“Might be his heart, sir.”
“Given what I think is here,” Bob said softly, “I have to ask: What heart?” He then announced, “Shoulder all weapons. These are civilians here. Unless he dies on us, drag him along.”
He gazed down coldly at Pelligrino. “Which way to the command center?” he snapped, and the ailing man pointed straight down Main Street.
He set off with a purposeful stride, right up the middle of the main street, troopers—with weapons shouldered as ordered—flanking to either side. John trailed along behind him; his friends Reverend Black, Maury, Forrest, Kevin, and Grace, who had disobeyed John’s orders to stay behind and had caught up with the group and was still obviously in shock over Lee’s death, followed behind Bob.
They passed several of the wooden barracks, relics of what seemed another age. The paint was peeling from the wooden sides, but other than that, they seemed well tended. There were even nameplates tacked to doors.
John slowed as he passed a Quonset hut on his left. There was a single name tag tacked to the door. He recognized the name. The same as on the personal e-mails that Linda had snatched out of the ether and which had finally led them to this place. Surely it couldn’t be?
As he stared at the nameplate, similar to the types of nameplates set in front of an officer’s home on a military base, the door cracked open, an anxious young face looking out, a girl in her early teens at most, still gangly like a young colt.
He smiled at her, and a flicker of a smile creased her slender face as she nervously brushed back an errant wisp of reddish hair. John stopped, his friends staying with him.
“Are you here to arrest us or something?” she asked.
He shook his head and gestured toward the front porch as if requesting permission to approach. She hesitated, nodded, and opened the door wider.
He caught a glimpse of inside the barrack. Though the exterior was of World War II vintage, the interior looked something like a typical living room—a sofa, several chairs, and what appeared to be the back of an old-style television from thirty or more years ago.
“Don’t worry, young lady. There was a misunderstanding, but it’s been settled. You’re perfectly safe.”
He spared a quick glance back down Main Street. Bob had gone far ahead of him, surrounded by the troopers who had entered with him. John looked over his shoulder. His friends, however, had lingered behind, waiting for him out on the street.
Grace was still with him, and it was she who broke the tension.
“Hi. My name is Grace,” she announced in a warm, friendly voice, and she simply stepped past John, advanced up a step onto the porch, and extended her hand.
The nervous smile on the young girl’s face within the hut broadened slightly. She opened the door wider and took a step out, reached forward, and politely shook Grace’s hand.
“You sure everything is okay?” the girl asked. “We heard gunshots.”
“We?” John asked.
“I live here with my mother and two kid brothers. The emergency siren went off. Our teacher told us to go to the shelter, but I ran home to get Buster before going to the shelter area, because sometimes we’re in there for a day or two and I can’t sleep without Buster, and then I heard shooting.”
“Who is Buster?” John asked.
She hesitated, a bit embarrassed.
“It’s okay,” Grace said softly.
The girl reached behind her and then produced a stuffed bear, obviously well worn from constant loving attention, and her features turning red with embarrassment.
The gesture, the sight of her holding the stuffed bear, struck John like an electric shock, and he lowered his voice. “It’s okay, young lady. My daughter had a friend like him named Rabs.” He could barely get the words out.
Among his friends, there was no one who did not know about Rabs, his daughter’s beloved stuffed companion who sat on the windowsill in the sunroom and watched over her grave, and which John had gone back into his burning home to retrieve, more cherished to him than any other memory of the past.
Maury came up to John’s side.
“You’re about the same age as my son, who is eleven,” he said. “He won’t admit it, but he has a friend like yours—a panda named Pandi—that sits on his nightstand. It’s okay, young lady.”
“I’m twelve. My name is Laura.”
“We’re pleased to meet you, Laura,” John interjected. “Don’t be anxious; everything is okay now. Just a misunderstanding, and no one was hurt. We’re just visiting here.”
“That’s good,” Laura replied, still obviously a bit rattled. “When I heard the shooting and I wasn’t in the shelter area, I went to the far corner of the room and curled up behind the sofa with Buster as we were drilled to do and waited for the all clear. But I haven’t heard the all clear.”
“I think it might be broken,” Grace replied. “They should have sounded it by now.”
“Should I go to the shelter?” she asked.
“If you would feel more comfortable,” Grace said smoothly. “If you want, I’ll walk you there.”
“Okay.”
Grace took another step up, reached out, and put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder and then looked down at Buster. “I have a bear almost just like him,” she said warmly, and there was genuine emotion in her voice. “Mine is named Winnie. How did Buster get his name?”
Laura instantly began to choke up, tears coming to her eyes. “They kept telling me that they would go back and get our dog, Buster, and bring him here, but they never did.”
She started to cry, and Grace gently embraced her.
“Come on, let me help you to where the shelter is, but you’ll have to show me the way.”
She nodded, sniffing back tears, clutching tight to Buster.
John struggled with his own emotions. The frightened girl was the same age as his Jennifer. At least the same age as Jennifer was when she was still alive… and dying.
Something she said forced the question he had to ask, sensing that if there were going to be straight answers, it would be here and now from this girl.
“How did you get here, Laura? You haven’t always lived here.”
“Some men came to our school and called out my name and those of a few other kids. And now I’m here.”
John knelt down in front of her, looking up at Grace, shaking his head slightly for her to wait. Grace picked up on the signal, stopping in place, a protective arm around Laura, holding her tightly to reassure her.
“Can I see Buster?” John asked. Laura reluctantly held him out, and John took him.
It was nearly impossible to keep his own emotions in check. The scent of the stuffed bear, the worn fabric, a bent ear that had obviously been stitched back into place. For a moment, in his heart, Buster was Rabs.
He kissed Buster and handed him back to Laura with a whispered, “Thank you.”
She snatched him back, but her eyes were on John. “Are you okay, mister?” she asked.
John could only nod.
“He misses his daughter,” Maury said, voice thick with emotion as well.
“Where is she?”
“She’s back home in North Carolina,” Maury quickly interjected, sparing John from giving a more honest answer.
John took a deep breath and forced a smile. “So you were in school, some men came in, called out your name, and you left with them. Is that it?”
Laura nodded.
“Where did you go to school, Laura?” Maury asked.
“Sidwell Friends in Washington.”
“And why did the men take you out of class?”
“It was all kind of scary. We all knew the men. They work for the Secret Service.”
“Secret Service?” John asked, startled but trying to not let it show.