“We were northbound on that stretch, not another vehicle in sight until we saw your SUV on its roof. Rolly said he thought they were making a movie, or something. Kevin Costner shot part of one of his films out here years back.”
Rolly nodded.
“But he didn’t think that for long,” Mave said. “We saw you there-saw your husband halfways out, saw the baby’s seat caught up in the twisted metal like it was in a steel web.”
“Did you see Tyler? Could you see him inside?”
“No,” Rolly said. “Just saw that baby seat in the mess, heard you and smelled the gas.”
“Could you hear Tyler crying?”
“I don’t recall-you were screaming pretty loud,” Rolly said.
“We had to get everyone out of there on account of the gas,” Herb said.
“But you didn’t actually see Tyler in his seat?”
Herb and Rolly shook their heads.
“It was twisted up in there,” Rolly said.
“And you saw no other cars in the area?”
“Nothing,” Herb said.
The Quigglys were patient with Emma as she continued pressing them. But as they recalled details for her, their voices faded until she heard only fragments.
“It happened fast…like a blast furnace…nobody could’ve survived…”
Their recounting of the aftermath had catapulted her back to those terrible moments on the highway.
Emma struggled with what the Quiggly family was telling her: There was no other car.
It can’t be true because if it is it means my baby burned to death. But I saw someone. I saw someone save him.
Didn’t I?
Emma’s hands shook.
“Careful, Emma, careful.” Mave rushed to her.
Hot tea had splashed over the cup’s rim, onto Emma’s hands and to the floor.
“I’m sorry.”
Mave hurried her to the kitchen sink and ran cold water gently over her wrists and hands. It was an act of kindness and as the water soothed her skin Emma felt something deep inside break apart. Mave Quiggly comforted her until she was calm again.
“Thank you,” Emma said. “I should be going.”
“Maybe we should take you home and have Rolly drive your car back?”
Emma shook her head then collected her purse.
“You sure, you’re okay?” Herb asked as they saw her to the door.
“I am convinced there was another car.”
Rolly was scratching the back of his head, a habit familiar to his parents when something was gnawing at him.
“What is it?” Herb asked.
“Well, I was just thinking.”
“Is it something Emma needs to hear?”
“Well-” Rolly continued rubbing the back of his head “-there was a car.”
Emma stared at him.
“I didn’t see any car,” Herb said.
“Rolly, don’t be talking this way if you’re not sure,” Mave said.
“There was a car in the area,” Rolly said.
“But, Rolly,” Emma said, “in the statement you gave to police, in all of your statements, no one saw a second car at the scene, or on the highway.”
“That’s just it,” Rolly said. “The deputy asked me if I saw any cars at the scene or on the highway, and I didn’t. But I saw this car just before we came to yours.”
“Where was this?” Mave asked him.
“At the junction. Mom, you had leaned over to look at the gas gauge and tell Dad how he shoulda stopped in Big Cloud. I just looked east and it was way out there. I couldn’t tell you the make. It could’ve been white. This car was way off by the T-stop near Fox Junction, way off kicking up dust on that dirt road. It was moving real fast.”
Less than an hour later at the Big Cloud County Sheriff’s Office, Reed Cobb’s head snapped up from the glossy pages of a hunting magazine. Some fool was spanking the hell out of that bell at the front counter. Cobb’s utility belt squeaked as he got up and went to straighten them out.
“Emma? What the-?”
“There was a second car,” she said.
“What?”
“There was a second car fleeing the crash! Rolly Quiggly saw it. I just came from the Quiggly ranch.”
“Hold on-”
“This means someone saved Tyler! My baby’s alive!”
Emma’s commotion drew other deputies and clerks to the counter.
“Emma, you should be home resting.” Cobb gave a little nod to the others.
“No! You should get your people out there looking for that damn car!”
“Emma, you’re upsetting yourself.” Cobb exchanged glances with the other staff members. “We’re going to get you home. John and Heather are going to make sure you get home safely.”
“No!”
“We can take of care your car later.”
The deputies, John Holcomb and Heather MacPhee, approached Emma. She knew them a little from school fund-raisers down at the Big Cloud fair grounds. Holcomb was a part-time rodeo clown who operated a dunk tank and MacPhee sold home-baked pies and tarts. Her apple pie was very good. The deputies each took one of Emma’s upper arms.
“No,” Emma said. “Stop! What are you doing?”
“Take it easy now, Emma.” Holcomb’s grip was firm.
“My baby’s alive! Help me find him!”
“Emma, you have to stop this kind of talk,” Cobb said. “It’s not doing you any good.”
“No!” Emma struggled. “Why are you doing this? Help me find my son!”
20
Dog Lake, Ontario, Canada
After landing in Ottawa, Robert Lancer drove southwest for nearly two hours before turning his rental car onto Burnt Hills Road.
The side road led to secluded parts of cottage country, where Foster Winfield, the CIA’s former chief scientist, was living out his last days. Upon crossing a wooden bridge over a waterway, the pavement became a dirt road winding through sweet-smelling forests. Gravel popped against the undercarriage and dust clouds rose in his rearview mirror, pulling Lancer back to Said Salelee’s claim of a looming attack.
Marty Weller’s team was following Salelee’s information. Tanzanian police and U.S. agents were searching for other Avenging Lions for questioning, to determine who was behind the operation.
Was Salelee’s information valid or, like most raw data, unverifiable?
They had to be vigilant.
As I should’ve been with Jen and Becky.
As Lancer drove, he remembered the events of a decade ago.
Seeing his wife and daughter off at the airport for their trip to Egypt.
Becky, who was attending school in New York, had received a scholarship to study Egyptian art in Cairo for a year. Jen, who had worked in Cairo when she was a cultural attache with the State Department, was going to help her set up. Back then, he was with FBI Counterterrorism.
Watching their plane lift off that night in the rain, Lancer had felt a drop of concern ripple through him because of threats against the West by 37MNF, a new militant faction in Egypt. U.S. analysis said the group was poorly organized and poorly funded with little means to carry out an action.
That analysis was dead wrong and the life Lancer knew ended the moment his section chief called him into his office and told him to sit down.
Jen and Becky were on a tour bus near the pyramids on Cairo’s outskirts when 37MNF extremists hijacked it to the desert where they murdered all forty-two tourists, the driver and tour guide.
Egyptian police later tracked down the militants and shot them.
Lancer blamed himself.
While the analysis was not his, it reflected the work he did, and it had concluded that 37MNF did not constitute a valid threat.
Not a threat?
Then why did my wife and daughter come home in boxes?
Their deaths haunted him and led him to doubt what he did for a living and to doubt everything he had ever believed in.
After Lancer took bereavement leave, September 11 happened, and in the aftermath he used his rage to forge a new purpose. He was deployed to the National Anti-Threat Center where, in the years that followed, he buried himself in his work.
Now, as he drove, Lancer glimpsed his folder with Winfield’s file on the passenger seat.