Harry hit the ramp at full speed, with Holliday and Redboots right behind them. Trees appeared at the top of the ramp and Peggy realized they were on land once again. Almost immediately Moonblanket throttled back and slowed. A hundred yards farther on in the gully he stopped and let Redboots come up beside him.
"Old Panthers," grunted Redboots speaking for the first time, his visored face invisible.
"What's he talking about and why have we stopped?" Peggy asked urgently, looking back over her shoulder for the telltale red-and-blue flashing lights. There was nothing but blowing snow. "Where are the Mounties?"
"This is Cornwall Island," said Moonblanket, sitting in front of her. "Akwesasne land. The Mounties can't set foot on the place without asking our permission and Brandon's not likely to give it under the circumstances."
Chuckling, Redboots began to sing in a low, guttural voice: "Teiohonwa:ka ne'ni akhonwe:ia Kon'tatieshon iohnekotatie Wakkawehatie wakkawehatie."
"What's he saying?" Peggy asked.
"It's his favorite song about paddling his canoe. He always sings when he beats the Flat Hats."
"The Flat Hats?"
"The Red Jackets, the Mounties," explained Moonblanket.
"How did they know we'd be there?" Holliday asked seriously.
"Billy phoned them up and told them. He's the tribe's official confidential informant."
"Your nephew?"
"Sure. The Akwesasne survive on smuggled cigarettes. We even own our own tobacco farms. It's in the treaty from about two hundred years ago. Sometimes we get some serious criminal types down from Montreal, bikers mostly, try to horn in on our business. Billy informs on them. Makes a few bucks for himself. He goes to university now, so he needs the bread."
"He did it on purpose?" Peggy asked.
"Sure. I told him to. We're on Z1 Turbos. The Flat Hats use old Panther 440s. If we'd been dragging a pod of smokes they maybe coulda caught us, but not with one passenger each. No contest."
"It scared the hell out of me," said Holliday.
"Speaking of which," said Peggy, "can we get to where we're going to sometime soon? I have to pee."
Morrie Adler sat on one of the couches in the Oval Office and waited for the president to calm down. Outside the tall, bulletproof windows it was a winter-wonderland postcard, everything covered in a disguising mantle of snow.
"I won't do it!" the president steamed. He'd been a secret smoker until a secret checkup had told him in no uncertain terms that he'd better become a secret quitter, which he had, but the side effects of nicotine withdrawal were secretly making him very testy. It occurred to Morrie that wars could be declared or escalated on the basis of the president's physical condition. There was no doubt in his mind that Roosevelt would have done better at Potsdam if he'd felt better, and whether people liked to admit it or not the last couple of years of Ronald Reagan's term, the White House and the country had been run by his staff.
"They're plugging a hole," said Adler. "Nothing more."
"They're not plugging a hole; they're reading polls," said the president.
"Sinclair's the all-out favorite for the job." Adler shrugged. "You've put off appointing a vice president for too long already, kemo sabe. Make your choice or do what the party wants, but do it fast."
"You mean do what that psychopath Kate Sinclair wants," snorted the president. "From what I hear, she's been whoring herself all over Capitol Hill for two weeks now, kissing asses, gathering in favors and blackmailing what's left over."
"It's what the country wants, as well," said Adler. "Ever since you know who was in this office the nation's been polarized; there is no center line. That's a tightrope you can't walk along anymore. The people want guns and butter, give them guns and butter."
"I'll think about it," said the president.
"Think fast," said Adler. "Time's a-wasting."
24
Bedford Mills, Virginia, was the perfect western Virginia town. Main Street really was called Main Street, the churches all had snow-white steeples and the redbrick courthouse in the middle of town had a white cupola and a bell that was once used to call out the volunteer fire department.
The population of Bedford Mills was slightly more than five thousand and more than two-thirds of the adult males owned rifles. Almost the same percentage owned handguns and half of them owned fly rods for catching trout in the cool, clear streams that fed White Mountain Lake. There were no Hispanic families in Bedford Mills and only a very small percentage of the population was African American. There was one family of Chinese descent, Ross and Katie Wong and their kids, but they were fourth-generation American.
The biggest employer in the town was Savage Trucks, which custom built water tankers, milk tankers, dump bodies and sanitation trucks. The other major employer was the Wolf Ridge Distillery, which made a variety of specialty liquors, the most popular being Stonewall 12-Year-Old Bourbon. All in all, safe territory for Senator Richard Pierce Sinclair to have a town hall meeting on the coming threat of domestic terrorism in America.
The town hall itself was located on South Tower Street on the far side of the old Norfolk and Western tracks. It was only a few minutes' walk from the old Liberty Depot, which was now a family restaurant with cute menu items listed under titles like Main Line, Water Towers and Cabooses.
Once upon a time the town hall had been home to the Bedford Mills Klavern of the Ku Klux Klan. It was briefly used as a headquarters building by Stonewall Jack-son during the Civil War, and eventually became the local Mason's Lodge. The Masons faded away in the area, and in its final incarnation it was used as a recreation center by the Knights of Pythias.
Try as they might the Pythians couldn't keep up with the slow decay of the 150-year-old building and it was finally rescued by the Bedford Mills Historical Society, which bought it for a dollar, then brought it back to its former glory, then handed it over to the town. The ground floor was now the town library while the second-floor stage and auditorium were sometimes used for local theater productions, award presentations by local service clubs and events exactly like the one taking place this evening.
The original dressing rooms were located behind the stage and had been redecorated from the burlesque era for some unknown reason. There were posters of Fanny Brice everywhere and a couple of Moulin Rouge posters, as well. Each of the three dressing rooms had a small couch, a rotating makeup chair and a wall-to-wall mirror.
Kate Pierce had chosen the middle of the three rooms and had waited on the couch while Chelsea, the hired movie hair and makeup girl, made her son look even more senatorial than he was. She added salt-and-pepper highlights to his temples and a few age crinkles around the eyes for wisdom, and then helped him insert the gray contact lenses that dignified his washed-out blue eyes.
As a final touch Sinclair's mother handed her son a very up-to-date pair of cherry-red half-glasses to pull from his pocket when he was reading something or appearing to, even though at forty-six he still had twenty-twenty vision. When Kate was satisfied with her son's appearance she gave the hair and makeup girl a hundred dollars and dismissed her.
"Is all of this really necessary, Mother?"
"It's television, dear," answered the elderly woman. "If Nixon had worn a little pancake that night in Chicago things might have gone very differently."
"Local?"
"Network, cable, bloggers, the New York Times. Fox, looking for blood. The message is beginning to get through, darling, just as I knew it would."