In time, Bridges had acquiesced to Carson so often that his life and career became radically tied to whatever the man decreed. If this oil magnate died during the operation, Bridges knew his world was destroyed. It wouldn’t make any difference whether he found Graham Peck, Nancy Marks—anyone! Everything was on hold until the fate of Borden Camber Carson was decided.
“What time is it?” Bridges asked Meachem.
“My watch says seven o’clock.”
“The operation may well take all night.”
Meachem nodded. “Anything you want me to do?”
“Keep up the pressure to sort out what made Bill Marks tick. We may need the information later.” Bridges paused. “And don’t let up on finding his wife.”
CHAPTER 26
WHEN FRANK BRIDGES AWOKE, he slowly realized he had slept through the night on the couch in the waiting room. He vaguely remembered watching the Tonight Show come on and then everything faded, but Bridges still felt drowsy and disconnected. He blinked several times. Something had awakened him. He looked up. A man was standing in front of him.
“Mr. Bridges?” Dr. James Silver said. “Sorry to awaken you.”
“Oh!” Bridges jumped. “I apologize. I guess I drifted off to sleep.”
“It was probably good you did. You may be surprised to learn it’s seven in the morning.”
Bridges cursed. “Didn’t mean to sleep so long,” he muttered more to himself than Silver. “Guess I was more exhausted than I realized.”
“Yesterday was rough. You had to be tired.”
“Yeah,” Bridges grumbled and rubbed his eyes.
“We’re about to hold a news conference, and I thought you’d want to attend.”
“News conference?” Bridges ran his hands through his hair. “Carson? Oh my God! What’s happened to Borden Carson?”
“We were surprised last night. With the material your man from the Microfabrication Research Laboratory provided, our research team was able to not only stop the bleeding, but to make repairs. We think Carson will live.”
Bridges felt his mouth drop. “You’re serious?”
“Yes, I am going to make that report to the public. To be completely frank, we’re all rather surprised. When the ambulance brought Carson in, no one actually expected the man to live through the night, but there’s been a resurgence of energy, and his vital signs are good.”
Catching his breath, Bridges nodded his head vigorously. “Thank you! Thank you! I can’t tell you how grateful I am for this.” He shook Silver’s hand. “Yes! Heaven knows this is wonderful news.”
“I thought you might want to stand with me when I meet the press. We have a special room set up downstairs for the television cameras.”
Bridges glanced at his bloodstained shirt and decided his appearance didn’t make any difference today. In fact, the shirt might add a good touch for the cameras. He shook his head to get himself fully awake. “Thank you, Doctor. I’d be delighted.”
“I’m ready to go if you are.”
“Yes.” Bridges stood up straight. “Carson’s alive! I’m ready to report some good news for a change. Let’s meet the press.”
CHAPTER 27
STILL IN THEIR PAJAMAS, the Peck family sat around the television in their Tomahawk home, watching the special news conference being beamed around the world. Graham held his wife’s hand, staring at the doctor march into the room before a bank of microphones. At his side, the mayor of Chicago stood at attention.
“There’s Bridges!” Jackie pointed. “He looks like a truck ran over him.”
“Sure does,” Matthew said. “Look at those bloodstains all over his shirt!”
“Great PR,” Graham said. “No accident in that look of a fellow warrior.”
“I am happy to report that Mr. Hassan Rashid, the prime minister of Turkey, has survived yesterday’s shooting,” the doctor began. “The bullet hit Mr. Rashid in the forehead and went right between the hemispheres of his brain. I am delighted to report we were able to repair the damage and believe he will fully recover.”
A collective sigh rose from the crowd. Instantly reporters began shouting questions, and the room broke into intense commotion.
Graham turned to his family. “Last night’s news reports left me with the certainty that Rashid wouldn’t live. Afraid he has survived.”
“No surprise!” Adah said and opened her black Bible. “All night I have been praying about and studying what this strange turn in the road means. Much to my surprise, I discovered that I had missed an important passage.”
“What’d you find?” George asked.
“Get your Bibles,” Adah said. “Let’s look together.”
The family scurried around, each person grabbing a Bible except Mary. She sat in the corner with her arms across her legs, watching everyone else open a Bible. Even little Jeff scooted closer to George, looking over his shoulder.
“Look at the thirteenth chapter of Revelation,” Adah directed. “It gives us a frightening picture of a beast, a terrible beast. Do you see it?”
“Sure,” Matt said.
“Look at verse 3,” Adah continued. “I will read. ‘I saw one of his heads as if it had been mortally wounded, and his deadly wound was healed. And all the world marveled and followed the beast.’ There—the shooting in New York City!”
“Mortally wounded,” Jackie mused. “That’s what we’ve heard all night. A gunshot wound to the head is about as mortal as you can get.”
“So, the Antichrist is far from dead,” Graham said.
“Yes,” Adah answered. “I am afraid so. Eldad would not have been surprised. I am so sorry that he’s not here to receive this report.”
“Our battle goes on,” Matthew reflected glumly. “The war is not over.”
“This I think is true,” Adah continued. “Look at the next verse. ‘So they worshiped the dragon who gave authority to the beast; and they worshiped the beast, saying, “Who is like the beast? Who is able to make war with him?”’” The result of this shooting will only increase the power of this frightening man.”
“It’s certainly increased Bridges’ prestige in the world,” Graham thought out loud. “I imagine he’ll become an even more dangerous threat to the American president as well as to order in the world.”
Adah nodded. “This man Frank Bridges may well turn out to be the false prophet in Revelation. The point is, through this shooting your enemy has grown.”
“But I don’t think he’d still be much interested in finding me,” Graham said. “After all, I’m old news. I would imagine that Bridges has more work on his hands than he’s got time to think about. I’m probably gone from his thoughts.” Graham stopped. “Of course, Eldad will never be gone from our memory. I think about him every day.”
“You think we can worry less about people seeing us in Rhinelander?” Jackie said.
“I would think so,” Graham answered. “Let’s get the rest of this story from the television broadcast.”
“Mr. Rashid will be incommunicado for some time,” the doctor’s voice reported over the television set. “And we will keep the press advised of his progress, but today the world can breathe easier, as it appears Hassan Rashid will live.”
“Breathe easier?” Jackie said. “I don’t think so.”
Adah shook her head. “No, no. The eternal conflict goes on.”
Mary got up and walked sullenly out of the room.
CHAPTER 28
GATHERING HIS STAFF around him in a room the hospital provided, Frank Bridges pushed his inner circle for immediate action.
“Okay!” Bridges began. “You heard the television report, and it looks good. Carson is going to be out of whack for a while, but it looks like he’s going to survive.”
“But what about damage?” Jack Stratton asked. “Is he going to think right?”
“I don’t know,” Bridges answered, “and we won’t know for probably a week. It’s going to take time to get him back into gear. For the time b
eing, we must assume he’ll come out of this hospital in good condition.”
“Amazing!” Al Meachem exclaimed. “Last night I thought it was all over.”
“The whole world did,” Bridges said. “I don’t know how Carson survived, but apparently that bullet traveled one narrow line. Our boy’s extremely fortunate.”
“What next?” Meachem asked.
“I want a detailed report on what snapped inside Bill Marks’s head,” Bridges continued. “We’ve already pieced together quite a bit of information and identified a warehouse in Cicero where these extremists gathered. I simply can’t understand how Marks got caught up with those people.”
“We still haven’t been able to find his wife,” Meachem added. “She must have been in on this plot up to her eyeballs because she’s been long gone for at least a week. She knew what was coming and left town.”
“Anybody know anything about her?” Bridges asked.
“Actually, she was somewhat on the religious side,” Stratton said. “Always into meditation, yoga, that sort of stuff. She was more likely to go completely crazy religiously than Bill.”
“I don’t want you to let up in your pursuit of Nancy Marks. Nail her as soon as you can get your hands on the woman.”
“We won’t let up, boss,” Meachem said.
“Stop calling me boss,” Bridges demanded. “Make it Your Honor.”
“Yes sir.”
“Assuming Carson comes back in one piece, I know he will want to know what’s happened while he’s been out this week. I think we can kiss that United Nations speech good-bye.”
“Yeah,” Stratton quipped. “He probably won’t even remember he had anything to say.”
“But what he told us to do will come back to him,” Bridges continued. “This time I want to be ready with solid answers. One of them is that we’ve got to get our hands on Graham Peck. I don’t care what it takes, we’ve got to find him. Increase security patrols around his Arlington Heights house. I still think he’s hiding out in that area. If not, he’s somewhere around Chicago.”
“Chicago’s a big place,” Stratton added.
“Big, but it can be narrowed down,” Bridges insisted. “Do it. Come up with a new plan. Find him!”
CHAPTER 29
TWO WEEKS HAD PASSED since the shooting of Carson, or Rashid, as the press had generally come to call him. The news media hyped his recovery through the roof. The fact he had survived a bullet in the head without any major loss of memory gripped the public’s imagination. Details of the brain operation weren’t leaked, but it was obvious something extraordinary had happened behind the closed operating room doors. Dr. Paul Gillette quietly disappeared back to his Illinois laboratory, while Dr. James Silver received constant recognition. The public remained fascinated with Rashid’s capacity to endure as well as the technology that saved him.
After several nights of debating the question back and forth, the Pecks decided to look further at the Rhinelander schools. While it was only early July, they would probably still be living in the forest come fall, and the kids needed to be in school. If they could avoid detection, it would be far better for the kids to be back in a local school.
Graham decided a fake last name might hinder their identification or a possible slip of the tongue that could leak their location to someone in the Chicago area. They had already informed the Rhinelander Christian group that they would use a different name to avoid any problems with the school system because of their faith. The new believers seemed to think that was a good idea. Mary Peck refused to join in the discussion of local school possibilities. George and Jeff voted for a new last name of Kent to identify them with Clark Kent. Mary screamed at them that the name Kent was nonsense and she wouldn’t have any part of it.
“Look, kids!” Graham finally intervened. “There are a billion ‘Smiths’ in the world. No one takes a second look at the name. From now on, around the local school you are George and Jeff Smith with an older sister named Mary Smith. Got it?”
The boys shook their heads, and Mary went charging out of the room like it was the dumbest idea in the world, but of course, she didn’t have a better one.
Consequently, on this early afternoon Graham and Jackie Smith bumped down the dirt road toward town with George and Jeff in the backseat of the car.
“Remember,” Graham warned, “we’re simply investigating the school system. Be careful what you say, and for heaven’s sake, don’t call yourself Peck.”
The boys agreed, and ten minutes later Graham turned down Rhinelander’s main street. They could see the school a couple of blocks away. The old flat-roofed brick building appeared to have been built in the last century and didn’t offer much of an appearance. Work needed to be done everywhere.
“Let’s see what the principal says,” Graham said to the family. “Possibly the inside is better than the outside.”
“You boys go out and play while we talk,” Jackie told George and Jeff. “The playground should have plenty to keep you busy. Just don’t get in trouble.”
“Hey, do we look like troublemakers?” George said.
“Yes,” Jackie replied instantly. “Now keep your noses clean.”
The car pulled into the parking lot and the family got out. George and Jeff ran for a large merry-go-round in the center of the playground while Graham and Jackie looked for the principal.
“The building looks rather dilapidated,” Graham observed. “Walls need painting.”
Jackie nodded. “Washing them wouldn’t hurt anything.”
Graham opened the door marked “Principal.” An overweight, middle-aged man with glasses halfway down his nose sat hunched over a desk reading the morning paper.
“Excuse us,” Graham said. “We wanted to inquire about your school system.”
The man lowered the paper and looked up slowly. “I’m the principal. John Dune. What would you like to know?”
“We’re thinking of putting our children in your school system,” Graham said. “We wanted some idea of how things are going around here.”
Dune folded the paper and stood up. “I suppose you’re aware that we’ve been having considerable money problems, what with poor tax returns. The funds haven’t been coming in, so the school suffers.”
Graham bit his lip. “No, we weren’t informed about that issue.”
“We had similar problems back around the turn of the century,” Dune said, “but this one is worse. We’ve had to cut teachers, and we now have around forty kids in every classroom.” Dune shrugged. “Sure, it’s bad, but we also have a limit on the number of textbooks, and that has caused the kids to share books. That’s the only good thing that comes out of this problem. Kids have been forced to learn to be more flexible.”
“You don’t sound very promising, Mr. Dune,” Graham said pointedly.
“I guess I could whitewash the facts some, but you’d hear this same information around town. I’m just being honest. We’ve got our problems.”
George had just pushed Jeff down the school’s slide when he noticed three boys emerging from behind the school building. They looked about the same age as himself, maybe older.
“Hi!” George yelled. “Come over and play with us.”
The boys kept walking slowly, more like stalking prey than coming out to play. No one spoke.
“We’re new here,” George said. “Can you tell us anything about the school?”
No one answered. The three boys fanned out in a line and kept walking forward.
“Is this a good school?” Jeff asked.
“The question is, are you good boys,” the largest of the three said. “And I don’t see no signs that ya are.”
“Yeah,” the second boy in the line chimed in, “and we don’t like new kids. You look like a couple of little punks to me.”
The third boy swung a long narrow board around from behind his back. “I think we ought to start you boys off with a good old-fashioned whippin’ ’cause you didn’t ask our permissio
n to play out here.”
The three boys charged George and Jeff. Before George could move, the board caught him across the chest. The largest of the three boys swung his fist and hit him square on the side of the face, knocking him to the ground.
Jeff screamed at the top of his lungs before the middle boy kicked him in the groin. He doubled up in a ball, unable even to moan.
Groaning in pain and dizzy, George rolled on the ground, trying to get free, but the largest of the boys leaped on him, his knees sinking into George’s back. He heard Jeff start to scream and cry, but George couldn’t get off the ground.
“Let’s leave these two wimps with somethin’ to remember us by,” one of the attackers said. “How about smashing their noses in.”
“No!” Jeff screamed. “Please don’t!”
“Or kicking their teeth out,” another boy said.
“Maybe we should cut ’em!” one assailant threatened.
George swung his feet with all his might and kicked the boy in the ankle, knocking him off balance.
“A-a-a-h!” the boy screamed in pain. “He smacked me!”
“Yeah? That little fink! Well, I’ll kill him.”
George heard the click of a knife opening above him. With a violent wrench of his body, he kicked straight up and knew his feet had caught the boy square in the stomach.
“O-o-o-h!” The boy with the knife heaved and tumbled backward.
George staggered to his feet, but he realized the boys couldn’t be fought off. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jeff lying on the ground, crying. “Help!” George screamed at the top of his lungs. “Help us! Someone! Anyone!”
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