"What happens now?" she asked as they sped along. "I mean. . .what happens to that guy at the camp yesterday?"
"Richard Chung will be put away for a long time. The number of outstanding warrants against him on this continent and others will have international police departments fighting over the right to house him for decades."
"Did you find anything out from him? Who is after us?"
Jack shook his head. "He's a master at not talking. Short of torturing him, I don't think we could get anything out of him."
Morgan knew they got him off the campsite as soon as possible. The police weren't called because Jack didn't want any of the campers to know. He and Max took him into town and alerted the authorities after him.
"Do you think it's someone working for Pak Chang?"
"It could be. Chung is a high-priced assassin. Whoever hired him would be paid well."
Morgan thought that over. She'd thought her life on the street, dealing with druggies and thieves, was bad. It was nothing compared to having to run from unknown killers. Assassins. She never thought the word would enter her daily vocabulary, but she had to be aware of them now. They were after her and she didn't really understand why.
"What about Max and Jim?" she asked. "Your discussion was long and it appeared strong language was being exchanged. What happened?"
"Hart Lewiston. His announcement of you as his daughter means you're entitled to FBI protection. Max and Jim received orders that they should keep you there until your agents arrived from Washington to protect you."
"And you said?"
"There wasn't time. If Chung found us, then others would too. We're heading for the FBI in Clarksburg. Until then I'm your protection."
"And that satisfied them?"
"It appeared to."
Morgan would have bet it didn't.
***
There were more parks in Washington, D.C. than anyone ever thought existed in the ten-mile-square tract of land allotted to house the capital of the United States. They were small, some only the size of a city block, others as large as several acres. Rock Creek Park, which ran through the city from the Watergate complex in Southwest through to Maryland, was the largest and best known. Second was Lafayette Square across Pennsylvania Avenue directly in front of the White House. Lady Bird Johnson had brought it to public notice with her beautification project in the late '60s.
The park he walked in was a lovely treed-acreage between the Washington Monument and White House called the Ellipse. A huge circular road cut through it and was always fully populated with late model cars, Jeeps, vans, SUV's, and pickup trucks bringing tourists to visit one of the major wonders of the nation’s capital.
The man he sought walked toward him, unhurried, as if he was leisurely enjoying a warm day in the area and concerned with nothing more than the sweet fragrance of the air.
He bowed to the man who would have been wearing a kimono in his home of rock gardens, sliding doors and sparse amounts of furniture. On the street, he was dressed in black slacks and a white, open-collared shirt. His purpose might have been to appear as a businessman enjoying the city's offerings, but even without the kimono, he looked as if he were wearing it. Together they fell into step.
"Have you located her?" he asked.
He was glad to respond affirmatively. "She's in West Virginia."
"The man with her?"
"He's calling himself Jack Temple. We've known him under many names, most notably as Case. "The man used no last name.
The Korean smiled. "We will meet with Mr. Case again."
"The plan to capture them is taking place as we speak."
"As we speak?"
"It's going down now," the man explained, careful to keep his distaste for the man out of his voice.
***
Higher peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains could be found further to the east as the landscape and jurisdiction changed from the state of West Virginia into the Commonwealth of Virginia. The area Jack drove through was hilly and green, and it filled the air with the summer scent of grass and flowers. It should be calming. Morgan wasn't calmed. Too much had happened in the past several days. She was keyed up, wound tight tike the skin of a drum and ready to play her toneless song.
"What are you doing?" Morgan cried out, gripping the door and the armrest. Jack suddenly left the road and veered off onto shoulder, then the gravel, dirt and grass. Part of the guardrail was missing and he angled the big vehicle off the paved road.
"It's ninety miles. For us it will be longer. There's no way Chung was working alone."
"You can't know that."
"Yes, I can. I know him. He covers his bases. He'd have a backup plan. The roads leading out of Clay could be watched in some way, or booby-trapped. They've tried helicopters before. This time they could be dressed as cops or truck drivers, anything."
The SUV bumped and she clutched the door frame tighter to stay seated. Pulling her seat belt tighter, she anchored herself to the chair. Jack headed directly toward the mountains. Living in Washington, D.C., and then in the flatlands of the Midwest, Morgan would have thought of secondary roads that took her through the small towns of America, but she would never challenge the hills, take her vehicle off-road to an untried track. This was the stuff of commercials, Hollywood stunt drivers and fools. She knew they didn't fit into the first two categories, but circumstance had driven them to the third.
Holding on, Morgan watched the grass that replaced the black-topped surface. This could be a mistake, but she didn't think she'd bring that up right now. Hopefully Jack had thought of it. He swung the four-wheel drive vehicle around a hill, cutting them off from the main road and the road from them, hidden from civilization and help if they needed it. They were alone, out there in the hills. They had a tank of gas and ninety miles to cover--less now.
"You've been quiet a while," Jack said. His eyes didn't leave the path in front of them.
Morgan glanced through the window at her side. "I was thinking."
"About what?" he asked.
"Life, society, sociology, group dynamics, that sort of thing."
"Heavy stuff," he replied.
Morgan laughed and turned in her seat. "It's not that heavy really. It comes closer to our society, our sociology, than the world at large."
"Don't leave me in suspense," Jack joked.
The vehicle bumped over rocks and stones, through mud and grass as Jack propelled it forward.
"A while ago there was a rock star. Someone extremely famous, but I don't remember his name."
"Obviously not a country-western singer." He grinned at her quickly before returning his concentration to driving.
"It grows on you," Morgan explained. She smiled at the banter. She didn't often hear it from Jack. He was serious, always on point, looking for the sinister, the life-threatening.
"Don't let me waylay your thoughts. What was it about society at large?"
“Apparently this guy had a house in a relatively small town," she continued. "Often he was plagued by overzealous fans, people coming by at all hours of the day and night to gawk, breaking off fixtures to take away as souvenirs, flowerpots, anything that wasn't nailed down. For privacy, he had a twelve-foot fence erected. I don't know what kind, but you couldn't see through it. The vandalism continued and he was always calling the police. It got so bad that the police asked him to replace the fence with something they could see through."
Jack thought about what she said for a long moment. Then he said, "You're saying our fence is those mountains behind us. We're out here alone. Vandalism must be dealt with and we have no police to call. They can't see us and they won't come to rescue us if we need them?"
"Exactly."
***
Forrest Washington reached across Brian Ashleigh's messy desk and lifted the remote control. He pointed it at the television built into the wall of Ashleigh's darkly paneled office and turned the machine off. The film of Hart Lewiston revealing he had a daughter had just complet
ed. The news media was still wrenching stories out of it. Speculation on what would happen and why he'd chosen this time to break the story were debated by anchors and news-magazines alike. Washington thought it was giving Hart greater leverage than his opponent. In the back of his mind he wondered if Lewiston had used the information for this exact purpose. His performance before the cameras was practiced, choreographed, orchestrated. He appeared sincere, stunned and genuinely interested in discovering where his daughter was. He said nothing about her being in hiding or being instrumental in helping him escape from a Korean jail. Washington knew he was ignorant of that.
"You've always known she was his daughter?" Washington asked a question, but there was no question in his voice. "I wondered what the reason was for you and Clarence Christopher to attend a meeting about a twelve-year-old case that involved someone as unimportant as Morgan Kirkwood."
Ashleigh sat quietly at his desk, his fingers linked together as if in prayer. His eyes were piercing, though. Nothing godly about them.
"When she first came to our attention. We didn't know."
"We?" Ashleigh didn't volunteer anything. "You and Christopher?" The nod was slight, almost not there.
"She was naturally investigated when her name came to us. It was ironic that her parentage showed the name of the very man we wanted her to rescue."
"Her grandfather is a Supreme Court judge. Her father is very probably the next president of the United States, and you let her find out about it on network television."
"Forrest, it wasn't our place to tell either one of them. We did what we could to keep her protected after she came back. We had no precedent or authority to do so. When Hart announced his candidacy, then she became legitimately protectable."
"But no one told her?"
He shook his head. "We'd already dispatched people when her call came into the FBI and Jack walked into the middle of it."
"How did Hart find out?" Washington asked.
"Apparently someone sent him a package with the information in it. We don't know whom. All the details added up for him and he believes he's the girl's father. Of course, we know it to be true."
"Jack and Morgan are in West Virginia. They're heading for the FBI there. I'm leaving this afternoon to meet them. What do we do about letting Hart know where his daughter is and what danger she's in?" Washington asked.
"We tell Lewiston nothing." Brian Ashleigh's voice was commanding.
"He has a right to know."
Ashleigh sighed. "I know he does and he will, but we want her safe first."
Washington understood what he meant. Morgan Kirkwood was bait. They were looking for something and she was the key to them finding it. Washington had a report on his desk that explained some of it. Since he'd talked to Jack, he'd paid special attention to the climate in South Korea. Tensions were hot there and rising day by day. Rumors abounded about Pak Chang and his association with Youn-Jung Kim, who later had a child. The rumor mill claimed he was the father. Public opinion was split over the issue. His followers hadn't completely lost faith in him yet. The only thing holding them off was the woman and child. No one had yet found them, but that was only a matter of time. Then he'd have nothing to save him.
Forrest knew that to be true. The proof was in his office. Jack had sent it to him. The ring and papers arrived this morning and he'd put a full team to work analyzing everything from the date of the paper to the handwriting on it. The ring was authentic. The paper too. They were still checking on the writing, but he should have a report sometime later this afternoon.
The note Jack sent with the package told him if it was at all possible, he should find Youn-Jung Kim and her child and get them to safety. He was sure they were in danger. Washington immediately sent word to a Korean operative to find her and get her to safety.
Youn-Jung Kim wasn't the only one in danger. Jack was too. Somehow Jack and Morgan were the linchpins holding all these forces in place. Both were in danger and Washington was sure neither knew how much.
He needed to get to Jack.
To warn him.
***
The terrain was uneven. Jack could do nothing about reducing the bounce of the vehicle. Each time he tried to avoid a rocky surface, he ran into another one. Morgan had relaxed her hold on the chair arm, but she hadn't let go of it. He noticed she kept looking nervously into the mirror on her side or up into the sky. Jack should have warned her that he was going to take a different route. Springing it on her cold seemed to have brought the fear of danger back to her eyes. Being with her friends was good for her. She connected with them, felt safe. It would have been good if they could have stayed there, but after Jack read the papers she had, he had to get her knew she needed more protection than he could provide and for a much longer time.
He'd told her they got nothing out of Chung. That was only partly true. They had gotten nothing from Chung, but they found his car. Inside it was a Korean newspaper running a story on the election and current scandal. It didn't tell them much. Jack didn't know if Chung was working to destroy the papers and return the ring so there would be no question, or if his allegiance was to the side that wanted Chang to lose the election.
They couldn't force the mother and child to submit to blood tests. The public would stand against either side trying to do that. If the child's mother hadn't come forward in twelve years, she wasn't likely to without a really good reason.
Jack glanced at Morgan. He was going to lose her. Each bumpy section of the nonexistent road took his future and her further away. At the end of this road was witness protection for her and oblivion for him. He'd broken his rule with her. He'd fallen in love and he didn't know how he would survive after he turned her over to Jacob Winston.
The idea of running occurred to him. They could disappear, skip the country, assume new identities and start over, but he rejected the idea. Morgan would have agreed, but it was no way to live. He'd existed that way for a large part of his life, using assumed names and surviving on his own. He didn't want that anymore and he didn't want to live that way with Morgan. He wanted something normal; stereotypically-televisionish was his description of what he wanted. Working, probably teaching at a university, coming home to a family and children each night was ideal. With Morgan it would be perfect. But that was not to be.
"Jack," Morgan's voice held restrained panic. He glanced at her. She was looking in the mirror on her side of the SUV. Jack glanced into his. He saw them. Following the SUV were three vehicles, all heading in their direction, bouncing over the same uneven terrain as their own vehicle. Jack knew they weren't mountain climbers or weekend explorers out to conquer the hills before returning to their own televised lives. Their motivations were more devious.
Jack pressed the accelerator harder. The Lexus shot forward, bumping over a hill and leaving the ground for a split second before it crashed to the earth. Morgan gasped but did not scream. Quickly he scanned the area ahead of them. They needed a vantage point, a place where they could dig in and be safe against the trucks coming behind them. Jack didn't see any place that fit his requirement. Ahead of them was a high mountain. It was too far away to afford them the protection they needed.
"What can I do?" Morgan asked.
"Nothing," he snapped, stronger than he intended. He knew she'd want to do something.
She looked in the mirror again. "They're gaining on us. We're not going to be able to outrun them."
"Just sit tight."
"What about all this stuff?"
Behind them the cabin was full of equipment, sleeping bags, camping equipment, an arsenal of guns, and a few resources she didn't know about.
"I could open the back door and start tossing it out. Maybe they would hit one of them and they'd lose control."
"Stay where you are," he said. The Lexus pitched at that point and Morgan gripped the seat arms. "Pull your seat belt as tight as you can stand it. Shoulder harness too." Jack pulled his own. Behind them a column of trucks had formed a line o
ne behind the other. Jack grinned as he glanced at them. This may be just what he'd hoped for.
Rounding the curve, he disappeared from the group pursuing him. He'd hoped for a place to hide, trees high enough to camouflage their direction, but nothing presented itself to his liking. He looked at the hill. "It might work," he muttered.
"What?" Morgan shouted. "What might work?"
He headed straight on, toward a narrow crop with small hills on either side. Behind him he saw the three trucks. Jack eased his foot off the accelerator, slowing the SUV.
"Jack, talk to me," Morgan commanded. "You're slowing down."
"There's no place to hide. I want to get them close enough to us to cause an accident," he said. Morgan didn't question Jack's decision. She glanced over her shoulder and through the window to the mirror, sometimes holding her breath, but she trusted him. Jack took his hand off the steering wheel long enough to squeeze the hand she gripped the armrest with. It was cold with fear. She looked at it for a moment, then at him. Trust shown in her eyes. Jack returned his hand to the steering wheel and his attention to the ground.
The three trucks were close enough now for him to determine the make, model and color of each one. He wove side to side in a cat-and-mouse attempt, playing on the psychology that he was sure they'd think he was trying to get away from them.
When they were a third of the way between the two hills, Jack headed to the right. Immediately one of the trucks behind him took to that side, climbing higher than he did in an attempt to cut him off. A second truck took the other hill.
"Good," he whispered to himself. They did exactly what he expected. If this trick worked he'd take out the three of them in one tragic swoop. Jack eased back on the accelerator, swinging the sporty van from side to side. Each of the trucks on the hillsides went higher and lower as he did while the one behind him got closer. He was betting it all. Either this worked or he and Morgan would be in the hands of the people they'd been running from since they left St. Charles.
More Than Gold (Capitol Chronicles Book 3) Page 24