“It’s Edward Carter again,” he said, picking up the phone. “I have to take this.” He headed toward the door.
“Mr. President?” Wilcox asked, motioning toward Bailino.
Phillip opened the door, a wave of cool air hitting him in the face. “Let him go,” he said and left the room.
CHAPTER 36
It had been years since Bailino had been to the Hydeman old folks’ home off Exit 2 in Jersey, only now it was called the Hydeman Assisted Living Facility. Back then, the property consisted of about fifty or so acres of grassland—old Gino used to joke that the place was “really putting its residents out to pasture”—but, according to the signage at the front of the parking lot, it looked like the grounds had been expanded to at least double that size.
Business must be good, Bailino thought.
Normally, a bunch of haggard-looking figures would be wandering about and trying to escape, but instead the place looked like a ghost town. Old Hydeman’s son, with the help of local PD, managed to clear the property pretty quickly after a resident-care assistant placed a 911 call reporting that four visitors—two women, a man, and a child—had entered the building just around the time Phillip Grand was leaving the holding room at the D.C. detention facility. Lucky for her, the assistant had been near a vending machine, out of view, when the elderly front desk clerk started asking the group questions, and one of the women took out a pistol and shot the clerk in the eye before the group headed for the stairwell. The authorities presumed that the guests were inside Room 343, old Mary Cataldi’s room, and Bailino presumed they were right. There was probably more ammunition in that room than in the local police department.
The rising sun was low in the sky as Bailino walked through the empty parking lot. Wilcox hadn’t been too happy with him after the clerk had been killed—“just another death to add to your list of accomplishments, Bailino,” he had said—but letting Wilcox get the jump on ToniAnne would have only put Jamie and Faith in more danger. ToniAnne was many things, but she wasn’t stupid. She could spot a sting operation a mile away. The death of an elderly clerk? Bailino could live with that.
He pulled at the collar of his shirt. He was wearing so many wires he was surprised that he didn’t glow: GPS, microphone, camera. It had taken hours for Wilcox’s people to string him up, although Bailino thought it was a waste of time. A live video feed wasn’t going to save Jamie and Faith Carter any more than a fleet of FBI agents would, but Wilcox had made it clear—if any transmission was interrupted, even for a second, then his agents would break down the doors. Bailino hoped a plane didn’t fly overheard.
He crossed the threshold into the empty building and tried to get his bearings—the old circular stairway that he remembered had been replaced by three elevators, and the dumpy lobby looked like something from a five-star hotel with an ornate crystal chandelier that was bigger than his living room at the guesthouse. To the right was a long, colorful tropical fish tank that probably got more attention than the facility’s residents. Next to that was an emergency stairwell, and Bailino took the stairs to the third floor and followed the signs to Room 343.
When he got there, the door was closed. He knocked, and it opened immediately.
“I knew you’d know where to find me. You always did,” ToniAnne said with a wide smile.
“Yeah, well, you didn’t make it too difficult.”
“You alone?”
“Very funny,” he said and walked into the small apartment toward the large window overlooking the grounds, which resembled a crowd shot during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Outside the front gates, swarms of law enforcement agents covered the acres of carefully mowed green grass like agitated bees. “Where are they?” he asked, looking around.
He spotted Jamie sitting on a chair in the next room, rope tied around her wrists and her legs, which were tied to the legs of her chair, similar to the way he had found her in the old Barbara farmhouse three years before. She looked tired and a bit bruised, but okay.
“You all right, sweetheart?” he asked.
“She’s fine,” ToniAnne said, rolling her eyes.
Across from Jamie, on the other side of the room, sat an old woman hunched over a desk. “You remember my Aunt Mary, Donny, right?” ToniAnne asked, walking over to her.
Paolo Cataldi’s wife, Mary, glanced at Bailino, the hump on her upper back preventing her from sitting up straight. She was holding an envelope. She raised it and slid her brown tongue across the adhesive before folding the flap down and setting it on a stack of mail.
“Aunt Mary,” ToniAnne shouted into her ear, “you remember Donny Bailino, right?”
Mary looked up and stared into Bailino’s eyes, and Bailino thought there was a flicker of recognition, but then it was gone.
“She has dementia, poor thing,” ToniAnne said. “Happened right after her sister, Fran, died last year.” She gave her aunt a peck on the cheek. “I hate seeing her like this.”
“Where’s the kid, ToniAnne?” Bailino asked.
“They won’t let me see her,” Jamie blurted.
“Shut the fuck up, you,” ToniAnne said, running her hand along Mary’s course gray hair as if she were petting a dog. “What’s the rush, Donny? You just got here. Let’s talk …”
“Stop being cute. I need to get the kid out of here and to the Feds, and then we can talk.”
ToniAnne huffed her displeasure. “That wasn’t my plan.”
“Well, that’s the new plan,” Bailino said. “If that kid doesn’t leave here unharmed, and soon, things will go very badly.”
“Your kid,” she said. “Right?”
“That’s right. She’s my kid.”
“You had another kid, you know. His name was Joey.”
“Yeah, I know, and your fuckin’ lunatic uncle had him killed.”
“Potaytoes, potahtoes …” ToniAnne waved a dismissive hand and picked up the cell phone on Mary Cataldi’s desk.
“Who are you calling?” he asked.
ToniAnne blew him a kiss and then spoke into the phone. “Lorenzo? … It’s me, idiot … I need you to bring the kid to the lobby and let her walk out.” She smiled at Bailino and hung up. “Satisfied? Let’s talk.” She motioned toward Jamie. “This one’s not too talkative. Between her and Aunt Mary, I’m bored to death.”
Bailino stood next to a wall unit housing a small television and porcelain knickknacks and peered out the window. “I need to see the kid walk out of here, and then we can chat.”
“I need to see too,” Jamie said, standing up, but ToniAnne smacked her across the face, and Jamie’s head hit the wall.
“Sit the fuck down, I said,” ToniAnne shouted.
“Ton, relax …” Bailino said as Jamie sat back up. When she looked at him, her cheek was red, and her eyes were wet.
“Girl was packin’,” ToniAnne said, picking up Jamie’s pistol and holster from the floor. “I think Lorenzo enjoyed frisking her.”
A twinge of anger flared up inside Bailino, but he casually glanced out the window again. “I’m waiting,” he said.
For a few minutes, it was quiet in the room, the only sound coming from Mary Cataldi’s soft rolling of a ballpoint pen across a piece of paper, which she shoved into an envelope.
“Who is she writing to?” Bailino asked.
“No one.” ToniAnne shrugged. “She’s been doing Publisher’s Clearing House to keep busy since she got here. Isn’t that right, Aunt Mary?” The old woman looked up at her absently and then returned to her work. “These piles just seem to get higher and higher until I come to mail them for her. She said she wants to get a haircut this week in case that nice man knocks on her door with the balloons and the TV cameras for the big grand prize. Isn’t that what you said, Aunt Mary?” Mary didn’t bother looking up. “The old bat couldn’t bother to visit the beauty parlor for my granddaughter’s Communion, but she’ll pretty herself up for a dead Ed McMahon.”
“How come I don’t see any kid out there, Ton?�
��
“Relax, things take time.”
“What things?” Bailino asked when he spotted movement in the parking lot. Faith’s tiny body emerged from the building and was walking across the white lines of the vacant parking spots toward the gate and the street.
“She looks like you, you know,” ToniAnne said to Bailino. “She has your eyes. Joey’s eyes.”
Faith was moving awkwardly—not in a straight line, but in a zigzag—like she was off-balance. She left Bailino’s view for a few seconds when she walked underneath an awning, but she popped back out on the other side and got about a third of the way through the parking lot when she stopped as if to catch her breath.
“What’s the matter?” Jamie asked, watching him.
“I told you to shut the fuck up,” ToniAnne said and pulled Jamie’s pistol from its holster.
“Would you relax, already, Ton?” Bailino said and glanced at Jamie, who was searching his eyes for answers.
“Nothing’s the matter, sweetheart,” he lied. “Everything is fine.”
CHAPTER 37
Wilcox watched the little girl tread lightly through the empty parking lot toward him and his men. Some of the facility’s residents, who had had no family to pick them up and were standing off to the side, were moaning, and Wilcox motioned to the staff to quiet them. He hadn’t expected Faith to come out so quickly based on the video and audio they were receiving. He had to give Bailino some credit.
“Easy, everyone,” Wilcox said, motioning with his hands for his men to stay back as he moved slightly forward.
Faith, who appeared to have a gag in her mouth, was moving in measured steps, placing one foot gingerly in front of the other. She was gazing into the crowd as if looking for a friend or someone she recognized, and Wilcox took another few steps forward, trying to get her attention. He passed the automatic gate, which was in the open position and marked the entry to the assisted living facility’s parking lot; his eyes scanned the barren concrete, the empty spots making the ground look like a giant gameboard.
“Here, Faith,” Wilcox said, putting his hand in the air in a stiff wave. “It’s all right. My name is Agent Wilcox. Do you remember me?”
The little girl stopped and narrowed her eyes at him.
“I’m here to help you. Come.” Wilcox slowly reached toward her.
Faith pivoted slightly and started walking again, this time in Wilcox’s direction. As she got closer, he could see her face was puffy, tears coming down the sides of her cheeks. He extended his arm farther, and she slowly held up her hands, which were bound together with rope. When she reached him, he wrapped her small hands in his palm and gently guided her away from the building, but he could feel her resisting.
“You’re safe now,” Wilcox said. “Come with me.”
Faith made a noise, and Wilcox realized she was trying to say something, but the gag in her mouth was preventing her. Her cheeks were blowing in and out as she struggled for air.
“Shhh … It’s okay.” Wilcox crouched down and slowly pulled out the small dishrag with the facility’s logo that had been stuffed inside her mouth. “You’re going to be okay.”
Faith whimpered as Wilcox again tried to guide her out of the parking lot and toward the crowd of FBI agents behind him, half of whom were watching them intently while the other half continued watching the building, weapons at the ready.
“Faith,” Wilcox said, a little more firmly this time, “I need you to keep walking, okay?”
She gently pulled down on Wilcox’s hand, and he crouched closer to her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“No-peanut emergency,” Faith said in a tiny voice.
“What do you mean? I don’t understand,” Wilcox said and suddenly saw a small wire at the base of the little girl’s neck, just under her pink sweater, and he felt the blood drain from his face.
Across the parking lot on the third floor, in Mary Cataldi’s room, there was movement in one of the windows. A figure had come into view—the unmistakable silhouette of Don Bailino.
From behind him, Wilcox heard one of his agents approach. “Stay back,” he ordered in a low, firm voice.
“Sir, we have eyes on the target. Should we take him out?” the agent whispered.
Wilcox had instructed his men that Bailino, once released, was to be treated as an enemy of the state, regardless of whatever the president had in mind. However, they still didn’t have Jamie Carter. Whatever her nebulous role was in what was happening here, she was still innocent in the eyes of the law.
“Stand down,” he whispered. “And I need you to get me Agent Barracks.”
The agent’s eyes opened wide at the mention of Agent Barracks who headed up the bomb squad team. He glanced at little Faith Carter, backed up slowly, and disappeared into the crowd.
Wilcox put his hand on Faith’s cheek and wiped away a tear. “Now, I don’t want you to move, Faith, okay?”
“Is my momma all right?”
Wilcox furrowed his brows. “You didn’t see her inside the building?”
The little girl looked as if she were about to shake her head but thought better of it. “No,” she said instead.
Wilcox glanced up at the third-floor window. Bailino was still there. Watching. Had that son of a bitch double-crossed Wilcox and strapped up his daughter with an explosive device to save his own skin? Had this whole plan of his—the concern for Jamie Carter, for his daughter—been some kind of charade? If it was, he was wasting his time. Wilcox’s men had surrounded the facility’s property and were stationed throughout the area—he had men at every port, every bus and train station, even in the local sewer system. There was no getting out this time.
“I’m just going to lightly touch the front of your sweater,” Wilcox said.
Despite the tears, Faith appeared resolute and calm. The little girl had gone through so much in her young life, all because of who her father was and, perhaps, what her mother had become. Wilcox gently felt the front of her sweater. Underneath was something hard and pointy. He peeked and saw the antenna of an old cell phone.
Someone came up behind him. Wilcox turned around to see the large, imposing figure of Agent Barracks, who had the foresight not to communicate with him through his earpiece. There was no telling what might set off the IED.
“I have an IED,” Wilcox whispered. “Possible remote trigger.”
“We have the bomb robots on standby, sir,” Barracks said.
“I don’t think we have time. I need you to block all cell-phone transmissions.”
Agent Barracks hesitated. “Then we lose our eyes and ears on—”
“Do it now,” Wilcox ordered in a strained whisper. He would be damned if he was going to let another innocent person die today. “And slowly—and quietly—move everyone behind me back about seventy feet.”
The crime scene reports at both the White House and Walter Reed noted that the primary blast radius of each of the IEDs had been short. Wilcox had to assume the radius of the device strapped onto Faith Carter was the same, because he had no time to assume otherwise. If this one blew, it wouldn’t make much of a blast. It was clear that whoever rigged it didn’t care about killing a lot of FBI agents—only killing Faith Carter.
“Roger that,” Agent Barracks said and disappeared in the crowd.
Wilcox had disarmed bombs in the field before, but that was long ago and while wearing a protective suit. The device that had been found at the White House and at Walter Reed had been primitive, and, based on Wilcox’s quick estimation, so was the one strapped to Faith Carter. He knew he wasn’t dealing with experts, and, frankly, he didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing—homemade explosive devices required very little technical knowledge, but for that reason they were highly unstable.
He wiped the moisture from his brow. He had only minutes to either dismantle the device or get it off Faith Carter before Bailino or whoever was up there decided he or she had had enough of waiting and activated it before
Barracks had the chance to cut cell-phone transmission. It occurred to him that the device was some kind of decoy, but he couldn’t be sure, so he had to work fast.
He gently examined Faith’s sweater, careful not to disturb the wires that had been wrapped around each button. If Wilcox had had any thoughts of trying to slip the thing off the little girl, they vanished once he got a closer look. Whoever had put it on had wrapped and wrapped the wire around her like a yo-yo.
“I want my momma,” Faith Carter said softly.
“I know,” Wilcox said, “but please don’t move, okay.”
Wilcox traced the wires of the mechanism to where they connected, just below Faith’s right armpit. The unit was identical to the one his team had found at Walter Reed. If he was correct, it was just a matter of gently pulling off the second wire, but it would be difficult to manipulate in its current position. He carefully reached his hand under Faith’s sweater.
Faith’s big brown eyes stared up at him, and he hesitated. What if the wires had been switched? What if whoever had done this knew that Wilcox would go for the second wire and had reversed the charge? Would the mechanism really be an exact replica of the first?
Wilcox thought about the files he had stacked on his desk for the Cataldi family and all that he had learned over the years about their methods and their habits. Then he carefully snaked his hand around the first wire and wrapped his palm around the second, and with his other hand, he held the back of Faith’s head, pulling her close.
“It’s going to be okay,” Wilcox whispered into Faith’s ear, and, before he could change his mind, he pulled out the second wire.
Baby Carter (Baby Grand Trilogy, Book 3) Page 25