We were given up-to-the-minute information. "It appears they're already out of the woods," an agent told us. "Kyle Craig is on his way here now. We're setting up roadblocks, but they'll be hit and miss. There is some good news, though. We might have caught a break on the tour bus."
Moments later, we were being patched in to a woman from Tinden, a small town in Virginia. Supposedly, the woman had information on the whereabouts of the bus. She said she would only talk to 'the police," and that she didn't much care for the FBI and their methods.
Only after I identified myself was the elderly woman willing to talk to me. She seemed nervous and hyperactive.
Her name was Isabelle Morris and she had sighted a tour bus in the farmlands out in Warren county. She'd become suspicious because she owned the local bus company and the bus wasn't one of hers.
"The bus was blue with gold stripes?" Betsey asked without identifying herself as FBI.
"Blue and gold. Not one of mine. So I don't know what the tour vehicle would be doing here," Mrs. Morris said," No reason for a bus like that to be out in these parts. This is redneck territory. Tinden isn't on any tours that I know of."
"Did you get the license number, or at least a part of it?" I asked her.
She seemed annoyed by the question. "I had no earthly reason to check the license number. Why would I do that?"
"Mrs. Morris, then why Aid you report the bus to the local police?"
"I told you, if you were listening before. There's no reason for a tour bus out here. Besides, my boyfriend is on the local citizens' patrol hereabouts. I'm a widow, ," see. He's the one actually called the police. Why are you so interested, may I ask?"
"Mrs. Morris, when you saw the tour bus, were there any passengers on board?"
Betsey and I glanced at each other while we waited for her to answer.
"No, just the driver. He was a large fellow. I didn't see anyone else. What about the police? And the infernal FBI? Why are you all so interested?"
"I'll get to that in a minute. Did you notice any identification on the bus? A destination sign? A logo? Anything you might have seen would be a help to us. People's lives are in danger."
"Oh, my," she said, then. "Yes, there was a sticker on the side: Visit Williamsburg. I remember seeing it. You know what else? I think the bus might have said "Washington On Wheels" on the side panel. Yes, I'm almost sure it did. "Washington On Wheels." Is that any help to you?"
Chapter Sixty-Four
Betsey was already on another line talking to Kyle Craig. They were making a plan to get us to Tinden, Virginia, in a hurry. Mrs. Morris continued to talk my ear off, literally. Bits and pieces were coming back to her. She told me that she had seen the tour bus turn on to a small, country road not far from where she lived.
"There are only three farms on the road and I know 'em all very well. Two of the farms border a deserted army base built in the eighties. I've got to check this funny business out for myself," she said.
I interrupted her right there. "No, no. You sit tight, Mrs. Morris. Don't move a muscle. We're on our way to you."
"I know the area. I can help you," she protested.
"We're on our way. Please stay put."
One of the FBI helicopters searching the nearby woods was brought over to the railroad station. Just as it was arriving so did Kyle. I'd never been so glad to see him.
Betsey told Kyle exactly what she hoped to do in Virginia. "We take the chopper in as close as we can without being spotted. Four or five miles from the town of Tinden. I don't want too large a ground force involved. A dozen good people, maybe less."
Kyle agreed to the plan, because it was a good one, and we were off in the FBI chopper. He knew the agents at Quantico he wanted involved and he dispatched them to Tinden.
Once we were on board the helicopter we reviewed everything we had learned during the bank robberies. We also began to receive information on the area where Mrs. Morris had seen the bus. The army base she mentioned had been a nuke site in the eighties. "ICBMs were kept underground at several nuke bases outside Washington," Kyle said. "If the tour bus is on the site, a concrete silo could shield it from heat-seeking search helicopters."
Our chopper began to settle down on to an open area near a regional high school. I glanced at my watch. It was way past six o'clock. Were the hostages still alive? What sadistic game was the Mastermind playing?
Bright green athletic fields stretched out behind an idyllic-looking two-story red brick school. The entire area was deserted except for two sedans and a black van waiting for us. We were four or five miles from the state road where Mrs. Morris had seen the' Washington On Wheels' bus.
Isabelle Morris was sitting in the first sedan. She looked to be in her late seventies, a stout woman with an inappropriately cheery, false-teeth smile. Somebody's nice grandmother.
"Which farm should we go to first?" I asked her. "Where might somebody be hiding?"
The old woman's bluish-gray eyes narrowed to slits as she thought. "Donald Browne's farm," she finally said. "Nobody lives there these days. Browne died last spring, poor man. Someone could hide out there easy."
Chapter Sixty-Five
"Keep going. Drive by,” I told our driver as we reached the Browne farm on State Road #24. He did as I asked. We curled around a bend in the road about a hundred yards farther on. Then the car eased to a stop.
"I saw somebody on the grounds. He was leaning against a tree. Up near the house. He was watching the road, Kyle. Watching us go by. They're still here."
Up ahead, I could see the remains of the old missile site that had once been in operation out here. I figured we would find the tour bus hidden in a missile silo, safe from the Apache search helicopters. I wasn't so optimistic about the nineteen hostages from Metro Hartford The Mastermind hated insurance companies, didn't he? Was this about revenge?
I was flashing lurid images of the hostages who'd been killed during the bank robberies; I was afraid of finding a massacre scene at the farm. We had been warned. No errors, no mistakes. The rules had been enforced during the bank jobs. Had anything changed?
Kyle said, "Let's go in through the woods. We don't have time to be choosy."
He made contact with the other units. Then he, Betsey, and I ran due north through the dense woods. We couldn't see the farmhouse yet, but we couldn't be seen, either.
The woods came up close to the main house, which was fortunate for us. The brush was mostly overgrown, almost all the way to the driveway. The lights were off inside the house. There was no movement that I could make out. No sound.
I could still see the sentry for the kidnappers. He wasn't too far away and he had his back to us. Where were the others? Where were the
FBI agents were inside and spreading out all over the house. Some of the hostages began to cry when they realized they weren't going to die, that they'd finally been rescued.
"They said we'd be killed if we tried to leave the house before tomorrow morning. They told us about the Buccieri and Casselman families," a tall, dark-haired woman said between sobs. Her name was Mary Jordan and she'd been in charge of the tour group.
We did a careful search of the house no one was there. There wasn't any obvious evidence, but the technicians would be here soon. The tour bus had already been found in a shed on the former army base.