Price Of Honor

Chapter Seventeen

Cam lay awake with Blair’s head on her shoulder, faintly aware of the rhythm of the train moving nearly soundlessly through the night, reviewing everything she knew about Jennifer Pattee’s failed attempt to infect the president with a lethal virus and the subsequent trail that led to Idaho and ended in a bloody battle where she’d killed a man whose true identity she still didn’t know. Who was Jane Doe, the fierce woman who had kidnapped her and Skylar Dunbar and tried to ransom them to free Jennifer? That one move—the attempted prisoner exchange—was the fissure in the stone façade of the case, the tiny crack she had to break open. Jane Doe’s actions, presumably sanctioned by Augustus Graves, were strategic suicide. Paramilitary groups were founded on fanatical loyalty to a cause greater than any individual. Sacrifice was expected and lauded. Jane Doe’s plan risked the entire organization for a single person. Why? Why would they do that?

The reason had to be a personal one. Jennifer Pattee was personally important to Jane Doe. Possibly even to Graves. That was the only thing that really made sense. Because otherwise, soldiers were expendable and everyone accepted that.

Cam worked the other side of the equation, playing devil’s advocate. Maybe she was wrong and Jennifer Pattee had acted alone when she’d attempted to secrete a vial of contagion into the White House. Cam’s instincts disagreed, and she couldn’t take the chance of overlooking another inside person close to the president. Jennifer was deeply embedded, and that degree of penetration into the highest echelons of the government had taken years. This was a long-range plan, one Cam believed reached far back into Jennifer’s life, and probably that of Jane Doe as well. How many other sleepers were there? How close had they gotten?

She was riding on a train filled with hundreds of people, all of whom had been thoroughly screened and were assumed to be trustworthy. Just as Jennifer had been carefully screened. And yet Jennifer had been part of the medical team that cared for the president of the United States. She could just as easily have shot him when he walked into an examining room, and she might not be alone. Jennifer, Jane, and Graves held the answers if she could just ask the right questions.

Blair stirred, stroking Cam’s abdomen. “Working?”

Cam kissed her temple. “Thinking. Am I keeping you awake?”

“You’re thinking pretty loudly.”

“Would you mind if I stepped out to make a phone call?”

“As long as you’re not gone too long. It gets chilly when you’re not next to me, remember?”

Cam had a vision of getting naked while Blair watched. A pulse of desire stirred in her depths. “I promise to return and keep you warm.”

“Go ahead. I’ll be here.”

Cam made no move to get up. She wrapped Blair closer in both arms. “You know that makes all the difference in my life.”

Blair kissed her. “Mine too. I count on you being here, understanding me, loving me. More than I ever imagined I could. It’s downright scary.”

“I know the feeling. Mostly, though, I just feel lucky.”

Blair raised herself on an elbow. “Keep it up and I’m not going to let you go anywhere.”

Cam grinned. “You know, you’re pretty easy. A little sweet talk and—”

Blair slapped her stomach. “And you are altogether too arrogant. Actually, I noticed that about you the very first day.”

“Me? As I recall, you’re the one who tried to lure me with your charms into… Come to think of it, you did lure me with your charms.”

Laughing, Blair kissed her again. “Go, so you can come back and I can lure you some more.”

Cam slid from bed, pulled on jeans and a navy blue sweatshirt with a Homeland logo on the chest, stepped into a pair of boots, and ambled out into the lounge area. Stark sat at a small dining table in the center of the right side of the car, flipping cards onto a series of rows in front of her. She’d folded her black blazer neatly over a nearby chair. Her powder-gray shirt looked fresh, the starch still evident in the sharply creased sleeves. When she saw Cam, she started to rise.

Cam waved her down. “Solitaire?”

“Evening, Commander. Yes.”

Cam craned her neck, studied the layout. “Red two on the black three in the second to last row.”

Frowning, Stark checked the cards, nodded, and moved one. “Thanks.” Setting the cards aside in a neat, squared-off pile, she went to the small kitchenette tucked into one corner and poured coffee from a pot that sat atop a hotplate next to a pile of bagels and a few tubs of cream cheese. “Get you anything?”

“Coffee would be good.”

Stark handed her a cup. “I’ve got some preliminaries on the guy from this morning. I thought you might be asleep and figured it could wait.”

Cam settled on a bench opposite the table. “Fill me in.”

“Not much to say.” Stark broke off a piece of bagel, added some cream cheese, and took a bite. “His press credentials were legit until three months ago, when he was fired from a local syndicated newspaper. Apparently he’d been acting a little oddly and had fallen behind on deadlines, turned in scattered copy, and generally underperformed.”

“History of violence?”

“Not that we could find, other than some run-ins from his college days that were chalked up to fraternity shenanigans.” Stark put the word shenanigans in air quotes and shook her head. “The kind of thing that gets pushed under the rug, but I bet if we dig we’ll find out there was some racial or other bias behind it all.”

“Easy to overlook until there’s a reason to dig.” Cam sipped the very good coffee. Traveling with the president always guaranteed excellent food and drink. “How did he get through into the hall?”

Stark winced. “His press pass had never been deactivated. We didn’t check back far enough.”

Cam nodded. Stark was shouldering part of the blame, although it hadn’t been her job to screen individuals with potential access to the principals. Her protectee had been targeted, and that made the fault at least partly hers. Cam would have felt the same way. All the same, these were the kinds of things you prepared for, but could never completely eliminate. Anywhere along the line something might have popped up to raise suspicion about this guy, but it all could just as easily happen as it did—a string of coincidences that allowed a deranged individual to get too close. At least the metal detectors had prevented him from entering with a gun. She didn’t bother saying that. They both knew weapons could be fashioned from substances that would not trip a metal detector, including ceramic guns and knives. He could have had a knife in his hand when he lunged at Blair. He could have shot her from point-blank range.

“He never would’ve touched her,” Stark said as if reading her mind.

Cam met her eyes across the width of the car. “He already did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“I’m still sorry.”

Cam shook her head. “Not your call. You did what needed to be done. How is Brock?”

“He says he’s good to go.” Stark grinned a little bit. “But I made him go see the medic.”

“Ah. Good call.”

Stark studied her coffee. Sighed. “Do you dislike this trip as much as I do?”

“Probably more. At least you’re not on camera.”

Stark laughed. “That’s a point.” She tossed her paper plate and bagel remains into a nearby waste can. “To make things even more pleasant, communications tells me we’re headed right into a big storm. Ought to hit by morning. Our schedule is likely to go to hell.”

“Par for the course,” Cam said. “Keep me updated, though, will you?”

“You’ll be at the briefing in the morning?”

Cam nodded. “I was about to call Renée.” She glanced at her watch. “I didn’t think about the time difference.”

“I just talked to her. She’s working,” Stark said. “Everybody’s going twenty-four seven on this one. You want me to give you some space?”

“Not necessary. You’ve been read in on all of this.” Cam pulled up Renée Savard’s number and tapped it in. Two rings and Renée answered.

“Savard, FBI.”

“Renée, it’s Cam Roberts.”

“Director,” Renée said briskly. “What can I do for you?”

“Help me follow a hunch.”

Renée laughed, a bright, brittle sound laced with frustration. “A hunch would be more than what I’ve got right now. Jennifer Pattee appears to have sprung full-grown from a mushroom patch. We can’t find any trace of her before college. The deep background info was completely fabricated, but really well done. Standard checks turned up nothing. That took some money and a hell of a lot of advance planning.”

“That’s why I’m calling. I want you to look into military records. Augustus Graves has to be ex-military, and he’s in the Armed Forces database somewhere. We’ve got a face, we’ve got a general locale. My guess is Idaho is his home territory. Men like him always go back to their roots, where they have connections within the local population and know the terrain. He might have purchased the land for his camp decades ago under another name. Track the land purchases back as far as they go, search facial ID in all the military and civilian databases, and filter for men of his age in special-ops units. Vietnam and the Gulf Wars.”

“You think he’s the key?”

“I think he’s one of them. Someone else was providing the money, but he was providing the soldiers.”

“We’ve already started some of those checks, but you know what the military’s like. Even for us, getting redacted records is tough and slow-going.”

“Then use my name and squeeze.”

She laughed again, this time sounding truly happy. “I’m on it.”

“And, Renée, when you find something, call me anytime. Just me.”

“Understood. How’s everybody handling the train ride?”

Cam glanced across the car. Stark had gone back to flipping cards onto her solitaire game. “We’re loving it.”

*

Jane pulled into a Motel 6 outside Colorado Springs a little before two a.m. The snow had thickened into a solid wall of white as she’d been driving, and a subzero wind sent swirls of flakes blowing against the windows like mini-tornadoes. She cut the engine and looked at Hooker. “I’ll get rooms.”

“We could share.”

“If for some reason there’s only one, you can sleep in the Jeep.”

He laughed good-naturedly. “It’d be smarter for the two of us to be in the same place. Maybe nobody’s looking for you, but maybe they are. Maybe they got a photo by now. Maybe your ID’s out on the airwaves. We can sleep in shifts. And if we have to clear out quickly, it’ll be better if we were together.”

She thought it over. He was right. The Homeland Security and FBI agents had seen her face. If one or both were still alive, they could be circulating sketches to local law enforcement. Some of the weaker militia who’d been captured might even have given her up in exchange for a lighter sentence. They wouldn’t know her true identity, but they might have photos. And they’d know whose daughter she was. She hated being forced into accepting Hooker as a partner, but he’d done nothing threatening. Her father had worked with him, which meant he trusted him to some degree, at least as far as anyone could trust a mercenary who owed no allegiance to anyone or anything. She didn’t for a second think he would risk himself for her, but they both wanted to stay alive and out of custody. “All right.”

She climbed out of the truck, pulled her collar up against the icy blast, and tramped through foot-deep snow to the only light she could see in any of the rows of rooms. The lighted sign announcing Office over the door flickered valiantly against the snowy dark. Inside, a skinny clerk in his twenties wearing a T-shirt with a band logo she didn’t recognize regarded her with flat, bored eyes. “Help you?”

“I need a room.”

“Eighty-nine dollars.”

She counted out the cash and pushed it over to him.

“Sign here.” He handed her a clipboard with a form to fill out. She made up a name for herself and fabricated the model and license number for her vehicle. She left Hooker out completely. The clerk would never check in this weather. She passed the form back to him, and he gave her a plastic key. “Ice machine’s outside.” He laughed sharply. “Course, it’s probably frozen and won’t work.”

“Is there a convenience store somewhere nearby?”

“Gas and snacks a quarter mile out the driveway to the right.” He looked at the plain-faced, dirt-streaked clock on the wall. “They won’t open until six, though.”

“Thanks.”

She’d just reached the door when he called, “There’s a vending machine down the other end of the building. You get to it from the hall outside your room.”

She nodded and went out without answering. Hunched against the snow, she rapped on the front of the Jeep to signal Hooker to follow and let them into a twelve-by-twelve room that smelled of cleaning disinfectant, old smoke, and stale food. Two twin beds with worn gold covers stood on a stained gray carpet along with a dresser and a fifties-style yellow vinyl chair with cigarette burns on the arms. A closet standing open with a few hangers dangling at odd angles and a bathroom tucked into one corner with a shower stall, a minuscule sink, and a toilet completed the picture. Only one door in and out. One window with drapes and blinds, closed. Warm and dry. It would do.

She took off her jacket and put it on the chair by the door. She transferred her gun from the pocket to the waistband of her pants. She turned, saw Hooker watching her. “When do we meet your contact?”

“I’ll call in the morning, set something up. What’s your timetable?”

She smiled. From here she had another three-hundred-mile drive. But first, she needed to go to the FedEx office and pick up a package due in the morning delivery. Hooker didn’t need to know any of that. “I want to be on the road tomorrow night.”

“I can’t guarantee that.”

“I’ve got thirty thousand reasons that say you should.”

“I might be more inclined to be helpful with a little more incentive.”

She shook her head. “I promised you the rest on delivery. And you’ll get it. I keep my word.”

“I’m going with you when you leave here.”

“I don’t think so.”

Hooker shed his jacket and tossed it on the end of the bed nearest the door, somehow knowing she’d want the one against the wall with the best sightline to the door if anyone were to come through. He sat on the side and started unlacing his boots. “Let’s face it, whatever you’re planning, you’ll need a little help. Like you said, I’m for hire.”

“Don’t you mean you’re for sale?”

Hooker grinned. “Is there a difference?”

“That’s why you’re not coming with me.” Jane stretched out on the bed with all her clothes on. She didn’t expect to sleep. They’d never turned the lights on and the dense snow outside blocked the weak glow from the parking lot and office lights. In the dark she could hear Hooker’s faint, raspy laughter.