I got off the phone and saw that the next group of lists was coming out. We got started on them, and I didn’t eliminate the homes that Barone had reported were already checked out, just in case the officers missed something.
Thirty-five minutes later we had the pared-down list. There were six homes on it, four of which had already been checked by Barone.
Which left two possibilities, one of which was only fifteen minutes from where we were. I called Barone and gave him this new information, and he said that officers were only ten minutes from the other location. He was close to there as well, and would meet up with them.
He would also send some as backup for us, but we were closer than his officers were, so we’d likely get there first.
When I got off the phone, I said, “Let’s go. We’re covering one of the two; Barone’s got the other.” I turned to Robbins. “You know how to get to this address?”
“Yes.”
“Then come on,” I said, and the four of us were off.
The address was in Mount Freedom, a small town northwest of Morristown. Robbins was only partially familiar with it, but told us he thought the address was on the outskirts of town, in mostly undeveloped farmland.
I drove, only because I got in the driver’s seat first. Emmit got in the back with Julie, and Robbins sat in the passenger seat. I drove in a way that emulated Emmit’s technique, which is to go so fast that the front wheels start to leave the ground. It was all open road, so I turned on the siren and let it rip.
I didn’t turn on the GPS, trusting Robbins’s assurance that he knew the way. This appeared to be a major mistake when at one point he said, “Turn right here-no, wait.” But he soon seemed to get his bearings, and told us he was positive he knew where he was going.
And he did.
We turned off on a small dirt road and pulled up to a farmhouse, small but in good condition. There was a car parked outside, and a pickup truck that looked like it had been a while since it was serviceable.
We got out of the car and ran to the front porch. I rang the bell and no one answered. I rang it again … no response.
So I nodded to Emmit, and he kicked down the front door.
The four of us went inside and started looking around. “We’re looking for doors in the floor,” I said. “Move every piece of furniture; the door might be hidden.”
So we searched, with Julie screaming Bryan’s name periodically, even though there was no way he could hear us even if he were there. The house was a small one, and we covered every piece of floor at least three times, then went out and looked around the yard.
I could see the satellite dish above the garage, so we went in there and searched just as carefully.
Nothing.
Bryan was not there.
My phone was ringing; it was Barone.
By five o’clock the number of protesters had exceeded ten thousand.
Even though there was no official program, a number of people had gotten up and made impromptu speeches from the stand that had been constructed for the occasion. Everyone knew that Mayor Holland was going to speak at six o’clock and Alex Hutchinson after that.
Holland had not arrived, but Chief Brus had, and was walking among the protesters. The courtesy with which he was greeted, and the almost festive atmosphere, confirmed his conviction that Holland was overreacting to the perceived danger. For God’s sake, Brus thought, half the children in town were there with their parents. Would people about to commit violent acts want their children there?
Holland was an idiot.
Brus’s strategy was a simple one. He would execute Holland’s order and send his men in to clear the place out. If they went peacefully, then that would be the end of it. Holland would take some political grief for having done it, but he could cover himself by claiming to only be concerned with the safety and welfare of the citizens.
If they resisted, Brus would not instruct his men to forcefully remove them. Holland would go nuts, and would demand the use of tear gas or other irresistible force. There would be a public disagreement between the two men, and Brus would not back down.
The net result would be that it would cost Brus his job; Holland had the right to fire him, and would exercise that right. But it would firmly and permanently elevate him well above Holland in the minds of the townspeople, and would be the perfect kickoff for his candidacy for Mayor.
It may not have been a win-win for Brus, but at the very least it was a no lose-win.
So all Brus had to do was sit back and watch Holland dig his own political grave and Brus would move in once he stopped shoveling.
At first, Bryan didn’t recognize what was happening.
He sensed that he was breathing slightly faster than normal, but he couldn’t tell if that was because he was feeling intense anxiety. He was pretty sure that extreme nervousness caused quickened breathing, but it was hard to remember.
And it was really important that he remember.
But after a few minutes, there could be no denying it. The air he was breathing was less satisfying; he needed more of it. That’s why he was inhaling faster and faster, but it wasn’t getting the job done.
In full-fledged panic, he turned on the computer, to see if there was a message from Lucas, providing a reason to hold on. There was none, so he quickly typed one of his own. The pills were three feet away, sitting on the desk, next to a glass of water. Waiting.
Then the computer went black and stayed that way. It was obviously out of power; he wasn’t even sure if the e-mail he sent went out. The battery had run out, as had Bryan’s life.
He picked up the computer and threw it against the wall, smashing the now useless machine that had been his lifeline. The exertion made him breathe even harder.
It was the moment of truth; if he was to take the pills, now was the time. He had resolved to do so, and felt that he could do it when faced with the certain prospect of death by suffocation.
But in the moment he hesitated. It was death he was afraid of, death in any form, and until he took those pills there was the remote possibility it could be avoided.
So he debated it in his mind, in seconds that felt like hours.
And then he felt strangely peaceful; it’s counterintuitive, but a brain deprived of sustenance will create such a feeling.
And with the pills on the desk, he slumped to the floor.
“Negative,” Barone said. “It’s a goddamn garden apartment.”
He was telling me that the other of the two matches that the satellite lists had yielded was a dead end, that there was no underground shelter there.
He was telling me that Bryan was going to die.
There was literally nothing we could do. Either we had been wrong about the general location that he was in or we had missed something in our rush to go through the lists. The latter possibility seemed more likely, but it didn’t matter.
There was nothing left to be done.
Julie started to sob softly, and I felt like joining her. I had spent a goddamn week trying to find a killer, and in the process I had killed my own brother.
Emmit, not the crying type, smashed his hand into the car so hard that it made a serious dent. He had given it his all, had even taken a bullet that day by the missile shaft, but it hadn’t been enough. At that moment I wished I had taken the bullet and fallen down the shaft and never …
And then thinking about that time at the abandoned missile shaft reminded me of what Willis Granderson of
