Cold Glory

by B. Kent Anderson

  “Think it’s the same one?”

  “Has to be. Reclusive media tycoon, owns at least part of practically everything in the country, stays out of the spotlight. Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  Journey nodded. “Heritage News Channel. They even interviewed me the day the guns and the papers were found at Fort Washita. But I doubt we can call up HNC and leave him a voice mail.”

  “We don’t have to find a way to get in touch with McMartin,” Tolman said. “Leave that to me.”

  “Of course. Hudson.”

  “Yeah.” Tolman tapped the steering wheel.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “So am I. Let’s say we get them to Oklahoma. Let’s say we make them believe the only way they’re going to get the signatures is if they meet us face-to-face. They’re not just going to let me come along and arrest them.”

  “No. They’ve tried to kill me and missed twice and they won’t want to miss a third time. They’ll have people there. We’ll have to be ready for them.”

  “Don’t know how to handle a gun, huh?” Tolman asked.

  “Never fired a gun in my life. With any luck, I won’t have to now, either.”

  Tolman shot him a questioning look.

  “There is someone I trust,” Journey said. “Believe it or not. But first … first I want to see my son.”

  They drove, coming into the outskirts of Little Rock. In a few miles, they merged onto I-40 and turned back to the west. The afternoon rush, such as it was in Little Rock, was just beginning. Tolman pulled into a truck stop—she thought she’d seen more truck stops in the last twenty-four hours than in her entire life—and opened her laptop. She did a quick search for Jackson McMartin. She didn’t even have to use RACER. A simple Google search told her that he came from a family that had made billions in California real estate, he’d gone to college at Stanford and law school at Yale, was a decorated army officer in Vietnam, then worked for the JAG Corps at the Pentagon, where he made one-star general. He served three terms in Congress, was a deputy secretary of defense, then began buying up media properties and pretty much disappeared from public life around fifteen years ago.

  They had been back on the road for five minutes when the prepaid cell Sharp had given Tolman rang. “I kept getting your voice mail,” Sharp said. “I called until you picked up.”

  “We were out of range. What’s wrong, Darrell?”

  “They came, just like you figured they would.”

  “You’re all right?”

  “Oh, I’m fine. But this fax came for Journey, from Webster in Vermont.”

  “Here, hold on,” Tolman said. “I’ll give him the phone.”

  She passed the phone to Journey, who said, “Yes?”

  “Fax pages,” Sharp said. “From this guy Webster.”

  “And? What do they look like?”

  Sharp started reading the pages to him, in the same low, soft Carolina cadence. Bills of sale, book orders, dinner parties, travel plans …

  “Garbage,” Journey said. “There’s nothing—”

  “Wait,” Sharp said.

  Journey heard the phone being put down. He thought he heard another voice in the room, but the sound was muffled. He heard a ringing, the sound of a fax kicking in.

  “Another page coming in,” Sharp said. “No, two pages.”

  Several seconds passed. Journey heard the muffled sounds again.

  “It’s from Webster, too. Cover page says, ‘Dr. Journey, here’s one more, from a family scrapbook my grandmother made. The page talks about “the provisions on the pages preceding,” but there are no pages preceding, nothing at all resembling it. It is very vague. Perhaps it is a piece from a manuscript that Charles Webster handled. It seems to be about a post–Civil War political movement, but there is not enough to draw a sound conclusion. Best regards, J. T. Webster.’”

  “What?” Journey said, his heart starting to pound. “Darrell, read me the page, the one he’s talking about.”

  Sharp did. When he finished, Journey put his hand over his mouth.

  “What?” Tolman said. “Nick, what?”

  “Darrell,” Journey said into the phone. “Send that fax—please. Just a minute. I have to think of the number.… All right, here it is.” He told Sharp the number. “Put it to the attention of Dr. Sandra Kelly. On the cover page, tell her it’s from me and I’ll be calling her, and to hold on to it.”

  “I’ll do it,” Sharp said. “Give the phone back to Meg.”

  Journey passed the phone back across the seat, and Tolman said, “Darrell?”

  “You know, Meg, I’ve talked more in the last eight hours than I have in the last seven years.”

  Tolman smiled. “I’m glad you’re okay, Darrell. Thanks for your help.”

  But Sharp had already hung up. Tolman looked back at Journey.

  “It makes sense now,” Journey said. “I haven’t been able to understand how two men like Grant and Lee—honorable men who both believed strongly in civilian control over the military—could create something like this and have it out there, just waiting to be found by some nutcases who wanted to call themselves Glory Warriors and run the country. Now I understand, and it changes everything.”

  CHAPTER

  51

  Hudson bought coffee from Around the Ground and walked back toward the building that housed RIO. In suite 427, he passed the reception desk, went into his office, and closed the door, finally alone. He placed both hands flat on the desk in front of him and tried to quiet his mind. He steepled his fingers in front of his face, then picked up his coffee as the phone rang.

  “Russell Hudson,” he said.

  “Finally caught you in,” Tolman said.

  Hudson sat upright. “Meg, where are you? I haven’t had time to call you back. I’ve been dealing with the investigation. Is this a secure line? Can you talk?”

  “Oh, I can talk, Rusty.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Glory Warrior.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a fucking Glory Warrior. Don’t insult me by denying it.”

  “Meg, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You prick! All these years, I thought we were friends. Hell, even more than that, I thought you were a professional. As much as I teased you about being a bureaucrat, I respected you. You fooled me every day for five fucking years.”

  “Meg, I—”

  “I had you over to my apartment. I made you dinner, and I don’t even fucking cook! All your interest in my music, asking me what pieces I was working on. I thought you understood me. I let my guard down with you and told you about my mother. And all this time, all these years, you’ve been planning on overthrowing the U.S. government.”

  “Meg, what is the matter with you?”

  “You’re asking me that? You shit, you’re asking what’s the matter with me? After everything you’ve done, you have the balls to ask me that?” Tolman’s voice had been rising, and now she was screaming. “Vandermeer and Darlington, that whole charade of the threat assessment, letting me present it. Oh, that was a good one, that was really inspired. And pretending to call the Pentagon, that was better yet. You knew all along that Lane and Standridge were alive, because you’ve been paying Lane’s wife all this time!”

  “Where are you? What do you—?”

  “Shut up!” Tolman shouted. “My friend, my mentor, my boss … just shut your fucking mouth and listen. You go tell Jackson McMartin—yes, we know who he is—that the two of you are going to meet Journey and me in Oklahoma, at Fort Washita at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon. You like drama, playing your little role all these years? Well, here’s a little more drama for you. Journey knows exactly where the signature page is, and you people haven’t been able to find a damn thing on your own so far.”

  “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “You’ve screwed RIO and the government and the whole fucking country over for God only knows how long. And you’ve been screw
ing me over for five years. I know exactly what I’m doing.”

  Hudson gripped the phone. “You’re in no position to talk to me this way.”

  “You know what? I don’t give a shit, not anymore.” Her voice took on a bitter, mocking tone. “‘Oh Meg, where are you performing this week? Falls Church, how wonderful. How’s that new piece coming? Regards to your father, Meg, and by the way, I’m working to suspend the U.S. Constitution and stage a coup. Have a nice day, Meg.’” Tolman lowered her voice. “You make sure McMartin brings the missing pages from Grant’s memoir, the ones Grant had Mark Twain take out of the book at the last minute. And call your watchers off Journey’s ex-wife and kid. Yeah, I know about that, too. I know about the bank accounts and all the millions of dollars moving all over the place. You covered yourself with all those pass-through accounts and the one in Aruba, but at some point there had to be real names on that money, and that’s where I found you. So you go to McMartin and you get moving. If you don’t, Journey and the page disappear forever. I’ll create new identities for him and his son and they’ll vanish. You know I can do it, too. Three o’clock tomorrow, Fort Washita. McMartin probably has a jet, so you can travel in style.”

  “What do you get out of this?”

  Tolman barked a harsh laugh into the phone. “Not a goddamn thing, Rusty.” The line went dead.

  Hudson sat for a moment, holding the phone before he placed it back in its cradle. His mind raced through the possibilities. He contemplated calling the other Washingtons, but Graves was untouchable at the moment. One was almost always untouchable, and Three was getting into position on Harwell.

  He tried to clear his mind again, but all he heard was Meg Tolman’s voice.

  No.

  He had worked for twenty-five years, patiently doing his part, becoming Washington Four. In short order, he would become the fifth most powerful man in the country.

  He had come too far. They all had.

  Hudson looked at his watch. If he left now, he could be in Matewan by midnight. He picked up the phone and called the Judge. “We have both a problem and an opportunity,” he said.

  * * *

  Washington Three didn’t scare easily. The idea that he was less than twenty-four hours away from assassinating the president of the United States did not bother him. He had trained for it all his adult life. The Glory Warriors recruited him off the campus of Stanford when he was eighteen, followed him through his active duty military years, including a tour in Desert Storm, and facilitated his entry into the Secret Service and his climb through the ranks until he joined the protective detail of newly elected president Harwell seven years ago. Harwell was just another politician, and Washington Three was about to make history.

  But driving alone into the Anacostia neighborhood at night came close to scaring him. He passed at least four drug deals in progress and saw one kid who could not have been more than fourteen threatening an even younger boy with a knife. He wondered if one of the boys would be dead by morning.

  When he turned onto Valley Place, he showed his Service ID at the end of the block and the D.C. cop on duty passed him through.

  “My boss wanted me to check on one more thing,” he told the cop, who smiled back at him. They both knew about difficult bosses.

  The new community center was well lighted, but no one was around. It didn’t officially open until after the dedication ceremony and the president’s speech tomorrow. Now, Three thought, the opening would no doubt be postponed further as the nation mourned its fallen leader, just as it mourned the crusty old Speaker of the House and the nation’s first female chief justice, the grandmother from Alabama.

  He parked three doors down from the house and took his black gym bag from the backseat of the car. He walked to the vacant house with the half-covered window on the second floor, turned in at the gate, and walked right in. The place had no door.

  Upstairs, he slipped on a pair of rubber gloves, then opened the bag and reassembled the broken-down sniper rifle in less than two minutes. He inserted a magazine, lay the rifle parallel to the window, and left the house. He had signed off on the house. It was secure. No one would be in it again until tomorrow. And then he would wait.

  Washington Three walked back out into the damp night. It had rained in the afternoon and the streets were slick and murky. The tall trees on either side of the community center dripped water onto the pavement. Three scanned the rooftops. The agents up there would be complaining about standing water tomorrow. Some of them would probably ruin their shoes.

  He grinned at the absurdity of it, then got back into his car and drove away from Valley Place.

  CHAPTER

  52

  The sun sank ahead of Journey and Tolman after they crossed the Oklahoma line, blazing in shades of blue, orange, purple, and pink. The terrain began to flatten from the Ozark Plateau, ambling toward the Great Plains to the west. They both felt the exhaustion beginning to carry them, to tug at them like an undercurrent.

  “I have to see Andrew,” Journey said. “This highway takes us straight into Oklahoma City, close to his mother’s house. It’s another two and a half hours south to Carpenter Center.”

  “Aren’t you concerned—?” Tolman said.

  “About his safety. Of course I am. He won’t be at the fort with us.”

  She looked at him but was silent. They were in Oklahoma City by eleven, Journey directing Tolman to take the Classen Boulevard exit. She wound through city streets in Sharp’s truck until crossing Dewey Avenue on Northwest Fourteenth in Heritage Hills, which proclaimed itself “the oldest neighborhood in Oklahoma City.” Many of the homes were proud Victorians from the earliest years of the twentieth century.

  “Here,” Journey said, pointing, and the truck coasted to a stop under a huge elm.

  A moment later, Amelia had answered the door and was standing, silent as stone, in her bare feet and a long T-shirt.

  “Hey,” Journey said.

  “People were watching my house,” Amelia said. “Three men in a van.”

  “I know, Amelia.”

  “And who is that Kelly woman who called me? Why couldn’t you call yourself?”

  “Sandra is a coworker. It wasn’t safe for me to call.” He looked up and down the quiet street. “The watchers should be gone.”

  “I think they left this afternoon.”

  Journey nodded. “How’s Andrew?”

  “He’s fine. Hasn’t had any real meltdowns. Very vocal, though. He was being so loud that Paul had to leave.”

  Journey said nothing. He heard Tolman behind him. “Amelia, this is Meg Tolman. Meg, this is my son’s mother, Amelia Boettcher.”

  “Who’s she?” Amelia said.

  “I’m with the Research and Investigations Office in Washington, Ms. Boettcher,” Tolman said. “Nick has been working with me.”

  “Working with you?”

  “Amelia,” Journey said, “are you going to make us stand out here?”

  Amelia stood aside.

  “Could I just go up and look in on him?” Journey said.

  Amelia shrugged. Journey went up the wide staircase with its highly polished banister, the steps covered in expensive fabric, and turned left at the top of the stairs. The first door was slightly ajar, and he could see Andrew’s head in the sliver of light from the hall.

  He sniffed and caught the smell of urine. The boy had already wet himself in his sleep. But Journey didn’t hold his breath, for once. He just watched the boy sleep, a big twelve-year-old kid who had a Winnie-the-Pooh pillow. In sleep, Journey thought, Andrew did not have autism. He was just a child who slept a child’s beautiful sleep. Journey caught the trace of a memory from a few days ago, Andrew sitting in the jewelry store in Carpenter Center, squeezing the porcupine ball Marvin Colbert had given him, smiling a real and genuine and happy smile as he felt the little rush of air from the ball on his face. Journey turned away from the bedroom door and went back down the stairs.

  At the foot of th
e steps, he said to Amelia, “We have a lot to do tomorrow. But we’re exhausted. I’ve dozed in cars and had maybe one real hour’s sleep in the last twenty-four. Amelia…” He put his hands in his pockets. “Could we just stay here for the night? I’ll sleep here on your couch, and if you have a guest room, Meg could sleep there.”

  “Nick, I don’t—”

  “It’s exhaustion. Nothing else. I just need to close my eyes. That’s all.”

  Amelia raised her hands and let them drop to her sides. “We can pack up Andrew’s things in the morning. I had to buy him some more Pull-Ups, you know.”

  Journey nodded. He exchanged a glance with Tolman and watched as Amelia showed her to the guest room.

  Unknown to Andrew Journey, the boy slept under the same roof as both his mother and his father for the first time in over three years.

  CHAPTER

  53

  Ray Tolman got up before 5 A.M., showered, and dressed in his suit, minus the jacket. He hadn’t slept much. By six fifteen, he was at his desk, staring at the duty rosters again.

  Alley. Clare. DeBacker. Delham. O’Daniel.

  It couldn’t be Tony Alley. Ray Tolman knew the man. He was a good man, soft-spoken, easygoing. His background was in accounting. He’d been very good at investigating financial crimes before getting into protective duty. It couldn’t be Alley. Tolman had nothing to base it on but instinct. And sometimes, he told himself, all the databases in the world don’t mean shit. A good cop is only as good as his instinct.

  Clare. DeBacker. Delham. O’Daniel.

  Would these so-called Glory Warriors really put a woman into this position? On the one hand, the very fact that Miranda O’Daniel was female might lead people to believe she couldn’t possibly be one of them, thereby making her the perfect candidate. By the same reasoning, though, there were only a handful of women on presidential protective detail. Therefore she stood out, and this group wouldn’t want their sleeper assassin to be one who attracted attention.

  Clare. DeBacker. Delham.