Boxers pulled to a stop just inside the gate. “Where to?” he asked. It was a bluff, of course. Horne conducted all of his business in the same place.
“To the barn,” Shrom said. “They said it would be easy to find.”
Easier for some than others, Jonathan didn’t say.
Easily fifty feet wide and seventy-five feet long, Jonathan suspected the barn was visible from a low orbit. The last time Jonathan conducted business here, Horne had left the huge double doors open for them. This time, they not only were closed, but they were guarded by clones of Agent Kane.
“Well, shit,” Boxers said, noting the guards. “Now I’m all scared and stuff.”
“Stop the vehicle,” Jonathan ordered when they were still fifty yards from the barn. “Time for all government employees to walk.”
“What’s going on?” Kane asked, indignant. Jonathan was beginning to think that indignant was the only trick Kane knew.
Jonathan explained. “You’re getting out and walking ahead. You’re going to tell the gentlemen with the squiggles in their ears to open the big doors and step aside. Tell them to keep their hands neutral, and assure them that if I see anything that looks remotely threatening, I won’t hesitate to kill them.”
Kane objected, “Who do—”
“Don’t,” Jonathan interrupted. “I’ve got eggs in my refrigerator older than you. You want me, you play by my rules. None of this is negotiable.” He paused a few seconds, waiting for them to read the subtext. “Including the part where you get out of my truck.”
Shrom poked his protégé in the arm. “That’s our cue to leave.” He tried to open the door, but it was locked.
Jonathan saw Boxers’ eyes looking for confirmation, and then the Big Guy released the locks from the front seat. The FBI agents slid out, pushed the doors shut, and started walking toward their doppelgängers at the barn door.
With the locks reset, Boxers drilled Jonathan with a glare in the rearview mirror. “Does any of this feel right to you?”
“Nope.” And being at Horne’s place didn’t improve things. The fact that his loyalties shifted so easily with the source of the paycheck made it dangerous to be the last to arrive at the party.
“Worst case,” Jonathan said, “we back out through the doors and run over a few people getting out of Dodge.” The Batmobile was as heavily armored as any government limousine, capable of deflecting armor-piercing ammunition. Combined with run-flat tires and massively reinforced bumpers, there was no fear of getting caught in a kill zone.
As additional insurance, Jonathan lifted a patch of carpet at his feet and revealed a push-button keypad. He entered the code, lifted a hatch, and revealed a cache of weapons. He lifted two collapsed M4 assault rifles and four loaded thirty-round magazines of 5.56 millimeter ammunition. He loaded and chambered both, and then wended his way past the middle row of seats to place a rifle and mag on the passenger seat next to Boxers. He then settled into the seat previously occupied by Agent Shrom and laid the second rifle across his lap.
They waited until Shrom and Kane finished palavering with the guards and the barn doors were wide open before Boxers started moving. “What do you think?” the Big Guy asked. “Slow or fast?”
“Split the difference, but with attitude.”
Boxers brought the Batmobile up to about twenty-five miles an hour approaching the opening — fast enough to make the guards think twice about getting in the way, but not so fast as to overcommit to the unknown. It helped that they both knew what the barn looked like inside.
As soon as they crossed the threshold, Jonathan relaxed. The first face he saw belonged to Irene Rivers. She stood with two men who looked vaguely familiar, but whose faces he couldn’t quite place. Irene’s posture, with her weight shifted to one foot and her arms crossed, told him that she wasn’t surprised by the drama of his entrance, and her smirk told him that they had nothing to fear from this meeting. “Okay,” Jonathan said. “We’re cool.”
Boxers hit the brakes and they jerked to a stop. “Who are the suits?” Big Guy asked.
“Ask me in five minutes.”
“Isn’t the tall one a White House guy?”
Of the two men, one stood a head taller than the other. With slicked black hair, white shirt, and thin black tie, he looked like he stepped off the set of a lawyer TV show, and yes, his face did look like one that was frequently featured on the evening news.
“Holy shit,” Jonathan said. “That’s Doug Winters.”
“White House chief of staff, right?”
Jonathan and Boxers exchanged grins. Yeah, this was going to be interesting.
“Leave the long guns in the truck?” Boxers asked.
Jonathan laughed. “Yeah, I think that’s probably best.”
They exited the vehicle together, and as they stepped down to the ground Irene started toward them. They met about halfway in the cavernous space. She extended her hand. “Leave it to Digger Grave to enter big,” she said.
Jonathan grasped her hand and covered the handshake with his left. He’d always liked Irene, even beyond what was necessary for their business relationship. Tall for a woman — he pegged her at five-ten — she clearly worked hard to stay in shape, and her strawberry hair was somehow always perfectly coiffed. She had a kind of perpetual smirk that told the world that it would be useless to ply her with bullshit. She’d worked her way through the ranks of the FBI the hard way, and still occasionally crashed a door or two just to keep her skills sharp. What was there not to love?
“It’s always a pleasure, Director Rivers.” Because of the other personalities in the room, he kept it formal.
She smiled and offered her hand to the Big Guy. “How are you, Boxers?”
He grumbled something that probably meant “Fine.” Ever conscious of his size, Boxers occasionally looked awkward when he shook hands with people — as if he were afraid he might hurt them accidentally. This was one of those times.
“Is that the White House chief of staff?” Jonathan asked quietly.
She winked. “Come on over. I’ll introduce you.”
The inside of Horne’s barn looked more like a movie set for a barn than a working one. An old baling machine sat in the corner along with a John Deere tractor that might have been new in the sixties. Lots of sharp implements hung from the walls, but the rust on the blades made Jonathan wonder if they’d ever been used. Sixteen-by-sixteen-inch columns supported the network of eight-inch beams, which in turn held up the thirty-foot ceiling. Typical of every time Jonathan had visited the place, the sheer volume of space seemed to absorb all the available light, bathing everything and everyone in perpetual dusk.
Jonathan and Boxers followed as Irene led the way to the pair of men, who made no move to step forward to meet them. Jonathan wondered if maybe Irene had instructed them to hang back, so as not to spook the newcomers.
Irene gestured with an open palm to the man Jonathan recognized. “Douglas Winters, meet Jonathan Grave of Fisherman’s Cove, Virginia.” To Jonathan, she added, “And as you guessed, Mr. Winters is the president’s chief of staff.”
Winters flashed a politician’s smile and extended his hand. “It’s a pleasure,” he said.
Jonathan hated politicians’ smiles. They rang too many warning bells. But there was no reason not to shake hands. He said nothing, though.
The smile faltered. “I’m getting the feeling that maybe you didn’t vote for my boss,” Winters said.