The Sixth Man (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 5)

Intelligence work was dirty and at times deadly. Whether your adversary was killed quick with a bullet or slow with an enhanced interrogation session, or was anonymously obliterated by a drone strike launched from thousands of feet up, he was still dead. Like Edgar Roy might be soon. Dead.

Bunting settled back in his seat and let out a long sigh. Right now the two-point-five-billion-dollar contract didn’t seem nearly worth it.

CHAPTER

35

“DO WE SHADOW Carla Dukes? Do we go see Edgar Roy again? Do we try to bust Murdock’s chops somehow? Do we dig into Kelly Paul’s background and see what turns up? Do we investigate Bergin’s and Hilary’s murders? Do we keep going after the six bodies in Edgar Roy’s barn?”

Michelle fell silent and looked expectantly at Sean as they walked along the oceanfront near Martha’s Inn.

“Or do we do all of that? And if so, how?” he replied. “There’s only the two of us.”

“We multitask well.”

“Nobody multitasks that well.”

“But we have to do something.”

“The six bodies can cut two ways. Either someone knew that he was the Analyst for the government and framed him. Or he killed those people and the government is trying to keep what Roy actually did from the public.”

“But you don’t think he did it, do you?”

“No, though I don’t have any solid reasons to back that up.”

“So the people framing him must be enemies of this country. They know what he does and they’re trying to stop him? But why not just kill him? He lived alone on that farm. It would’ve been easy.”

“Well he must have had security, so it might not have been that easy. But maybe they wanted to do more than simply deprive America of its brilliant analyst.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know,” Sean admitted.

“Who do you think shot out our car windows?”

“Either our side or the other side.”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Lot of dangerous folks out there.”

“Exactly.” Michelle took his arm. “Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

Ninety minutes later Sean was walking out of Fort Maine Guns with a new Sig 9mm.

“I haven’t fired a pistol in a while.”

“Which is why we’re going there next.” She pointed to a door in a building adjacent to Fort Maine with a sign outside that said Shooting Range.

An hour later Sean studied his results.

“Not bad,” Michelle said. “Total score of ninety percent. Your kill zone shots were right where they need to be.”

He glanced at her targets. The holes were huge because the bullets had all congregated in the same spot.