Дэвид Балдаччи - Long Road to Mercy

Dobbs glanced at Pine. “There is no way in hell that Pine or Blum are traitors.”

“Your opinion on the subject is absolutely irrelevant.”

Dobbs gathered his composure and began speaking in a calm tone. “Fine. You show me the appropriately signed off indictments issued by a U.S. attorney, and we’ll arrest them right here, read them their rights, take them to a federal holding cell, and then we can move forward through the court system.”

The man had started shaking his head halfway through. “This is national security, not a court matter.”

Dobbs exploded. “I don’t give a shit if it’s jaywalking.” He pointed to Pine and Blum. “These women are American citizens. Innocent until proven guilty. Right to due process. I’m sure these things are familiar to you, that is, if you are an American, which, frankly, I’m beginning to doubt.”

“Okay, we’re done here. Lower your weapons.”

“No!” barked Dobbs. “Go to hell.”

“I can call the AG right now and he can order you to do it.”

“You can call the fucking president and my answer would be the same.”

“You’re way out of line,” barked the man.

“ I’m out of line?” exclaimed Dobbs. “We’re federal agents!”

“I said we’re done here. Lower your weapons or they will open fire. Last chance.”

The FBI agents were nervously glancing at each other. They knew, to a man, that this would be a slaughter. Yet they held their line and did not lower their weapons.

“Very well,” said the man, shaking his head, as he stepped back behind the wall of armor. “You can’t say I didn’t give you the opportunity.”

Now Pine stepped forward. “Okay, I think this testosterone show has gone on long enough. We need to begin the negotiations.”

The man looked incredulous. “Negotiations? You have nothing to negotiate with.”

In response, Pine walked over to the closet door and opened it, revealing the nuke. “I have this.”

The man snapped, “How the hell did that get here?”

“Some people decided to do the right thing.”

The man gazed at her with contempt. “Who? David Roth?”

“I won’t get into specifics.”

“You’re all traitors,” barked the man.

“Or patriots , at least from my point of view.”

The man glanced at Dobbs. “Now do you understand why we need to take them? They’ve got a nuclear bomb.”

“How did you know it was a nuclear bomb?” said Pine. “From here it looks like just a metal box.”

The man blanched and glanced at Dobbs, who was staring at him grimly.

“Yeah, how did you know it was a bomb? I didn’t until Pine told me it was a nuke.”

“A Russian nuke,” said Pine.

“Russian!” exclaimed Dobbs, glancing sharply at her before looking back at the man. “Are they Russians?”

“No, they’re Americans working with the Russians. I actually knocked two Russians out who were snooping around Ben Priest’s home.” Pine gazed at the man in the suit. “And you guys got stung by Moscow. Really badly.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” exclaimed the man.

Pine put the bag she’d brought with her on her desk and pulled out the surveillance devices and dropped them on the wood. “Your Russian friends included multiple cameras and listening devices inside the nuke.”

A few moments of silence so profound passed that Pine thought she could hear every smack of her heart as well as those of the agents on either side of her.

The man said, “How do I know you’re not lying?”

Pine tossed him one of the devices. “You must have had blind faith in your Moscow buddies.” She also tossed him one of the panel pieces that Roth had cut out. “I bet old Putin is smiling somewhere right now.”

The man took the device and the metal piece, walked over to the nuke, and placed the device inside a hole in the enclosure. Then he placed the piece of metal into the hole.

A perfect fit.

He looked at the other sides and noted the same holes in the metal.

Pine thought she heard him say, “Fuck.”

The man turned around. “So the Russians have proof we placed a nuclear weapon in the Canyon. Where does that leave us? Isn’t it game over?”

“No, because our side hasn’t ‘discovered’ the nuke yet and made the case to go to war with North Korea.”

“Why does that matter?” asked the man.

“Not starting a war and killing millions of people on bogus evidence that you trumpeted to the world is a helluva lot better than actually doing so. And that also means the Russians’ blackmail scheme just got a lot weaker.”

Blum stepped forward. “And it gives you the opportunity to craft a plausible explanation.”

The man stared skeptically at her. “Such as?”

“Such as you placed a nonoperating nuclear device in a cave in a canyon because you were exploring alternative methods of storage and were checking environmental factors.”

“Come again?” said the man.

Blum continued, “I used to do that with my old pennies when I was a child. In holes I dug in my backyard. Come to think, it’s far more plausible than trusting the Russians with the goal of blowing up North Korea. I mean, who would believe we would actually be that stupid?”

The man looked at her dully but said nothing.

“Or you can claim all the evidence they had was fake,” added Blum. “That seems to be a pretty popular tactic these days.”

The man shook his head. “No, that’s not going to work.” He looked pointedly at the armed men he had brought with him. “All of you are coming with us until we can sort this out. Now!”

“There’s something else you need to know,” Pine said. “We have electronic documentation of everything you’ve said tonight.”

The man flinched and looked around. “What?”

“My office is wired for video and sound.”

“And why do you have that feature in your office?” asked the man incredulously.

“I put it in after some goon attacked me. After I kicked his ass, he said I attacked him. So it’s to make sure it doesn’t ever again come down to she-said-he-said. It’s already been uploaded to a secure cloud.”

“How do I know you’re not bluffing?”

“That’s the beauty of it. You don’t.”

Blum stepped forward. “And just so you know, I’ve worked closely with Agent Pine for quite a while now. And never, not once, have I known her to bluff.”

The man shifted his gaze from Blum to Pine. “And your point?”

“If anything happens to me, Ms. Blum, David Roth, anyone connected to this case, or anyone else in this room, I’m talking everything from a hangnail to a job demotion to murder, your involvement in all of this will come out.”

The man stared at her for several long moments. He looked down at the surveillance device he still held in his hand and then over at the bomb. Finally, he glanced up at Pine and his features took on a resigned look.

Reading his expression, she added, “It’s the only way any of us get out of this. I think you’re plenty smart enough to see that.”

Another few seconds of silence passed, while everyone held their collective breaths.

The man said, “All right. Anything else?”

“Ben and Ed Priest?” she said.

The man licked his lips nervously and said quickly, “What do you want?”

“They sure as hell better be alive. Or else all of you are going down.”

He hesitated for a moment. “They’re alive.”

“Then I want them back safe and sound and with appropriate compensation for the shit you put them through. And I’ll check on that, so don’t screw with me.”

“Done. So long as they won’t breach any, uh, confidences.”