Saving Faith (29 page)

 

CHAPTER 31

The wind, it turned out, was blowing hard along the beach, and the temperature had dropped drastically. Faith buttoned her overshirt; then, despite the cold, she took off her sandals and held them in one hand.

“I like to feel the sand,” she explained to Lee. The tide was low, so they had a broad beach on which to meander. The sky held scattered clouds, the moon almost full, the stars winks of light staring down upon them. Far out on the water they saw the blink of what was probably a ship’s light or stationary buoy. Except for the wind, it was completely quiet. No cars, no blaring TVs, no planes, no other people.

“It’s really nice out here,” Lee finally said as he watched a sand crab do its funny sideways scuttle into its tiny home. Stuck in the sand was a piece of PVC pipe. Lee knew that fishermen would stick their poles in the hollow tube when they were fishing from the beach.

“I’ve thought of moving here permanently,” said Faith. She broke ranks with him and ventured into the water up to her ankles. Lee slipped off his shoes, rolled up his pants legs and joined her.

“Colder than I thought it would be,” he said. “No swimming out here.”

“You wouldn’t believe how invigorating a swim in cold water can be.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t.”

“I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times, but how did you become a private investigator?”

He shrugged and looked out toward the ocean. “Sort of fell into it. My dad was an engineer and I was a gadget guy, like him. But I never had the book smarts he did. I was sort of a rebel too, like you. But I didn’t go to college. I joined the Navy.”

“Please tell me you were a Navy SEAL. I’d sleep better.”

Lee smiled. “I can barely shoot straight. I can’t build a nuclear device out of toothpicks and gum wrappers, and the last time I checked, I couldn’t disable a man simply by pressing my thumb against his forehead.”

“I guess I’ll keep you anyway. Sorry to interrupt.”

“Not much more to it. I studied telephony, communications, that sort of thing in the Navy. Got married, had a kid. I left the service and worked at the phone company as a repairman. Then I lost my daughter in a messy divorce. I quit my job, answered an ad at a private security firm for someone experienced in electronic surveillance. I figured with my technical background I could learn what I needed to know. The job really got into my blood. I started my own private investigation firm, got some decent clients, made mistakes along the way but then got a firm footing. Now you see me today as the head of a mighty empire.”

“How long have you been divorced?”

“A long time.” He looked at her. “Why?”

“Just curious. Ever gotten close to the altar since then?”

“No. I guess I’m terrified of making the same mistakes.” He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Quite honestly, the problems came from both ends. I’m not easy to live with.” He smiled. “I think God makes two kinds of people: those who should marry and procreate and those who should remain alone and have sex only for fun. I think I’m in the latter group. Not that I’ve been having much ‘fun’ lately.”

Faith looked down. “Save some room for me.”

“Not to worry. There’s plenty of space left.”

He touched her elbow. “Let’s talk. We’re running out of time.”

Faith led him back up onto the beach and plopped down cross-legged on a patch of dry sand. He sat next to her.

“Where would you like to begin?” she asked.

“How about the beginning?”

“No, I meant do you want me to tell you all first, or do you want to spill
your
secrets first?”

He looked startled. “
My
secrets? Sorry, I’m fresh out.”

She picked up a stick, drew the letters
d
and
b
in the sand and then glanced at him. “Danny Buchanan. What do you really know about him?”

“Just what I told you. He’s your partner.”

“He’s also the man who hired you.”

Lee couldn’t find his voice for a few seconds. “I told you I didn’t know who had hired me.”

“That’s right. That’s what you
told
me.”

“How do you know he hired me?”

“While I was in your office, I listened to a message from Danny, and he sounded quite anxious to know where I was and what you had found out. He left his phone number for you to call him back. He was more distressed than I’ve ever heard him. I guess I would be too if someone I had arranged to have killed was still alive and kicking.”

“You’re sure it was him on the phone?”

“After fifteen years of working with him I think I know his voice. So you didn’t know?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“You know that’s really hard to believe.”

“I guess it is,” he agreed. “But it happens to be the truth.” He scooped up some sand and let it run through his fingers. “So I take it that phone call is why you tried to give me the slip at the airport? You don’t trust me.”

She licked her dry lips and glanced at the holstered gun, which was visible as the wind whipped Lee’s jacket around. “I
do
trust you, Lee. Otherwise I wouldn’t be sitting on a lonely beach in the dark with an armed man who’s still pretty much a stranger to me.”

Lee let his shoulders slump. “I was hired to follow you, Faith. That’s all.”

“Don’t you first find out if the client or his intentions are legitimate?”

Lee started to say something and then stopped. That was a reasonable question. The fact was business had been slow recently and the assignment and cash had been timely. And the file he had been given had a photo of Faith. And then he had seen her in person. Well, what the hell could he say? Most of his targets weren’t as attractive as Faith Lockhart. In the photo her face had suggested vulnerability. After meeting her, he knew that impression wasn’t necessarily true. But it was a very potent combination for him, beauty and vulnerability. For any man.

“Normally, I like to meet with a client, get to know him and his agenda before I agree to accept a job.”

“But not here?”

“It was a little difficult, since I didn’t know who had hired me.”

“So instead of returning the cash, you accepted the offer and started following me—blindly, as it were.”

“I didn’t see any harm in just following you.”

“But they could have been using you to get to me.”

“It’s not exactly like you were in hiding. Like I said, I thought you might be having some sort of affair. When I went inside the cottage, I knew that wasn’t the case. The rest of the night’s events damn sure reinforced that conclusion. That’s all I really know.”

Faith stared out toward the ocean, to the horizon, where water met sky. It was a visual collision of sorts that happened every day and was comforting for some reason. It gave her hope when she probably had no other reason to feel it. Other than the man sitting beside her, perhaps.

“Let’s go back to the house,” she said.

 

CHAPTER 32

They sat in the spacious family room. Faith picked up a remote control, hit a button and the flames in the gas fireplace crept to life. She poured another glass of wine, offered one to Lee, but he declined. They sat on the overstuffed couch.

Faith took a sip of wine and stared out the window, her eyes focusing on nothing. “Washington represents the richest, most enormous pie in the history of mankind. And everyone in the whole world wants a slice of it. There are certain people who hold the knife that portions out that pie. If you want a slice, you have to go through them.”

“That’s where you and Buchanan come in?”

“I lived, breathed and ate my career. Sometimes I worked more than twenty-four hours in a day because I’d cross the International Date Line. I can’t tell you the hundreds of details, nuances, mind-reading, gut checks and sheer nerve and perseverance that lobbying on the scale we did requires.” She put down her wine glass and focused on him. “I had a great teacher in Danny Buchanan. He almost never lost. That’s remarkable, don’t you think?”

“I guess never losing at anything is pretty remarkable. We can’t all be Michael Jordan.”

“In your line of work can you guarantee to your client that a certain result will occur?”

Lee smiled. “If I could forsee the future, I’d start playing the lottery.”

“Danny Buchanan could guarantee the future.”

Lee stopped smiling. “How?”

“He who controls the gatekeepers controls the future.”

Lee slowly nodded in understanding. “So he was paying off people in government?”

“On a more sophisticated scale than anyone’s done before.”

“Congressmen on the payroll? That sort of thing?”

“Actually, they did it for free.”

“What—”

“Until they left office. Then Danny had a whole world of goodies lined up for them. Lucrative do-nothing jobs in companies he had set up. Income from private portfolios of stocks and bonds, and cash funneled through legitimate businesses under the cover of services rendered. They could play golf all day, make a couple of sham phone calls to the Hill, take a few meetings and live like kings. Hey, it’s like a super 401(k). You know how Americans are so into their stocks. Danny worked them hard while they were on the Hill, but he would give them the best golden years money could buy.”

“How many of them have ‘retired’?”

“None, as yet. But everything is set up for when they do. Danny’s been doing this only about ten years.”

“He’s been in D.C. a lot longer than ten years.”

“I mean he’s been bribing people for only ten years. Before then, he was a much more successful lobbyist. The last ten years, he’s made a lot less money.”

“I thought guaranteeing results would bring him a lot
more
money.”

“The last ten years have been pretty much a charitable decade for him.”

“The man must have deep pockets.”

“Danny has pretty much gone through his money. We started representing paying clients again so we could continue what we were doing. And the longer his people do what they are told, the more they will receive later. And by waiting until they’re out of office to be paid, the chances any of them will be caught go down considerably.”

“They must really trust Buchanan’s word.”

“I’m sure he’s had to show them proof of what’s waiting for them. But he’s also an honorable man.”

“All crooks are, aren’t they? Who are some of the people on his retirement plan?”

She looked at him suspiciously. “Why?”

“Just humor me.”

Faith named two of the men.

“Correct me if I’m mistaken, but aren’t they the current vice president of the United States and the Speaker of the House?”

“Danny doesn’t work with middle management. He actually started working with the vice president before he rose to that office, back when he was a House whip. But when Danny needs the man to pick up the phone and put the screws to someone, the man does.”

“Holy shit, Faith. What the hell did you need that kind of firepower for? Are we talking military secrets?”

“Actually, something much more valuable.” She picked up her wine glass. “We represent the poorest of the world’s poor. African nations, in issues of humanitarian aid, food, medicine, clothing, farm equipment, crop seed, desalinization systems. In Latin America, money for vaccines and other medical supplies. The export of legal birth control devices, sterile needles and health information in the poorest countries.”

Lee looked skeptical. “You’re saying you were bribing government officials to help third world countries?”

She set down her wine glass and looked directly at him. “Actually, the official lexicon has changed. The rich nations have developed very politically correct terminology for their destitute neighbors. The CIA publishes a manual on them, in fact. So instead of ‘third world,’ you have new categories: LDCs are ‘less-developed countries,’ meaning they’re in the bottom group in the hierarchy of developed countries. There are officially one hundred and seventy-two LDCs, or the vast majority of countries in the world. Then there are the LLDCs. They’re the ‘least developed countries.’ They’re the bottom of the barrel, dead in the water. There are
only
forty-two of them. This may surprise you, but about half of the people on this planet live in abject poverty.”

“And that makes it right?” Lee said. “That makes bribery and cheating right?”

“I’m not asking you to condone any of it. I don’t really care if you agree with it or not. You wanted the facts, I’m giving them to you.”

“America gives lots of foreign aid. And we don’t
have
to give a dime.”

She gave him a fierce look, one he had never seen from her before. “If you talk facts with me, you lose,” she said sharply.

“Come again?”

“I’ve been researching this—living this—for more than ten years! We pay farmers in this country more
not
to grow crops than we do on humanitarian relief overseas. Of the total federal budget, foreign aid represents about one percent, with the vast majority of that going to two countries, Egypt and Israel. Americans spend a hundred times as much money on makeup or fast food or video rentals in a year’s time than we do on feeding starving children in third world countries in a decade. We could wipe out a dozen serious childhood diseases in undeveloped countries around the world with less money than we spend on Beanie Babies.”

“You’re naïve, Faith. You and Buchanan are probably just filling the lining of some dictator’s pockets.”

“No! That’s an easy excuse, and one that I’m so sick of. The money we do manage to get goes directly to legitimate humanitarian relief organizations, and never to the government directly. I’ve personally seen enough health ministers in African countries wearing Armani and driving a Mercedes while babies starve at their feet.”

“And there aren’t starving children in this country?”