Buchanan’s bribery scheme had started out cautiously at first. He had analyzed all the players in Washington who even remotely might further his goals, and whether they could be bribed. Many members of Congress were wealthy, but many others were not. It was often both a financial and familial nightmare for people to serve in Congress. Members had to maintain two residences, and the Washington metro area was not cheap. And their family often did not come with them. Buchanan approached the ones he figured he could corrupt and began a long process of feeling them out on possible involvement. The carrots he dangled were small at first but quickly grew in size if the targets showed any enthusiasm. Buchanan had selected well, because he had never had a target not agree to exchange votes and influence for rewards down the road. Perhaps they felt that the difference between what he proposed and what occurred in Washington every day was marginal at best. He didn’t know if they cared that the goal was a worthy one. However, they hadn’t gone out of their way to increase foreign aid to any of Buchanan’s clients on their own.
And they had all seen colleagues leave office and grab the gold of lobbydom. But who wanted to work that hard then? Buchanan’s experience was that ex-members made terrible lobbyists anyway. Going back hat in hand to lobby former colleagues over whom you no longer had any leverage was not appealing to these overly proud folk. Much smarter to use them when they were the most powerful they would ever be. Work them hard first. And then pay them grandly later. What could be better?
Buchanan wondered if he could really hold it together during the meeting with a man he had already betrayed. But then, betrayal was doled out in large doses in this town. Everyone was constantly scrambling for a chair before the music stopped. The senator would be understandably upset. Well, he would have to stand in line with the rest.
Buchanan suddenly felt tired. He didn’t want to get in the car or climb on another plane, but he had no say in the matter.
Still a member of the Philadelphia servant class?
The lobbyist focused his attention on the man who was standing before him.
“He sends his compliments,” the burly man said. To the outside world he was Buchanan’s driver. In reality he was one of Thornhill’s men keeping close tabs on their most important charge.
“And please send Mr. Thornhill my sincerest wishes that God should decree he not grow one day older,” said Buchanan.
“There have been important developments of which he would like you to be aware,” the man said impassively.
“Such as?”
“Lockhart is working with the FBI to bring you down.”
For a brief, dizzying moment Buchanan thought he would vomit all over himself. “What in the hell are you talking about?”
“This information was just discovered by our operative inside the Bureau.”
“You mean they entrapped her? Made her work for them?”
Just like you did to me.
“She voluntarily went to them.”
Buchanan slowly regained his composure. “Tell me everything,” he said.
The man responded with a series of truths, half-truths and outright lies. He told them all with equal, practiced sincerity.
“Where is Faith now?”
“She’s gone underground. The FBI is looking for her.”
“How much has she told them? Should I be making plans to leave the country?”
“No. It’s very early in the game. What she’s told them thus far would not warrant prosecution of any kind. She’s told them more of the process of how it was done, but not who was involved. However, that’s not to say they can’t follow up what she’s told them. But they have to be careful. The targets aren’t exactly flipping burgers at McDonald’s.”
“And the vaunted Mr. Thornhill doesn’t know where Faith is? I hope his omniscience isn’t failing him now.”
“I have no information about that,” said the man.
“A poor state of affairs for an intelligence-gathering agency,” Buchanan said, even managing a smile. A log in the fireplace let out a loud pop, and a fat wad of sap shot out and hit the screen. Buchanan watched it dripping down the mesh face, its escape halted, its existence over. Why did he suddenly feel the remainder of his life had just been symbolically played out?
“Perhaps I should try to find her.”
“It’s really not your concern.”
Buchanan stared at him. Had the idiot really said that? “
You
won’t be the one going to prison.”
“It’ll work out. You just continue right on.”
“I want to be kept informed. Clear?” Buchanan turned to the window. In its reflection he studied the man’s reaction to his sharply spoken words. But what were they really worth? Buchanan had clearly lost this round; he had no way of winning it, actually.
The street was dark, no visible movement, just the familiar sounds of squirrels corkscrewing up the trees and then leaping from branch to branch in their never-ending game of survival. Buchanan was engaged in a similar contest, but even more dangerous than hopping across the slippery bark of thirty-foot-tall trees. The wind had picked up some; the beginnings of a low howling sound could be heard in the chimney. A bit of smoke from the fire drifted into the room with the backdraft of air.
The man looked at his watch. “We need to leave in fifteen minutes to make your flight.” He picked up Buchanan’s briefcase, turned and left.
Robert Thornhill had always been careful in how he contacted Buchanan. No phone calls to the house or office. Face-to-face meetings only under conditions such as these where it would not raise suspicions, where surveillance by others could not be maintained. The first meeting between the two had been one of the few times in Buchanan’s life that he had felt inadequate in the face of an opponent. Thornhill had calmly presented stark evidence of Buchanan’s illegal dealings with members of Congress, high-ranking bureaucrats, even reaching inside the White House. Tapes of them going over voting schemes, strategies to defeat legislation, frank discussions of what their fake duties would be once they left office, how the payoffs would occur. The CIA man had uncovered Buchanan’s web of slush funds and corporations designed to funnel money to his public officials.
“You now work for me,” Thornhill had said bluntly. “And you will go right on doing what you are doing until my net is as strong as steel. And then you will stand clear, and I will take over.”
Buchanan had refused. “I’ll go to prison,” he had said. “I’ll take that over indentured servitude.”
Thornhill, Buchanan recalled, had looked slightly impatient. “I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear. Prison isn’t an option. You either work for me or you cease to live.”
Buchanan had paled in the face of this threat, but still held firm. “A public servant embroiled in murder?”
“I’m a special type of public servant. I work in extremes. It tends to justify what I do.”
“My answer’s the same.”
“Do you also speak for Faith Lockhart? Or should I consult her personally on the matter?”
That remark had struck Buchanan like a bullet to the brain. It was quite clear to Buchanan that Robert Thornhill was no bully. There was not a hint of bluster in the man. If he said something as innocuous as, “I’m sorry it’s come to this,” you would probably be dead the next day. Thornhill was a careful, deliberate, focused person, Buchanan had thought at the time. Not unlike himself. Buchanan had gone along. To save Faith.
Now Buchanan understood the relevance of Thornhill’s safeguards. The FBI was watching him. Well, they had their work cut out for them, for Buchanan doubted they were in Thornhill’s league when it came to clandestine operations. But everyone had an Achilles’ heel. Thornhill had easily found his in Faith Lockhart. Buchanan had long wondered what Thornhill’s weakness was.
Buchanan slumped in a chair and studied the painting hanging on the library wall. It was a portrait of a mother and child. It had hung in a private museum for almost eighty years. It was by one of the acknowledged—but lesser known—masters of the Renaissance period. The mother was clearly the protector, the infant boy unable to defend himself. The wondrous colors, the exquisitely painted profiles, the subtle brilliance of the hand that had invented this image so clearly evident in every brushstroke, never failed to enrapture anyone who saw it. The gentle curl of finger, the luminosity of the eyes, each detail still so vibrant almost four hundred years after the paint had hardened.
It was perfect love on both sides, uncomplicated by silent, corrosive agendas. At one level it was the simple thread of biological function. At another it was a phenomenon enhanced by the touch of God. This painting was his most prized possession. Unfortunately, it would soon have to be sold, and perhaps his home as well. He was running out of money to fund the “retirements” of his people. Indeed, he felt guilty for still owning the painting. The funds it could generate, the help it could bring to so many. And yet just to sit and gaze at it was so soothing, so uplifting. It was the height of selfishness, and brought him more pleasure than just about anything else.
But maybe it was all moot at this point. The end was coming for Buchanan. He knew that Thornhill would never let him walk away from all of this. And he had no illusions that he would let Buchanan’s people enjoy any retirement whatsoever. They were his slaves-in-waiting. The CIA man, despite his refinement and pedigree, was a spy. What were spies but living lies? However, Buchanan would honor his agreement with his politicians. What he had promised them in return for helping him would be there, whether they would be able to enjoy it or not.
As the light of the fire played over the painting, the woman’s face, it seemed to Buchanan, took on the characteristics of Faith Lockhart—not the first time he had observed this. His gaze traced the set of full lips that could turn petulant or sensual without warning. As his eye ran down the long, gracefully formed face, the hair golden, not auburn, in just the right splash of angled light, he always thought of Faith. She had a pair of eyes that held you; the left pupil slightly off center added depth to make Faith’s countenance truly remarkable. And it was as though this flaw of nature had empowered her to see right through anyone.
He remembered every detail of their very first meeting. Fresh out of college, she had bounded into his life with the enthusiasm of a newly minted missionary, ready to take on the world. She was raw, immature at certain levels, largely ignorant of the ways of Washington, astonishingly naive in various respects. And yet she could also command a room like a movie star. She could be funny and then turn serious on a dime. She could stroke egos with the best of them and still get her message across, without overtly pushing the issue. After five minutes talking to her, Buchanan knew she had what it took to flourish in his world. After her first month on the job, his intuition proved correct. She did her homework, worked tirelessly, learned the issues, dissected the players down to the level needed to do the job and then went deeper. She understood what everyone needed in order to walk away a winner. Burning bridges in this town meant you didn’t survive. Sooner or later, you needed help from everyone, and memories were exceptionally long in the capital city. As tenacious as a wolverine, she had endured defeat after defeat on a number of fronts, but continued to pound away until she was victorious. He had never met anyone like her before or since. They had been through more together in fifteen years than couples married a lifetime. She was really all the family he had. The precocious daughter he was destined never to have. And now? How did he protect his little girl?
As the rain drifted across the roof and the wind strummed its peculiar sounds down the aged firebrick of his Old Town chimney, Buchanan forgot about his car and his flight and the dilemmas confronting him. The man continued to stare at the painting in the soft glow of the quietly crackling fire. And it was clearly not the work of the grand master that fascinated him so.
Faith had not betrayed him. Nothing Thornhill could ever tell him would change that belief. But now she was in Thornhill’s way, which meant she was in mortal danger. He stared at the painting. “Run, Faith, run just as fast as you can,” he said under his breath, with all the anguish of a desperate father seeing violent death racing after his child. In the face of the protector mother in the painting, Buchanan felt even more powerless.
Brooke Reynolds sat in rented office space about ten blocks from the Washington Field Office. The Bureau sometimes took off-site space for agents engaged in sensitive investigations, where something overheard even in the cafeteria or hallway could have disastrous effects. Virtually everything the Public Corruption Unit did was of a sensitive nature. The usual targets of the unit’s investigation were not bank robbers wearing masks and waving guns. They were often people one read about on the front pages of the newspapers or saw being interviewed on the TV news.
Reynolds leaned forward and slipped out of her flats, rubbing her aching feet against the legs of her chair. Everything about her was tight, raw and hurting: Her sinuses were almost completely closed, her skin feverish, her throat scratchy. But at least she was alive. Unlike Ken Newman. She had driven straight to his home after first calling ahead to let his wife know she had to see her. Reynolds hadn’t said why, but Anne Newman had known that her husband was dead. Reynolds had heard it in the tone of the few words the woman had managed to speak.
Normally, a person of a higher level than Reynolds would accompany her to the home of a bereaved spouse, to show that the Bureau did care, from top to bottom, when it lost one of its own. However, Reynolds had not waited for anyone else to volunteer to come with her. Ken was her responsibility, including telling his family that he was dead.
When she had arrived at the house, Reynolds had gotten right down to it, figuring a drawn-out monologue would only prolong the woman’s obvious agony. Reynolds’s compassion and empathy for the bereaved woman had been unhurried, however, and sincere. She had held Anne, consoled her as best she could, broken down in tears with her. Anne had taken the absence of information well, Reynolds had thought, far better than she probably would were the roles reversed.