She nodded.
“How is she?” Eric asked. “She was pretty messed up when I first met her; the memory linkage was freaking her out.”
Jan knew she didn’t have to answer; Eric now knew what Jan remembered of the afternoon, and—
And suddenly he was averting his eyes. Ah, of course: he was probably recalling Nikki telling Jan how he felt about her.
“I had to know,” Jan said gently. “I mean, this is all happening so fast, and, well, I needed to know if you were everything you seemed to be.”
He did meet her gaze now. “And?”
She got up, stood in front of him, and reached down to take his hands, pulling him to his feet. “And let’s go give Nikki Van Hausen a memory she’ll never forget.”
The Air Force jet landed at Andrews. It was dark, and Bessie couldn’t see much of the surroundings, but she was glad to be getting off the plane. Although the flight had been smooth, it had also been long, and apparently most soldiers didn’t have hemorrhoids; the chairs were uncomfortable. She’d had the window seat, so Darryl had to get out first—and, she realized, it had probably been a pretty uncomfortable flight for him, too, given how long his legs were.
Darryl took Bessie’s arm as they went down the metal staircase that had been parked at the side of the plane, and she was grateful for it; the last thing she needed was to fall and break her hip.
Andrews was fifteen miles southeast of Luther Terry, Bessie knew—because Seth knew it. On a Saturday evening, it should be an easy drive up Branch Avenue to the Suitland Parkway and then along I-295.
As they entered one of the buildings, they were met by a man in a green Army uniform. He was six-six and muscular. “Agent Hudkins?” he said. “And Mrs. Stilwell?”
“Yes,” said Darryl, and “That’s right,” said Bessie.
“I’m Colonel Barstow,” he said. “I’m an aide to the SecDef.”
“The what?” asked Bessie, but it came to her from Seth’s memories even before Barstow answered.
“The secretary of defense, ma’am. The two of you have been placed in my custody.”
“Custody!” exclaimed Darryl.
“Yes, sir.” Barstow looked at Bessie. “If I may, ma’am, you might want to visit the ladies’ room before we head out.”
“I’m fine,” Bessie said. “It’s a short trip.”
“No, ma’am, it isn’t,” said Barstow.
Darryl raised his eyebrows. “We’re going back to Luther Terry.”
“No,” Barstow said, and his hand went to his sidearm. “You’re not.”
Chapter 43
Jan and Tony Falconi had had blackout curtains in their bedroom; Tony sometimes worked nights and needed to sleep during the day.
Eric might have had blackout curtains, too, for all Jan knew, but they’d tumbled into bed without having drawn them; no one could look into Eric’s bedroom, which was on the top floor of the condo and looked west over the Potomac. She couldn’t see the sun, which was rising on the other side of the building, but the brightening sky had awoken her.
It was Sunday morning, and neither of them had to be back at work until Monday. Oh, he was on call in case anything happened to Jerrison, but that’s why God invented the BlackBerry. She lay there, looking at him, his eyes closed, his mouth open a bit, and she listened to the soft sound of his breathing. She felt something she hadn’t felt for a long time. She felt safe.
And yet—
And yet, Washington was not a safe place these days. In the last forty-eight hours, there’d been an attempt on the life of the president, and a terrorist bomb had destroyed the White House.
Of course, she thought, nowhere was safe. There’d been the bomb in Chicago before that, and San Francisco—a city she’d always wanted to visit—and Philadelphia, where her uncle lived, not to mention terrorist attacks in London and Milan and Cairo and Nairobi and Mexico City, and the list went on and on.
Eric stirred a bit, and his eyes opened. “Hey,” he said.
Jan smiled and touched his cheek. “Hey yourself.”
“What do you want to do today?” he asked.
She looked out the window; it wasn’t snowing, and the sky looked cloudless; a nice change from yesterday. “Let’s go for a walk on the Mall.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “See the monuments, the Smithsonian.” She lifted her shoulders slightly. “I think I need to be reminded of America’s greatness.”
Eric and Jan left his apartment just before 10:00 A.M. Under her coat, Jan was wearing the spare set of clothes she’d retrieved from LT yesterday, as well as a Harvard sweatshirt that belonged to Eric, and she had on her bright red ski mittens, which had been tucked in her coat pockets. Rather than hike the six blocks to the Mall, they took a cab over; Jan was pleased to see that Eric was a generous tipper.
The cab let them off near the Arlington Bridge Equestrian Statues. Everything was beautifuclass="underline" a classic winter wonderland, with pristine snow caked on tree limbs and statues. They walked to the Lincoln Memorial, approaching it from behind and keeping to the pathways, which had already been plowed—the National Park Service had its own snow-removal teams. Once there, they headed around to the front. The wooden platform and podium that had been set up for Jerrison’s speech, which they’d both seen on the news now, had been taken down. There was no obvious sign of where the president had been shot, but two young men were arguing on the steps about whether he’d been hit here or here. Jan thought that was a bit morbid, but still, she and Eric walked up the steps to look, too.
“I once went to Dealey Plaza,” Eric said.
Her face must have conveyed that he’d lost her. “In Dallas. Where Kennedy was shot.”
“Ah,” she said.
“There’s no commemorative plaque, no marker. But there is a white X painted on the roadway. If you wait for the light to turn red, you can go out into the middle of the street and stand on the spot where Oswald’s killing shot got him.”
The two people arguing about where Jerrison had been hit had come to an agreement. They took turns standing in the middle of one of the broad steps, each photographing the other. When they moved away, Jan and Eric walked to the same spot and gazed out at what, had the bullet taken a slightly altered trajectory, would have been the last sight Seth Jerrison had ever seen. Of course, it was different now: there were only a few dozen people around instead of the thousands who had been here for the speech, there was snow on the ground, and the sky was clear instead of the overcast it had been on Friday. But the Reflecting Pool stretched out in front of them, leading to the Washington Monument.
Unlike the boisterous pair who had preceded them in this spot, Eric and Jan stood in silence, but he did put his arm around her shoulders. When they’d had their fill, they walked up into the memorial and stared for a few minutes at the statue of the Great Emancipator. They then headed down the marble steps and started walking east. There were two paths they could take: along the south side of the Reflecting Pool or along the north; they opted for the north. A few other people were out strolling, and some joggers came toward them. They reached the World War II Memorial—which was Jan’s least favorite of the various war memorials; it was the most recently built, and the Vietnam and Korea ones were tough acts to follow. Then they headed up 17th Avenue to the corner of Constitution, and made their way around the gentle curve of Ellipse Road.
And there it was.
Or, more precisely, there it had been, on the other side of what was left of the metal fence.
The White House.
Jan had seen pictures on the news, but that wasn’t the same as beholding the ruins in real life. She found herself shaking her head. Her breath, visible in the chill air, gave a faint reminder of the smoke that had been billowing from the ruins two days ago.