"Getting one in is as hard as getting three in," she said.
"I know that. We'll figure out something. We just need a little time."
"We don't have time. Today's Monday. Tomorrow the Lab meets in Savannah. They'll undoubtedly come here. And once they're inside that fence, they can do anything they want. We won't be able to stop them."
"Tell me something I don't know."
That was something Raymond would say, Jude thought. He missed him — especially at the moment. It wouldn't hurt to have a trustworthy ally in the FBI right now.
"Let's go back to Savannah," Jude said. "We can go over the plans and check out that hotel."
No sooner had they turned back into the woods than they heard a sound coming from the road — a car. They ran back, threw themselves on the ground and watched. The car, a Ford Taurus, moved slowly along the approach road and stopped at the front gate. A man came out of the guardhouse and stooped down toward the driver's window, talking. Then he stepped back and the car door opened and a man got out. The two walked to the back of the car, and the driver opened the trunk for inspection. The guard reached in and touched something.
Tizzie tugged at Jude's binoculars.
"Give them to me. Quick."
She grabbed them and raised them, just as the driver was starting back to the door.
"Show me your face," she urged. "Show me your face, damn it."
The guard opened the door, and the man stepped forward to sit down.
Then, as luck would have it, he stood leaning against the open door while they talked some more.
When they left the woods and were walking on the dirt road, Tizzie explained why she had suddenly become so excited.
"I recognized him," she said. "That's the doctor, the one who examined that old pregnant woman in the hospital. His name is Gilmore."
She stepped between Jude and Skyler and grabbed an arm of each.
"And just when I thought it couldn't get any stranger."
They spent the night at the Planters Inn in Savannah. The next morning, after a breakfast of bacon and eggs, Tizzie went off to look for a medical supply store, while Jude and Skyler staked out the DeSoto, a fourteen-story brick building on Liberty Street. They didn't dare enter the lobby, but took turns from various locations across the street.
Skyler was sitting in a coffee shop, sipping cup after cup and swiveling around to keep an eye on the hotel entrance, when he saw a car pull into the circular drive. Out stepped the judge, whom he recognized immediately; he was an older version of Raisin, startlingly frail as he moved slowly through the front door. Skyler went to a pay phone on the wall and called Jude on his cell phone. Jude was three blocks away, and he hurried back. He missed the judge, but he arrived in time to watch a parade of other arrivals.
They don't really look like young leaders anymore, Jude thought, as cars and taxis pulled up at the entrance and disgorged men and women who appeared to be in early middle age yet youthfully dressed.
Tizzie returned in the car and parked across the street from the hotel. They slipped inside and waited there, Jude hunched down in the passenger seat behind a pair of dark sunglasses and Skyler sitting in the back. Seeing Raisin's double had made Skyler quiet. Now he picked up the plans of the base. He located the one building he had been looking for, the hospital, and he began studying it in detail. If they could get one of them inside, there was a way…
A black limo with tinted windows moved grandly down the street, paused for a second and turned quickly up the circular drive, depositing an entire entourage. Then the car drove down the street and turned quickly toward a garage around the corner. Tizzie leapt out of the car, hurried across the street and disappeared inside. A few minutes later, the front door opened and she reemerged.
She gave a hidden thumbs-up as she approached the car and got in. "That's it," she said. "She took the presidential suite. Was I right or was I right?"
"Okay," replied Jude. "But I still don't understand it. Why in hell is a sixty-year-old woman about to give birth? What's the big deal? Aside from the fact that she belongs in the Guinness Book of Records. And what does she have to do with the Lab?"
"Who knows? But if we're patient, I've got a feeling we'll find out."
She looked over at Jude.
"Loan me your cellular phone. Skyler, is the phone number for the base on those papers?"
They sat in the car an hour and a half, conversation at an end and their attention wandering, when suddenly the front end of the limo sprang into view, rounding the corner. Tizzie was so surprised, it took her some seconds to shake off her thoughts and find the ignition. She pulled out two cars behind.
"She must have gone out a back way," she said. "I hope she's in there."
They followed the limo at a respectful distance, and as it took the route they had traveled the day before, moving swiftly and with assurance as if its driver knew the way, their confidence grew. They were reasonably sure now that they knew where it was going and who it was carrying.
The question was: could they get inside the perimeter fence?
When the limo turned onto the base road, they held back until it was out of sight. They waited a full ten minutes, then took the turn and peeled off onto the dirt road into the trees. Tizzie stopped the car, opened a package and put on the white lab coat she had just purchased. Then she produced her badge from the SUNY lab and placed it around her neck. Jude and Skyler stepped out. Each of them hugged her.
"Good luck," said Jude. "I'm still not sure about this."
"It's our only chance. I've got the coat, the badge. If I can convince them I'm Gilmore's assistant and let me in, then we can follow Skyler's plan. What other choice do we have?"
They turned and walked into the trees as she pulled away in the car. They took up the same position on the edge of the field and watched as her car pulled up to the gate. A guard stepped out to speak to her. He was carrying a clipboard and he looked at it.
"Shit," said Jude. "Let's hope Gilmore has an assistant. Or she'll have to do some fast footwork."
The guard peered at her badge. She held it up for him to get a good look. Then he went back to the list and made a check mark.
It seemed to them that they were talking a long time — too long. But finally, Tizzie stepped out and opened the trunk. As the guard looked inside, Jude peered through the binoculars and spotted her hand behind her back, the thumb raised once again. In no time, she was back inside the car and the front gate yawned open to admit her. Then she disappeared — inside.
"We should get in position," said Skyler. "She might make it to the control box and throw the switch right away."
He didn't tell Jude, but he was beginning to feel ill again. It came upon him suddenly, starting with a feebleness in the legs. He knew the symptoms that would soon follow: a heaviness in all his limbs, then a weakness and a horrible pain in the chest that might lead to a blackout.
He prayed that he would be strong enough to do what he had to do.
They followed the line of the trees around the field. Skyler went behind Jude and found it hard to keep up; he felt as if he were walking through knee-high water. Twice, he had to stop to catch his breath. Jude walked ahead without realizing that he was alone, then stopped to wait for him.
"C'mon," he said. "We've got to hurry."
When they finally reached the rear of the base, they lay on the ground while Jude reconnoitered through the binoculars. Skyler was breathing heavily. Jude poked him with an elbow, still looking through the field glasses.
"There's a drainage ditch over there." He pointed to a spot about twenty yards away. "It looks like it leads right up to the fence not far from the back gate. We can take it. It'll give us some cover."