by Rebecca York
Hoping it wasn’t fixed too tightly in place, Jacob leaped for the window, tucking his head as he bashed into the screen. His weight sent it blasting outward.
“What the hell?” someone called behind him.
Without stopping to find out what happened next, he made for the fence, his two canine friends running alongside him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
“See what you can get on Reynolds,” Caleb said. “And maybe more will come back to me.”
“I don’t like it,” Quinn said.
“But you don’t have to do it,” Caleb reminded her.
Quinn started to speak, then clamped her lips together, and he was glad they weren’t going to argue about it in front of a crowd of people. Even if he couldn’t change to wolf form, he could do something else important.
Zarah hadn’t spoken in several minutes. Now she joined the conversation. “But it’s still dangerous.”
Quinn looked like she wanted to hug her friend.
“Why?” he challenged. “Jerry Ruckleman’s not going to attack Reynolds. Reynolds works for him.”
“But he’s going to wonder where he’s been for the past few days,” Ross said.
“Not necessarily. Not if he’s supposed to be in deep cover,” Logan argued.
Quinn glared at him.
“The militia was holding him captive. He escaped,” Caleb said.
“I think if you want this to work, you’re going to have to spend some time getting your story straight,” Ross said. “Let’s hope Jacob comes back with details about the militia camp.
“And you’ll have to do some studying. Not just about Reynolds. You need to know about Colonel Jim Bowie and his militia. Because we don’t know how much Reynolds has already told his boss.”
Caleb shifted his weight from one foot to the other. He didn’t have much experience working in a group. But if these other guys could do it—he could, too. “Then we should get started. I need information from that computer thing.”
Quinn’s gaze shot to Zarah, but the other woman gave a tiny shake of her head. She was a healer, but she apparently didn’t feel comfortable asserting herself now.
Caleb thought he understood why. Zarah was a guest in this world, and she would be going back home as soon as her husband sent for her. Still, the look on her face told Caleb that she had no faith in his abilities.
Quinn was the one who spoke. “At least get some rest beforeyou get to work. You had a hard day yesterday.”
Caleb looked at Ross. “We’re trying to prevent an attack on the capital of the United States, right?”
“Right.”
“And we don’t know how much time we have?”
“Yeah,” Ross agreed.
“Then I think we’d better get on with it. I hope you can find me the information I need.”
“Okay. The way I see it, Ruckleman will expect Reynolds to know about computers and the Internet. So we might as well get started with a Web surfing lesson.” He thought for a moment. “We have to assume Reynolds was held for a day or two before they killed him. That means we have to move quickly because the longer he’s out of contact with his unit, the more explaining he has to do.”
Caleb nodded.
“We don’t know about Reynolds’ mannerisms. Or much personal information. So we need to research that, too.” He looked toward Logan. “Actually, maybe we’d better divide up the search. Can you use my laptop to get background on Reynolds while I focus on Ruckleman?”
“Sure.”
Ross turned to Caleb and gestured toward the chair besidehis. “Sit here. I’ll take you through some of my search procedures. Then when we get information on Jerry Ruckleman,you can start studying it.” He sighed.
“What?”
“The problem is, we don’t know how much Reynolds knew about Ruckleman. You could slip up if you know what college he went to. And you could slip up if you don’t.”
“Yeah, but I have to try it.”
“I’ll do whatever I can to help,” Ross offered.
“Thanks,” Caleb answered. His head was still spinning when he thought about himself working with the Marshalls. But they were different from what he’d expected. And, to his astonishment, it seemed to be possible to cooperate with them. Especially with Ross.
JACOB ran straight for the fence, slipped through and kept going into the woods, stopping to listen for sounds of pursuit.
It seemed like no one was following him, but he waited for fifteen minutes in the woods before changing back to his human form. As soon as he’d pulled on his clothing, he climbed in his car and drove away. Ten minutes up the road, he called Ross’s cell phone.
“Thanks for checking in,” his cousin said. “Let me put this on the speaker.”
“Sure.”
“Were you on the farm?”
“Yeah. They have guard dogs—but I handled them.”
“Good.”
“I have some information. But maybe I should wait to tell you when I get there.”
“Right. But we know what he’s planning,” Ross said.
“Well, I can give you a time frame. He had a calendar over his desk—with a date circled.”
“You were in his office?” Ross asked sharply.
“His bedroom.”
“That was taking a chance.”
“Do you want to know the date or not?”
“Yeah.”
“July third.”
“Good work. I’ll tell you what he’s planning when you get here.”
“Got ya.” Jacob hesitated for a moment. “One thing you should know. He came back while I was in his room. I had to leap out the window—and I knocked out the screen when I went out.”
Ross waited a beat before asking, “So what does he think happened?”
“Maybe that one of the guard dogs was in his room. He’d left some food there. And maybe the dog went after that.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Ross muttered.
CALEB watched Ross click off and put the phone back in the holster on his belt. “I’m thinking he’s planning to set off his Fourth of July fireworks early.”
“But why not wait until the actual day?” Logan asked.
“Too many people on the streets and too many police on crowd control,” Ross answered. “He’d be running too much of a risk. But now we have a target date. And we know we have a few days to get ready.”
THREE frantic days later, Caleb stood in the hot sun on a downtown Washington street waiting for the traffic light to turn green. No, not the green light, he corrected himself. That was the old way. He was waiting for that lighted picture of a man walking. When it flashed on, he and several other pedestrians hurried across the intersection. He saw a woman give him a quick inspection, then look away.
He was careful to keep his eyes straight ahead and his face expressionless. But he knew she was wondering what a guy who looked like he’d spent the night in Lafayette Square was doing in this part of town.
He and the Marshalls had debated what he should wear. Finally they’d decided that if he was supposed to have been in detention and then escaped through farm country, he should look disheveled. So he was wearing a pair of grimy blue jeans and a gray flannel shirt with a rip in one sleeve. Since he’d already neglected to shave for a few days before he arrived at Logan’s house, the blond stubble on his face added to the picture.
It was ten in the morning—and he knew he wasn’t ready for his acting debut. But, given the July third deadline, they’d waited as long as they could. And he had a lot of things going for him.
Nobody could really doubt he was Wyatt Reynolds. If they took his fingerprints, they would match Reynolds. His medical and dental records would match. And, of course, he looked exactly like the man. Now he just had to remember to respond when somebody addressed Reynolds.
Not such an easy task when he’d been Caleb Marshall for over a hundred years.
A van with the name of a pastry shop on upper ConnecticutAvenue turned the co
rner. He and the driver made eye contact for a split second, then both looked away.
Ross Marshall was driving the van. Over the past few days they’d been working closely together. Ross had been giving him pointers on fitting into this society. And Caleb had been trying to wrap his head around the idea of a world where the United States of America was under attack from foreign and domestic terrorist groups, where kids brought guns to school to murder their classmates, and where a privatehome might cost a million dollars or more.
When they weren’t dealing with socioeconomic issues, he was memorizing facts about Reynolds, Ruckleman, and Bowie.
And Ross was treating him as an equal, which was a good feeling. He would have enjoyed the experience if he hadn’t been so conscious that flubbing up could sink this entire mission.
On the other hand, there was an advantage to the frantic activity. He didn’t have to spend a lot of time with Quinn. He’d made sure that the two of them were on different schedules.
He was staying up late with Ross. And she was getting up early to work with Zarah. They’d only met when she’d insistedthat he practice a technique he might need for his visit to Ruckleman’s office.
Even then, he’d kept the personal relationship on hold, and he knew she was upset. He also knew he should talk to her about what he was feeling. But it was still too painful.
He loved her. But what good did that do either one of them? Sometimes, he’d think that maybe he could make a place for himself in this strange new world. Other times, he wasn’t so sure. And he wasn’t willing to talk to Quinn about the two of them until he could orient himself in time and space.
He’d basically shut her out, but he couldn’t dwell on that now. He had to stay focused on getting into the office and convincing Ruckleman that they had an immediate crisis on their hands.
But at the moment, hundreds of details were whirling around in his head, like those little spinning seed pods that came off of maple trees when the wind blew.
Including the intelligence Jacob had brought back from the militia compound, grinning as he slapped hand-drawn maps onto the table, along with descriptions of the buildings and the information that there were twenty men and a shit-loadof weapons on the property. And when they’d told him about the bombs, he’d come up with an excellent guess about where they were being stored.
Working another angle, Ross had done some great detectivework. He’d found out where Wyatt Reynolds lived in Silver Spring, and they’d gotten into his house. They’d brought back family photos and home videos of Reynolds as a kid with his parents and then with his wife. The visual detailshad helped him peg the Reynolds identity. So he could imitate how the man walked and how he moved his hands when he talked.
Of course, being able to watch the videos was just anothersign to Caleb that this world was a million times more complex than the 1930s. It wasn’t just the sociology. It was the technology. There were too many things here that he’d never even dreamed of.
But he’d have to worry about them later. Right now, he had to focus on Wyatt Reynolds and Jerry Ruckleman.
One thing they’d discussed was why Reynolds had gone on a covert assignment using his real name—and not an alias.
Ross had answered the question. Reynolds had been an Army sergeant serving in Germany when his wife had died back in the States. Apparently, he’d gone to pieces and started a brawl at a local beer garden. He’d ended up with a dishonorable discharge from the Army. Initially, he’d been angry with the government, which was supposed to be the rationale for his seeking out Colonel Bowie’s militia.
But really it was the other way around. After his drunken outburst, he’d wanted to prove he wasn’t a screwup. He’d volunteered to work with the Department of Homeland Security,and all his dealings with Bowie had been at the instigationof that agency.
Still, Reynolds had been a man at war with himself. And it looked like his underlying death wish had won out over his remorse. Caleb could understand that better than most people.Was his own death wish the reason he was here? Getting killed would certainly solve his problems with Quinn.
Once again, he pushed his own problems to the back of his mind and centered himself on the complications of the moment.
For one thing, Reynolds wasn’t a regular employee of the department but had been hired on a contract basis. For another,there were still some questions about his relationship with Jerry Ruckleman. The department chief was a straight arrow, and he probably had trouble dealing with a man who’d messed up in the Army.
In addition to the background on Reynolds, Ross had also obtained a videotape of Jerome Ruckleman in a management course he’d taken at the FBI Academy at Quantico. So Caleb had an idea of how the man functioned as a boss. From what he could see, the guy was insecure and reinforced his own statusby coming down hard on his subordinates. Caleb didn’t much like the resulting picture, but he was stuck with it.
Maybe that was why he felt the back of his neck tingle as he turned the corner and walked up H Street to a three-story gray stone building at the edge of the George Washington University urban campus.
The office was rented by the Department of Homeland Security, and Ross had driven him down here the day before so he’d know what it looked like.
They’d even gotten some photos that had been taken by the real estate company when the property was for rent, althoughnobody knew whether the layout had changed since then.
Outside was a narrow strip of grass and a neatly trimmed hedge. Above the hedge was a brass plate on the exterior wall with the initials DHS. Building sixteen.
That was all, but he knew it was the headquarters for the covert surveillance unit run by Jerry Ruckleman.
When Caleb reached the building, he wanted to look up, but he kept his gaze down, not on the security camera that he knew was taking a moving picture of him. No, a video. He had to stop thinking in terms of movies. But that was part of the difficulty. He kept coming up with 1930s terms for things when this was the twenty-first century.
Well, too late now. He’d volunteered for this job because he knew it was important, and he had to pull it off.
Or what?
He tried to push any thought of failure out of his mind, yet the possibility of screwing up gnawed at him.
Hoping he looked like he had every right to enter the building, he opened the door and stepped into a cool, dimly lit, windowless lobby about ten feet wide and fifteen feet long.
He stopped short, glancing around. The space had been changed since the pictures had been taken. It was smaller now, with false walls along the sides. To the right was a counter with a blue uniformed guard and security monitors showing views of various hallways in the building.
Straight ahead he spotted a card reader that he now would describe as looking something like a gate at a subway station.
He didn’t have a card to put in the slot. And he knew what would happen as soon as he stepped through without identifyinghimself.
They’d discussed what he should do when he reached this point.
It could be bad either way. So he walked through.
In seconds, guards materialized from doorways and he was surrounded by four men in blue uniforms with their weapons drawn.
All their guns were pointed directly at him.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Hands in the air,” one of the guards ordered, his voice hard and commanding.
It could end right here, if I make a wrong move, Caleb thought as he stood in the tomblike twilight of the entry.
But he was prepared for the order and raised his hands. He hoped he looked cool when his stomach was tied up like an old-fashioned German pretzel.
“Wait a minute,” one of the other men said. “I recognize him. He looks like a panhandler, but it’s Wyatt Reynolds.”
Caleb’s gaze swung to the guard, a sandy-haired man wearing horn-rimmed glasses. He’d just been hit with his first curveball. He didn’t recognize the guy. Were they friends? Or was this man usually
on shift when Reynolds came in? What?
His colleague gave Caleb a closer inspection. “I don’t know him. And he looks pretty scuzzy.”
Caleb cleared his throat. “I’ve been in solitary confinement.And now I’m reporting in. I’ve got to talk to my sectionchief, Jerry Ruckleman.”
“Not likely.”
The guard who’d spoken crossed to the security desk, picked up the receiver from a telephone, and started dialing— No, punching in numbers. Ross had told him the dial had gone out of use years ago, except for vintage phones.
“Connors here.”
“Yes, sir. We have a situation at the card reader.”
From his position several yards away, Caleb strained to hear the rest of the conversation. But the man glanced at him, then turned his back and hunched his shoulders so that Caleb’s line of sight and hearing were blocked.
“Yes, sir,” he finished, then replaced the receiver.
Turning to Caleb he motioned with his hand. “This way.”
“Can I put my hands down?”
“Yeah.”
They could have cuffed him. Mercifully, they left his hands free as they escorted him through the barrier, then down a hall. But not to Ruckleman’s office, as far as he could tell. Instead, they ushered him into a windowless room with gray walls and a couple of hard chairs.
Two of the guards stayed with him. Two more left the room.
When he’d run over various scenarios in his mind, Caleb had pictured something like this, and he’d decided it was better to sit and look relaxed than to stand and pace.
Time ticked by like grains of sand falling one by one down the narrow tube between two parts of an egg timer.
Did they still have them in this world? He should have asked.
No. Not important. He had to keep his mind fixed on the crucial things, starting with his expression. He had to look like a man who had nothing to hide, because probably they had a camera trained on him at this moment. They’d want to see what he was doing now. And they’d review the tapes later.
He kept his gaze straight ahead. But in his mind, watching the picture of the egg timer helped keep him calm.