Saving Faith (41 page)

“For the rest of her life?” Buchanan shook his head. “No, that won’t work. We have to cut the hydra’s heads off and then burn the stubs. Otherwise we’re just wasting time.”

“And exactly how do we do that?” Lee asked.

Buchanan opened his briefcase and pulled out the tiny cassette tape from a hidden crevice. “With this. I was able to record the gentleman I’ve been talking about. On this tape he admits that he had the FBI agent killed, among other incriminating things.”

For the first time Lee looked hopeful. “Are you serious?”

“Trust me, I would never joke about this man.”

“So we use this tape to keep the hound at bay. He hurts us, we destroy him? He knows that. Then we’ve pulled his fangs.”

Buchanan slowly nodded. “Exactly.”

“And you know how to contact him?” asked Lee.

Buchanan nodded. “I’m sure that he’s figured out what I did and is right now trying to deduce what my intention is.”

“Well,
my
intention is that you call up this asshole right this second and tell him to stay the hell away from my daughter. I want it in blood. And I don’t trust the sonofabitch, so I still want something like a company of SEALs outside her dorm room for good measure. And I still plan on heading up there myself. Just in case. They want Renee? They go through me.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Buchanan said.

“I don’t remember asking for your permission,” Lee fired back.

“Lee, please,” Faith said. “Danny’s just trying to help.”

“I wouldn’t be in this nightmare if this guy had been straight with me up front. So excuse the hell out of me if I don’t treat him like he’s my best buddy.”

“I don’t blame you for feeling that way,” Buchanan said. “But you called me for help, and I’ll do whatever I can to help you. And your daughter. That I swear.”

Lee’s guarded manner relaxed somewhat in the face of this seemingly frank declaration.

“Okay,” he said grudgingly. “I admit you get points for coming here. You’ll get more points when you call off the assassins. And then after that we should get the hell out of here. I’ve already called this psycho once on my cell phone. I’m assuming that at some point he’ll be able to narrow our location down from that. When you call him, it’ll give them even more info to work with.”

“Understood. I have a plane at my disposal at a private airstrip not too far from here.”

“Your friends in high places?”

“
Friend.
Senior senator from this state, Russell Ward.”

“Good old Rusty,” Faith said, smiling.

“You’re sure you weren’t followed?” Lee glanced at the front door.

“No one could have followed me. I’m not sure of much anymore, but I am certain of that.”

“If this guy is as good as you seem to think he is, I wouldn’t feel too certain of anything.” Lee held out his cell phone. “Now please make the call.”

 

CHAPTER 47

Thornhill was in his study at home when Buchanan’s phone call came in. His communication link was such that the call was not traceable to Thornhill, if Buchanan was perhaps sitting at FBI headquarters. And Thornhill’s phone also had a voice scrambler that would make voice ID impossible. On the other hand, Thornhill’s people were working on tracing Buchanan’s location, but as yet they hadn’t been successful. Even the CIA had its limits, what with the explosion in the field of communications technology. There were so many electronic signals flying through the air, it made it damn near impossible to trace a wireless call to a precise location.

The National Security Agency would be able to trace the call with its stadium-size circular antennae. The super-secret NSA possessed technological might that made anything the CIA had pale by comparison, Thornhill well knew. It was said that the intelligence the NSA perpetually swept out of the air could fill the Library of Congress every
three
hours, gobbling up avalanches of information-bytes. Thornhill had availed himself of the NSA’s services before. However, the NSA (the inside joke was that the acronym stood for “no such agency”) was often difficult for anyone to control. Thus Thornhill didn’t want to involve them in this highly sensitive matter. He would handle it himself.

“You know why I’m calling?” Buchanan said.

“A tape. A highly personal one.”

“It’s good doing business with someone who considers himself omniscient.”

“I would appreciate some small bit of evidence, if it’s not too much trouble,” Thornhill said placidly.

Buchanan played a snatch of the earlier conversation between the two men.

“Thank you, Danny. Now, your terms?”

“Point one, you don’t go near Lee Adams’s daughter. That is called off. Now and forever.”

“Do you happen to be with Mr. Adams and Ms. Lockhart right now?”

“Second, all three of us are off limits as well. If anything remotely suspicious happens, then the tape goes directly to the FBI.”

“During our last conversation you said you already had the means to destroy me.”

“I lied.”

“Do Adams and Lockhart know of my involvement?”

“No.”

“How can I trust you?”

“It would only have put them in more danger to tell them. All they want to do is survive. It seems a common enough goal these days. And I’m afraid you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

“Even though you just admitted lying to me?”

“Exactly. Tell me, how does it feel?”

“And my long-term plan?”

“I really don’t give a damn at this point.”

“Why did you run?”

“Put yourself in my place; what would you have done?”

“I would never have allowed myself to be put in your place,” said Thornhill.

“Thank God we can’t all be like you. Do we have an agreement?”

“I don’t have much choice, do I?”

“Join the club,” said Buchanan. “However, you can be absolutely certain that if anything happens to any of us, it’s over for you. But if you play fair, you accomplish your goal. Everyone lives to celebrate.”

“Good doing business with you too, Danny.”

Thornhill clicked off and sat there seething for a few moments. Then he made another call but came away disappointed. The trace had not been made. Well, that was all right. He hardly expected it to be so easy. He still had his ace in the hole. He made one more phone call and this time the information brought a broad smile to his lips. As Danny had said, Thornhill did know all there was to know, and he thanked God for his omniscience. When you planned for every possible contingency you were difficult to beat.

Buchanan was with Lockhart, of that he was almost certain. His two golden birds were occupying the same nest. That made his task infinitely simpler. Buchanan had outsmarted himself.

He was just about to refill his scotch when his wife popped her head in. Would he like to go to the club with her? There was a bridge tournament going on. She had just gotten a call. A couple had canceled and wanted to know if the Thornhills could take their place.

“Actually,” he said, “I’m very much engaged in a game of chess.” His wife looked around the empty room. “Oh, it’s long-distance, dear,” Thornhill explained, nodding at his desktop computer. “You know the things one can do with technology these days. You can do battle and never even see your opponent.”

“Well, don’t stay up too late,” she said. “You’ve been working very hard and you’re not a young man anymore.”

“I see light at the end of the tunnel,” Thornhill replied. And this time he was telling the absolute truth.

 

CHAPTER 48

Reynolds and Connie reached Duck, North Carolina, around one in the morning after only a single stop for fuel and food and reached Pine Island a short while later. The streets were dark, the businesses closed. They were fortunate in finding an all-night gas station, however. While Reynolds got two coffees and some pastries, Connie found out from the clerk on duty where the airplane runway was located. They sat in the gas station lot, ate, and mulled things over.

“I checked in at WFO,” Connie told Reynolds as he stirred sugar into his coffee. “Interesting twist. Buchanan’s disappeared.”

She swallowed a bite of her pastry and stared at him. “How the hell did that happen?”

“Nobody knows. That’s why so many people are catching grief over it.”

“Well, at least they can’t blame that one on us.” “Don’t be too sure of that. Laying blame is a fine art in D.C., and the Bureau ain’t no exception.”

Reynolds had a sudden thought. “Connie, do you think Buchanan could be trying to rendezvous with Lockhart? That may be why he disappeared.”

“If we could nail them both at the same time, you might get appointed director.”

Reynolds smiled. “I’ll settle for having my suspension lifted. But Buchanan might be on his way here. What time did they say they lost the tail?”

“Early evening.”

“Then he could already be here; hours ago if he took a plane.”

Connie sipped his coffee, while he thought this over. “Why would Buchanan and Lockhart be doing anything together?” he asked slowly.

“Don’t forget, if we’re right about Buchanan hiring Adams, then maybe Adams called Buchanan and they hooked up that way.”

“
If
Adams is innocent in all this. But he sure as hell wouldn’t call Buchanan if he thought the guy had anything to do with trying to knock off Lockhart. After all we’ve found out, I’m gauging the guy as her protector, of sorts.”

“I think you’re right about that. But maybe Adams found out something that made him believe Buchanan didn’t order the hit. If that was the case, he might try to team with Buchanan to figure out together what the hell was going on and who else was out there trying to kill Lockhart.”

“Somebody else behind this? One of the foreign governments Buchanan was working with, maybe? If the truth came out, they’d be sitting out there with world-class egg on their face. That’s plenty of incentive to kill somebody,” Connie said.

“I wonder,” Reynolds began, as Connie watched her closely. “There’s just been something about this case that’s never added up,” she said. “We’ve got somebody impersonating FBI agents. Somebody who seems to know our every move.”

“Ken Newman?”

“Maybe. But that doesn’t seem to make sense either. Ken’s had cash coming in for a long time. Has he been somebody’s mole for that long a period of time? Or is it somebody else?”

“And don’t forget about whoever’s trying to frame you. Moving money around accounts like that takes some expertise.”

“Exactly. But I just don’t see operatives of a foreign government being able to do all that, and no one the wiser.”

“Brooke, countries conduct industrial espionage against us every day. Shit, our staunchest allies even do it, ripping off our technology because they’re not smart enough to do it on their own. And our borders are so open it doesn’t take much to get in. You know that.”

Reynolds let out a deep sigh as she stared into the darkness lying right outside the gas station’s harsh ring of lights. “I suppose you’re right. I guess instead of trying to figure out who’s behind this, we should try to find Lockhart and company and just ask them.”

“Now, that’s a plan I can relate to.” Connie put the car in gear and they sped off into the darkness.

*  *  *

After locating the runway, Reynolds and Connie cruised the dark streets looking for the Honda Gold Wing. Virtually all of the beach houses appeared vacant now, which made their search both easier and more difficult. It cut down the number of places they had to focus on, but it also made the agents stand out more.

Connie finally spotted the Honda in the carport of one of the beach houses. Reynolds eased out of the car and got a close enough look to confirm that the license tag matched the bike Lee Adams had borrowed from his brother’s shop. Then they drove to the other end of the street, hit the lights and talked it over.

“Maybe it’s as simple as me going in the front and you going in the back,” Reynolds said as she studied the dark house. Her skin was tingling with the thought that a bare fifty feet away were two or possibly the three key people in this whole investigation.

Connie shook his head. “I don’t like that. The Honda being there means Adams is in there too.”

“We’ve got his gun.”

“A guy like that, first thing he would’ve done is get another one. And we go in, even if we surprise him, he knows the lay of the land better than we do. He might get one of us.” He added, “And you don’t even have a gun, so we’re not splitting up.”

“You’re the one who said you thought Adams wasn’t a bad guy.”

“Thinking something and being absolutely certain of it are two different things. And that difference is not something I’m willing to risk anybody’s life over. And rushing in on anybody, good or bad, in the middle of the night, mistakes can happen. I intend on getting you back to your kids in one piece. And I wouldn’t mind doing the same.”

“So how do we play it? Wait for daylight and call in reinforcements?”

“Calling in the locals will probably mean every TV station down here will be on the block an hour after we do. That won’t earn us many points at HQ.”

“Well, I guess we can wait for them to ride off on the Honda and then pull them.”

“Other things being equal, I’m inclined to watch the place and see what happens. If they come out, we move in. If we get real lucky, Lockhart will surface without Adams and we can take her. After that, I’m figuring we can bait Adams out pretty easy.”

“And if they don’t come out, together or singly?”

“Then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

“I don’t want to lose them again, Connie.”

“It’s not like they can just take off down the beach or swim to England. Adams went to a lot of trouble to get those wheels. He’s not going to abandon the bike because he doesn’t have another way to replace it. Where he goes, that Honda goes. And that Honda ain’t going anywhere without us seeing it.”