July 1: 1:25 p.m.
Price couldn’t figure this woman out. He tried to keep exasperation from his voice.
“We should force the issue now, Allison.”
“Let’s wait for Jack.”
They kept their voices near a whisper. They were only fifty yards from the woman that Allison had identified as Chloe Bryant. Thankfully they had spotted her before she spotted them.
They lay on their bellies on the damp forest floor. The leaves rustling overhead hid the late afternoon sky, but on their way up Catoctin Mountain knots of gray clouds indicated more rain. But Allison promised the sky would clear.
It had better.
Bryant was walking the perimeter of the crater that held Transit One. Her eyes continually probed the forest. She held a pistol, and a shotgun was slung over her shoulder.
“You know we should deal with her. Now.”
“We’re not going to kill her, Aaron.”
Price almost snapped, why not, when you were so hot to do in Susannah, maybe Peggy too? They had been a lot less dangerous.
“At least force her through the transit. That’ll take out Jack.”
Price now pretty much accepted that they faced Jack. More and more it made sense; the government had no one in the arsenal more resourceful and determined than Butchering Mauer. Jack got the job done.
Allison said Jack and Bryant had worked many years together at ATU. Maybe they had been lovers some or much of that time. Whatever the length of the relationship, it must have been a strong one for the two to last this long in 1863.
“We don’t know that,” said Allison. “It’s never been tried.”
Of course not. But it was a good assumption that once Bryant exited 1863, that Jack would shrink to nothing.
“There’s no guarantee that Jack took any of our feints,” said Price. “He could be lining up a shot on Thomas right now.”
Mauer certainly had not fallen for the first feint. Every mile on their journey to Chambersburg they waited for an attempt on Major Deaver, the brave decoy who accompanied them in the coach. But the shot never came.
“The odds are with us,” said Allison. “Especially with his partner out of play up here.”
“He still could have figured it all out. You know his track record. He could see to the bottom.” They had piled on the deception. But would it be enough?
“If he did, then Thomas is already dead.”
That kicked him in the stomach.
Man, no matter how many twists they put in, this was basically a roll of the dice. They would win, or Jack would.
“Aaron, stop thinking about it. We’ve done all we can. It lies in the hands of Thomas now.”
“You mean hand.”
“I mean hand. The hand that will crush the Army of the Potomac.”
“I still say we increase the odds by forcing Bryant through.”
“You sure we can get the drop on her? If we don’t, there’s going to be a gun battle. We can end up the ones getting shot.”
“I can sneak up on her.”
“And not break a twig on the way?”
He said nothing, remembering the twig that had saved everything that Sunday at the farm.
“We also have to consider this, Aaron. What if we get into a standoff with Chloe? Jack will eventually be along. You want to shoot it out with him in these woods?”
He grimaced. “Not particularly.”
“They wouldn’t even have to engage us. Just wait us out. We’ve been here longer. We’ll be the first to shrink to nothing.”
He wasn’t sure about that, and Allison couldn’t be either. Price would bet on the strength of their love over that of Jack and Bryant.
“So we just let them go through?”
“Of course. We want them out of here quickly as possible. It doesn’t matter if we go second. We still beat them into in 1882.”
Yeah. But that’d just be delaying the inevitable confrontation.
“It’s your call, Allison.”
“We back off. Wait for Jack. Watch them go through. Then we can safely follow.”
Price reluctantly nodded.
He loved this woman, always would, but he wondered if he would ever really know her. He had thought he had known her. But that last night at the farm muddled everything.
She had acted agitated all that day. He put it down to anxiety about getting Jackson safely to Carlisle Barracks. And, of course, worry for the welfare of Susannah and Peggy—already incarcerated three days in the root cellar.
It was not until late afternoon that he began to suspect otherwise. He was in their bedroom packing up, for their departure at dawn on the morrow. Out the window he caught a glimpse of Allison near the root cellar. He thought she was about to step down to the doors to give some words of comfort to Susannah and Peggy.
But Allison went past the cellar to the cider press shed. She stepped in. Price was mildly puzzled, wondering why she would go there. Maybe she had left some item inside.
He didn’t give it more thought until he considered the key to the cellar padlock. Earlier that day they had buried it in the shed. Price immediately got a funny feeling. Throughout his Secret Service career he’d always had a good nose for trouble, and his nose twitched now.
He tried to dismiss the unease. Didn’t mean a thing Allison went into the shed. And why would she want the key anyway? She sure wasn’t going to let the pair out.
But as evening wore on, he knew. Allison had brought herself to the brink of having Jack Mauer killed. To secure world peace she would condone the murder of one man. Now, in a similar situation, she would murder a woman…and, incredibly, a child.
Price had recoiled from the revelation. It could not be true. He was jumping to the vilest—and most disloyal—of conclusions.
Allison was one of the strongest, most capable people he had ever known. She was brave. She had great integrity. Before her fall she had inspired the American people even more so than David Falmer, still his favorite president.
Yes, she could call to the better angels—but did one call to her? At her center, what exactly ruled? Good and evil appeared to fight real battle there.
He said nothing through the evening or when they turned in. He feigned sleep, hoping Allison was not also feigning. He waited and waited. The minutes torturously passed, and he had almost yielded to sleep when he heard her easing from bed.
That was one of the worst moments of his life. He loved Allison, he would always love her, but he was appalled. How, how could she? Sue and Peggy, how could she?
“You can’t,” he said into the darkness.
Allison sharply gasped.
“I took the bullets out of your pistol. In case I did doze off while you went to the cellar.”
She now breathed as if she were an asthmatic.
“What were you thinking?” asked Price. “It would be an atrocity.”
Allison found her voice. It was strangled. “I wasn’t going to shoot Peggy. Just Susannah, I swear it.”
He wanted to believe her. But even so, that would have left a horribly traumatized child locked up with her mother’s corpse. Which would begin to rot in a couple days.
“Get back in bed, Allison. We’ll need our rest.”
Which was a joke. Neither of them would now sleep much this night.
She sat on the edge of the bed.
“You must hate me, Aaron.”
“No. Never. If it were absolutely, utterly necessary to eliminate them, I would say yes. But the small chance someone will come for them before July 1st does not justify such action.”
“Is it that small?”
“Maybe one in a fifty. We don’t kill two innocents for that.”
“Susannah’s not so innocent. Her meddling brought this on.”
“I know. But falling in love isn’t a crime.”
“Goddamn her.”
“Goddamn us if we did it.”
She had nodded, then crawled back into bed.
In the days afterward Price had second-guessed himself. One hundred million lives, including that of his father, were on the line. Letting Susannah and Peggy live did jeopardize their survival. Cold practicality said don’t take the chance.
But cold practicality was just another way of ends justifying the means. Only in the direst situation would he even consider killing two helpless females, and he and Allison weren’t there yet. He prayed they never arrived at that station.
Allison had been so worried Price would withdraw his love. That was never an option. Long ago he learned the hard way that he could not will himself into or out of loving a woman. Love clicked or didn’t. With Allison it had clicked, like the jaws of a trap. She had him. He loved all of her, including the cold practicality.
Allison could not be who she was without the willingness to act harshly. She of course had never murdered anyone during her rise to the presidency, but a number of political corpses trailed her wake. People did not get a chance to cross her twice.
David Falmer had once told Price that all good leaders must possess some ruthlessness. Governing often required the gloves to come off. Falmer said punches had to be thrown precisely, and only as a last resort. But a leader unwilling to bloody best not take the oath of office.
Chloe Bryant descended into the crater and slipped from view. Now was the perfect time to sneak up to the rim. His eyes asked permission.
Allison’s said no.
That was why he would never figure her out. Now, when ruthlessness was sanctioned, she refrained. Kill Susannah and Peggy, spare Jack and Bryant, who were vastly more a threat.
Price sighed. He prayed Allison knew what she was doing.