He let it ring a few times before he picked up, put the receiver to his mouth, and bit down into the crunchy M&M’s. Take that, Mr. Depino from the City of the Angels, that second-rate dumping ground for second-raters.
“Let me ask you a simple but somewhat profound question,” Dr. Kane spoke before being spoken to. “What is one more day on earth worth to Roger Stevenson? Do you have a final number in mind? Does he? Have you actually consulted him on a number?”
“It’s certainly not a hundred million dollars,” said Depino.
“Good-bye, sir. I have many others in line for the final spot in Resurrection.”
“Wait! Roger is just being cautious,” said the lawyer. “So am I, on his behalf.”
“Mr. Depino, I have other worthy candidates, but I happen to like Roger a great deal. And Roger was a great leader once, after all. The price is firm at one hundred million. To be perfectly honest, I could get double or triple that for the final spot in Resurrection. Now give me an answer. No more dillydallying. Is Roger Stevenson in or out?”
“We will pay your price,” said the lawyer.
“You won’t regret it. Roger Stevenson will outlive you, Anthony. A hundred million is a pittance for this scientific miracle. We’re going to make history. We’re going to make the world a better place, and maybe even save it.”
68
THE KIDS HAD DECIDED, voted actually, to entrust their fate to us. I just hoped we were worthy of the task, and of their trust.
We certainly started out badly. We had made a small deal with the FBI. Kit hitched a ride for us to Washington, which just happens to be very close to Maryland. Exactly what we had to give back to the FBI wasn’t clear yet. But I was sure they wanted something.
We all hung on to our armrests as the Beech King slammed down at Dulles International and bounced along the runway. The brakes squealed, the plane slewed to the left, and then stopped a little hard, jerking us in our seat belts.
We discovered that the wind was blowing fiercely as we disembarked and clung to the railing of the metal staircase that had been rolled up to the side of the plane.
Feathers ruffled, hair whipped across our faces, and dust scurried across the moonlit airfield.
First stop, Washington, D.C.
Second stop, hell.
My arms prickled with goose bumps, and not just because of the chill wind. Three men in dark suits waited for us as Peter proceeded to get sick on the tarmac. Then they escorted us toward a freestanding aluminum utility shed that stood alongside the terminal building. I didn’t like this. They had no right. But we’d made a “deal.”
The oldest of the three men, a lanky guy with a beakish nose, small dark eyes, and a receding hairline, introduced himself as Senior Agent Eric Breem. He nodded at the children and me, then swept Kit aside and engaged him in an intense conversation.
Man-to-man, of course. Very private. I was left to watch from the sidelines.
They were soon arguing about something, and Kit was clearly furious with Breem. I heard Kit exclaim, “In a pig’s ass you will. That’s not gonna happen.”
Moments later we were assembled in the shed, and the door was shut and locked with a loud metallic clang. I guessed the shed was used to detain illegal aliens or inspect contraband because the furnishings were sparse: a long table and a stack of folding chairs leaned against one wall.
Now what?
A dark-haired, broad-shouldered agent with huge hands opened the metal chairs, and the wary children sat down in a fidgety row—except for Max, who stood. “Just a formality,” he said.
“Me no likee,” commented Peter, and his little joke seemed dead-on. None of us was very comfortable with this. The FBI can be really weird. They need a makeover. Trust me on this.
Another agent, blond and slight, wearing a bright yellow tie to enliven his charcoal gray suit, addressed Kit. He introduced himself as Adam Warshaw. “We’d like to question the children one at a time. It won’t take very long. It’s important. Essential.”
Kit shook his head. “Sorry, that’s not happening. It’s past midnight and they’ve had a long day.”
“Okay, Brennan, it is going to happen. But we’ll make it brief,” said Agent Warshaw. He turned his gaze toward Max, who was standing watchfully on the sidelines, as she tended to do.
“Max? You are Max?” Warshaw said. He had a pen and notepad in hand.
Max stared at him, but didn’t answer. She looked a little pale and shaky, but she stuck out her chin in a defiant gesture I thought of as “Max’s brave front.”
“Of course I’m Max,” she finally said. “What of it?”
“Well, the way I understand it, some men broke into your parents’ house with guns. Is that right?”
“Yes. Except for the ‘parents’ part. Frannie and Kit are our parents. We chose them as our parents. Write that down in your little notepad.”
“Max, do you have any idea why these men were trying to harm you and your brother? What did they want? What do they want?”
I read the distress on Max’s face. “No idea at all.”
“I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t believe that,” said Warshaw.
Kit spoke up. “Breem, this has to stop. You have no legal right to question these kids, so don’t. I’ll come into the office tomorrow. I’ll tell you everything I know and everything the kids know. If that’s not good enough, I’m instructing them not to speak to anyone without their parents and attorneys present at all times. Am I clear?” Kit looked over at me. “Was that clear, Frannie?”
“I think that was amazingly clear, and also concise. Only a complete moron couldn’t follow it. Right, Agents Breem and Warshaw?”
There was a tense silence as Kit faced off with Breem and Warshaw. Meanwhile, the wind rattled the aluminum walls, making a drumming sound like spoons beating on tin pie plates.
At last, Breem nodded. What else could he do? Then he showed some teeth. His idea of a smile, I guess. “It has been a long day. Tomorrow morning then, Brennan. Let’s get you all someplace comfortable. We’ve made temporary arrangements in —”
“They’re staying with me,” Kit said. “We’ve taken good care of them before. We’ll do it tonight. Let’s go, kids, Frannie. It’s been a long day.”
Little Peter stood up tall and straight. “Me likee,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
I grabbed on to Kit’s arm and whispered, “Your place?”
Kit’s answer was chilling. “If they wanted to kill us, we’d be dead already. Let’s go, Frances Jane. Vamanos, kids.”
“Vamanos!” they chorused.
69
TWO ANONYMOUS-LOOKING BLACK Town Cars sped down a wide-open avenue in our nation’s capital late at night. I was so overtired that I distrusted everything, even my own feelings about staying in Kit’s apartment. I wasn’t so sure it was such a good place for us to go right now. On the other hand, I didn’t have any better ideas, and I definitely distrusted the Federal Bureau of Investigation so far, especially Agents Breem and Warshaw.
There was a sudden, infectious burst of giggling in the backseat of the car I was riding in. I craned my head to see what had so amused the twins. Oz had put his arm around Max! What was this? Oz and Max?
I was still pondering the shiny new paradigm shift when the sedan pulled to a stop in front of Kit’s apartment.
The apartment was in a residential neighborhood near Dupont Circle, a relatively short distance from the White House and several important monuments and federal buildings. Kit told us that the small apartment building had once been a single-family Victorian house.
When he opened the heavy old front door, we thundered up four flights of stairs to the top floor. Kit’s. A few of us flew.
“It’s not much, but it’s home,” Kit said as we stepped inside. His apartment was decorated with country furniture, Persian rugs, a piano, and crammed bookshelves. Very, very nice, actually. Homey. Kit-like.
“Watch your wings,” I hollered to the kid
s, who were zooming around in a potentially destructive manner.
“Watch my stuff!” bellowed Kit. “Have mercy. There are a lot of memories in here.”
Icarus found the piano and sat right down. He immediately launched into a spirited rendition of “Fly Me to the Moon,” both singing and playing. The kid was a born mimic, and his linguistic skills were amazing. He sounded exactly like Frank Sinatra, down to the most minute detail of the song’s phrasing.
My gaze snagged on a couple of simple silver frames sitting on top of the piano.
In one was a snapshot of a slender, pretty blond woman with two handsome young boys who were spitting images of Kit.
I flashed on some others: Kit hugging his sons, teaching them to ride bikes, and playing ball. They told me how Kit had watched them grow. A wave of sadness washed over me, and I felt a chill. Kit caught me looking at the grouping of photos.
“Beautiful,” I said. “Your place is.”
“Thanks,” he murmured. “It was a great time, Frannie, great time. But so is this.”
Then he walked me away from the piano and toward the kitchen. I could tell Kit didn’t want to talk about his family right now. I couldn’t blame him.
The fridge was nearly full, and we were starving. Kit pulled bread and crackers out of a cabinet. Cheese and raw vegetables and cold cuts soon appeared on the oak dining table along with the remains of a roasted chicken. Pip was awarded the poultry, and the kids made short work of the rest. Kit poured me a glass of a pinot grigio, and I needed it. But after a few swallows, I found that I still couldn’t relax. Reality was setting in:
I was homeless.
I’d seen a man in death throes a short while before. I’d narrowly missed getting shot at the same time.
I felt responsible for keeping six kids safe and sound, but I had no real idea how to do it.
Something truly horrifying might be taking place nearby in Maryland.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, was under my control at the moment.
Other than that, no problems.
I was so exhausted, I think I could have slept standing up. So my jaw dropped when Ic announced, “I’ve got energy to burn.”
“Me three,” shouted the twins.
“No, don’t!” I shouted too late. Oz had already opened a window, and Ic had climbed out onto the ledge.
There was no stopping them now. With a few “byes” and “be back soons,” the kids shot out of the windows. I managed to snag Wendy by the waistband of her jeans. She turned to me with a hurt look and a pitiful cry.
“Frannie, please. Everybody’s going. It’s a night flight! Pleeeeeeease? I have to. Like we used to at the lake! Pleeeeeeease?”
I cast a questioning look at Kit and he shrugged, so I turned the little girl loose. She spread her wings and darted up to join the others. She was so cute, I couldn’t stand it.
Kit came over and put his arm around me, and we watched the children fly across the broad, beaming face of the moon. This was a sight that never failed to fill me with awe—until now.
“I feel the earth shifting under my feet,” I said. “I don’t feel safe anywhere. Not even here.”
“I was having the same thought,” he said. “Unfortunately.”
“We’re just paranoid, aren’t we? We’re paranoid, right?”
Kit sighed.
“That was the wrong answer,” I said.
70
THE CHILDREN were taking a night flight above Washington, D.C. Icarus was singing “Fly Me to the Moon” again. It was kind of close to perfect, actually. The kid could croon. “Just don’t call me Ol’ Blue Eyes!” he warned.
As always, Max thrilled to the powerful, upward pull of the air on her wings as the winds gusted forcefully around her. It was like being on an amusement-park ride, and it was about a hundred times better. The other kids whooped with joy as the air lifted and dropped them. And lifted them yet again.
Max still had the best aerial dexterity, though Oz was faster and a bit stronger. She closed her wings a few degrees and used the wind as a chute, or air flume, to carry her in a long, breathtaking swoop.
But just when she began to fully enjoy herself, she remembered.
People might be dying nearby in Maryland. No, people were definitely dying! Modern science was spiraling out of control, in her opinion.
Everyone she cared about was in terrible danger.
“Mind a little company?” Oz asked. He glided to Max’s right side. “Or do you want to be alone?”
“I’d like some company.”
Max turned her face and smiled at the sight of him. She flew closer to Oz and touched his hurt cheek with her fingers. “That’s a very impressive bruise.”
“It’s a war wound,” Oz said proudly. “From the Battle at the Pines.”
“Sure is,” Max agreed. And I’m afraid the war has just begun, Ozymandias. Only just begun.
Oz did a somersault in the air, then looped back. He guided blind Icarus to Max’s side as they crossed the moon-silvered Potomac River.
“Max, are you wearing perfume?” Ic asked. “You are, aren’t you? Interesting.”
“So you can follow me easier,” Max said, and laughed.
“What a city! Okay, listen up, everyone,” Oz called out so all could hear. “Welcome to the nation’s capital. I’m Ozymandias, and I’ll be your tour guide tonight. On your right is the John F. Kennedy Center, and there, just below us, is the famous Iwo Jima statue. And that,” Oz said dramatically, “is an American Airlines 747 coming straight at us. Let’s get outta here before somebody calls in jet fighters to shoot us down!”
The kids screamed loudly with pleasure. Then their yells were drowned out by the incredible roar of the American jet passing overhead.
The flock, then in formation, flew almost directly over the Lincoln Memorial.
Oz continued his guided tour, pointing out the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and numerous traffic circles with avenues radiating out from them like spokes on a wheel. “Isn’t that the most amazing building,” Oz shouted as they flew over the Capitol.
“The dome-capped rotunda on the Capitol is the biggest of its kind in America. That’s Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said. “Look straight down and you can see the White House, where the president and his family live. And the Hoover Building’s down there somewhere close. The Federal Bureau of Investigation.”
“C’mon, Ic. Cawwww-roll!” Oz shouted. He and Ic then barrel-rolled to the left, and the whole flock followed.
They flew very close to the ground, finally dipping their feathers in the reflecting pool, then, with a chee-rupppp, they rose and circled the amazing Capitol dome.
“Do you think the president knows what’s happening out in the real world?” Oz asked as he came close to Max again. “Like in Maryland? Like among us common folk? Like that people are trying to kill us?”
Her eyes shut, then opened slowly. “I sincerely doubt it. Maybe we can tell him sometime. Or show him. Now hold my hand, please. I need my hand held.”
Ozymandias did even better. He glided over Max, and then let her snuggle underneath. Magical! They flew like that all the way home to Kit’s apartment.
71
IT WAS THE CRACK OF DAWN, although in my current mood, I preferred to think of it as the crack of doom. Kit and I had already started driving south on Route 1 toward the FBI’s Critical Incident Response Group in Stafford, Virginia. It was something we had to do. Lives could be at stake, including ours and the kids’.
We’d left the kids in Kit’s apartment with a video game that had a play time of 700 hours, I swear to God; a freezer full of frozen pizza; and strict orders not to fly under any circumstances.
We were headed straight for the nightmare that had haunted Max for so long, all of her life, actually. You talk, you die. Kit’s apartment seemed the safest place for the kids. For the time being, anyway.
I sucked on the sippin’ lid of my coffee container, hopelessly trying to calm my nerves. In less than an ho
ur after leaving D.C., I caught sight of our destination.
There was no sign out front, no discernible address. Just two plain two-story redbrick office buildings connected by a concrete walkway.
“Looks innocent enough,” Kit said, “but don’t be fooled, Frances Jane. Not for a minute.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to be taken in by any fast-talking FBI dudes,” I said, and winked at him. “Been there, done that.”
The Critical Incident Response Group had been formed in 1994, post-Waco and Ruby Ridge. It had been housed at the FBI Academy at Quantico for five years but had recently been moved to a location about eight miles away. The unit’s objective, Kit told me, was to “provide emergency response to a variety of crises, including terrorist activities, hostage takings, and barricaded subject situations.”
Okay, that should cover just about everything. But then again, maybe not.
About three hundred people worked there, according to Kit, and the parking lot was mostly full when we pulled in. Kit parked and locked his Subaru Outback. Then we walked up a poured concrete path and through the glass doors to a vestibule that was empty except for a single elevator.
“Are they going to believe us? And are they going to help?” I finally asked Kit.
“I sincerely doubt it,” Kit said, and frowned.
“I sincerely question why we’re here. Why are we here, Kit?”
He ran his hand back over his blond hair. “We’re here because they might help us—inadvertently. They might know something important, and just not know that they know it. It happens more than you’d imagine inside the Bureau.”
“Oh. So we’re here to interrogate them, not the other way around?”
Kit winked. “That’s the plan, anyway. We’ll soon find out. Besides, I promised I’d come.”
The door slid open and Kit and I took the elevator to the second-floor reception area. It was protected from the world by a thick pane of bulletproof glass. Kit presented his ID, and speaking into a grille in the bulletproof partition, asked to see Special Agent Breem.
A female agent at the front desk smiled pleasantly and buzzed us in. “Take a left and keep walking,” she said. “Agent Breem is expecting you. We all are. We were hoping you’d bring the whiz kids.”