The Surrogate

by Henry Wall Judith

  “But what if the most qualified candidate in a race is not an evangelical Christian?” Marcia asked.

  “We believe that the nation can be best served by those who consider God’s wishes when they lead and legislate,” Amanda said.

  “Many observers believe that your organization was an important factor in the election of our current president. Has he lived up to your expectations?”

  Amanda looked directly at the camera and said, “He has grown in understanding as to the special role he plays in bringing goodness and hope to all Americans, and I am sure that in God’s eyes there is no one better qualified to lead our country.”

  “So will he have your vote for a second term?” Marcia asked.

  “Yes, he will,” Amanda said with a nod.

  “I understand that you are expecting a full house at all three of your revivals here in the city, which begin tomorrow evening and will be held at the Temple of Praise.”

  “Yes,” Amanda said. “The Temple of Praise is an inspiring house of worship.”

  “Will you have your baby with you?”

  Amanda beamed. “Definitely. I keep him with me as much as possible.”

  “I understand that you consider your baby to be somewhat of a miracle.”

  “Oh, yes,” Amanda said, offering a beatific smile that seemed quite genuine. “My baby is a miracle from God,” she said, lifting her hands to her chin and clasping them together. “He is a wonderful little boy who looks so much like my darling Sonny that it takes my breath away.”

  “When your son, Sonny, was killed in a tragic accident more than a year and a half ago, I understand that many of your followers wondered if you would give up your ministry.”

  “My grief overwhelmed me for a time,” Amanda acknowledged, “but God sent my husband, Toby, and then our beautiful baby to heal my broken heart. We have named our baby Jason, which was my father’s name. The name means ‘healer,’ and this baby was sent by God to heal me and help me rededicate my life to His service.”

  “Obviously you are a very youthful woman, but weren’t you surprised to find yourself pregnant at this point in your life?” Marcia asked.

  “Surprised and overjoyed,” Amanda answered, offering another radiant smile and placing her hands prayerlike under her chin.

  “Did you have any problems during your pregnancy?” Marcia asked.

  “It was a bit difficult at first, and my doctors insisted that I suspend my public activities during the last four months. But after a rocky beginning, I actually felt quite wonderful. And you cannot imagine the outpouring of love I experienced when Jason was born. I received cards and letters and telegrams from all over the world. And people traveled to the Alliance headquarters in Virginia to leave flowers at the gate and light hundreds of candles. Maybe thousands of candles. It was a spectacular sight. I cannot tell you how touched I was.”

  Marcia asked a few questions about the remainder of Amanda’s tour then thanked her for her time and nodded at the cameraman, indicating that was a wrap. Then she chatted with Amanda for a few minutes, outlining their plan for tomorrow evening. “Since the local Christian station will be covering the event live, we would like to offer a different view—shots of backstage preparations and of you arriving at the facility with your husband and baby.”

  “My husband has pressing business in Virginia and probably won’t be coming to Dallas,” Amanda explained, glancing at her watch. “And the baby and I will be arriving separately. His nursemaid will carry him onstage during the service.”

  “I see,” Marcia said. “Well, we’ll take shots of you showing him off to…” She paused, uncertain about what to call people who attend revivals. Audience seemed too secular. “To the worshippers,” she said. “And I especially want some shots of you delivering your message taken from offstage. In my research I came across an incredible picture of your mother on the cover of Life magazine that was taken from offstage, and I plan to include it in the segment and then show you from the same angle.”

  “Yes, I know the picture well,” Amanda said. “That’s very creative of you.”

  “Is your baby here with you?” Marcia asked. “Maybe we could get some close-ups of the two of you now.”

  Amanda’s expression changed slightly. “He and his nursemaid won’t be arriving until tomorrow.”

  “Well, then, we’ll see you tomorrow evening,” Marcia said.

  Amanda rose and Marcia followed suit. Amanda reached for her hand and smiled warmly. “Thank you so much, Marcia, for your time and professionalism.”

  “You are very beautiful,” Marcia said, surprising herself. But it was true. Amanda Hartmann was positively radiant.

  “Why, thank you, my dear,” Amanda said. “The years do seem to have been kind to me. I do hope that you enjoy the service tomorrow evening and feel God’s blessing upon you.”

  “I look forward to it,” Marcia said. And she did. In fact, she would have liked to stay here in this room with Amanda a while longer, listening to her speak, watching her expressions change, her hands move. Amanda Tutt Hartmann was mesmerizing.

  Marcia started for the door then paused. “Does your brother attend your revivals?” she asked.

  “Not usually,” Amanda responded.

  Jamie showered first and nursed Billy while Joe took his turn in the bathroom.

  At first she hoped that he wouldn’t want to make love. She was too tense. Too preoccupied about tomorrow.

  But what if this was the last time?

  When Joe crawled into the bed beside her, she reached for him. Afterward, they held each other and cried for a time. Then they once again went over their plan for tomorrow.

  During the night, they had their first quarrel. Jamie wanted Joe to unhook the RV and drive them to Oklahoma City, where she would turn herself into the police. She would explain to them what had happened to her that night at Ruby Duffy’s apartment house. Why Lynette’s baby was taken. Why Jamie had fled with her own baby.

  “With Amanda having a baby to which she claims to have given birth with her here in Dallas, the Hartmanns can’t say that Billy belongs to them,” Jamie pointed out. “And Billy couldn’t be her baby anyway. There are people in Oklahoma City who can testify that I was in Oklahoma City with Billy while Amanda was in Virginia supposedly having a baby.”

  “There’s a warrant out for your arrest in Oklahoma City,” Joe pointed out. “On that basis alone, they would take Billy away from you and put you in a cell at least until you are arraigned.”

  Joe held his thumb and forefinger less than an inch apart. “Gus Hartmann’s people have come this close to killing you twice now,” he said. “Once in Oklahoma City and again down at Neptune Beach. What makes you think they wouldn’t find a way to finish the job? Gus Hartmann has already shown that he has the power to operate outside of the law. He has the power to have your throat slit while you’re in some jail cell and then lay claim to Billy.”

  Jamie broke down and wept. “We don’t have a chance against him,” she said.

  “Our plan is going to work,” Joe insisted, holding her close. “When we confront Amanda Hartmann, millions of people will be watching. They will be our jury, and we have right on our side. That has to count for something.”

  Her whole world was here with her on this bed, Jamie thought. She found herself wondering if this world would end tomorrow. If tomorrow would be the last day of her life. If after all this running and hiding and planning and gut-wrenching fear, Amanda would end up raising Billy after all and he would never know that there had been this other woman who had given birth to him and loved him completely. “If it looks hopeless, I don’t want you to do anything idiotic,” she told Joe. “If they kill me, just get the hell out of there. And out of the country.”

  “It’s all going to be on live television,” he reminded her.

  She tried to take comfort in that fact. Usually people weren’t murdered in front of television cameras. But it wasn’t unheard of. It had happened once b
efore in this very city, when Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald.

  Chapter Forty-one

  FOR THE FIRST HOUR of the flight, Gus sat in the front of the jet with Randi and the babies. When Buck grew tired of being confined in the baby carrier, Gus unfastened him and walked up and down jiggling him. When he sat back down, he held the baby on his knees and talked to him, telling him what a fine boy he was.

  “When I signed those papers in Dallas, I didn’t realize that I was going to be keeping you forever and ever,” Gus told baby Buck, “but that is exactly what I am going to do. You are going to be my son, and I will raise you. We’ll still live in Virginia but spend lots of time at the ranch. You’ll have the best education that money can buy—you and your cousin Jason and your little friend Amita—and the Mexican children, too. I’ll build Amita’s family a house there. And you three boys will raise chickens and have a vegetable garden and climb trees and learn to swim and ride on your very own ponies. Your aunt Amanda will come visit us from time to time, and probably she’ll take your cousin Jason on trips with her, but most of the time he’ll be with us. Such a happy life we will have.”

  Gus had tears in his eyes just from imagining it. If only Montgomery were still alive to enjoy this new life with him. But he would have Randi and her family to help him with the boys. And having young children around would be good for his mother.

  This new life had become what he thought about in the night and during his morning walks. He had trouble concentrating during the day because he was thinking about it. Only yesterday, he had been on a conference call discussing what to do about a holdout senator who refused to vote for an upcoming administration-sponsored bill when Gus realized that he had completely lost his train of thought and was focused instead on the playground he planned to build at the ranch.

  Gus felt profoundly happy—except for the times he was thinking about Jamie Long and her boyfriend, whom, ironically, he held in high regard. He knew that they could not be bought or tempted in any way to back down. Not that he would barter with them. Things had gone too far for that.

  Amanda may not have birthed that baby, but it never would have been born if it weren’t for her. And he had been born of Sonny’s seed. He was a Hartmann, and his rightful place was with the Hartmann family. Gus would fulfill his promise to his sister.

  But Jamie Long and Joe Brammer would be the last, he promised himself. The very last.

  He nuzzled Buck’s neck and inhaled the baby sweetness of his flesh. An intoxicating scent. It was almost enough to make him believe in God.

  “Daddy loves his little Buckie,” he told the baby. “Daddy loves you very, very much.”

  When Buck drifted off to sleep, Gus put him back in his carrier, feeling quite proud at how adept he had become at handling babies. He kissed the top of Buck’s head then leaned over the carrier that held Randi’s sleeping child and kissed his head, too. “They are so beautiful,” he told Randi.

  “Yes, Mister Gus, they are so beautiful,” she said with a lovely smile.

  He liked the way Randi said “beautiful,” enunciating every syllable. He liked Randi. She was both intelligent and pragmatic. “Have you ever been to Texas before?” he asked.

  Randi shook her head. “No, sir. I understand that Dallas is a very large city.”

  “Yes, it is. Lots of people in cars driving around on a maze of highways, just like lots of other cities in lots of other states. Before we head back to Virginia, we’ll fly out to the ranch for a few days. It’s very peaceful there and quite beautiful in its own way.”

  “I would very much like to visit this place that you and Miss Amanda love so much,” she said.

  Gus patted her shoulder then walked to the back of the plane and sat at the conference table next to Zubov, his new head of security—a former KGB agent with piercing black eyes. After the fiasco in Oklahoma City, Gus had decided to take charge of the planning and be on hand for its implementation. Facing them across the table were three members of Zubov’s team: a lean Russian woman he called Bella, a large young man known as Johnny who looked to be either a Pacific Islander or a Native American, and a hard-bodied black man with a British accent called Frank.

  Zubov and his three associates were wearing navy-blue uniforms complete with nightsticks and holsters hanging from their belts and shiny badges on their chests. Four additional men, also in uniform, would join Zubov’s team in Dallas.

  By tomorrow night it would all be over, Gus thought. Finally.

  He wasn’t quite sure of the explanation he would give Randi when another baby turned up, but she was pragmatic and would not ask questions. Randi understood that her continued association with Gus meant good things for her family. And she realized that Gus sincerely cared about her son and would someday send him to a fine university along with any other children that she and her husband might produce.

  Zubov produced a file folder filled with photographs of Jamie Long and Joe Brammer that obviously had come from high school and college yearbooks. There were the usual head-and-shoulders—Jamie with her high school track team, Brammer in a basketball uniform, Brammer with some other guys in front of a fraternity house. And there was the picture taken by Bentley Abernathy’s secretary—Jamie with her long blond hair, looking scrubbed and young and wholesome. “The girl does not look this way now,” Zubov said. “Her hair is short and brown. Look for tall young woman with blue eyes and body of athletic person. And for young man with brown eyes and athletic body. His head is shaved and maybe he have beard. The baby is same size as those two,” he said with a gesture toward the front of the plane.

  “I have two goals,” Gus told them. “The first is to gain possession of the child without harming him in any way, and the second is to eliminate the man and the girl even if others are harmed in the process.”

  “Do you think they will be together?” Bella wanted to know.

  “The man and the girl may or may not arrive together,” Gus said, “but yes, I am sure they plan to be together when they attempt to confront my sister on live television.”

  Gus had no trouble at all crawling inside the heads of Jamie Long and Joe Brammer. They envisioned a scenario in which, after Amanda shows the stand-in baby to her adoring followers in Dallas and around the world and claims to be his biological mother, they confront her with Jamie’s baby. When Amanda insists that Jamie’s baby belongs to her, people will realize that she has been lying to them. Jamie will get a fair hearing. The correct questions will be asked. The entire situation will be dealt with in an aboveboard way, and Jamie will be allowed to tell her story. Amanda and Gus Hartmann’s criminal acts will be exposed. The truth will solve everything. Except that Jamie Long and Joe Brammer were not going to live long enough to tell it. Ideally the two of them will have been dealt with before Amanda appears onstage, and the baby she shows off to her flock will be Sonny’s.

  As usual, the Alliance had hired a force of fifty uniformed security guards from local security companies who would be posted throughout the parking lot, at every entrance to the facility, and throughout the building. They would have pictures of Jamie Long and Joe Brammer and be told that the couple had made threats against Amanda. One of the two would be carrying a baby. If the guards spotted them, they were to keep them under surveillance and immediately notify Zubov. Under no circumstances were they to approach the couple or do anything that might jeopardize the safety of the infant.

  Gus hoped that Jamie and her boyfriend would be apprehended before entering the sanctuary, but he was certain that they would both be disguised in some way and, with the flood of people that would be pouring through those doors, they might slip through unnoticed. In which case, everything was to be put on hold until the end of the service, when Amanda invited worshippers wanting to confess their sins and dedicate their lives to Jesus to come forward. After giving the invitation, Amanda would make her way down the steps to greet the penitent. Gus had no doubt that Jamie and Brammer would join the stream of people coming forward. />
  Zubov unrolled a floor plan of the Temple of Praise. Five doors opened into the sanctuary from the large lobby area. There also was access to the sanctuary from both the office and education wings. And there were fire exits on both sides of the stage area. In addition, there were two outside doors into the stage area and two more into the practice hall.

  Just before the service began, Bella, Johnny, and two of the Dallas contingent were to take positions in front of the stage. The rest of the floor crew would remain in their positions throughout the sanctuary until Amanda made the invitation, at which time the floor crew would make their way forward. As soon as Brammer and the girl were sighted, Zubov’s people would surround them. Brammer was to be killed immediately. Those closest to Jamie were to grab her and assist Bella in removing the baby from her possession. “If the girl won’t relinquish the baby, threaten to put a bullet through his head,” Gus told Bella.

  To the three men, he said, “The instant the baby is out of harm’s way, shoot the girl.”

  Then the men were to surround Bella and the baby and get them to the fire exit on the east side of the stage. Three vans with flashing lights and sirens would be waiting. Zubov and Bella with the baby were to board the first van and be taken away separately.

  Gus knew that by the time local law enforcement arrived, they would be greeted with pandemonium and conflicting stories. It could be hours before he could extract himself from the investigation and escort his sister, Randi, and the two babies to the hotel. It might be morning before he could travel to a motel in Lewisville, where he could finally claim Sonny’s child.

  Gus leaned back in his chair, his hands folded on the table. He looked at each of the faces around the table in turn. “Pull this thing off,” he said, “and I will double what Zubov has promised you. Just make sure no harm comes to that baby. The instant he is safely out of the girl’s arms, shoot her.”