“This seems familiar, too,” Tommy said. “It’s weird. You ever get the hairs on the back of your neck standing up?”
Ward had felt that same cold tingle of recognition before—when he’d first toured the facility when scouting locations for a research center. He’d known immediately that this was the place he wanted.
“It can happen,” Ward said. “You’ll see we’ve modernized, got you a flat screen TV with satellite feed. Climate control panel. At the end of the hall, you’ll find the common room and the bathrooms. You’ve got the place to yourself for now.”
Tommy sank slowly onto the bed, looking dazed.
“The scientists might come here to meet you,” Ward told him. “If not, you can go to the mess hall for dinner.” Ward gave him directions through the underground complex.
“Are you leaving?” Tommy asked.
“I’ll have to jump back to America to deal with a certain situation,” Ward said. “But I’ll be returning soon. Very soon, if things go well. Are you all right here?”
Tommy nodded, but made no move to unpack his duffel bag. The kid seemed out of it, but he had tonight to rest.
Ward left the dormitory hall, followed by Buchanan and Avery.
“You think he’ll work out?” Avery asked.
Ward ignored the question. “Buchanan, didn’t we see transactions between Barrett Capital and Hale Security Group?”
“A few, sir. It looked like standard private-sector work, risk assessment for investments in India and East Asia.”
“Of course, it looked like nothing interesting. Hale isn’t run by idiots. But didn’t those transactions begin around the time Seth Barrett disappeared?”
“I believe so, sir.”
“Tell me, Buchanan, if you were some rich guy, and you wanted to hide yourself...or hide your son...from the United States government, would Hale be a good company to hire?”
“Of course, sir,” Buchanan replied.
“Those rats!” Avery said.
Ward considered it. He’d automatically seen Hale as part of “his” team because he’d staffed up the research center with their security officers. He’d had Buchanan check into the payments from the Barretts, of course, but the story had sounded normal at the time. It hadn’t occurred to him that his own security people could be hiding the targets for whom he was searching.
Ward slowly smiled. Hale had a multimillion-dollar contract with his agency, ASTRIA. He had plenty of influence with them, and he could even threaten to have their security clearance revoked if they didn’t play ball. That would cost them most of their revenue, destroying the company. Their piddling payments from Barrett Capital were nothing compared to their government contracts.
Also, Ward felt like he had the current Hale CEO, Edward Cordell, in his pocket. He’d shaken hands with the man on many occasions, and so he knew all about Eddie’s twenty-two-year-old mistress and the Manhattan apartment he rented for her. He also knew that Eddie hid things from his wife by keeping the apartment on a Hale corporate account, lightly embezzling from the company to protect his secret. Ward would have almost no trouble getting him to cooperate and tell him where to find Seth Barrett and Jenny Morton.
There was only one remaining obstacle, and it was time to square that away.
* * *
Senator Junius Mayfield woke in his hospital bed on the fifth floor of a private hospital in Maryland to find a ghostly apparition staring in through his window. His heartbeat kicked up until he realized it was just a barn owl perched in the tree limb outside, its dark eyes and ghost-white face turned toward Junius, watching him. The owl’s stare was unsettling, and he would have liked to yell at it and chase it off, but he couldn’t even get out of bed.
“Go on, fly on, leave me be,” Junius said, but it sounded like “Ooh ah, faya, lemma buh.” His voice came out as a whisper, barely audible above the beeping of his heart monitor.
The owl, clearly not intimidated, stayed where it was, staring into his window.
The left half of Junius’ body was frozen solid, and the right half moved as slowly as a stiff old mule in the dead of winter. His staff had done their best to keep the full extent of the stroke damage from the news media and the public, but his prolonged absence from the Senate floor spoke volumes about his true condition. Already, his enemies back in Tennessee were pushing for a special election to replace him.
Junius thought about calling in the nurse and getting her to close the blinds so the owl couldn’t stare at him, but it seemed like a pathetic request. Instead, he clawed his right hand toward the side of the bed, thinking he would find the TV remote and discover what kind of programming the Golf Channel offered at three in the morning. Probably the women’s tour, he thought.