The police waved them into the drive, and the crowd made a path. In the distance Roger spotted a frontend loader waiting in the event that he announced the Elixir supply was buried.
People were shouting and pressing around the car with cameras while the police tried to keep them back. But it was impossible. They had not expected the media blitz.
Laura parked as police and FBI jackets made a wall around them. Agent Brown carried his gun low but he wanted Brett to surrender the weapons.
Roger pushed his way to Brown. "Get these people away."
He didn't know what kind of trauma Brett was suffering, but he was not responding to him or Laura. And the charge of the crowd might make him start firing. "Don't touch him, and he won't hurt anybody," Roger shouted. He was smeared with blood. "These are the bad guys." And he pulled Ducharme and the others out of the car.
Brown barked some orders for the police to clear a path.
Reporters shouted questions and cameras were jamming for shots. Brett looked at the breaking point. His eyes were still wild, yet he stuffed himself behind the men and pushed them to the steps of the cottage.
Somebody made the mistake of pushing into Brett. He flashed the pistol at him in reflex, and the guy jumped backward. Nobody else interceded.
The crowd parted like a school of fish for the three bound men and the boy in the weird trance with both hands gripping the large black gun.
Without a word, Brett marched the men single file to a step shy of the porch where he commanded them to turn and face the crowd.
He then climbed onto the porch behind them and held the gun to the back of Ducharme's head.
"Brett, no! Don't do it. Please!"
But he did not hear Roger. Nor his mother's cries.
Nor did he see the marksmen on the old woodpile, their high-powered rifles trained on him.
"Tell them," Brett said to Ducharme.
The crowd hushed and pressed in, a wall of humming cameras and directional microphones all gawking at the boy and his hostages.
"Tell them!"
"Tell what?" Ducharme asked.
"Tell them how you killed Betsy Watkins and blew up the plane."
Ducharme made a bemused smile. "If I don't, are you going to kill me in front of the whole world?"
Brett pushed the barrel of the gun to the base of his skull. "You bet your friggin' life I am."
Ducharme looked over his shoulder. When he saw Brett's face his smile fell.
"One…" counted Brett.
The crowd gasped and police marksmen raised their guns, not certain where to aim, or what to do. They couldn't shoot a boy on global broadcast.
"Two…"
"Brett, don't," Laura pleaded. "Not this way."
"Three!" And he rammed Antoine's head with the gun again.
"Okay," he said and swore in French. "What do you want me to say, you crazy kid?"
"The truth. Tell them the truth."
"Christopher Bacon did not kill Betsy Watkins…"
"Keep going," Brett warned. "The plane…
"He did not plant a bomb on flight 219. It was associates of Quentin Cross."
"And you."
There was a long pause.
"And you!"
"And me."
"Louder."
"And me."
"Louder."
"And me!"
The crowd exploded, reporters jabbering all at once. Brett looked over to his father and for a second he flashed his father a smile.
"Friggin' cool," Roger said.
Ducharme ignored the questions and looked over to Roger. "So you have a boy do your bidding for you."
"Like his dad, he's older than he looks."
39
The FBI was humming to get its hands on the compound. But the crowd was restless for Roger to come to the mike.
After Brett surrendered the guns and the police took away Antoine Ducharme and his men, Brown and his agents tried to corral the Glovers into the house to retrieve the last of the Elixir, wherever it was. But that was not the deal.
Roger had promised a news briefing, and they were going to get one. And live cameras guaranteed that.
Roger moved onto the porch with Brett and Laura by his side. Behind them stood several uniformed police, Brown, and his agents. Brown held a hand radio that kept him in moment-to-moment communication with unseen superiors.
That bothered Roger. He sensed conflicting lines of awareness. This was not protocol. It was sloppy. It had gone public. It set forth conditions the Feds were reluctant to address.
Shortly Brown moved to the top step and waved his hands to quiet down the crowd.
"I'm Eric Brown of the FBI, Madison, Wisconsin Field Office. Mr. Glover has agreed to make a few brief statements before we leave. When he's through, we ask that you please return to your vehicles and depart the premises."
"What about questions?"
"This is not a press conference."
There were shouts of disapproval. Roger turned to Brown. "I can take a few questions."
Brown cocked his head to hear whoever was in his earpiece. He muttered something into his phone. "Just a brief statement," he said flatly.
Roger moved to the mike. "I had originally intended to give a statement of our innocence of the charges, but fortunately that's been established.
"I don't know who those men were, but the fact that they intended to kill more people underscores the dangers inherent in the substance, including some misconceptions the media's latched onto.
"In spite of all the claims, I am not immortal. If you cut me I'll bleed. If you shoot me I'll die. There's no way of knowing how long I'll go on, but it's not indefinitely because eventually my internal organs will give out. Whenever is anybody's guess."
People tried to stop him with questions, but he held his hands up and continued.
"Second, for all its appeal, Elixir is fraught with terrible dangers-personally, medically, socially, and morally. I need not go into details, but I cannot stress enough that the substance presents more problems than it solves. And I speak from experience."
"What kinds of medical problems?"
Brown tried to cut in, but Roger took the questions. "You've seen videos of animals fast-forward aging. That's the consequence of withdrawal."
"Is that what would happen to you?" shouted a red-haired woman.
Brown who was back-and-forth on his radio phone cut in. "There will be no more questions. Otherwise we will terminate this briefing."
The crowd did not like that, but quieted down.
Roger continued. "A key term of our agreement is that the entire supply of Elixir be turned over to Public Citizen for research into its cancer-fighting properties exclusively. Second, that research protocol and data be closely monitored to prevent application to human prolongevity.
"For the record, the government understands and agreed to those conditions."
"Finally, contrary to reports, there are no hidden caches of the substance. The world's entire supply is at this site."
Another stir rippled through the crowd.
"Where?" somebody shouted.
Brown and his men closed around the Glovers.
"Where's the rest of it?"
"How much is left?"
Suddenly the crowd was restive and firing questions.
The police started to push back the reporters, until a tumult rose up and people began shoving. A line of uniforms pressed against the crowd.
Things were nearly out of hand. In a moment batons would start swinging and heads would be bloodied.
"I'll take questions," Roger said to Brown.
"No, you won't." Brown's men began corralling them inside.
Roger didn't like that. They were doing all they could to separate them from the media, to get their hands on the compound and haul them to headquarters in Manhattan. Another agenda had taken over.
Roger grabbed the microphone from a uniformed cop. "Hold it. I'll take your questions."
Brown made a move for the mic. But somebody squawked something in his ear. Whoever was calling the shots wanted this over with peacefully.