They sped into the Holiday Inn parking lot, and a dozen MPs in uniform spilled out and headed for the motel building. An Army sedan drove in behind them.
Dave didn’t hesitate. He backed up the Crown Vie, then drove it down the access road on his side to the intersection containing the ramps leading to the interstate. But then he had a thought. If Sparks is part of this, the MPs have to know what I’m driving, and they will expect me to be hauling ashes somewhere out on 1-20. So don’t do that. What I have to do is get rid of this very conspicuous car.
He thought fast, waiting for the light to change.
Where’s the last place they’ll look for me? Back on the base. Back at Fort Mcclellan, where there’s a base motor pool, and where maybe I can fake a problem with this car and get another one while the military police are out scouring the highways. He made up his mind as the light changed and he pulled out, turning left and heading north on the state road back into Oxford. He watched the red and blue police lights fluttering behind him in his mirror until the interstate overpass blocked them from view.
Thirty minutes later, in near darkness, he pulled into the base motor pool at Fort Mcclellan, thanking his household gods that the post gates were unguarded. He parked the Crown Vie in the lane nearest to the motor pool’s office. There appeared to be one person on duty in the small office. There were three lanes’ worth of trucks and sedans parked around him, probably because it was a Saturday night. He shut the car down and reached under the dash to find the fuse box. He discovered that the car had circuit breakers instead of fuses. Cracking the door, he scrunched down under the dash to read the labels by the light near the edge of the door. He found the breaker marked headlights and pulled the wires out of the breaker. Just to make sure, he used a pocketknife to cut them off where they disappeared into the fire wall.
He walked into the office and identified himself to the duty sergeant as a DCIS agent. He told him a story about his Fort Gillem car’s lights crapping out on him and said that he needed a replacement car right away. The sergeant insisted on checking out the problem with the lights, saying that he wasn’t sure if he could issue a replacement car, since this was Fort Mcclellan and the Crown Vie belonged to Fort Gillem. Dave blustered his way through all the bureaucratic objections. Fifteen minutes later, he was headed back out the southernmost gate in a very used black two-door Chrysler sedan.
He turned south on the state road and headed back through Anniston toward Oxford, watching for MP vehicles. Seeing signs for 1-20, he turned off me main drag onto Highway 78, which led him east toward another interchange. He did not fancy being in an Army car down near the Holiday Inn interchange, assuming they were still down there beating the bushes.
Once he got to the interstate, he headed east, back toward Atlanta, not exceeding the speed limit. He figured that this Army car would suffice for about one night. His plan was to go to the airport, park the sedan way out in economy parking, and then go into the terminal and rent a civilian car. He looked at his watch. It was an hour and a half to Atlanta, so he should be able to get to the rental car desks before they closed for the night After that, he had no idea of what he was going to do. At the very least, he had to warn Gwen Warren. Two people knew he had been to Graniteville. Sparks was one, and he knew why Stafford had been there.
Carson was the other, although he shouldn’t know about the girl, unless he remembered the airport incident and put two and two together.
He dreaded calling Gwen Warren after all his promises to keep the government away from the kids at Willow Grove, but he’d told Sparks about the girl, and now it looked like Sparks was working with the Army.
Would be tell them about the girl’s psychic vision of the cylinder? He swore as he thought about that. Gwen Warren would kick his ass for that.
The Army had to be going apeshit over the cylinder, the appearance of military police at a civilian motel was proof of just how desperate they were. Have to get rid of this car. He pushed it up to eighty, and watched for cops.
26
Brigadier General Carrothers sat in the Chemical Corps operations module of the Army Command Center, sipping his second cup of their notoriously noxious coffee. The Army Command Center, unlike those of the other services, had been constructed down in the basement of the Pentagon, presumably to protect it from enemy bombers. Despite heavy-duty air conditioning, the place smelled of mildew. The entire Pentagon building had been built on pilings in a tidal swamp; the state of the tide in the Po tomac could be determined by how far up the wall the concrete was sweating. Legions of bored watch officers over the years had marked the range of various tides on the wall in black Magic Marker.
Major Mason was on the phone, having a discussion with the duty officer at the Anniston Army Weapons Depot, when the module intercom sounded off.
“CW module, you have a call from Fort Mcclellan on line thirty-six, secure.”
Carrothers signified he would get it and picked up the STU-in handset.
The caller was the provost marshal, asking for Major Mason.
“No, this is General Carrothers. Did you pick that guy up?”
“Good evening, sir. No, sir, we did not. He wasn’t at the motel, and the local police report no sign of the Fort Gillem sedan in either Oxford or Anniston. We have the Highway Patrol looking. The sedan is distinctive: it’s a white GSA Crown Vie. If he’s out on the interstate, they should find him.”
“Is there any indication that he knows people want to find him?”
“Well, General, we called the DCIS regional office and spoke to his supervisor, a Mr. Sparks. He says he talked to Stafford this evening, but Stafford wouldn’t tell him where he was exactly. Only said he was hi Anniston.”
“Did this Sparks have any idea why one of his people was nosing around the Anniston Depot?”
“Sir, he got kind of coy when I asked that question. I got the sense that he wanted to get his hands on Stafford just as much as we do, so there’s a chance he does know what the guy’s up to. But if he does, he wasn’t going to tell me. I think we’ve got a pretty good chance. That vehicle is pretty distinctive.”
“If he’s still in it,” Carrothers said. “Where’s the last place you would look for that vehicle?”
The provost marshal thought for a moment. “Here, on post.”
“Yeah-And the local cops won’t look there, either. Get your post MPs out and take a look around. This guy may be smarter than we thought.”
Twenty minutes later, an embarrassed provost marshal was back on the phone, announcing the Crown Vic’s discovery in the motor pool’s parking lot. Stafford was now driving a black Chrysler sedan.
“And when did he engineer this little swap, Colonel?”
“This evening, General. While we were downtown rousting the Holiday Inn.
If he’s running to Atlanta, he’s there and then some by now.”
Carrothers hung up on him without reply. He had successfully suppressed the urge to yell, but he figured telephone rudeness would convey his displeasure. He back-briefed Major Mason.
“He’s a cool one, this guy,” Mason observed. “Assuming he figured out the MPs were on the way, that took some balls to drive back to the post and swap cars.”
“I’ve got this bad feeling that somehow this guy has figured out why that team showed up at the DRMO in a Atlanta,” Carrothers said. “His boss is obviously pissed 4 off at him, and yet he apparently went all cute when the provost tried to find out why DCIS wants him.back.”
Mason nodded. “Well, sir, the bad news is that we may have an intergovernment coordination problem; the good news is that the missing cylinder was destroyed with its container.”