by David Perry
Have to…get…word to Peter.
He shook his head, trying to clear the accumulating cobwebs. All that did was make him dizzy. The ambulance drifted onto the solid, white line of the service lane. Jason overcorrected, swinging back over the dotted center line. Fortunately, traffic was very light. Ten minutes later, the exit ramp sign for Route 199 in Williamsburg zipped past.
Have to find…another car! Through the fog, he remembered the hotel across from Water Country. Ditch the ambulance…
He hit the exit too fast. He jerked the wheel to the right to keep from soaring into the wooded ravine. The front left tire flirted with the edge of the asphalt, spewing dirt and debris. He jerked the wheel even farther right. Equipment crashed about in the cabin behind him.
Speeding onto 199, he sideswiped two sedans, crunching fenders and spinning them into the median. To his left, brief glimpses of white caught his eye. Large alabaster busts towered behind the thin green foliage.
Presidents Park! Through the drug-induced fog, Jason concocted a plan.
His forearms sagged on the top of the steering wheel. His eyelids struggled to stay open, and his head bobbed. The vehicle slowed to sixty-five, teetering on the edge of control, drifting into the grassy median, jostling Jason to semialertness.
He hit the intersection just beyond the hotel, driving though the oncoming traffic. Blaring horns and screeching, smoking rubber filled the air. A row of hedges were flattened under the wheels of the rescue vehicle. It wasn’t pretty, but he managed to find the roadway curving behind the hotel toward the tourist attractions.
Jason stopped dead center in the deserted parking area, lights still flashing. He fell out of the door, landing on his chest and face. Stumbling to his feet, Jason attempted a run, managing only an unsteady, weaving gait. He pressed on. The adrenaline coursing through him was fighting a losing battle with blood loss, pain, and the narcotic. He staggered through a thicket of trees onto the adjacent hotel campus. What little food there was in his stomach wanted out, and began crawling to the back of his throat. In the distance, he heard the thump-thump of rotors. A helicopter.
Have to find…someplace to lie…down!
Guests were few and far between. After Labor Day, the tourists dried up, closing Water Country and Busch Gardens. The hotel was operating on a skeleton crew. A few cars dotted the asphalt of the hotel parking lot.
Heading away from Jason, a hotel employee pushed a cart to a trash enclosure. He had propped open the back door with a plastic dustpan. Jason raced unsteadily to the doorway and stepped inside.
A stairway sat to the left. He opened the stairwell door and slipped in. Falling to his knees, he crawled under the angle of the stairs behind a collection of toilet paper cartons and cleaning supplies. The outer door swung shut on its hydraulic closer as the Newport News police helicopter appeared over the trees two miles downrange, its rotors thumping as fast as Jason’s heart.
It was the last sound an exhausted and medicated Jason heard before he passed out.
CHAPTER 67
The mere mention of Jason Rodgers’s name was enough to get Special Agent Broadhurst to drop everything and rush over to the York County Sheriff’s Office. He sat impatiently in a conference room. With the christening only twenty-four hours away, he had a thousand things to do. The only reason he was here was because Investigator Baxter had phoned, mentioning Jason Rodgers’s name and claiming he had information Broadhurst would want to see. He’d refused to discuss it over the phone. That rare but familiar feeling had sprouted in his gut. It was more than the acid eating away at the lining of his stomach. He’d only had it twice before in his career. Both occasions had required firing his weapon.
Hundreds of threats were investigated every month by the service. Each and every lead had to be checked out. Most were crackpots blowing off steam. Some were real and had to be squelched before they amounted to anything. A rare few made the news. If they had to act to protect the “Man” from an assassin the day of an event, the service had failed. Broadhurst hoped the Rodgers case was not going to be one of those failures.
On the way over, Broadhurst discussed the latest intelligence with Simon Vanover in the Norfolk field office. The tension in Vanover’s voice was palpable. The news would not be good.
The agents tailing Rodgers had lost the suspect outside a local restaurant after their car had been struck by another vehicle, Vanover explained. By the time a backup vehicle could be obtained, Rodgers had slipped away. His residence was dark and vacant. Rodgers had been smart enough to stay away. There had been no hits on his credit or debit cards. A trace on his cell phone revealed it was locked away in a drawer at the jail in Williamsburg.
Jason Rodgers had vanished.
Until an hour ago, Broadhurst hadn’t considered the pharmacist a legitimate threat. He didn’t fit the profile. His past was devoid of controversial political activities. He hadn’t had a traffic ticket in the last three years. There was no history of mental illness. Rodgers just seemed incredibly stupid or naïve.
Vanover’s next tidbit sent Broadhurst’s gut into a fiery eruption. The forensic accountants in the investigative branch had completed a background check and hastily obtained a search warrant to examine Rodgers’s finances. Fifty thousand dollars had been deposited from an enterprise named Cooper Venture Capital in two separate transactions within the last two weeks, by far the largest deposit the man had ever made. It was the first hard evidence corroborating what Broadhurst’s gut was telling him. Photos of the carrier at the dry dock, the pharmacist’s visit to the Windsor Towers yesterday, and now the revelation that he’d pocketed a large amount of cash…
It was time to bring in the pharmacist for more intense questioning. It was Friday afternoon. The christening was tomorrow morning. Broadhurst would make sure, at the very least, that Rodgers remained out of commission until after the christening.
Broadhurst shook two Tums from the plastic container and popped them in his mouth, crunching them. He’d devoured half the bottle since this morning.
What the hell’s taking so long?
A large black man walked in. “Agent Broadhurst, I’m Lieutenant Cal Baxter. Sorry to keep you waiting.” Baxter eased into one of the chairs.
“What’s all this about?” Broadhurst demanded. “I’ve got a lot to do.”
“You’ll be very interested in what we found,” Baxter replied. He removed a plastic bag containing several papers from a file folder. “We executed a search warrant today on Jason Rodgers’s residence. We found these documents. He’s a prime suspect, the only suspect actually, in the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Sheila Boquist.”
“Is that the one I read about in the papers this morning?” The article had been a two-column job above the fold of the Hampton Roads Gazette and hadn’t mentioned suspects.
“One and the same. These documents were found among his things. I thought you’d be interested in them.” Baxter slid the plastic bag across the table.
Broadhurst studied the documents for two minutes. “Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” he whispered.
One was an itinerary of the events for Saturday’s christening. The second was a seating chart with the names and locations of each of the dignitaries attending, including both presidents. Two large red Xs marked the current president’s seat and the podium, where dignitaries would be delivering remarks. The final piece of paper was a list of speakers and times.
All of it was classified.
The fact that Rodgers had this kind of information sent a cold shiver down Broadhurst’s spine. There were only a handful of people on the planet privy to these details. A few were in the administration; the rest were employed by the Secret Service. Someone had leaked information about the presidential trip to Newport News. It made finding Jason Rodgers job number one.
Broadhurst was hoping the good Lord was looking over his shoulder as he asked his next question. If Rodgers had been arrested, it would explain why Vanover’s men couldn’t find him. And it would mak
e the Secret Service agent’s job much easier. “I want to talk to him immediately,” he said. “Do you have him in custody?”
Baxter cleared his throat. “Unfortunately, Rodgers was stabbed by another prisoner while in custody and was taken to Tidewater. He escaped. That’s why I kept you waiting. I was getting the rundown from the Newport News PD.”
“How the hell did you guys manage to let this guy escape? He’s a potential assassin!”
“Why is Rodgers a threat to the president?”
“He was detained for questioning a few days ago after photographing the aircraft carrier. Claimed not to know it was verboten. Based on this evidence”—Broadhurst shook the papers—“it seems he’s been scouting out the location. We had agents tailing him. They lost him last night, probably because you guys had arrested him.”
“You have been tailing him, and you didn’t bother to let us know?”
CHAPTER 68
The cool cement smelled like a mildewed men’s locker room. Jason’s eyelids fluttered. The cinder block wall and brown cardboard boxes gradually came into sharp focus. He sat up and bumped his head on the underside of the stairs, jogging his memory of recent events.
Jason crawled around the supplies to the stairwell door and peeked down the hall. The corridor ran the length of the building and emptied into the small foyer at the front. The voice of a woman making small talk drifted from the foyer.
Through the outer door, voices and the drone of engines drifted to him. The clipped conversations were sharp and tense.
Jason fought his sluggishness and moved to the emergency exit. The outside of the door had no handle. If you exited through it, there was no way back in. Hence the dustpan doorstop the attendant had used earlier when emptying the trash. He cracked the door and peered out.
A blue uniform walked past, followed by another, then a third. The squawk of a radio. Swirling lights pulsed against the building. Police swarmed like moths to a floodlight.
Jason heard one of them say, “He’s not in the hotel; we searched every room.”
A few seconds later, the voice emanating from the foyer, which had been jovial and relaxed, became filled with concern. “Hold on, let me go check out this alarm. Patrick probably propped the door open again. The police are everywhere looking for some escaped prisoner.”
Jason inspected the doorframe. A contact sensor was mounted on the crossbeam. He had activated an alarm.
The metal dustpan leaned against the wall. Quickly, he grabbed it, sticking it between the frame and the door. He retreated into the stairwell and climbed the stairs three at a time. A minute later, sweaty and panting, he cracked the stairwell door on the third floor. A maid’s cart sat near an open room five feet away. The metal catch lock was stuck between the door and the frame, keeping it from fully closing. The cleaning woman was not in sight.
He pushed out of the stairwell, stepped to the room, and peered in. He found it empty. The beds were made and towels were neatly folded in their metal racks. Jason ducked inside the closet and quietly slid the door closed.
A few minutes later—it seemed like an eternity—the cart rattled and footfalls shuffled just outside the closet. Jason tensed. Just as quickly, the footfalls retreated, and the door swung closed. Jason breathed again. He waited thirty seconds and stepped out into his new sanctuary. The police had already searched every room in the hotel, so he relaxed a little. He was trapped at the moment, but relatively safe.
* * *
I’m too old for this shit, Waterhouse thought.
The forecast called for heavy rain and thundershowers tonight and tomorrow. The dreary day added to Waterhouse’s monumental fatigue. He hadn’t slept in thirty-six hours. Some expensive surveillance equipment was at the bottom of the James. He was pissed—and tired. The adventure on the Vengeance and his near drowning had caught up with him. Becky Sue had called an hour ago, ready for some adult fun. Waterhouse had begged off, promising to call her soon.
Waterhouse had attached the handheld recorder to his laptop and burned a CD for Jason to share with Christine. The “Conversation,” as Waterhouse now referred to it, had been sent as an e-mail attachment to Detective John Palmer. Waterhouse was sure Palmer would run it over to the Secret Service within minutes of receiving it. For good measure, a copy had been sent to Jason’s account and also to his own. Finally, he’d wrapped the recorder in plastic and duct taped it to the underside of the fireplace near the flue.
Fifteen hours had passed since Rodgers had departed for the Pettigrew woman’s house. In that time, he’d even gone to Rodgers’s house and scanned it for electronic surveillance, spending nearly two hours checking the place. It was clean. That meant that the small camera Jason had come across was the only device planted, or that the bad guys had come back and removed the rest. Waterhouse guessed it was the latter. In any event, the space was now righteous again.
His cell phone was in the Blazer, and had been since he’d arrived home. He’d returned the borrowed Dodge to his buddy and driven home in the Blazer. Waterhouse thought about retrieving it. If the Rodgers brothers tried to contact him, he wouldn’t know it. His landline was unlisted. He’d learned long ago not to give it out. There were angry spouses out there who didn’t like being spied on. No matter, he thought. The Conversation had been sent. For now, his job was done. He didn’t want to hear any urgent messages which might nag at his conscience and interfere with his ability to catch some shut-eye. He would get the phone when he woke. He laid his head on the sofa and was fast asleep in seconds.
* * *
Robert Ford peered through the binoculars at the small, square house in Poquoson from the passenger seat of the Lincoln. His driver and leader, Eurus, had pulled to a stop a hundred yards up the street, in the shadow of a large elm.
“He’s in there,” Ford said, his lips moving beneath the field glasses. “I saw him going past the window. In the living room.”
“He’s got to be alone,” Eurus said. He was pointing a device at the window. Its laser beam picked up the vibrations of the glass. His headphones captured sounds inside. “He hasn’t said a word since the woman called. It’s been over an hour.”
“Are we going in?” Ford asked.
Eurus paused and said, “No, this guy’s probably armed. I’ve got a better idea. Hand me the rifle.”
Eurus picked up his phone, looked up the phone in the dossier, and dialed. Ford pulled the long, silenced sniper rifle from under the blanket on the backseat.
* * *
Waterhouse’s landline chirped beside his head, stirring him instantly. Years of stakeouts and surveillance had honed his ability to wake to alert status quickly. He didn’t recognize the number.
“This is Mike with Glencoe Home Exteriors. We have a man in your area and we’d like to give you a free estimate on covering your home with premier vinyl siding—”
“I’m sorry, I’m not interested. How did you get this number?”
“If you’ll just give him a minute, I’m sure we can make you a great offer—”
“I said I’m not interested!”
“The man is in your driveway right now. It will only take a minute—”
Waterhouse ended the call and marched to the door, yanking it open. Damned telemarketers! He stopped on the stoop when he realized the driveway was empty except for the Blazer.
What the hell?
The round struck Waterhouse above the left eyebrow, snapping his head back like a doll’s. He tumbled back into the house, crashing back through the open front door.
CHAPTER 69
The circle of light had vanished. Christine had no idea how long she’d been inside the pipe. The darkness was absolute, a three-dimensional shroud that seemed to possess mass and weight. It pressed down on her. She flexed her neck, looking back to the now-invisible opening. Two sensations told her she was still alive: the coarse feel of the cold pipe, and the sound of frigid water dribbling around her.
The voices of cops mingled with the barking do
gs lingered for what seemed an eternity. The commotion was barely audible from inside the pipe, but nerve-racking nonetheless. Twice, water sloshed near the entrance. A beam of light lurked near the opening but was swallowed by the darkness. Both times, it disappeared. Eventually, all sounds of her pursuers died away.
Keeping her eyes closed, Christine crept backward, aided by the downward incline. Minutes later, she dropped silently into the water of the James.
Trying to take vengeance on Lily Zanns had been stupid and juvenile, that was obvious now. She’d barely managed to evade capture—or worse. By now, the police knew who she was and where she lived.
She had to find the one person, the only man she trusted. Jason had always looked out for her, even when he’d left all those years ago. His decision had been steeped in concern for her and her father’s well-being. He’d sacrificed his professional and personal life for her. It was a totally selfless act. After he’d found out that Zanns’s people were sending people to kill them, he’d run to warn her. Selfishly, she’d ignored him and sent him away. Then, foolishly, she’d tried to take matters into her own hands.
She knew now what she wanted. She wanted Jason Rodgers at her side, now and forever. She needed his help to get out of this mess. And she wanted to make up for the years they’d missed together. She wanted to erase the past and create a new future. She had to get back to Jason.
Christine prayed she hadn’t jeopardized her relationship with him. More importantly, she appealed to the Almighty that her miscalculation hadn’t put his life in greater danger.
Dripping wet, she crawled out of the river onto the grass. Staying in the shadows, she moved south to where she’d left the car. It was gone. Scanning potential escape routes, she decided on one and slipped into the trees, the night swallowing her.
* * *
Jason peeked through the thick drapes. From the hotel room window, he spotted a car fitting his needs, and an escape plan quickly materialized.