must live to give the child life. The child is all that stands between her and suicide. The child saves her life. The child is her saving grace.
Her Grace.
She now hears the child’s cries. They become whimpers. Then they stop all together. The child is in the dark again, just as when she was inside Elizabeth. But she cannot save the child’s life now and the child cannot save Elizabeth’s life. Only one man can save them both.
She hears a voice, that familiar voice of evil: “I have taken what you love most, as I promised I would. Now I will own her as I have owned you.”
Elizabeth woke, sat up in bed, and screamed, “No!”
Ben’s eyes snapped open. He looked around. He thought he had heard a scream.
He checked his watch: 0400. He stood and went over to John, still snug in his sleeping bag, and squatted next to his son. He recalled those late nights after the war when he had sat on the edge of his son’s bed and watched his son sleeping and listened to his breathing and thought how much he loved him but knowing he was failing him as a father. John’s life had taken him on a different path, a path Ben had thought would never again intersect with his. But their paths were one now. Ben put his hand over his son’s mouth to prevent him from screaming. John jerked awake, startled; he realized it was Ben and relaxed.
“It’s time,” Ben whispered.
FBI Agent O’Brien lay duct-taped and asleep.
“The hell you mean you know all this?” FBI Special Agent Eugene Devereaux shouted into the phone.
FBI agents, even veteran ones like himself, were not supposed to cuss at the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even a political asshole like Stanley White-the director always had one finger in the air gauging the political winds and another finger up his ass. But Devereaux had no patience for protocol, not after having spent the better part of an hour tracking the director down-he was at Chicago Midway Airport aboard the Bureau jet, about to fly back to D.C.-to tell him everything Agent Jorgenson knew and now having the director tell him he already knew everything.
“We know the girl’s there,” the director said. “HRT’s had that place under surveillance for three months. We’ve got men on the mountain around the clock.”
“They’re after McCoy.”
“Yes. We believe they’re plotting to assassinate the president. Larry ordered Major Walker killed.”
“Then go in and arrest them! And get Gracie out!”
“We can’t. All we’ve got them on now are weapons charges. We need more evidence.”
“What about Gracie? They kidnapped her and transported her across state lines-that’s a federal crime! She’s evidence! Stan, she’s Elizabeth Austin’s daughter.”
“Austin? The girl’s name is Brice.”
“The mother’s maiden name was Austin when she was at Justice. She was one of the prosecutors on the Walker case. She was the hostage back then.”
“Jesus, I didn’t know.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, Eugene, we’ve got to get everyone involved with this plot identified and located before we move in. They could have operatives on the outside. I’m not gonna have a president killed on my watch!”
“So you’re sacrificing her?”
“The president’s life is more important than the girl’s.”
“You can secure the president!”
“Not from these people, Eugene. They’re trained assassins, the very best. Those fuckers went into North Vietnam to assassinate generals-they can kill anyone!”
“So can Colonel Brice.”
“Who?”
“Colonel Ben Brice, Gracie’s grandfather. Green Beret. He’s the guy that walked into San Bie prison camp and rescued those pilots.”
“I remember that. He got the Medal of Honor.”
“He was one of them, Stan. He was in Walker’s unit. He testified against Walker at his court-martial.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, and he went after Gracie, to Idaho, on some bullshit call-in tip we got from Idaho Falls. At least I thought it was bullshit because Agent Curry reported that the source could not ID the men or Gracie. Stan, you had an FBI agent submit a false 302 about a positive ID on a child abduction case? That’s obstruction of justice!”
“Not in a case involving national security. Eugene, we couldn’t compromise the operation.”
“Well, Stan, I figure the operation’s not only about to be compromised, it’s fixin’ to be blown to kingdom come!”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Colonel Brice is sitting on your boy right now.”
Stan laughed. “The hell he is. He’ll never find their camp. Took us the better part of four years.”
“Bonners Ferry. On a mountain called Red Ridge.”
He wasn’t laughing now. “Wh… how did you know?”
“I didn’t. Colonel Brice did. That’s where he’s at.”
“Jesus Christ, if he goes in now he’ll screw up the entire operation-and get himself killed in the process!”
“Stan, I wouldn’t bet against Colonel Brice.”
Ben had defused the perimeter explosives then rigged his own remote triggering device using the power pack; he had run the wire to their location behind a rock outcropping, where John would be safe. He could have run the wire to his shooting position and detonated the explosives himself, but this way John had something to do that would keep him out of the line of fire. When John punched the trigger, an electrical charge would race down the line and detonate the explosives. As much explosives as these soldiers had rigged up, half the mountain would be history.
But that was Plan B.
FBI Special Agent Jan Jorgenson wanted to fly to Idaho, but Agent Devereaux had told her to sit tight in Dallas until he and Director White arrived in Bonners Ferry. He wanted her to get to Mrs. Brice with any news before the press did. So she sat in her office, wondering: Why did they take Gracie? Her eyes paused on each heading on the grease board: GARY JENNINGS… JOHN BRICE… ELIZABETH BRICE… COL. BEN BRICE… DNA. She realized that she had never reviewed the DNA results on the blood in the truck or on John Brice’s shirt or from the family. She opened the file to the DNA results and scanned down the page. And she froze.
“Oh, my God. That’s why they took her.”
She checked her watch: seven Dallas time, five in Bonners Ferry. Jan picked up her phone and began punching numbers.
The FBI Academy is located on a Marine base in Quantico, Virginia, a four-hundred-eighty-acre site shared with other FBI units, including the Hostage Rescue Team. Being in close proximity, Academy trainees got to know the HRT operators. Most were macho assholes who liked to talk tough. But not Pete O’Brien.
Pete was a good guy. He cared. Jan and Pete had gone on three dates during her thirteen weeks of New Agent Training at the Academy. Pete had been in his own training as an HRT sniper, so his free time had been as limited as hers. Then she had graduated and been shipped off to Dallas; Pete had flown to Spain on an HRT mission to arrest an international fugitive-to kidnap him, actually, since an FBI agent had about as much legal authority in
