Maryanne had dropped to the ground, her arms covering her head.
Jonathan walked over to her and patted the top of her head with a gloved hand. “Are you okay?” he asked.
When she looked up, she was confused at first, and then she went right to anger. “What the hell did you just do?”
“Can we talk about this later?” Jonathan said. He keyed the mike on the Radio Shack radio and said, “Thanks, guys, for the heads-up on the parachutes. The Expedition is yours if you want it. The toy airplane, too, but I’d be careful not to show that off too much.” Not wanting to engage in a conversation with LeBron and Dawn, he switched the handset off before they had a chance to answer.
Jonathan looked to Maryanne. “The police are on the way. And I could use a ride.”
As she rose to her feet, Maryanne surveyed the carnage. “Oh, my God,” she said. “You have no idea what you’ve done.”
“Probably not,” Jonathan said. “Now, about that ride.”
Boxers drove the panel truck over Maryanne’s objections, but he let her ride shotgun. There was a row of seats behind, and Jonathan sat there. Graham tried his best to find comfort on the floor, and Jolaine tried her best to help him.
“So,” Jonathan said. “How big an international incident did we cause back there?”
“You’ll never know,” she said. “I just don’t believe it went down that way.”
“How was it supposed to go down?” Jonathan asked.
“Never mind,” she said. Jonathan read discomfort in her body language.
“Yeah, okay.” A beat. “You know what I don’t get is why you were there in the first place.”
She shifted in her seat. “There are some things you just don’t have a right to know,” she said.
Jonathan smiled. “Hey, Big Guy, do me a favor, will you, and pull over.”
Boxers had hit the turn signal even before the question was out.
Maryanne shot Jonathan a panicked look. “What are you doing?”
As the vehicle slowed, gravel crunched under the tires. When they were stopped, Jonathan said, “Get out.”
Maryanne looked appalled. “What? Why?”
“Because I can’t stand the sight of anyone who betrayed me.”
“What are you talking about? I just saved you.”
“I confess there are holes in what I’ve figured out, but the one thing I know for certain is that you were there to exfil the Russian team, and that the Russian team was there to kill my PC — the very PC that you hired me to protect. I don’t understand why, and frankly, I don’t much care.”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “It’s not like that.”
Jonathan shrugged. “I’ve been wrong before,” he said. “Get out.”
“But we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“All the better,” Jonathan said. “Please don’t make me ask again.”
Boxers drew his pistol and rested it against her head. “Think of it as a safety thing,” he said. “The longer you’re here, the stronger my desire to use this.”
Tears came to her eyes. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I mean, I tried to—”
“I deeply don’t care,” Jonathan said. “Out.”
Boxers pulled the hammer back on his Beretta. It now had a two-pound trigger pull. In trigger terms, that’s a tickle.
Finally, she got it. The door handle clicked and she shouldered it open. It was still open, in fact, when Boxers stepped on the gas the instant her ass was clear of the seat. Jonathan climbed over the engine cowling that separated the two seats and settled into shotgun, reaching out to pull the door shut.
Boxers rumbled out a laugh. “Mother Hen is going to love this part of the story,” he said.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Jonathan pulled another beer out of the fridge for Father Dom and poured himself another two fingers of Lagavulin. June had arrived, and the Washington Nationals were about to mix it up with the Baltimore Orioles. Neither team sucked yet — though there was plenty of time left in the season for that — so Jonathan’s team loyalty was still up for grabs. The Orioles had been the de facto Washington home team for so many years that he couldn’t turn his back on them quite yet. The Nats could make it a lot easier, though, if they could figure out a way to stitch a whole season together. “May they not humiliate themselves,” he said as he delivered the drink.
“To coping with reduced expectations,” Dom toasted. “I can’t help but notice that you haven’t yet turned on the television. That usually means you’ve got something on your mind.”
Jonathan sipped the liquid smoke that was Lagavulin scotch. “A couple of things, actually. First, how is Graham Mitchell adjusting?”
“You mean Vincent Malone?”
Jonathan made a face. Under the circumstances, the new name was a lifesaver. Literally. “Yes,” he said. “How’s Vincent Malone?”
“Physically or mentally?”
“Yes.”
Dom scowled as he considered his answer. “Physically, I think he’s fine. He’s out of the cast, and the restrictions have been lifted from his physical activities. He’s cleared to perform to the limits of his capabilities. ” He did finger quotes with his free hand.
“Why the emphasis?”
“That’s the segue to his psychology,” Dom said. “He’s by no means stretching his capabilities. He’s been through a lot, and as much as I and Mama Alexander and the rest of the staff try to be supportive, we’ll never get his parents back for him. Every time he looks at that scar on his elbow, he’s going to be reminded of some pretty awful stuff. Think about it. He doesn’t even live under the same name anymore.”
Jonathan inhaled deeply to prepare for his next question. “Every kid in Resurrection House is damaged goods. How is… Vincent on that scale?”
Dom’s scowl deepened. “Well, I’m not sure how much I like the characterization of the kids in Rez House being damaged—”
“You know what I mean.”
“—but I know what you mean. And I don’t know how to answer you. There’s no paradigmatic Rez House resident. Do they all come with baggage? Hell yes, their parents are criminals. Are some more damaged than others? Of course. But I have no way of comparing Vincent’s damage against that of another student. Do I think that Vincent will come out of this experience as a functional adult? Yes, I do. But some damage will be permanent.”
Jonathan took his time considering the answer. He supposed that would be okay. Jonathan felt a personal responsibility for Graham that he didn’t feel for many others in Rez House.
“You said there were a couple of things bothering you,” Dom said. Once he fell into psychologist mode, he could be tenacious. Especially so when Jonathan was his patient.
“Yeah,” Jonathan said. “And they’re related. How much do you know about this Maryanne Rhoades chick?”
“The FBI agent?”
“Right.”
“The one you threw out of her own truck?”
Jonathan smiled. “That’s the one. I had a chat with Wolverine today. It was about Maryanne. In fact, it was about that entire mess that landed Graham here in the first place.”
“What did she say?”
“After a lot of ducking and dodging and denials, Maryanne confessed that she, Maryanne, was the information vector for the Russians. She was the one directing the Russians on how to kill him.”
Dom recoiled as he test-drove the thought. “Why would she do that?”
“Apparently, she had a gambling problem,” Jonathan said. “And a big one, at that. To the tune of something like eighty grand. And she was upside down with the Russian mob.”
“Yikes.”
“Exactly. I don’t know all the ins and outs but the bottom line was, if she could deliver the codes and the code-keepers to the mob, they’d let her off the hook.”