CHAPTER 78
THE TWO CHOPPERS lifted off the ground and flew southeast. In one were the president and his wife with a company of Secret Service agents and as much equipment as they could cobble together at the last minute. The second bird carried still more agents, the two best bomb-sniffing dogs the Feds had, more equipment, and Chuck Waters, who'd been tipped off to what was happening by Larry Foster and, unknown to the First Couple, had come along for the ride. Next to him was Aaron Betack, who had joined the party too, also unknown to the First Lady. The skies were growing lighter by the minute, the low-level winds were calm, and the rising sun was rapidly burning off the morning chill.
Betack's phone rang.
'Yeah?'
'Aaron, it's Sean King. We need to talk.'
'I'm sort of busy.'
'I'm in Alabama.'
'What? We are too.'
'We as in who?'
Betack looked at Waters and then said into the phone, 'Like I told you before, Wolfman and Lynx are on the move,' he said, referring to Dan and Jane Cox's Secret Service code names. 'What are you doing in Alabama?'
'If I had to guess, I'd say pretty much on the same trail you are. Where exactly are you headed?'
'We don't know, Sean. I told you that before.'
'I know, but I thought that status would've changed by now. You're with the president and you don't know where you're going?'
'Everything's screwed up. We're flying blind here, stomping on every rule and protocol in the Secret Service manual. Larry Foster is the detail chief and he's about to have a coronary. But after that confrontation in the Oval Office the next thing we know we're in Alabama taking a chopper to a set of map coordinates.'
'Aaron, that's nuts. You could be walking right into a trap.'
'Tell me something I don't know. You think the Service is happy about this? But he's the president, man.'
'You're telling me the director of the Secret Service is letting this happen? Or the president's senior advisors? How about the vice president?'
'You know it's all a balancing act. He's the commander in chief and we're his serfs. But we've worked our butts off behind the scenes, called in support from the FBI and the military, and we think we have a decent protection bubble set up even given the crummy circumstances.'
Waters looked over and motioned for Betack to give him the phone.
'King? This is Chuck Waters.'
'Hey, Chuck, I left you a message.'
'What the hell are you doing?'
'If I told you, Chuck, you wouldn't believe me. Aaron filled me in on what's going on there. You guys could be heading into an ambush.'
'Yeah, but what the president doesn't know is that we've got two choppers full of HRT riding ahead of us. By the time we land, and before the president steps one foot off his bird, they'll have scoped the area and set up a perimeter that not even an ant could get through. Then if we still don't like what we see, we're out of here, president or not.'
'But what if they shoot you out of the sky?'
'We got that covered too. Each of the choppers is equipped with the latest air-to-air and ground-to-air countermeasures. Plus we got military birds all over the place riding shotgun over us. And a battalion of Apache gunships is moving outward grid-by-grid from the ground zero coordinates we were given, looking for any threat. And, man, you see an Apache heading your way you either surrender, shit your pants, or both.'
'Okay, but we found something that you need to know about. Maybe an Achilles' heel.' Sean explained about the metal cylinders.
'Where'd you find them?'
'I'll explain later. I hope you got something to counter it.'
'I'll see what I can do. Where are you now?'
'Headed to an abandoned mine with a little boy named Gabriel.'
'Gabriel? And why a mine?'
'Because I think there might be a little girl there.'
'Willa?'
'Hoping and praying, Chuck. Let's keep in touch. And good luck.'
CHAPTER 79
SAM QUARRY stared down so intently at the improvised SAT phone in his hand it was like he was cradling a poisonous snake. It wasn't nearly time for Carlos to be calling him but a part of him wanted the call to have already come. He wanted this over.
He checked with Daryl to make sure everything was ready and then headed to Willa's room. When he entered, she and Diane were huddled around the table. He'd decided that on this day, this last day, the two women should be together. They looked up when he walked in and closed the door behind him.
He leaned against a wall and lit up a cigarette.
'What's going on?' Willa said in a trembling voice. She had never been the same since she'd discovered it was possible something had happened to her family.
'It's just about over,' said Quarry. 'At least I'm hoping it is.'
'Hoping?' said Diane, her face weary and her voice equally tired.
'Yeah, hoping,' said Quarry. 'And praying.'
'And what if your hopes don't turn out?' asked Willa.
'Yeah, tell us. Mr. Sam,' said Diane coldly. 'What then?'
He ignored her and looked at Willa. 'I brought my daughter home. The sick one.'
'Why'd you do that?'
He shrugged. 'It was time. Said my goodbyes and all. It's all good.'
'Your goodbyes?' asked Willa in a fearful voice.
'See, whichever way this turns out, things are over for me. All done. Ain't gonna see anybody anymore.'
'Are you going to kill yourself?' said Diane, with a hopeful edge to her voice.
Quarry's lips eased into a smile. 'Can't kill a man who's already dead.'
Diane merely looked away, but Willa said, 'Who'll take care of your daughter if you can't?'
Diane looked back over with a curious expression. It was obvious that she had not even considered this issue.
Quarry shrugged. 'It'll be okay for her.'
'But-'
He moved to the door. 'You two just sit tight.'
He left.
Diane drew close. 'It's not going to be okay, Willa.'
Willa just stared at the door.
'Willa, do you hear me?'
Apparently Willa didn't hear her. She just kept staring at the door. The plane hadn't been there so Michelle was driving hard. Gabriel was next to her feeding directions and Sean was in the backseat looking at the sky and checking for a chopper carrying a president and a First Lady who had much to answer for.
'Turn there, left,' said Gabriel.
Michelle cut a hard left that flung Sean across the backseat.
'If we die before we get there, it will really be counterproductive,' he said sharply as he struggled to sit back up
