Дэвид Балдаччи - Absolute Power

“He’s got a damned good reason to, don’t you think?”

Richmond picked up a pen from his desk and twirled it between his fingers. “If Sullivan talks we lose everything. Everything.” The President snapped his fingers. “Gone. Just like that. And I will do everything possible to avoid it happening.”

Burton dropped into his chair, his belly suddenly on fire. “How do you know he hasn’t already?”

“Because I know Walter,” the President said simply. “He’ll do it in his own way. And it will be spectacular. But deliberate. He is not a man who rushes into anything. But when he does act, the results will be swift and crushing.”

“Great.” Burton put his head in his hands, his mind whirling faster than he thought possible. Years of training had instilled in him an almost innate ability to process information instantly, think on his feet, act a fraction of a second before anyone else could. Now his brain was a muddle, like day-old coffee, thick and soupy; nothing was clear. He looked up.

“But killing the guy?”

“I can guarantee you that Walter Sullivan is right this minute plotting how best to destroy us. That type of action does not invoke sympathy from me.”

The President leaned back in his chair. “Plainly and simply this man has decided to fight us. And one has to live with the consequences of one’s decisions. Walter Sullivan knows that better than anyone alive.” The President’s eyes again lasered in on Burton’s. “The question is, are we prepared to fight back?”

Collin and Burton had spent the last three days following Walter Sullivan. When the car had dropped him off in the middle of nowhere, Burton both couldn’t believe his luck and experienced deep sadness for his target, now, truly, a sitting duck.

Husband and wife wiped out. As the car sped back to the Capital City, Burton unconsciously rubbed at his hand, trying to whittle away the filth he felt in every crevice. What turned his skin cold was the realization that he could never wipe away the feelings he was having, the reality of what he had done. The rock-bottom emotional barometer would be with him every minute of every day of the rest of his days. He had traded his life for another. Again. His backbone, for so long a steel beam, had wilted to pitiful rubber. Life had given him the supreme challenge and he had failed.

He dug his fingers into the armrest and stared out the window into the darkness.

The apparent suicide of Walter Sullivan rocked not only the financial community. The funeral was attended by the high and mighty from all over the world. In an appropriately solemn and lavish ceremony at Washington’s St. Matthew’s Cathedral, the man was eulogized by a half-dozen dignitaries. The most famous had gone on for a full twenty minutes about the great human being Walter Sullivan had been, and also about the great stress he had been under and how those under such strain sometimes do things they would otherwise never contemplate. When Alan Richmond had finished speaking, there was not a dry cheek in the place, and the tears that dampened his own face were seemingly genuine. He had always been impressed with his superb oratorical skills.

The long funeral procession streamed out, and, over three and one half hours later, ended at the tiny house where Walter Sullivan had begun, and ended, his life. As the limos scrambled for space on the narrow, snow-covered road, Walter Sullivan was carried down and interred next to his parents, on the little knoll where the view down the valley was by far the richest part of the place.

As the dirt covered the coffin, and the friends of Walter Sullivan made their way back to the realm of the living, Seth Frank studied every face. He watched as the President made his way back to his limo. Bill Burton saw him, registered surprise for an instant, and then nodded. Frank nodded back.

When all the mourners had gone, Frank turned his attention to the little house. The yellow police lines were still around the perimeter and two uniformed officers stood guard.

Frank walked over, flashed his badge and entered.

It seemed the height of irony that one of the wealthiest men in the world had chosen a place like this to die. Walter Sullivan had been a walking poster child for Horatio Alger tales. Frank admired a man who had risen in the world on his own merit, sheer guts and determination. Who wouldn’t?

He looked again at the chair where the body had been found, the gun beside it. The weapon had been pressed against Sullivan’s left temple. The stellate wound, large and ragged, had preceded the massive bursting fracture that had ended the man’s life. The gun had fallen on the left side of the floor. The presence of the contact wound and powder burns on the deceased’s palm had prompted the locals to file the case away as a suicide, the facts of which were simple and straightforward. A grieving Walter Sullivan had exacted revenge on his wife’s killer and then taken his own life. His associates had confirmed that Sullivan had been out of touch for days, unusual for him. He rarely came to this retreat and whenever he did, someone knew his whereabouts. The newspaper found beside the body had proclaimed the death of his wife’s suspected murderer. All the signs pointed to a man who had intended on ending his life.

What bothered Frank was one small fact that he had purposefully not shared with anyone. He had met Walter Sullivan the day he had come to the morgue. During that meeting, Sullivan had signed off on several forms related to the autopsy and an inventory of his wife’s few possessions.

And Sullivan had signed those forms with his right hand.

It was inconclusive in itself. Sullivan could have held the gun in his left hand for any number of reasons. His fingerprints were on the gun clear as day, maybe too clear, Frank thought to himself.

The physical condition of the gun: it was untraceable; the serial numbers had been so expertly obliterated that even the scope couldn’t pull up anything. A completely sterilized weapon. The kind you’d expect to find at a crime scene. But why would Walter Sullivan be concerned about anyone tracing a gun he was going to use to kill himself? The answer was he wouldn’t. But again the fact was inconclusive since the person providing Sullivan the weapon could have obtained it illegally, although Virginia was one of the easier states in which to purchase a handgun, much to the dismay of police departments in the northeast corridor of the country.

Frank finished with the interior and paced outside. The snow still lay thickly on the ground. Sullivan had been dead before the snow had started, the autopsy had confirmed that. It was fortunate that his people knew the location of the house. They had come looking for him and the body had been discovered within approximately twelve hours of death.

No, the snow would not help Frank. The entire place was so isolated there was no one even to ask if anything suspicious had been observed on the night of Sullivan’s death.

His counterpart from the county sheriff’s department climbed out of his car and hustled over to where Frank was standing. The man carried a file with some papers in it. He and Frank conversed for a few moments and then Frank thanked him, climbed in his car and drove off.

The autopsy report indicated that Walter Sullivan had died sometime between eleven P.M. and one o’clock in the morning. But at twelve-ten Walter Sullivan had called someone.

The hallways of PS&L were unsettlingly quiet. The capillaries of a thriving law practice are ringing phones, pealing faxes, mouths moving and keyboards clicking. Lucinda, even with the firm’s individual direct-dialing lines, was normally the recipient of eight phone calls per minute. Today she leisurely read through Vogue. Most office doors were closed, shielding from view the intense and often emotional discussions going on among all but a handful of the firm’s lawyers.