One of the other cops ran for the Jeep. Tolman looked around. Sandra Kelly was being loaded into an ambulance. “Dammit,” she whispered. Kelly was the ultimate innocent civilian, and Tolman had convinced Journey to have her come along to watch Andrew.
And she had saved Andrew’s life.
Tolman only hoped she didn’t pay with her own.
The cop returned, looking at Tolman’s ID and saying, “We’ll have to sort this out. What happened?”
Tolman found herself in a familiar position—with the world almost literally blowing up around her and a local law enforcement officer trying to do his job by innocently asking her for a statement.
“It’s complicated,” she said.
The cop didn’t seem fazed. “I’m sure it is. We have an officer down, a civilian down, and these three men dead.”
Tolman looked at the cop’s nametag. “Officer Owens, I think you’d better get me connected to your superior. Where will they take Dr. Kelly?” She pointed at the ambulance.
The cop followed her look. “OU Trauma Center, most likely.”
“I need to go with them.”
“We have to sort out—”
Tolman held up one hand. “I know. How’s your man?”
“Not as bad as we thought at first. He took a round in the shoulder, but should be all right.”
“Good. Now let’s find your captain and start sorting, but I want you to understand that I need to go to the hospital with Dr. Kelly. Can you have a unit take Dr. Journey—that’s the man in the khakis over there—and his son with them? He’ll want to be with her.”
“We’ll talk to the captain. What’s wrong with the boy?”
Tolman felt a shard of anger, and she thought she knew how Journey must feel at times. “He doesn’t seem to be hurt, now does he?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know what you meant. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with him. But he does have autism.”
“Does he understand all this?”
Tolman hesitated, then answered honestly. “I don’t know.”
“Okay, let’s go, then.”
* * *
Tolman talked to several officers, steadily increasing in rank from sergeant to captain to deputy chief. She told them she was in the middle of an ongoing investigation into conspiracy to commit acts of terror and implied that it involved the recent spate of bombings. Tolman was pleasantly surprised by the Oklahoma City Police Department. All the officers she talked to were intelligent, articulate, and professional, and only one showed any sort of jurisdictional jealousy, which she quickly tamped down.
Andrew was stomping around the waiting area in the ER of the trauma center. Journey had bought cheese and crackers and a Coke from a vending machine and was handing them to his son. Tolman separated herself from the cops and walked over to him.
“You okay?” she said.
Journey looked down at her.
“That’s a stupid-ass question, isn’t it?” Tolman said. “What are they saying about Sandra?”
“Nothing yet. They may have to get her into surgery. She lost a lot of blood.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “She jumped out in front of him without stopping to think. It’s exactly what I was going to do, but I was—”
“Stop right there, Nick,” Tolman said. “Don’t go blaming yourself because she got there faster than you did.”
“I know, I know. Who were they? Were they Gray’s?”
“That last one said something before he took his shot at me. He said ‘The Associates.’”
“‘The Associates’? That could be anything.”
“My thoughts exactly.” Tolman scuffed a foot on the floor. “It’s another piece in one gigantic fucking jigsaw puzzle. You know how much I hate jigsaw puzzles?”
Journey smiled. “Andrew loves them. He’s all about puzzles lately.”
“Well, he can have my share. We know what Barry found. We know where the money from the mine went. We don’t know about the buildings being blown up, or why Gray seems to have wanted us to find all this. It’s like she’s trying to hang herself.” She ran her hands through her hair. “This changes things, Nick. No one will blame you for staying here with Sandra.”
Journey said nothing. His mind strayed, thinking about the residential program at Grace of Oklahoma. Could they teach Andrew to understand danger, to control his impulses? Could they reach him in ways he—and the educators in Carpenter Center—could not?
A nurse, a middle-aged Native American woman, came into the waiting area. “Mr. Journey? Is there a Mr. Journey here?”
“Here,” Journey said, running to her. “Is Sandra all right? May I see her?”
“They’re prepping her to go up to surgery now,” the nurse said.
“How bad is it?”
“Bad enough to go straight to surgery. Are you family?”
“No, I’m … I guess I’m a friend. But I’ve called her parents in Illinois and her brother in Missouri. They’re on their way.”
“Everyone’s talking about her,” the nurse said, and smiled a little. “Said she took a bullet for a little boy.”
“My son,” Journey said, and his voice broke.
He felt Tolman’s hand on his back. “Is there any way Nick can go be with her?” she asked.
“On her way in to surgery. Nothing you can do for a while.”
Journey reached out and grabbed Andrew’s hand and pulled the boy to him.
“This the boy?” the nurse said.
“Yes. His name is Andrew.”
Andrew rocked on the balls of his feet and whistled.
The nurse nodded with a seen-it-all kind of look. “You must be a pretty good friend.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before we put her under, she insisted on giving this to you. She said you’d know what it meant.”
The nurse dug in the pocket of her scrubs and handed Journey the silver cross necklace, the one Sandra always wore.
“There was some blood on it,” the nurse said, “but we washed off most of it. It was really important to her that you get this.”
“Thank you,” Journey said. “I know what it means.”
“What?”
Journey thought of Sandra, back in the office at the FTC. You can’t walk away. We can’t walk away.
Journey looked at Tolman and folded the silver cross into his palm. “It means I’m going to Wilmington.”
“Yes,” Tolman said, then she said it again.
She moved away from Journey a few steps and pulled out her phone. She pulled up its call log and punched in the number she’d called a few hours ago.
“Denison?” she said when the man picked up. “I want some answers.”
“Ms. Tolman,” Bart Denison said. “I didn’t expect to hear from you again.”
“I have a woman—a civilian, for Christ’s sake, a fucking history teacher—with a bullet in her chest, and I don’t know if she’s going to live. Stop screwing around with me. The Associates. Ever heard the name?”
Denison waited.
“Now,” Tolman said. “Today. Come on, Denison.”
“I have heard the name, within the last few minutes.”
“What?”
“I made some calls after we met earlier. Because, Ms. Tolman, I don’t know what’s going on. I do not like not knowing what’s going on.”
“Come on, The Associates.”
“A business consulting firm headquartered in upstate New York. It’s operated by a former Agency employee. My people are still digging. This is off the books, you understand. The Agency—”
“Goddammit, I know. The Agency can’t operate domestically. Enough with the disclaimers. What do you know about The Associates?”
Denison’s tone was measured. “They make and move around a great deal of money from many different enterprises. But there’s something else happening. Today. Right now. We picked up some whispers about a move against the protesters in Chicago. A move by April 19
.”
Tolman nearly dropped the phone. “What does that have to do with April 19? Neither of those groups has—”
“I can’t pick up the specifics.”
“Can’t pick up or won’t tell me?”
Denison was silent.
“Denison, we’re on the same fucking side!”
“Are we, Ms. Tolman?”
“Yes! Jesus, yes! I don’t want any more people to die, or buildings blown up. That protest—if April 19 is somehow moving on that tomorrow, thousands of people could die. But why would they? Your former Agency employee—why?”
“I don’t know.” Denison sounded frustrated for the first time. “I honestly do not know. It’s troubling.”
“It’s Gray. She’s April 19, like I told you before.”
“No. Impossible. It’s too imprecise, too volatile. Ann Gray sending in bombers against an unarmed crowd? She doesn’t work that way.”
“But The Associates. They do?”
“Apparently.”
“Apparently. Keep your people digging … we have to know.”
“I don’t take orders from you,” Denison said.
“This is all connected,” Tolman said. “You’re not stupid. You know it’s connected. Put your resources on it. You want to resolve the mess with France, you want to keep more people from dying. You want to save your own ass. Whatever you want, find out what The Associates are doing. Jesus God, if they attack those protests…”
“And you, Ms. Tolman? What are you going to do?”
Tolman looked across the room at Journey, at Andrew bouncing up and down. Journey’s face was guarded.
The game had changed. The stakes had changed. “I’m going to find Ann Gray,” she said.
CHAPTER
39
Duke knew he’d done what he was supposed to do, what Voss wanted him to do. He’d found the money, tracked it all the way to the White House. The White House! It was the kind of job a hacker lived to do, and he’d cracked it.
But still he worried about Voss. Someone had her, and he had to do something more. She needed him, and he was the only one who could help her.
When Duke began doing consulting jobs for the government a few years ago—basically, when Kerry Voss had recruited him—he’d started routinely tracking all incoming calls. He had the software to pull up name and address on landlines, and the same GPS tracker that law enforcement used for cell calls. He wanted to know where people were when they called him, and the information was sometimes useful when he was working on a project.
He’d seen that the phone Voss was calling from was in Fairfax County, but he hadn’t tracked it further at the time. He’d been too intent on doing what Voss told him, on finishing her work. But now, it was in his power to find her, and he wasn’t going to let her down.
He’d done a screen capture of the GPS coordinates, and he pulled it up again on his number-one desktop. In five minutes he had the address in McLean.
Yes! he thought, pumping his fist in the air. Then his excitement faded. What the hell do I do with it now?
What if they were moving Voss from place to place? What if the kidnapers weren’t in the same place as when she’d called?
It’s a starting place.
Duke went to the kitchen and poured himself another Diet Mountain Dew—no ice, he couldn’t stand ice—and wandered around the apartment. He thought about President Mendoza. Duke wondered how much of that money that he’d found had gone into Mendoza’s pocket. The thought disappointed and depressed him. He’d really liked Mendoza, but in the end, he supposed all politicians were alike. He didn’t like thinking that way.
He considered Voss’s phone call, all the coded references. “Take the dogs out” meant for him to find what she was working on. “The tall man”: Meg Tolman.
He turned the conversation over in his mind, and a slow realization came over him.
That’s not all. There was something else.
Uncle Ray.
The first time he’d talked to Meg Tolman on the phone, when Voss had “introduced” them via conference call several months ago, she’d mentioned that her father was Secret Service. Her father, Ray Tolman.
Duke shot up out of the chair. Meg Tolman’s father worked for the Secret Service. He would know things, he would know how to do things. He could rescue Kerry Voss.
Duke’s fingers flew over his keyboard and in less than two minutes he had Ray Tolman’s direct phone number. He punched it in before he could lose his nerve.
“Ray Tolman,” answered a gruff voice.
“Um, hi,” Duke said. “Mr. Tolman? Hello, my name is Duke. I kind of work with your daughter. Well, I work for her, is what I mean to say.”
“Yeah? What’s going on? Have you heard from her?”
“Well, yes. I talked to her, and … but, I’m not calling about her. You see, I have a friend who also works for RIO. Her name is Kerry Voss—”
“Is she all right?” Ray Tolman said. “Meg called me, said people were after her. I was supposed to meet her, but she was gone. Do you know where she is?”
Duke smiled. He knew he’d done the right thing. “Yes, sir, I do,” he said.
* * *
Voss’s cheek and eye still hurt from where Tough had hit her, but Apologetic had given her ice to put on it to keep the swelling down. She didn’t think the bone was broken, or the pain would have been much worse. Voss had been in more difficult positions than this in her lifetime, and with much harder people than these two.
Since the phone call, they had essentially left her alone except for meal and bathroom breaks. They were well armed, and she knew that physically she didn’t stand a chance against the two of them. They were both big men, and both looked like they could snap her in two if they tried.
So Voss lay on the cot and thought about the kids. Her ex-husband would be annoyed, and maybe even worried. They actually had a good relationship—better than when they were married—and worked hard at the joint custody, helping each other when they could. But Voss missed the kids. No doubt her daughter would be trying to act grown-up and concerned, but the boys, who were six and four, wouldn’t understand, and her ex would do his best to be low-key.
The room had no window, so when she heard several cars go down the street outside, she couldn’t see what was happening. But Voss had “mom hearing,” and suddenly the traffic sounds had increased several times over. Then she heard cars stopping and people moving. She stood up from the cot.
Out in the hallway, she heard Tough say, “What the fuck—”
More sounds, more movement. Then the door opened and Apologetic came in, gun drawn. “Let’s go!” he shouted.
“What’s happening?” Voss said.
“Now!”
He took two more steps toward her, then Voss heard crashing and many more footsteps in the hallway.
“Let’s go!” Apologetic screamed. “Move, move…”
Then the room filled with men in full riot gear, with FBI HRT across their jackets. “On the floor!” one of them shouted at Apologetic. He dropped his gun as if it had burned him and fell to the floor.
An older man in suit pants and tie, but with an FBI windbreaker over it, stepped into the room. “Kerry Voss?” he said.
Voss nodded, watching Apologetic on the floor.
“Special Agent Pat Moore, FBI,” the balding man said. He spoke into a wrist radio. “She’s secure, Ray.”
Voss smiled and closed her eyes in relief. “I’d like to call my kids.”
“In a minute,” Moore said.
The Hostage Rescue Team members had already cuffed Apologetic and were leading him away. “Do you have the other guy?” Voss asked.
“In the living room,” Moore said. “Are you all right?”
They turned into the hallway. “A little banged up, but okay overall,” Voss said, touching her cheek.
“Assholes,” said another voice, and Voss looked up to see Ray Tolman.
Voss smiled—Duke had figured
it out. Uncle Ray. She made a mental note to send him a case of Diet Mountain Dew.
“Glad you brought some friends,” Voss said.
“Thought we’d make it a party,” Ray Tolman said. “You okay, Kerry?”
“I’ll be fine. Duke called you?”
“He did. Interesting kid, but he was concerned about you.”
“I owe him … and you. Have you heard from Meg?”
“Not since yesterday. You can call her if you want.”
“The kids first,” Voss said. “Then Meg … but on a secure phone.”
In the sparsely furnished living room, Tough was on the floor, hands cuffed behind his back. “I have something I need to do before we go,” Voss said, and sidled up beside him. She poked at him with her foot.
“Leave me the fuck alone,” Tough said.
“Don’t whine,” Voss said. “Get up.”
“You heard the woman,” Ray Tolman said.
Tough struggled to his feet, while multiple HRT members followed him, weapons at the ready. He glared down at Voss.
“Who hired you?” Voss asked him.
“Fuck off,” Tough said.
“I see,” Voss said, then she stood on her toes and punched him on the side of the face. “MyДak,” she said.
“What’s that mean?” Tolman asked.
“It’s a Russian word my grandfather taught me,” Voss said. “It applies to this scum.”
Voss hit the man again, on the other side of his face, then turned toward the door. “Okay, I’m ready,” she said.
“I think I like your style, Kerry,” Ray Tolman said.
* * *
No more JPATS planes were available, and after frustrating conversations with several local officials in Oklahoma City, Tolman gave up and went to a charter service, where she booked two small planes.
“Bill it to the U.S. government,” she’d said to the owner.
“That the same government that’s falling apart left and right?” the man had asked, earning a glare from Tolman.
“You find out how that map—and the letter, too, if that’s possible—made its way from point A to point Z,” Tolman said to Journey while the planes were being fueled. “Brandon is the place to start. I want to know everything. How did it go working out something for Andrew?”
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