Silver Cross

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Silver Cross Page 20

by B. Kent Anderson


  Tolman smiled, her forehead smoothing away the frown lines. “What do you have?”

  “Give me a couple of minutes, and with any luck, I’ll have a much closer fix on the Silver Cross. How are you coming along?”

  “Hell, there are so many things going on I can’t keep up. Kerry and Ann Gray and Lashley and our pal Jackson from last night, and April 19 and all the Cables. It’s like playing Liszt with no score.”

  “I take it that’s difficult?”

  “You have no idea.”

  The GIS had completed its function. The modern map, with its highways and landmarks and cities, settled onto the old brown parchment with the heavy quill-pen writing.

  “Amazing,” Journey said again.

  He checked the control points, then found the cross that had been drawn in 1863.

  The Silver Cross, as mapped by the French, was in present-day Hall County, Texas. The river was a small tributary of the Red, which to the east would form the northern boundary of Texas with Oklahoma. The river crossed Texas Highway 70, a few miles north of the town of Turkey.

  Journey had driven through West Texas a few times, and it was a land of stark beauty. In some areas the land was table-flat; in others there were craggy stone formations and canyons. Trees were few, and the ones that grew in that landscape tended to clump together and bend to the north, constantly buffeted by relentless southerly winds. But the thing Journey remembered about West Texas was the sheer hugeness of it. It was what outsiders thought of when they referred to the mythical American West, both of yesterday and today.

  “Found it,” he said, and Tolman came and stood at his shoulder. “Hall County, Texas, north of Turkey.”

  “There’s a town called Turkey, Texas?”

  “The home of Bob Wills. You’re a musician. Surely you’ve heard of Bob Wills.” Journey smiled.

  “Western swing, ‘San Antonio Rose.’ Yes, I’ve heard of it. This is where it is?”

  “Pretty close,” Journey said. “This isn’t one hundred percent accurate.”

  “Name something that is.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Can you get someone to look after Andrew? This time someone has to take care of him.”

  “I—”

  “Start calling, Nick. We need to go to Texas. We’re going to see what old Napoleon was so desperate to find.”

  “Maybe,” Journey said.

  Tolman pointed. “Call. I want Andrew to be safe.”

  Tolman’s phone rang and she crossed to it. “Meg Tolman,” she said.

  “Ms. Tolman, it’s Mark Raines in Oklahoma City.”

  Raines was the chief deputy of the U.S. Marshals Service office. She’d spoken to him last night and again this morning. “What’s up, Chief? You get people onto the Cables?”

  “Yes,” Raines said. “Melissa Cable and her son are secured.”

  “And my guy in the hospital in”—she looked at Journey—“what’s the town again?”

  “Durant,” Journey mouthed.

  “Durant,” Tolman said into the phone.

  “That’s the problem, Ms. Tolman.”

  “What?”

  “He’s not there,” Raines said.

  Tolman was silent, then said, “And where did he go? He has two broken kneecaps and a broken arm.”

  “He was transferred before my men arrived there this morning.”

  “Transferred? Who transferred him? He’s in my custody.”

  “Not anymore. The U.S. attorney received an order from D.C. to have him taken somewhere else.”

  “Where, goddammit? I need to question him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re not telling me you lost my fucking prisoner?”

  “Your prisoner was transferred. The paperwork was all in order.”

  “Who authorized the paperwork?”

  “I don’t know. It came from D.C. I’m sorry, Ms. Tolman.”

  “Wait a minute! Chief, you wait a goddamned—”

  The line went dead.

  Tolman slammed a fist on the desk, rattling her laptop. Andrew and Sharp looked up from their game. She kicked at the chair, sending it rolling halfway across the room, crashing into another desk.

  Sharp stood up. Journey said, “What, Meg?”

  “Someone’s fucking with me,” Tolman said. “There’s someone inside somewhere, tied up in all this shit. Not again … not fucking again!”

  Sharp took a step. Andrew laughed hysterically, then shrieked, then whistled.

  “My prisoner’s been moved,” Tolman said, “and someone hacked RIO’s network, and Kerry is God knows where. There has to be someone inside. Somewhere.”

  “What do you mean, inside?” Journey said.

  “Inside the federal government. This makes me angry, Nick. I’m not going through this again.”

  No one spoke.

  “Dammit to hell,” she said, the anger seeming to fade. She sagged into a chair.

  “Meg?” Journey said, sliding into the chair beside her.

  Tolman said nothing. She pulled a hand through her hair, then slowly looked up at Journey. “You want to hear something crazy? Total batshit crazy?”

  “Tell me.”

  “This is going to sound like civics class, or … I don’t know, a campaign commercial or something. But, Nick, I believe in the government. I could make a lot more money in a private tech security company. But after I flamed out as a full-time musician, I did this instead. My father did it—still does—my grandfather did it. They spent their lives protecting our government. And now, I do, too, in my own weird way.” She blinked. Journey saw that her eyes were moist. “And then this kind of thing happens … again and again. I’m no flag waver, Nick, I’m really not, but…” Her voice trailed away.

  “But you take the job seriously.”

  “Yeah, I guess I do.”

  “Meg,” Journey said, and his voice was quiet but firm. “Let’s move on this. Now.”

  Tolman stood up. “Yes,” she said. “Let’s move.”

  CHAPTER

  28

  Since they arrived at the house—a generically furnished but fairly spacious ranch-style somewhere in the suburbs—the two men had not treated Voss badly. They gave her ice to put on her eye and one of them—not the one who’d hit her—actually apologized that they’d been so rough. They made her sandwiches and brought her bottles of water.

  But she was kept in an interior room with no window and no closet. It held a small futon and nothing else. When she had to use the bathroom, one of them went with her and stood outside the door. The bathroom had no windows either. She suspected this was a classic “safe house,” and Voss wondered who had the capability to tuck her away in such a location. She didn’t like the places those thoughts led her.

  I need those seven numbers, she thought.

  The plan had formed over several hours, and she’d been over it and over it in her mind. Every word had to be precise. There was no room for mistakes. Her life—and God knows what else, since all this was somehow wrapped up with those April 19 wackos—might depend on it.

  She banged on the door and shouted, “Hey, you guys! Hey!”

  “What?” said the driver—the apologetic one.

  “I need to use the phone.”

  “You must be kidding.”

  “I need to call my ex-husband. The kids are supposed to come back from their dad’s at six o’clock. If he drops them off and I’m not home, he’s going to be suspicious. Look, I don’t know where we are here—I can’t tell anyone. I’ll make up a story about a sick relative. Then no one will worry. But I need to let him know and make sure the kids are all right.” Voss put a little break into her voice. Most men—even vicious ones—couldn’t stand it when a woman cried. A man would do almost anything to get a woman not to cry. “Please,” she added.

  Voss heard Apologetic’s voice. “She wants to call her kids. See if it’s all right.”

  The tough one was on the phone, then, but Voss
couldn’t pick up the words. Then: “Go. But put the phone on speaker. One wrong word and we’re out.”

  Voss didn’t ask what “out” meant in this case. The door opened a crack and Apologetic came in. Tough hovered in the doorway. “Sit on the futon,” Apologetic said. “If you say something wrong, I’ll break the phone and your fingers, not necessarily in that order, and I’m fixing the phone to block the caller ID.”

  “Of course,” Voss said. “I’m not stupid.” Get it right!

  He handed her the phone, enabling the speaker function. She punched in the number, one committed to memory years ago, in another job, another life.

  “Yo,” said a man’s voice.

  “It’s me,” she said. “How are the girls?”

  Please, she thought. It had been so many years, she hoped he hadn’t forgotten.…

  The line was silent for ten long seconds. “Kerry? Uh, girls are fine. What’s up?”

  “Something came up,” Voss said. “Can you keep them for … well, for a little while longer?”

  “I guess so. Yeah, I guess I can do that. What’s the problem?”

  “You remember my great-uncle Ray, don’t you? The really, really tall man with the bad hairpiece. You met him a couple of times, years ago. He’s sick again, and you know, he doesn’t have a wife or kids or anyone else, and I’m going to the hospital to see him.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember. Is he going to be all right?”

  “I’m sure he’ll be fine, but I just can’t get home right now.” Voss looked up—Apologetic was staring at her intently. Every word, she thought. “But I also need a favor. Could you go by my place and take the dogs out? Will you do that? You know where I leave the emergency key.”

  The line was silent. Voss’s heart pounded. Come on, come on, I know you remember.…

  Then, a deep sigh. “I guess so.”

  “Thanks,” Voss said. “I really appreciate it. Tell the girls I called, okay? And tell them not to worry. I’m sure Uncle Ray will be fine. They just have to do some tests.”

  “Okay. How long will you be?”

  “I don’t know. Just kiss the girls for me and take the dogs out.”

  “Yeah, I will.”

  The phone clicked. Voss handed it to Apologetic. He immediately turned it off, then threw it on the floor and brought his shoe down on top of it, shattering the instrument.

  “Don’t worry, we have others,” Apologetic said. “At least we didn’t have to break your fingers. Your ex sounds like a loser, but I guess the two of you get along okay.”

  “We get along fine,” Voss said. “We still try to help each other out when we can.”

  “’Course you do.” He crossed the room and closed and locked the door. Voss exhaled and leaned back on the futon. She hoped she had pulled it off. Apologetic, at least, seemed to have no clue that the man she’d spoken to was not her ex-husband.

  * * *

  Duke sat in his Springfield apartment, surrounded by his professional wrestling posters and multiple computers, and looked at his screen. Despite the blocked caller ID—as if that would make a difference to a real hacker—he already knew the phone was a prepaid cell, purchased in the District, and he’d triangulated the signal to isolate it in Fairfax County. He’d have to work harder to pinpoint the exact location.

  A few years ago, when Voss had worked for a different, much more clandestine government agency and recruited Duke as a freelance hacker, they’d worked out the code phrases in case something happened to her. If she mentioned “girls,” that was a sign that she was in trouble and others might be listening in on the call, to just play along. Voss had one girl and two boys, so the plural was the giveaway. “Take the dogs out” meant he was supposed to find what she had been working on and that would point the way to what had happened to her.

  Duke knew he could do that easily. There wasn’t a computer system or code around he couldn’t break. He was on contract to half a dozen federal agencies, and truth be told, he made a good living at it. He had most of it in mutual funds and lived in a modest apartment, away from noise and bustle. He had no car, never left his apartment, and the only things he spent money on were food and computer equipment.

  Duke knew the stereotype of the hacker: an overweight guy with thick glasses, living in his mother’s basement. But he was six-foot-six and thin as a post with perfect eyesight. He paid someone to come to the apartment and give him a haircut twice a month. He always attended to his hygiene. He dressed in khakis and a button-down shirt every day. He had a fairly healthy relationship with his parents and brother. He’d once played college basketball for Butler University. But he couldn’t go out. There were … things … out there that he couldn’t handle.

  He’d been given medication for his anxiety, but he hated the way it made him feel. His head was full of mush when he was on the meds, and he couldn’t be as sharp as he needed to be when a job came his way. So he stayed off the pills and inside his apartment.

  Duke would have done anything for Kerry Voss … except leave his apartment. And now she was in trouble.

  He thought about what else she’d said, knowing there was more to the message. He picked up the business about the tall man. He’d never met Meg Tolman face to face, of course, but he’d talked to her on the phone. Kerry had “introduced” them, asking Tolman to put him on permanent retainer as a contract employee of RIO. That was last fall, after Duke had traced some sizable bank accounts.

  Now, someone had Kerry.

  And she needed him.

  He had to find what she’d been working on and get the information to Meg Tolman. He used his back-door password and logged in to RIO’s network. He wandered around until he found Voss’s computer. It was easy—whatever she’d been doing was still on the screen. He did a screen capture, looking at the bank accounts, seeing the grayed-out numbers. Duke knew about this—he’d hacked these kinds of things hundreds of times. The encryption was good.

  But he was better.

  He settled in to work. He would not move from this chair—well, he might get up to take a piss—until he had what Kerry Voss wanted him to know, and he passed it on to Meg Tolman. Tolman would know what to do next. That was her job.

  CHAPTER

  29

  The airplane was a ten-seat Cessna Caravan that Tolman “borrowed” from the Marshals Service, along with a pilot. It had been fairly easy—the national air fleet operations center of the Justice Prisoner and Alien Transportation System, or JPATS, was headquartered in Oklahoma City, near the FAA and the Federal Transfer Center. Sitting in the copilot’s seat, Tolman turned and looked at Journey, Andrew, Sharp … and Sandra Kelly, sitting next to Journey and holding his hand.

  Journey had first called his ex-wife, but Amelia Boettcher was still on the road, somewhere in eastern Oklahoma visiting more bank branches and would be unavailable for another week. “Unavailable” was the word she’d used when she told Journey she couldn’t take Andrew. Tolman, of course, had only heard one end of the conversation, and she knew it would have been easy to stereotype Amelia as a cold-hearted bitch whose special needs child didn’t fit in to her high-flying executive lifestyle. Tolman also knew the reality was much more complex than that. She still didn’t like Amelia much—not that it mattered—but she sensed there was much more of an undercurrent in the relationship between Nick Journey and his ex-wife than she understood.

  Tolman could tell Journey was torn. He wouldn’t willingly put Andrew in danger again, but he didn’t trust others with his son’s care. And whether out of historical curiosity, work ethic—he was being paid as a RIO consultant—or a sense of personal duty to Tolman, she knew he wouldn’t walk away from the investigation, either. So Tolman suggested Sandra, and they worked out a compromise: Sandra would accompany them, then they would get a motel room, where Sandra would stay with Andrew while Journey went with Tolman and Sharp. To complete the picture, Tolman talked to the sheriff in Hall County, Texas, explained that a federal team was coming to his county
, and requested round-the-clock security for Sandra and Andrew. She also lined up a vehicle through the sheriff’s office.

  The plane taxied in to the municipal airport in the town of Memphis, Texas, seat of Hall County and about forty miles northeast of their destination. As soon as she stepped off the plane, she sensed the flatness of the land, the dry air, and the incredible, stifling heat. Sheriff Walt Nichols was waiting for them on the runway.

  “Welcome to Hall County,” he said.

  Tolman shook hands with the sheriff, noting his brown cowboy boots and the badge clipped to his belt.

  “Hello, Sheriff,” she said, and introduced the others. “Thanks for helping us out.”

  “Well, we don’t get too many visitors from the Research and Investigations Office out here,” Nichols said. “Y’all are on hush-hush business, is that right?”

  “Pretty much,” Tolman said. “At least for now.”

  “And you’ll put in a good word for our department? We’ve applied for some federal grants for new equipment, and haven’t heard anything.”

  “You know what, Sheriff?” Tolman said. “I don’t know how much I could influence such a thing, but I’ll certainly check into it. You’ve been very helpful.”

  “We always like to maintain a good relationship with our federal partners,” Nichols said.

  Tolman didn’t think the man was bullshitting her. It was interesting how different cops could be from each other. With some of them, you had to threaten them with obstruction to get anywhere. With others you promised to look into their grant applications. “I appreciate it,” she said. “You have a car for us, and someone to stay with Dr. Kelly and Andrew?”

  “We’ve booked rooms for you over at the motel, and there’s a pool. The young man there might like it.”

  Andrew was holding on to his father’s hand. He’d been silent and wide-eyed for much of the short flight, and he seemed subdued.

  “Thanks,” Tolman said.

  “Deputy Hills will take them on into town and watch over them,” Nichols said. “I’m lending you an Explorer we use as a mobile command post. Most of the time it’s for when we have tornadoes or fires and such. You know where you’re headed?”

 

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