“Right, right. Sorry. I’ll call him on a burner.”
He reached into his briefcase, pulled out one of the disposable cell phones they had reserved specifically for calling Verhoven, and punched in the number.
“No answer,” he said, his voice going high and nervous. “What are we going to do if Verhoven can’t execute?”
“Calm down,” Wilmot said, his deep voice as serene and certain as if he were talking about the weather. “If the Feds had found out anything from them, there’d be guys in black fast-roping out of choppers onto our heads. We’re fine.”
“Yes, sir.” Collier took a breath and closed his eyes, focusing on the thousands of details he’d committed to memory—air-flow calculations, duct schematics—until slowly his pulse returned to normal.
25
SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA
Tillman Davis wound through the mountains for twenty miles, heading south toward Virginia. He wasn’t sure where Verhoven wanted to go, but he knew they needed to put some distance between themselves and the compound before showing their faces.
Gideon's War and Hard Target
Finally he pulled into an old gas station, parking the...
“How’s she doing?” Tillman said.
Verhoven’s face was grim. He shook his head.
“I was cross-trained as a medical corpsman,” Tillman said. “We need to get her to a safe place. A hotel room would probably be best. I can do a few things for her, hopefully keep her stable.”
Verhoven wiped his forehead. “I need to make a phone call,” he said. “Keep her comfortable, okay?”
Tillman tried to help Lorene from the bed of the trailer into the truck. She was pale and shaking, too weak to walk, so he had to pick her up and set her inside the truck.
As he got her situated, he tried to listen to the conversation Verhoven was having on the phone. But Verhoven had walked out of earshot to a nearby Dumpster.
Verhoven thumbed thedicccccc T‡ number he had committed to memory on one of the burners he was carrying. Wilmot answered after the first ring. Although he kept his voice even, it was pitched with tension.
“Where are you?”
“Twenty miles from my place,” Verhoven said.
“It’s all over the damn news. Did this have something to do with that snitch, Mixon?”
“Maybe,” Verhoven said. “But like I told John, he didn’t know any concrete details. And whatever little he did know, he never got to pass on to the Feds.”
“Then we’re fine.”
“Not exactly. Lorene’s been shot.”
“How bad?”
“Bad enough that she may not be able to execute the operation.”
There was a long silence. “Then you’ll have to do it alone.”
“Actually, there may be another way.”
“Another way?”
Verhoven glanced over his shoulder. Lorene had been skeptical about Tillman at first. She said it had seemed awfully convenient for a guy who’d been as standoffish as Tillman suddenly to show up, all eager beaver at such a crucial time. But no FBI plant would have done what he’d done. According to Lorene, he’d killed two FBI men. Not to mention he’d saved her life.
“I have a man with me,” Verhoven said. “A very special man.”
“Absolutely not,” Wilmot said harshly.
“He can get me the weapons and breaching charges I need for the operation. And he’s trained to use them.” Verhoven glanced toward the truck. Tillman Davis was eyeing him, so he quickly looked away. He didn’t want the guy getting a read on his face.
“I said no,” Mr. Wilmot said.
“Mr. Wilmot—”
“Jim, listen to me very carefully. This operation has been planned down to the last detail. There’s no redo. Everybody involved has been vetted with extreme care. We can’t just let some random person jump into the middle of this thing.”
“Mr. Wilmot, with all due respect, he’s not some random person—”
“Kill him, Jim.”
“Mr. Wilmot.”
“I said, kill him. And do it now.”
Jim Verhoven respected Wilmot enormously. It had taken a man of extraordinary vision and courage to conceive an operation this bold and this complex. But Verhoven was a man who’d grown accustomed to giving orders, not taking them.
“Do it now, Jim.”
The phone went dead in Verhoven’s hand.
The moment Tillman saw Verhoven’s face, he knew exactly what Verhoven had been told to do. l h ad to do. He reached for his Glock just before Verhoven reached for his.
Verhoven feigned surprise. “What are you doing?” he asked as Tillman steadied the gun on him.
“I saw your face. Whoever you were talking to told you to kill me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Tillman measured Verhoven’s expression. The man was clearly lying, but killing him or locking him down for the police would blow any chance of discovering his plans. But maybe there was another way to play this. It was a risky proposition—and if he miscalculated, he would pay for it with his life—but if he wanted to stop the attack from happening, it was his only real option. Tillman decided to take the chance.
He handed his Glock to Verhoven.
“If you’re going to do it, do it now. Make it fast.”
Verhoven’s face tightened, but he said nothing.
Tillman found himself feeling strangely at peace. He didn’t want to die, but if he did, he felt okay with it. He would be sacrificing his life for something larger than himself and go out in a blaze of private glory. Or maybe he just wanted to end it all—the relentless shame and boredom he carried around his neck like twin millstones. Whatever it was, he finally felt liberated from the previous two years of purgatory in which he’d been living, the neither-here-nor-there murkiness he’d been slogging through for so long.
“Come on, dammit,” Tillman said. His pulse hammered in his ears, and a roaring sound echoed through his head. “Whatever you’ve got planned is bigger than either of us. I’m willing to die if it’ll make this cesspool a little better.” Tillman was surprised by how convincing he sounded.
Verhoven smiled fondly at him and pushed the gun back toward Tillman. “The reason this place is a cesspool is precisely because we don’t have enough men like you.” When Tillman made no move to take his gun back, Verhoven slid the Glock into the holster on Tillman’s belt. “I was never going to kill you, Tillman. We need you. We need you more than you’ve ever been needed in your life.”
Their eyes met. Verhoven seemed to be in the grip of powerful emotions.
“All right then,” Tillman said. “Let’s find someplace I can help your wife.”
They got back in the truck. Lorene was still sleeping, oblivious to the drama that had just played out between Tillman and her husband.
They drove for another hour before reaching the town of Weston, not far from the Virginia border. Tillman withdrew four hundred dollars from an ATM machine. He then drove on to Buckhannon, where he rented a room in the Friendly Tyme Motel on US 33 under the name Doug Rogers, paying for one night in cash. After installing Lorene and Verhoven in the room, he drove to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he stole three bags of plasma, an IV setup, a tube of bacitracin, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a box of large gauze pads, and a 1993 Honda Accord.
By noon, Lorene’s wounds were cleaned and dressed and she had two pints of fluid in her. Her color had improved, and she had stopped shaking.
“Now,” Tillman said as he threw the bloody gauze into the wastebasket, “it’s time to stop playing footsie. What the hell are we doing here?”
Verhoven looked evasive. “I don’t know the details of the main attack itself. We’re not part of that. Our mission is a support operation.”
“Okay, but what’s our target? If I’m going to help you and maybe get myself killed in the process, I deserve to know what I’m getting into, don’t you think?”