“Follow the protocol,” Sarah repeated. “Once the loop is closed, the killing should stop. There’ll be no reason. Jolaine, protect Graham.”
“Sarah, this isn’t fair. I can’t protect him if—”
Behind them, the mechanics of the elevator hummed. Jolaine’s hand jerked to her holster, and one second later, her Glock was in her hand. She pushed Graham across the room and made herself as big as possible in the space between him and the door.
“That’s my team arriving,” Wilkerson said.
From a two-handed isosceles stance, she centered her sights on the middle of the door. “They need to pray that they don’t have weapons in their hands,” she said.
“For God’s sake,” Wilkerson said. “Take a breath. We don’t need any more shooting.”
Jolaine didn’t bother to respond. She trusted her reserve and her resolve. She wouldn’t shoot at anyone who didn’t need shooting. Tonight, that bar was dropping lower by the minute.
The elevator hydraulics hissed, and then there was a soft thump. Two seconds later, the door opened. She moved her finger from the pistol’s frame to its trigger. If it came to that, she could rain down ten rounds in a little under four seconds, every one of them drilling a hole within an inch of where she wanted it to drill.
The first man out of the elevator didn’t look like a doctor. With gray hair and a jet-black beard that was a throwback to the Civil War, he looked like a sixties-era beatnik. “Show your hands or die where you stand!” Jolaine yelled.
The guy jumped. Had there not been three more men plugging the entrance behind him, he might have bolted back through the door. “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” he yelled. He held his hands out in front of him, his fingers splayed to ward off the attack. “I’m a doctor.”
“Stop!” Wilkerson bellowed. “Jesus Christ, these are my colleagues. Put your gun away!”
Jolaine held her aim long enough to assess each of the faces coming off the elevator. Every one of them looked like they’d be more comfortable in front of a video game than engaging in a gunfight muzzle to muzzle.
Finally, she moved her finger outside the trigger guard and moved the weapon to low-ready — not aiming at anyone in particular, but still pointing at the floor in their general direction, just in case a target presented itself.
“Don’t pay attention to her,” Wilkerson said. “She’s part of the Community, she’s scared, and she’s about to leave.”
Behind her, Graham grabbed a fistful of the back of her shirt. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew that it was an appeal for help. Still not ready to re-holster, she lowered the Glock a little more.
“I think we’re all right, Graham,” she said. This would be over soon, one way or the other.
The arriving team moved to surround Sarah Mitchell. In seconds, it was as if Jolaine and Graham didn’t even exist. It was actually the lack of attention that convinced her that it would be safe to holster her weapon. When it was secure, she turned her attention to Graham, looking him in the eye.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
He shrugged and made a jerky motion with his head. It might have been a nod, or it might have been just a twitch. His brain still wasn’t processing it all.
“Here it is, Graham,” she said. “We’re going to have to leave. The doctors will care for your mom, but there’s no place for us here. We need to move on.”
The terror in the boy’s face deepened and multiplied. “Where are we going?”
The truthful answer was I don’t have any idea. Instead, Jolaine said, “We’ll find a hotel room. We’ll kind of hide for a while and see what happens.”
“Who are we hiding from?”
Damn good question. “We don’t know yet. What was on that piece of paper? What did it mean?”
Graham shook his head. “I don’t know,” he said. Tears balanced on his eyelids. “Mom said it was a code, so I guess it’s a code. But I don’t know what it means.”
“Please don’t lie to me, Graham. Not tonight.”
“I’m not lying, Jolaine. I can tell you that it was a string of letters and numbers — I could even recite them for you — and according to Mom, they’re some kind of code, but beyond that, I have no idea what they are.”
“Why are they important?”
“I don’t know that either.”
She believed him. “It’s time to go now.”
“What about Mom?”
Jolaine ignored that question and looked to the crowd that had gathered around Sarah. “Doctor Wilkerson!” she said. “I’m going to need a car.”
A voice from the clinical scrum said, “Find the kitchen upstairs. There are a set of keys on the hook by the door to the garage. Take whichever car you want.”
Really? It was that easy? So much about this just didn’t make sense.
“Let’s go,” Jolaine said. She put her hand back on Graham’s arm.
“But what about Mom?”
“Now,” Jolaine said.
CHAPTER FOUR
Maryanne was waiting for him at the base of the JFK bust that to Jonathan’s eye was the single ugly piece of artwork in the building. It looked like mud balls that had been crammed together. From a distance, it resembled the countenance of the thirty-fifth president of the United States, but up close it looked like an elementary school art project gone wrong.
“This really is important,” she said as he approached within earshot.
Jonathan gestured toward the door that led to the terrace. It was a flawless night in Washington. The cherry blossoms had bloomed a few weeks ago, but the stifling humidity and heat that so defined the capital city still lay in the future. The terrace offered a spectacular view of the Potomac River.
He took another hit of his scotch. At this rate, it wasn’t going to last long. “I’m all ears,” he said. “What’ve you got?”
“First some background,” Maryanne said. She looked soft for a Fibbie, too feminine. “You know that the Soviet Union collapsed back in the eighties.”
“I believe I heard the rumor.”
“Well, when it fell, it didn’t fall softly. For years, the US has been running a network of informants in the former Soviet Republics — both the friendly ones, and the other ones.”
“If that’s supposed to surprise me, you’ve missed the mark,” Jonathan said.
“Thing is,” she continued, “the Russians are slouching back to their old ways. I’m sure you heard the news story a few months ago about the Russian sleeper cells that were operating here and in Canada. They brought down that airliner in Chicago before the Mounties took them out.”
“I remember reading something about that,” Jonathan said. It seemed inappropriate to mention that that had been his op. The fact that she didn’t know told him that Wolverine had been appropriately circumspect in the information she shared.
“We have every reason to believe that nothing remains of the Movement, as they called themselves. But as cultural and religious tensions increase, the chatter has elevated immensely. We know that other cells exist, and for that reason, we continue to develop and run sources.”
Jonathan checked his watch. So far nothing in this conversation trumped the Puccini he was missing. “You know that I don’t work for Uncle Sam anymore, right? I’m out of the business of giving much of a shit about terrorist cells. I pay taxes for that stuff.”
Maryanne took a breath. “One of our most prolific operators was killed tonight. Bernard Mitchell. He was a nuke expert.”
Jonathan’s neck hairs rose. If this pretty young thing worked for Wolverine, then she knew better than to throw out details that weren’t relevant. “A nuke expert for whom?” he asked. “Our side or theirs?”