The Sixth Man (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 5)

“Possibly.”

Bunting pointed a finger at Harkes. “Listen very carefully. You are not to go near Kelly Paul. Or Sean King. Or Michelle Maxwell. Do you understand me?”

“I’m afraid you’re not grasping the seriousness of the situation.”

“So what the hell is the plan? Kill everybody?”

“Plans are ever evolving,” said Harkes with maddening calm.

“Why would Paul be working to harm her brother? That’s preposterous.”

“You’re assuming that Paul is still working for us. She’s been off the grid for a while. She could be freelancing for our enemies.”

“I don’t believe that. Kelly Paul is as patriotic as anyone I’ve ever met.”

“That is a dangerous perspective for someone in your position to have.”

“What perspective?” snapped Bunting.

“That someone can’t be corrupted.”

“I can’t be. I would never do anything to harm my country.”

“That’s a nice speech. But if the right inducement came along even you could be turned.”

“Never.”

“You’re missing the point.”

“If anybody else ends up dead, it’s over for you, Harkes. You have my word.”

“You have a good day, Mr. Bunting.”

Harkes opened the door, and Bunting stormed through it.

CHAPTER

51

TWO HOURS LATER Bunting was seated in a comfy leather chair on the company jet as it taxied toward takeoff. It was a Gulfstream G550. It could fly from London to Singapore on a single tank of gas. It had an office, a bed, TVs, Wi-Fi, state-of-the-art avionics, a full bar, seating for fourteen, two pilots, and two flight attendants. It could hit nearly 600 miles an hour and fly at a max ceiling of 51,000 feet. It had cost Bunting’s company, BIC, over $50 million new, and millions more per year in maintenance and operating costs.

The flight from New York to Dulles, Virginia, would take less than half an hour in the air. He sat back as the G550 executed its climb out over the friendly if crowded Manhattan skies, banked smoothly south, and headed to D.C. Before Bunting could even settle into work, the pilot announced their descent into Dulles. Twenty minutes later they were on the ground. They taxied to a private part of the airport, and the retractable steps housed on the G550 came down. He stepped off and into the waiting limo, which sped away as soon as his rear end hit the seat.

It really was the only way to travel, even if it did cost $50 million and change. But right now he wasn’t thinking about his lofty and privileged ability to move around. He was thinking about the possibility of losing everything he’d worked for. His meeting with Harkes had troubled him greatly. He really felt things slipping out of control.

Once they left the airport Bunting ran into the world of the peasant commuter and got bogged down in traffic on the toll road. It took him far longer to go six miles by car than it had over two hundred miles through the air. But he finally made it.

The building he entered seemed ordinary. Passersby would not give it a second look. It was not the office building that Sean had followed Avery to. That was located several miles from here. This place was the most important facility in Bunting’s empire. This was where the Wall was located. He entered the building and sped through interior security portals, before taking an elevator down and then walking along a corridor.

It had taken him years, millions of dollars, and many an anxious moment before he had convinced the American security community to move into the twenty-first century and embrace his vision for what intelligence collection and analysis could actually become. When it had finally happened, the floodgates had opened and billions of dollars of government money had flowed into his coffers. It was the greatest triumph of his life. And what many took for granted was the fact that aside from the money, the E-Program worked. It had foreseen and stopped countless terrorist attacks on American soil and against US interests overseas. It had allowed CIA, DHS, DIA, Geospatial, NSA, and a host of the lesser-known intelligence agencies to rack up success after success. The FBI, armed with leads provided by the E-Program, had set up and sprung sting upon sting, bagging criminals and terrorists, and gathering valuable intelligence used to stop future heinous acts.

The Wall was the focal point. The Wall was Bunting’s masterstroke. While teams of traditional analysts so enmeshed in the trees that they had no comprehension a forest even existed, had no reasonable chance to successfully ferret out the true threat, one person, the right person sitting in a chair and taking up the challenge of the Wall, had led them to the promised land. The Wall would give up its well-hidden secrets to just the right person. And the rewards were immense, and also immediate.

The program had worked well for years. And then the snag had come. The information that required analysis had bested the most superior minds he could find. The E-Program had finally shown a chink in the armor. Opponents like Ellen Foster at DHS and Mason Quantrell in the private sector had started circling like the vultures they were.

And then Bunting had found Edgar Roy. Even against the high benchmarks of the E-Program Roy had stood out. Time and again he had picked up on things that even powerful supercomputers together with a hundred thousand toiling and lesser analysts had missed. Bunting was convinced that if Edgar Roy had been staring at the Wall prior to September 11, 2001, that day would have simply been like any other, and utterly forgettable.

He entered the room, far below the basement level of the facility. He nodded to people who worked there. They nodded back and then quickly looked away, perhaps sensing his nervous detachment. Even though Foster had made it clear that his last chance had passed, Bunting had arranged one more attempt to salvage the program. Results so far had not been good.