The Former President, page 25
“What the f — ”
His voice fails as his knees give out and he drops to his knees, body slackening. I do my best to catch him so he doesn’t hit his head on the hard gravel of the driveway. He mumbles something but can’t hold the word, and I know I won’t have long before he comes around, at which point he will kick the living shit out of me — and my very bad idea, at best suspect in the first place, will have gone nowhere and then some.
I jog back to the car and get the convenience-store bag. Billie is out of the car and follows me back to Sealy while she talks.
“Jesus, what are — you just knocked him out!” she says.
“I did,” I say. “I’ll explain in a minute. Meantime I’m going to need your help.”
I hand her the bag, get my forearms under Sealy’s armpits, and drag him behind the buildings. He’s much heavier than I expected.
Most of the windows in the rear of the service bay are busted. A door hangs half-open on its hinges. It’s hard to see without a flashlight, but I decide this is where Sealy is going to stay for a while, so I go ahead and open the broken door. Billie has arrived with my bag, and I remove from it the packing tape and ball of string I bought with the snow globe.
“Time to tie him up,” I say. “Hold his arms while I tape him.”
“You’re in never-never land,” she says, but helps while she vents. “What are we supposed to do without him? What did he do wrong?”
The tape unspools noisily as I wind it around wrists, ankles, and mouth, but not his nose. “If I hope to stick to my plan, then this was the only choice I had. And I apologize for not informing you in advance, but I didn’t see an opportunity to do so this time.”
“So, KO’ing your friend, who’s done everything we’ve asked him to do, so we can, what — continue with a plan we haven’t even formulated yet — that was your only choice?”
“I prefer to see it as the most effective way possible, under the circumstances,” I say, “to prevent Sealy from calling in the Homeland Security Administration and arranging the seizure of that truck and cargo. Which would prevent us from exposing the study group. I’ll need to secure him to something so he can’t bang around and make a racket.”
“Aren’t you worried that no one will find him here?” she says.
“A man with Sealy’s physical conditioning can live without food or water for close to a week if he’s got shelter. Which he does. As long as we check in on him four or five days from now, he’ll be fine. Tired and thirsty, but fine. If we run into problems in Washington, we call the local police with a tip and they can come get him, but if all goes well, we come back and free him ourselves.”
“He’s going to kill you,” she says, “when you untie him.”
I get some extra string wrapped around his arms and legs and tie and tape him to a workbench that’s built into the wall. I reach into his pocket and find his car keys and mobile phone. When Billie sees I have the phone, I hand it to her.
“Take this,” I say. “And I’m sure you’re right — he will kill me. And probably should.”
Billie pockets Sealy’s cell.
“I’ve had some time to think this through,” I say. “I’ve come up with the broad strokes on how to go about this. Among other facets, my idea involves the notion of removing the majority of spinners from the bomb but otherwise allowing the detonation to take place.”
I think of something, find Sealy’s wallet, and swipe the remainder of his cash — ninety bucks. I look up at Billie.
“That’s the key part,” I say, “but there’s more to it, and more still to be figured out, such as the need to identify and confront the study group leadership and determining exactly how to coax them into admitting publicly their knowledge of the bomb. But we’ll get to those parts of the plan soon enough. The key is to allow the weapon’s passage and to continue tracking it.”
“Sounds neither thoroughly thought out,” Billie says, “nor easy to accomplish.”
“Correct on both counts. And we’re going to need the help of a significant number of people. But there are quite a few such people I believe who will be willing to join us. Off-the-radar people.”
“From your little black book,” Billie says.
“Yes,” I say. “First problem being, we’ve got no way to get any of those who reside outside of Washington into the nation’s capital. And then there’s the Sealy issue. Among the recruits, we’re going to we need someone like him — a paramilitary type. And obviously he’s now indisposed.”
“Do you think you might have considered that before assaulting him with the snow-globe?”
“I believe he was on the verge of phoning in a strike to seize the weapon and have its escorts taken down. The call he made in the service plaza was probably to a mentor. Maybe checking his instincts. It was only a matter of time before he made the next call.”
I kick a bunch of garbage clear of Sealy’s new home on the floor. It won’t be cold in here on a summer’s night, so I figure he’ll be all right. The biggest threat to him will probably be mosquitoes and wildlife — an ornery raccoon or fox could do some damage if Sealy isn’t able to scare the creature off. I roam around the structure, checking for any obvious ways in or out. Finding some broken panes of glass, I cover them with a squat metal file cabinet. I return to the door at the back of the bay, close it tightly, and rejoin Billie outside, feeling good about the wildlife situation.
At the car, Billie says, “Probably be tough for Sealy to kill you, anyway.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because,” she says, “by the time he has a chance, I may have killed you myself.”
I climb into the passenger seat. When Billie slips behind the wheel, I say, “If I screw this thing up, neither you, Sealy, or anyone else will get the chance to take me out. Either the biological weapon or the study group — or both — will have beaten all of you to the punch.”
Billie slams her door shut and fires up the ignition.
“Don’t screw it up, then,” she says.
-65-
It’s 11:15 p.m. and pitch black in Virginia, two hours from the Beltway, when the low-fuel indicator illuminates. We’ve consistently maintained a seven-mile tail with the container truck. Billie pulls into the first service plaza that comes into view.
She heads over to pay with Sealy’s cash and make a civilized restroom stop while I pump. Inside, from the counter, she signals she’s paid.
I get the gas flowing, then make the mistake of looking at the minivan on the far side of the pump. There’s a man, presumably the husband in this arrangement, standing obliviously at the rear fender pumping gas just like me. But a woman — his wife, perhaps — catches my eye from inside the vehicle. I get the idea she’s been watching me all the while, and I see it in her expression. That familiar look . . .
Except this time the look is laced not with the usual head-shaking dismissal or precursor to snapping a photograph with her phone — but instead, fear. I turn my back to her as casually as possible, but by the time I’m topping off the tank I know it’s futile. Maybe she’s an avid viewer of CNN or Fox News. Could be my makeup is melting away; could be somebody we ran across tipped off a law enforcement organization about my disguise. If so, police composites of my modified face would be plastered all over the media. Could be I’m just paranoid — but the woman’s look tells me otherwise.
By the time Billie returns from the restroom I’m at the wheel, the engine running.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she says.
“Hurrying us out of here,” I say. “Come on, get in. You can take over again in a few miles.”
Easing away from the pumps, I slip a look through the rear-view mirror. Confirmed: she’s on her phone. Watching me watch her through my mirror.
I lose the minivan as we merge back on the highway, but there’s no longer any need to see it, or the woman inside. I can imagine her actions just fine — squinting and straining, looking carefully out the windshield, making sure she has it right as she relays the digits of our license plate. Chevy Malibu, she’ll be telling the operator at the TMZ tip-line. Louisiana license plate number . . .
I accelerate into the fast lane, knowing, as I act to outrun the sinking sensation that’s caught hold of me, that our speed will be useless against it.
-66-
It’s twenty minutes later, in a woodsy, rural stretch, when I see what I’ve been expecting in the nighttime sky. I open my window, trying to hear over the noise of the wind and road.
“What’s the matter?” Billie says. “And when do we switch seats?”
“Just getting some air. Back at the service plaza, I was worried a woman may have recognized me,” I say. “Didn’t want to give her a chance for a closer examination. We can switch seats in a couple minutes — I’ll look for a safe spot where we can do it.”
What I’m seeking to hear would be hard to detect even if I weren’t zipping along at 70 mph. Still, I think I hear it. Then I know I do. I shut the window. Close my eyes. Open them.
“What is it?”
“Just a little carsick.”
I know how this works. I’ve had it shown to me before, watched two or three of them live, involving significant fugitives. If it’s important enough — if the person of interest matters enough — there’s a few tricks the authorities have got up their sleeves. One of the tricks is the helicopters – they fly without running lights and are equipped with whisper-quiet turbines, video feeds, infrared scopes, cutting-edge heat sensors. They’re watching you, closing in, lining you up, and you’ve got no idea and no way out. No matter how fast you drive, how many turns you take.
The highway ahead is lined with trees, bereft of the kind of streetlights we’ve seen in the busier stretches. It’s late, so traffic has thinned drastically — there isn’t a car ahead or behind in visual range. A bend in the road is approaching. The turn isn’t sharp, but with the trees, the lack of streetlights, and the curve . . .
I change lanes without using my blinker. Decelerate without touching the brakes — getting down to 50, then 40. I try to keep Billie from noticing it.
“What’s going on?” she says.
I lean over and Billie gives me this weird look. Understandable, since I’m probably sporting an odd expression of my own, and the way I now reach across her is awkward, even aggressive. I try to do everything in the most confusing rush possible.
“Just pulling over to switch seats,” I say, and unbuckle her seatbelt. I know she’s been keeping the items that matter to us in her pockets. In the heat of the distraction of the unbuckling maneuver, I slip my little black book into one of the pockets too. I know I’ll only have a second or two at most to catch her by surprise.
“Why are you unbuck — ?”
“I should probably tell you that I love you,” I say. I kiss her while reaching across her body, pull her door handle, open her door, and bump her shoulder firmly enough to ensure that she falls out of the car.
Billie is strong and wiry, but she’s a lot lighter than me, and she doesn’t have any leverage, so by the time she realizes what’s happening and tries to grab hold of something — my sleeve, the seat belt, the head rest — it’s already too late, and she’s gone, and I’m left hoping my assumption was correct about the occasional spill on her bike having built some skills on how best to roll so she doesn’t break any bones. The speedometer tells me I’d gotten the speed down to 25, so she shouldn’t have too much difficulty with the fall.
I yell out the open door.
“I’ll call you on Sealy’s cell!”
I hear her yelling back at me as I close the door. “No! You’re making a mistake—!”
Since she’s yelling at me, I’m assuming she’ll survive, and she passes quickly out of earshot. I pull her door closed and floor it to get the car back up to speed. In the rear-view mirror I see her stand. In the pale red glow of the Malibu’s taillights, she’s still screaming and waving at me from the shoulder. I can make out no approaching headlights from behind.
Less than two miles ahead, the inevitable happens.
-67-
I see a glint of steel, or maybe it’s a flash of reflective taillight, exposed by my high beams. It’s on the side of the highway, back from the shoulder, and then there are high beams in my own rear-view mirror, and then there are two, then three, then six sets of headlights. Like a fool I accelerate, instinctively shooting for a way to outrun my gauntlet, but then I come around the slow bend and it’s over. I count five state cop cruisers ahead of me plus the six behind. The units ahead skid sideways across the two northbound lanes, the screech of their parking maneuvers loud and shrill even from inside my car. Their blue-and-reds whirl —
And then the whole place lights up.
I know it’s the helicopter, but it doesn’t matter if you know where it originates — it’s still surreal and it shocks you into a primal state of fear. One second the endless black ribbon of highway stretches blankly ahead into the night — and the next, it’s a blinding, white-hot construction zone. It kicks up your adrenaline, and my instincts are to make a run for it — where, I don’t know — but then I feel the bounce underwheel and there’s no more running. The Chevy’s power-steering turns sluggish and the ride gets rough, the nail-strip I’ve just run over doing its job.
I lose control, correcting then overcorrecting. The brakes ignore my pleas. The Malibu spins and I lose perspective on which lights are where, hoping the car doesn’t catch on the pavement and roll, until the ordeal ends in an anticlimactic backwards skid.
Voices blare — crisp, piercing, megaphone-enhanced, but I don’t think of it this way, I’m just targeted —
“Out of the car now!”
“Open the door and put your hands where we can see them!”
“Now!”
“Do it now!”
I don’t know whether it’s one voice or ten, coming to me over a megaphone or from the helicopter or from God, but in my shock I do my best to comply. The voices are deep. Baritone. Enraged. I am criminal, I am enemy; I am nothing. They are authority; they are everything.
I’m prepared to surrender, unlatching my seat belt and slowly opening the door, one hand extended showing my empty palm —
When I see the one thing I cannot possibly be seeing.
I know immediately this is the mistake Billie was yelling about. The mistake that will mean death, mayhem, destruction — a guarantee, thanks to my cascading set of cataclysmic errors, that the study group will fulfill its every dream of violence and tyranny. In the cylindrical depression of the drink-holder between the front seats of the Malibu, resting inanimately — symbolizing my failure despite its inertness —
Is the PLB receiver.
You can’t be here! my mind says. You can’t!
Billie had been religiously tracking the container truck, always replacing it in the pocket of her jeans. How could I not have noticed? I tossed Billie from the car to spare her the fate I’m meeting now. I knew the woman in the minivan had phoned me in. I knew from the sound of the helicopter that they were coming for me. And Billie being out there with the PLB remote, out of the study group’s hands — as free as I was a minute ago — was my sole hope of keeping some semblance of my plan intact.
Now the gunman in the container — presuming he ever comes around to my way of thinking at all — is the only hope. Billie at least has Sealy’s mobile phone — assuming it survived her 25 mph tumble out the door. But the wafer-thin, supremely flawed insurance policy Sealy was wisely objecting to is now all that stands in the way of the detonation of the bomb and the release of its deadly pathogen on the citizens of Washington.
A bomb that the study group intentionally allowed into our country — and now I have too.
The police will seize the PLB . . . but maybe I can hide it in a pocket. Or even if I can’t, I could try to convince one of the local constables that the device must be read, the transmitter and container tracked. As Sealy would see it, lives would at least be saved. There’s got to be someone on the police force who isn’t held in the study group’s grip and can sound the alarm for me.
“Out of the car!”
“You will get on the ground now, asshole!”
It looks through my windshield like a military operation, and I suppose that’s what it is. Police in riot gear, armed to the teeth, sprinting to my car, eager to shoot or tackle or maim — and now I’ve hesitated, and they don’t like that.
I need that PLB — and so I reach for it. I stretch and almost get it, my fingers brushing against its smooth surface —
Gloved hands are on me. Descending troopers snatch at the fabric of my shirt, pants, belt, and I am bodily extracted from the car and heaved to the asphalt. I hear more than feel the oomph as air expels from my lungs on impact.
“On your face, now!”
I don’t need to be told this, since at least three large men have just tackled me to the ground. I feel the dull scrape of my jaw losing its confrontation with the asphalt. My back and torso fire missiles of pain in every direction. A chorus assaults my ears — “Get down! Eat the pavement!” “Spread your arms and legs!” “Hands on top of your head!” “Hands behind your back!” “Don’t move! Do not move!”
The side of my face grinds against the grit of the road, sandpapered raw before they pull me to my feet. As I’m starting to find some oxygen, I see the approaching hood of a police cruiser and I’m driven into it.
Like every target of law enforcement does, I want to say, “I’m innocent,” “You’ve got the wrong guy,” or “You’ve got it all wrong, you can’t take me in” — but it doesn’t really matter what I want to say, because I can’t even breathe, and it wouldn’t matter if I could say anything since nobody would — or should — believe a word out of my mouth.
