The Sixth Man (32 page)

T
HE PLACE
M
URDOCK WANTED
to meet at turned out to be a post office building set two miles off the main cut-through between Eastport and Machias. It was one-story, all brick and glass with an asphalt parking lot. In front of the building an American flag flapped in the breeze atop a thirty-foot stainless steel pole.

There was one car in the parking lot, next to the mailbox drop-off.

Even from a distance Michelle could see the man in the driver’s seat. As her headlights hit the car, she saw the government plates. And she saw the man stir in the front seat. She pulled up beside the car, killed her engine and lights, and got out.

She looked around, studying the topography. The building was on one acre of cleared land with some grass, poured concrete sidewalks and curbs, and good old American-made asphalt to park your wheels on. Besides that there was nothing but wilderness.

She wondered what position Dobkin had taken up. He had several to choose from. She would have posted to the left of the building right near the tree line. That provided for decent cover and optimal sight lines.

“Thanks for coming,” Murdock said, as he got out of his ride and joined her.

“You made it sound important.”

“It is.”

She leaned against her truck and folded her arms. “One preliminary question.”

Murdock frowned. “What?”

“Sean and I have pretty much been on your shit list from the moment you met us. Now, you want to work together?”

Murdock drew out a stick of gum and popped it in his mouth. “I flew off the handle. I tend to do that more than I probably should.”

“We’ve all been there.”

“This case is giving me ulcers.”

“You’re not alone on that.”

“Every time I think I’m close something else happens.”

“And something tells me none of us have really been close to solving this.”

“You’re probably right,” admitted Murdock.

“So your change in tactics? You said you couldn’t trust your own side?”

“Let’s just say I’m getting paranoid from the chatter on my own end. And you can also put it down to wanting to get results. I’ve got my boss screaming at me every five minutes. If I waste any more time fighting with you and King and don’t solve this thing, it won’t matter. I’ll be cradled around a cubicle buried in some Bureau outpost and wondering where the hell my career went.”

“Sean was right about you and national security, wasn’t he?”

“Not that I like to broadcast that, but yeah, I am. Counterterrorism unit.”

“So national security and Edgar Roy. The connection?”

“All I can tell you is that when he was arrested and got sent up here the FBI received an order from very high up to put a tag on him. He was a special person of interest and we were to keep a close eye on him. There, I said it. Now what can you tell me?”

“We have some things in play, but nothing definitive.”

“Care to share?”

“No. You called me. You said you had some things to tell me. I’m listening. If you wanted this to be a two-way I wouldn’t be here.”

“Okay, okay, fair enough.” He spit out the gum. “I went to see Edgar Roy today.”

“Why’s that?”

“Just to talk to him.”

“And did he talk back?”

“Not so much, no.”

“Not so much?”

“Okay, nothing, nada. Guy never made a sound.”

“So?”

“So I never expected him to. He’s a genius. So smart, in fact, that he’s a very valuable asset of the federal government.”

“Is that right?”

He cocked his head. “Why do I think I’m preaching to the choir?”

“On the contrary. This is fascinating stuff.”

He stepped closer. “Okay, let’s cut to the chase. I did some hard digging. Called in a few favors and finally hit the mother lode. I know what Roy was doing for Uncle Sam. And I also found out that there are persons in D.C. who might have reason to wish Mr. Roy harm.”

“Who?”

Murdock drew closer. Only a few inches separated the two. “You ever heard of the E-Pro—”

Michelle felt like she’d been slapped. She tasted the liquid that had appeared on her face and then spit it out. The pain in her arm was mildly annoying. When Murdock fell into her two seconds later, she realized what was happening. She gripped him by the shoulders and jerked both of them behind her truck. The next shot hit twenty feet behind where she had been standing. It cracked the asphalt, sending pieces spiraling off into the grass. One shard hit the mailbox and left a deep gouge in the blue-painted metal. If she hadn’t moved, Michelle’s brain matter would have collided with the mailbox instead of the asphalt.

More gunfire opened up, different from the two rifle shots.

Dobkin.

Murdock was lying on top of Michelle.

“Murdock? Agent Murdock!”

She rolled him off her, checked his pulse. There was none. She looked at his face. Glassy eyes. Mouth slightly parted, blood trickling out. He looked surprised. She saw the hole in his shirt, stained red. She turned him over. Entrance wound midspine. Kill shot. She looked down at herself. Blood on her face. His blood.

She looked further down at her arm.

My blood.

The round had exited his chest and found her arm. She slipped
off her jacket, rolled up her sleeve. It was only a nick. Something scrunched underfoot. She picked it up. It was the misshapen rifle round. She placed it in her jacket pocket.

She pulled out her gun and her phone. She hit 911, relayed what had happened.

Someone was still firing out there. Pistol. She was pretty sure it was the reports of Eric Dobkin’s H&K .45. Then the shots stopped.

She phoned his cell. Four rings and she was thinking maybe something was wrong, or he was dead too, when he picked up.

“You okay?” Dobkin said immediately.

“I am. Murdock’s dead.”

“Thought so when I saw the round hit.”

“Did you see the shooter?”

“No, but I worked back the trajectory and fired that way. Eight shots and then I moved in. I called in backup.”

“So did I.”

“There’s no one around that I can see.”

“Escaped through the woods again. Enough with the damned trees already.”

“Is Murdock really dead? You’re sure?”

She looked down at the still body. “Yeah, he really is. No chance. Shooter knew what he was doing.”

“And you’re sure you’re okay?”

“Nothing that a Band-Aid won’t fix. If I were you I’d watch myself out there until help arrives. I know we were pretty exposed here, but it was still a fair shot. He could be far away and still nail you. Keep your head down.”

“Okay. Did he tell you anything?”

“Unfortunately nothing I didn’t already know. But he couldn’t have known that.” She hesitated, the words not forming the way she wanted. “He was trying to do the right thing.”

She clicked off and slumped next to the dead man. Counterintuitively, with a long-range rifle round the farther the bullet traveled the more damage it could actually do to the target when it hit. She took the fired round out of her pocket and studied it. Then she gauged the size of the hole in Murdock’s back. From that she reverse-engineered the flight length of the bullet.

The shot had come from over five hundred yards.

She hadn’t cared very much for Murdock, but he was a Fed. She had been a Fed. There was an unspoken bond there. When you killed a Fed you took a little bit of the soul from all other Feds. It could not be tolerated. It could not be left to pass without consequences, severe consequences.

She ripped off part of her shirtsleeve and wound it around her wound, neatly stopping the minimal blood flow. Her injury seemed grossly lame in the face of the mortal wound suffered by Murdock.

She opened her car door, snagged a bottle of water, and used it to wipe the blood off her face.

His blood.

She gargled, spit out more of it from her mouth, tried not to think how much of it she had inadvertently swallowed, how salty it tasted.

Finished, she looked down at Murdock again. She knew she shouldn’t do it, screwing with a crime scene, but she reached over and lifted out his wallet. Flipped it open.

Three kids. Three little tow-headed boys and a woman who looked like any mother with an overworked and always gone FBI agent husband and three little balls of energy: tired.

Michelle put the wallet back, leaned against the running board. She tried not to, but she just couldn’t help it.

She covered her eyes but the tears still trickled out.

“W
HAT ELSE CAN WE DO HERE?”
asked Sean, as they sat in the small apartment.

“Not clear,” said Paul.

“Bunting had no incentive to frame your brother.”

“No. But that’s not the same for Bergin or Dukes,” she replied. “Bergin’s death delays the trial. Dukes might’ve screwed up somehow and made the wrong people nervous.”

“Granted, those are motives to kill. Although with your brother unfit to stand trial, killing his defense lawyer probably wasn’t absolutely necessary.”

“If it was even fifty percent necessary they would do it. And they might have been afraid Bergin would find something out.”

“Bergin was my friend,” said Sean.

“He was my friend, too. I’m sorry I ever got him involved in this.”

Sean’s phone rang. He answered. “Michelle. What? What’s wrong? Slow down. Okay, okay. Murdock?” He listened in silence for about sixty seconds. “I’m on my way. Be there as soon as I can.”

He clicked off and looked at Paul.

She said, “Murdock’s dead, isn’t he?”

“How did you know?”

“I wondered who Bunting was talking to so animatedly back there.”

“You think he ordered the hit on Murdock while we were watching him? While he was out walking with his wife and kids?”

“I didn’t say that. But Bunting is never off the clock, Sean. So you’re going back to Maine?”

“I have to. And Michelle told me something else.”

“What?”

“She went to do a recon on Cutter’s.”

“And?”

“And she swears someone else was watching the place too, just like she was.”

Paul’s nostrils flared. She seemed to be searching the air for a scent to go after. “I think I’ll join you up in Maine. Just give me a few minutes to pack.”

Five minutes later she was ready to go.

They cabbed to a car-rental place, got a four-door Chevy, and headed north out of Manhattan. At this time of night the traffic was fairly light, even for the city that never sleeps. They reached Boston in the wee hours and checked into a motel on the outskirts of the city because neither one of them could keep their eyes open. They got up at eight the next morning after four hours of sleep. That afternoon, several cups of coffee and two fast-food meals later, they pulled into Machias.

They had phoned when they got close and Michelle met them outside of the inn.

When Sean saw the bandage around her arm he gaped. “Did you get shot too?”

“Not really.”

“How could you not really be shot?”

“It was the slug that killed Murdock. It’s a scratch.”

Sean hugged her and Michelle felt his arms trembling.

She said softly, “I’m okay, Sean, really.” But she squeezed him tightly back.

“We’re not splitting up again. Every time we do something bad happens.”

Michelle looked up at Kelly Paul. “I didn’t expect to see you.”

“I didn’t expect to be here.”

They went inside where Mrs. Burke had clearly been fussing over Michelle. She checked her bandage and brought her another cup of coffee before leaving them alone. Megan was sitting in the front parlor, a cup of tea cradled in her lap.

“People keep dying,” Megan said in a faraway voice.

They all looked at her but said nothing.

Megan turned to Paul. “You’re not going to pull a knife on me again, are you?”

“Not unless you give me reason to, no.”

Megan shuddered and fell silent.

“Tell us everything you remember about last night, Michelle,” said Sean.

She did, interrupted only by questions posed by Sean or Paul.

“So Murdock knew or had discovered the existence of the E-Program?” said Sean.

“Well, he got cut off by the shot, but I think so. And he talked about certain people in D.C. who might have a reason to want to harm Edgar Roy.”

“By framing him?” asked Sean.

“Well, considering he could get the death penalty if convicted, yeah.”

Sean looked at Megan. “What’s the status on the case?”

“I’ve been drafting motions but I need you to look them over.”

“Okay. Have you heard anything from the prosecutor on the case? Any notice from the court?”

Megan shook her head. “There’s no one left at Mr. Bergin’s office. But I’ve been checking e-mail and voice messages. The case is technically in legal limbo because of Roy’s mental condition. But the court ordered periodic evaluations done on him to see if he’s mentally competent to stand trial. One of those is coming up soon.”

Sean glanced at Paul. “How would you like to see your brother?”

She turned to him. “When?” she said slowly.