by Stephen Frey
The governor met Elizabeth at the podium, shook her hand gently, whispered something in her ear, then held up his hands as a signal for quiet. Slowly the ovation died away as people sat down again.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I would just like to say a few words before I give you your woman of the year.” Bulbs flashed as cameramen documented the event for tomorrow morning’s Baltimore Sun papers. “Elizabeth.” His deep voice reverberated throughout the huge room as he turned to face her. “You are a shining example for us all. You operate one of the largest and most successful investment funds in the country, and yet you constantly amaze us with the time and energy you devote to your charitable endeavors.
“Specifically, we must thank you again for the new wing at the Children’s Hospital. But, ladies and gentlemen”—he turned back to face the crowd—“it isn’t just the fact that she has made the funds available. She has also made her valuable time available to those children. Children who don’t have families to help them through their ordeals. I have seen the tears of a little five-year-old girl as she lay alone on a sterile bed wondering what cancer was, why it had struck her and why she would have to endure another operation. I have seen those tears evaporate as this wonderful lady standing next to me sat on the bed for hours and gave that little girl hope. I can only say that her actions are an inspiration for us all. There is much to do, and we can make a difference. Ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth Gilman.”
The assembled throng rose again and thundered their approval. Elizabeth moved to the microphone as the governor retreated a few steps to cede her the entire spotlight. She gazed out over the auditorium, a picture of grace and humility. She motioned for the crowd to be seated, but her action only served to intensify their ovation.
David stood and clapped with the rest, but he was not looking up toward the podium, he was gazing over at the next table, watching Art Mohler applaud. Why had Mohler been at Jack Finnerty’s farm? Why at three o’clock this morning? Why hadn’t Mohler told him he was going to see Finnerty? Why hadn’t Finnerty said something? The questions kept running through his mind.
He turned and focused on Elizabeth, who was still basking in the glow of the ovation. Somehow he was going to find the answers.
Chapter 13
Todd Colton was only twenty-nine but had already purchased his tombstone and inscribed the epitaph—Here lies a man who attacked life—because, as he put it, the odds were damn good he wouldn’t be around very long and he wanted it to read as it should, not as someone else thought it should. He was allergic to suits, short on commitment, and completely uninsurable.
On most weekends he raced motorcycles, parachuted from airplanes, and was an avid scuba diver. During the week he supported his hobbies with fees earned as a private investigator, generating a steady caseload from referrals by friends on Maryland’s state police force. He had no pretensions, was generous to a fault and wore his heart on his sleeve.
Once in a while Todd gave himself a break from risking life and limb on weekends to pursue an even more dangerous pastime—the blackjack tables in Atlantic City.
The black bow-tied dealer stared at Todd. Dealers wanted people to play quickly, because the odds were always in the casino’s favor. Therefore, the more hands played the better the chances for the house to come out way ahead. Todd sipped the bourbon and water while he studied his cards. He knew the dealer was irritated but he ignored the man’s fingers tapping angrily on the green felt of the table. The bet was five hundred dollars and he was going to take as much time as necessary.
The dealer showed an ace on top of his down card. Todd had fifteen showing. The odds were excellent he wasn’t going to beat the dealer with fifteen. But the odds were even better he’d go over twenty-one and bust if he took another card. Suddenly the bells of the slot machines in the background sounded like fingernails on a chalkboard.
“You want a hit, pal?” the dealer prodded.
Todd grimaced. “Yeah.”
The dealer smiled and the other five players shook their heads. Bad idea.
Todd’s eyes narrowed as the dealer slid the card quickly from the dispenser and flipped it over. His heart jumped a beat. Six of clubs. Twenty-one. He tilted his head and grinned triumphantly at the dealer. “I’m back,” he announced loudly, then glanced up at the ceiling. “No stopping me now.” The men who ran the casino were up there walking around on the floor above, staring down through one way glass to make certain no one was working on the inside with a dealer. “My luck just turned.”
But Todd’s luck hadn’t turned. The six of clubs was just a momentary respite from a long losing streak. The next hand he bet a thousand dollars—everything he had—and went bust as the dealer flipped over a king of hearts on top of Todd’s eight of hearts and five of spades. It was the dealer’s turn to smile triumphantly.
“Too bad.” An older man in a gray T-shirt and jeans, gambling away his monthly Social Security check, smacked his lips in disgust. “That dealer’s just too hot.”
“I’ll be back.” Todd grinned and slapped the old man on the back. “Save my place for me, will you, Charlie?”
“Sure.” Charlie laughed. You had to admire the young man. He could smile in the face of anything. Charlie had seen this same scenario unfold a few weekends before. Todd gambled big, lost it fast, but smiled right through the disaster.
Todd moved away from the table and walked down a long, noisy corridor separating the blackjack and craps tables. He had to find Harry.
Harry the Horse sat in a small office on the fourth floor of the casino perusing racing forms. He was a huge man with a bald head and a tough Philadelphia accent. Todd tapped on the door.
“Hello, Mr. Colton,”Harry said casually as he looked up from the papers. “Burn through that last five thousand yet?”
“As a matter of fact . . .” Todd hesitated. This was embarrassing. “I did.”
“You just don’t learn, do you?”
“I’m one hand away, Harry.”
Harry had been a loan shark for years. He knew better. “Everybody always is.”
“Can I have another five thousand?” Todd asked impatiently. He wanted to get back to the tables.
“Mr. Colton, you already owe us twenty-five thousand. We’ve advanced you fifteen against your car and ten unsecured. Do you really think borrowing another five is a good idea?”
“Come on, Harry. No sermons.”
“You’re gonna have to start paying us back soon.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not kidding.”
“Sure.” Harry had been saying that for months.
Harry pulled open a desk drawer, withdrew a stack of fresh one hundred dollar bills and counted out fifty, then counted them again. He arranged them into a neat pile and held them out for Todd. As Todd’s hand came forward, Harry suddenly pulled his back. “I’m going to take five hundred as an interest payment on what you already owe us.” Harry pulled five hundred-dollar bills from the stack in his hand and placed them down on his racing forms. “Only forty-five hundred dollars left but the loan is for five thousand. You sure you want it now?”
Todd took the money from Harry and grinned. “Absolutely. Hell, I’ll probably be back up here in an hour to pay off my entire debt. I can feel lady luck on my arm already.” Todd turned and trotted toward the elevators with his new cache stuffed into his shirt pocket.
Harry picked up the racing forms. That wasn’t lady luck young Mr. Colton had felt take his arm. That was the devil.
Air Force Captain Paul Nichols watched the two F-22s take off side by side through the window of his office. The bright Nevada sun glistened off their sleek fuselages as they rose quickly from the desert. It was a beautiful sight. He watched until they were nothing but black specks against the azure sky, then stood up and moved out of the office and down the corridor toward the lavatory.
“Captain Nichols?”
The captain stopped halfway through the lavatory doorway. “Yes?” He glanced at the s
ergeant, then noticed the two MPs behind the man.
“Sir, I’ve been ordered to take you into custody immediately.”
The captain began to protest, but quickly realized it would be pointless to do so.
After spending hours in a small windowless holding cell, the captain was blindfolded and clandestinely moved to the cargo bay of a C-130. Hands secured behind his back, he heard the familiar whine of propellers as they began to turn, then had to steady himself with his feet as the plane lurched forward and taxied away from the hangar.
“Can you hear me?” someone screamed in his ear over the din of the engines as the plane throttled up and began lumbering down the runway.
He nodded immediately, wanting to seem as cooperative as possible. He had heard rumors of the small detachments that protected black-budget secrecy, but never thought it possible that they actually existed. Now he wasn’t so certain.
“You provided Senator Malcolm Walker with information regarding the A-100 black program, didn’t you?” The same voice screamed at him again.
This time Captain Nichols didn’t answer immediately. His head remained tilted forward at a thirty-five-degree angle—the natural posture for a blindfolded person.
The voice screamed the question once more.
Nichols nodded slowly. It was pointless to deny the charge. They probably had videotapes of him going through the files. Christ, how could he have been so stupid?
“On your feet, Captain!”
When he didn’t react immediately, several pairs of hands pulled him to a standing position, then hustled him across the floor of the cargo bay. He turned his head in both directions quickly. “Hey, what the hell are you doing?” he yelled, but there was no response from his captors.
Suddenly he realized what was going to happen. He kicked and twisted his body frantically against their hold, but to no avail. They simply picked him up and carried him to the door.
“Think twice next time about being so free with information, you bastard!”
Air whipped about Nichols’s face as the plane continued to climb. “Please don’t do this!” he begged, screaming so loudly he tore a vocal cord.
For a few minutes they held him there, teetering on the brink of death, allowing the plane to reach the desired altitude. Then they pushed him out the door at ten thousand feet.
He tumbled over and over, struggling to free himself from the twine securing his wrists as he dropped sickeningly through the night sky. Commander Pierce remained close to Captain Nichols all the way down, watching his pitiful struggles remorselessly. Military men who would break the code they had sworn to uphold and who would jeopardize national security had to be dealt with severely. There was no alternative but swift, harsh retribution in matters such as these.
Captain Nichols realized he had precious little time left. He had jumped many times and had a sixth sense as to his altitude. He was probably five thousand feet up at most, probably closer to four or three. He was screaming through the air at terminal velocity, completely blind. One moment he would be alive, the next dead. But he wouldn’t have any warning. He would never know what hit him. Maybe it was better that way. Suddenly he felt himself beginning to convulse. The end must be near.
Commander Pierce checked the altimeter one more time, then pointed the remote control at the falling body several hundred yards away, outlined by the flashing lights on the ultralight parachute they had forced over the captain’s head during the struggle in the cargo hold. He pushed the button, then pulled the rip cord of his own chute.
Suddenly Captain Nichols felt the incredible G-forces strain his entire body as the parachute opened, responding to the electric pulse from Commander Pierce’s remote. His body flipped almost upside down against the snap of the ropes, then settled comfortably beneath the parachute, and he floated gently to the desert floor.
For several moments he lay on the sand beneath the chute, sobbing, then felt the material being pulled from atop his body and sensed someone kneeling down next to him. Then he heard the voice.
“You will remain silent on this matter for the remainder of your life. You will be incarcerated for six months, at the end of which time you will be dishonorably discharged from the military. You will accept that punishment without question. Any attempt by you to interfere with that exact course of events and the parachute will not open next time. Do you understand that, Captain Nichols?” Commander Pierce spoke calmly.
Nichols lifted his head slowly, still blindfolded. “Yes,” he moaned. Then his head fell back to the sand and he blacked out.
Two hours later, just as dawn was breaking over the Nevada desert, Captain Nichols was back on base, physically no worse for wear. But his nerves would never be the same.
Pierce watched with satisfaction as Nichols was hustled into the cell by the men of his rogue group. The commander’s lips curled into a quick smile. Malcolm Walker’s Area 51 informant had been neutralized.
Chapter 14
Jesse watched Todd from across the table as he salted his french fries. He was tall and well built, with a strong, tanned face framed by long brown hair. It wasn’t a face that would ever grace the cover of Gentleman’s Quarterly, but he had something. Perhaps it was the sheer force of his outgoing personality, his caring nature, the crooked smile, or the way he looked at her with those eyes. God, those eyes. They actually changed color and could be steel blue or dark green depending on the day. She found herself gazing at them, thinking about the possibilities, then looked away quickly. It couldn’t be. That had been Becky’s consistent advice.
“It’s good to see you, Jess.” Todd never pronounced the last e of her name.
“It’s good to see you too.”
“Did your mom tell you I stopped by last week?”
Instantly Jesse thought back to her own visit with her mother, and how the chance meeting with Father McCord and the discussion of her mother’s money problems had reminded her so vividly of her stepfather.
“Are you all right, Jess?” Perhaps it was only his imagination, but she seemed distracted.
She nodded quickly. “Yes. It was nice of you to check in on her.”
“Well, I’m just a prince of a guy, aren’t I?” He laughed.
“Yes, you are,” she said quietly. “How’s everything going for you?” She knew about his dangerous hobbies.
“Great. Well, a few weeks ago I was jumping from a friend’s Cessna and my chute didn’t open until a thousand feet. I landed in the top of a pine tree, twisted my ankle, and ran into a feisty woodpecker who wasn’t very glad to see me. The ankle is still a little sore, but otherwise I’m fine.” One side of his mouth rose noticeably higher than the other as he smiled. “What about you, Jess? How’s life for you?”
She knew about his inability to make commitments too. Still, after all this time she was dangerously attracted to that smile, though of course she could never tell him that. He might try to spark what had lingered just below the surface for so long, and that could prove disastrous. It might break the delicate balance of her emotions and bring everything tumbling out into the open.
“Jess?”
He had been there for her that terrible night twelve years ago. It didn’t seem fair that he had to be precluded from being with her because he had been the one to help, the one who had cradled her as she cried. But Becky had assured Jesse it had to be that way, that Todd could not be anything more than a casual friend. Not if Jesse wanted to keep the hostility under control. Not if she wanted to keep it from her mother forever. Too much contact with the past and it would all come spilling out, Becky counseled over and over. And Todd was an intricate part of that past. Of that night.
Jesse grimaced. Becky would be upset to learn Jesse had come to Todd for help again and that there was a strong chance they would be seeing each other more than just infrequently now. But there seemed to be no other choice to Jesse. Once more, Todd was the one she had to turn to.
“Jess,” Todd said loudly, “what’s going
on over there?”
She suddenly realized he was trying to get her attention. “What?”
“Where are you?”
“I’m sorry. I was thinking about something I have to do at work.”
“I think you’re just overwhelmed to see me again.”
Jesse shook her head. She didn’t want to give him an excuse to push. Or did she? Was that really why she had called him?
“Well, I guess we should get this over with.” Todd reached down to his plate, picked up several french fries, and put them in his mouth, smiling as he chewed. “We go through it every time we get together. Which is not often enough, I might add. Of course, you’ll get mad at me. But what the hell?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Can we start going out?” Todd’s smile became wider as he saw her shake her head automatically. “See, I told you.” He pointed at her. “I ask you the same thing every time we get together, and every time I ask, you say no.”
“Todd, stop it.”
“I think my problem is that you’re dating those guys in suits and ties. You think they’re the answer, but they aren’t.”
She looked away without responding.
“Enough of the boring bankers, Jess. You need somebody who doesn’t sit behind a desk all day feeding irrelevant numbers into a computer.”
“Todd, stop it!” Suddenly Jesse became aware that the other patrons were watching them curiously.
“What’s wrong?” He was still smiling, enjoying flustering her.
“I called you because I need your help.”
“And here I am, at your service, ready to leap tall buildings in a single bound.”
“Be serious.” Jesse folded her hands on the table in front of her plate. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to call him after all.