70
They were all back
at the cabin, except for Eddie Karn. Mark thought that Gwen had
made a critical mistake splitting up her team and with every minute
that passed, he became more convinced that she’d blundered in the
worst way. Was Gwen cracking under the relentless pressure? It was
certainly possible, though Mark would not have thought it possible
of Gwen.
He bit his tongue
and listened to the details of her meeting with the NIH guy,
Gallagher. Then he and Rick told the group what they learned from
Mickey Spangler—information that, if corroborated, could easily
take down Henry Broome.
“As a member of
Congress,” Rick said, “I’m not all that concerned about gaining
access to the attorney general, but I’d like to get Gallagher’s
report first, so I can present everything to him in a nice, neat
package. Nailing Broome is sweet under any circumstance, but if we
have him linked to other illegal activities, it’ll be icing on the
cake.”
“We may not have the
luxury of time,” Mark pointed out. “I’m not sure how much longer
Spangler can hold on, and I want to keep my promise to the man,
regardless of what he’s done.”
Rick nodded in
approval. “How long do you think it will take Gallagher to conduct
his tests, Gwen?”
“Something like this
would probably take a week. My impression of Gallagher is that he’s
the kind of person who gets things done, though. He may have some
preliminary info in a day or two. He’s apparently got awfully good
teams under him. Isolating an isomer from a racemic mixture isn’t
all that difficult, but figuring out how the isomer—our
d-caffeine—acts on nerve receptor cells is a different
story.”
“Let’s hunker down
and rest,” advised Peter. “We could use it. And unscrambling
Jamie’s password is turning out to be a bit more time-consuming
than I expected. I failed to factor in that he could use the
symbols above the top row of letters on the keyboard—dollar signs,
ampersands, that sort of thing. That means there are thirteen extra
variables to consider in my binary program.”
They all agreed to
get some rest. As he lay in the dark—they’d decided to use
flashlights rather than turning on lamps—Mark thought about where
this story was going. He’d never been involved in toppling a dirty
national leader before. Another item to mark off his Woodward and
Bernstein checklist. It still wasn’t that multipart investigative
piece on the plight of the tamarin, but it was pretty
sweet.
Assuming the story
got out, of course. After everything they’d been through, it was
crazy to think they were home free even with so much damning
information available.
Mark thought again
about Eddie Karn. Was he okay? He hadn’t called his cell, which was
worrisome. Even if something slowed down his return to the cabin,
he should have checked in.
It took a few more
minutes for Mark to relax enough to succumb to
fatigue.
The helicopters
arrived an hour later.
“Everyone up!” Peter
shouted.
Everyone stumbled
into the main room, bumping into things in the dark.
“What’s going on?”
asked Mark.
“We have company,”
said Peter. “A chopper buzzed the cabin earlier today while Jan and
I were working. Three are swarming now at very low altitude. Looks
like the bastards have found us once again.”
“What do we do?”
asked Jan.
“There’s no way out
except by road,” Gwen said. “We can’t outrun helicopters, for God’s
sake. We’re finished.”
“Maybe not,” said
Rick as the vibration from the rotor blades grew louder and louder.
A chopper was obviously directly overhead, with two others cruising
in nearby airspace. “There’s a barn about a mile from here.
Straight down a very narrow path that begins next to the fence out
back.”
“Just a barn?” asked
Mark, raising his voice to be heard over the din of the
copters.
A spotlight from
above played across the window.
“Don’t know. Maybe a
farmhouse nearby, maybe not. I don’t know these woods as well as
Alex.”
“We don’t stand a
chance,” cried Mark. “We can either bolt to a barn or the road.
What’s the difference?”
The spotlight
penetrated deeper into the room, causing everyone within to huddle
together in a corner. A glass windowpane cracked from the intensity
of the vibrations.
“The difference,”
said Rick, “is that they’ll chase any vehicle that heads for the
highway.”
“A decoy?” said
Mark. “You?”
“Yes. I’m the most
logical one. As a U.S. Representative, they’ll be forced to take
extra care with me.”
“Agreed,” said
Peter.
“No way!” cried
Gwen. “We stick to—”
“He’s right,” said
Mark, “and we don’t have much time. There may already be people on
the ground coming for us.”
Rick moved toward
the door. “I’m going to get in the Quest and back up so that the
rear hatch is right next to the door. Somebody open it and then
slam it shut after thirty seconds. Let ’em think we’re all trying
to escape.”
He opened the door
of the cabin and ran ten paces to the van. The spotlight picked up
his form immediately.
“Stop where you
are!” ordered a harsh voice through a loudspeaker attached to one
of the hovering craft.
Rick started the
engine and backed up. Mark opened the hatch as instructed and then
closed it. Rick lurched forward and then peeled out down the dirt
lane, heading for the highway.
Peter already had
Jamie’s PC in his arms. “Grab the cords, connectors, and disks!” he
ordered Jan.
Mark had remained by
the door, gazing into the sky. After a full minute had passed, he
turned to the others. “I think they’re buying it. The two other
choppers are following the first. They’re fanning out on both sides
of the van—I think that’s so they won’t lose sight of it under all
those overhanging limbs. Now’s our chance!”
The four hurried to
the Bronco and Mark took the driver’s seat.
“Hold on,
everybody!” he said, and guided the Ford onto a path clearly not
made for vehicles. It was barely wide enough to allow passage, and
branches scraped at the side panels and windows. When they were
traveling in what he thought was a straight line, he shut off the
headlights.
“Any sign of the
helicopters?” asked Mark.
“No,” Gwen shot
back.
The Ford crawled
forward, the undergrowth clawing at the battered SUV.
“Wait a second,”
said Jan, “one of them is returning.”
Gwen turned around
and looked out the rear window. “It’s hovering over the
cabin.”
“Hope they don’t
have heat-seeking detectors,” said Peter.
Mark kept the
vehicle moving straight ahead. “We’ve got good cover,” he said,
“but I might end up running us into a tree.”
“The chopper’s
moving off,” Gwen said excitedly. “Headed back toward the main
highway.”
Mark turned on the
running lights every few yards, shutting them off again when he
knew what was ahead.
“There!” exclaimed
Gwen, pointing. “I think I see something.”
It was the barn.
Mark drove into a small clearing and straight into the barn,
shutting off the engine as soon as he was beneath the arched wooden
roof.
“Now what the hell
do we do?” Jan asked.
“By morning, they’ll
know of our little charade,” Peter said. “They’ll comb the woods
with dozens of men, and it won’t be hard to find this place once
they discover the path. Might even locate the barn from the air.
This is little more than a staging area for whatever we do next. We
have a few hours at most to make our next move.”
“A move to where?”
asked Gwen.
No one
answered.