A Brewing Storm

ranch.”

“You aren’t getting married in your hometown?”

“No. I lost my folks when I was a teenager. In an accident.”

“An accident?”

“An awful car accident. We were vacationing in Spain, where my parents had a house. My mom and dad and a friend of mine who was on vacation with us were killed by a drunk driver who swerved into the wrong lane. It was horrible.”

“You weren’t with them?”

“No. Everyone said I was lucky.” Tears began to fill her eyes. “I had a bad cold that night and stayed home when they went to dinner. I’d rather not talk about it.”

The Taurus reached a traffic circle. Storm turned from it into the entrance to Arlington National Cemetery.

“Is that where we’re going?” Toppers asked, looking at a house directly in front of them on a hill.

“Yes,” he replied. “That’s Lee’s mansion.”

A guard stopped them at the cemetery’s gated entrance.

“Sorry, you missed the last tour of the house,” he said. “It was at four-thirty.”

“ I’ve got friends buried here. Iraq,” Storm said. “We’ll pay our respects and tour the house some other time.”

“Take this,” the guard said, handing Storm a pamphlet. He waved them through.

The Robert E. Lee house was built in the early 1800s, in the Greek Revival style. Designed by one of the architects who worked on the U.S. Capitol, the stone mansion had six large columns holding up the front of its massive portico. When the Civil War started, the Union began burying fallen soldiers near the house because President Lincoln wanted the Lee family, including the Confederate general’s wife, who was living there, to see the graves when she looked out her windows each morning.

Storm weaved through the acres of white tablets, eventually making his way up the hill to the front of the mansion.

“There’s the drop site,” he said, pointing to a dark green outdoor trash container. It was overflowing with garbage.

Storm drove to it and scanned the area. No one was watching them. He picked up a gym bag and unzipped it. Toppers had carefully stacked one-hundred-dollar bills in neat rows. Closing the bag, Storm stepped from the still running cargo van and shoved the money deep inside the debris, covering the top with discarded newspapers.

Toppers’s cell phone rang as soon as he returned to the driver’s seat. It was Darth Vader again.

“Time for the next drop.”

Storm sensed that they were being watched. It was a sixth sense that had served him well in combat. There wasn’t anyone near the Lee house, but there was a large group of people several hundred yards down the hill. Storm had been to enough funerals to recognize that the departed had just been given full military honors. The flag-draped coffin had been carried on a horse-drawn caisson to the grave site. A color guard had escorted it there. A military band had sounded a farewell, followed by a three-rifle volley. It was dusk and that was late for a graveside service, which meant someone important had pulled strings to arrange it. The evening sun was setting, but from the grave’s vantage point, a mourner could glance up the hill and see the white cargo van.

Had one of the kidnappers blended into the crowd of mourners? Was Darth Vader among them?

The scrambled voice said, “Head to Georgetown. The canal on Thirty-first Street. Walk down the path to Wisconsin Avenue. The first trash can on the right. Leave the second bag in it.”

Storm exited the cemetery and crossed the Potomac back into the District, where the van was immediately stuck in traffic. A woman talking on her cell phone nearly collided with them when she cut in front of the van.

“Stupid broad,” Toppers snapped. “It’s against the law to use a cell phone in the District unless you’ve got a hands-free device. Someone should arrest her. She could have killed us.”

An accident was all that they needed. A cop further stalling traffic.A fender bender disrupting their delivery schedule.

“Senator Windslow said you were a trust fund baby,” Storm said, casually probing. “That’s one reason why he knew you wouldn’t run away with his six million.”

“It’s not polite to talk about money,” Toppers said. “My parents had houses in Connecticut, Spain, and in Palm Beach, too. I loved it there. You ever been?”

“It’s too rich for my blood,” Storm replied. “I was there but not during the Season.”

“The summer,” she said. “That’s the best time. Me and a friend of mine had a wild time there. Actually, we had a bet to see who could lose their virginity first!” She took a stick of gum from her purse and offered him a piece.

“No thanks,” he said. She put two in her mouth and began chewing.

The Season. In Palm Beach, that term had special meaning. It was a five-month whirlwind of parties, balls, and charity events that no one who was anyone dared miss. It was a timeless ritual for America’s most wealthy, the Old Guard’s most treasured social event. It was a tradition carefully passed down from generation to generation. And it was not during the hot summer months. It was when the snowbirds ventured south to escape the cold.

When they reached 31st Street NW, Storm slipped into an alleyway and left Toppers in the van while he walked briskly to the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal. The man-made canal had been constructed because the Potomac was considered too unpredictable for safe travel. Merchants needed a safe way to transport tobacco and other commodities some 185 miles west. By the time the canal was dug, it was already obsolete because of the railroad. Now couples used the pebble-strewed path next to the canal for evening strolls, while bicyclists and joggers hurried by them.

Storm waited until the path was empty, and then he stuffed the gym bag into the trash receptacle, covering it with discarded cups, cans, bottles, and papers.

As had happened after the first delivery in Arlington Cemetery, Rihanna’s voice greeted Storm as soon as he returned to the van.

Four kidnappers had abducted Matthew. Was it possible that a different one of them was monitoring each delivery? How else would they know where he was?

“What took you so long?” Darth Vader asked.

“There were people on the path,” Storm replied. “What happens if a stranger gets one of the gym bags by accident?”

“Your boy dies.”

Darth Vader told them to drop the third bag at Hains Point, located at the southernmost tip of East Potomac Park-a good twenty-minute trip from Georgetown during rush hour.

Bordered by the Potomac River on one side and the Washington Channel on the other, Hains Point was at the tip of a man-made island composed of dirt dredged from both rivers. When they reached it, Storm hid the bag in a public trash container just as he had hidden the others.

The final drop-off point was at Battery Kemble Park, a tiny area of grass and woods in Northwest Washington, smack in the middle of expensive homes. The park was a former Civil War battery built on high ground so that Union troops could look down during the fighting and fire canons if enemy soldiers attempted to cross the Potomac and enter the city. Now it was popular with local dog walkers. Storm dumped several bags of discarded poop onto the gym bag.

Samantha’s phone rang as if on cue.

“Okay, we’ve done our part,” Storm said. “Where’s Matthew?”

“Wait in Union Station for my next call.”

“We’ve played by the rules,” Storm told the caller. “If you don’t, you’ll never live to enjoy your money.”

The line went dead.

He looked at Toppers. She’d pulled down her skirt. She was still chewing her gum.

She had no idea that he had been interrogating her.