I have no idea if the sniper was real or not or how the video related to any of this, but it obviously concerned killing those—
Affecting someone nonlocally. A top-secret research program on the negative effects of nonlocal psi activity …
Oh.
Eleven o’clock at the park.
“Charlene. The president’s speech. That’s it.”
“What?”
“Track with me here. Tanbyrn told us ‘when the eagle falls at the park’—something he overheard the twins say. The timing isn’t a coincidence — remember what you told me Monday night? Banner and now the Kabul video. The legislation, the speech. Everything is converging.”
When the eagle falls at the park—she’s mouthing the words. “Independence Park?”
I tap at the phone to bring up the image I’m thinking of, the one she needs to see. “Yes.” I spin the phone toward her, showing her the image of the Great Seal of the United States. “And the eagle is—”
“You’re not thinking that the twins are going after the president!”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“No, that’s crazy.” But it doesn’t sound like she’s convinced of her words. “I mean …”
We had threads weaving everything together, but for the moment they were still tenuous, more like strands of a spiderweb — the design was only visible when you moved back and looked at the whole thing at once.
Perspective.
But did we have all the strands yet? I backpedal a little. “No, it’s not enough. Not with what we have.”
“It doesn’t matter if it’s not enough to prove it, Jev, there’s enough there to make it feasible. We need to warn the Secret Service.”
But with each passing moment, I’m feeling less confident of my conclusion. “What would we tell them? That a pair of identical twin telepathic assassins might try to send a thought-borne virus to the president? We don’t have proof, a time frame, an established motive, anything. We don’t even know who the twins are.” I sigh as I realize the truth. “Really, all we have is a collection of circumstantial evidence. If that.”
But she doesn’t budge. “Jev, if there’s even a slim chance that his life might be in danger, we have to report it. We at least have to tell them what we know.”
“They’ll probably take us in for questioning.”
“Yeah. Probably.”
That’s the last thing I want right now, but I do sense that she’s right about contacting the authorities. However, I’m not exactly thrilled at the prospect of convincing them to take a threat like this seriously.
If you call the Secret Service, they’ll be able to track the phone’s GPS.
Staring out the window, I assess our situation. How to give the Secret Service everything they need without being brought in as accessories or suspects?
“Charlene, let me use your phone.”
She hands it over. “Why my phone?”
“You’ll see.”
It takes me a few minutes to get through to someone who’ll actually talk to me. I thought there’d be some sort of hotline to report threats against the president, but I have to go through almost as many prompts as you do when you call for computer tech support. Finally a real woman’s voice comes on. Boredom and annoyance in her first two words: “Name, please.”
Using an alias right now would probably not be a good idea.
But neither would giving her your real name.
“I have information about a possible threat against the president’s life.”
“What is your name?”
“I just said I have information about a threat against—”
“Name.”
“You’re not listening to—”
“Who am I talking with?” She’s losing what little patience she might have had.
“Jevin, and this is important.”
With an audible sigh, she decides not to push me for a last name: “What information?”
“It involves a pair of twins. Who, well… they might attack President Hoult at any time.”
“Who are they?”
“I don’t know. But they go by the initials ‘L’ and ‘N.’”
“‘L’ and ‘N.’”
“That’s right.”
“And how are they going to attack the president?”
I’m aware that the answer to her question is going to sound ridiculous. I could spend time trying to explain the quantum physics of it all, but I didn’t even understand most of that myself. I just go ahead and say it: “By their thoughts.”
A stretch of silence.
“Sir, you do know that it is a federal offense to threaten the life of the president of the United States. Even to joke about it.”
“No, I’m not threatening his life, and I’m not joking. I’m telling you that I think there’s a plot against him. It has to do with a top-secret Pentagon program called Project Alpha. The twins work for the Pentagon. Sort of.” With every word, I can tell I’m losing more and more ground.
“So this assassination plot was hatched at the Pentagon.”
“Well, that or a pharmaceutical company.”
“I see.”
I rub my forehead.
“And how did you come about this information?”
It would take way too long to explain everything. “That doesn’t matter, this is—”
“Sir, how exactly are these twins going to kill the president by their thoughts?”
“Maybe stop his heart. I’m not sure.”
“With the use of their psychic powers?”
“You have to believe me—”
“Excuse me for just one moment.” When she puts me on hold, I know it’s over. This is never going to work. I imagine she’s calling for a car to pick us up right now, or possibly checking to make sure she has a lock on our GPS.
I hang up.
“Well,” Charlene acknowledges, “maybe that wasn’t the best idea after all.”
“Maybe you should have made the call.”
“Are they going to follow up on anything you said?”
“I doubt it. We need to find the twins ourselves. Lead the Secret Service to them.”
“Then we can’t let them find us first.”
We come to a bottleneck in traffic. “That’s why I chose your phone. I thought I’d give you the honors.” I hand her cell to her.
She catches on. “Are you saying …?”
“Yup. Something we both know you’ve wanted to do for a long time.”
With a gleam in her eye, she rolls down her window and pelts her cell phone onto the road. It shatters in a lovely little explosion of technology.
“That felt really good.”
“I’ll bet it did.”
Of course, it was certainly possible that NSA or the Secret Service had already tracked our location, even traced the phone number back to Charlene. In fact, they might’ve already dispatched agents to find us, but I was counting on the fact that in the congested traffic they wouldn’t be able to figure out which car the phone had been thrown from and, as we drove on, wouldn’t be able to find us.
Yet.
The plan: find Dr. Colette.
Then the twins.
And then let the Secret Service find us.
The First Baby
Riah found no photos of the axe murder victims.
Which was a bit disappointing.
But the search for the pictures of the dead family made her think of her own family once again. Her dead mother. Her father. Her sister. And the question of what people really want: feeling loved or being loved.
She loved you when you were a child.
Yes. She did.
But you never loved her.