“For now, I guess. I assume she doesn’t stay in one place for long periods of time?”
“No, she doesn’t.”
“But you two have obviously stayed close. She’s risked a lot to help.”
“She’s always protected me.”
Sean came onto the front porch and overheard this. “Have you needed protection a lot?”
“Yes, I guess I have.”
“Let’s get inside,” said Michelle, looking around. “I’m not too keen about the surroundings. Sniper heaven.”
Inside, they found a pantry full of food, wood for the fireplaces, warm coats and boots, flannel shirts, pajamas, and clean sheets on the beds.
Michelle lifted up one of the coats. “I think I’ll put this on right now. It’s freezing outside and it’s not much better in here.”
“I’ll get a fire started,” said Sean.
“I can cook if you want,” said Roy.
Michelle shot him a glance. “You can cook?”
“Yes, but if you’d rather do it, that’s fine.”
“She’d rather not,” said Sean quickly, ignoring a dirty look from Michelle.
After a meal of pork chops, vegetables, biscuits, and a slice each of a store bought apple pie that Roy had found in the freezer, they settled in front of a blazing fire.
“Any word from Kelly or Bunting?” asked Michelle.
Sean said, “Just got a text. They each made contact with their respective targets. And each was apparently very successful.”
Roy nodded, his eyes on the fire. “They’re playing Quantrell and Foster against each other.”
Sean said, “Did your sister tell you that was the plan?”
“No, it’s just the most obvious one. I met Foster twice. She’s clearly a megalomaniac. Mason Quantrell is just greedy and jealous. A lethal combination.”
Sean put another log on the fire and drew closer to the flames. “Tell me about the bodies in the barn.”
Roy turned to him. “Why?”
“We’re investigators. Ted Bergin hired us to help you. That’s what we’re trying to do. In order to do that we need information. And this is the first real chance we’ve had with you.”
Roy took a moment to rub his glasses lenses clean on his shirt. He settled them back on and said, “I was taking a walk before dinner. I usually did that. I hadn’t been in the barn in a long time. It was just a whim I decided to go in. Everything looked the same until I spotted the disturbed dirt on one side. I grabbed a shovel and started digging, to see what was there. That’s when I saw the face. I was about to call the police when I heard the sirens. They arrested me. I can’t blame them, really. I had the shovel in my hand and the bodies were there. It must’ve looked like I was just burying them instead of trying to dig them up.”
“And that’s when you went into…?”
Roy looked embarrassed. “That’s when I retreated into my head, yes.”
“But you remember everything that went on?” asked Michelle.
“I never forget anything. I remember the first jail they put me in. Mr. Bergin coming to represent me. He tried very hard. There were times when I thought about talking to him, but I was just scared.” He paused. “I’m very sorry he’s dead. It was because of me, of course.”
“So Foster and Quantrell put the bodies there in order to frame you.”
Roy said, “I appreciate the presumption of innocence.”
“I never presume anything,” replied Sean. “But the timing of everything was too neat, too tidy. If I had to bet I’d say you were being watched, and as soon as you went in that barn, the cops got the call.”
Michelle added, “And what we know of you, you’re a little too smart to get caught red-handed by the local cops.”
Sean looked at Roy. “Okay, Quantrell and Foster framed you. They thought they were home free. Now they’ve been turned against each other. What will they do next?”
Roy didn’t hesitate. “Foster has no history of wrongdoing, while Quantrell’s reputation is far sketchier on that score. Other things being equal, Quantrell will react more calmly to the situation than Foster.”
“In other words, he’s used to stepping over the line,” said Michelle.
“Exactly. His innate reaction will be to survive this and perhaps even continue his business. Foster may very well lash out and let the chips fall. Or she might withdraw from the field and do nothing, hoping it goes away.”
“That option I doubt,” said Michelle. “You don’t get to be the head of DHS by being a wallflower, particularly a woman.”
“I agree with you,” said Roy. “Which means she will probably be very aggressive in trying to turn the situation around.”
“So she goes to her allies again, trying to shore up support,” said Sean. “And blacken the well against Quantrell?”
Roy nodded. “She has the advantage there. She can get a meeting with the president or the FBI director if she needs to. Quantrell can’t. He obviously knows this and will play to his strengths.”
“Which are?” asked Sean.
“Operations in the field. Foster never would have used DHS personnel for the murders or my extraction. But private mercenaries are far less picky. They pledge allegiance to whoever’s paying them.”
“So Quantrell will use his men to do what?” asked Michelle.
“Find me, kill Bunting and my sister. And if the need arises he may very well hit Foster.”
“Taking down the DHS head, pretty gutsy,” said Sean.
“When you have nothing to lose, it doesn’t take that much guts,” replied Roy. “And it doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out.”
CHAPTER
77
ELLEN FOSTER SAT at her chair in the bunker underneath DHS headquarters. Above her thousands of public servants went about their tasks of keeping the country safe from all attacks. Normally, Foster would be intimately involved in the strategy that went into this everyday battle. She lived and breathed it, thought of little else outside of it.
Right now she couldn’t have cared less about it.
James Harkes stood across from her at semi-attention.
She had confided in him what Kelly Paul had told her in that bathroom at Lincoln Center. He had asked a few relevant questions but remained mostly silent. She gazed up at him with the look of a person assessing her last, best hope.
“This changes everything. What can we do?” she asked.
“What do you want to achieve?”
“I want to survive, Harkes—isn’t that rather obvious?” she snapped.
“But there are many ways to survive, Madame Secretary. I just need to know which one you want to pursue.”
She blinked and saw what he meant. “I want to survive with my career intact, as though nothing had happened. That’s as plain as I can state it.”
He nodded slowly. “That will be very hard to do,” he said frankly.
Foster gave a little shiver and wrapped her arms around herself. “But not impossible?”
“No, not impossible.”
“Quantrell is trying to work a deal, rat me out, Kelly Paul said.”
“I wouldn’t doubt that, knowing what sort of person he is. But he has limited access to the people who matter. You don’t.”
“But the problem is I’ve already been to the president and built the case against Bunting. The president told
