Michelle rushed outside and was back in a couple of minutes with her Nikon. She took shots of all the walls, zooming in on all the writing and photos. Meanwhile, Sean searched through the cabinets and took out armfuls of files that he intended to take with him. Then he saw the letter that Quarry had left on the table along with his last will. He picked them up and read through them before putting the papers away in his pocket.
He and Michelle were breaking just about every crime scene preservation rule there was. But this wasn't your average crime scene and he had decided to adopt some new rules. He wasn't sure how this was all going to play out, but he felt fairly certain how he wanted it to conclude.
"All done," said Michelle as she finished snapping the last shots.
Sean handed her some of the files to carry out. "Michelle, why would he bring Tippi home from the nursing home and then take her somewhere else?"
"I don't know. It doesn't make sense."
Sean went farther into the room while Michelle was talking. He turned a corner, peered around an old partition, and cried out, "What the hell is that?"
She joined him as he rushed over to some metal cylinders stacked in the back of the room. He set down the files he was carrying and turned several cylinders over. Some contained oxygen, some didn't.
"What is it?" Michelle asked.
Instead of answering, Sean ran back to the door and threw it open. He brought Gabriel and Ruth Ann in and over to the cylinders.
They both looked blankly at them and shook their heads when he asked if he knew why Quarry had these. Then Sean eyed the other equipment lying around on a workbench next to the cylinders. The remains of a gutted video camera, some old remotes, cable wire, and rolls of metal sheathing.
"What is all that for?" he asked.
Gabriel shook his head. "Don't know, but I do know that Mr. Sam can build anything he wants. Fix anything mechanical. Electronics. Real good carpenter."
"He just got a head for that," agreed Ruth Ann. "Ain't nuthin' the man can't fix or build."
"Any idea where he might have gone? You said a truck was missing?"
"Yeah, but he's got a plane too," said Gabriel.
"What kind of plane?" Michelle said quickly.
"Little single-engine Cessna."
"Why would he need a plane?"
"He a pilot in Vietnam," answered Ruth Ann. "And he go up to the old mine sometimes. Fly to get there."
"What old mine?"
Gabriel explained about the coal mine. He finished by saying, "It was an old Confederate prison one time, Mr. Sam told me."
"A prison," Sean said, looking at Michelle anxiously. "You think he might have gone up there?"
"If the plane is gone, that's where he went. Only place he goes in it."
"You think he took Tippi up there?"
"Don't think so. All the equipment and what-not she needs, don't think it would fit on the plane. It's pretty small."
"So where do you think she is?"
Gabriel thought about this. "Mr. Sam built a little one-room house a ways from here on land his family owned. Nothing there, really. No electricity or anything so I don't think Miss Tippi would be there. 'Cause she would need the electricity for the machines."
"Why'd he build a place like that, then?" asked Michelle.
Gabriel shrugged. "Don't know. He built it himself. Took him a long time."
Sean looked nervously at Michelle before turning to Gabriel. "Do you think you can show us how to get to the mine?"
"I know it if I go with you."
"Gabriel!" exclaimed his mother.
"I don't know the directions to tell 'em, Momma. But if I go I know the way."
She looked anxiously at Sean. "He's been real good to us, Mr. Sam has. If he done anything bad it be for a good reason, you can count on that."
"He left us his house and property," volunteered Gabriel.
"And he give Fred a thousand dollars cash. Fred told me," added Ruth Ann.
"You think he believed he wouldn't be around much longer?" said Sean.
"Who knows how long they be around?" countered Ruth Ann. "Drop dead tomorrow, any of us. Lord's will."
"Who else is up there at the mine, you think?" asked Sean.
Gabriel answered, "Maybe Daryl, his son. Maybe Carlos."
"How about a guy named Kurt Stevens?"
"Mr. Sam said Kurt left town, headed on," said Gabriel.
"They keep any guns up at the mine?" asked Michelle.
"Mr. Sam likes his guns. Daryl too. Shoot the wings off a bee, both of 'em."
"Wonderful," said Sean. "Gabriel, can you drive with us to where he keeps his plane? And if it's not there will you go with us to the mine?"
Gabriel looked at his mother as she put a protective hand on his shoulder. "Momma, I think I have to do this."
"Why, boy? Why? This ain't your concern."
"Mr. Sam isn't a bad man. You said that yourself. I've known him most all my life. If I can go up there and help him make things okay, then that's what I want to do. That's what I want to do."
A tear trickled down Ruth Ann's face.
"We'll take good care of him, Ruth Ann," said Sean. "We'll bring him back to you. I promise."
Ruth Ann turned her red eyes on Sean. "You better damn sure bring him back to me, mister. 'Cause that boy's all I got."
CHAPTER 78
THE TWO CHOPPERS lifted off the ground and flew southeast. In one were the president and his wife with a company of Secret Service agents and as much equipment as they could cobble together at the last minute. The second bird carried still more agents, the two best bomb-sniffing dogs the Feds had, more equipment, and Chuck Waters, who'd been tipped off to what was happening by Larry Foster and, unknown to the First Couple, had come along for the ride. Next to him was Aaron Betack, who had joined the party too, also unknown to the First Lady. The skies were growing lighter by the minute, the low-level winds were calm, and the rising sun was rapidly burning off the morning chill.
Betack's phone rang.
"Yeah?"
"Aaron, it's Sean King. We need to talk."
"I'm sort of busy."
"I'm in Alabama."
"What? We are too."
"We as in who?"
Betack looked at Waters and then said into the phone, "Like I told you before, Wolfman and Lynx are on the move," he said, referring to Dan and Jane Cox's Secret Service code names. "What are you doing in Alabama?"
"If I had to guess, I'd say pretty much on the same trail you are. Where exactly are you headed?"
"We don't know, Sean. I told you that before."
"I know, but I thought that status would've changed by now. You're with the president and you don't know where you're going?"
"Everything's screwed up. We're flying blind here, stomping on every rule and protocol in the Secret Service manual. Larry Foster is the detail chief and he's about to have a coronary. But after that confrontation in the Oval Office the next thing we know we're in Alabama taking a chopper to a set of map coordinates."
"Aaron, that's nuts. You could be walking right into a trap."
"Tell me something I don't know. You think the Service is happy about this? But he's the president, man."
"You're telling me the director of the Secret Service is letting this happen? Or the president's senior advisors? How about the vice president?"
"You know it's all a balancing act. He's the commander in chief and we're his serfs. But we've worked our butts off behind the scenes, called in support from the FBI and the military, and we think we have a decent protection bubble set up even given the crummy circumstances."
Waters looked over and motioned for Betack to give him the phone.
"King? This is Chuck Waters."
"Hey, Chuck, I left you a message."
"What the hell are you doing?"
"If I told you, Chuck, you wouldn't believe me. Aaron filled me in on what's going on there. You guys could be heading into an ambush."
"Yeah, but what the president doesn't know is that we've got two choppers full of HRT riding ahead of us. By the time we land, and before the president steps one foot off his bird, they'll have scoped the area and set up a perimeter that not even an ant could get through. Then if we still don't like what we see, we're out of here, president or not."