Last Man Standing by David Baldacci
reserved for senior-level agents and symbolized that the Bureau was really unsure of what to do with him. Officially, Web was in the middle of an administrative inquiry that might well blossom into a full investigation, depending on how things shook out. Well, no one had given Web his Miranda rights, which was both good and bad. Good because Web getting his Miranda warning would mean he was under arrest, bad in that anything he said during the inquiry could be used against him in civil or criminal proceedings. The only thing he had done wrong, apparently, was having survived. And yet that was a source of guilt far stronger than anything the Bureau could charge him with.
No, really, whatever he wanted, Web was told, he could have. They were all his friends. He had their full support.
Web asked how the investigation was going and didn’t get an answer in return. So much for their full support, Web thought.
“Get better,” another man had told him. “That’s all you need to focus on.”
As he was leaving from his last debriefing, he got one final question. “How’s the hand?” the man asked. Web didn’t know the guy, and although the question seemed innocent enough, there was something in the fellow’s eyes that made Web want to deck him. Instead, Web said it was just fine, thanked them all and left.
On the way out from the last session he had passed the FBI’s Wall of Honor, where hung plaques for each of the FBI personnel killed in the line of duty. There would be a major addition coming to the wall, the largest single one in the history of the Bureau, in fact. Web had sometimes wondered if he would ever end up on there, with his professional life compacted into a chunk of wood and brass hanging on a wall. He left Hoover and drove home, besieged by many more questions than he wanted to confront.
FBI also officially stood for Fidelity, Bravery and Integrity, and right now Web didn’t feel he possessed any of these qualities.
7
Francis Westbrook was a giant of a man, with the height and girth of a NFL starting left tackle. Regardless of the weather or season, his clothes of choice were silk tropical short-sleeved shirts, matching slacks and suede loafers with no socks. His head was bald, his large ears were covered with diamond studs and his enormous fingers were festooned with gold rings. He wasn’t a dandy of any sort, but there simply weren’t that many things he could spend his drug earnings on without the law or, even worse, the IRS sniffing around. And he also liked to look good. Right now Westbrook was riding in the backseat of a large Mercedes sedan with black-tinted windows. To the left of him was his first lieutenant, Antoine Peebles. Driving was a tall, well-built young man named Toona, and in the passenger seat was his chief of security, Clyde Macy, the only white guy in Westbrook’s entire crew, and it was easy to see that the man carried that distinction with great pride. Peebles had a neatly trimmed beard and Afro, was short and heavyset, but he wore his Armani and his designer shades well. He looked more like a Hollywood exec than a high-level drug entrepreneur. Macy looked like a breathing skeleton, preferred his clothes black and professional-looking and with his shaved head could easily have been mistaken for a neo-Nazi.
This represented the inner circle of Westbrook’s small empire and the leader of that empire held a nine-millimeter pistol in his right hand and seemed to be looking for someone to use it on. “You want to tell me one more time how you lost Kevin?” He looked at Peebles and clutched the pistol even tighter. Its safety was in the grip and Westbrook had just released it. Peebles seemed to recognize this and yet didn’t hesitate in responding. “If you let us keep somebody on him twenty-four and seven, then we’d never lose him. He goes out sometimes at night. He went out that night and didn’t come back.”
Westbrook slapped his enormous thigh. “He was in that alley. The Feds had him and now they don’t. He’s mixed up with this shit somehow and it happened in my damn backyard.” He smacked the gun against the door and roared, “I want Kevin back!”
Peebles looked at him nervously, while Macy showed no reaction.
Westbrook put a hand on the driver’s shoulder. “Toona, you get some of the boys together and you gonna hit every part of this damn town, you hear me? I know you already done it once, but you do it again. I want that boy back nice and safe, you hear me? Nice and safe and don’t come back till you done it. Damn it, you hear me, Toona?”
Toona glanced in the rearview mirror. “I hear you, I hear you.”
“Set up,” said Peebles. “All around. To put the blame on you.”
“You think I ain’t know that? You think ’cause you went to college that you smart and I’m stupid? I know the Feds coming after my ass on this. I know the word on the street. Somebody’s trying to get all the crews together, almost like a damn union, but they know I ain’t joining shit and it’s messing up their plan.” Westbrook’s eyes were red. He hadn’t slept much in the last forty-eight hours. That was just his life; surviving the night was usually the big project of the day. And all he could think about was a little boy out there somewhere. He was getting close to the edge; he could feel it. He had known this day might come, and still, he was not prepared for it.
“Whoever got Kevin, they gonna let me know it. They want something. They want me to jump my crew in, that’s what they want.”
“And you’ll give it to them?”
“Anything I got they can have. So long as I get Kevin back.” He paused and looked out the window, at the corners and alleys and cheap bars they were passing, where his drug tentacles slithered. He did a brisk business in the suburbs too, where the real money was. “Yeah, that’s right. I get Kevin back and then I kill every one of the mothers. I do it myself.” He pointed the pistol at an imaginary foe. “Start with the knees and work my way up.”
Peebles looked warily at Macy, who still showed no sign of any reaction; it was as though he were made of stone. “Well, nobody’s contacted us so far,” said Peebles.
“They will. They didn’t take Kevin ’cause they want to shoot hoops with him. They want me. Well, I’m right here, they just got to come to the party. I’m ready to party, bring it the fuck on.” Westbrook spoke more calmly. “Word is one of them dudes didn’t eat it in that courtyard. That right?”
Peebles nodded. “Web London.”
“They say machine guns, fifty-caliber shit. How’s a dude slip that?” Peebles shrugged his shoulders and Westbrook looked at Macy. “What you hear on that, Mace?”
“Nobody’s saying for sure right now, but what I hear is the man didn’t go in that courtyard. He got scared, freaked or something.”
“Freaked or something,” said Westbrook. “Okay, you get some shit on this man and you let me see it. Man walk away from something like that, man got something to tell me. Like maybe where Kevin is.” He looked at his men. “Whoever shot them Feds up got Kevin. You can count on that.”
“Well, like I said, we could’ve had him on round-the-clock,” commented Peebles.
“What the hell kind of life is that?” said Westbrook. “He ain’t got to live that way, not because of me. But the Feds come after my ass, then I’ll just point them boys in another direction. But we got to know which way that is. With six damn Feds dead, they ain’t gonna be looking to cut no deals. They’ll want some serious ass to fry and it ain’t gonna be mine.”
“Whoever took Kevin, there’s no guarantee they’ll let him go,” said Peebles. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but we have no way of knowing if Kevin’s even alive.”
Westbrook lay back against the seat. “Oh, he’s alive, all right. Ain’t nothing wrong with Kevin. Not right now anyway.”
“How can you be sure?”
“I just know and that’s all you need to know. You just get me something on this Fed mother.”
“Web London.”
“Web London. And if he ain’t got what I need, then he’ll wish he died with his crew. Hit it, Toona. We got bizness.”
The car sped on into the night.
8
It took Web a couple of days to make an appointment with a
The Bureau was still pretty much in the Dark Ages when it came to the mental health of their people, and that probably was as much the fault of the individual agents as the organization. Until several years ago, if you worked at the FBI and were feeling stressed or were having problems with alcohol or substance abuse, you pretty much kept it to yourself and dealt with it in your own way. The old school agents would have given no more thought to seeking counseling than they would about leaving home without their gun. If an agent was seeking professional help, no one knew about it, and certainly no one talked about it. You were, in a sense, tainted goods if you did, and the indoctrination process of being a member of the Bureau seemed to instill both a stoicism and stubborn independence that were difficult to overcome.
Then the powers that be had finally decided that the stress of working for the FBI, reflected in rising rates of alcohol and drug abuse and the high incidence of divorce, needed to be addressed. An Employee Assistance Program, or EAP, was instituted. Each FBI division was assigned an EAP coordinator and counselor. If the in-house counselor couldn’t handle the situation, he or she would refer the patient to an approved outside source, as Web had opted to have done. The EAP wasn’t widely known at the Bureau and Web had never gotten any written materials on its existence. It was just sort of whispered ear to ear. The old stigma, despite the Bureau’s efforts, was still there.
The psychiatric offices were in a high-rise building in Fairfax County near Tyson’s Corner. Web had seen Dr. O’Bannon, one of the psychiatrists who worked here, before. The first time was years ago when HRT had been called up to rescue some students at a private school in Richmond, Virginia. A bunch of paramilitary types belonging to a group calling themselves the Free Society, who apparently were seeking to create an Aryan culture by means of their own version of ethnic cleansing, had burst into the school and immediately killed two teachers. The standoff had lasted almost twenty-four hours. HRT had finally gone in when it appeared imminent that the men were going to start killing again. Things were going perfectly until something had alerted the Frees right before HRT was ready to pounce. The resulting shootout had left five of the Frees dead and two HRT personnel injured, Web critically so. The only other hostage to die was a ten-year-old boy named David Canfield.
Web had been almost close enough to the child to pull him to safety when things went to hell. The dead boy’s face had intruded into his dreams so often that Web had voluntarily sought counseling. At that time there was no EAP, so after he had recovered from his injuries Web had discreetly gotten O’Bannon’s name from another agent whom O’Bannon was seeing. It had been one of the hardest things Web had ever done, because, in effect, he was admitting that he couldn’t handle his problems. He never talked about it with other HRT members and he would have cut out his tongue before he would reveal that he was seeing a shrink. His colleagues would have only seen that as a weakness, and at HRT there was no room for that.
The operators at HRT had had a previous encounter with mental health counseling, and it had not gone well: After Waco, the Bureau had brought in some counselors who had met directly with the stricken men as a group instead of individually. The result would have been comical if it hadn’t been so pathetically sad. That was the last time the Bureau had tried that sort of thing with HRT.
The most recent time Web had seen O’Bannon was right after Web’s mother had died. After quite a few sessions with O’Bannon, Web concluded that things were never going to be right on that score and he had lied and told O’Bannon that he was just fine. He didn’t blame O’Bannon, for no doc could make that mess right, he knew. It would have taken a miracle.
O’Bannon was short and heavyset and often wore a black turtleneck that made his multiple chins even more pronounced. Web remembered that O’Bannon’s handshake was limp, his manner pleasant enough, and yet Web had felt like running for the door the first time the two had met. Instead, he had followed O’Bannon back to his office and plunged into some dangerous waters.
“We’ll be able to help you, Web. It’ll just take time. I’m sorry we have to meet under such difficult circumstances, but people don’t come to me because things are wonderful; it’s my lot in life, I suppose.”
Web said that was good and yet his spirits sank. O’Bannon clearly had no magic that would make Web’s world normal again.
They had sat in O’Bannon’s office. There was no couch but rather a small love seat not nearly long enough to lie down upon. O’Bannon had explained it as, “The greatest of all misperceptions in our field. Not every psychiatrist has a couch.”
O’Bannon’s office was sterile, with white walls, industrial furnishings and very few items of a personal nature. It all made Web feel about as comfortable as sitting on death row waiting to do a last dance with Mr. Sparky. They made small talk, presumably to ease Web into opening up. There was a pad and pen next to O’Bannon, but he never picked them up.
“I’ll do that later,” O’Bannon had said when Web asked him about his lack of note-taking. “For now, let’s just talk.” He had a darting gaze that had been unsettling to Web, though the psychiatrist’s voice was soft and relatively soothing. After an hour the session was up, and Web could see nothing much that had been accomplished. He knew more about O’Bannon than the man knew about Web. He had not gotten around to any of the issues disturbing him.
“These things take time, Web,” O’Bannon had said as he led Web out. “It’ll come, don’t you worry. It just takes time. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”
Web wanted to ask him exactly how long it would take to build Rome in this case, but he said nothing except good-bye. At first Web had believed that he would never go back to see the short, pudgy man with the blank office. And yet he had. And O’Bannon had worked through the issues with him session after session, getting him to deal with things. But Web had never forgotten the little boy who had been gunned down in cold blood with Web mere feet away and unable to save him. That would have been unhealthy, to ever forget something like that.
O’Bannon had told Web that he and others at his psychiatric practice had catered to the needs of Bureau personnel for many years and had helped agents and administrative staff through lots of crises. Web had been surprised at that because he assumed he was one of the few who had ever sought professional counseling. O’Bannon had looked at him in a very knowing way and said, “Just because people don’t talk about it doesn’t mean they don’t want to address their issues or don’t want to get better. I can, of course, reveal no names, but trust me, you are definitely not alone in coming to me from the FBI. Agents who hide their heads in the sand are just ticking bombs waiting to explode.”
Now Web wondered if he was a ticking bomb. He went inside and over to the elevators, each step heavier than the previous one.
With his mind clearly elsewhere, Web nearly collided with a woman coming from the other direction. He apologized and pushed the elevator button. The car came and they both got on. Web punched the button for his floor and stepped back. As they headed up, Web glanced over at the woman. She was average height, slender and very attractive. He put her age at late thirties. She wore a gray pantsuit, the collar of a white blouse topping it. Her hair was a wavy black and cut short, and she had on small clip earrings. She carried a briefcase. Her long fingers curled around the handle, pressing tightly, noted Web, whose whole professional life was spent obsessing over the small details, because the little things almost always determined his future, or lack of one.
The car stopped at Web’s floor and he was a little surprised when the woman got off too. But then he recalled she had not pushed another floor button. Well, so mu
“Can I help you?”
Her voice was low, precise and somehow inviting, comforting to him. The unusually deep blue of her eyes caught Web’s attention. The eyes were also big, sad and peering. They held you, those eyes did.
“I’m here to see Dr. O’Bannon.”
“Did you have an appointment?”
She seemed wary, Web thought. Yet he also knew women had every right to be suspicious when confronted with strange men. He had seen the ugly results of many such encounters and those images never left you.
“Yes, for nine o’clock, Wednesday morning. I’m a little early.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “Actually, today is Tuesday.”
Web muttered, “Shit,” and shook his head wearily. “Guess I’m getting my days sort of mixed up. Sorry to bother you.” He turned to leave and he was reasonably sure he would never come back.
“I’m sorry, but you look very familiar to me,” the woman said. Web turned slowly back. “I apologize,” she added. “I’m not usually that forward, but I know I’ve seen you before.”
“Well, if you work here, you probably did. I’ve been to see O’Bannon before.”
“No, it wasn’t here. I believe it was on TV.” Realization finally swept across her features. “You’re Web London, the FBI agent, aren’t you?”
He couldn’t decide what to say for a few moments and she simply looked at him, apparently awaiting confirmation of her observation. “Yes.” Web glanced past her. “Do you work here?”
“I have an office here.”
“So you’re a shrink too?”
She put out her hand. “We prefer psychiatrist. I’m Claire Daniels.”
Web shook her hand and then they stood there awkwardly.
“I’m going to put some coffee on if you’d like a cup,” she finally said.
“Don’t go to any trouble.”
She turned and unlocked the door. Web followed her inside.
They sat in the small reception room and drank the coffee. Web glanced around the empty space.