good-bye. Then he went out to the parking lot and stole the van.
• • •
In the last fifty miles of its flow, before it delivered itself into the sweep of the Mississippi, the St. Croix River cut among heavily wooded hills. Along many of the steep slopes, the topsoil had eroded away, exposing the underlying sandstone in long wall outcroppings or in solitary pinnacles. Ten miles south of the interstate bridge at Hudson, a little river called the Kinnickinnic cut its own way through the rock strata. It was a clear, fast flow favored by anglers because of the trout that swam in its shaded pools. In order to protect and preserve the beauty of the waterways and the unique landscape surrounding them, the state of Wisconsin had set aside the area at the confluence of the Kinnickinnic River and the St. Croix River as a state park.
Bo didn’t need to read the brochure the ranger had handed him after she’d taken his entrance fee. He pretty well knew these things already. Or the important part anyway. The sandstone formations. The brochure did tell him something he didn’t know. That the park closed at 10:00P.M. And the ranger herself had told him something else. That the moon would rise at 10:06. A moon nearly full. A shame, she’d said, that no one would be in the park to enjoy it.
He drove the van along a narrow road that threaded its way among meadows of tall prairie grass and stands of white-barked poplars. There were parking areas that afforded access to hiking trails among the hills. Finally he entered a forest that was a mix of oak and evergreen. A half mile beyond that, the road ended at a picnic area perched on a hill overlooking the place where the Kinnickinnic spilled into the St. Croix. A dozen cars sat in the lot, gleaming under the hot August sun. Bo pulled into a slot away from the other vehicles. He took his bedroll with the Sig stuffed inside, and he left the van. A few families were gathered at the shaded picnic tables. Bo could hear the squeals and laughter of children somewhere out of sight toward the river. He walked a path that took him beyond the picnic area to a wooden observation platform constructed at the precipitous lip of the hill. The orientation of the platform was to the south. Far below, he could see the little blue-white thread of the Kinnickinnic snaking toward the grand sweep of the St. Croix. Over thousands of years, a curving delta of sand had formed at the confluence of the two rivers and a stand of tall cottonwoods had taken root. Several pleasure boats lay anchored along the shore of the delta, and Bo saw people strolling the beach. Beyond the delta, the river made a slow curl southeast. A few miles beyond, far out of sight, the St. Croix finally fed itself to the Father of Waters.
What lay to the south didn’t interest Bo. It was what crowned the bluffs directly across the river that had drawn him there. The orchards of Wildwood.
Two tall spruce trees blocked any clear view a visitor might have of Wildwood from the platform itself. Bo left the observation area and scouted along the crest of the hill, peering among the trees, carefully eyeing the slope. He stumbled upon a trail that cut down to the St. Croix, and he followed it, arriving quickly at a protected inlet with a beach and a swimming area full of children. This was the source of the laughter he’d heard from the hill above. As he approached the beach, the parents who lounged on blankets there gave him a wary look. He realized how out of place he appeared in his long, borrowed pants and shirt, his too-small shoes, his bedroll, with his hair uncombed, and his face unwashed and unshaven. They probably thought he was a vagrant, maybe a predator. He hurried on, lest they alert the park authorities to his presence.
He made his way along the bank of the river, studying the broad hillside as he went. It didn’t take him long to spot what he’d been looking for. A beige outcropping, three-quarters of the way up the hill, almost directly below the observation platform. Wedge-shaped, maybe fifteen feet from side to side, it thrust out a dozen feet or more from the hillside. Because trees walled the outcropping on three sides, it was invisible from the picnic area on the hilltop, but it had a perfect, unobstructed view of Wildwood.
Bo took a good ten minutes to make his way up the slope, fighting through a tangle of undergrowth. As he drew nearer, he saw that the freeze and thaw of a lot of winters had created deep fractures in the outcropping. The ground around the base was littered with talus, great chunks of stone that had broken away from the main body of the rock. By the time he stood on the flat top of the outcropping, he was sweating heavily and breathing hard. He stood looking across the river at Wildwood, and he allowed himself a moment of triumph. He was certain this was the place.
Many pieces had to come together in his thinking. There was what he believed about NOMan, that for whatever reason the organization was intent on assassinating the First Lady and that Tom Jorgenson was probably a target as well. There was the information given by Moses about the weaponry he’d been forced to handle, the sniper rifle, the. 308 Winchester rounds, and the Trijicon scope. With. 308 loads, the M40A1 would be effective to a range of a thousand yards. Although he didn’t have a range finder with him, Bo calculated the bluffs at Wildwood to be no more than six hundred yards away. The Trijicon ACOG-Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight-was a night-vision scope with high magnification capability. It would not be difficult to sight a target on the bluffs across the river, especially in the light of a full moon. Kate had told Bo that the first thing Tom Jorgenson wanted to do when he came home to Wildwood was gather with his family on the bluff overlooking the St. Croix and watch the moon rise. For two nights, the sky had been rainy or overcast. But it was cloudless now and promised to stay that way. If someone wanted to kill Kate and her father, tonight when the moon rose would be the perfect time.
The question that lay before him now was what to do next. His instinct was to alert Calloway at Wildwood. If he was right, the Jorgensons had to be kept away from the bluffs. If he was wrong-and considering the amount of speculation involved, there was every possibility that he was-he’d just be giving them more evidence to use against him at a mental competency hearing.
What he also knew, and what was extremely troubling, was that NOMan had infiltrated most, if not all, government agencies, and the Secret Service had probably not been spared. Alerting the FLOTUS detail might also result in alerting NOMan. Bo had no idea anymore whom to trust.
It was sunny and quiet on the rock. A gentle breeze blew over the hillside from downriver, smelling vaguely of evergreen and dry prairie grass. Near the delta, a motor launch revved its engine, pulled away from where it had been anchored, and headed south with the current. Bo could hear the murmur of the Kinnickinnic as it tumbled over the last smooth boulders before it joined the St. Croix. He also was aware of voices coming from the observation platform thirty yards above him and hidden by the two spruce trees. As soon as he focused on the voices, a jolt of recognition hit him. They were male, two of them, and he’d heard them before. In O’Gara’s, offering to buy him a drink. And then on the High Bridge, coaxing him to the railing. And finally in Diana Ishimaru’s home after she’d been murdered. Between the limbs of the spruce trees, Bo could see a bit of movement on the platform. He shuffled to his right in an attempt to get a clearer view. He was perilously near the lip of the sandstone, and he could see the chunks of talus scattered below over the slope of the hillside. On the platform above him, something metal flashed in the sun. Bo edged farther to the right, desperate to see. The moment he did, he heard the sharp crack of stone. He glanced down and saw another piece of rock break away from the outcropping and plunge to join the talus below. Unfortunately, it was the piece of rock on which he stood.
chapter
forty-five
The senator caned his way to a chair in the Oval Office and sat down. He wore an expensive gray suit, and he smelled of talc. He smiled like a man who’d walked into a parlor for an afternoon bourbon and a pleasant smoke.
“Glorious day, Clayboy. Makes me feel almost young again.”
Lorna Channing closed the door and positioned herself to the left of the senator. She folded her hands and waited for the president to speak.
Dixon rose from his desk and approached his father. He stood above the old man, looking down at that maddening smile.
“A few minutes ago, I spoke with John Llewellyn. I asked for his resignation.”
The senator’s smile collapsed. “You what?”
“It’s been clear to me for some time that we have many ideological differences.”
“Ideological? Ideology is for high school debates, Clayboy. This is the White House. This is the Super Bowl of politics. Here, you play to win, and winning is all that matters. Screw ideology. John Llewellyn knows politics.”
