A Minute to Midnight

by David Baldacci

  She got there, breathless, and looked over the Porsche SUV.

  When the others reached her, she explained, “This is Jack Lineberry’s Porsche. I rode in it to lunch with him. Danvers was driving and Straub was in the passenger seat.”

  “So he is here,” said Wallis, trying the driver’s-side door. Only it was locked.

  Blum called out, “Look at this.”

  She was staring through the rear glass. They gathered there and she pointed out some flower petals that were on the interior carpet in the cargo area.

  “I recognize them. The Quarleses have those flowers in their backyard.”

  “They must have been stuck on Jenny’s shoes when Straub snatched her,” said Laredo.

  Pine broke up the grounds into three sections and assigned the two men one each. “Carol will go with me. See anything, call. Okay, let’s move out.”

  They all headed out in separate directions.

  As Pine and Blum headed into the grounds, Blum looked around. “Why would he bring her here, in broad daylight?”

  “I don’t know, Carol. But he is here. I’m sure of that. And from the petals you saw in the Porsche, so is Jenny.”

  The stockade replica was empty, as was the POW Museum. There was one employee on duty, but she had seen nothing and seemed put out that she was missing the reenactment.

  They left there and started hurrying along the rows of graves.

  “My God,” exclaimed Blum. “I have one son in the Army. And if we get into another war? I’m not sure I could bear the thought of losing him.” She looked around. “But every one of these young men had a mother who had to suffer that loss, that grief.”

  A change came over Pine at her friend’s words. Her gaze darted around. “Mother!”

  “What?”

  “Mother!” She started sprinting away.

  “Agent Pine,” Blum called after her. “Where are you going?”

  Pine didn’t answer. She ran as though a life depended on her. And it clearly did.

  * * *

  When Pine reached the statue erected by the state of Michigan in honor of its fallen soldiers and sailors, she stared up at the grieving woman the park ranger had told her was informally known as “mother.” She had feared she would see Jenny’s body in her doll costume lying across the marble at the woman’s feet, but there was nothing like that there.

  How would Straub get the body here without anyone seeing him? He couldn’t exactly carry the girl in his arms. Even as Pine looked around, she glimpsed a couple of park visitors well off in the distance.

  Placing a body in a public area in broad daylight was incredibly risky. She wondered how Straub was planning to manage it.

  What would I do?

  An answer struck her:

  You would blend into the background, but also make it seem that you belonged here. So that if anyone did see you, they wouldn’t think it unusual.

  She saw the building in the distance. The Park Service office building. She sprinted in that direction. As she ran, Pine pulled out her phone and called Laredo, telling him where she was going and why. He said he was on the way and would phone Wallis and tell him. Wallis was already in that section.

  As she drew closer to the building, she saw a man dressed in khakis and a light-colored shirt with a straw hat on come around the side of the building pushing a wheelbarrow. There was a blanket over whatever was in the wheelbarrow.

  The next moment, Max Wallis hustled around another corner of the building. This put him within a few feet of the man with the wheelbarrow. Wallis was breathing hard and looked like he might keel over.

  “Hey, you!” cried out Wallis to the man. “Stop right there.”

  Pine saw it before Wallis did.

  She aimed her pistol but the man in the hat had already fired at Wallis. The round thudded into the detective’s chest and he dropped where he stood.

  “Straub!” screamed Pine.

  Before she could fire, he stooped down behind the wheelbarrow, lifted the blanket, and pulled something out.

  The something was Jenny. She was limp.

  With his free hand, Straub held the gun that had just shot Wallis.

  “Straub, put her down and throw your gun away,” called out Pine.

  His answer was to fire at her.

  She ducked down but didn’t return fire because he was holding Jenny in front of him. Pine didn’t know if she was alive or dead, but she couldn’t take the chance.

  Straub ran to his left and disappeared around the corner of the outbuilding, with Jenny over his shoulder.

  Pine rushed forward and knelt down next to Wallis. She felt his neck for a pulse and found none. She rolled him over and saw the wound in the center of his chest. His eyes were open and fixed. Pine reached down and closed them. “Damn. I’m…sorry, Max.”

  “Pine!”

  She looked back to see Laredo running up to her. She got to her feet. “Wallis is dead. Straub shot him. He’s got Jenny. Come on!”

  They raced after Straub.

  Chapter 74

  DESPITE RUNNING THROUGH A CEMETERY with wide, open spaces, Straub had managed to completely disappear somehow.

  With Jenny.

  Pine and Laredo raced around the corner of the outbuilding and quickly scanned the surrounding area. They saw no one.

  “Do you think Jenny is still alive?”

  “Yes.”

  “How can you be sure?”

  “He took her with him. He wouldn’t do that if she was dead.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “You go right, I’ll go left,” barked Pine.

  Laredo nodded and sprinted off to the right.

  Pine raced ahead for about fifty yards and stopped. How could he have just vanished?

  Then the answer hit her. He had an escape plan in place. Just in case.

  But what plan would that be?

  She looked down at her feet, suddenly remembering something she had been told about this place.

  Escape tunnels dug by Union soldiers.

  She ran to the spot that the park ranger had shown her on her first visit here.

  The steel grate had been forced open. She looked around for Laredo but didn’t see him. She called him on her phone and told him what she was about to do. He was clear on the other side of the park. She would have to do this alone.

  Pine clipped a Maglite on the rail of her Glock and climbed down into the hole.

  She landed on her feet and stumbled a bit. The tunnel was a good six feet under the surface. It was about twenty degrees cooler down here. Righting herself she moved forward, her hearing acutely tuned to anything up ahead of her. She headed down the tunnel, slowly at first, but then picked up her pace when she heard the sounds of a girl cry out.

  Jenny. She had regained consciousness.

  Pine chugged along, her light making slashing moves in the darkness. She didn’t know if Straub would be waiting to ambush her. She eventually saw the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. Pine was cautiously approaching the exit when she heard a voice.

  “Let me go!”

  That was Jenny.

  She rushed forward and saw a rough set of bricks wedged into the dirt. Pine slipped up them and peered out, her gun making arcs in front of her. She took a moment to get her bearings.

  She was in a small clearing in the woods. Pine heard a sound to her left.

  She glimpsed a figure skirting through the trees, and she ran that way, reaching a path that wended through the woods.

  “Straub!”

  The figure stopped and turned.

  Straub put Jenny down on the ground and squatted down, using her as a shield. The girl was dressed in the mannequin’s outfit.

  “Let me go,” she cried out again.

  He put the gun against her head, and Jenny froze.

  Straub looked at Pine, who was aiming at him with her Glock.

  “Stand down, Agent Pine,” said Straub calmly. “I need to get away and you need the li
ttle girl. I think we can work something out. I assume you have experience in this sort of thing.”

  “Pretty recent, actually,” she replied grimly.

  “I’ve got another car nearby. You let me go and you have my word that I’ll leave the girl safe and sound somewhere and call you with directions to her.”

  “You want me to take the word of a man who’s killed five people?”

  “You’re wrong there. I didn’t do the boy, Britta did.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “That little lady has a dark side, Pine, that maybe you missed. I told her how to do it, though.” He tapped the back of his neck. “You hit the base of the spine here, it’s lights out.”

  “And where did you learn to do that?”

  “Spent some time in the Army. They teach you shit. I never used it against a kid, though.”

  Pine looked at Jenny. The girl was clearly scared, but she had shown her feistiness.

  “Why would Britta want to kill Frankie?”

  “She said it was her duty. And she seemed to think she was doing the kid a favor. But don’t expect me to explain the woman. So do we have a deal?”

  “Not a chance.”

  With more urgency, Straub said, “Well, that’s unfortunate. The way I see it, if you don’t let me go, she’s dead. If you do let me go, she has a chance. Sounds fair to me.”

  “You’re not leaving here with Jenny.”

  Straub’s features turned ugly.

  “Use your brain. I’ve got nothing to lose. Georgia has the death penalty. I think I already qualified for it.”

  “What were you going to get out of this?”

  “Ten-million-dollar insurance policy on Myron. Britta was going to take care of him.”

  “She did. But she’s also dead.”

  “Well, too bad, but I’ve got my own problems.”

  Sirens could be heard in the distance. “Cavalry’s on the way.”

  “Don’t really care,” said Straub. “Kill or be killed, it’s been sort of my whole life. So the ordinary scare tactics won’t cut it.”

  “You tried to frame Cy Tanner and then Jerry Danvers.”

  “Well, you didn’t arrest Tanner despite all the evidence we planted.”

  “It was too well planted. Including someone watching his house in the Pagani. I guess you were trying to implicate Myron, too.”

  “That was Britta’s idea. I thought it was too many cooks in the kitchen myself, but she was calling the shots.”

  “Speaking of, the night Jack Lineberry was shot: That was you, wasn’t it? But you were aiming at me. Only you weren’t counting on the fact that he had let me drive.”

  He glanced down at his arm. “Got a little scratch from your shooting. But, yeah, you were a problem. And when you didn’t take Tanner into custody, we moved on to Plan B.”

  “Jerry Danvers didn’t follow your instructions. And he didn’t get blown up, although I almost did. I suppose that was why you wanted me to go out there.”

  “Two birds with one stone if I was really lucky, and evidence left behind to show Jerry was the killer.”

  “And the household staff?”

  “Gave them the day off. Told them Lineberry had authorized it.”

  “But as soon as I realized Jerry had never left the hospital, your story fell apart.”

  “Yeah, well, I had a tight time line because Britta insisted that this little girl be the last victim.” Straub pressed the gun tighter against Jenny’s head. “And if you won’t let me go I guess I have no choice but—”

  The bullet hit him directly in the side of the leg, crushing bone and slashing blood vessels. He immediately cried out, dropped his gun, and clutched at his leg.

  Pine rushed forward, seized Jenny’s hand, and pulled her away after picking up Straub’s pistol.

  She looked up to see Laredo sprinting toward them carrying a rifle.

  Pine handed Jenny off to him and knelt down next to Straub.

  “Shit,” he screamed, his face contorted. “Help me, I’m bleeding out.”

  She slipped her belt off and used that as a tourniquet around his upper thigh. The blood flow slowed considerably. She phoned 911 and gave them her location.

  Pine put her phone away and looked down at Straub, whose features were still seized up in pain. “It didn’t hit your femoral artery.”

  “How do you know that?” he snarled.

  “Because you’d already be dead.”

  “Just…just shoot me. Do it. I’m a dead man anyway. Save everybody the trouble.”

  “As much as I’d love to, I can’t.”

  “Why the hell not?” he screamed.

  “It’s not how we do things at the FBI.”

  The ambulance arrived a few minutes later, and they loaded Straub in. A grim-faced police officer rode in the back with him.

  As the vehicle pulled away, Pine looked over at Laredo, who was holding Jenny’s hand. The rifle was slung over his shoulder.

  “Where’d you get that?”

  “Found a park ranger. They use it to scare off or kill dangerous critters. He let me borrow it because I asked nice and flashed my badge.”

  “That was a big risk taking that shot,” she said.

  “First in my class at Quantico for marksmanship. And you don’t know this, but I did a two-year stint as a sniper with Hostage Rescue. And you’re not the only risk taker in the Bureau,” he added.

  “How’d you get here so fast?”

  “Remember, track team in college?”

  Pine smiled. “Right. Well, thanks.” She squatted down in front of Jenny. “You okay?”

  Jenny nodded.

  “You’re safe now. You ready to go see your granddad? We better go and tell him you’re okay. Sound good?”

  Jenny nodded and sniffled.

  Pine started to pick her up, but Jenny clamped her hand tighter around Laredo’s and looked up at him with wide eyes.

  Pine rose and whispered to Laredo, “Maybe you’re better with kids than you think.”

  They slowly walked out of the cemetery and back to the living.

  Chapter 75

  THEY MET AT A TECH SHOW the Pringles were attending in Vegas,” said Pine to Laredo, Blum, and Graham.

  They were sitting in the parlor at the Cottage. Jenny had been reunited with her grandfather and the Quarleses. Pine had just returned from interviewing Straub in the hospital.

  “Straub and Britta had a fling out there,” continued Pine. “That makes sense because there was certainly no love between Britta and her husband. When a position opened up with Jack Lineberry, Britta gave him a heads-up and a recommendation. So he got the gig. Straub’s ex-military. Pulled a tour in Afghanistan, then got discharged for drug use. He rehabbed himself, got into private security, and moved up from there.”

  “You said he killed all those people for money?” said Blum disgustedly.

  “Ten million bucks. He had used chloroform on Jenny. He was going to leave her at the base of the statue. Luckily, because we delayed the plan, the chloroform wore off.”

  “Did he pick the places to leave the body or did Britta?”

  “He says he did except for the last one. That way he could plan his ingress and egress.”

  “How did he get inside the Drummer Boy museum?” asked Blum.

  “He had dated Lily,” replied Pine. “And surreptitiously got an impression of the museum key and the security code from her.”

  “And the bizarre clothes?” asked Graham.

  “He dressed them up like that to throw us off, make us think it was some serial killer with a Civil War fetish. And the veil and the tux alluded to a husband and wife, the family that Britta was symbolically killing. He told me he picked the grave site of one of the Raiders because he thought it would be funny for a black guy to be left there. I really didn’t get his sense of humor.”

  Pine added, “Britta knew the Quarleses and found out about Jenny from them. Straub said when Britta learned Jenny’s mother was a dr
ug user, she thought it was best that Jenny die. She said a bad mother like that didn’t deserve a child. That Jenny would be in a better place. Straub really had to hustle to snatch her, because they always intended to kill the last victim during one of the reenactments and leave the body in the cemetery.”

  Graham said, “How come Straub told you all this?”

  “He did a deal with the authorities. Talk and they won’t pursue the death penalty.”

  “Why would Britta do these terrible things?” asked Graham.

  “Straub said Britta wanted to avenge her kids. She blamed Gillespie for Mary’s acting in porn films and getting hooked on drugs. And she blamed Hanna Rebane for being Mary’s lover in a bunch of films.”

  “And Clemmons?” Blum asked. “Why did she have to die?”

  “Straub was the new ‘man’ in Hanna Rebane’s life that Clemmons alluded to. That’s how he got close to her and then killed her. He was careful never to let anyone, especially Clemmons, see them together. But he eventually got worried that Rebane might have described him to Clemmons or told her some information that could help us track him down. So when we started poking around he decided she had to die.” She glanced at Laredo. “And I’m not sure Britta crashing the Pagani was an accident. Straub told me that she had planned on committing suicide when this was all over.”

  “One seriously disturbed lady,” replied Laredo.

  “Your real shooting skills saved the day, Eddie. But for that, Jenny would be dead.”

  “Hey, that’s what partners are for.”

  * * *

  Later, Pine was sitting in her bedroom when Blum knocked on her door.

  Blum said, “We have one mystery left to solve.”

  Pine rose and looked out the window. “No, not one mystery. Several. Including where is Ito Vincenzo. And where is my mother. And, most important, what happened to Mercy. And I’m not sure I’ll ever solve them.”

  “But you do think it possible that Mercy is still alive, don’t you?”

  Pine came to sit on the bed again. “That’s the way I want to see it. But Ito told my father that he was responsible for one daughter being dead and the other one badly injured. So…”

  “Well, if she is alive, there certainly are tools available today that might be of some use.”