David Baldacci - Stone Cold

“Easy to say in hindsight. And it was the only time I did such a thing.”

“Really? What about John Carr?”

“He was the worst of the lot. Tried to resign from Triple Six. I mean, come on.”

“As usual your judgment is simply stellar . Carr was actually the best of them all.”

“That’s your opinion.”

“And that’s why you ordered his death? Because he wanted to stop being an assassin?”

Simpson stiffened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Kill one of our own men? Preposterous.”

“You’re a very bad liar, Roger. If you really want to make a run for the White House you’re going to have to improve your poker face.”

“I did not have the man killed.”

“About four years ago I had a long chat with Judd Bingham. He told me. It was he, Cole and Cincetti that did it. Carr’s own team went after him on your orders.”

“That is an outrageous comment. I didn’t have the authority to order that.”

“Authority? Back then? We ran a group of killers. Most of them, except for Carr, enjoyed their work immensely. Bingham said he and the other two were glad to do it for you. They were very upset that Carr wanted to quit the club. They took it as a personal affront.”

“Well, since Bingham and the other two are dead there’s really no proof of that, is there?”

“And Carr too. He’s currently residing at Arlington National Cemetery.”

Simpson took a sip of his wine. “I know that.”

“At least that’s what the official record says.”

Simpson glanced at him sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“Carr isn’t dead.”

Simpson sputtered, “But Bingham said-” He caught himself a second too late.

“Thank you for confirming what I already knew to be true. Bingham was always a liar. He didn’t want to admit that Carr got away that night. And Carr managed to kill three of our operatives in the process. Bingham, Cole and Cincetti barely got out alive, though apparently Carr didn’t know it was them. Carr was in a class by himself when it came to killing. It was a costly mission, Roger. And one that you should have been taken to task for. You’re lucky that Bingham and the other two kept their mouths shut all these years. But they would’ve been in just as much trouble as you if the truth had come out.”

“Again, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Gray waited until Simpson had swallowed a mouthful of wine before saying, “Jackie was Carr’s daughter; did I ever tell you that? You adopted his daughter.”

Simpson slowly set down his glass. Gray noted that the man’s hand was trembling.

“No, you failed to mention that,” Simpson said in a strained voice. “You said she’d been orphaned but you didn’t say who the parents were. I didn’t even know Carr had a daughter.”

“You’d think when you tried to kill a man that you’d know those details.”

“If you suspected my involvement, why did you give the child to us?”

“Something had to be done with the little girl. And you and Donna couldn’t have any children. Despite what some people think, I do have a conscience, Roger. It wasn’t her fault what happened. And it wasn’t mine. It was yours, Bingham’s, Cincetti’s and Cole’s. Do you sense a pattern?”

Simpson jerked straight up. “You think Carr killed them?”

“And tried to kill me. He must’ve thought, understandably, that I had something to do with his family’s death.”

“But why would he wait all this time to do it?”

“There, I can only speculate. But he must be considered a suspect.”

“If he’s still alive.”

“Men like Carr are awfully difficult to kill, as you must surely admit now. A team of Triple Sixes couldn’t get the job done.”

“But I don’t understand, how does this tie into Solomon?”

“It may not. Carr may be operating alone and using the Solomon angle as a cover. That’s for us to find out. But if Carr is working with someone connected to Solomon’s past then we need to track those people down. I have the resources to do so. The current director certainly sees things my way. He should; I trained him.”

“And you’ll get whoever’s doing this?”

“Yes, hopefully before he gets you . Since you are most assuredly on the hit list-and quite the easy target actually.”

“That’s not funny.”

“I didn’t mean it as a joke. Three men who were far more skilled and far more deeply buried than you are dead. Practically speaking, you’re a much softer target.”

“I’m getting out of the country for a while, starting tomorrow morning,” Simpson snapped. “I’m not going to wait around here to be murdered by some psychopath.”

“I’m sure the American taxpayers will understand your shirking your duties in the Congress.”

“I don’t like your tone, Carter.”

In response Gray picked up his Medal of Freedom off the table next to his chair and held it up. “They gave me a lump of metal in return for nearly forty years of service to my country. I was surprised to get it, actually. After all, I had resigned my post as director of National Intelligence, leaving the administration in the lurch.”

“I often wondered why you did that.”

“You can keep wondering, Roger. That bit of intelligence is mine alone.”

Simpson gazed contemptuously around the bunker’s interior. “Feels a bit like a rat in a hole down here.”

“A person that can kill three former Triple Sixes and nearly me as well is not someone to underestimate. I’ll take being in my cozy bunker, for now.”

“Wonderful, while I’m exposed on the surface,” Simpson said angrily.

“Don’t worry, Roger, I understand that they award the Freedom Medal posthumously.”

HARRY FINN HAD WORKED HARD the next day and, that night, visited an apartment complex in Arlington. The parking spaces were all numbered so it was simple for him to locate the right one. He pulled his van into an empty space, walked over to the jet black Lincoln Navigator and pressed a device against the left rear fender. The blinking red alarm light on the SUV’s dashboard instantly died. Finn slid the lock buster out of his jacket pocket and in seconds the truck’s door lock cylinder was in his hand. He slid the special ID badge off the rearview mirror where the moron who owned the Lincoln always kept it, replacing it with an identical one, although it wouldn’t work like it was supposed to. It didn’t have the encryption codes burned into it-codes that were impossible for Finn to duplicate, hence the theft tonight. The owner would just believe it to be defective and have a new one issued. Yet this particular federal agency was notorious for failing to cancel old ID badges. Old badge, new badge, it didn’t seem to matter to many bloated bureaucracies. Yet it mattered very much to Finn.

He put the cylinder back, relocked the door, pressed his device against the fender and the alarm system came back to life. There was no sign he’d ever been there. If only the public knew what was out there to rip them off. Yet better they remain oblivious in the belief that they were actually secure.

On the way home Finn glanced at the stolen badge. Good thing he wasn’t really a bad guy, because with a little doctoring of the plastic he could topple the entire legislative branch of government single-handed, all 535 members. But there was only one he wanted. Just one.

Stone, Annabelle and Caleb were in the back of a van. Mike Manson, one of Bagger’s men, sat next to them. Mike had been the one to open Caleb’s door, gun pointed straight at them. Stone hadn’t thought they would be following Caleb; it was a miscalculation that apparently was going to lead to their deaths.