"You sure you want that job? A lot of people say that Freedom Nation is an outlaw organization. I mean its leader is wanted for murder. It's kind of like getting a job with the Mafia or something."
He hit the heel of his hand against the steering wheel. He couldn't believe what she'd just said. "Jill, your father is associated with Freedom Nation. It's the umbrella organization for the militias. There's nothing illegal about it. What's illegal is the way the federal government is sucking us dry, trying to take away our guns, telling us what to do and not to do. The bastards in Washington are trying to run our lives. They're a foreign power. It's not my government."
"What about your brother? He fought in the Gulf War and died."
"Leave him out of it. I'm proud of Jimmy. He did what he had to do. It was important for him. But it was a mistake. We can all see that now, the way the government lied to us about what was going on over there with the chemical weapons."
Jill didn't respond.
"The thing is, about this new job." He paused, trying to figure out how to put it. "I'm sort of being tested now to see if I make the grade. That's what I was going to talk to you about. Your dad didn't want me to mention it right away, because he wanted to make sure that you didn't tell anyone."
She frowned. "I wouldn't tell anyone anything. Why does Dad always think I'm such a blabbermouth? If the militia people were smart, they'd get women involved."
"There's been talk of that," he said uneasily.
Most of the men thought it was a bad idea. Some said they'd even quit if women got involved. Others, like Gary Burke, said that women could build morale, but they were only good for one thing. He didn't tell her any of that.
"So what is it, anyhow? Where else are we going and what are we doing?"
"Washington, D.C."
"What? Washington?" Her face crumpled. "You mean the whole goddamn thing is a lie? We're not going to Vegas?"
"Yes, we are. It's not a lie. Calm down. We've just got to take this side trip first. It won't be bad."
"Side trip? What are you talking about? That's all the way across the damn country. Do you know how long that's going to take?"
"We can do it in three days. We get there by Tuesday and we leave the same day." The words rushed excitedly out of him now. "We can get to Las Vegas by late Friday. That's the first night of our reservation at the Sands. We'll get married Saturday or Sunday at the latest."
She didn't say a word for nearly a minute. He focused on the road as the stark, rocky landscape blurred by. "Okay. But if I'm going on this so-called side trip, I want to know what we're doing. No secrets. It's only fair."
"Jill, I can't tell you. I promised your father. You've got to go along with me on this."
"See, you're already putting the militia ahead of me. I don't like it. Turn around and take me home. I'm not playing this stupid game."
Matt thought about the consequences of what she was saying. "Damn, you are stubborn, Jill Sudner." He pulled over to the side of the road and turned the engine off.
She crossed her arms and stared ahead. If she insisted on going home, and he thought she would, he'd lose everything. His girl, his standing in the militia, his new job. Everything. The only thing to do was tell her. After all, she said she wouldn't talk.
"Okay, but you can't say a word to anyone about this. No matter what happens."
"Of course I won't."
"Not even your father. Especially not him. He won't trust me if he finds out I told you."
"Don't worry about it. I won't say a word."
"Okay, when we get to Washington, I'm going over to a closed elementary school. The windows are boarded up, but there's a loose one. I'm going to drop a backpack inside the window. That's all."
"Wait a minute." Jill frowned and shook her head. "You lost me. What backpack?"
"It's in the camper, under the bed."
"What's in it, anyhow?"
"I don't know. Some stuff, I guess," he said, uneasily.
"C'mon, Matt. You know what it is," Jill responded.
"You don't need to know that."
"Bullcrap, Matt Hennig. If we're traveling across the country with it, I want to know what it is.,,
"It's a bomb, but—"
"A bomb!" She jabbed a finger toward the rear of the truck. "There's a bomb back there and we just screwed on top of it? Are you crazy?'
He held up his hands. "Don't worry. It won't go off. Somebody in Washington is going to detonate it. We'll be long gone by then."
"What's the point of blowing up some old elementary school? It don't make no sense."
"Your father says it's like pounding a fist on a table. No one's gonna get hurt, but it'll get their attention. They'll know we're damn serious about getting the federal government off our backs."
She shook her head. "They'll just say you're all criminals. It won't help the cause none."
"Don't you remember studying the American Revolution, how the revolutionaries messed up the British, dumped the tea in the harbor and all that? They blew up things, too. It's like that."
"Great. Dad and General Wiley can sit back and call themselves revolutionaries, but what about us? What if somebody slams into the back of the truck? Won't the bomb go off and kill us?"
"Look, your father said it can't explode, not even if we drove off a cliff. I'm sure he wouldn't put you in any kind of danger like that."
She thought a moment. "I'm not so sure of that. Not at all. My mother's biggest complaint about Dad is that he puts his militia above his family. And it's true, too. He's trying to use me in his goddamn plan without even telling me. I won't do it. That's it."
"Oh, knock it off, Jill. Let's get going. It'll be over before you know it, and we'll be free birds."
"No. N-O. I'm not doing it."
Matt stared glumly ahead. He conceded that it wasn't going to work. But it was Sudner's fault as much as his own. Neither of them had figured on Jill's insistence to know all the details. He started the engine. "All right. I'll take you home."
"No. Let's go. Drive. All the way to Washington."
"Forget it. I'm not going to listen to you complaining the entire way. Let's go back."
"No. I said, let's go."
He looked at her, exasperated. "Are you sure?"
She shrugged. "I guess so."
He reached for her hand. "Tell me the truth. If you want to go back, I'll take you home."
"I don't want to mess it up for you, Matt."
"I'll deliver the damned thing myself."
"No way. I want to marry you, and if it takes blowing up a goddamn school, then I'll do it with you. Just don't leave me out and don't ever hide anything from me. Never."
He pulled her to him and hugged her tightly. He wasn't sure what he was getting into any more than Jill. But at least they had each other. Right now that mattered more than anything.
Matt heard a noise and looked in the rearview mirror to see a flashing red light. "We got company. A cop."
Jill paled and sucked in her breath. She ran a hand through her mussed red hair. "Oh no, Matt. What are we going to do if they want to look in the back?"
He kept his eye on the mirror. "Stay calm. He's got no reason to search us. He probably just wants to know if we need any help."
"I hope you're right."
The door opened. A deputy with a bald head and sunglasses stepped out. Matt smiled. "Hell, that's Gary Burke."
"Gary? Oh, thank God. He knows my dad real well."
Matt rolled down the window. "Hi, Gary. What's up?"
Burke leaned down and looked into the cab of the pickup. "Aren't you two supposed to be heading out of town?"
"Yeah, we're going to Las Vegas to get married, if we ever get moving," Jill said. "Did Daddy tell you about it?"
Burke smiled. "I know all about it." He looked at Matt, lost his smile. "There's been a change in plans."
Matt's heart started to pound. They'd been watching him, testing him, and knew he'd been playing around i
n the camper rather than heading out of town. They thought he wasn't up to the job. Too much of a kid, just like Burke said. He'd lost his chance and he'd already quit his job.
"You need to drop over to the post office," Burke said in a low voice.
"Why, what's over there?"
"A new red Cherokee. Courtesy of General Wiley. A wedding present."
"You're kidding!" Matt exclaimed.
"No way!" Jill shouted.
"Boy, am I glad you found us," Matt said.
Burke seemed to glare at him and Matt wondered if he were jealous. "You don't know the half of it, Hennig. Now you two get moving. Pick up that Cherokee and don't forget to take everything you got with you." He patted the hood. "We'll take care of this baby for you."
"Thanks, Gary."
"Don't forget to leave the keys."
"Got it!" Matt slapped Jill on the thigh. "Let's go."
Chapter Twelve
While Doc called room service, Calloway tuned into a noon news program broadcast from a Denver station. A perky anchorwoman, named Jessica Parks, flashed a toothy smile and launched into the top story.
"In national news, our top story comes out of Crested Butte, where President David Dustin is vacationing at the estate of tennis pro Kyle Leslie. In the aftermath of the president's extraordinary comments about alien contact last night, the media have gathered outside of Leslie's property and are awaiting further developments. Let's go to WTVF's Martin Cole."
Calloway leaned forward and Doc's phone conversation with the kitchen faded away. A mob scene of reporters and camera crews appeared on the screen against the backdrop of a wooded entryway and distant mountain peaks. "Jessica, as you can see, the media is out in full force and the atmosphere here is buoyant and almost giddy as most reporters here are taking the president's comments about his contact with aliens with a grain of salt. I spoke with one state trooper here earlier who told me that no reports of aliens or UFOs have been filed in Gunnison County since the president's arrival in Crested Butte last night."
"Marty, in spite of the atmosphere, it seems the media is taking this story seriously enough to stand in the road and wait for the next word," the anchorwoman commented.
"That's true, Jessica. The unanswered questions are piling up. If the president did encounter aliens in the White House, how did they get past security? Did Mrs. Dustin also encounter them? On the other hand, if there were no aliens, as his own spokespeople are saying, the tough question now being asked, especially by opponents of the administration, is whether or not the president remains sound of mind. If not, they say, he must step down from office. In any event, we are here until the president gives us an update or the aliens land with news from afar."
"Thank you, Jason." Parks smiled, shook her head, then spoke to the camera. "Let's take a look at exactly what the president said last night at the Brown Palace Hotel."
Doc sat down next to Trent as Dustin appeared at a podium. He looked serious, earnest, and concerned as he spoke of his encounter and its meaning. The comments were edited into three segments of five or six seconds each. The editing left the viewer thinking that aliens were about to land, but there was also a dream-like quality to the entire scenario, Calloway thought.
Parks returned and gave the camera a long, thoughtful look as if she were attempting to figure out what was going on. "Here now is White House spokesperson Camila Hidalgo, speaking to reporters at the Brown Palace Hotel this morning."
Calloway watched Camila respond to a shouted question about aliens. He admired her poise, how she remained unflustered and calmly emphasized that the comments were a metaphor. But seeing her on the job made him realize how out of touch he'd been, not only with her personally, but with events surrounding her life that were public knowledge. He had no idea that she'd become the White House spokesperson, that she appeared regularly on television. A far cry from his temporary work guiding rafts on the San Juan.
"Now let's see what Denver thinks about the president's comments," Parks said at the end of the brief slice of the press conference. The scene shifted to an interior of a restaurant to a table of diners.
Calloway heard a knock and turned off the television. He opened the door to see Nick Tyler. "Let me guess, the suite comes with a catch and you're it."
The Secret Service agent didn't laugh. He stepped inside. "We've got word back from the sheriff's office in Shoshone."
"Yeah, and ... ?"
"And nothing."
"Nothing!" Doc said. "What do you mean?"
"The sheriff's office sent a deputy out to the ice caves. There's no one named Matthew working there and nothing at all unusual going on.' ,
"It's got to be a mistake." Calloway shook his head. "That kid had some connection with that place. I felt it."
"What you felt didn't translate to the real world," Tyler responded. "Not in this case. The bottom line, Mr. Calloway, is that we don't have anything and there's no reason to continue the investigation. Period."
After a moment, he added. "But, of course, you can stay here and check out in the morning."
"Wait a minute!" Doc raised her voice and moved over to Tyler. "You guys haven't given Trent half a chance."
"I'll take care of this, Doc," Calloway interrupted, then turned to Tyler. "We're not going to stay here unless we're making use of our time. This isn't a vacation. We'll try again. We'll come up with something new, something you can put your hands on."
Tyler looked grimly at him.
"You can observe firsthand this time," Calloway added.
"If you can come up with anything specific and verifiable, I'll check it out."
"Good. Let me relax a minute and then we'll get started," Calloway said, and flopped down in one of the chairs.
"I'm ready when you are," Doc said.
He tried to settle down, but Tyler's report disturbed him. Maybe he'd misread the images he'd gotten of the kid at the ice caves. Maybe the entire scenario had been his imagination, his mind's way of making up a story to fill his need for something to say.
No. He pushed away the thought. Everything he'd gotten felt right. In fact, he sensed that his abilities were improving, that he might even be better than when he'd
worked daily as a remote viewer.
On a whim, he reached for the telephone. He ignored the questioning looks from Doc and Tyler and dialed the long-distance operator. He tapped the number for the Shoshone Ice Caves and waited. A woman answered on the second ring.
"Is Matthew working today?"
"Matthew? I don't believe we have any Matthew working here."
"Are you sure?"
He felt a sinking sensation in his stomach and was about to hang up when he heard a second voice in the background say, "Who's looking for Matt?"
"Oh, wait, you mean Matt, one of our tour guides," the woman said. "Just a minute. Let me put Mr. Cavanaugh on."
Calloway was greeted by a crisp but wary voice. "Hello, who am I speaking to, please?"
"My name is Joe, Joe Williams. I took a tour there a couple of weeks ago and got to talking to Matt. I'm a river rafting guide on the San Juan River in Bluff, Utah, and I told him I'd send him a brochure."
"Oh, so you were trading guiding stories." The man's wariness vanished. "I'm sure Matt would love to get the brochure, but he's not here and I'm not sure when I'll see him again. He quit this morning."
"Oh, does he have a new job?"
"Actually, I don't know. He was heading to Las Vegas with his girlfriend. They're getting married."
"Oh, really. He didn't mention he was getting married to me," Calloway replied.
"I think it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I told him that I thought he was kind of young. But maybe it'll work out. You never know."
"That's true. You never know. Do you have his home address so I can send him the brochure?"
"Why don't you just send it here and I'll get it to him. Shoshone's a small town. I'll see him around if he doesn't stop by."
"That's fin
e. What's Matt's last name?"
"Matt Hennig. Do you need our address?"
"Nope. I've got it," Calloway said as he jotted the name on a notepad by the phone. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Cavanaugh."
Calloway hung up, tore the page off the pad, and handed it to Tyler. "Guess that sheriff's deputy didn't do a very thorough investigation up in Shoshone."
"Maybe the cop didn't want to help the feds find a local boy," Doc said after Calloway related what he'd just heard.
"We'll run his name through the DMV computer for the state of Idaho and find out what he's driving," Tyler said. "We'll put out an APB and figure out how far they could've driven today. If he's heading to Las Vegas, or even to Washington, we shouldn't have too much trouble locating him."
Tyler started for the door, but hesitated. "You didn't say anything before about him getting married. If you were really in his mind, I'd think that would be a big deal."
"I was focused on the kid's connection with the bomb, not his personal life. The girl could've been right there in the truck with him and I wouldn't have seen her."
Tyler frowned. "I guess I still don't understand what you do."
"I've been trained to remain focused on the target, not to get caught up in the surrounding distractions. The more images you get, the more confusing it becomes."
"So that's it," Tyler said.
As soon as the Secret Service agent left, Calloway turned to Doc. "Let's go after the girl. I want to see what she knows."
"What about lunch? Don't you ever get hungry?"
"We'll take a break when it arrives," he assured her. "Let's get started."
He moved back over to the comfortable chair and sank into it. He breathed deeply, slowly expanding and contracting his diaphragm with each breath. He pushed aside his concerns about his accuracy. Let it go, he told himself. He relaxed and sank deeper, his breath now shallow, barely perceptible. The flow of thoughts slowed to a trickle. His mind stilled and the first images appeared.
A blur of light and movement. Cars and landscape raced by him as if he were on a wild ride. Strapped in. The smell of leather seats. Comfortable, smooth. Different from before. . . a different vehicle.
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