by Scott Blade
The agents all wore the same professional attire. Dark suits. Clip-on ties. And earpieces. All were clean-shaven.
They stood in formation in front of the helicopter. I guessed this was a rehearsed protection stance straight out of the Secret Service playbook.
We pulled up and circled around and the driver parked the car.
Clayton said, “Let’s go.”
He opened the door for me. The driver stayed in the car and Talbern followed out my side instead of trying to open her door.
Clayton walked over to the pilot and asked, “What are you waiting for? Get it going!”
The pilot jumped to it and got in the cockpit, started to press buttons and flip switches.
The Agusta’s engine bustled to life and the main rotors spun and whirred. The rear rotor rolled and followed suit.
Clayton turned to his men and barked at them to get onboard. Then he turned to us and gestured for us to follow him.
We boarded the helicopter. Two of the agents sat on either side of us. Clayton sat across from us, back to the cockpit. The leftover agent sat in the front, next to the pilot.
The interior of the helicopter reminded me of Marine One. It was decked out with white leather seats and wooden tabletop consoles.
We waited there for another minute while the driver parked the car and came up and hopped in, sitting next to Clayton.
The pilot wore a headset. He reached back and handed a spare one to Clayton. No one else wore one.
Clayton said, “Let’s go.”
The pilot acknowledged and the Agusta roared up into the air. We ascended for several minutes until JFK was a small dot below.
I looked out the window and saw the Atlantic off in the distance.
We headed north on a straight track, toward the unknown.
CHAPTER 24
THE AGUSTA AW139 HELICOPTER flew at a speed slightly faster than steady going, nothing too dramatic, but fast enough.
We flew over land, but traced along the coastline half the way.
Talbern squeezed as close to me as she could, but the console in between us made it impossible for her to get as close as I would’ve liked.
Clayton didn’t make eye contact with me or stare at me, but he seemed to always keep me in his line of sight.
The ride was relatively silent.
Finally, the pilot came on over the headset and said something to Clayton.
Clayton responded, “Okay. Got it.”
He looked at Talbern and then me.
He said, “We’re landing.”
Talbern asked, “Where are we?”
I looked past the guy next to me and saw what looked like the coast of Maine or possibly New Hampshire.
Even though it was summertime, the coastline looked unkind and harsh and cold at night, not the kind of winter cold that Maine could throw around. But it was a far cry from the Florida summer.
I looked out over the water. It was uninviting and frenetic. Waves violently crashed into the nearby rocks.
The Agusta yawed and tilted and swung around. We lowered. The helicopter tilted enough for me to stare straight at the shoreline.
The pilot took us back above land. We passed over the sharp jagged rocks. They varied in size. Some were palm-sized rocks and others were more like broken apart boulders.
We descended onto the back lawn of a sprawling house that was more like a manor than a house.
It was surrounded by a surplus of freshly trimmed hedges and an Olympic lap pool and external lights.
Roman statues lined the walls of the pool. I couldn’t see the front of the house, but something told me that there was a fountain.
I saw an impressive two-story greenhouse to the north end of the estate.
The house belonged to someone important. That was clear. And the Secret Service detail meant that someone was a government person. And who has a helicopter pad on in their backyard?
The pilot took us in and slowed over a circle of lights around the helicopter pad. We lowered and hung in the air for a brief moment and then landed.
Clayton waited until the pilot killed the engine and the rotors slowed. Then he signaled for his guys to get out. They opened the side doors and hopped out. Talbern and I followed, going out opposite doors. We walked around to the front of the chopper and met in the front.
Talbern ducked her head like she was afraid of the helicopter blades, even though it must’ve been six feet over her head. I smiled.
Clayton said, “This way.”
We followed him. And the three other guys followed us.
I kept glancing at them in the reflection from a pair of double French doors at the rear of the house as we approached.
Clayton opened the doors and we walked into a big back hallway. There were twenty-foot ceilings and high lights and enormous paintings draped from the walls.
I couldn’t name any one of them, but I recognized a few.
Mostly they were oil paintings of famous wars, battlefields, and dead generals.
One was of the battle of Gettysburg. One was of a fictional battle among angels and demons. And one was even of Ulysses S. Grant. It looked like one that he might’ve sat for.
The lights were set low like candlelight.
Huge Victorian furniture lined the walls. Old armchairs, tables slid in the corners displaying fine China and statues of cannons and busts of famous historical people. Many of which, I didn’t know.
We followed Clayton through more huge double doors. These were big oak things that looked more like they belonged on the outside of a castle with a drawbridge attached rather than in someone’s house.
Talbern said, “Wow! Who lives in a place like this?”
She said it without actually meaning to say it, like a reflex more than an actual question.
Nobody answered her.
Through the doors we came into a big kitchen. There was a maid. She stood over the stove. She was making tea and possibly doing something else. I wasn’t sure what, but I knew she wasn’t making coffee.
She turned and waved at us, but didn’t speak.
We continued on through a great dining room with a long family table. The places were already set. There were salad bowls stacked neatly on top of dinner plates. There were overturned coffee cups on top of saucers.
The chairs were slid in under the tables.
Silverware was set nice and neat.
Everything was clean and polished. However, the whole scene looked barren and unused, like no one lived here and no one had eaten there in a generation. It was lifeless.
We moved on through a study and then out into a grand foyer.
Clayton looked back at me and motioned for us to keep following. He headed up a hardwood staircase. I stayed a few steps behind with Talbern at my back.
The Secret Service agents were still close behind us.
At the top of the stairs, we turned a corner and walked down a short hallway.
The upstairs were far more cozy than the lower level. Everything looked lived in, more like a family dwelling and not a museum.
We passed an open door. I glanced in and saw a good-sized bedroom. The bed was made and didn’t look slept in. Then we walked to the last door, which was closed.
Clayton stopped and knocked on it.
A male voice, young and energetic said, “Come in.”
Clayton pushed the door open and we followed him in.
We walked into a master bedroom that was very, very lived in.
The room was huge. In one corner, there was a grand piano under dim spotlight. In the opposite corner, there was a big wall of windows with thick sills big enough to sit on, like a makeshift bench.
There was living room furniture at a far wall. All of it was set up in front of a dormant fireplace.
Family photos lined the walls and tabletops and the mantle above the fireplace. There were photos of kids who were grown into men. There were photos of a husband and wife. And there were more photos of the wife, standing
alone. All of it seemed to be from a long time ago, another life.
Then there was a desk that looked more Army issued than it did bought by a civilian. The desk was a thick, wooden thing.
A lamp on the desk was clicked on as we entered the room. A young man sat on the edge of it, staring at us.
On the desk, I saw more photos. Several of them were turned to face outward.
I recognized most of the faces from the photos. There were pictures of two former presidents, a couple of current senators, and several generals. There was even a photo of a group of men and one of them was the current Russian president.
And then there was one face in all of the photos that I only recognized because he was the husband from the family photos. He stood in each of the photos, shaking hands, smiling, and mingling with the famous government officials and Army generals.
The last thing in the room was a huge king size bed. Next to the bed were a couple of expensive hospital machines.
An old, feeble man lay half under the covers of the bed. His torso was up, leaned against a wall of thick, body pillows. On the floor, next to the bed, were a pile of extra pillows and a couple of blankets.
The room was cold. I heard Talbern make a brr sound, under her breath.
The temperature must’ve been set somewhere in the sixties.
Clayton stopped, dead center of the room. He ignored the young guy behind the desk and addressed the old man.
He said, “This is Jack Widow and FBI Agent Talbern.”
The old man sat up a little more and looked me up and down. He didn’t seem to pay much attention to Talbern.
He said, “Mr. Jack Widow.”
Clayton said, “This is Secretary John Dayard.”
Talbern gasped like she knew exactly who he was.
Dayard asked, “Do you know who I am?”
He coughed after, nothing heavy, but enough to get the man at the desk to walk over.
The man must’ve been a personal nurse because he stepped to the machines and inspected them like he knew what he was doing. Then he tried to offer the secretary a glass of water that was half full, set out on a nightstand.
Dayard waved him away.
He said, “No. No. I’m fine.”
He spoke to the nurse with annoyance in his tone. Which I had seen before from older people. It was a kind of orneriness.
I said, “You were the secretary of defense for two presidents.”
Dayard smiled and said, “I still am. Not were. Once you’re named secretary of anything, you lose the job duties one day, but you keep the title. So technically, I’m still secretary.”
“Are you still a general?”
“That’s also a title you keep. Forever.”
I stayed quiet.
“Some titles you lose. Like no one ever calls you by your last rank in the military.”
“Guess I wasn’t good enough.”
“Nonsense. You just didn’t stay around long enough. Generals aren’t guys who get promoted. They’re guys who never leave. Stay around something long enough and they’ll just throw medals and titles at you.”
I nodded.
Dayard coughed again and waved off the nurse before he could react.
He said, “Leave us.”
The nurse nodded like a loyal subject would’ve a thousand years ago. And he left the room.
Dayard said, “You too.”
He was talking to Clayton.
Clayton didn’t nod or say a word. He simply turned and left the room. He closed the door on the way out, leaving the three of us alone.
I heard the summer wind rapping against the glass outside the window. Then I heard it whistle from out of the fireplace like a gust of wind was trapped down the shoot.
Dayard noticed it and said, “There are cracks in the brick. Sometimes the whole thing whistles like a giant flute.”
“You should get it plugged up,” I said.
He said nothing to that.
Talbern spoke for the first time since we came into the room. She walked past me and closer to the center of the room, where Clayton had been standing.
She asked, “Mr. Dayard, what are we doing here, sir?”
“Straight to the point. I like that. The reason you’re both here is because of Widow.”
Talbern looked at me.
“I know about the new missing girl.”
He said it seemingly without concern.
Talbern asked, “How do you know about that?”
“I’m an old has-been. But I still have connections.”
“What do you want?”
But Dayard didn’t answer that. Instead, he started to pull himself up. He removed the covers. He was dressed in pajamas that looked more like his wife had picked them out for him rather than he purchased them for himself.
They were black and silk with blue piping.
He put one foot down on the carpet and then the other. He stood up fine and pulled off the tubes that were suction cupped to his arm. A heart monitor machine beeped. He reached over and switched it off.
“Shut up,” he said to it.
He could stand okay, but looked even feebler than he had lying in the bed. He was about the frailest person that I had ever seen. He was scrawny and looked malnourished.
He walked over to the fireplace, slowly and sluggishly.
He sat on one of the heavy armchairs and said, “Sit. Both of you.”
We sat on a sofa. Talbern to my right, closer to the fireplace.
Dayard reached out and picked up a family photo off a coffee table. He stared at it for a long, long moment. He appeared to be lost in some long-dead memory.
Finally, he asked, “You got a family?”
I said, “I had one.”
He nodded and said, “Your mother.”
I stayed quiet. He had already known. I assumed that he knew far more about me than I did him.
“She was murdered, right?”
I nodded.
“You used to be an undercover cop?”
Talbern looked at me. I guess she didn’t know that part about me.
I said, “I was. NCIS. But you already knew that.”
“That’s why you’re here.”
I waited, said nothing.
“I had a family once too. I had a wife and two sons.”
Dayard turned the photo toward us and reached it out, long. He gestured for me to take it.
I did.
“Look.”
I looked. It was the photo of a young family. Dayard was there, holding hands with a woman, and there were two young boys.
He said, “My sons. James and John Jr. That was my second wife. Not their mother. She died in childbirth to James.”
“Good-looking family,” I said, with no idea of what I was supposed to say.
“They were. They were.”
He reached out to take the photo back. I handed it over to him.
“My wife and son are dead now.”
Talbern said, “I’m sorry.”
I stayed quiet.
“My wife died giving birth to James, our youngest.”
He paused a somber beat and said, “John killed himself. Years ago.”
He looked at the empty fireplace and said, “Widow, you from a military family, right? Mother was a Marine?”
I said, “Yes.”
“What about your father? I didn’t see anything about him in your records.”
“Don’t know him, sir.”
“Not at all?”
“Never met him. He was a nobody. A drifter.”
“Is that why you live the way that you live now? Trying to find him?”
“Maybe.”
“Military families are hard to grow up in. My first-born son, John, felt that pressure. Once we were a happy family. Even though they lost their mother, my sons were good boys. I was hard on them. Too hard.
“John wanted so badly to follow in my footsteps. He wanted to impress me. He joined the Army. Like I did.
&
nbsp; “Then he was booted out. He couldn’t make it through boot camp. They said he had psychological problems. That nearly crushed him.”
Silence fell between us.
Talbern said, “Mr. Secretary…”
But he interrupted her.
“Just let me finish.”
She nodded.
“My oldest son, John Jr. couldn’t handle the shame of disappointing me. He couldn’t handle the way that it looked for him to have been booted out of the Army.”
He took in a deep breath and said, “It’s my fault.”
I asked, “What is?”
Dayard said, “My oldest son killed himself.”
CHAPTER 25
DAYARD STARED into the fireplace like there was a roaring fire in it. Like a man lost in thought. Like he was acting out a scene that had been blocked and directed for a play.
Talbern said, “Forgive me, sir. But we’re aware of what happened to your oldest son.”
“Did Widow know?”
I shook my head.
“My son, John, didn’t kill himself right off. He was thrown out of the Army. He moved home and bounced around from job to job. We ignored his problems. We pretended that everything was fine. At first.
“You see my next son did make it into the Army. At first, John seemed happy for him. Like he was proud of his younger brother, but that all changed quickly because James started to rise through the ranks. He was promoted fast.
“John stayed up in his room. He stopped coming down during the daytime.”
I waited and listened. I knew there was more to tell. But Dayard didn’t add more. He stayed quiet. His eyes teared up a bit.
Finally, I asked, “What happened next?”
“John was very jealous that his brother had been successful. I admit that it’s partially my fault. I shouldn’t have made my disappointment in him so obvious.
“It all happened when his brother got accepted to officer school. I think that was the straw that broke his back.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“John took our family boat out. He took it out alone. He took it out into the Gulf of Maine. Deep.”
He turned and looked at me. His eyes were emotional. They looked genuinely sad.
He said, “He jumped into the water and drowned himself.”
I paused a beat and then I asked, “How do you know that it was intentional?”