Beyond Control, page 11
They were no longer about Christ. They were about her and Sax, molding these sheep as they wished.
Though no one sat at the console at the side of the hall, the music swelled, keeping time with the flickering sparks.
The congregation swayed with the music. One woman called out in ecstasy. Then a man. An exaltation was on them. A feeling of sweet fulfillment that Willow knew how to kindle and fan.
She didn’t need to look at Sax to know what he wanted now. She didn’t need to move her lips to speak.
You all know that we have been looking for members of Congress who can help us achieve our goals of peace and harmony in the world. And we know that Senator Daniel Bridgewater has joined our team. We want him to remain strong in the Senate, and we want him to run for president. Please be generous in your contributions to him. Give him the same consideration that you would give us. Give him what you can. A thousand dollars would be a wonderful place to start. But if you can give more, we would be eternally grateful.
While she spoke, she and Sax kept the sparks flying over their skin. And she kept the energy flowing over her own body, knowing that when she finished she would be depleted—that she would need to renew her own resources.
It was exhausting work, swaying so many people at once. And when the music came to an end, she leaned back against the altar at the front of the room, her vision blurred, her breath labored.
“We must go,” she said in a voice that barely carried to the first few pews.
Sax helped her through the door at the front of the room, shutting it behind them.
Michael was waiting, a muscular man with a broken nose and a deep scar on his soul. His childhood had been more traumatic than theirs. And he’d ended up in a juvenile detention center after he’d robbed a gas station at gunpoint. Incarceration had only hardened his resolve to get even with the society that had failed him. His life of crime had continued once he was on the streets again—with armed robberies and muggings.
One evening he’d tried to rob Sax and Willow Trinity on a street in downtown Chicago. That had been the luckiest night of his life. They’d stopped him cold with a surprise jolt of psychic energy. But Willow had seen something tender and vulnerable in his mind, qualities that had her begging Sax to go easy on him.
They’d taken away his desire to hurt them, then brought him back to their hotel suite and found the right buttons to push. He was completely devoted to them now. One of their most trusted employees, happy to serve for the joy of staying close to them and receiving their emotional balm.
He walked on the other side of her now, down the hall to the private “retiring room.”
“How did it go?” he asked.
“Very well.”
“I’m so happy about that.”
She gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you for taking care of us.”
His eyes were worshipful as he answered, “You know I found my purpose in life when I met you.”
“It’s our pleasure to help you find your way.”
They parted at the door. Then she and Sax stepped inside the retiring room, and he reached to snap the lock closed as he gathered her close and brought his mouth down on her.
The service had fed the basic need for intimacy with each other that was at the core of their existence.
They had discovered the connection between them when they were very young, two children who only had each other for comfort. That connection had grown and flourished. Now it was everything—their reason for living. Sometimes they might disagree on how to run their lives, but they had learned early that no other relationship could compare to this one. They were like Siamese twins, not joined at the hip but joined by a mental bond they had never tried to describe to anyone else.
“Bridgewater should be impressed when the money starts flowing in.”
“Yes. The money . . . will reinforce his bond to us.”
“He wants more than money.”
She let her head drop to his shoulder. He wants to help us. He’s our spy in the government.
He stroked the length of her back, and she silently asked, You think he’ll find anything that could harm us?
I hope not. But the premonition is strong. Something is in the wind—like a hurricane spinning our way. I can’t see it clearly. But just because it hasn’t gotten here yet doesn’t mean it’s not coming.
A shiver went through her. Sax was the one who could sense the future. And when that strong intuition overtook him, he was usually right. But not always.
It may not be true. I’m just being careful.
I know.
She didn’t want it to be true. Not now. Not ever. She wanted her life to go on the way it had since they’d broken free of their past and taken charge of their own destiny. Together, they had made something bold and beautiful out of garbage. And they had to hold on to that goodness at all costs.
We’ll be fine. I promise we’ll be fine.
Blind to everything but each other, they clung together, feeding the connection that had changed them from losers to winners. From victims to the gods.
MARK Greenwood lay with his eyes closed, hoping that he looked relaxed as he contemplated a fortuitous set of circumstances.
He was coming out of his fog, the way he did when his shot was wearing off.
So he could think almost clearly.
Was it a dream, what he’d heard the head bitch say?
Her name was Brenda, and she was in solid with the chief monster—Dr. Colefax.
She’d been talking about a new nurse named Emmeline, who was coming on the evening shift. Brenda was hoping the rookie wasn’t going to screw up—since this was heavy-duty work.
Or was any of that true? Had he just made up the conversation?
One thing he knew; he’d been in this damn bed for weeks. At least it felt like weeks, although there was no good way to tell the time. Another fact he’d picked up—they were holding him in a private mental hospital, not a medical facility.
Since he’d started thinking straight, he’d been careful not to give the staff any trouble. Mostly he daydreamed—about sitting in Jen’s kitchen eating chocolate chip cookies and milk with his cousin Sid. Or about the future—about the security company he was going to open. He had spent a lot of time stocking the shelves with a great selection of rifles, baseball equipment, clothing. All the guy stuff he loved.
While he soothed himself with a mental trip through a selection of mail-order catalogues, he worked his muscles, trying to keep them in reasonable shape. And when they’d walked him down the hall, he’d tried to study the layout of the facility.
If this Emmeline person was really coming on duty, then she was his best chance. So he pulled at the sheet and light blanket, making them fall off the side of the bed, then lay with tension coiling in his stomach as he waited for her to come in and give him his evening shot.
When the door opened, he cracked an eyelid.
Yeah, she was new, all right. A little brunette with a cheerful blue-and-green uniform top and a pinched look on her ivory features.
He hated to hurt her, but he didn’t think he had much choice. Talking to her wouldn’t do any good, since she’d been told he was a dangerous maniac.
“I see your covers are falling off,” she said as she strode toward him.
He waited until she was within striking range, then jackknifed his legs, hitting her square in the stomach with his feet.
He heard the air whoosh out of her lungs as she fell back. He leaped after her, coming down on top of her hard.
She struggled against him, but he knocked her out, then tied her hands behind her back with the strips he’d ripped with his teeth and torn from the side of the sheet. Next, he stuffed more sheeting in her mouth and tied it in place. Finally he secured her feet and dragged her into the bathroom.
“Sorry, sweetheart,” he murmured as he left her in a heap on the tile floor. “I hope I don’t get you fired,” he added. “But my need is more urgent than yours.”
He had already checked the closet. His shirt and trousers were missing. But the light cotton robe would cover his ass where it hung out of his hospital gown.
He slipped on the robe and peeked into the hall. When he saw no one, he stepped out of his room and hurried toward the Exit sign.
His heart was pounding, and so was his head. He fought a wave of nausea as he went down the stairs—not to the ground floor, since the door at the bottom might be locked.
Praying he had time to get the hell out of Dodge, he opened the door, then darted back when a man came around the corner. The guy disappeared into another room along the hall.
Mark waited a beat then stepped out—and leaped into an office. With a window. And, praise God, no bars. A short drop led to a flat roof. He scrambled out, then hurried across the gravel surface. This time the drop was a whole story. But he lowered himself by his hands, hanging for a moment before letting go and landing in a flower bed.
The facility had a fence. He headed for the guardhouse at the gate. He was breathing hard, his heart racing. If he’d thought he was in shape, he’d been kidding himself.
The farther he got from the building, the more hopeful he felt—and at the same time more terrified that somebody was going to figure out he’d flown the coop.
But he told himself he was going to get out of this hellhole or die trying. He’d been trained in stealth warfare—which gave him an advantage over the rent-a-cop manning the guard station.
He got the guy from behind in a choke hold, then bashed him over the head with his own nightstick.
The guard had a couple of other things he could use, too. Like the keys to the Jeep Cherokee sitting next to the gate—and a pair of pants and a shirt that were large but better than the hospital gown and robe.
He had opened the gate when he heard a bell begin to clang inside the building. At the same time the gate started to close again.
His heart stopped, then started thumping in double time.
Behind him he heard pounding feet.
Cursing he gunned the engine, bashing the front bumper into the wire mesh.
The gate made a grinding sound, and he floored the accelerator. Metal ground against metal, but he plowed forward because that was his only option.
The gate tore off the back bumper as it clanked closed like the jaws of a prehistoric monster. But he kept going into the night—praying that he could make it just a little farther down the road before he had to get rid of the vehicle.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
UP IN THE private quarters above his office, Kurt MacArthur was nuzzling his lips against Mary Ann’s neck and pulling down the zipper at the back of her dress when the phone rang.
He cursed—then cursed again when he turned his head and saw the number on the caller ID.
Dr. William Colefax was on the line.
Snatching up the receiver, Kurt growled, “This had better be important.”
“Mark Greenwood has escaped.”
“What the shit! You’re supposed to be running a secure institution. You said the new treatment was working.”
“He assaulted his nurse.”
“He’s still in the building?”
“He also assaulted the guard at the main gate. He’s gone.”
“Find him!”
“We’re trying. We need more men.”
“Okay. I’ll have a team down there in”—he looked at the clock on the bedside table—“forty minutes.”
“Can we have a helicopter with a searchlight?”
“He’s on foot?”
“He stole a Jeep. But we found it abandoned down the road.”
Kurt grunted. “I’ll get back to you on the chopper deal.”
“Do we try to take him alive?” Colefax asked.
Kurt spoke through his clamped jaw. “He’s our only witness, but he’s resisted every attempt you’ve made to get him to tell you what happened during the break-in. I still want to try and get something out of him. But that may be impossible. If you can’t take him alive, bring him in any way you can.”
After clicking the Disconnect button, he looked into Mary Ann’s worried eyes.
“Trouble at Colefax’s loony bin?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
He liked the way she snapped instantly back into work mode. As she fumbled with her zipper, Kurt thought about some of the emergencies he’d handled over the years. Including some incredible cover-up operations. Like hanging one of the biggest commercial air disasters in history around the neck of a supposedly suicidal Egyptian copilot. And Kurt had pulled that off right under the noses of the Transportation Safety Board.
Sending the plane crashing into the Atlantic Ocean had been the only way to get rid of master terrorist Ali Al Zahir, since the chances of convicting the bastard on any specific crime were nil.
But with that assignment and the others, he’d had adequate facts. With the Maple Creek fiasco, essential understanding was still beyond his grasp.
Dammit!
Now Greenwood was on the loose. And Greenwood at large was a big fat problem. How unstable was he? Would he go to the police? The newspapers?
Kurt stroked his chin. Should he pull Swift off his present assignment? Not until tomorrow. Maybe they’d get lucky and nail the escapee tonight.
AFTER cracking Dr. Lucas’s correspondence files, Jim Swift had parked behind a thick stand of pines where he could see the entrance to the Hamilton estate. When a call from headquarters came in, he reached for his cell phone.
“Swift here.”
“This is MacArthur. We’re having a flap down in Maryland. I need you to join the search team.”
He’d never heard MacArthur lose his cool—until now. “What happened?”
“Mark Greenwood escaped from Colefax Manor.”
Jim whistled through his teeth. Bad news. But he wasn’t going to state the obvious. “When?”
“Last night. I thought they’d have him by now. But he’s managed to elude capture. I want you on the scene—calling the shots.”
“On my way,” Jim said.
He was about to pull back onto the road when he saw a flash of motion. Raising his head, he watched a silver Mercedes stop at the gate that spanned the entrance to the Hamilton estate. A man’s arm reached out to press the button on the intercom, but his back was to Jim, and he couldn’t get much of an impression of the driver.
Snatching up his binoculars, he focused on the license plate. The car was from D.C. He got the first three letters and two of the numbers. But he wasn’t quite fast enough to get the last one.
“Shit,” he muttered as the vehicle disappeared beyond the gates. He’d like to know who was visiting Hamilton. A friend making a condolence call to the grieving father? Or someone wound up in the case?
He’d find out. But he couldn’t do it now—not when MacArthur needed him somewhere else.
JORDAN got out of his car and stood for a moment staring at the massive pile of brick and half-timbering that Leonard Hamilton called home. The estate looked the same as when he’d come here a few weeks earlier, except that the white and yellow tulips in the flower beds had been replaced by red and white geraniums.
Then he’d thought he had a choice about accepting Leonard Hamilton’s offer. Now he felt like a flounder on the end of a hook. And he couldn’t wiggle off.
It wasn’t simply because Hamilton had offered him a story too juicy to refuse. The investigation had become personal—as though his own fate were wound up with uncovering the truth.
He’d come up here to put the screws to the old man. Unfortunately, he couldn’t get Lindsay Fleming out of his mind. He kept imagining himself turning around and driving back to Washington—because when he was away from her it was difficult to draw a full breath.
He clenched his hands into fists, fighting the pressure building inside him. When he’d pulled himself together, he pushed the doorbell and heard the chimes sound inside.
The same butler led him down the wide hallway to the back of the house. As he stepped into the conservatory, he was struck once more by the lush, expensive atmosphere of the room. This time Leonard Hamilton was already waiting for him, sitting on his motorized cart, sipping from a tall glass.
“Get yourself a drink from the bar,” Hamilton said. “And a sandwich if you want.”
Apparently they’d passed the stage of needing the butler to serve them.
Jordan poured himself a glass of water from a crystal pitcher. Sitting next to the drinks was a selection of small sandwiches. Roast beef, ham, tuna, egg salad.
He grabbed a couple and brought them to the Victorian-style table and chairs. But instead of eating, he said, “How about playing straight with me for a change”
“I have been.”
Hoping to jolt the old man, he said, “Dr. Charles Lucas is dead. You got him mixed up in your private investigation, and he paid with his life.”
Hamilton’s face drained of blood. “What happened?”
“His office told me he had a heart attack. Then they transferred my call to another number. Lucky for me I was calling from a public phone.”
“You think they had a trace on his phone?”
“Yeah. And I think the faster I figure out what happened to your son, the safer we’ll both be. Because we’re sitting on a time bomb. So stop playing games and tell me what you know.”
The old man’s expression didn’t change. “First, tell me what you’ve found out.”
Jordan fought the urge to throttle the man. Instead he kept his voice even as he said, “Okay, just so we’re on the same page, I know that the drug that killed Todd was part of an Army research project from the eighties called Granite Wall. It was supposed to have been terminated. Either someone has reactivated the program, or they’re drawing from a secret stockpile. And I have a letter Todd wrote to Senator Daniel Bridgewater.”
He took a copy from his briefcase and handed it across the table.
Hamilton read the letter from his son. “This says Todd knew about a project that was resurrected. And not at Fort Detrick.”
“Somewhere in the continental U.S.,” Jordan answered, thinking that he might have a more specific location.
