The Sixth Man (24 page)

Sean added, “And he had a friend who worked there. She said Roy stopped working there months before he was arrested. He
called her once and said he was working on something sensitive, but he couldn’t say any more.”

“So you think Roy was involved in something else? Maybe something criminal?”

“No, maybe something having to do with intelligence work.”

“I thought you might get there,” said the voice.

She was standing near their table. When Sean looked up he wondered how the woman was able to move so silently.

Kelly Paul took off her large sunglasses and said, “May I join you?”

She had on black jeans, a woolen vest, and a thick corduroy jacket over that. Heavy boots with fur toppings were on her feet. She looked ready for a long winter’s stay in coastal Maine.

Sean scooted over and Paul slid in next to him. “Megan Riley, this is Kelly Paul. Our client,” he added awkwardly.

The women shook hands.

“Understand the FBI was giving you the third degree,” said Paul. “Hope they didn’t leave any permanent wounds.”

Before Megan could answer, Sean said, “What are you doing up here?”

“Perfectly logical question,” replied Paul.

“Could I have an answer?” said Sean, when it seemed apparent she was not going to provide one.

“Figured taking in the lay of the land myself was a good proposition.”

“But it’ll come with the cost of your anonymity,” pointed out Michelle.

Paul got the attention of their waitress and ordered a cup of tea. She remained silent until it arrived and she took a sip. She set the cup down and took a moment to pat her lips dry. “My anonymity died the moment you two visited me, I’m afraid.”

“No one followed us to your place,” said Michelle.

“No one you could
see
,” said Paul, and she took another sip of tea.

“Meaning what exactly?” said Sean.

Paul looked around. “Not here. Let’s take this discussion somewhere else.”

They paid the bill and climbed into Michelle’s truck. Paul looked around the interior. “Have you swept this for bugs?”

Michelle, Sean, and Megan stared at her.

“Bugs?” said Michelle. “No, we haven’t.”

Paul slipped a device out of her bag and turned it on. She passed it around the interior of the vehicle and then studied the readout on the small electronic screen.

“Okay, we’re good to go.” She put the device away and sat back to find the others still staring at her.

“Care to start explaining?” said Sean.

Paul shrugged. “Self-evident, don’t you think?”

“What is?”

“What we’re up against here.”

“And what exactly is that?” asked Michelle.

“Everybody,” replied Paul.

“Can we start from page one?” said Sean. “I think we all need that right now.”

“My brother is not simply an IRS agent with six bodies in his barn.”

“Yeah, we’d gotten that far by ourselves,” said Michelle.

“So what exactly is your brother?” asked Sean.

“I’m not convinced you all are ready for the answer.”

“I think we’re ready for the answers,” said Sean. “In fact, we’re so ready that I don’t think I’m going to let you out of this vehicle until you tell us.”

Before any of them could react, Paul had placed a knife against Megan’s right carotid. “That would be an unfortunate action on your part, Mr. King, it really would be.”

“Put that away,” said Sean. “You don’t have to go there.”

Paul put the knife away and patted Megan on the arm. “Sorry I had to do that.”

The young woman looked like she might throw up her breakfast.

“Just take deep breaths and the shock nausea will pass right on by,” Paul added kindly.

“Why did you do that?” asked Sean.

“Ground rules have to be set. My loyalties do not lie with any of you, at least not completely.”

“Where
do
they lie?” asked Michelle.

“Mainly with my poor brother, who’s rotting at Cutter’s Rock.”

“Mainly?” said Sean. “Which means there’s something else. Or someone else?”

“In my business there is always something else, Mr. King.”

“And that business being what? Intelligence?”

She looked out the car window and said nothing.

“Okay,” said Sean. “I’m done trying to work with you. Get out. We’ll move on our own without you. But if we find something out that hurts your brother, so be it. The chips fall where they will.”

“In many significant ways my brother
is
American intelligence.”

Sean shook his head. “That’s impossible. The field is way too large.”

“Your intuition is endearing. But the fact is the American intelligence system was broken. Too many cooks in the kitchen such that no one really knew anything. With the E-Program that weakness was rectified.”

“E-Program?” said Michelle. “Does the E stand for
eidetic
?”

Paul smiled. “The E actually stands for
Ecclesiastes
.”

“As in the Bible?” said Sean.

“A book of the Hebrew Bible, yes.”

“What’s the connection?” asked Michelle.

“One underlying philosophy in Ecclesiastes is that the individual can find truth by using his powers of observation and reason instead of blindly following tradition. You acquire wisdom and focus that wisdom to figure out the world on your own. It was a radical concept back then, but it really fits the E-Program concept well.”

“So your brother is this guy?” asked Sean. “The analyst?”

“There are six people in the United States classified as ‘super-users.’ By federal law they’re supposed to know everything. But they had no special mental gifts. They’d stick a retired admiral in a room with nary a pen or piece of paper and then run past him all this intelligence for eight hours until he either passed out or wet himself. It met the letter of the law that super-users be kept up-to-date on things, but it hardly passed the spirit of that law.”

“Why is that so important?” asked Sean.

“We are in an information-overloaded society. Most people
receive more information from just their smartphones in a week than their grandparents received in their entire lives. On the government and, most critically, the military end, it gets a lot trickier. From PFC cubicle warriors staring at hundreds of TV screens at top secret installations to four-stars muddling over their handhelds at the Pentagon. From a first-year clandestine analyst at Langley staring at a zillion satellite images to the national security advisor trying to make sense of reports stacked ceiling high on his desk, they’re all trying to take in more than is humanly possible. Do you know why air force pilots call their data screens ‘drool buckets’? There’s so much information on there they almost turn into zombies staring at it. You can train people to use technology better or focus more effectively, but you can’t upgrade someone’s neurological capacity. You have what you were born with.”

“And that’s where this E-Program came in?” asked Michelle.

“My brother is the latest in a short line of peculiar geniuses that have sought to fill that role. He is the ultimate multitasker who also has perfect attention to detail. His neurological pipe is immense. He can see it all and make sense of it.”

“And who exactly is behind the E-Program?” asked Sean. “The government?”

“Somewhat.”

“That’s all you can tell us?”

“For now.”

“And who do you work for?”

“I don’t work for anyone. I work
with
certain others. Of my choosing.”

Sean said, “Isn’t it a coincidence that your brother is working in intelligence too?”

“No coincidence about it. I encouraged Eddie to work in the field. I thought it would be a challenge for him, and I also thought he would be a terrific asset.”

She opened the car door.

“Wait,” exclaimed Sean. “You can’t leave now.”

“I’ll be in touch. For now, just do your best to stay alive. It will become harder as time goes by.”

“One last question,” said Sean.

Paul paused at the door.

Sean said, “Is your brother innocent like you said you believed? Or did he kill those people?”

At first Sean didn’t think she was going to answer the question.

“I stand by what I said, but at the end of the day only Eddie can definitively answer that.”

“If he did kill those people, his life is over. He won’t be going back to this E-Program.”

“In some ways my brother’s life was over a long time ago, Mr. King.”

P
ETER
B
UNTING SAT DOWN
at the head of the table and looked around at the faces staring back at him. He was surrounded not by policy wonks who lived in the world of the hypothetical but by people who were deadly serious about national threats. Bunting both admired and feared these folks. He admired them for their public service. He feared them because he knew they routinely ordered the killing of other humans without losing a minute’s sleep over it.

This particular briefing, while perfunctory, was being handled by Bunting because of the high level of people present and also because of the extenuating circumstances, chief of which was Edgar Roy’s current situation. He didn’t send in the lackeys when he had a Cabinet secretary, various directors of intelligence, and four-stars seated at a table with china coffee cups in front of them. They expected him, and they were paying a lot of taxpayer money for the privilege.

There was one person there who should not have been, but Bunting could do nothing except register his official complaint before tersely being told to carry on with his report.

Mason Quantrell sat next to Ellen Foster, his hands in his lap, and his whole focus on Bunting. The only time Bunting stumbled during his presentation was when Quantrell had smiled at a statement of his and then whispered something in Foster’s ear. She had smiled, too.

Bunting handled the ensuing questions, most of them penetrating and complex, with precision. He had become an expert at reading the poker faces of these men and women. They seemed, if not
exactly pleased, then at least satisfied. Which meant he was relieved. He had been in meetings that had not gone nearly so well. Then Quantrell cleared his throat. All heads had turned to the Mercury CEO. Now Bunting suspected the entire meeting had been carefully choreographed.

“Yes, Mason?” asked Bunting, whose grip on his laser pointer tightened. He had a sudden impulse to aim it at Quantrell’s eyes.

“You’ve told us a lot today, Pete.”

“That’s usually the point of a presentation such as this,” Bunting replied, trying to keep his voice even and calm.

Quantrell didn’t appear to hear him. “But what you haven’t told us is how you can continue to expect a single analyst to keep up with all the data being generated. While it’s true you’ve had some success—”

“I would modify that to say we’ve had enormous success, but please, carry on, Mason.”

“Some success,” repeated Quantrell. “But the reality is that by relying solely on one analyst we’ve weakened our national security considerably, possibly irreversibly.”

“I disagree.”

“But I don’t disagree.”

All heads turned, but only slightly, for this comment had come from Ellen Foster.

Bunting studied the woman who had become his most potent adversary. Yet as she was also the head of the largest federal security agency, he had no choice but to be respectful to the woman.

“Madame Secretary?”

“How do you rate your performance today, Peter?” she asked.

She wore a black dress, black stockings, and black heels with minimal jewelry. Bunting noticed, and not for the first time, that she was a very attractive woman. Nice skin, slim figure, but with curves where men usually wanted them. Foster had an impressive résumé both in the field and the boardroom, and possessed even more impressive political connections. The divorced head of DHS was low-key by nature, but every once in a while her picture would appear at some society event, where she was on the arm of an acceptably high-ranked gentleman.

She had a home in the upper-brackets region of D.C. and a vacation place on Nantucket, where she would go to unwind with her security detail tagging along. Her ex-husband, a New York–based private equity fund manager, had amassed an enormous fortune using other people’s money while paying an income tax rate lower than that of his secretary. She had gotten half of his net worth in the divorce and could do what she pleased. And what she pleased was to run the nation’s security platform and apparently make Peter Bunting’s life a hell on earth.

“It seems as though everyone was satisfied with my report.” He eyed Quantrell and then his gaze flitted back to her. “Well, almost everyone.”

“You’re joking, right, Peter?” she said.

“If you have some definitive examples I can certainly discuss them with you.”

“What’s to discuss? The analysis you delivered today was total crap and everyone in the room knows it. Other than you, apparently.”

Bunting gazed once more at the people around the table. Not a sympathetic face in the bunch. “I answered every question and every follow-up question. I didn’t get a standing ovation, but I left nothing hanging, either.”