Cold Glory

by B. Kent Anderson

  He clicked off the phone and drove west on Highway 70, then north on Interstate 35 through the Arbuckle Mountains—small hills, really, but mountains by Oklahoma standards—and the red clay cattle and horse country beyond. It was a day trip he made once a month on average, to do his consulting projects with the Oklahoma Historical Society, to do some networking with other academics in the state, and to just spend some time in a city. Oklahoma City was sprawling but comfortable, of a perfect size to offer the right balance of urban culture and amenities and small-town charm and friendliness.

  He’d been surprised that Amelia chose to settle in “the City” after the divorce. He expected her to move back to Virginia, where all her family lived. But the bank where she’d worked in Carpenter Center was headquartered in Oklahoma City, and they created a position for her there. Now she was a vice president of corporate development, easily making five times what Journey earned as a professor. She bought and renovated a Victorian house in an historic neighborhood, she skied in Aspen and went scuba diving off Key West, and had very little to do with Journey outside of the two weeks in June when Andrew stayed with her.

  Amelia Boettcher—she hadn’t taken the name Journey when they married—never allowed Journey to drop Andrew at the house. Journey assumed it was because a man was living there with her, and had been for nearly two years now. He’d answered the phone twice when Journey had called to talk about various Andrew-related issues. If Amelia had bothered to ask, he would have told her he didn’t care in the slightest that she had a live-in. But she never asked, and consequently they always met at a little coffeehouse on Classen Boulevard.

  The Red Cup might have stepped living and breathing from 1968, with its largely vegetarian menu, asymmetrical room configurations, and flyers for everything from yoga to Irish dance to hypnosis classes. A framed plaque proclaimed it a FAIR TRADE CAFÉ.

  Journey ordered a latte for himself and a fruit smoothie for Andrew, then found a spot in a “quiet room” in the corner. There was no table per se, but a low wooden shelf, painted bright yellow, with chairs in front of it. Reading lamps lined the shelf.

  Amelia was late, and showed up with her phone pressed to her ear. Journey watched her as she stood at the counter: the tall, full figure, the nut-colored hair, the gray-green eyes, high cheekbones, the graceful way she moved. None of those things had changed since they met in graduate school. What had changed was that she’d become hard-edged, blunt, and impatient in middle age. He waved her over to the little corner area.

  “Hi,” she said.

  “Hi.”

  She looked down at Andrew, who was fidgeting with his straw and his pencil. The boy looked perplexed, then broke into a heart-stopping smile. “Hi, honey,” Amelia said. She kissed his cheek. He turned his head and she kissed the other cheek. The smile stayed on for a few more seconds; then he lowered his head and tapped his straw and pencil together.

  She slid into the seat next to Journey and lowered her voice. “What’s this all about?”

  “I can’t really explain,” Journey said. “I have to go out of town for a day or two, and I need you to take him.”

  “You pulled him out of school?”

  “What other options do I have?”

  “Haven’t you found anyone in Carpenter Center who can look after him if something comes up?”

  “No, I haven’t. But I—”

  “Can’t you take him with you?”

  “No, not on this trip.”

  “And why is that?”

  “It’s really too complicated for me to go into.”

  Amelia stared at him for a moment. “Is this related to that thing at Fort Washita? I saw you on TV, you know.”

  Journey tapped his finger three times, then remembered how much Amelia hated it when he did that. After a few seconds, he did it again. “Yes, it’s part of that. Can’t you just take him for a little while in an emergency? God knows I don’t ask you for much.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  Journey held out his hands. “Nothing. Look, I can’t do this. I’m on edge enough as it is. I’ve packed three days of clothes for him and a full package of Pull-Ups, his yellow ball, and a couple of his puzzles.”

  Amelia’s phone chirped, and for once she ignored it. “Nick, don’t make me out to be a bitch of a mother just because I won’t drop everything for you to go off chasing your fifteen minutes of glory.”

  “Even though you don’t have custody, you’re still a parent. That’s the way it is.”

  Andrew, mesmerized by the circle of light on the yellow counter from one of the reading lamps, suddenly laughed out loud, followed by a series of whistles, followed by more, increasingly loud laughter.

  “Andrew, shhh,” Amelia said. The boy didn’t look at her. Amelia looked at Journey. “He’s doing a lot more of the laughing thing.”

  Journey nodded. “It may be puberty. We’ll see a lot more changes in his behavior before too much longer.”

  They both waited.

  Amelia softened her tone. “You want to know something? When he’s with me, during our two weeks in June, I think I spend most of my time crying.”

  Journey looked up at her.

  She smiled. “Don’t look so surprised. I know you think I never cry. Bank executives with MBAs don’t cry, right?”

  “No,” Journey said. “I remember you crying sometimes when we were younger.”

  “It’s just…” Amelia looked away for a moment. “I think of all the things he can’t do and won’t ever do, and it’s just overwhelming. And it’s hard for me to admit that he’s better off with you.” She raised her head. “But I shouldn’t have to feel ashamed for doing what was best for all three of us.”

  Journey said nothing. Andrew whistled.

  “Now you don’t have a life, and won’t get a life,” Amelia said, “because you believe I failed both of you and now you think you have to do everything. Don’t bother denying it. I just understood what was happening to us before you did. Maybe you still don’t.”

  “That’s not—”

  Amelia held up one of her hands. “I don’t want to fight with you, Nick. God knows we did enough of that.” She glanced at Andrew. “He’s such a beautiful kid, he’s still so beautiful … and it hurts like hell.”

  She met his eyes, and for a moment he saw the woman he’d met fifteen years ago in graduate school—smart, tough, but still vulnerable, tender. Then her eyes changed and he saw her retreating behind her walls. “I need to tell you something else,” she said. “Paul doesn’t know about Andrew.”

  “The man you’re living with doesn’t know you have a son?”

  Amelia looked at him. “You figured out that he’s moved in? Don’t answer that. I should have known you’d figure it out.”

  “You didn’t tell him—”

  “No, no, he knows I have a son,” Amelia said. “He just doesn’t know about him. You get my meaning?”

  Journey blinked at her. “So what does he do in June?”

  “I just tell him that it’s my two special weeks with Andrew, and he goes and stays at his brother’s house. He’s been very understanding.”

  “And you’ve been with this guy how long?”

  “Dating right at two years. He moved in a little over a year ago.”

  “My god, Amelia.”

  “I have to tell him,” Amelia said. “I know. You don’t need to say it. I’ve just been so busy.…”

  Journey shook his head, but he held his tongue.

  Amelia surprised him by smiling a little. “Yeah, you do think I’m a bitch. You’re just using that typical forced restraint of yours to not say so. Having a life of my own doesn’t make me a rotten mother, Nick. It just makes me different from you. You could make some different choices and still be a good dad.”

  Andrew screeched. Amelia winced. One of the workers behind the counter of the Red Cup looked over at them, then went back to work.

  “We could do this differently, you know,” A
melia said. “You don’t have to take everything on yourself. I don’t think I would be very good at full custody, but there are options. You’re always saying you wish I was more involved in his life, and I could be. Maybe not the way you think of it, but we have some choices.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m doing pretty well financially, and we could look at working out something for him that would be good for all three of us. I could feel like I was doing something more for Andrew, and you wouldn’t be quite so locked into things the way you are now.”

  “I can’t have this conversation today, Amelia,” Journey said. “I need you to take our son, and I will be back to get him as soon as I possibly can. I know it’s the last minute, and I know last-minute things generally don’t work in your life, but I need you to do this. Where I’m going—”

  “Yes?”

  “It might not be safe.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m not sure. But I’d feel more comfortable knowing Andrew was with his mother.”

  Amelia folded her arms. “You’re a history teacher. You don’t do things that aren’t safe.”

  Journey spread his hands in a What can I say? gesture.

  “All right, he can come hang out with me for a day or two. Stranger things have happened, I suppose. The world is full of strangeness these days, isn’t it?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Didn’t you hear the news this morning?”

  “The news? No, I had music on in the car for Andrew. What are you talking about?”

  “Someone blew up the chief justice of the Supreme Court in her car.”

  Journey stared at her. Suddenly the room felt intensely quiet, even with Andrew hooting and giggling beside him, dishes clanking, other people talking. Journey laid both his hands flat on the yellow counter.

  “Nick?”

  Journey reached under the counter and slid Andrew’s bag across to his ex-wife. “I’ll call you when I can, Amelia.”

  “Nick, dammit!”

  Journey pushed back his chair. Andrew stopped giggling and looked at him. Journey put his arms around the boy and squeezed once, then stepped back. “Stay with Mom for a little while,” he said. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  “Nick, will you please tell me what’s going on?”

  Journey looked down at her, his eyes boring into hers, those intriguing greenish gray eyes that had so attracted him fifteen years ago. They were Andrew’s eyes now. “I have to go. I’ll call—”

  “But I—”

  “He’s your son, Amelia. Keep him safe.”

  “Nick, have you lost your mind?”

  Then Journey was up on his feet and moving out of the Red Cup.

  * * *

  Dallas Four had followed Journey all the way from Carpenter Center. For this surveillance, they traveled in a light blue Honda Civic that blended in with almost every other four-door on the road. They had trailed the professor along I-35 and through the warren of streets leading to Classen Boulevard. They sat parked at a 7- Eleven across the street from the coffeehouse and watched Journey emerge.

  Within Dallas base, the Four team was often referred to as the poster group for diversity. Their commander called them the “face of the Glory Warriors for the modern age.” Gold was a trim, compact, first-generation Vietnamese-American man; Silver a tall, lithe African American woman in her mid-thirties; Bronze a middle-aged, heavyset, balding Anglo male. Silver was at the wheel of the Honda. She spoke with a clipped, precise tone. “The boy isn’t with him.”

  Nick Journey’s van was parked along the street, and they watched him hurry to it. In a moment, he had a phone to his ear. Thirty seconds later, the tall, well-dressed woman came out of the Red Cup, with Andrew Journey hanging on to her arm.

  “Who’s this?” said Gold, in the passenger seat. “Is this the ex-wife? It has to be the ex-wife. Why the hell did he meet her here?”

  “Get plates and I’ll run her,” Bronze said from the backseat.

  They watched the woman strap the boy into the backseat of a red Lexus; then the car roared out of the parking lot and turned toward Classen. It passed within twenty feet of them.

  “Oklahoma plate seven-five-eight X-L-K,” Gold read as the Lexus passed.

  Bronze opened his laptop. “The Lexus is registered to Amelia Kay Boettcher, address on Northwest Fourteenth Street, Oklahoma City.”

  “That’s the ex-wife, all right,” Silver said.

  “I’ll call Dallas Base,” Gold said.

  In less than a minute, he was off the phone. “We stay with Journey,” he said. “Team Three is going to come up and monitor the ex-wife and the boy.”

  “Why?” Silver asked, glancing at Gold.

  Gold looked at her hard. “Covering the bases. All of them.”

  “How far do we go with Journey?” Bronze said.

  “As far as we have to,” Gold said.

  * * *

  His hands shaking, Journey sat in the van and unzipped the backpack. He’d printed out the first e-mail, the one from Meg Tolman. He wasn’t going to contact Winters or Hendrickson—they’d probably be after him soon enough as it was. Yesterday, they’d treated him like a paranoid nut job. Today, or sometime soon, they would want to talk to him.

  But Tolman had been the first one to contact him. Before Vandermeer. Before Darlington. The tone of her first contact wasn’t patronizing or irritated. It was curious and businesslike.

  He turned on the radio and found the local NPR affiliate. The coverage was wall-to-wall assassination. Chief Justice Darlington’s car had exploded in front of her house at just before 7:30 A.M. Eastern Time. Her Marshals Service guard/driver had been badly injured in the blast. Pundits were speculating about an IED in the chief justice’s car, a simple bomb on a timer or something of the sort. There was even speculation about it being a cell phone bomb, set off remotely, just as in the Madrid train bombings in 2004.

  The Speaker of the Legislative Branch.

  The chief justice of the Judicial Branch.

  Next they would be after the president.

  He punched Tolman’s number into his phone. A moment later, a voice said, “Meg Tolman.”

  “This is Nick Journey,” he said.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Dr. Journey,” Tolman said.

  “Do you believe me now?”

  Another pause, then Tolman said, “Yes.”

  Journey exhaled. “Two men, one FBI and one from the Marshals Service, came to see me yesterday. Have you seen any kind of report from them?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Don’t you government people talk to each other?”

  “Where are you right now?”

  “It doesn’t matter where I am now. But where I’m going … that’s what you really want to know.”

  “All right, then. Where are you going?”

  “The Ohio River, on the Indiana side just across from Louisville, Kentucky. The Falls of the Ohio. Are you familiar with it?”

  “No,” Tolman said, “but give me fifteen minutes, and I’ll know everything there is to know about it.”

  Journey liked Tolman’s attitude. He explained the first page of the Fort Washita document, and the cryptic notation that led to the Falls of the Ohio. He told Tolman what he’d learned about the Glory Warriors. “The next phase of this, whatever it is, has something to do with the Falls of the Ohio. I’m getting on a plane to Louisville.”

  Journey listened to Tolman breathing on the phone. He could hear her moving around.

  “I’ll meet you there,” Tolman said after a moment. “Is this number your cell phone?”

  “Yes. I’ll have it with me.”

  “Here’s mine.” She gave him the number. “I’ll call you when I get to Louisville, and we’ll coordinate then.”

  “All right,” Journey said.

  Journey disconnected the call. He pulled onto the street and began working his way south toward Will Rogers
World Airport. Even though keeping Andrew didn’t fit into Amelia’s life, at least she’d taken him. At least, Journey thought, his son was safe.

  * * *

  When Tolman put down the phone, she looked up and saw Hudson filling her doorway. From down the hall, she heard the sounds of the television, with its nonstop coverage of Chief Justice Darlington’s death. There was a buzz of voices from the outer office, and several phones were ringing.

  “Journey?” Hudson said.

  Tolman nodded. “I’ll need some backup.”

  Hudson arched his eyebrows.

  “I’m going to Louisville,” Tolman said, taking care to give the city its proper native pronunciation—LOO-uh-vuhl—as she’d been taught by a college roommate who grew up in Kentucky.

  “What?”

  “Journey is headed to Louisville. There’s something along the Ohio River.… I’m going to meet him there and bring him in. Can you get me some backup?”

  “Díaz from the Bureau is going to want to talk to you.”

  Tolman unlocked her lower desk drawer. “I think Journey trusts me. Everyone else thinks he’s a nut. I can get him in, but I’ll need backup. Whoever is behind Vandermeer and Darlington is after Journey.”

  “Meg—”

  “No, don’t ‘Meg’ me. The Bureau will have a field office in Louisville. Have them call my cell, and I’ll tell them where the meeting is once I have it set with Journey.”

  “Díaz has jurisdiction. I’m not sure I have the authority to do this.”

  “Then, dammit, convince Díaz!” Tolman shouted. “You’re bigger than he is. Journey knew what was going to happen and tried to tell us, and we didn’t take him seriously. Well, we have to take him seriously now. And if Díaz can’t see that, then he’s too fucking stupid to be in the Bureau anyway.”

  Hudson waited a very long moment. “I believe you overestimate my influence at times.”

  Tolman smiled. “I knew you’d come through.”

  “Louisville, Kentucky,” Hudson said.

  “That’s what the man said. Something about the Falls of the Ohio. I’ll read up on it at the airport.”