A Heartbeat Away

CHAPTER 63

Angie’s headache was not nearly as bad as the doctors had predicted it might be. There was a mild throbbing above her eyes where the fracture was, but nothing more—at least not yet.

As instructed in the fax from Griff, she had taken the subway from the station across the street from the hospital, but switched trains four times, twice to backtrack to previous stops. At each station, Angie subtly surveyed the crowd for anybody whom she had seen before. Her throat was dry and tight, and her heart beat like a drumline, but still she maintained what she thought was a calm, measured exterior. In a previous incarnation as an investigative reporter, she had learned a good many tricks of the trade of how to follow or avoid being followed. Some of those she employed now.

Convinced that she was alone, she finally took a cab from Columbus Circle to Penn Station, and boarded the Acela, the express train to Washington. The first-class car was nearly full, but she had managed to get a single separated by a table from another single.

The instructions in the fax had been explicit in every respect, but reading it left Angie concerned. After their long, loving early morning on the phone together, she had expected to get a follow-up call from Griff telling her that things were still going well with the treatment he and his computer program had created. Instead, a few hours after their conversation had ended, she had a surprise visitor—Wu Mei, the stunning young charge nurse from the Riverside Nursing Home.

Mei was overjoyed to find Angie ready for discharge, and shyly handed her a small box of Chinese candy and a manila envelope containing the fax. Griff had been meticulous in his preparation, and had clearly chosen this route of delivery as the one he could trust more than any others. The cover page with the fax explained that this was an emergency, and that Wu Mei was to be called immediately to bring it to Angie Fletcher at Lower Manhattan Hospital.

To Angie, he wrote that communication from now on would be face-to-face only. No phones. No texting. No e-mail. Her job was to deliver the fax to General Frank Egan at the Capitol, who would then bring it in to President Allaire, and return with orders for her. Until she reached Egan, she would essentially be on her own.

The fax was specific enough, especially given that Griff knew that one or two people at the nursing home might read it. Still, there was a coldness to his writing—a detachment that made Angie uncomfortable. Something was wrong, either with him or around him. She could feel it in her heart. He hadn’t called her back, and after saying any number of times over the phone that he loved her, there was not one word of concern, caring, or encouragement. The end of the fax asked Allaire to call him after reading it.

Something was wrong with him.

The Acela was smooth and fast, and several times during the trip to D.C., Angie actually dozed off. The fax was on her lap in a briefcase she had bought in a leather store near the hospital. At Griff’s instruction, she had purchased a courier’s security chain and had it attached from the handle of the case to her wrist.

General Egan was waiting for her at the Capitol. Minutes later, she was assigned two FBI agents to babysit her until he was done meeting with President Allaire. One of them was a hot, gum-snapping African-American chick in a miniskirt and thigh-high boots, and the other was a stocky brunette wearing jeans, horn-rimmed glasses, and a backpack, and looking to be no more than twenty.

The two agents settled in with her at a nearby coffeeshop.

An hour passed, then two more. The undercover FBI agents were clearly accustomed to waiting. They chatted, read, and even napped. At one point, over the phone, they reserved a room for Angie at a nearby hotel. A while later, they took her out to buy a small suitcase, some clothes, and some toiletries. Finally, General Egan summoned them back to the Capitol. Then, the head of the Northern Command dismissed her bodyguards and brought Angie into his small but well-equipped field office.

“First of all, tell me,” she said. “Is Griff all right? There’s something about the way he wrote that fax that makes me think there’s trouble.”

“No one said anything to me about there being a problem.”

You’re a lousy liar, Angie quickly concluded. Why aren’t you telling me the truth?

Griff was sick, she concluded. The antiviral serum had failed, and he was ill … or worse.

Damn him for not telling me. Damn him! Damn them!

“You’ve read the fax, Ms. Fletcher, Egan said, so you know what the president is planning to do at our safe house.”

“I think the idea is brilliant. I want to be there when it goes down.”

“We discussed that possibility, and I’m afraid the president has rejected it.”

“Then you let me go inside there and speak to him myself.”

“I understand you’ve been in the hospital with quite a nasty head injury.”

“I’m going to be there,” she said, pointedly ignoring the inference.

“We can put you in the surveillance van. It will just be a couple of blocks away.”

“Genesis murdered two dear friends of mine and now the man I care more for than anyone in the world may be sick. I’m going to be there in that safe house when Griff’s plan starts unfolding. And when this whole thing is over, I’m going to tell the stories of Melvin Forbush and Gottfried Sliplitz, and most of all of Griffin Rhodes. You tell President Allaire I deserve that.”

Egan looked somewhat bewildered. Then he excused himself and left the office.

Griff was ill, she thought as she sat there grim and angry. The serum hadn’t worked the way he anticipated, and now he was sick. But he was determined not to go down without taking Paul Rappaport with him. They had to let her be there.

Angie was working through her response to being turned down by Allaire when Egan reentered his office.

“Okay, Ms. Fletcher,” he said, taking his place at his small desk. “You’re in. It’s your story. Now, here’s what you’ve got to do.…”