“It is,” Jamie said, and turned back to Ethan. “You still run the same summer programs?”
“Summers I work with kids,” he said. “I don’t do any training for anybody else until September. Summer is the kids.”
“That’s what I’m talking about.”
He raised an eyebrow. Ethan worked with probation and parole officers from around the country, took in kids who were facing lockup somewhere and brought them into the mountains instead. It was a survival course, yes, but it was a lot more than that. The idea had hardly originated with him; there were plenty of similar programs in the country.
“I’ve got a kid for you,” she said. “I think. I’m hoping you’re willing to do it.”
Inside the woodstove, a log split in the heat with a popping noise, and the fire flared higher behind the glass door.
“You’ve got a kid,” he echoed. “That means…you’ve got a witness.”
She nodded. “Nice call.”
He took a seat in front of the stove and she followed suit. Allison stayed where she was, leaning against the kitchen counter, watching.
“Why do you want him with me?”
“Because his parents are refusing traditional witness protection.”
“Nontraditional witness protection is what you do now, I thought.” Ethan remembered Jamie saying that she’d been with the U.S. Marshals but had left to go into executive protection. High-dollar private-bodyguard work.
She took a deep breath. “I’ve got to be very limited in what I tell you. Understand that? I’ll try to give you the best sense of it that I can, but it won’t be as detailed as you’d like.”
“Okay.”
“This boy is…he’s beyond a critical witness. I can’t overstate his value. But what I’m dealing with is a situation in which he and his parents have a pretty healthy distrust of law enforcement. With good reason, based on what they’ve seen. The boy is at risk. High risk. And the parents want to stay with the son, avoid the WITSEC program, and just generally control everything. Enter me, as you said. But…”
She stopped talking. Ethan gave her a minute, and when she didn’t pick back up, he said, “Jamie?”
“But I’m not doing too well,” she said softly. “I could lie to you, and I was about to. I was about to tell you that the family can’t afford me. That’s true enough. But Ethan, I would protect this boy for free if I could. I really mean that. I’d make it my only job, I’d…”
Another pause, a deep breath, and then, “They’re too good.”
“Who is?”
“The men looking for him.”
Allison turned away just as Ethan searched for her eyes.
“Then why me?” he said. “You’re better at it than me.”
“You can take him off the grid. Completely. And that’s where their weakness will be. If he’s around a cell phone, a security camera, a computer, a damned video game, I feel like they’ll get him. But here…here he’s just a tiny thing in a big wilderness.”
“We all are,” Ethan said.
“Right. It’s going to be your call, of course. But I was desperate, and it struck me. At first, a wild idea, this implausible thing. But then I looked into it a little bit more-”
“Looked into Ethan a little more?” Allison said. They both turned to her.
“That was part of it,” Jamie Bennett said evenly. “But it was more looking into the feasibility of the whole thing. We make him vanish for a summer. But he’s not in the situation the parents are so worried about, he’s not in some safe house in a new city, scared to death. I have a very good sense of the kid. What he likes, what he’d respond to, what would make him relax. He is not relaxed right now, I assure you. He’s very into adventure things. Survival stories. And that, of course, made me think of you. So I pitched it, told them about your background, and I think I’ve got them sold on it. So I came here to sell you too.”
“Shouldn’t it have run the other way, maybe?” Allison said. “Clearing the plan with us before selling the child and his parents on it?”
Jamie studied her for a moment and then gave a small nod. “I understand why you feel that way. But the reality is, I’m trying to minimize the number of people who know that this boy exists. If I’d told you and then the parents wouldn’t agree to it, there’d be people in Montana who’d been informed of the situation for no gain. That’s a risky approach.”
“Fair enough,” Ethan said. “But Allison raises a good point. It’s not just a matter of selling me on it, or the two of us. There are going to be other kids up here. Other kids who may be at risk if we do this. That’s my primary responsibility.”
“I will tell you, will assure you, that I would not consider doing this if I felt it put other children at risk. First of all, the boy is going to seem to disappear from the outside world before he arrives here. That much I’ve worked out carefully. I know how to make him vanish. I’d enter him in the program with a false identity. Even you couldn’t know who he was. And you wouldn’t try to find out.”
Ethan nodded.
“The second thing,” she said, “is that we know who we’re watching. We know who is threatened by him. If they move from…from their home base, I’m going to be aware of it. They aren’t sneaking up to Montana without me noticing. And the minute they move, you’ll have total protection for your entire group. For everyone.”
Ethan was silent. Jamie leaned toward him.
“And, if I may offer an opinion: This boy needs what you teach. It isn’t just about hiding him here, Ethan. The kid is damaged, and he’s trying to hold it together. He’s scared. You can make him stronger. I know that, because I’ve been through it with you.”
Ethan looked away from Jamie and over to Allison, but her flat stare revealed no opinion either way. His decision to make. He looked back at Jamie.
“Listen,” Jamie Bennett said, “I didn’t come out here on a whim. But I’m not going to pressure you on it either. I’m telling you the truth about the scenario and asking for your help.”
Ethan turned from her and looked out the window. The snow was still falling fast, and dawn’s light was far from arriving. In the reflection in the glass he could see Allison and Jamie Bennett waiting on him to speak. Jamie seemed more frustrated than Allison, because Allison understood that Ethan was not a man given to rapid decision-making, that he felt rushed decisions were often exactly what got you into serious trouble. He sat and drank his coffee and watched them in the reflection, trapped there in the lantern light with the snow swirling outside, part of that beautiful mystery of glass, of how, seen at the right angle, it could show you what lay both behind it and beyond it.
“You believe he will be killed if the situation is allowed to continue in its current fashion,” he said.
“I do.”
“What is your alternative plan? If I say no.”
“I’m hoping you say-”
“I understand what you’re hoping. I’m asking what you’ll do if I say no.”
“I’ll try to find him a program similar to yours. With someone who’ll take the child off the grid, someone who is qualified to protect him. But I won’t find one I trust as much, I won’t find one I can vouch for personally. That matters to me.”
Ethan looked away from the window and back into Jamie Bennett’s eyes.
“You truly will not let the boy be pursued here? You believe you can guarantee that?”
“One hundred percent.”
“Nothing is one hundred percent.” Ethan got to his feet and gestured to the darkened room behind them. “There’s a guest bedroom in there. Take the flashlight on the table, and make yourself at home. We’ll talk in the morning.”