Kennedy quickly shot that down. “Never. This is my home, and my church needs me. I owe them. I can’t just leave. My work has just started here, Nate. The word is starting to get out that people like us have a place to come and find fellowship and worship God.”
Nate didn’t argue. Kennedy was adamant.
“Can you print out some of the chatter you found?” Nate asked. “I might be able to decipher some of it. I need anything I can get.”
“I’ll find what I can,” Kennedy said, wheeling back from the table. “I’ll check to see if there’s anything new. Maybe we can find out what happened to our friends out there.”
“Thank you.”
Kennedy spun in his chair and propelled it toward the next room, where his computers hummed. But in the doorway he stopped suddenly, and turned a half turn so he could look at Nate.
“Are you finally going to tell me what this is all about? A lot of blood has been shed, and we’ve lost some really good men. I’d like to know why directly from you, because I’m not sure I can believe what I read on the Net anymore. I’m sure Nemecek has changed history.”
Nate said, “You know why.”
Kennedy’s face flushed with anger. “I know John Nemecek is your mortal enemy. But what I don’t know-and I deserve to know-is exactly what happened back in 1998 in the desert.”
“Nineteen ninety-nine,” Nate corrected.
“So be it,” Kennedy said. But his face was set and he wasn’t moving.
“Print out what you can,” Nate said, “and I’ll tell you if you really want to know.”
The Reverend Oscar Kennedy glared at Nate for a while until his expression finally softened. “Okay, then,” he said.
While Kennedy was in the computer room, Haley reentered and strode purposefully toward Nate and sat down at the table. There was no avoiding eye contact this time. She was all business.
“I want you to find the men who did it,” she said. “You owe it to me and to Gabriel. Not to mention the others.”
He stared back at her and again felt the little tug inside him as he looked into her wide blue eyes. He had always been a sucker for long black hair and blue eyes, especially if they belonged to intelligent women.
“I’ve heard a lot about you,” she said. “At one point I really wanted to finally meet you and hear if what they said was true. But not under these circumstances. Now I just want you to go and find them.”
He remained quiet.
She said, “I’ve heard about the falcons and a little about what you were involved in years ago. Gabriel talked about that big gun you carry. He said you’d just show up from time to time without any notice. He also said if it came to a fight, he’d want you in his corner more than anyone else he knew. That’s saying something, you know.”
Nate had to look away because it seemed her eyes were reaching inside him.
“Diane Shober told me how you brought her here. She said you were good to her, but she couldn’t figure you out. She said she got the impression you were carrying a very heavy weight around with you, but you wouldn’t talk about it. I liked her, although she was very intense. We got along, and it was nice to have another woman in the place. I never had a sister, and she was like a sister to me. To think that they would hurt her, too… it makes me sick.”
Nate nodded.
“Oscar is a wonderful, gentle soul,” she said, her eyes shifting toward the computer room. “He really does want to help people, and he’s a true believer. I can’t really say I buy everything he says, but I know in my heart he’s sincere and kind. He almost makes me believe in God, to be around a man like that. If a man as tough and practical as Oscar becomes an evangelical, I almost have to concede that there is something out there bigger than what we see, you know? And after what’s happened to us here, I have no doubt there is true evil in the world. So doesn’t it make sense there would be true good? If nothing else, you need to do what you can to protect him. You need to eliminate the people depraved enough to try and hurt him.”
Before Nate could reply, she said, “I’m going to go pack. You can take us both out of here. Maybe someday Oscar can come back when it’s safe.”
With that, she reached out and patted the back of Nate’s hand and left the table to go upstairs and pack.
Nate took a chair next to Kennedy and opened a laptop.
“Do you mind?” Nate asked, gesturing to the computer.
“Feel free.”
“Is it a secure IP address?”
Kennedy said, “As secure as I can make it. But that’s no guarantee of anything with the capability they have.”
“Got it,” Nate said while the laptop booted up. If Nemecek had gotten to Gordon in Colorado and sent a team to the compound in Idaho, there was only one other target close to Nate: Joe Pickett. And his family. He prayed they weren’t under surveillance, or worse.
He called up the old falconry site and started a new thread:
TRAINING AND FLYING MY NEW KESTREL
‹0COMMENTS›
Under it, he wrote:
TRAINING MY NEW FALCON IS TURNING OUT TO BE A VERY BAD EXPERIENCE. NOTHING I TRY WILL WORK, AND I’M GETTING FRUSTRATED AND CONCERNED. IT’S A DISASTER ON EVERY FRONT. I JUST WANT TO SAY TO THAT BIRD, “FLY AWAY NOW AND DON’T LOOK BACK.”
“Thank you,” Nate said to Kennedy, closing the laptop.
“I’m finding some stuff,” his friend said. “I’ll be back with you in a minute.”
When Oscar Kennedy rolled back into the kitchen with a sheaf of printouts, he eyed Nate with suspicion.
“I hope Haley didn’t unload on you,” he said.
“She didn’t.”
“She can come on pretty strong.”
“I like that in her,” Nate said.
“Uh-oh, you’re smitten,” Kennedy said simply, shaking his head.
“She agrees with me that we should all leave now.”
“I’m not surprised,” Kennedy said. “But I’m not going anywhere. You can take her, though. Get her on a plane somewhere so she can fly back to her family.”
“Are you sure you won’t go?”
“I’m sure, and that’s that,” Kennedy said.
He handed the printouts to Nate. “I was able to locate most of the blog posts. But a few have been scrubbed since the last time I saw them.”
Nate took the stack and put it aside on the table for later. Upstairs, he could hear Haley shuffling around in her room, no doubt throwing clothing into a suitcase.
“Unburden yourself,” Kennedy said.
“We don’t have much time,” Nate said, gesturing toward the upstairs room.
“We have enough.”
Nate sat back, putting himself back in that place again. Recalling the heat and hot wind and dust, the smells of desert and cooking food. The elaborate tents and fifty four-by-four vehicles flown in just for the occasion. The flowing robes of the guests. And the dozens of falcons, hooded and still, roosting on their poles.
“Have you ever heard of the houbara bustard?” Nate asked Kennedy.
“No.”
