CHAPTER

53

 

Ray Tolman got up before 5 A.M., showered, and dressed in his suit, minus the jacket. He hadn’t slept much. By six fifteen, he was at his desk, staring at the duty rosters again.

Alley. Clare. DeBacker. Delham. O’Daniel.

It couldn’t be Tony Alley. Ray Tolman knew the man. He was a good man, soft-spoken, easygoing. His background was in accounting. He’d been very good at investigating financial crimes before getting into protective duty. It couldn’t be Alley. Tolman had nothing to base it on but instinct. And sometimes, he told himself, all the databases in the world don’t mean shit. A good cop is only as good as his instinct.

Clare. DeBacker. Delham. O’Daniel.

Would these so-called Glory Warriors really put a woman into this position? On the one hand, the very fact that Miranda O’Daniel was female might lead people to believe she couldn’t possibly be one of them, thereby making her the perfect candidate. By the same reasoning, though, there were only a handful of women on presidential protective detail. Therefore she stood out, and this group wouldn’t want their sleeper assassin to be one who attracted attention.

Clare. DeBacker. Delham.

He went back over their background files. DeBacker had once been a state trooper in Nebraska. Delham and Clare were both from California, though from different ends of the state. Both had been in the army. All three men were in their late thirties to early forties.

Tolman felt the burn in his stomach again. The ulcer. He had developed ulcers only since he’d moved inside. Never had them when he’d been in the field. The disadvantages of being a deputy assistant director …

A thought came over him with excruciating slowness. All field agents had regular medical screenings, and were periodically reevaluated for both physical and mental health. Their medical records were part of their individual personnel files.

If someone were living every single day as a deception, sworn to protect the president but knowing that someday they were going to be asked to kill the man they’d sworn to protect, wouldn’t that create a lot of physical stress? Wouldn’t maintaining that kind of façade year after year take a toll on a man? He might have medical issues here and there, telltale signs that could be seen—if someone was looking in the right place.

Tolman dug deeper into the personnel files. In half an hour, he knew that Ron DeBacker was the picture of health, and by all accounts had the body of a man twenty years younger. Timothy Delham had complained of dizziness six and a half years ago, not long after coming to the detail. After a battery of tests that took eight months to complete, he was diagnosed with a strange and rare case of visually induced vertigo. He was given medication for it, and he’d had no medical issues since. Jay Clare was constantly fighting high blood pressure, his cholesterol was borderline, and he’d been diagnosed two years ago with severe sleep apnea. He now slept with a breathing mask every night to deal with the apnea.

Clare.

Tolman remembered bumping into him coming out of the abandoned house, the one that had bothered him so much, on Valley Place yesterday afternoon. Had he seemed in a rush to get away from the deputy assistant director?

Ray Tolman hesitated for a long moment. Meg had said the traitor was within the Service. So he couldn’t talk to anyone inside, because he couldn’t be sure where the traitor was. But she hadn’t said anything about the FBI, and Tolman couldn’t do this alone. He reached for the phone and called his old friend Pat Moore, who was now a midlevel administrator after years as an FBI field agent. He knew Moore would be awake.

“Pat,” he said, “I need your help. I can’t trust anyone in the Service, and the president’s in danger. Call in sick at the office and meet me. Bring your weapon.”

*   *   *

Meg Tolman slept fitfully and woke early. Amelia Boettcher’s house was large and comfortably appointed—the guest room sported a queen-size brass bed—but even as exhausted as she was, she didn’t rest well. She knew a confrontation was coming in a few hours, the Glory Warriors would be making their move against President Harwell, and she knew she’d have to deal with Hudson’s treason.

She got out of the brass bed and showered in the bathroom with its marble surfaces and high-tech showerhead. When she was dressed, she opened the door to her room and turned the corner toward the stairs. As she put her foot on the top step, she heard a sound behind her.

Her nerves still on edge, she froze, her hand instinctively going to her hip. But the SIG Darrell Sharp had given her was back in her room, in her overnight bag. She swiveled her head and saw the boy coming out of the bedroom.

He was a big kid, with brown hair and very large eyes. He was wearing a blue and gold SCCO T-shirt that was too big for him, and loose gray sweatpants. The pants were soaked around his groin area. She caught the strong ammonia smell and had to fight the reflex to gag.

The boy looked just like his mother. His fingers were making unusual motions, the thumb wrapped around the index finger below the knuckle, the index finger almost touching the palm, waggling back and forth. Andrew’s eyes found her.

She met those big eyes, and in a very soft voice Tolman said, “Hi.”

He looked at her for what seemed like a very long moment; then his eyes flicked away as if he hadn’t seen her at all.

Journey appeared at the bottom of the stairs, still in his clothes from last night, and said, “I heard—”

He stopped, looking at both Tolman and Andrew.

“I hope I didn’t wake him up,” Tolman said.

“He’s sensitive to when someone else is moving around,” Journey said. “He usually wakes up as soon as someone else in the house gets up.” His eyes moved back to his son. “Good morning, Andrew.”

The boy looked away and whistled.

“Andrew,” Journey said.

Andrew cocked his head away from his father’s voice.

“Andrew, good morning.”

Tolman looked back and forth, and she was amazed at how level Journey kept his voice, even after the third try. When the boy stuck out his hand in a karate-chop gesture and looked for a brief moment toward the bottom of the stairs, Journey smiled and said, “I sure missed you. Come on, I’ll get you changed. I don’t know where your mom keeps your things, but I bet we can find them.”

He started up the stairs. Tolman stood aside to let him pass.

“Good-looking kid,” she said, and didn’t know what else to say.

“Thanks,” Journey said. “Maybe you could find some coffee downstairs. I don’t know where Amelia keeps it.”

“I’ll find it.”

Journey took his son by the hand and steered him back toward his room. “Did you sleep?” he said over his shoulder.

“Not much,” Tolman said. “You?”

“I remember sleep as being a good thing. When this is all over—”

“Yeah,” Tolman said; then they had disappeared into Andrew’s room and the moment was gone.

Half an hour later, Andrew was dressed, and his father had showered and was on the phone with his friend at the Oklahoma Historical Society.

“Bob, it’s Nick Journey.”

“Nick? Do you know what time it is?”

“It’s early, but I was hoping you’d be up.”

“I am up, but why on earth are you calling me at six thirty in the morning?”

“You need to close Fort Washita to the public today.”

There was a long silence.

“Bob? Did you hear me?”

“Yes, I did. You know I can’t just close a state historic site for no apparent reason.”

“Bob, get on the phone with your superintendent at Fort Washita and keep it closed today.”

“Why?”

“Because someone could get hurt.”

Another long silence.

“I know this has to do with the guns and the document, but what aren’t you telling me?”

Journey almost laughed. “A lot. Trust me, there’s a lot I’m not telling you. We can’t have stray people around there today.”

“Well, Nick, tourist season is over. We probably wouldn’t have big crowds down there today anyway. I can have the on-site people close the front gate, but you know what the layout is there. If someone really wants to get in, they can still get in, and there’s access from some of the adjoining private properties.”

“I know. In fact, I’m counting on it.”

*   *   *

Amelia Boettcher didn’t get up until seven thirty, and seemed surprised to see the other three dressed and ready to leave.

“Thanks for keeping him,” Journey said to her, and it struck Tolman as a very formal thing to say, the sort of thing one would say to a neighbor or casual friend who’d stayed with a child, but not to the child’s other parent.

Amelia nodded, running her fingers through her hair. “Sure. We can just take these days out of next year’s June time, okay?”

Journey was silent, working a muscle in his jaw. “Okay.”

Amelia knelt by Andrew and touched his arm. “See you later, honey. Don’t give your dad too much trouble.”

Journey held out Andrew’s backpack to the boy and said, “Okay, Andrew, time to go.”

Andrew grabbed on to his mother’s arm and stepped away from his father.

“No, Andrew,” Amelia said, “it’s time to go with your dad. Time to go back home. I bet you’re ready to go back to school, get back to your schedule, right?”

Andrew angled his body so his mother was between his father and him, never letting go of Amelia’s arm.

Journey sighed. “You’ll need to walk him out to the car with us, Amelia, or he won’t go.”

“I’m not dressed.”

“We need to go. Andrew, come on, son, your mom will walk out with us.” Tolman thought Journey’s voice had a weary, seen-it-all-before quality.

They walked to the curb where Tolman had parked the Dakota. “Is there room for him in there?” Amelia said.

“He can ride between us,” Tolman said. “It may be a little tight, but he’ll fit.”

Amelia looked at her as if she’d spoken out of turn, a look that Tolman recognized, a look that only a woman will give another woman when she feels threatened.

Tolman shook her head. “Let’s go.”

In five minutes, they were away from the curb. In ten, they were back on the highway. Andrew sat between Tolman and his father. He was very quiet, as if he sensed something different about his father.

For the two-and-a-half-hour drive from Oklahoma City to Carpenter Center, Andrew did not whistle or laugh or scream. He made a few small sounds in the back of his throat, and spent most of his time looking from his father to Tolman and back again.