CHAPTER 74
QUARRY CHECKED the machinery and oxygen levels that were keeping Tippi alive. It was all working fine off the fully charged generator. It was still dark outside; the sun would not be up for hours yet.
As he touched his daughter's face, he thought about his phone call with Jane Cox. He had never talked to a First Lady before; folks like him never had that opportunity. He had read about her for years, of course, followed her husband's career. He had expected more from her on the phone, educated, refined, but battle-tested person that she was. But she had disappointed him. She'd sounded human on the phone. Meaning scared. So safe in her high tower all this time; never saw the shit going on down below. Well, she had seen it now. And she would see it even closer soon enough.
He took a long breath. This was really it. At any point up to this Quarry could have called it off. And he almost had until the walls in the basement had brought him back. He pulled Pride and Prejudice from his pocket. By the light of his daddy's old flashlight he read the last chapter of the novel. And this really would be the last chapter he would ever read to her.
He closed the book and laid it gently on her chest. Quarry took one of her hands and squeezed. He had done this for years, always hoping that she would squeeze back, but she never had. He had long since given up the thought that he ever would feel Tippi's fingers curl around his own; they didn't this time either. He put her hand back down, slid it under the covers.
He slipped the small tape recorder out of his pocket, set it on the bed and turned it on. For the next several minutes he and his daughter listened to Cameron Quarry saying her last words on earth. As always, Quarry spoke the last line along with his dead wife.
"I love you, Tippi, darling. Momma loves you with all my heart. I can't wait to hold you again, baby girl. When we're both healthy and fine in the arms of Jesus."
He switched the recorder off and pocketed it.
The memories washed over him, coming in long, undulating waves. It could've turned out so differently. It should've turned out so differently.
"Your momma will be real happy to see you, Tippi. I wish I could be there too."
He leaned down and kissed his daughter for the final time.
He left the door open, and then turned and looked back in the room. Even in the dark he could make out Tippi's form under the illumination of the machines that had been the only thing keeping her from the grave all these years.
They had tried to get the Quarrys to pull the plug many times.
Persistent vegetative state. No brain activity. Brain dead in fact, they had told the couple, throwing in big medical jargon that Quarry felt certain was meant to both intimidate and confuse. After listening to them wax eloquent over the ultimate fate of his daughter, Quarry had asked each of them one simple question. "If she was your child would you let her die?"
The blank faces and still tongues he had gotten were all the answer he needed.
A part of him was unwilling to leave his child now, but he really had no choice. He stepped off the porch and looked toward the treeline. In the little bunker that Quarry had dug out and reinforced with wood sat Carlos, remote in hand, with one cable line hooked into a port on the device, and the other end embedded in the wall of the little house. The bunker was covered with dirt and grass, and underneath all that was lead sheathing that would block X-rays and other electronic imaging. Knowing that the Feds would be bringing specialized equipment, Quarry had fashioned the lead covering from old X-ray blankets he'd gotten from a dentist's office.
No one looking at it from even a few feet away would be able to determine that a man was in there watching, and the lead covers would block most anything the Feds would have with them. The other cable line Quarry had run down the tree and then underground and into the bunker where it was hooked into the small TV monitor that Carlos was now no doubt staring at right now. It gave him the live feed from the camera in the tree. Carlos was supposed to stay in the bunker for as long as he needed for things to clear out. The bunker was ventilated and he had plenty of food and water. The plan was for him to escape to Mexico and from there to keep heading south. Quarry hoped he made it.
Quarry stood in a spot where he knew Carlos could see him on the TV. He gave a thumbs-up and then a salute. And then he left and drove home.
Quarry had written a letter that he left in the room in the basement. It wasn't addressed to Ruth Ann or Gabriel, but it was about them. He wanted the people who would be coming to know the truth. This was his doing and nobody else's. He also left his will.
He crept upstairs and looked in on Ruth Ann, who was sleeping soundly. He next went to Gabriel's room and watched the little boy sleeping peacefully. Then he pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and placed it on the table next to the bed.
Under his breath he said, "You go to college, Gabriel. You get on with your life and you forget you ever knew me. But if you do think of me from time to time, I hope you'll remember I wasn't all bad. Just dealt a hand in life I didn't know what to do with. But did the best I could."
He walked through the house to his library. The fire was out now, doused with a bucket of water. He flexed his arm where the burns were, where the completed mark was. He clicked the light on, stared at the walls of books for a bit, and then turned off the light and closed the door for the final time.
A half hour later he parked his truck next to his Cessna. Twenty minutes later he was lifting off from the ground. As he soared over the land he looked down to where the little house was. He didn't wave, didn't nod, didn't indicate he knew it was there at all. Now he had to be focused. What was past was past. He had only to look ahead now.
Daryl had illuminated the runway for him using lit torches spread ten feet apart. He landed with a hard jolt because of the winds, taxied down, turned around, got out, and chocked the wheels.
If things went according to plan he and Daryl would fly out of here and land in Texas. It all shouldn't take more than a few hours. From there they had set up a way to sneak across the border into Mexico. It was easier to go south across the border than it was to go north over it. Once there Quarry would use a stolen cell phone to call the FBI and give them the exact location of the mine so that Willa and Wohl could be rescued. They would be perfectly fine there until then, with plenty of food and water.
It was a good plan, but only if it worked.
He grabbed his knapsack and trudged toward the mine entrance.
Well, he would have his answer in a very few hours.
CHAPTER 75
WHEN SEAN AND MICHELLE pulled into the packed dirt road leading to Atlee the sun was very near to starting its ascent up the eastern seaboard.
"Creepy," said Michelle as they drove down the lonely, winding road. "You left a message for Waters?"
"Yeah, but no telling when he might get back to us. And this might be a wild-goose chase anyway."
"My gut's telling me otherwise."
"Mine too," he admitted.
"How do you want to play this out?"
"Get the lay of the land. See what we can accomplish. Pray for a miracle, find Willa."
Michelle pointed up ahead. "That looks like it might be Atlee." The place had appeared as they rounded a curve. Big southern long-leaf pines lined both sides of the drive heading to the old antebellum mansion. It made the darkness even more opaque.
"I don't see any cars out front," said Michelle, as she slipped her pistol out.
"Lots of places around here to park I would imagine."
The ringing phone startled them both.
It was Aaron Betack. Sean listened for a couple of minutes and then clicked off and looked at his partner.
"The shit has hit the fan at the White House. Apparently Jane Cox came back from dinner and stormed into the Oval Office. She and the president went up to their private quarters, had a discussion, and the next thing you know the First Couple are taking a flight, in an unmarked jet, to an undisclosed location."
"What the hell is g
oing on?"
"Someone made contact with her while she was out at dinner, obviously."
"But why an unmarked jet?"
"They apparently don't want anyone to know about this. Certainly not the public."
"The Service must be freaking out because they've had no chance to advance-team this."
"Exactly. They're cobbling stuff together as best they can, but when you don't know where you're going?"
"You didn't tell him what we found out."
"He has his hands full, and this may pan out to be nothing. But if we find anything that connects to the president, we'll let him know ASAP."
"Cut the lights and the engine!" Michelle hissed.
The SUV went dark and quiet. "What's up?"
"Someone just came out of the house." She pointed up ahead. "Let's do the rest on foot."
They slipped out of the truck and crept toward the dark house.
Michelle held up a hand. She'd obviously seen something that he hadn't. Her night vision was beyond human, he'd found.
"Where?" Sean whispered in Michelle's ear.
"There, on the front porch."
He stared in that direction and saw some small shape apparently sitting on the steps. Michelle hissed in his ear. "I think that might be Gabriel, the little boy the MPs interviewed. He was nearly nine then, the report said. That would put him at ten or eleven now."
As they waited to see if anyone else joined Gabriel, the darkness around them started to lift with increased speed. From somewhere a rooster crowed.
"Haven't heard that in a while," confessed Sean.
"We need to do something," she said. "We're losing our cover and he might spot the SUV."
"You, left, I'll go right."
They split up. A minute later their creep up to the house ended with them on either side of the shape that the coming light indeed showed to be a little boy.
A little boy who was crying. He was crying so hard, in fact, that he never even noticed Michelle step up beside him. When she touched his shoulder, though, he nearly jumped off the porch. Sean was on the other side of him, and managed to snag his arm before he had a chance to run for it.
"Who are you?" sputtered Gabriel, looking at them both with wild, tearstained eyes.
"Are you Gabriel?" asked Michelle, putting a hand on the boy's other arm.
"How do you know my name?" he said fearfully.
"We're not going to hurt you," Sean said. "We're just here looking for someone. A little girl named Willa?"
"Are you the police?"
"Why would you think we're the police?" asked Michelle, her grip tightening slightly on Gabriel's thin arm.
Gabriel snuffled and then hunched over, studying his bare feet. "I don't know."
"Do you know where Willa is?"
"I don't know anybody named Willa."
"That wasn't what we asked you," said Sean. "We asked you if you knew where she was."
"No, I don't, okay? I don't."
"But you know about her?" said Michelle.
Gabriel looked up at her, his lids droopy, his features miserable. "I didn't do anything wrong. Neither did my ma."
"No one said you did. Where is your mother?" asked Michelle.
"Sleeping."
"Anybody else in the house?"
"I think Mr. Sam's gone."
"Sam Quarry?" said Sean.
"You know him?"
"I've heard about him. Why do you think he's gone?"
"Truck's not here," the boy answered simply.
"Why were you crying when we came up?"
"Just… just because, that's all."
"There must be a reason," Michelle said gently.
"You always have a reason why you cry?" Gabriel said defiantly.
"Yes."
"Well, I don't. Just cry sometimes."
"So Sam's gone, your mother's sleeping. Anybody else inside?"
Gabriel started to say something but then stopped.
Sean said, "It's really important that we know who's here."
"So are you the police or what?"
Michelle snaked out her PI creds and showed them to him. "We're working with the FBI and the Secret Service on Willa Dutton's kidnapping. You got a Koasati Indian around here who goes by the name Eugene?"
"No, but there is one. His name's Fred."
"Is he in the house?"
"No, he lives in an old trailer on the property, just over that way," he said, pointing to the west.
"So who else is inside?"
"Tippi was, but she's not there now."
"Who's Tippi?"
"Mr. Sam's daughter. He brought her home from the nursing home not too long ago."
"What's wrong with her?"
"She got sick a long time ago. Hooked her up to machines to breathe and all. Was in the nursing home for years. Mr. Sam and me would go and read to her. Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice. You read it?"
Michelle said, "Why'd he bring her home?"
"Don't know. He just did."
"But now she's not here?"
"She's not in her bedroom. I checked."
"Was that why you were crying? Because you thought something had happened to her?"
Gabriel looked up at Michelle. "Ma'am, Mr. Sam is a good man. He took me and my ma in when we didn't have nowhere else to go. He helps people, lots of people. He wouldn't do nothing to Miss Tippi. He's done everything for her."
"But you were still crying. There must be a reason why."
"Why should I tell you?"
"Because we want to help," she said.
"That's what you say, but I don't know if that's what you really mean."
"You're a smart young man," said Sean.
"Mr. Sam said don't trust nobody till they give you a good reason why you should."
"What you doing here?" snapped a voice.
They turned to see Ruth Ann standing there in her old bathrobe. They didn't focus on the robe, though. Their attention was occupied by the single-barrel shotgun she was pointing at them.
CHAPTER 76
THEY HAD SETTLED on a Boeing 757 that the secretary of state used to fly before she'd been upgraded to a wide-body 767-300. The plane had been kept at Andrews Air Force Base along with the rest of the presidential fleet. All government markings had been previously removed and it was now primarily used to shuttle agents, aides, and the press, as well as necessary equipment.
The secretary of state had a private office and bedroom on the plane and that configuration had not changed. It was in the office where the president and Mrs. Cox were sitting when they went wheels up from Andrews a few hours after Jane Cox had burst into the Oval Office and planted a golf ball in Thomas Jefferson's left eye socket. The rest of the plane housed a hastily assembled skeleton crew of Secret Service agents who were more bewildered than anything else by what was happening.
The president sat looking at his wife, who was hunched in her seat staring at the floor. When they reached their cruising altitude, the president undid his seat belt and looked around the quarters.
"Nice office. Not as big as mine on AF-One, but nice."
"I'm sorry, Dan. I'm sorry you didn't get to ride in your usual big toy." Her arms were folded across her chest and she was looking at him with alternating expressions of fear and hopelessness.
"It that what you think all this is? Toys?"
"I actually don't know what I think right now. No, actually I do. I think we've finally reached rock bottom."
He took off his shoes, rubbed his feet, and paced around the cabin.
"I don't even really remember it."
"I'm sure you don't. But I do."
"I've changed."
"Okay."
"I have, Jane. And you damn well know it."
"Okay, you've changed. That does not help the present situation."
He sighed and sat down next to her, massaging her shoulders. "I know it doesn't. I know this has been hell for you."
She slowly looked at him. "He took Wi
lla because of this."
"So you told me. No, so you screamed at me."
"You said you couldn't compromise the office of the president in order to get her back."
"That's right, Jane. I can't. Even if this mess weren't my responsibility I couldn't."
"Our responsibility."
"Jane-"
She took his hand in hers. "Ours, she said softly."
"I don't know why you ever stayed with me, really."
"I love you. Sometimes I don't know why, but I do. I attached my star to yours, Dan. We shot to the sky together."
"And we may fall back to earth just as fast."
"We may."
"This election is mine to lose. Haven't had one of those in this country in a while." She said nothing. He glanced at her. "Do you think he'll keep his word? If we do what he asked?"
"I don't know. I don't know the man. All I know is that he sounded like someone who had it all figured out. Not just us, but what he wants."
"The Secret Service is very upset at all this."
Jane looked like she wanted to laugh. "I'm very upset too. And regardless of how this turns out, they'll still have a job. I can't say the same about you."
"About us," he reminded her.
"You know, a little self-control, that's all it would've taken."
"It was like a disease. You know it was. In all honesty I have to say I'm stunned actually that nothing has ever come up before now."
"Stunned? Really? When I was behind you all the time picking up the pieces? And you're stunned?"
"I didn't mean it that way."
"What other way could you possibly have meant it?"
"Now is not the time to be divided, Jane. We have to stand together on this. If we're going to survive."
"I guess we'll have all of our golden years in which to fight."
"If that's what you want," he said coldly.
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