Acts of Mercy

Sixteen

At first Justice did not think much about Maxwell Harper’s-and the President’s-request that he locate the attorney general. It was routine enough: Wexford wasn’t immediately available and either Harper or Augustine wanted to talk to him, so someone had to be dispatched to fetch him. And where routine was concerned, you didn’t stop to draw conclusions. You just went ahead and did what you were told.

He went first to Wexford’s compartment, but the room steward was there making up the berth and told him that he hadn’t seen the attorney general since last night. From there he went down to the dining car and spoke with two of the waiters; both of them said Wexford had neither come in for breakfast nor sent for it. Frowning a little then, Justice entered the club car. It was empty, shades drawn against the thin sunlight. He walked through it to the observation car, where Ed Dougherty was sitting alone with the current issue of the Congressional Record When Justice asked him about Wexford, Dougherty shook his head and said that the last he’d seen of him had been after midnight, out on the observation platform, just before he himself had retired. He’d been alone then, having a smoke and taking some air because he couldn’t sleep.

Justice stepped out onto the platform and stood for a moment with his hands on the iron railing. Apprehension had begun to grow in him-a fearful suspicion that he did not want to believe. He took several deep breaths of mountain air that was bracingly cold, damp with mist that drifted across the right-of-way and curled sinuously along the surrounding slopes. In the distance the snow-draped shoulders of the Sierra Nevada peaks were visible beneath clouds of sunlit fog; Justice stared at them without really seeing them.

What could have happened to Wexford? he thought.

He returned to the aides’ Pullman and spoke with another steward, with Frank Tanaguchi, with Elizabeth Miller. Negative. He went into the security’s Pullman and asked two agents if they had seen the attorney general. Negative. He went forward and looked through the train staffs car, the baggage car. Negative. He came back and checked the communal lavatories in the staff car and in each of the Pullmans. Negative.

That left him only one option-to begin knocking on compartment doors. He did that, and each time there was a response he was careful to keep his questions casual so as not to arouse curiosity. At those compartments where no one answered his knock, he opened the door just long enough to make a visual check of the interior. He even glanced into the President’s private drawing room, and through the open door of the First Lady’s drawing room as a steward delivered a tray of coffee and toast.

Negative.

His stomach was knotted with tension by the time he finished. He stood uncertainly in the swaying corridor of the aides’ Pullman, trying to decide what to do next. Inform the President? No; he had to be absolutely sure the attorney general was nowhere on board before he said anything, raised even that much of an alarm. Go over the train again, each of the cars in turn. But no more Inquiries-and no alerting the other agents, at least not yet, not until the President was consulted.

He hurried down to the observation car, started there and worked his way forward to the baggage room. His search was careful, thorough. And it yielded nothing.

There could no longer be any doubt: Wexford had vanished from the Presidential Special.

What had happened to him?

Then his mind closed, as if defensively sealing itself off from the question. Through the baggage car window he became aware of a familiar landmark: a large lumber mill, plumes of wood-smoke fanning upward from its chimney stacks, and a series of smaller rustic buildings surrounding It-the village of Greenspur, situated less than ten miles from The Hollows. Justice glanced at his watch, confirmed that it was a quarter of nine. They would reach The Hollows station in less than fifteen minutes.

He left the baggage car and began to hurry through the corridors to U.S. Car Number One.