He had food, water, a cot, blankets, flashlights, several lanterns, and a tiny cook stove but no way of heating the seventy-five-footlong portion of the bunker they had closed off. He put a hand out and touched the concrete floor. It was cold as ice. Probably stays that way all year round, he thought.
There was a faint glow of light at the top of the ladder leading up to the ventilator shaft. Must be coming daylight out there, he thought as he groped for the light on his watch. He had climbed out the ventilator shaft last night to lock the front steel door again after getting set up in the back half of the bunker. He wished they had rigged some way to take the front door’s hinges down from inside, but they were much too heavy. The bad news was that there was only one way out; the good news was that there would be no indication outside that this bunker was any different from any other bunker.
He stretched, wondering what he was going to do to pass the time. He hadn’t thought to bring any books or magazines, not even a Bible. He sighed. That had been stupid of him. He realized he must never have really believed he would need this place. He shivered again. There
was plenty of kerosene. Maybe if he lit all the lanterns and put them close to his cot, they might warm the place up. The ventilator above his head should take care of any problems with the fumes. He decided to try it.
Janet sat in the back of a Roanoke EMS ambulance, sucking on an oxygen mask while the EMTs worked on the two agents behind privacy screens in the yard. Farnsworth and two more agents had shown up right behind the ambulance and were now in the house. All the windows in her house were open. Out on the street, two county deputies kept traffic moving and curious neighbors from getting too close. Her headache was abating very slowly, and she had downed two bottles of water and wanted another one.
Farnsworth came out of the house, his face grim. She put down the oxygen mask.
“They came in through the basement; through that half window at ground level. Connected the damned furnace exhaust line to the house supply vents.”
“Not they,” Janet said.
“She.”
“We don’t know that,” he said, looking over at the EMTs huddled inside their screens. They’d been there a long time.
“Yes, we do,” Janet said, hopping down from the back of the ambulance.
“She took Lynn. You know it’s her.”
Farnsworth kicked an empty water bottle across the yard.
“How are they doing?” she asked, indicating the downed agents.
“Not so good,” he said.
“They were downstairs, I take it?”
“Yes, sir. Lynn and I were sleeping upstairs. They were supposed to keep each other awake and make sure no one got in or upstairs.”
“Well, apparently nobody heard a thing,” he said.
“I wouldn’t have heard a bomb go off, I’m afraid. Once I realized there was something wrong, I checked on Lynn. She was gone. Then I ran downstairs.”
“They were already unconscious?”
“Yes. I got the front door open and then pulled them out. I gave them mouth-to-mouth until the EMTs got here, but there were two of them. I didn’t do a very good job, I’m afraid.”
He fixed the scene with an angry glare.
“Goddamned woman disabled all of you with gas. She didn’t have to leave it on once she had the girl.”
“I think maybe those were her people in the cavern,” Janet said.
He looked at her, then nodded slowly. His cell phone went off in his
pocket. He snapped it open and answered it. After a minute, he said they would be back shortly.
“That was my secretary. Abel Mecklen from the aTF is in my office.
He was Whittaker’s boss. Judy says he’s going ballistic. I better get over there.”
“Do you need me to come along?”
He thought about it.
“No, not at this time. You’ve had a bad experience, and we’ve got a lot of things to sort out. One of them involves you and that roadblock. Kreiss hasn’t contacted the office; has he contacted you?”
“No, sir.”
“Damn. We just about had a handle on this mess. Tell Kreiss we have his daughter, get him to come in, tell us what he knows about McGarand’s little expedition.”
“Uh, sir? After what happened up in D.C.? He might not be so willing just to come in and talk. Plus, there’s the little matter of the Jared McGarand homicide. Although, Lynn told me some things that might mitigate what happened there.”
Farnsworth looked across the lawn again at the EMTs.
“I’ll tell you what,” he said.
“I’m willing to deal on the G.W. Parkway caper and the McGarand homicide, in exchange for what he knows about the aTF headquarters bombing and his help in catching whoever did this. Because this”—he pointed with his chin at the EMTs—”this is personal. Plus, I think there might be something going on at headquarters that’s bigger than both of those other two items.”
“Can I tell him that if he calls me?”
“Janet, you tell him whatever it takes to get him to come in. The trick is going to be to talk to him before that Agency creature does. Because we know the trade she’s going to offer.”
Janet pulled her bathrobe tighter around her.
“I can tell you right now,” she said.
“He’ll focus on that above all else. None of this other stuff matters to him. Everything he’s done has been in pursuit of getting his daughter back. That won’t change now. Especially now.”
“Not if he still thinks she’s safe with us,” he said.
Janet gave him a look and he raised his hands.
“Okay, okay, it was just a thought. You do the best you can, and then notify me the moment he makes contact. Tell him we’ll help him get his daughter back—anything he wants. He’s all alone now. He’s going to need help, and I think he’ll realize that.”
“Why can’t we get our bosses in Washington to go to the Agency and just get this shit stopped?” Janet asked.
“Why are -we dealing with it?”
“Because the people at headquarters who are authorized to deal with the Agency are Marchand’s people. Fortunately, you and I work for a different directorate. I have very specific orders to leave those people alone until our AD—that’s Mr. Greer-finds out who authorized Bellhouser and Foster to start this shit in the first place. If it’s Marchand, that’s going to be pretty significant. If it’s someone in Main Justice, like maybe Bellhouser’s boss, that’s doubly significant. Right now, everybody’s still spun up over the bombing of the aTF headquarters.”
“I can just imagine,” she said.
“You probably can’t, actually. But Greer, and also the director, I’m told, are very interested in why the Agency is targeting a retired FBI agent, and why that effort is being aided and abetted by someone senior in the FBI and possibly over at Justice.”
Janet rubbed her eyes. The other reason, as she well knew, was that there was no proof that anyone from the Agency had been in her house last night. Or in the cave, now that she thought about it. By now, Micah Wall and his people would have removed any evidence left on the shores by the subterranean lake. Probably into that pit.
Across the yard, the EMTs were getting ready to transport the two agents. Farnsworth went over there and talked about the agents’ condition.
His face was grim when he came back over.
“You need to go to the hospital?”
She thought back about that night and her encounter with Misty in the hospital.
“No, sir. No more hospitals just now.”
“Okay, then get some rest, if that’s possible. And stay here until you hear from Kreiss. He trusts you, I think. Try hard to get him in.”
She thought about that for a moment.