“Good. He’ll sniff out the best spot to hide and watch.”
“Are you kidding?”
“This isn’t Croc’s first rodeo. Just follow his lead.”
Great, I thought. Not only am I expendable, but I’m being led by a dog.
Undercover
Malak wrapped her arms around Bethany Culpepper, held her down, and spoke to her.
“My name is Malak Tucker. You have been drugged and kidnapped. You must be completely silent. You must trust me. I’m with the Secret Service.”
It felt good to say that she was with the Secret Service, even though it wasn’t exactly true.
Not anymore. Perhaps someday it will be true again. Perhaps someday this will all be over.
Bethany stopped struggling.
“Listen to me very carefully,” Malak whispered. “We don’t have much time.”
She explained their situation as accurately and concisely as she could in the few moments they had. Bethany lay so still that Malak thought she had passed out again.
“Nod if you understood what I just told you,” she whispered.
It was a great deal to absorb after coming out of a drug-induced sleep and finding yourself hooded, lying under a tarp on the wet ground with the woman who kidnapped you claiming to be a deep-cover Secret Service agent. But Bethany’s head moved up and down as if she understood. Malak found herself smiling in amazement and admiration. She had known Bethany for many years. When J.R. was the vice president, Malak had been in charge of his protective detail. As a teenager, Bethany had been smart, sensible, and a lot of fun to be around. It looked like courage had been added to her long list of attributes.
When Bethany’s mother had died, she had stepped into the First Lady, or First Daughter, position without a hitch. It was rumored that J.R. had consulted her on every major decision he had made over the past six years. She was not just his daughter. She was a valued advisor. It was easy to see why.
Bethany said something that Malak didn’t catch. Malak leaned in closer and asked her to repeat herself.
“The hood,” Bethany said quietly.
“It’s meant to frighten and disorient you. Unnecessary, I know, since you’re supposed to be unconscious, but you’ll have to leave it on. They can’t see you, which works to our advantage. We need them to think you’re incapacitated for as long as we can. As soon as you’re awake, they will gag and flex-cuff you. When they get a chance, they’ll put you in front of a video camera for all the world to see. The point of this exercise is to show the world that the U.S. government, and specifically your father, is vulnerable.”
“Yoga breath,” Bethany whispered.
“What?”
“It’s a breathing technique for relaxation. I’ve practiced yoga for years. A necessity if you want to stay sane in my father’s world. I’m an expert in relaxing under difficult circumstances. Although this is going to be a challenge.”
Malak smiled. No doubt about it. This is J. R. Culpepper’s daughter.
She checked her watch, surprised to see that fifteen minutes had past since the third Tahoe had pulled out. She looked out from beneath the tarp. The fourth car was still there, its parking lights on, the engine running.
What are they waiting for?
Suddenly a pair of men’s boots came into view. They were wet and muddy. The tops of the scuffed boots were covered by frayed jean cuffs. Cell members came in all shapes, sizes, and ages, but they were usually well groomed and well dressed. The scuffed boots and frayed jeans could belong to an innocent bystander, Malak figured, someone curious about the tarp and what lay beneath. If he lifted the edge to look, there was a good chance that the Tahoe doors would fly open and Scuffed Boots would die where he stood. Malak had faced this situation many times before. Sometimes she was able to intervene without risking exposure, other times she couldn’t and had to let nature take its course. This could be one of those other times.
Collateral damage. An ugly phrase to rationalize senseless violent death.
Malak had to at least try to save Scuffed Boots. She slowly pulled her pistol from her waistband. If he lifted the tarp, she would jump up, knock him out, then fire a couple of rounds into the ground near him. With luck, Will and Abe, or whoever her escort was now, would think she had killed him. The report and muzzle flash should be enough to spur Will and Abe into action, to change the grand plan. She was tired of lying on the wet cold ground. If Scuffed Boots was lucky, they wouldn’t check to see if he was dead. He’d wake up in a few hours with a cracked skull and a bad headache, thinking some wacko had attacked him in a rest area. If they did check him and saw that the Leopard had missed from point-blank range, she would kill them, and there would be two less terrorists in the world.
Then what? That’s always the question.
She thumbed the safety off, visualizing exactly what she was going to do step-by-step, then held her breath, readying herself for the first move. But she didn’t have to make that move. Scuffed Boots dropped something on the ground, kicked it under the tarp, and walked away.
She exhaled and looked at the Tahoe. Parking lights on, engine running, Will and Abe still inside with the doors closed. A small light came on a few feet away from her. Scuffed Boots had kicked a disposable cell phone under the tarp. She answered.
“It is time,” a man said. His accent was Middle Eastern. Yemen she guessed. “You will be moving on now.”
“Along with my friend,” Malak said.
“Of course. We are just your drivers.”
“I will need help moving her.”
“She is still …” he hesitated. “Asleep?”
“She was given too much. She’ll be asleep for a long time.”
The lie was met with silence, which did not surprise her. Cell members were given very specific orders. They were to carry out the orders to the letter. Sudden changes to the plan always threw them off. Independent action was frowned upon, except by the few in the upper echelon of the organization. Malak was a member of the few. Scuffed Boots obviously was not. In all likelihood, he had not been told who he was transporting. He was simply told to pick them up, and that one of them had been drugged. The delay at the rest area may have been arranged to allow Bethany a chance to regain consciousness, or perhaps to set up assets farther down the road. The reason didn’t matter. It was time for Malak to take control of the situation.
Scuffed Boots finally broke his silence. “Is she healthy?”
“She’s fine,” Malak said impatiently. “But she is cold and wet. We have been here too long. We need to move her. Now.”
“We are to keep you covered in the event there are—”
“Ridiculous!” Malak cut him off. “Drones cannot fly in weather like this. If there was a drone on us, do you think they would leave us alone here? This rest area would be swarming with police and military. The longer we stay, the more dangerous it becomes. You approached us. How long before a passerby does the same thing? Or perhaps it will be a state policeman on patrol.”
“I will make a call.”
“You do whatever you like, but I’m getting up. Are you familiar with the name Anmar?”
“The Leopard,” Scuffed Boots said quietly. “What does he have to do—”
“The Leopard is not a he,” Malak said. “If you want to live through the night, you will help me. Make your call down the road. You are talking to the Leopard, and the Leopard is moving.”
Southbound
Boone was right. This wasn’t Croc’s first rodeo. He led me to the perfect spot to watch for the remaining Tahoe. We stood next to an old oak tree, with no protection from the wind and the rain, but it had a great view of I-95, the off-ramp, and the truck stop across the way. Boone thought there was a good chance that one of the remaining Tahoes, or maybe both, would bypass the exit and continue south. Luckily, there wasn’t much traffic this time of night and most of it was semitrucks. I stood there shivering, watching eighteen-wheelers and cars zip past, thinking that Tahoes looked similar to a lo
t of other SUVs, and there was a good chance that I would either miss the vehicle or misidentify it. I told Boone about my concern.
“You might miss the Tahoe, but Croc won’t,” he said. “The only reason you have to be out in this mess is because he can’t use a cell phone.”
In addition to being expendable, I was now a dog’s personal assistant. Great. I looked down at Croc. His head was flicking back and forth like he was watching a tennis match. When I looked up, I saw the third Tahoe coming up the ramp. Its left-turn signal was flashing. I could see there were two guys in the front seat. I ducked behind the oak, but they didn’t even glance in my direction. As they turned, I tried to see into the backseat, but again it was too dark.
“The third Tahoe is coming your way. Two guys driving. Too dark to see into the back.”
“Okay,” Boone said.
I watched it drive across the overpass. It went right past the truck stop and the coach. Then the left-turn signal came on again.
“Felix?” Boone said.
“Yeah.”
“How far are you from the rest area?”
“Five minutes. Car’s a piece of junk. Should have jacked the Caddy.”
“You’re going to have company,” Boone said. “The third Tahoe is heading back north.”
“Hope I can keep up with it.”
“Just do your bes—”
Vanessa cut in. “The cell signal is gone.”
Boone didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. No one said anything. We all knew what this meant.
“Where was it when it went out?”
“Exact same coordinates. Either the battery gave out or someone disabled it where it was.”
The battery going out wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know Malak was going to steal it, or that it was going to be our only means of tracking her. But I felt guilty anyway. If President Culpepper had been listening in, he’d be freaking out. We had just lost track of his daughter.
“How’s X-Ray doing unscrambling that video?” Boone asked.
“He’s going through it frame by frame,” Vanessa said. “By the sour expression on his face, I’d say it’s not going well.”
“We’re switching to a visual protocol,” Boone said. “We need to I.D. the people in the backseats so we can eliminate some of the vehicles. We’re spread way to thin. The Tahoes are going to have to stop for gas eventually. All of you make sure you’re in a good position when they do. If Malak and Bethany aren’t in the backseat, let the Tahoe go and head back this way.”
“We may have another problem,” Vanessa said. “I’ve been monitoring the storm and they’re reporting widespread cell tower outages to the south and east, and the satellite signals and radios are also getting funky. Emergency service workers are having a hard time communicating.”
“When it rains it pours,” Boone said. “Are you getting this, John?”
John’s crackly voice came over the line. “She’s right. The sat signal is weak and there’s no service on the cell. I’ve picked up enough of the conversation to piece together what’s going on, but not all of it.”
“Where are you?”
John told him, which meant nothing to me standing out in the wind and rain next to an oak tree. I had no idea where he was compared to where we were. In fact, I didn’t know exactly where we were.
“Start angling south,” Boone said. “I suspect Bethany’s in the fourth Tahoe and they’re going to continue down I-95. Looks like we’ll be trailing them solo. We may need backup.”
“See you down south,” John said.
No one said anything for about ten seconds, then Boone came back on the line. “Everyone else,” he said, “you all know what to do. Most of you were doing this type of work long before we had all the gizmos. If Malak and Bethany aren’t in your Tahoe, turn around.
Felix checked in. “I’m at the rest area. I see a lot of semitrucks. A few cars. No Tahoes. No one in the restrooms. Looks like people are waiting out the storm. I’m heading out to the interstate to catch the third Tahoe. Out.”
A Hummer came up the ramp. I recognized it from the big ugly grill. It was the same color yellow as the golden arches across the interstate. As it turned left toward the truck stop, I felt the itch again. Stronger this time. I looked at the driver. He was alone. My knees nearly buckled. The guy driving looked exactly like my dad, Peter “Speed” Paulsen. Which was impossible. My dad owns several cars, but doesn’t have a license. According to my mom, he never learned how to drive. If they wanted to go somewhere alone without an entourage or a driver, she had to drive. It was one of the many things that drove her nuts when they were married. They were virtually never alone together. There was always someone with them. When they got divorced, he hired a platoon of housekeepers, a twenty-four-hour chef, yard and pool people, personal assistants, and he always had a dozen houseguests taking advantage of him. One of the reasons he had to tour almost constantly was to pay for the people he needed around him. His most recent hit was a song called “Solitude.” Mom said the song was good, but it sure wasn’t composed from the heart or personal experience.
And yet here he was driving a Hummer by himself in the middle of nowhere. I told myself that it couldn’t possibly be him. But what about the itch? I watched the Hummer drive across the overpass and turn into the truck stop.
Croc started barking. Startled into reality, I turned back to the interstate, expecting to see the fourth Tahoe. Instead, the rodeo dog was barking at a truck.
“That’s an eighteen-wheeler, Super Dog. You could stick a dozen Tahoes inside the trailer. See that big red crab on the side of the trailer? It says The Maryland Fish Company, not The President’s Daughter Is Inside.”
Croc gave me a dirty look and continued barking until the truck disappeared into the night. I glanced back across the interstate and tried to spot the Hummer, but I didn’t see it. Maybe it had moved on. Or maybe the guy had parked the Hummer where I couldn’t see it and he was inside washing down a couple of cheeseburgers and a load of fries with a vanilla shake, which is something my dad would do.
My dad had terrible eating habits, which was another thing that had bugged my mother when they were married. He weighed 159 pounds when he was fifteen years old, and he still weighed 159 pounds at 40-something. It took her years to lose the weight she gained while she was married to him. He didn’t like to eat alone and he spent the entire day eating. He chewed and swallowed calories every minute of every day, except when he was sleeping or performing, and he never gained an ounce. I hadn’t spent much time with him one-on-one, but the few times I had, the food was good and plentiful.
I was beginning to think that I hadn’t felt the itch after all. That maybe I was just hungry. Mom said that I had inherited my dad’s metabolism and hyper-personality. That I was like a shrew, constantly eating so I’d have the energy to constantly move. There was some truth to that, I guess. And it was highly unlikely that the guy driving the Hummer was my dad. There were a lot of guys who looked like him. In fact, he was so famous that there were Speed Paulsen impersonators in Las Vegas. Dad got a kick out of showing up and watching their shows.
Croc started growling. I turned my attention back to car spotting. The interstate, pelted by rain, looked like an empty parking lot.
“There’s nothing there,” I said. “Or are you still ticked off about the crab truck mistake?”
Croc fixed his weird blue eye on me and barked. Two seconds later, a Tahoe zipped by with water spraying up behind it.
I hit Boone’s speed dial.
“The fourth Tahoe! It’s heading south!”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” Boone said calmly.
Croc stepped out from our hiding place next to the oak and sat down on the road’s shoulder, as if he had heard and understood the brief exchange. I joined him, thinking the night was filled with impossibilities.
The coach pulled out of the truck stop and drove across the ramp, as if Boone were a retiree heading to Florida for the win
ter. I was ready to jump in as he drove past, but he eased over to the shoulder and came to a complete stop. I whipped the door open and jumped through. Croc joined me, but at a more leisurely pace, and hopped into the passenger seat next to Boone.
“They have a three-minute head start!” I said.
Boone turned around. “Four minutes,” he said. “They are probably going seventy miles an hour. At eighty-five miles an hour, we’ll catch up to them in ten to fifteen minutes.” He put the coach into gear, and pulled onto the interstate.
I turned and looked at Angela. She was eating a cheeseburger.
“I thought you might be hungry,” she said, but it sounded like … eh faw yeh my be hung flea … because her mouth was full.
A half a second later, my mowf us fill too.
After two cheeseburgers, a large order of fries, and a vanilla milk shake, I was somewhat full, but the itch was still there. Boone was up front, talking to the president, while he followed the Tahoe south. Angela was sitting across from me, staring at the laptop. She had only drunk half of her milk shake. I wanted to ask her if I could have the rest of it, thinking it might scratch the itch, but instead I said, “I think I saw my dad.”
She looked at me. “What?”
“My dad. Peter ‘Speed’ Paulsen. Driving a yellow Hummer.”
She gave me a doubtful look, but she didn’t laugh, which I appreciated. “Where?”
“He took the exit to the truck stop.”
“Probably someone who looks like him.”
“Have you ever seen him?”
She typed something into the laptop, then turned it around. The screen was filled with thumbnail photos of Speed Paulsen. Not exactly the kind of family shots most people have hanging on their walls. Speed on stage. Speed punching a photographer. Speed skinny-dipping on a public beach. Speed leaving a rehab clinic. Speed looking out the back window of a police car.
“Everyone knows what your father looks like,” Angela said.
Dear old Dad, I thought staring at the photos.
Angela swung the laptop back around so she could see the screen. She started typing again. “It’s not like your dad has a private life,” she said. “Any more than my dad or your mom has a private life.” She stopped typing. “Here we go.”