Swap Out!

by M. L. Buchman

  Betsy Johns, her goddaughter and Amanda’s messenger, had met her at the back entrance of the Treasury building. They were driven with minimum escort to the charming café she and June had found one summer’s afternoon on the other side of the mall. She’d still been a Senator’s wife and her friend was often called Mrs. Colonel by those who knew her as the wife of Edward Johns. It had become a regular haunt of theirs, even after one became the First Lady and the other became Mrs. Brigadier General.

  While they were alone in the back of the car, Lindsey grilled Betsy about how the message system worked. But Betsy only received messages, she never sent them and had no way to do so.

  Lindsey was too wound up or too exhausted. That would explain why she didn’t recognize her own self in the mirror this morning. Would word of her divorce hit CNN today or tomorrow? Please, at least tomorrow. Let the process server reach her husband before the news did.

  She owed the man that much, though she wasn’t entirely sure why. Maybe so that she could be there to see.

  At Kathy’s Kafé she wasn’t able to get out of the car. June ought to be here. Lindsey hadn’t come but once since June had sickened and it had felt wrong. Lindsey never returned since cancer had taken her friend.

  Betsy stood by her open door.

  “You look great, Mrs. Grant. Dad is always glad to see you.”

  Maybe not this time. She kept that thought to herself as she followed the Secret Service detail across the sidewalk. The café wouldn’t normally open for an hour. The morning’s first light broke over the horizon and lit the pinnacle of the Washington Monument.

  CHAPTER 91

  Jeff didn’t wake up until his feet hit the floor. That shock brought him wide awake.

  An alarm pulsed through the house. The exact tone of his elementary school fire drill alarm, a piercing electronic chirp that cut through all thought. His entire body was galvanized to action, but he didn’t even know where he was or what action was called for.

  The alarm cut out.

  Mandy threw his clothes at him and he dragged them on.

  “What the hell?” Jeff followed her out the bedroom door as he tried to simultaneously zip up his pants and tug his shirt over his head.

  His head was trapped somewhere in thick cotton when he ran into her in the hall.

  “Sorry, Mand.”

  He got the shirt hauled down enough to see it was Clarice grinning at him.

  “All right. Way to go you two. I’m so proud.”

  “But . . . We didn’t even . . .”

  She held up a hand. “Oh sure. Like you’d ever let a woman like that get away from you. You’d have to really be an idiot to do that.” And she was gone. Sprinting after Mandy down the stairs.

  But he had been a massive idiot. He’d let her get away for a quarter century. A quarter century? He felt old in a way no one should ever feel. How could he have been that stupid?

  At the bottom of the stairs he reached for a light switch just as a flashlight glared in his eyes from far too close.

  “Oops! Sorry.” Clarice didn’t sound sorry.

  He reached the switch and was answered with a solid click, but no illumination.

  “No electricity, Mr. Davis. Hence the flashlight.” Which she was now aiming at the floor.

  “Right.” At this rate he’d never get rid of the blockhead title he could hear forming in Clarice’s mind. For some reason that bothered him. He wanted her to think well of him.

  “What’s happening? That was some alarm.”

  “Perimeter breaches at five hundred yards. We aren’t planted in the middle of a hundred acres for nothing. And whatever tripped it isn’t something subtle. The alarm won’t trigger for a deer, or probably even a lone burglar, if it were a kid. We have eight separate triggers around the whole perimeter, except where it’s cliff. We’re being raided.”

  “Do we have any bowling balls?”

  Her look clearly assessed his mental state which wasn’t really the best at the moment.

  “They come in handy.”

  Still the look.

  “Don’t mess with me, sister. I know shit, too.”

  She laughed at having her own words thrown back at her and led him toward the office.

  Mandy was staring at the screen of her laptop.

  “Nine now. New one up the hill. The others are all coming from below, up from the Notch and the neighboring farms.”

  “Reynolds, Patterson, and McDuffie.” Clarice whispered in his ear and nudged him in the shoulder.

  He nudged her back.

  Mandy closed the laptop’s lid. It beeped once and shut off. Clarice pulled the cords while Mandy kicked the wall. A section of the old paneling swung open.

  They stashed both her laptop and Clarice’s. He handed over the manila file folders and the Blackberry. They too were stuffed into the narrow space.

  “Grandpup liked having a little moonshine handy when he sat in here to pay the bills.” Mandy closed the door.

  Jeff took a flashlight from the desk and aimed it at the wall. No line. Nothing. Just the old scuffed pine.

  “Do that again.”

  He aimed the flashlight at the wall.

  “No. Over to the right.” Mandy pointed at an old photograph.

  A sepia-tone picture. A dapper young man in a heavy plaid coat and a boxy hat with fold-down ear flaps. A hunting rifle resting on his shoulder.

  He’d seen that rifle on the living room mantle, Grandpup’s squirrel gun.

  “No. Unh-uh. These guys aren’t even going to slow down for that. Do you even have ammunition for that old thing?”

  Mandy jerked open the door, “Douse your flashlights and follow me!” and sprinted into the darkness.

  Clarice followed hot on her heels.

  He looked once more at the picture, then focused on the background. Grandpup stood out in front of the sugaring shack. It still stood, perched on the back of the property, a perfect hidey hole.

  He hoped.

  He switched off his flashlight and turned for the door. A light blinked on the desk. He turned on the flashlight and spotted Mandy’s cell phone blinking on the desk. He grabbed it and doused the flashlight as he bolted for the shadowed verge of the pine woods.

  CHAPTER 92

  Eddie Johns was at Kathy’s Kafé before them. He looked like any normal though incredibly fit Washingtonite. Button-down white shirt, worn two buttons open. Cuffs rolled up. Tailored slacks and brown leather shoes. He blended right into the background except for the smile he aimed in her and Betsy’s direction. It was a great smile, what had first attracted Lindsey back in high school.

  His short hair was still so dark it was nearly black. His face still ruggedly handsome as it had been on a young Crazy Eddie. Only conscious effort kept Lindsey from checking the set of her jacket. She slid in across the table as the four-man protection detail spread out across the empty dining room: two front, one by the side entrance, and one back by the kitchen where she assumed Kathy was discreetly preparing for the day.

  The café was much as she’d remembered it. Potted roses and lush geraniums adorned the walls. The color scheme of the gentlest spring green walls and natural wood trim always made the place homey. Gingham tablecloths were as much a witticism as a statement. Even at this hour, Kathy had set the one table with a fresh rose in a ceramic vase, a pot of steaming coffee, and a basket of her thoroughly decadent raspberry croissants.

  Betsy went to follow one of the agents, but Lindsey pulled the chair out and patted the seat for her to join them. Did Lindsey need to show her goddaughter more trust or did she herself want a chaperone? Eddie hugged and kissed his daughter and they settled down like a happy family.

  “I, uh,” he glanced at his daughter, then at Lindsey. He was clearly debating Lindsey’s decision to include his daughter in the conversation. After a
moment he accepted with a shrug of his shoulders. Despite his years and desk job, he still worked out, hard. It looked very good on him. Her husband, she shouldn’t be doing this kind of comparison, especially not the morning after filing for divorce, was a wimp in comparison despite his much vaunted football background.

  “I’ve shut down all SOAR operations in the US that are not authorized by me personally until we find the hole in our system. Those men should never have been ordered aloft. We spent most of the night changing out our security codes.”

  This time he glanced over at the Secret Service detail before leaning in and lowering his voice.

  “Considering the situation, I have not notified the President of these circumstances. And that is not making me very happy.”

  Lindsey hadn’t told him about her suspicions, but he’d reached the same conclusion. This whole messed-up situation might reach right into the Oval Office, though they’d never prove it.

  “Well, it may cheer you up a little, your call was in time.”

  He harrumphed, but he looked a little mellower.

  Betsy blinked a couple of times and then smiled brightly. “S.J. OK” now meant something to her, even if she didn’t know who, she’d now knew what. And that her father had been responsible.

  Her father hadn’t missed the change in expression either. Lindsey could read his face, easily. She’d forgotten what it was like to look at a man’s face and read his thoughts. Rather than watching it in trepidation, trying to second guess whether the shark was about to leap into action from beneath buddy-boy’s thin facade.

  Eddie was pleased that his daughter was somehow involved with Lindsey’s doings and worried for the same reason.

  She reached across and patted his arm, “As safe as can be.”

  He nodded but didn’t look any more certain.

  CHAPTER 93

  The morning light was dancing along the top of Franconia Notch, but down here between the steep hills the trees held onto the darkness. Jeff sprinted as fast as his feet would allow. He ducked down as he ran, not that it would do anything, but it made him feel better.

  He dove into the sugaring shack and Clarice slammed the door. It hadn’t been used in a long time. Dust lay thick on the long metal evaporator. Stacks and stacks of rusting steel pails filled one end of the room. Cases of gallon-sized steel cans were stacked along another.

  Nowhere to hide. He turned around three times, felt like a paranoid dog unable to settle, but nothing was revealed. This was such a brilliant idea?

  Mandy was squeezing back behind the evaporator, its long tray now sticky with dust rather than maple syrup.

  “This farm is older than you’d think. Grandpup told me that a smart rabbit will always have a back door. An extra digout from its warren. This farm was once part of the Underground Railroad back in the Civil War. Grandpup built his sugaring shack right over . . .” With a grunt and a flurry of dust, she pulled up a trap door.

  In moments the three of them were underground beneath the shack. Clarice clicked on a flashlight. It was a cramped space, barely big enough for the three of them. Damp and musty, a sour flavor of fear still hung about the place. How many slaves had crammed in here and been thankful for it? He imagined them listening as bounty hunters and hound dogs had tracked them and shivered against the chill.

  It was getting dimmer. The flashlight batteries were starting to run out.

  No.

  He was the only one left in the room. Mandy and Clarice were crawling down a side tunnel that he hadn’t noticed and they were taking their flashlights with them. The tunnel sloped up toward the mountain.

  “Is it safe?” The timbers shoring up the dirt and rock looked really, really old.

  Clarice’s whisper sounded back to him, “You think it’s safer sitting there under the floorboards?”

  She had a point.

  Two minutes later they were in another underground vault and he let out a breath. If they were ever going to do that again, he was going to make sure there was new reinforcing installed first. At least he hadn’t needed to use his feet to crawl, though now his knees weren’t exactly feeling good either.

  Up through a trap door and he knew where he was, the well house. The big pump stood mounted against one wall. A large tank of water beside it sported a steel pipe leading toward the house, pressure supplied by their height above the house. The air was slightly moist and cool, with enough space to store produce for a winter: root cellar and pump house in one. They were a hundred yards up the hill from the house and tucked back into the trees.

  They peeked out of the one dusty window, like the Three Stooges, their heads all pressed together trying to share the same narrow space.

  Through the trees they had a surprisingly good view of the house. Dawn light was filling the backyard. A half-dozen men were spread around the perimeter of the yard. They moved so cleanly he almost didn’t notice them at first. Their fatigues blended into the background. From his training in Shelley’s silo he could tell they were carrying weapons, though they too were painted in camouflage coloring hiding them almost as well as their bearers. Two, three, four figures slid up to the house, though they didn’t break right in. They were waiting for something.

  “Where’s Shelley?”

  Mandy’s question sent a chill up his spine. He looked out the window. There were soldiers stationed at every door and window of the house. Shelley couldn’t have slept through the alarm.

  Mandy grabbed his arm, painfully tight. “Where?”

  “She, uh, must have bugged out in a different direction.”

  There was nothing they could do

  Suddenly a helicopter roared up over the ridge of the house.

  Mandy almost yelped with pleasure.

  But it was white.

  “Air tours,” Clarice whispered. “Outfit out of Manchester. I recognize the logo.”

  Then they turned sideways and Jeff could see the men crouched inside, rifles aimed at the ground below.

  “I don’t think they’re sightseeing much today.”

  “I wish I had my phone,” Mandy came as close to a curse as he’d ever heard.

  Jeff looked at his hand. It was still clutched there. Battered and covered in dirt, and still blinking its message light.

  He handed it over.

  She dialed quickly. The phone in his pocket rang.

  He jerked it out as Clarice and Mandy both said, “Shush! Shush!”

  He dug it out and answered it.

  “Hello?”

  “It’s me, Mandy.” He could hear her twice, through the air and the phone in his hand. He could hear her disappointment, see the frustration on her face.

  Right. “I used Shelley’s phone in Ohio. Must not have given it back.”

  She closed her phone slowly.

  He closed his eyes for a moment, how did he keep letting her down? First killing her brother. Now endangering her daughter by cutting off her lines of communication.

  Mandy was dialing again.

  CHAPTER 94

  Eddie was still being circumspect, though Lindsey couldn’t tell if it was because of his daughter at the table or the Secret Service detail lurking about the room.

  “A friend of mine, do you remember Frank?”

  General Frank Kowalski. Head of Special Operations Forces. Lindsey nodded.

  “He lost a team in the region we’d been discussing. A good team.”

  “Lost?”

  “They, uh,” he looked over his shoulder, then seemed to shrink a little. Lindsey’s heart hurt for him. She wanted to reach out, take his hand, let him know there was someone there with him. But she too was aware of all the other men in the room.

  “Frank doesn’t know how they were mobilized or what their target was. My crew didn’t see them either, they were busy attacking a civilian aircraft which they s
uccessfully downed.”

  Lindsey gasped. But the message had said S. and J. were okay. “S” was Shelley, and it hadn’t taken much to connect Betsy’s “J” and Clarice’s “that Jeff guy” to the missing television chef, Jeff Davis, where Phillip had died. She glanced over at Betsy who nodded sharply. The message she’d received was as it was written. They had to be okay, that channel of communication was too secure to doubt. Of course, Eddie and General Kowalski must have thought the same thing.

  “Frank’s team showed up.”

  “Well, what did they have to say?”

  He looked at his daughter. “Sorry, honey.” Then he turned back to her. “They showed up in body bags on the roof of the Columbus, Ohio Dispatch newspaper building. A handwritten note taped to one of these bags stated that these men had died for their country and deserved a hero’s funeral. The editor agreed to hold the story provided that we honored the request.”

  Betsy’s face went white and Lindsey expected that her own did as well. There was something more about the men that Eddie wasn’t telling, and she was guessing that she did not want to know.

  Shelley had survived and killed an entire Special Operations Forces team? The stakes, that she’d thought were winding down, had suddenly redoubled.

  “Eddie, you have to back off. You and Fra— your friend. Back off, back away.” She could feel her voice rising. Couldn’t stop it. “You’re in terrible…”

  Her phone vibrated against her thigh in her skirt pocket and she jerked half out of her seat. Every agent in the room whirled to face her, each with one hand on the holster beneath their jacket.

  “I’m okay. Okay.” She mouthed, unable to find any air.

  When she pulled out her cell phone, they relaxed, but were slow in turning back to scan out the windows. Did they think less of her? At the moment, she didn’t care.