In time, she supposed. All things happen in time.
When the phone call came two days ago for this morning’s meeting at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, she watched her husband panic. After five weeks of interviews and debriefings by Paul Boersky, something about this one call to report in person had left him a wreck. Last night he even talked about not coming in-about going on the run again.
“What for, Jake?” Carolyn had asked. “What are you so worried about?”
He let it drop without answering; stopped talking altogether. Today he’d said barely a word all morning, and as the rest of the family was getting dressed in the hotel, she watched him out the window as he paced the parking lot, staring at the trees and sucking in the November air like it was his last time.
And here he stood at the window, lost in his thoughts again, floating in his mind somewhere out there over the rooftops.
When the door to their conference room opened, Jake jumped a foot. The cockiness he once possessed was all gone, replaced with a kind of timidness that left Carolyn feeling frightened. As her husband smoothed out his suit coat, she strolled around the end of the table to join him.
Paul Boersky led the procession into the room, followed close behind by Senator Albricht; by a woman who looked vaguely familiar but whose face Jake couldn’t quite place; and, finally, by Irene Rivers.
The sight of his old nemesis brought a broad smile to Jake’s face, even as Carolyn withdrew. “Hello, Agent Rivers,” he said. In deference to Irene’s heavily bandaged right arm, he extended his left hand as a greeting. “How are you feeling?”
She accepted his grasp with a warm smile. “They tell me it helps when the bullet doesn’t penetrate the brain,” she deadpanned. “As for the shoulder, we’ll have to see.”
The group burned up a minute or so with introductions and pleasantries. Neither Carolyn nor Travis had ever met the senator, who in turn introduced the final guest.
“Donovan family, I’d like you to meet Ms. Emma Sanders, attorney general of the United States.”
With short, gray hair and a tiny frame, Ms. Sanders stood about five-three and could have been anybody’s grandmother, or maybe even the local librarian, but her piercing, humorless emerald-green eyes left no doubt that she was one tough lady. She shook hands politely, then ushered everyone into their seats.
“Do you have any idea why you’re here this afternoon?” Ms. Sanders asked.
Jake and Carolyn exchanged glances, then Jake spoke for the family. “No, ma’am, we don’t.”
“That’s good,” Sanders said. “That’s very good, in fact. With the level of media coverage you’re receiving these days, I didn’t want anything leaking out before we had a deal.”
Jake shot a look to Paul-his primary point of contact these past weeks-who raised a finger, urging him to be patient.
“Excuse me,” Senator Albricht interrupted. “Perhaps it would be best if the boy waited out in the hall.”
Travis’s eyes grew huge as he shot a glance to his mom and dad. “I’m not going anywhere!”
Jake looked to Boersky, who answered his silent question with a nod. “It’ll just be for a few minutes,” he said.
Jake turned to face his son. “Go ahead, Trav.”
“No!”
Jake stood and gently pulled the boy’s chair away from the table. “Please,” he said. “They wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”
Travis looked to everyone in the room for support but couldn’t find any. Clearly, he didn’t know what to do next.
“Please,” Jake urged again.
“It’ll only be a few minutes,” Carolyn added.
Haltingly, the boy rose from his chair and allowed himself to be escorted to the big wooden door with smoked glass in the top. Jake opened it and pointed to the wooden bench against the wall. “Just wait for us there.”
Travis looked terrified; he knew that something was horribly wrong. “Dad?”
Jake winked at his son and struggled to keep his lip from trembling. “It’ll be okay, Trav,” he promised. “We’ll be out in just a few minutes.”
Travis started to say something but then looked as if the words had just dried up. Jake watched the boy drag himself to the bench, then turned back around to face the music for all that he’d done.
“You have some powerful friends in this town, Mr. Donovan,” Sanders began as Jake returned to his seat. “These people seem to think that you’ve gotten a raw deal these past few years.”
“You have a gift for understatement, Emma,” the senator piped in with a smile.
Ms. Sanders ignored him. “In any case,” she went on, “these things can become messy. I know, for example, through conversations with Mr. Boersky and through news reports that you have been approached by a number of parties to vent your spleen, as it were, in very public ways.”
Albricht interrupted again. “She’s trying to tell you, Jake, that the president’s scared to death that you’re going to piss in his Wheaties. Get to the point, Emma.”
Sanders’s glare could have melted an iceberg, but Albricht clearly couldn’t have cared less. Across the table, Irene and Paul fought losing battles to hide their discomfort. A sitting attorney general could do amazing damage to a Justice Department career.
Sanders cut to the chase. “I come here today with a one-time-only offer for you.” She reached into the oversize purse on her shoulder and withdrew a folded document. “This is a Presidential Pardon, Mr. Donovan, and it’s yours, on three conditions. One, that you refrain from any overt effort to seek publicity from this episode in your lives for a period of five years…”
“You’ve got to be kidding!” Carolyn said, but the expression she got in return said otherwise. “Why on earth-”
“Only until after the next election season,” Albricht explained.
“Hear her out, Carolyn,” Irene said. “This is important.”
Ms. Sanders shot a look to Irene that was totally uninterpretable, then continued. “Second, you must agree never to pursue a civil claim against the United States government for any alleged damages incurred …”
Carolyn launched from her seat. “Alleged damages! My God, lady-”
Jake caught the panicked look from Paul and moved quickly to intervene. “Carolyn, please. Let’s at least hear the offer before we reject it.”
Sanders acknowledged Jake’s assistance with a nod. “Lastly, you are never to divulge the elements of this agreement to anyone.”
“Now?” Carolyn asked, still hovering above her seat. “Is it time to reject the offer now? It’s absurd! We’ve already been exonerated, for God’s sake! Why in the world would I agree to conditions for a pardon I already have?”
Irene answered for the attorney general. “Charges have been dropped only for the original terrorist business in Arkansas.”
“But not for our flight? That doesn’t make sense.”
Irene shook her head, then closed her eyes against the pain it caused. “No, of course not. Because you committed no crime, you can hardly be charged with evading prosecution. The pardon proposed by Ms. Sanders is for any other crimes that may have been committed while you were on the run.”
Carolyn still didn’t get it. “You want me to give up my right to sue you into outer space, just so we don’t get brought up on some bullshit forgery charge?”
It was Clayton’s turn now. “That’s one example,” he said. “But you know, there’s any number of other laws you might have broken inadvertently along the way.” His eyes narrowed as they focused in on Jake, but his tone remained friendly. “And you never know when some ambitious young prosecutor might stumble on a new piece of evidence and drag you back into the spotlight. With this pardon in your hand, that can’t happen. Ever. In fact, even if you’d killed someone, you couldn’t be prosecuted for it.”