The Simple Truth by David Baldacci
She and the senator, Fiske knew, were divorcing. The government, the Army in particular, wanted to keep all of this quiet. Important strings in Washington were being pulled. That meant that Jordan Knight might not go to prison for all that he had done. Even with Elizabeth Knight’s consent, the legality of the electronic surveillance of the man had already been drawn into serious question by the senator’s very skillful lawyers. In a private meeting with McKenna, the FBI agent had told Fiske that the wiretap had been a risky strategy, since they did not have the consent of one of the parties being taped, but it was the only way McKenna could think of to implicate Jordan Knight. But without the recording, Chandler and McKenna really had nothing to take to court. The thought that Jordan would go unpunished made Fiske want to visit the man late at night with his 9mm. But the man had suffered, and would continue to do so. The wiretap had carried some leverage. Jordan had resigned his senate seat and, more devastatingly, lost the woman he cherished. He still had his New Mexico ranch, though. Let it be your seven-thousand-acre prison, Fiske thought.
“If there’s anything I can ever do for you …” Elizabeth Knight said.
“You have the same offer from me,” Fiske said.
Thirty minutes after the last mourners were gone, Fiske, his father and Sara watched as the chairs and green carpet were removed. The coffin was lowered, and the slab was laid over the vault. Then the dirt was shoveled on top. Fiske spoke with his father and Sara for a few minutes and told them he would meet them back at his father’s house. He watched them drive off. When he looked back over at the fresh hump of earth, he was startled. The cemetery workers were gone now, but on his knees next to the new grave, eyes closed, Bible clutched in one hand, was Rufus Harms.
Fiske walked over and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Rufus, you okay? I didn’t even know you were still here.”
Rufus didn’t open his eyes, and he didn’t say anything. Fiske watched as his lips moved slightly. Finally, Rufus opened his eyes and looked up at him.
“What were you doing?”
“Praying.”
“Oh.”
“How about you?”
“How about me, what?”
“Have you prayed over your brother yet?”
“Rufus, I haven’t been to Mass since high school.”
Rufus gripped Fiske’s sleeve and pulled him down next to him. “Then it’s time you started up again.”
His face suddenly pale, Fiske looked at the grave site. “Come on, Rufus, this isn’t funny.”
“Nothing funny about saying good-bye. Talk to your brother, and then talk to your Lord.”
“I don’t remember any prayers.”
“Then don’t pray. Just talk, plain words.”
“What exactly am I supposed to say?”
Rufus had already closed his eyes and didn’t answer.
Fiske looked around to see if anyone was watching. Then he turned back, looked over at Rufus, awkwardly put his hands together and, embarrassed, finally let them dangle at his sides. At first he didn’t even close his eyes, but then they just seemed to do so on their own. He felt the moisture from the ground soak through his pants legs, but he didn’t move. He felt the comforting presence of Rufus next to him. He didn’t know if he could have remained here without it.
He focused on all that had happened. He thought of his mother and his father. The insurance money had given Gladys Fiske her first trip to the beauty parlor in years, and some new clothes to admire herself in. To her he was still Mike, but at least she remembered one of them. Ed Fiske would soon be driving a new Ford pickup, the loan on the house paid off. He and his father were planning a fishing trip for the next year, down in the Ozarks. A lot to be thankful for.
With a smile Fiske thought of Sara, gratefully, even with all the complexities that came with the woman. Fifty, sixty, maybe seventy years old? Why not give himself the benefit of the doubt? He had a life to live. Potentially a very satisfying one. Particularly when it included Sara. Then he tilted his head up and smelled the wet air, caught the scent of leaves burning somewhere. The air also carried to him an infant’s cry, followed by the silence of the dead around him. Growing more comfortable, he squatted back on his haunches, easing himself more firmly into the embrace of the ground, the cool touch of the dirt now welcome somehow.
Finally, with difficulty, he thought of his brother. He was so tired of grudges held. He now focused on reality. On the truth. On his baby brother, a person he would have done anything for. He recalled the pride he shared with his mother and father for the exceptional human being they had jointly raised. For the good man Mike Fiske had grown into, graceful faults and all, just like the rest of them. A brother who had shown, through his actions, that he respected John Fiske, cared about him. Loved him. Through the half dozen feet of dirt, past the bound flowers on top, inside the bronze coffin, he could clearly see his brother’s face, the dark suit he had been buried in, the hair parted on the side, the hands folded across the chest, the eyes closed. At rest. At peace. The limbs stilled much too early. The exceptional mind shut down far from its potential.
It did not take long for the tremors to start. The two-year void that John Fiske had artificially forced upon the pair was nothing compared to the one he was suddenly stricken with now. It was as though Billy Hawkins had just walked through the door and told him that Mike, the other half of his life growing up, was dead. Only he wouldn’t have to identify the body. He wouldn’t have to search for and falsely share grief with his father. He wouldn’t have to watch as his mother called him by another’s name. He would not have to risk his life to find his brother’s killers. But he would have to do something else. The one task left was the hardest of all.
He felt the burn in his chest, but it was not the underbelly of his scar come calling. This pain was not capable of killing him, but it was worse by legions than that inflicted on him by the two bullets. The things he had found out about his brother lately only highlighted how unfair Fiske had been in shutting him out. But if he had tried, Fiske would have realized all those things while Mike was still alive. Now his brother was dead. John Fiske was kneeling in front of his grave. Mike was not coming back. He had lost him. He had to say good-bye and he didn’t want to. He desperately wanted his brother back. He had so much he wanted to do with him, suddenly so much love he wanted to convey. He felt his heart would burst if he didn’t get it out.
“Oh God,” he said with an outward breath. He couldn’t do this. He felt his body start to give on him. The tears suddenly poured with such force he thought his nose was bleeding. He started to go down, but a strong hand grasped him, easily held him up; Fiske’s body felt light, fragile, as though he had left part of it somewhere else. Through the blur of tears he looked at Rufus. The man had one hand under Fiske’s arm, thrusting him up. Yet his eyes were still closed, his head looking to the sky; the lips still rising and falling in the narrowest of ranges as he continued his prayers.
Right then John Fiske envied Rufus Harms, a man who had lost his own brother, a man who really had nothing. And yet in the most important way, Rufus Harms was the richest man on earth. How could anyone believe in anything that much? Without doubt, without debate, without an agenda, with all his substantial heart?
As Fiske looked at the calm face of his friend next to him, he thought how very fine it must be to know for certain that your loved one is in a better place, embraced and held for all time by the phenomenon of unassailable good. So comforting a notion at the precise time you needed to feel it. How often did such timing occur in life? Death as joyous. Death as the beginning. Meaning life was both more and less precious because of it.
Fiske looked away from Rufus and stared down at the grave, the image of a pale hand under a white sheet coming back to him, and then leaving, like a bird in search of food. He dug his knees into the earth, closed his eyes, bowed his head, placed his hands firmly together and started making his peace. With his brother below. And with whatever lay above.
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DAVID BALDACCI!
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SAVING FAITH
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Chapter One
The somber group of men sat in a large room that rested far below ground, and was accessed by only a single elevator. The chamber had been secretly built during the Cold War under the guise of renovating the World War II–era private building that squatted over it. The original plan of course was to use this “super bunker” as a refuge during a nuclear attack. It wasn’t for the top leaders of American government; the president, vice president and others in the upper chain of command would be long removed from Washington, D.C., in the event of nuclear war. This chamber was for lower-tier leaders whose level of relative “unimportance” dictated that they probably wouldn’t be able to get out in time, but who still rated protection afforded no ordinary citizen. Politically, even in the context of total destruction, there must be order.
It was a hopeful if naive time when people believed it both possible to survive a direct hit of that kind by burrowing into the earth inside a steel cocoon and desirable to survive the holocaust that would annihilate the rest of the country. Leaders were sometimes funny that way, since they would emerge from the rubble with absolutely nothing left to lead, unless you counted vapor.
The building had been leveled long ago, but the subterranean room remained under what was now a small strip mall that had been vacant for years. Forgotten by virtually all, the chamber was now used as a meeting place for certain people in the country’s primary intelligence-gathering agency. There was some risk involved since the meetings were not related to the men’s official duties. The matters discussed at these gatherings were illegal, and tonight even murderous. Thus, certain additional precautions had been necessary.
The superthick steel walls had been supplemented by a copper coating. That measure, along with tons of dirt overhead, protected against prying electronic eyes lurking in space and elsewhere. If there was a place on earth where people could meet with reasonable confidence that their conversations would not be intercepted — and surely there weren’t all that many such places left in the modern world of ultrasophisticated peekaboo — this was one of them.
The people present at the meeting were all white males. In their fifties and sixties, they were dressed quietly and professionally. These men could have been gray-headed doctors, lawyers, investment bankers; solid, reliable symbols of true, hard-earned American success. One would probably not remember any of the group a day after seeing them, and that was what was intended. These sorts of people lived, and died — sometimes violently — over such things.
Collectively, this cabal possessed thousands of secrets that could never be known by the general public because the public would certainly condemn rather than applaud the actions giving rise to them. However, America’s leaders, bolstered by the public, often demanded results that could be obtained in no way other than smashing certain parts of the world to a bloody pulp. It was the job of these men to figure out how to manipulate or destroy those parts in a clandestine manner.
It was undeniable that America insisted on a steady stream of oil to run its house-size cars and lusted after the latest in foreign goods. America loved being viewed as the freest land on earth while often recoiling in horror at anything or anyone that hinted of extremism. On the foreign policy front the United States had ordered that the Soviet Union must crumple and that blood-soaked dictators be brought to their knees. The country simply wanted the rest of the world to buy wholeheartedly into the concept of life done USA style. It was a skin-tingling sensation to witness the red, incredibly vital blood of America as represented by the celluloid image of a gorgeous Hollywood star’s sensuous, lingering puff of a nicotine stick.
And still with these ambitious plans, the U.S. expected to be kept safe from the pesky international terrorists and other foreign upstarts who understandably were a little unhappy with these global developments, since it often involved throwing their parts of the world into nightmarish tailspins. The public didn’t want to be involved in the process of how to accomplish this tricky fence straddle, because it was a demanding and unforgiving process. To work the process, one had to believe. The men in this room believed in what they did with all their withered hearts.
The purpose of tonight’s gathering was to plot Faith Lockhart’s assassination. There was no disagreement that the woman had to die, and soon; it was critical for the well-being of the country that she be sacrificed. If Lockhart’s elimination had been the single issue raised, the meeting would never have been called; the act simply would have been carried out, as others had in the past. Survivors would grieve, time would pass, people would forget, and life would go on — until the next time. However, because of another life that was involved the meeting had become acrimonious, the group resembling a cadre of posturing and indignant politicians debating on Capitol Hill over billion-dollar slices of pork.
“What you’re saying then,” one of the white-haired men said as he poked the cigarette-smoke-filled air with a slender, slightly quivering finger, “is that along with Lockhart we have to kill a Federal agent.” The man shook his head incredulously. “Why kill one of our own? It can only lead to disaster.”
The gentleman at the head of the table nodded thoughtfully. Robert Thornhill was the CIA’s most distinguished Cold War soldier, a man whose status at the agency was unique. His reputation was unassailable, his compilation of professional victories unmatched, his intelligence, experience, and instincts, irreplaceable. He was the agency’s ultimate free safety, a troubleshooter extraordinaire, a man given virtually limitless authority to carry out his missions.
It was Thornhill who had first organized this select group. It was he who had remembered that this bloated time capsule existed far underground. And it was Thornhill who had found the money to bring the chamber back to working condition and upgrade its facilities secretly. There were thousands of little taxpayer-funded toys like it sprinkled around the country, many of them gone to complete waste. Thornhill smiled to himself: Well, if governments didn’t waste their citizens’ hard-earned money then what would be left for governments to do?
Even now, as he ran his hand over the stainless-steel console with its quaint built-in ashtrays, sniffed the filtered air, and felt the protective coolness of the earth all around, Thornhill’s mind wandered back to the intensely gratifying times of the Cold War. The world was far more unpredictable now. At least there was a measure of certainty with the hammer and sickle. Thornhill would take the lumbering Russian bull over the agile sand snake that you never knew was out there until it flung its venom into you. And killed you dead.
Thornhill’s hair was a distinguished, wavy silver, his eyes gray and active. The blunt angle of his chin bespoke iron resolve. His voice was cultured, deep, and impressive. Thornhill still wore three-piece suits and favored pipe smoking over cigarettes and cigars. The man could have retired and led the pleasant life of a former public servant, well traveled, erudite. He had no thought of leaving this career behind however. And the reason why was very clear.
For the last ten years the responsibilities and budgets of Thornhill’s agency had been decimated. It was a disastrous development for the firestorms that were popping up across the world, now often involving fanatical minds accountable to no political body and possessing the capability to obtain weapons of mass destruction. While the CIA had begun recruiting again, the vast majority of hires were college graduates, adept at computers, foreign languages, and analysis of information. Important as those skills were, the recruits would last all of ten minutes in the field. The problem was Thornhill needed ways to get the information for these very smart, young people to analyze. A Princeton-educated twenty-two-year-old whitebread who could play a Mac computer like the ivories of a Steinway wasn’t going to cut it in the world’s hot spots even if he could speak F
Thornhill had a small group of skilled operatives within the agency completely loyal to him and his private agenda. Many of them were free-lancers who could go anywhere in the world when Thornhill needed them to. They had worked hard to regain for the agency its former prominence. Now Thornhill finally had the vehicle to implement his plan to build a global intelligence network that would dwarf anything that had come before. It was the time-honored and highly effective strategy of VIP blackmail. Thornhill would see his budgets revived, his manpower skyrocket, his agency’s scope of responsibility in the world returned to its rightful place.
And there was always the added bonus of pulling the rug out from under the hated FBI. The added irony that he was orchestrating a “J. Edgar Hoover” was also not lost on him. It was no coincidence that the FBI had flourished under the late FBI director and his bulging files on the “secret” lives of presidents and other powerful political figures. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Touché, Ed. Now watch me do you one better, boy.
Thornhill focused back on the men clustered around him. “That would, of course, be ideal,” he said. “However, the fact is, the FBI have her under round-the-clock stealth security at home. Her office is problematic. Our person would almost certainly be caught. The only time she’s truly vulnerable is when she goes to the cottage. They may place her in witness protection without warning, so we have to hit them at the cottage. Immediately.”
Another man spoke up. “Okay, we kill Lock-hart, but let the FBI agent live.”
Thornhill shook his head. “The risk is too great. Now I don’t like killing a fellow agent any more than you do. It’s deplorable. But to shirk our duty now would be a catastrophic mistake.”
“Dammit, Bob,” the first man to protest said, “do you know what will happen if the FBI learns we took out one of their people?”
“If we can’t keep a secret like that, we have no business doing what we do,” Thornhill snapped.
Another member of the group leaned forward in his chair. He was the youngest of them. He had, however, earned the respect of the group with his intelligence and his ability to exercise extreme, focused ruthlessness.
“We’ve only really looked at the scenario of killing Lockhart to forestall the FBI’s investigation into Danny Buchanan. Why not appeal to the FBI director and have him order his team to give up