“I took a cab here just like you told me. As we pulled up to the gate two cop cars pulled up. They want to arrest me.”
Carlton walked to the pillbox, where Saunders was engaged in heated conversation with two overweight Maryland troopers.
“She’s under arrest, Colonel,” the senior trooper insisted. “You’ve got to let us do our job and take her into custody.”
“She can’t be under arrest. She’s on a federal military installation,” Saunders replied coldly.
“Sir, she’s a danger to—” The trooper’s eyes went wide when he spotted Carlton. “Him too! They’re both under arrest!”
Carlton walked to the gate, looked at the two angry troopers as though they were animals in a zoo. “What on earth for?”
“For murder!”
Carlton brushed it off. Was there anyone who wasn’t part of this nightmare? “Do you have a warrant for our arrest?”
“We don’t need a warrant!”
“Did you witness this so-called murder?”
“No, I—”
“Then you need a warrant. You’d better brush up on the law books.” Carlton turned to Saunders.
The colonel looked conflicted. His training told him to follow procedure, which would have kept Carlton and Erika on base until the problem could be resolved through the proper channels. But these were two Justice Department lawyers. People who spent their days enforcing the law. And MacLean had never lied to him before. He followed his instinct.
The trooper kept shouting. “I don’t need a warr—”
Saunders interrupted him with a raised hand. “Unless you have a warrant like the louie says, you’ll have to go get one. For the moment, I suggest you leave.”
“We will do no such thing! Those two are under arrest for the murder of a federal agent. This is a federal base.”
“It is a federal base,” Saunders said. Calmly, he turned to the MP private who stood by, listening to every word, wisely saying nothing. “Private, these men are disrupting a U.S. Air Force base,” Saunders announced. “You will ask them to leave,” he turned back to the troopers. “If they do not, you will take them into custody.”
“You have no right to do that! They’re under arrest for murder! We have a duty to—”
“Private, do your duty.”
The youngish private stepped forward to the edge of the steel gate. “You heard the colonel. I’ll say this once, gentlemen. You will leave immediately, or you will be taken into custody.”
“Try me, sonny.” The trooper unholstered his sidearm, turned to his partner. “Call for backup, Johnson.” When he turned back to the MP, he felt the cold barrel of a Beretta .45 against his cranium.
“You will leave,” the MP said flatly, clicking off the handgun’s safety, “or you will be taken into custody.”
“You two follow me,” Saunders said, as he turned and walked away. Carlton and Erika followed him back to the Humvee and pulled themselves up into the tall vehicle. Saunders started its massive engine and roared away from the front gate, headed deep into the Air Force base.
Erika huddled against Carlton, shaking less from cold than from fear. The colonel negotiated a maze of streets on the base between efficiently plowed snowbanks on either side. She gazed through the truck’s fogged windows to try to calm herself, to believe she was safe. No one seemed interested in the Humvee as it drove past seemingly interminable rows of aircraft hangars. Some dark, others brightly illuminated from inside, where ground crews worked on military aircraft of all shapes and sizes, many with engine cowlings gaping open to reveal the intricate guts of jet turbine machinery.
Soon the hangars disappeared. The cold winter night enveloped them for several minutes. They came to a series of tall lightposts that illuminated a half dozen aircraft on the tarmac. All but one aircraft were dark, covered with iced tarps tied down in precise military fashion. Saunders stopped behind the last aircraft in the row, a Bell/Agusta tilt-rotor jet-helo.
Carlton had never seen such an aircraft, although he had once flown in an Osprey, the aircraft’s problematic military older brother, during a Navy Reserves exercise. He was surprised that the aircraft was civilian and not military, strange for an Air Force base. But then again, everything about their situation was strange. The $10 million Bell/Augusta 609 in front of them was a cross between a corporate jet and a helicopter. Its white fuselage was topped by a wing, each end of which held an engine tilted upward and crowned with an oversized three-blade propeller. The result looked more like an oversized toy than an airworthy form of transportation.
Carlton and Erika hopped down from the Humvee. She gasped at the cold and noise outside. The high-pitched whine of the engines was accompanied by deep chopping sounds as the huge propellers swept through the cold night air.
Saunders came up behind them and jabbed his thumb at a stairway below an oval opening in the fuselage.
Carlton nodded, stepped nearer to Saunders. “Thank you!” He saluted.
The colonel flashed a quick return salute and gave a thumbs-up before walking briskly back to the Humvee.
Carlton and Erika climbed the narrow metal stairs.
“Welcome aboard,” a steward announced, somberly. “Mr. MacLean sends his best. If you’d be so kind as to take your seats, we’ll be off.” He punched a button beside the entrance, watched the mechanized staircase retract and fold behind the hatch, and sealed it carefully before checking Carlton’s and Erika’s seatbelts. Satisfied, he selected one of the four remaining glove-soft leather seats.
“Excuse me,” Carlton said. “Where exactly are we going?”
The steward sat up, turned. “Atlantic City. We should be there inside half an hour.”
Carlton and Erika exchanged curious glances.
Carlton was about to ask the steward if there was a telephone on board, but quickly realized what an incredibly bad idea that was. The thumping of the rotors increased in volume and speed. The white aircraft slowly lifted off of the icy tarmac. When it reached an altitude of two hundred feet, its engines swiveled ninety degrees. Once the propellers were positioned like those of a traditional airplane, the aircraft began to move forward. The pilot accelerated, increased altitude. Ten minutes later, the hybrid flew in a northeasterly heading at an altitude of twenty thousand feet, close to its maximum speed of 317 miles per hour.
It took all of Carlton’s discipline not to call MacLean and Pink on his cell phone. But using his cell phone was not an option either. Fress would triangulate their position and mount yet a fourth offensive. In an overabundance of caution, he slid off the back of his cell phone, disconnected the battery, removed the SIM card, then did the same with Erika’s phone. Try getting our position now. Carlton had escaped three times. He wasn’t sure how many lives he had left. Although Erika had sensed danger and fear in Carlton’s voice when he had called, she had no idea that events had turned so quickly and deeply for the worse. She gazed at him in shock.
Carlton didn’t want her involved—hated the fact that he somehow had enabled Fress to target her. But she was here and she deserved to know. He told her everything. The only thing he left out was the direct threat to her life in the note from Fress’s or Waterboer’s courier. She cried, then toughened up.
They both remained silent, allowing their initial shock to pass and the dull throb of fear to replace it. Soon, the fact they were safe—for the moment, at least—flushed the adrenaline from their systems. Exhausted, Carlton closed his eyes and rested his head against the headrest.
Erika looked out the port window. Below them, soft silvery clouds glowed bright in the light of a nearly full moon. She turned away from the window, reclined in the warm leather seat, and watched Carlton, who slept as soundly as a child next to her. She allowed herself a smile, assessed Carlton longingly. The object of her affection was neither jock nor intellectual. It was clear from her discussions with him that he had not yet attained a level of satisfaction in his life that allowed him to be happy.
Europe
an-bred minds like Erika’s generally assessed people by placing them in compartments. Education, profession, wealth, religion, nationality, family. But she found Carlton did not fit comfortably into any of her normal compartments. Something greater existed beyond the sum of his parts. A synergy that transcended his other characteristics. An overriding motivation. For success. Not in fame or fortune but in terms of a meaningful life. The meaning he craved was probably why he was going to such lengths to expose Fress and Waterboer. What else could it be, other than that he was honest?
She realized Carlton was fond of her, but shy. He wasn’t sure how to treat her. Young colleague? Subordinate? Friend? Romantic interest? For her part, Erika could not deny her romantic thoughts. In a sense, Carlton’s shyness made him more attractive. For all of her professional determination and obsession with career, for all her exterior toughness, she pined for the warmth of a deeply romantic relationship. Not with a man who merely fit the bill, like so many of her young lawyer friends who dated people after ticking off a required number of boxes on a checklist, but with a soul mate. A man sufficiently confident to allow her the freedom to succeed professionally and yet masculine enough to lead, not by force or financial coercion or emotional domination, but by love, experience, and example. A man complex enough to navigate the currents of professional and family life guided by simple, solid values. A man flexible enough to adjust to changing circumstances, inflexible in the face of challenge. And a man who would protect her. She wasn’t sure Carlton was the one, but she hadn’t found a fatal flaw in him as she had in so many others, often after a single date.
“I thought you were sleeping,” Carlton said, without turning.
Erika averted her gaze, embarrassed. “Just thinking.” She pulled her long legs onto her seat, hugged them close with her arms, placed her head on her knees.
Carlton turned, looked at her. Despite her exhaustion and the events of the past week, she radiated a beauty most women fell short of under optimum circumstances. She took a strand of long red hair in her right hand, toyed with it under her pointed nose.
“Thinking about?” He asked.
“About what drives you so hard.”
He smiled. “Right now, pure terror.”
She straightened in her chair. “Why are you doing all of this?”
He knew what she meant but didn’t want to face all that right then. “It’s not like I signed up for this. We’re being chased by trained killers Fress sicced on us. He’s probably convinced them that we’re terrorists or spies or God knows what. It’s not like we have a choice.”
“Not now you don’t.”
“When, then?”
“You could have accepted their bribe.”
He hadn’t thought about the bribe since he had stuffed the note and the photos of both Erika and the pile of diamonds back into the envelope. “I could never have accepted the bribe.”
“I know that. That’s one of the things that makes you who you are, that makes you rare.”
“Would you have taken it?”
“Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t know if I would have been that strong.”
“I think you would have done exactly what I did. Especially if someone’s life depended on it.” Maybe if they hadn’t threatened you I would have taken it.
“You get pulled off a huge case, get stuck with a crummy one instead. When you win that, you keep digging because something’s not right, even though your boss orders you not to. It could cost you your job, but you keep going. When you discover the enormity of what’s behind it all, you keep going, even though two people have been murdered. It could cost you your life, but you keep pushing. You get offered a bribe bigger than the lottery, that’ll set you up for life. But you keep going. Where does that strength come from?”
He knew she wouldn’t let up until he opened up. “Faith.”
“Faith?”
“Good and evil. Right and wrong.”
“Are you religious?”
“Catholic. You?”
“Lutheran, but I never got into it. I studied the religions of the world in college. It was interesting. I see how religion brings charity and forgiveness. But it’s also brought wars and repression. Just look at the Spanish Inquisition and the fundamentalist Islamic war against the West.”
“That’s true. The way I figure it, religion turns into evil when intolerance enters the equation. Once you believe you’re better than everyone else, that’s when it becomes bad. Which is not to say you have to agree with everything, just respect other people’s opinions, unless they harm others, of course.”
“I’ve never been able to make the jump into religious faith. I guess it’s just not logical to me.”
“I don’t think it’s logical either. For me, faith and logic are on two different planes. You can’t explain electricity with faith and you can’t explain God with logic.”
“But how do you explain the Holocaust? What about poor kids living in the street? People dying of hunger and disease? Old people with nowhere to live? What is God doing about that?”
“Plenty. I think God put us here to help those less fortunate, each in our own way with our own talents. To me, the question isn’t ’What is God doing about it?’ It’s ’What am I doing about it?’ But to each their own. That’s just the way I think. I can’t stand people imposing their beliefs on others. I’m certainly not perfect and I’m certainly no saint.” He looked at her, chuckled. “Do I sound like a loon? And what about you? Why are you doing all this? You could have bolted, too.”
“No, you’re definitely not a loon. Maybe a bit goody-goody.” She laughed. “I’m kidding. If anything, it makes you much more—”
The PA interrupted her. “Folks, we’re going to land in a few moments, so strap in please.”
More what? He wondered.
37 SANCTUARY
Atlantic City Airport
Atlantic City, New Jersey
3:21 A.M.
As a commentator once noted, control of the gambling meccas in Las Vegas and Atlantic City had long ago passed from the mafia families to a far more powerful group: the corporations. MacLean’s father, Don Giancarlo Innocenti, had been one of the first Cosa Nostra family patriarchs to preach cleaning the gambling palaces’ books and going legit. Many had followed his advice and succeeded. Most of those who had not were convicted or squeezed out.
Ironically, Max MacLean had gone back to Atlantic City where his father had made a killing in the 1950s, and set up shop. Competition was fierce, and the corporate casino owners were a force with which to reckon, particularly when newcomers started from scratch along the Atlantic City seashore. However, as Don Innocenti’s son, MacLean retained sufficient influence among the remaining families to make some space along the southeast New Jersey shore of fifty thousand inhabitants, especially because his operations were all legit. He built a casino resort that reflected the value he revered: beauty. The Star had grown from two hundred rooms in the early 1990s to more than one thousand rooms. Designed by Gerhard Heusch, a leading architect of the day, the Star was as graceful and simple as its surrounding competitors were gaudy and contrived. Instead of massing rooms and gambling halls near the ground like the other casino owners, MacLean had built up. Although the edifice was already ten years old, it was the tallest and most breathtaking casino east of Vegas.
So tall that the trademark brilliant orb at its forty-story summit could be seen by the two quiet men dressed in white shirts and black suits at the local airport. They waited patiently next to a shiny black Lincoln Town Car limo parked at the entrance of a private hangar. The slight bulges in their coat pockets were visible only to the most trained observer. The two men watched the Bell/Agusta jet-helo rotate its props horizontally, land, and taxi to the hangar.
One man got into the limo and drove the short distance to stop directly in front of the strange aircraft. The other jogged behind the limo to the aircraft, opened the hatch, drew a Glock from his breast holster, and hoisted himself insid
e. He quickly scanned the passenger cabin and found the steward, who nodded affirmatively. The man holstered his weapon and allowed Carlton and Erika a brief smile. He motioned with his hand. “Please follow me.”
In almost any other town, the gleaming limousine would have attracted attention. In Atlantic City, it served as camouflage, particularly at night. It drove off as soon as their escort got in and closed the door. He sat opposite Carlton and Erika, facing rear traffic, handed Carlton an envelope. Inside, Carlton found a single faxed sheet.
Trust my people. Ask for what you need.
This isn’t over yet. Good luck.
MM
Who was this Max MacLean that he risked so much to save their lives? Why was he doing it? Was it for justice or revenge, or did he simply refuse to lose? Carlton didn’t know. He had never met MacLean, had only spoken to him once. Erika had researched him before Carlton contacted Wenzel. Perhaps it was MacLean’s mafia background—discovered only after much digging—that pushed him to fight back against the government.
Whoever MacLean was, whatever his motives, his airlift out of Andrews had saved their lives. They had escaped. Erika once. Carlton three times. But they couldn’t run forever. If they didn’t run, where and how could they hide?
A tense fifteen minutes later, the limousine pulled into a dark, unmarked parking garage. Their escort got out, pointed to a drab door. He chose a key from a large bunch attached to his belt, opened it. Behind it was an open elevator door. He ushered Canton and Erika inside, slipped another key into the keyhole, remained silent while the elevator ascended rapidly. It stopped on the top floor. Forty. The doors opened onto a dark corridor. Another guard also dressed in a black suit stood at the end of the hallway, near yet another door. He and their escort exchanged several rapid words in a Sicilian dialect, and the new guard opened the door wide.
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