Previously the classic game between Winter Falls High and the Abbey School had taken place on the schoolyard rink at the latter, but that meant the game had to be played in daylight and attendance was usually pretty low. With the covered rink at the Abbey the game changed dramatically; there were cheerleading squads for both schools-all-male for the Abbey, all-female for Winter Falls-and with seating for 2,500 you could get half the population of the town and the faculties and student bodies from both schools into the building.
Marching bands played, programs and hot dogs were sold to raise money for the two schools' favorite charities-in the case of the Abbey School this meant sending twenty dollars a month to a child of indeterminate sex named Sui Sang in Hong Kong, and in the case of Winter Falls High it was twenty dollars a month to the Salvation Army.
The whole thing had the nice, American ring of sportsmanship and charity about it, and in its own way the dropping of the puck ceremony developed its own cachet, like being made a Hasty Pudding Man or Woman of the Year at Harvard University. Celebrities of both real and dubious distinction had been given the invitation, from Dick Cheney and Wayne Gretsky to Pee-wee Herman and Howie Mandel. To drop the puck at the Abbey-Winter Falls game was a hot photo op, especially when the New York Times was doing a magazine cover story on you timed to coincide with the announcement of your political autobiography, Promises, Promises, which the prez knew he was going to have to write sooner or later.
The ride to the old gray wall surrounding the Abbey School took less than ten minutes, even at motorcade speed-more than enough time for Morrie to inquire about the whereabouts of the luscious Shannon O'Doyle, who, Dotty was sad to inform him, had died of breast cancer almost ten years gone by.
They drove through the main gates, manned by two patrol cars with their flashers going just to show people how serious they were, then drove around the long, curving driveway past the main building and the old cloisters to the rink, a glass-and-steel flying wedge that had nothing to do with the nineteenth-century, gothic pile of the dark, gloomy school.
Another three minutes and Dotty, Morrie and the president were being escorted to their center-ice seats by two Eagle Scouts, one from the Abbey and one from the high school. Flashes flashed, the PA system boomed and the two teams were introduced and lined up on the ice to shake hands with the man who held the throttle of the world. At seven fifteen the festivities began. Forty-five minutes of high school bands and stupid speeches and the puck would drop.
No one noticed the big Sunoco heating oil truck parked beside the main building, a man in a Sunoco uniform with a nozzled hose in his hand in front of an ordinary-looking standpipe. No one, it seemed, realized that if any truck should be parked beside the school that night it should have been a big green Hess Natural Gas truck, not a big, yellow Sunoco fuel oil tanker.
Kate Sinclair's Gulfstream landed at Manassas Regional Airport and taxied toward the cluster of 1930s-style buildings that marked the terminal area. Just as the pilot cut the engines to a dull throb, Mike Harris's satellite phone pinged again. He took the call, a slow grin wreathing his features.
"What?" Sinclair asked, irritation in her voice; she hated when other people knew things she didn't.
"According to the GPS, they're in Winter Falls."
"Put out an APB or whatever it's called. Have them picked up," said Sinclair. Her smoky breath rattled in her throat and she felt her heart swell with expectation.
She smiled her own private smile. It couldn't have worked better if she'd planned it. With Matoon's people in charge and habeas corpus suspended in the face of martial law, getting the whereabouts of Holliday's invaluable notebook could be done legally and on American soil. With that notebook and the enormous wealth it represented, the Rex Deus line would rule in the Western world for a thousand years. "Have them held in custody until I figure out exactly what to do with them."
34
William Tritt had dispatched small units of Maine's Right Arm in their National Guard uniforms to the homes of all off-duty members of the Winter Falls Police force, all members of the Carroll County Sheriff's Department who lived within a twenty-mile radius of the town and the homes of all off-duty firemen in the area. By now those potential threats would either be bound and gagged or dead if they gave any resistance.
The remainder of his small force was dispatched to the woods surrounding the Abbey School. It was virtually a suicide mission, of course, but he'd spun enough tales of the population rising up in sympathy that the men of Maine's Right Arm were positive of their success.
Tritt, of course, didn't give a damn; he was doing a job that he was getting paid for. What happened after the job was done was none of his affair, nor did he want it to be. Until the detonation occurred there, they were to keep anyone and everyone from exiting the rink. For his own part, Tritt was in his room at a local bed-and-breakfast on South Main Street, his laptop open on the bed, waiting for the confirmation that the last payment had been deposited into his Swiss account. He had no intention of being near any of the fireworks when they went off. In fact, he intended to be some miles away.
Dean Crawford piloted his cruiser through the falling snow, doing his regular run up North Main along the lake up to Goose Corner, then back again, winding up at the shopping center where he'd Code Seven for a meal at Denny's and then do it all over again until the end of his shift.
Tonight everyone was getting hot and bothered by all the security around the president's visit, but Crawford had been a cop for far too long and in far too many places to care. Red Balls were something to be avoided no matter what form they took. A tour to Iraq during the Gulf War plus a decade on the Miami-Dade force, then the Baltimore force, had taught him that. Even marriage was a Red Ball, as he knew only to well after three wives had left him. Not that he wasn't a good cop. He was; he prided himself on it, in fact, but you had to slow down eventually.
No, for now at least he was perfectly happy just to do his regular shift up to the sewage plant and around again, keeping his eyes out for the bad guys that never showed up at this time of year. For the most part crime was seasonal in Winter Falls, just like it was most other places. Crooks don't like the cold any more than they like it too hot. On a night like tonight the worst he was going to get was a stalled-out car in a snowbank or a DUI, and that was just fine with him. He'd book out at the end of his four-to-midnight, go back to his little bungalow on the pond and catch a little late-night TV with a beer or maybe two. Alone. Quiet. Peaceful.
Crawford turned the cruiser off Willow onto Crooked Pond Road then turned into the shopping center parking lot. Just about everything was closed except the P amp;C and Denny's. Everything else was dark. The snow was coming down heavily now, the wind off the lake sending it into whirls and eddies that caught in the yellow vapor lamps like bizarre, miniature tornadoes. A big Sunoco tanker was servicing the P amp;C, and Crawford found himself wondering if the drivers of those hulking things got extra bucks for night work or for driving through blizzards. Probably, the lucky bastards. The way the chief made it sound you were supposed to take the occasional midnight-to-eight shot if you were unmarried and you were supposed to do it without overtime.
On the other hand, he'd had worse bosses than Lockwood. If nothing else the old graybeard knew what combat was like, which was a plus. Coming back from any war wasn't easy. It did things to you and did them to you young, things most people who hadn't done it couldn't understand. Lockwood did, so the occasional temper flare or sour mood was taken with more than a grain of salt. He also understood that sometimes a man had to put himself to sleep with something stronger than a beer or two to keep away the dreams and that was a bonus, too.