The Sixth Man (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 5)

“They aren’t close,” lied Foster. “And Kelly Paul has the reputation, the well-earned reputation, of not allowing anything, not even family, to get in the way of a mission. So if she manages to somehow extract her brother from Cutter’s—”

“That’s not possible,” interrupted the president. “Is it?”

“The facility is very secure, but Paul is very good,” replied Foster.

“So we definitely know that she’s involved in this?” asked the president.

“Yes. In fact we have information that Paul actually went to visit Roy at Cutter’s Rock.”

“If that’s true, why didn’t we arrest her then and there?”

“We have no proof of wrongdoing yet, sir,” said Foster. “We didn’t even have enough to pull her in for questioning.”

“Why would she go there if she’s not close to her brother?” the president wanted to know.

Foster hesitated but the advisor came to her rescue.

“Maybe she was there for another purpose, sir. She might have been casing the place.”

The president’s eyes widened slightly. “Do you really think they are seriously going to try and break him out?”

“No place is escape-proof if you have the right people trying to do the extraction,” said the advisor. He eyed Foster. “Are you prepared for such an attempt?”

“Yes, but there are still no guarantees.” She looked at the president. “So it may behoove us to really think long and hard about implementing some type of preemptive action along the lines we’ve already discussed.”

“With respect to Roy and Bunting?” said the president.

Foster nodded and said, “And also Kelly Paul.”

He slowly nodded. “I’ll give the matter some serious thought.”

This wasn’t exactly the response Foster had wanted, but her expression didn’t show it and she had gotten most of what she wanted.

“Well, it looks like you have the matter well in hand, Ellen,” the president said.

It was clear he wanted to move on to other things. While the E-Program was a critical matter for the country, it was only one of a hundred critical matters this chief executive was currently trying to juggle.

She rose and said, “Thank you for meeting with me, sir.”

The president shook her hand. “Hell of a job on this, Ellen. Hell of a job.”

As Foster walked down the hall to her waiting motorcade, she looked around the White House, as though in her mind she was measuring the windows for new drapes.

Right now, anything felt possible.

CHAPTER

64

SEAN STARED OUT the window while Michelle cleaned both their guns on the kitchen table. He’d called Megan Riley, who was upset that she had once more been relegated to an afterthought.

“I’m resigning as counsel,” she told Sean.

“Megan, please don’t do that. We need you.”

“What you need, Sean, is a kick in the ass.”

“You’re part of the team.”