Washington, leaving his lawyers in his liberated, if anxious, wake. The
car was waiting for him. He slid inside. He had been granted bail,
after four weeks of sitting behind bars. Now it was time to get to
work. Now it was damn well time for revenge.
“Have they all been contacted?” Thornhill asked the driver.
The man nodded. “They’re already there. Waiting for you.”
“Buchanan and Adams? Status?”
“Buchanan is in Witness Protection, but we have some leads. Adams is
right out in the open. Available anytime to take out.”
“Lockhart?”
“Dead.”
“You’re certain?”
“We haven’t actually dug up her body, but everything else points to her
having died from her wounds at the hospital in North Carolina.”
Thornhill leaned back against his seat with a sigh. “Lucky her.”
The car entered a public garage, where Thornhill left the vehicle. He
stepped directly into a van waiting there for him, which then pulled
out from the garage and headed in the opposite direction. So much for
any tail the FBI had.
Within forty-five minutes he was at the small abandoned strip mall. He
stepped into the elevator and was zipping several hundred feet down
into the earth. The lower he was carried, the better Thornhill felt.
This thought deeply amused him.
The doors parted and he literally burst out of the confines of the
elevator. The men, his colleagues, were all there. His chair at the
head of the table was empty. His trusty comrade Phil Winslow was in
the seat to the immediate right. Thornhill allowed himself a grateful
smile. Back in business, ready to go.
He sat down, looked around.
“Congratulations on getting bail, Bob,” Winslow said.
“Four weeks later,” Thornhill said bitterly. “I think the Agency needs
to upgrade its legal counsel.”
“Well, that video was very damaging,” said Aaron Royce, the younger man
who had butted heads with Thornhill at the previous meeting here. “I’m
actually surprised you were able to get bail at all. And, quite
frankly, I’m a little stunned that the Agency even saw fit to provide
counsel.”
“Of course it was damaging,” Thornhill said scornfully. “And the
Agency provided counsel because of loyalty. It doesn’t forget its
people. Unfortunately, however, it means I have to disappear. The
lawyers think we have a shot at suppressing the video, but I think all
would agree that, despite having technical legal deficiencies, the
subject matter of the tape was a little too detailed to allow me to
continue in my present capacity.” Thornhill looked saddened for a
moment. His career over, and not in the way he had planned. But then
his features reassumed their usual steeliness; his resolve flooded back
into him like an oil gusher. He looked around the room in triumph.
“But I will lead the battle from a distance. And we will win the war.
Now, I understand Buchanan went underground. But Adams didn’t. We’ll
go the path of least resistance. Adams first. Then Buchanan. I want
someone at the U.S. marshal’s service. We have people there. We
locate good old Danny and make his life disappear. Next, I want to
make damn sure Faith Lockhart is no more.” He looked at Winslow. “Are
my travel documents ready, Phil?”
“Actually, no, Bob,” Winslow said slowly.
Royce stared at Thornhill. “This operation has cost us too much,” he
said. “Three operatives dead. You indicted. The Agency’s turned
upside down. The FBI is all over us. It’s a total and complete
disaster. This makes Aldrich Ames seem like a bounced check.”
Thornhill noticed that every man in the room, Winslow included, was
looking at him with a very unfriendly face. “We will survive this,
make no mistake about that,” Thornhill said in an encouraging tone.
“I’m quite sure we will survive it,” Royce said forcefully.
Royce was definitely beginning to bother Thornhill. He was showing
backbone in a way that had to be quickly quashed. But for now
Thornhill decided to ignore him. “The damn FBI,” complained Thornhill.
“Bugging my house. Is the Constitution not applicable to them?”
“Thank God you didn’t mention my name during the phone call that
night,” Winslow said.
Thornhill looked at him again, struck by the curious tone in his