The Sixth Man by David Baldacci
“You wouldn’t be the first person.”
“Small comfort.” She hesitated. “I had been his protector when he was young.”
“Against his father?” asked Sean quietly.
Paul rose and walked to the window, looked out at the stormy night.
She said, “He was just a little boy. Couldn’t take care of himself.”
“But you did.”
“I did what was right.”
“Your stepfather’s death?”
She turned to look at him. “I have probably more regrets than most. That is not one of them.”
“So you recommended your brother for the program years later?”
Paul seemed relieved by the change in the direction of the conversation. She sat back down. “There was no one to touch him in the very skill sets the program required. He was so good they designated him an E-Six, the first ever.” There was sisterly pride in her voice.
“And Bunting and you?”
“What about it?”
“You and your brother were both vetted for positions with the E-Program. Bunting must know you two are related.”
“So? I seriously doubt Bunting thinks I framed my own brother for murder.”
“But he may think you’re working from behind the scenes to help him.”
“Well, I am. But again, I don’t think Bunting will perceive that as a threat. If Eddie is cleared Bunting gets him back.”
“At Cutter’s your brother just stares at the ceiling, never says a word, never moves a muscle. Is he pretending?”
“Yes and no. It’s hard to explain. Eddie can lose himself in his mind like few others. He did that as a child, too.”
“Because of his father?”
“Sometimes.”
“So now your brother has withdrawn into his own mind as a form of protection?”
“He’s afraid.”
“Well, if they convict him for those murders they can execute him. And what’s more dangerous than facing lethal injection?”
“Yes, but at least lethal injection is painless. The people we’re up against won’t be that generous. I can guarantee you that.”
CHAPTER
48
THE PLACE MURDOCK WANTED to meet at turned out to be a post office building set two miles off the main cut-through between Eastport and Machias. It was one-story, all brick and glass with an asphalt parking lot. In front of the building an American flag flapped in the breeze atop a thirty-foot stainless steel pole.
There was one car in the parking lot, next to the mailbox drop-off.
Even from a distance Michelle could see the man in the driver’s seat. As her headlights hit the car, she saw the government plates. And she saw the man stir in the front seat. She pulled up beside the car, killed her engine and lights, and got out.
She looked around, studying the topography. The building was on one acre of cleared land with some grass, poured concrete sidewalks and curbs, and good old American-made asphalt to park your wheels on. Besides that there was nothing but wilderness.
She wondered what position Dobkin had taken up. He had several to choose from. She would have posted to the left of the building right near the tree line. That provided for decent cover and optimal sight lines.
“Thanks for coming,” Murdock said, as he got out of his ride and joined her.
“You made it sound important.”
“It is.”
She leaned against her truck and folded her arms. “One preliminary question.”
Murdock frowned. “What?”
“Sean and I have pretty much been on your shit list from the moment you met us. Now, you want to work together?”
Murdock drew out a stick of gum and popped it in his mouth. “I flew off the handle. I tend to do that more than I probably should.”
“We’ve all been there.”
“This case is giving me ulcers.”
“You’re not alone on that.”
“Every time I think I’m close something else happens.”
“And something tells me none of us have really been close to solving this.”
“You’re probably right,” admitted Murdock.
“So your change in tactics? You said you couldn’t trust your own side?”
“Let’s just say I’m getting paranoid from the chatter on my own end. And you can also put it down to wanting to get results. I’ve got my boss screaming at me every five minutes. If I waste any more time fighting with you and King and don’t solve this thing, it won’t matter. I’ll be cradled around a cubicle buried in some Bureau outpost and wondering where the hell my career went.”
“Sean was right about you and national security, wasn’t he?”
“Not that I like to broadcast that, but yeah, I am. Counterterrorism unit.”
“So national security and Edgar Roy. The connection?”
“All I can tell you is that when he was arrested and got sent up here the FBI received an order from very high up to put a tag on him. He was a special person of interest and we were to keep a close eye on him. There, I said it. Now what can you tell me?”
“We have some things in play, but nothing definitive.”
“Care to share?”
“No. You called me. You said you had some things to tell me. I’m listening. If you wanted this to be a two-way I wouldn’t be here.”
“Okay, okay, fair enough.” He spit out the gum. “I went to see Edgar Roy today.”
“Why’s that?”
“Just to talk to him.”
“And did he talk back?”
“Not so much, no.”
“Not so much?”
“Okay, nothing, nada. Guy never made a sound.”
“So?”
“So I never expected him to. He’s a genius. So smart, in fact, that he’s a very valuable asset of the federal government.”
“Is that right?”
He cocked his head. “Why do I think I’m preaching to the choir?”
“On the contrary. This is fascinating stuff.”
He stepped closer. “Okay, let’s cut to the chase. I did some hard digging. Called in a few favors and finally hit the mother lode. I know what Roy was doing for Uncle Sam. And I also found out that there are persons in D.C. who might have reason to wish Mr. Roy harm.”
“Who?”
Murdock drew closer. Only a few inches separated the two. “You ever heard of the E-Pro—”
Michelle felt like she’d been slapped. She tasted the liquid that had appeared on her face and then spit it out. The pain in her arm was mildly annoying. When Murdock fell into her two seconds later, she realized what was happening. She gripped him by the shoulders and jerked both of them behind her truck. The next shot hit twenty feet behind where she had been standing. It cracked the asphalt, sending pieces spiraling off into the grass. One shard hit the mailbox and left a deep gouge in the blue-painted metal. If she hadn’t moved, Michelle’s brain matter would have collided with the mailbox instead of the asphalt.
More gunfire opened up, different from the two rifle shots.
Dobkin.
Murdock was lying on top of Michelle.
“Murdock? Agent Murdock!”
She rolled him off her, checked his pulse. There was none. She looked at his face. Glassy eyes. Mouth slightly parted, blood trickling out. He looked surprised. She saw the hole in his shirt, stained red. She turned him over. Entrance wound midspine. Kill shot. She looked down at herself. Blood on her face. His blood.
She looked further down at her arm.
My blood.
The round had exited his chest and found her arm. She slipped off her jacket, rolled up her sleeve. It was only a nick. Something scrunched underfoot. She picked it up. It was the misshapen rifle round. She placed it in her jacket pocket.
She pulled out her gun and her phone. She hit 911, relayed what had happened.
Someone was still firing out there. Pistol. She was pretty sure it was the reports of Eric Dobkin’s H&K .45. Th
She phoned his cell. Four rings and she was thinking maybe something was wrong, or he was dead too, when he picked up.
“You okay?” Dobkin said immediately.
“I am. Murdock’s dead.”
“Thought so when I saw the round hit.”
“Did you see the shooter?”
“No, but I worked back the trajectory and fired that way. Eight shots and then I moved in. I called in backup.”
“So did I.”
“There’s no one around that I can see.”
“Escaped through the woods again. Enough with the damned trees already.”
“Is Murdock really dead? You’re sure?”
She looked down at the still body. “Yeah, he really is. No chance. Shooter knew what he was doing.”
“And you’re sure you’re okay?”
“Nothing that a Band-Aid won’t fix. If I were you I’d watch myself out there until help arrives. I know we were pretty exposed here, but it was still a fair shot. He could be far away and still nail you. Keep your head down.”
“Okay. Did he tell you anything?”
“Unfortunately nothing I didn’t already know. But he couldn’t have known that.” She hesitated, the words not forming the way she wanted. “He was trying to do the right thing.”
She clicked off and slumped next to the dead man. Counterintuitively, with a long-range rifle round the farther the bullet traveled the more damage it could actually do to the target when it hit. She took the fired round out of her pocket and studied it. Then she gauged the size of the hole in Murdock’s back. From that she reverse-engineered the flight length of the bullet.
The shot had come from over five hundred yards.
She hadn’t cared very much for Murdock, but he was a Fed. She had been a Fed. There was an unspoken bond there. When you killed a Fed you took a little bit of the soul from all other Feds. It could not be tolerated. It could not be left to pass without consequences, severe consequences.
She ripped off part of her shirtsleeve and wound it around her wound, neatly stopping the minimal blood flow. Her injury seemed grossly lame in the face of the mortal wound suffered by Murdock.
She opened her car door, snagged a bottle of water, and used it to wipe the blood off her face.
His blood.
She gargled, spit out more of it from her mouth, tried not to think how much of it she had inadvertently swallowed, how salty it tasted.
Finished, she looked down at Murdock again. She knew she shouldn’t do it, screwing with a crime scene, but she reached over and lifted out his wallet. Flipped it open.
Three kids. Three little tow-headed boys and a woman who looked like any mother with an overworked and always gone FBI agent husband and three little balls of energy: tired.
Michelle put the wallet back, leaned against the running board. She tried not to, but she just couldn’t help it.
She covered her eyes but the tears still trickled out.
CHAPTER
49
“WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO HERE?” asked Sean, as they sat in the small apartment.
“Not clear,” said Paul.
“Bunting had no incentive to frame your brother.”
“No. But that’s not the same for Bergin or Dukes,” she replied. “Bergin’s death delays the trial. Dukes might’ve screwed up somehow and made the wrong people nervous.”
“Granted, those are motives to kill. Although with your brother unfit to stand trial, killing his defense lawyer probably wasn’t absolutely necessary.”
“If it was even fifty percent necessary they would do it. And they might have been afraid Bergin would find something out.”
“Bergin was my friend,” said Sean.
“He was my friend, too. I’m sorry I ever got him involved in this.”
Sean’s phone rang. He answered. “Michelle. What? What’s wrong? Slow down. Okay, okay. Murdock?” He listened in silence for about sixty seconds. “I’m on my way. Be there as soon as I can.”
He clicked off and looked at Paul.
She said, “Murdock’s dead, isn’t he?”
“How did you know?”
“I wondered who Bunting was talking to so animatedly back there.”
“You think he ordered the hit on Murdock while we were watching him? While he was out walking with his wife and kids?”
“I didn’t say that. But Bunting is never off the clock, Sean. So you’re going back to Maine?”
“I have to. And Michelle told me something else.”
“What?”
“She went to do a recon on Cutter’s.”
“And?”
“And she swears someone else was watching the place too, just like she was.”
Paul’s nostrils flared. She seemed to be searching the air for a scent to go after. “I think I’ll join you up in Maine. Just give me a few minutes to pack.”
Five minutes later she was ready to go.
They cabbed to a car-rental place, got a four-door Chevy, and headed north out of Manhattan. At this time of night the traffic was fairly light, even for the city that never sleeps. They reached Boston in the wee hours and checked into a motel on the outskirts of the city because neither one of them could keep their eyes open. They got up at eight the next morning after four hours of sleep. That afternoon, several cups of coffee and two fast-food meals later, they pulled into Machias.
They had phoned when they got close and Michelle met them outside of the inn.
When Sean saw the bandage around her arm he gaped. “Did you get shot too?”
“Not really.”
“How could you not really be shot?”
“It was the slug that killed Murdock. It’s a scratch.”
Sean hugged her and Michelle felt his arms trembling.
She said softly, “I’m okay, Sean, really.” But she squeezed him tightly back.
“We’re not splitting up again. Every time we do something bad happens.”