Then a converse thought muddied his reasoning.
Just like bank accounts with Anne’s name. Those exist, but they don’t.
Reality didn’t matter, apparently, Art was beginning to believe. At least the kind he knew and understood didn’t.
At the door he almost knocked, then remembered that Pooks was gone. Would not be back. Not after doing what Art wished he could be doing himself. Eyes might be on him now. Eyes that might follow.
Art opened the three locks with the keys Pooks had left him, and, following Pooks’ habit and his own skittishness, reset them as soon as they were in.
He only got to number two before Simon said, “There’s a stranger.”
Art looked over his shoulder and saw a man through the open door to the bedroom, sitting on the bed, eyes cast upon Simon’s creation on the dresser.
“Shit,” Art said as he drew his weapon and pushed Simon to the couch, bringing the Smith to bear at the stranger, advancing in cautious sliding steps toward the bedroom. “Who are you?”
“My name is Mr. Pritchard.” An awesome creation, Pritchard thought as he looked upon the replica of the tower, comparing it with the coal black rectangle reaching for the clouds to the north.
“What do you want?” Art demanded. He was in the bedroom now, and eased around the bed, checking the bathroom and the closet, both of which were clear. Behind Pritchard now, he said again, “I asked you a question: what do you want?”
Tearing his eyes from the sculpture of dominoes, Pritchard stood and faced Art. “You can put that away. You’ll no more shoot me than you would have shot Agent Van Horn Saturday evening.”
The pistol came down a degree, Art’s head cocking curiously to one side.
“That wasn’t the smartest thing to do,” Pritchard said. He came around the foot of the bed and looked into the front room, smiling briefly at the back of Simon’s head, then continued, “You were doing things right until then. And sending Mr. Underhill—”
“Just who the hell are you?” Art asked again, wanting more than a name now.
Pritchard look at the gun. “Do you think I would be sitting in here alone if I were here to arrest you?”
“I’m not worried only about the people who want to lock me up.”
Pritchard smiled. “If I were here to take him, would you have made it more than a step inside the front door?”
The stranger was not a good guy, and he was not a bad guy. That lack of definition did not soothe Art’s concern, but he could not deny the truth of Pritchard’s analysis. He lowered his weapon but kept it in hand at his side.
“I don’t have a weapon,” Pritchard said.
“I feel better that I do,” Art replied.
“Very well.” Again Pritchard glanced toward Simon. “How is he?”
“He’s fine,” Art answered suspiciously. “And why do you care?”
“My entire reason for being here now is that I care. As do a number of other people.”
“Other people.”
Pritchard nodded. “You seem surprised.”
“Pardon me for doubting any implied benevolence, but my life is not exactly on track at the moment, and his is worse.”
“People care,” Pritchard said.
“Right.”
Another tack was needed, Pritchard saw. “Tell me, Agent Jefferson, who do you believe is doing this to you?”
Art stared warily at Pritchard.
“The bank accounts, et cetera, et cetera. We know about it all. Who do you believe is doing this to you?”
Art sighed, not sure what to make of this Pritchard fellow, but feeling less than threatened by him. “Someone in the National Security Agency.”
“I see. Your government is doing this to you?”
“No, I said someone,” Art corrected. “Or ones. I don’t know.”
“Someone with considerable resources?”
“I’d say so,” Art agreed.
Pritchard brought a finger to his lips. “So let me get this straight. A person or persons of some authority inside a massive government agency are conspiring to destroy you to get at him. At Simon. Is that it?”
“Pretty close.”
“Hmm.” Pritchard folded his arms, the pose of the guilty or the confident. “You believe that?”
“Yes.”
“Then is it not possible that the exact opposite might be true?” Pritchard offered.
“What do you mean?”
“Could not some people in positions of power conspire for the greater good?”
Art considered Pritchard with a doubtful, sideways gaze.
“You believe the converse,” Pritchard reminded him. “Are you so cynical that what I suggest is only fantasy?”
“The government itself is supposed to function for the greater good,” Art said.
Pritchard chuckled. “Oh come on. You’re a cynic and not a realist? Please…” He narrowed the distance to Art. “Have you ever seen a guilty person go free?”
“Plenty.”
“Or an innocent person go to jail?”
His position worked against Art admitting that, but, especially now, he could relate to that point. “Of course.”
“Fraud, waste, corruption,” Pritchard said. “All parts of this government that works for the greater good. Agent Jefferson, the government, despite the founders’ greatest hopes, is a machine that hums along regardless of good or evil. It doesn’t care. It can’t. The government has no feelings. That is what the masses who complain about the ills of government, and those who tout what good it can achieve, that is what none of them understand. The government is nothing more than a concept drawn from the thoughts of men who died a long time ago.
“And,” Pritchard continued, “it is populated by people who do things for their own reasons. Some good, some bad, some indifferent. There is no Department of Evil Doings, no Agency for Righteous Undertakings. People, Agent Jefferson. People function in those roles.”
“All right,” Art said. “On whose authority do you operate?”
Again Pritchard chuckled, softly this time, dipping his head until it subsided. “We have no charter, Agent Jefferson. We operate when the need arises.”
Art holstered his weapon finally, and walked past Pritchard. He stood in the doorway where he could see Simon. “And what is the need?”
“You won’t be surprised when I say it is the young man in there.”
Now Art’s arms folded over his chest. “Why? What makes him so important to you? The same thing that this so-called evil side wants him for?”
“If we wanted him for that reason, remember…” Pritchard made a gun out of his hand, pointed it at his temple, and said, “Boom. Boom. When you walked in that door.”
“Then why?”
“To save him.”
“That’s what I am trying to do,” Art said insistently.
“You’ll fail,” Pritchard said sullenly, with surety.
Art shook his head. “Once this is all cleared up—”
“He will be even more vulnerable,” Pritchard interjected. “Where will he be? With you and your wife? In a foster home? A care facility? All places where he will likely receive wonderful, loving care. And places he can be found.”
Art looked into the front room. Simon had gotten up from the couch and was standing in the empty corner of the room near the door, in his fretting stance Art could see. Was he wondering where the red rocker was? Would he always?
Worry over the chair in which his father sat in to sing to him, and the secrets to breaking the unbreakable code, all in that mind. The mind so disabled? The mind of a genius?
Gray matter worth more than its weight in gold.
“This doesn’t end if and when your life is back in order,” Pritchard said. “The people I represent do not choose to intervene in every case where an innocent is involved. Only those where our efforts can bring a resolution to a threat.”