The television was a different education altogether. After some hunting, I settled it onto CNN, and waited for the Montana Terrorists story to come back for an update as I worked through my poses. It was taking a while, and that struck me as odd, and I didn't think it was because I was being vain. Two fugitives with an unspecified amount of ricin in their possession should have ranked pretty high in the Top Stories list; instead, we were buried halfway through the cycle. When they did finally get to talking about us, what they had to say surprised me, and I turned in the pose I was holding to give the screen my full attention.
There had been developments, but not the developments I'd expected. Given Lynch, I'd have thought the media play would have been pure hyperbolic fear, insistent and foreboding, with plenty of informative pieces about how to protect yourself from exposure to ricin and the like. Instead, there was confusion and frustration, and an odd lack of anxiety, and it took the anchor cutting to a new talking head before I began to get an explanation.
"According to sources at the Pentagon," the anchor said, "the search for the Montana Two has now been suspended."
"That's what we're hearing, though federal authorities are refusing to confirm."
"How could they make a mistake like this, Jim?"
"Well, it's important to remember, Laura, there's a lot that goes on that the general public simply isn't privy to. Remember, one of the nine-eleven hijackers had his visa renewed fully three weeks after the plane he'd been on went down-that's three weeks after his body had been identified. So it's difficult to say. This may be a simple matter of a misidentification, or something else entirely. But it happens more often than you might think. I could regale you with story after story of this kind of thing. The real tragedy here is what it does to the people involved-"
"Danielle and Christopher Morse, in this case."
"-yes, the alleged suspects. This has to have turned their lives completely upside down. We're now hearing that they were never even in Lynch, that law enforcement there responded to a tip that later proved to be entirely unsubstantiated."
"No word, then, that the Morses are in custody at this time?"
"Again, Laura, the Feds are saying no, but what we're hearing unofficially from the Pentagon is yes. Take your pick."
"And meanwhile, there's news of this new cell-"
"Yes, Al-Qaeda of North America, apparently. This emerged last night, that intelligence agency officials believe that what happened outside of Glacier National Park in Montana was actually the work of four Syrian nationals who had come over the border from Canada. And that it's actually this group that may be in possession of the ricin. Obviously, every effort is being made to find and apprehend these men."
"Really is extraordinary," Laura the anchor said, turning back to address the camera and shaking her head with bemusement.
She wasn't the only one, though I was more troubled than amused. Alena returned as I was running the razor over my face, trimming my stubble in an attempt to shape what was growing into a beard that would, hopefully, do something to conceal my features. I didn't like growing the beard; in another couple of days it would start to itch, I knew that from experience, and I'd have to fight myself to keep from scratching constantly at my neck. Still, there didn't seem to be much of a choice in the matter. Even if I could believe what I'd seen on the television, my face would still be getting far more attention than it deserved or I desired.
It wasn't the first time my face had been seen nationally. The last time it had happened, I'd become famous, albeit briefly. Five years later, almost, it was happening again, but the fame was now infamy. I wondered how long it would last this time.
Alena had bought more clothes, and I picked through the selections she'd made for me, getting dressed, telling her about what I'd seen on the news. It earned an arching of an eyebrow and a brief pursing of the lips.
"Very interesting."
"Someone's throwing up a roadblock for us."
"You were in the Army. Could it be someone you know from those days, someone now at the Pentagon?"
"No way. Even if I knew people in the E-Ring, which I don't. This is something else."
"Someone doing us a favor."
"Nothing's for free. They're doing us a favor, they'll want one in return." I pulled on the latest in what was becoming an endless stream of new blue jeans. She'd picked three shirts for me, as well, all of them plain, no logo, no slogans, one in white, one in blue, and one in green. I went with the green. My shoes, at least, hadn't needed to be replaced. "I don't want to think about what we spend on clothes."
"You think it's bad for you, it costs two to three times as much for me," Alena said.
I finished tucking myself in, then asked, "We have weapons?"
"The nearest cache from here is in Philadelphia. Clearing it would take too long."
"We might want to do something about that. Whether or not we're still number one with a bullet on the nation's Most Wanted list, I don't want to risk running into any more shooters working for Gorman-North."
Her expression tightened, and she shook her head slightly. "I tried reaching Dan this morning when I went out. I didn't get a response, Atticus."
"Vadim?"
"Nothing."
I thought about what the reporter and the pundit had been saying. "They've been picked up."
"I think that's likely. Where and when and by whom I do not know. Before I returned to you, I was inclined to believe it would be federal agents who had taken them in. Now, I am unsure. In either case, we must operate on the premise that one of them, if not both, are in custody."
"Would he talk?"
"Dan, you mean?"
I nodded.
"Not on his life, and not simply because of any fear or loyalty he might feel for either of us. It would be a point of pride to him."
"There's a lot of pressure they could bring to bear to convince him to change his mind. Especially if they have Vadim in custody."
"No, you misunderstand," Alena said. "He doesn't want to talk. Given the choice, he'll take their worst. He thinks of it as proving himself."
"To who?"
"God only knows," Alena said. "He's always been like that. Most of the spesnaz I dealt with seemed to feel they hadn't earned their place unless they'd been wounded or tortured first."
"If they've got Vadim…"
"He's younger, I don't know about him." She shook her head. "We will learn soon enough, I think."
The news sobered me, took the last of the joy I had been feeling at being reunited with her and turned it to air. Despite the sleep, I felt suddenly tired, and on that came another desire, almost childlike in its simplicity: I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to Kobuleti, back to the house and Miata. The want didn't last for long, just long enough to make itself known to me, and then it was chased away with the knowledge that, much as I might want it, it wasn't going to happen, not as things stood now. It probably would never happen again.
Montana had changed the game, and if the cabin in the woods hadn't proven it, what had followed in Lynch sure as hell did, and the developments on the news made it even clearer. The further we went, it seemed, the less we knew, and instead of being manipulated by one force-presumably whoever it was who so badly wanted us dead-there was now a new player who maybe didn't. Or wanted something else from us entirely. There were strings being pulled that we not only couldn't see, we couldn't even begin to understand.