy film.

Let's see, how does that story go again? Oh, yeah, bright, refined, patriotic people recruited from Ivy League schools doing their noble best to keep their country safe while nattily attired in their Brooks Brothers suits, bedding all the beautiful women, sucking thoughtfully on their sweet-smelling pipes and remaining high above the riff and the raff. Like me. And John Carr. The riff and the raff.

Knox had quickly found that that notion was indeed a fantasy. Intelligence was a nasty, dirty business and necessitated each side to get as filthy as the other. The only rule was there never had been any rules at all. No, actually he was wrong. There was one rule. People like Macklin Hayes did remain above it all. Untouchable. And yet that rule was not absolute. Look at Carter Gray. John Carr had pulled him right down into the trench shit with him.

You go, John.

Hayes said, "Unfortunately, Carr is also probably in possession of certain information, perhaps even proofs of actions taken by this country at sensitive times, that might, in unforgiving hindsight, mind you, place us in an awkward situation. I'm sure Gray was aware of that as well. I believe he attempted to get to Carr, but as we know, Carr got him first."

"So in other words he has the goods on us so this is not a case for the law courts?"

Hayes smiled. "I've always loved your perspicacity, Knox. Saves so much time."

"I'm not a hired killer, sir. You ordered me to find him. I will do my best to do so. But that's it."

"And that's all you need do. Others will take over from there."

"If Carr is as smart as I think he is, he knows all this. He might have devised a way that his violent death will trigger the very disclosure you don't want. A packet of information to the New York Times perhaps in the event a bullet slams into his brain?"

"Find him, Knox, and I believe we can persuade him that such action would not be advisable."

"What leverage would you have over him at that point?"

"As you said, he's a very loyal man."

Knox considered this for a moment. "So his friends are his Achilles' heel? Only in your version instead of coming back and going to jail he takes the bullet, he falls on the sword silently so his friends can what, live?"

"That's certainly one scenario."

"One or the only one?"

"Just find him, Knox, that's all you have to do. Any leads of interest?"

"The friends have given me squat, and if we have to do this outside the law now it comes back to following the physical evidence as far as it takes me."

"Back out to the crime scenes then?"

"Yes."

"Time is not on our side."

"It never is. This information would have been helpful earlier, sir, in all candor."

"I'm sure it would have. But there you are."

"So I'm competing with the cops on this one too? What if they get there first?"

"We've taken certain actions that will preclude that from happening."

"And if some detective gets lucky?"

"That's highly doubtful because they know nothing of John Carr or his ties to Gray and Simpson. So you have a tremendous advantage there. But if the police get to him first, we will make sure that he will disappear from their custody. National security trumps all, Knox."

"Of course. Can I inquire as to what the chain of command is on this, sir?"

"You report to me, no one else," he said sharply.

"No, I mean who do you report to, General?"