“And, of course, I trust you because you would never go back on your word.”
“You’re right; I wouldn’t.”
“Bastard!”
“You drew me into this. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself.”
She sighed. “What do you want?”
“For starters, where’s Abraham?”
“Listen to me, McCracken. If he hasn’t called in, it can only mean he’s going on with his part in the operation. He’s like a computer following its programming. You can’t stop him. No one can.”
“Try me.”
“He had two major roles in the operation, a second added after you killed one of the disciples in Rio — That was sabotaging one of the power plants: Pennsylvania Yankee.”
“A weather system’s distance from New York City, Boston, the whole upper East Coast…”
“Precisely. But his primary role was to assassinate the president.”
“Do you know how?”
“Only where and when. It’s tomorrow, as the presidential motorcade makes its way through Boston. But I can deal with that. A few well-placed phone calls and the president doesn’t leave Washington.”
“Which means we don’t get a shot at Abraham, risk him disappearing underground. No, Maxie. You’ll have to convince 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to go through with at least the facade of the motorcade. Leave the chief out of the limo, but make sure the limo rolls on schedule. Tell them it’s our only chance to catch a determined assassin. That’s language they can relate to.”
“Maybe.”
McCracken nodded. “Okay, so that leaves us with the Pennsylvania Yankee Nuclear Power Plant. I catch him there, and he doesn’t even make it to Boston.”
“He’s probably already been to the plant,” Virginia Maxwell said. “He’s had twelve hours since Williamsburg. Plenty of time.”
“And the timetable?”
“Everything was set to key off the assassination. Anytime after tomorrow morning and evening. It was left to the disciples’ discretion.”
Blaine looked at her very closely. “And now you’ve cost the operation these disciples. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that their presence at Gap headquarters was your doing. You knew they made for the only chance you’d have against the Indian and me so you took it. Now I’d say you’re an outcast in your own right. Otherwise, you would have gone to the bunker with the others.”
Virginia Maxwell’s first response was the slightest of smiles. Then she said, “A year from now we could still have an army of disciples in place. The power plant operation could be reactivated.”
“Toward what end?”
“Toward creating chaos — out of which a new order will be born. We would preside over that order, my dear. The nation would be ours to do with as we please.”
“What’s left of it, you mean.”
“All the better. We were Children born out of the worst chaos man has ever wrought. We were born to thrive in chaos, to want to make it happen simply because the remnants would belong to us.”
“A nuclear-ravaged wasteland.”
“But a land, all the same. Our land. A different America, one that would prosper on different terms. You have the list. You know the positions we have reached — positions from which centralized power can be wielded. The areas were hand-picked for us.”
“Too bad you can’t be a part of it anymore, Maxie. You know that. Your only hope to be anything is to help me. I’ll hunt them down with or without your help. Without means your name stays on the list. What’ll it be?”
“Damn you, McCracken!”
“Where’s the bunker, Maxie? Where can I find the rest of the Children?”
“Got it, Indian,” Blaine reported. He was back in the passenger seat of the car Wareagle had parked a quarter of a mile from Virginia Maxwell’s house. “Old Maxie decided to play ball.”
“Her route was chosen long ago, as ours was.”
“Well, thanks to that route, she’s going to alert the president for us. The motorcade will be staged to draw Abraham out, but the Secret Service will be ready to drop a net on him as soon as he shows.”
“I don’t think so, Blainey.”
“Let it go, Indian. We’ve got other—”
McCracken’s words were cut off by the explosion that shattered the night. The sudden brightness of the fireball forced him to shield his eyes even from a quarter of a mile away as the Hampton Roads home of Virginia Maxwell gave itself up to the flames.
“Abraham,” he said.
“A step ahead of us, Blainey. Abraham got to her. Abraham knew.”
“Which means he could have set the explosives for earlier, but he didn’t. He let Maxie talk to me. He wanted her to.”
“He wants to beat us.”
“Because of Williamsburg?”
“And something more. He wanted me to know where to find him. He wishes to face me.”
McCracken realized Johnny didn’t sound sorry. He looked back at the flames. “No help from the Secret Service now, Indian.”
“Just him and me.”
“Vision quest?”
“At last, Blainey.”
“And that’s where my father is?” Patty asked as the four of them gathered around the map placed over the coffee table. The area of the Utah Salt Flats was highlighted in red, a small x denoting the bunker’s position.
“According to Virginia Maxwell, yes,” Blaine confirmed.
“And what are you going to do?…Oh, go on with your planning. I didn’t mean to stop you.”
McCracken looked at Sal Belamo. “How many men did you say you can get?”
“A dozen I can trust. Another six I can kill if they fuck up.”
“You’ll need a plane to get there.”
“What are you going to do?” Patty angrily asked again. “My father’s in there! Do you hear me? My father!”
Blaine heard, and wished he hadn’t. He should have stuck with his instincts and not included Patty in this part of the plan. She had a stake in this, though. She deserved to know, and she deserved an opportunity to make her own decision.
“He’s one of them, Patty. There’s nothing I can do.”
“Yes, there is. Let me come with Sal. Let me talk to him.”
“You’d never get that far.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do, Patty.”
Patty Hunsecker backed away, as if repulsed. “Listen to you. Listen to all of you. It’s over. You’ve won. These people don’t have to die.”
Blaine moved next to her, easing her further away from the table. “I warned you about what letting yourself become a part of this meant. Welcome to my world. It’s not much, but I call it home.”
“You’re not a murderer. I know you’re not.”
“That depends on your perspective. I wasn’t a murderer when I helped save your life at the circus in Rio, and Sal wasn’t a murderer when he saved the lives of you and your brothers ten days ago.”
Patty realized Johnny Wareagle had crept up silent as a cat behind her. “Each deed demands its own definition,” the Indian said. “We become prisoners of those definitions, each as unique as the person who seeks it.”
“What the two of you are saying is that I won’t sanction what you want to do, even if it’s necessary, because my family’s involved. I won’t deny that. I started all this to find out what happened to my father, and I’m not about to give up now that I’ve found out where he is!”
“He gave up on you first, kid.”
She shook her head. “Shit, McCracken! Stop trying to make everything sound so simple! Things just don’t work that way. There are repercussions, accounts to be settled.”