David Baldacci - Divine Justice

The property had barns, stables, paddocks and even a stately brick colonial manor house that was ostensibly owned by a multinational corporation headquartered in Belgium that ostensibly used it for corporate retreats. Indeed, several times a year, long convoys of limos and SUVs with camera-toting, Flemish-speaking executives could be seen heading to the estate along the winding gravel path. The CIA spent about one million bucks a year to perpetuate this myth and considered every dollar well spent.

High-speed elevators inside the manor house and two of the barns allowed access to an elaborate underground labyrinth of concrete tunnels, bunkers and rooms that were protected against any type of eavesdropping. It sounded very James Bond–like, and yet the reality was there were several facilities like this across the country. On two occasions curious souls had managed to open the doors of these structures-one in the Pacific Northwest and one in Nevada -and seen what was actually going on inside. Knox had never known what had happened to those unfortunate folks. Abducted by aliens was probably the myth spread by Agency disinformation teams. It was just the cost of doing business and keeping Americans safe. Well, except for folks who unfortunately opened doors they shouldn't have.

When complete the underground labyrinth had only set the American people back over one billion dollars, not a cent of it acknowledged in any budget of the U.S. government. The construction workers were relocated, without really ever knowing exactly where they'd been. Yet keeping secrets was an expensive proposition and the CIA had more secrets than most. And governments had hundreds of billions of dollars to spend on projects like this. For that level of coin one did not rent space at Storage Town USA; one built cement cities underneath crappy barns.

As Knox rode the elevator down he carefully went over for the hundredth time his next step. He had pretty much every security clearance one could have, but he did not have the necessary authorizations to get to where he believed he needed to go right now. One person who could give him that authority was Macklin Hayes. To get the man to cooperate entailed Knox both tricking the spy chief and outthinking him. The sweat under his armpits continued to spread even as the elevator hurtled him downward to where the temperature was a constant sixty-one degrees.

A few seconds later, Knox was walking steadily toward his destination. Along the way he endured increasing scrutiny as stern-faced men checked him out from every angle before reluctantly passing him along. Apparently, spies didn't even like fellow spies coming to visit them and going through their stuff. Knox had one advantage. He had a friend who worked here, Marshall Saunders. Knox sat in this man's office a half hour after going through the identification gauntlet.

"Been awhile, Joe," Saunders said, rising from his desk and shaking his visitor's hand. Everyone down here wore sweaters, and indeed Knox felt himself shivering despite his jacket.

"You've gussied up the place from the last time I was here, Marsh," Knox said.

"Budget cuts have yet to come our way. Just lucky. I guess."

It was far more than a matter of mere luck, both men knew. You couldn't cut what you never saw.

"I won't waste your time. I'm doing some under-the-radar work for Macklin Hayes."

"So I've been informed. How is the general by the way?"

"The same." Knox left his friend to interpret that remark however he wanted. Marshall, whom everyone called Marsh, had served three years directly under Hayes' command. That meant if he ended up going to hell when he died, he would have a pretty good idea of how it would be.

Knox told him what he wanted to look at and his friend's features turned uncomfortable. "That'll take a phone call to the man."

"I'm aware of that," said Knox. "I actually just thought of it on the way over, or else I would've gotten the okay already. I don't think it'll be a problem." He added with as big a smile as he could manage, "On the other hand, if I end up disappearing you'll know I was wrong about that."

Marsh didn't even grin at this crude joke and Knox felt his ass suddenly clinch.

The call was made and the man passed the phone over to Knox.

As though a distant rumble of thunder heralding the approaching storm, he heard Hayes bark, "What's going on, Knox?"

"Just thought of this new angle, sir, but I need to check out a couple more pieces."

"Explain this new angle. But tell Marsh to leave first."

Knox glanced at his friend who got the sign immediately, rose and left. If he felt any anger for being kicked out of his own office, the savvy agent was too smart to show it.

Knox hunkered down, gripping the phone tightly. "I turned a lead that got me thinking about something in Carr's past."

"Where exactly in his past?"

Knox didn't hesitate. "Triple Six days."

"Knox-"

"I know what you said before, but here's my theory. If Carr was with Triple Six and colleagues from his past were being killed-"

"That's out of bounds."

Knox said, "I know Finn and his back story are off-limits, but if I'm going to track Carr down, I need to understand where this guy came from."

"I don't think that's relevant-"

Knox had anticipated this question and broke in. "With all due respect, if you're deciding what's relevant or not on this case, get somebody else to tackle it for you."

"I'm not trying-"

"If you want results, General, then I need some control over my investigation. You called me in to do a job. Then let me do it!"

Knox waited for the man's response, trying to breathe normally. He was betting the farm that Hayes would react one way, but the truth was, Knox could just as easily go down hard for this insubordination. Real hard. As in his butt being catapulted to Afghanistan, where he could spend a little quality time in the mountains with Osama's boys on the Pakistani border.

"I'm listening."

Knox went on autopilot. "Carr knows we're going to be on him. He's been on the run for a long time now. He's loyal to his friends like you said. He'd want to keep as far away from them as possible. But he still needs cover. He still needs help." Knox paused here to allow the bait to sink in. He wanted Hayes to say it. The man had to say it.

"You think he might turn to some old Triple Sixer for help?"

Thank you, God. "Well, General, look at it from his point of view. He pops Gray and Simpson and makes his initial escape. He can't go near his civilian friends. He knows the machine is on his ass, so he has to look somewhere for cover. These Triple Six guys would be retired by now and deep underground. If I can get a lead on any that Carr was close to and either shadow them or beat it out of them, we might turn this guy. It's a shortcut, but it might just work. I know you don't care how we get there, so long as we get there. You know as well as I do the longer Carr is out there, the greater the odds that he does something that will hurt us. "

When Knox said us he of course meant you.

He waited again. He could almost hear the former military man's synapses firing off, weighing from virtually every conceivable angle what Knox had just proposed.

Virtually every conceivable angle. Just hopefully not the real one.

"It might be worth checking," Hayes said finally.

"And just so we're clear, this will only be a tangential line of inquiry." Knox wanted to feed the man a comfort bone, however disingenuous. "I'll be following up other leads at the same time. We can only hope that one of them will pop for us."

"Put Marsh on the phone so I can give him the necessary authorizations."

"Thank you, General." You bastard.