FORTY-TWO

•   •   •

Jed awoke disoriented and with his mind stuck on Karen. The way her face looked the last time he saw her. The lifelessness that colored her flesh. Her lips.

He peeled open his eyes and at first thought he was back in the dungeon below Alcatraz. Panic put beads of sweat across his forehead. He tried to move, but his left arm was deadweight.

“Daddy.”

It was Lilly. Jed turned his head and found his daughter and Tiffany in chairs by his bed.

Lilly stood and held his right hand. “You’re in the hospital. You’re okay.”

Jed looked at his left arm, heavily bandaged and supported by pillows.

“The bullet split your humeral head in half,” Tiffany said. “The surgeon said he was able to pin it all back together, but you’ll be in an immobilizer for at least six weeks.”

Jed didn’t care. He could be in an immobilizer for the rest of his life and he wouldn’t care.

Lilly leaned over his bed and kissed him on the cheek. She smiled. “Dad, Mommy’s alive.”

Jed reached for his daughter’s face and cupped her cheek. “What did you say?” The last time he saw Karen on that porch . . .

“She’s alive. Mr. Kennedy saved her.”

Jed looked to Tiffany, who had tears now trailing down her cheeks. She nodded. “She survived.”

“Where is she?”

Tiffany wiped at her eyes. “Here. In the hospital.”

“Where is here?”

“Hershey.”

Jed tried to sit, but his head swam and pain jolted through his shoulder. “Help me up.”

“I think we should get a doctor in here first,” Tiffany said.

Jed pushed up with his right arm, wincing against the pain. “Help me up, please. I have to see her.”

Tiffany and Lilly helped him to a sitting position, and he unplugged his leads from the monitor beside his bed. There were IV lines attached to his arm, but they ran to a portable tower. Jed slid his legs over the side of the bed and waited for the room to stop spinning around him. Eventually his head settled and the fog cleared. “Help me with the sling.”

Tiffany got the sling from a table in the room and helped Jed into it. Every movement of his arm, no matter how slight or subtle, sent electric shocks of pain along his arm and into his neck.

Once the sling was securely in place and his arm was as comfortable as he could get it, Jed slid off the bed and supported himself on the IV tower. “Where is she?”

Lilly took his right hand. “This way.”

Outside the room a young nurse stopped them. “And where do you think you’re going?”

Jed straightened up. “To see my wife.”

The nurse turned to a man seated on a chair in the hallway and nodded to him. The man rose and adjusted his pants. Jed didn’t miss the earpiece and tiny wire that ran beneath the guy’s collar. He wore black slacks and a gray golf shirt.

He approached Jed and offered his hand. “Bloom. Secret Service.”

Jed shook Bloom’s hand. “I need to see my wife.”

Bloom did not smile. “I know you do. I’ll take you.”

The nurse brought a wheelchair around, and Jed sat in it while she transferred the IV bag to the tower attached to the back of the chair. When she was done, she rested her hand on Jed’s shoulder. “Agent Bloom will take you to your wife.”

Karen’s room was on another floor in the hospital. When they arrived, Bloom parked the wheelchair in the hall and another nurse transferred Jed’s IV to a portable tower. When Jed was standing, she pushed open the door to the room and allowed Jed to pass.

Inside, Karen lay in her bed, her neck heavily bandaged. Her skin was still pale but not nearly as blanched as it was the last time Jed had seen her. She appeared to be asleep, the sheet pulled up to her chest. IV lines ran to her arm; gray wires connected electrodes from her chest to a monitor beeping quietly.

“You can sit over there,” the nurse said, pointing to a chair by the head of Karen’s bed. “She sleeps a lot but mostly that’s the medication. She’s stable and that’s what’s important.” She put her hand on Jed’s arm. “When she wakes, just know she has some trouble talking.”

Jed sat in the chair and Lilly climbed into his lap. Tiffany sat in a chair at the foot of the bed.

Jed reached for Karen’s hand. It was cold and clammy and felt lifeless to him. But the monitor showed a steady heartbeat and respiratory rate, signs of life. Tears blurred his vision, so he blinked them away.

“God has her in his hands,” Lilly said.

Jed squeezed his daughter tight. “I know, baby girl.”

A soft knock sounded on the door, and Agent Bloom entered the room. “Sir, there are some men here to see you.”

“Are these men more important than my wife or daughter?”

Bloom didn’t miss a beat. He clasped his hands behind his back. “No, sir. Not nearly. But I think you’ll want to talk to them.”

“Okay.”

Bloom left and moments later two men entered. Both were dressed in slacks and dress shirts and one had his arm in a sling as well. Jed immediately recognized the other as the man who helped them escape Kill Devil Hills. But he’d never seen the injured man before.

The agent shook Jed’s hand. “Mr. Patrick, I’m Greg Carson —”

“I remember you. Thank you for what you did.”

“You’re more than welcome.” He turned to Lilly. “Hey, little sister.” She ran to him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Carson patted Lilly’s back. “I knew you’d be okay.”

Carson then gestured toward the other man. “And this is Jack Calloway, CIA.”

Calloway stepped around the end of the bed and shook Jed’s hand. He had a firm military shake.

Jed noticed Tiffany hadn’t stopped smiling since the men entered the room. “You two know each other?” he said, motioning to Tiffany.

Tiffany jumped up and gave Calloway a hug. “Jack’s my boss,” she said. “But more than that.”

“What’d you do to your shoulder?” Jed asked.

“Wrong place at the wrong time,” Calloway said.

Carson stared at Karen. “The doctor said she’ll most likely make a full recovery.”

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to any doctor yet,” Jed said.

“Oh, I’m sorry.” Carson glanced at Calloway, then to Jed. “May I call you Jed?”

“Sure.”

“Thank you.” Carson paced the floor at the foot of Karen’s bed. “Jed, I think you deserve to know the truth of what has transpired.”

“I’d like that,” Jed said. “For once.”

Carson took a step back from the bed. “Jed, we have the thumb drive. In fact, we have two now. They’ve both been inspected. Joe Kennedy worked for the CIA for thirty years and still has connections. Jack here also had some insight and information to share.” He paused and sighed. “Jed, that information has caused quite a firestorm over the past day. Nothing’s hit the fan yet, but when it does, it’ll go public and it will rock this country like nothing has since Watergate.”

Jed said nothing.

Carson began pacing the room again. “Here’s the nutshell of it. The roof’s been blown off the Centralia Project. It’s been discovered that Director Murphy is heavily involved with the project. He is responsible for a number of highly illegal and unethical activities. He will be arrested along with a dozen or so of his colleagues in the CIA. The president was part of the project as well. Privy to all that went on. He tried to distance himself and even now is denying knowledge of it, but facts are facts and proof is proof, and he can’t lie his way out of this one. He will be impeached and forced to resign. Maybe even arrested.”

Jed shifted Lilly on his lap. “So it was Centralia again. All along.”

“And CIA. And NSA. And a score of other agencies and departments. Centralia is a parasite, Jed. It was alive wherever it could find a host.”

“And Connelly?”

Carson sighed again. “Murphy wanted Connelly out of the way because Connelly had caught wind of Centralia and had secretly set up a committee to investigate it. He was getting too close to the truth for Murphy’s comfort.”

“So he was going to have me take him out.”

“And then let you take the fall for it. An unstable rogue agent with an ax to grind.”

So Connelly wasn’t evil after all. It was all lies from Murphy. Manipulation. And the fact that he’d used Karen —or at least the image of Karen —to perpetrate his crime made Jed blister with anger. He pulled Lilly closer and stroked Karen’s hand.

“What about the man who tried to kill me in the plane? Who was he? Who did he work for?”

Carson tightened his lips and lowered his brow. “We’re not sure yet. Best guess? He worked for a rival program that needed Connelly alive.”

“Rival program?”

“Our government isn’t as pure as they teach you in seventh grade.”

“No kidding.”

“All governments are corrupt, and ours is no different. There are any number of ghost programs with agendas that don’t exactly line up with the American spirit or the will of the people. At least not most of the people.”

“Centralia was one of those programs.”

Carson stopped pacing. “Yes. And there are others, some with competing priorities.”

“If the American people only knew.”

“We make sure they don’t. Our republic is a fragile animal. It’s based on trust, trust from the people that politicians, officials, bureaucrats —government in general —have their best interests in mind. If that trust erodes, democracy falls apart and is usually replaced by chaos.”

“So what happens now?”

“Once the president is out, Connelly will assume the office. There will be a new cabinet, new staff. Everyone will be replaced. Connelly and his people are still discovering how deep or far the roots of Centralia run. There will have to be a mass cleansing.”

“And the unknowing populace? What will they think? What will happen to our fragile republic?”

“They’ll never know the truth, not the whole of it anyway. It’s our job to make sure they don’t.”

Jed touched Karen’s arm. “I know the truth. So what happens to us?”

“When your wife is strong enough, they’re going to move your family to central Maine. Get you set up with a new identity, a new life.”

“Maine, huh?”

“Middle of nowhere.”

The middle of nowhere didn’t sound so bad, actually. It was remote enough for them to stay off the grid but close enough to not get lost. At least it wasn’t Siberia. “So we’re the victims and we get exiled?”

Carson smiled. “Kind of. Unfortunately when this stuff goes down, not everyone can come out a winner. It’s for your safety . . . and ours.”

“We were exiled before and they still found us.”

“There was still blood flowing through Centralia’s veins. We’ve lopped off the beast’s head now.”

“And what about those other programs? The other ghosts?”

Carson eyed Jed for a few beats. “There will always be ghosts. We’ll hunt them down one by one and eliminate them.” He paused and looked from Lilly to Karen, then back to Jed. “There’s one other thing you need to do before we can move you.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a surgeon who can get that implant out of your head. No more voices, no more hallucinations. How’s that sound?”

“The sooner the better.”