My Gal Sunday (10 page)

Inch by mental inch she began to consider everyone who might have been that man with the ring. Congressional staff? Ridiculous. Besides the memory seemed to go back further in time. Delivery people? Any of the help at the New Jersey house? No. I’ve only known Henry less than a year, Sunday thought. And everyone who works for him has been with him forever.

Then who was it?

I’ll figure it out eventually, she vowed.

You’d better hurry up,
an interior voice cautioned.
You’re running out of time.

Will I ever get out of here alive? she asked herself. Will I ever see Henry again? For a long minute Sunday was shaken to the core of her being. She yearned to be home at Drumdoe with Henry. She had found a wonderful new recipe for garlic chicken in a Provençal cookbook and had intended to try it over the weekend. Working her way through Fordham as a short-order cook had taught her to really love preparing food. She had studied gourmet cooking at the Culinary Institute. Now at least one night of the weekend Henry’s longtime
cordon bleu
chef took off and she took over.

She was supposed to be in the House committee meeting this morning. The bill on health benefits for illegal immigrant kids was being discussed again. It drove her crazy that the guy who was leading the fight to deny them benefits was always showing off pictures of his own grandchildren. She had planned to sail into him about that.

But first she had to get out of here, or at least help to get herself out! The Lord helps those who help themselves, she told herself. That had been her father’s favorite adage.

And God help those who are caught doing it!
That was what I used to think when I was trying to get my defendants off, Sunday thought. Then she inhaled sharply.

That’s it, she thought excitedly. I didn’t see that ring around Drumdoe or Washington. It does go back further than that. It was when I was a public defender. One of the guys I defended was wearing it.

But which one?
Which of the hundreds and hundreds of cases she had tried in those seven years had been the one in which the accused was wearing a thick signet-type ring with a hole in the center?

She was wide awake now, as she thought back over all the cases she had handled. As the last of her mental Rolodex cards flipped over, she shook her head. She was absolutely positive that she had never defended her captor. But she was certain about the ring. Although maybe it wasn’t the
exact
ring. Could it be a symbol of a terrorist group? I know I never had a case that involved a terrorist, Sunday thought, and again she reflected on just how nonpolitical this guy seemed. Okay, so he is not a terrorist, and he was never one of my “clients.” So who
is
this guy?

Where was Sunday last night? Henry asked himself as he entered the Cabinet Room of the White House at eleven o’clock the following morning. He realized immediately that if anything the mood was even grimmer than it had been at the meeting the previous day. He saw that in addition to Des Ogilvey, the full cabinet, and the heads of the CIA and FBI, two newcomers were present: the Senate Majority Leader and the Speaker of the House. Always looking for a photo opportunity, he thought. Neither man was particularly high on his list.

It had snowed lightly during the night, and the weather forecast was for a major storm to hit sometime before the weekend, probably on Friday. Please God, don’t let us be grounded, Henry prayed. The longer Sunday is left in their hands, the more likely the chances of something going wrong.

He thought back to the meeting the night before, with the odious Jovunet. Why the contradiction about the caviar? he wondered once more. It was a small thing, but it had the ring of something significant. Henry had come to the Cabinet Room directly from the safe house where Jovunet, surrounded by tailors, was cheerfully guzzling champagne and beluga caviar. It just didn’t make sense that Sunday’s kidnappers had made a point of instructing them to eliminate the caviar. Unless, of course, there was some hidden meaning in their message. He shook his head. Despite his years of experience, these games were new to him. Clearly there were no real rules, and anything was possible.

Henry realized that he was standing in front of his designated chair and that everyone was looking at him expectantly. “Mr. President,” he said, “I apologize for keeping you waiting.”

Desmond Ogilvey, that monument of patience, the president most often compared to “Cool” Calvin Coolidge, said crisply, “Henry, I say this in the hearing of those who will swiftly leak it to the press . . .” He paused to glare at the Speaker of the House. “. . . Don’t pull that formal stuff on me unless you’re joking, I was born with the highest respect for the government and for statesmanship. But you taught me what the presidency is all about.”

And Sunday taught me what happiness is all about, Henry thought.

Desmond Ogilvey folded his hands on the conference table in the exact position the nation’s political cartoonists loved to caricature. “I think we are all up to date on the situation,” he began. “The SST is being fitted with the most sophisticated equipment in our arsenal. The goal, obviously, is to allow us to monitor Jovunet, so that his future movements will be precisely available to us. If all goes according to plan, as of Friday, if Jovunet is in the jungle, we’ll know what tree he’s in and even on which branch. Location should not be a problem.”

Ogilvey thumped his clenched hands on the conference table. “Here, however,
is
the problem. Despite some significant ‘boo-boos’ — as my mother used to call them — our two supersleuth agencies are thankfully once again on the ball and in step. All our intelligence agents report unequivocally that no nation, including both our closest allies and our outright enemies, has come forward to offer Jovunet a haven. In fact, virtually everyone has indicated that they would rather see the plane blown up than to see him set foot on their soil. Unfortunately one conclusion we can draw from this situation is that right now, in some country where we don’t expect it, a revolution is brewing that will overthrow the existing government and may well present a very real threat to international peace.”

Henry listened with a sinking heart. It was as though he were watching Sunday trying to swim in a raging current, and that he was helpless to save her.

“Therefore,” Desmond Ogilvey continued, “we must conclude that there is a national emergency pending, that
a nation whose warning signals have been ignored is about to erupt.
” His glance at the director of the CIA caused that unfortunate dignitary to pale. Then the president looked across the table at his predecessor and announced, “I don’t know how to say this, but it would seem that your wife, the esteemed congresswoman from New Jersey, is in the hands of an unrecognized foe. I am afraid until they reveal themselves, there is little we can do but wait.”

Abruptly Henry stood up. “Des, I’ve got to revise the statement Jovunet is about to videotape.”

He turned to leave the room but was stopped momentarily by the embrace of reassuring arms. “Henry,” Desmond Ogilvey vowed, “we’re going to get her back. Every facility we can employ is committed to making that happen.”

No, Des, Henry thought. We’ve got to play the game this way, but my gut is telling me that what we’re doing is somehow all wrong.

He was becoming unhinged. Sunday could sense the subtle change in her captor’s manner. From above the stairwell she had heard him yelling at the woman he referred to as “Mother.” Was that woman really his mother, or was that just another part of their ruse? Like the monk’s robe, she thought. That disguise looks as though he rented it for a costume party.

The noise from upstairs had awakened her; now she wondered what time it was. It must be hours since he took those pictures, she thought. Would Henry have seen them yet? Would he see the anger in her face and know that she was still fighting to get free? That she was nowhere close to giving up?

She willed herself to ignore the now dreadful pain in her upper arm and shoulder. Why couldn’t they be numb like her legs, which she could no longer feel at all. Circulation zero, she thought. If Henry were here, he would . . .

She shook her head. She couldn’t think of that. The image of Henry cutting these ropes, lifting her up, gently kneading the circulation back into her tortured limbs — it was too wonderful to consider, and to allow herself the luxury might undo her. She had to be strong. This was a fight, and she wasn’t going down without somehow drawing blood.

In her mental review of all the cases she had handled in her seven years as a public defender, she was up to the fourth year. All the
significant
cases, she corrected herself. Dumb kids who punched a bouncer in a penny-ante bar fight were not included in her review.

I’m blessed with a terrific memory, Sunday reassured herself as she shook her head and tried to disengage the rough hood that kept sticking to her forehead. Mom always said I was like her Aunt Kate. “Very observant, never missed anything,” Mom explained to Henry when she was filling him in about the relatives. “And nosy. I’ll never forget when Kate asked me if I had ‘news’ for her, clearly asking if I were in a delicate condition. Dear God, I don’t think I was expecting Sunday a week, and I had no intention of telling anyone about it yet. I happen to think — ”

Sunday had finished the sentence for her. “You happen to think that it’s more genteel for a woman to be in her fourth month before she announces it to the world. Maybe your Aunt Kate had a dirty mind. I hear it runs in the family.”

But I am like old Kate, Sunday promised herself. I’m an observant, detail-oriented person, and that ring is definitely a detail I noticed in court.

Her reverie was interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the stairs. Sunday felt a nervous quiver go through her body. She wasn’t sure what was worse: when her captor crept silently down or when he announced his approach with heavy, deliberate steps.

It had to be morning. She realized she was hungry. Was he going to feed her? He’d said something about making an audiotape. When was that going to happen?

The footsteps shuffled against the cement floor. Sunday felt the hood being lifted from her head. The robed figure was standing over her. He reached up and turned on the dangling lightbulb, and for several seconds Sunday was once again blinded by the light. When her vision readjusted she stared again at her captor, strutting to get any hint of his features. His face was still in shadow, but she continued staring at it, demanding of her subconscious that she recall if she’d seen it before. Sunken eyes, bony facial structure. Probably in his fifties. “Mother should have done a better job,” he said angrily. “She left the milk out on the counter overnight and now it’s sour. I’m afraid you’ll have to settle for dry cereal and black coffee. But first, I’ll assist you to the lavatory.” He walked around the chair and began to untie the knots.

Mother should have done a better job.
. . .

That voice. That tone. I’ve heard it before. He talked like that to me once, Sunday thought. He said I should have done a better job.

Like a developing picture, the memory of it came into focus. It had happened in court, while she was defending Wallace “Sneakers” Klint, just one in the parade of losers she had represented in those early years. Sunday had chosen to be a public defender because she was a staunch supporter of the concept that everyone deserved his day in court. That meant, of course, that everyone deserved full legal representation. The Klint case had been one of her least favorites. Although he was charged with murder, she had succeeded in convincing the jury to find him guilty of the lesser charge of manslaughter, which meant that in twenty years, when he was sixty years old, he would get out of prison.

The trial had not been a particularly long one, in part, she suspected, because the prosecution knew it did not have a very strong case. She remembered that Klint’s older brother showed up for a few days of the trial. She looked up again at her captor. No wonder I didn’t recognize him, she thought, trying not to let any emotion register on her face. Back then Klint’s brother had had long, stringy hair and a beard, and had looked very much like an aging hippie. That’s right, he had been very much a part of the “counterculture,” something she remembered because there had been some discussion of calling him as a witness, but she had felt that he would probably do more to hurt Sneaker’s case than to help it.

Sunday forced herself to think back to the day that he had spoken to her. She had left the courtroom, and he had come up behind her as she was walking down the hall toward the elevators. He had put his hand on her shoulder. She remembered how the ring he was wearing had robbed against her neck, and that she had yanked his hand away. That was when she noticed the ring’s distinctive design.

He had said that the verdict meant a death sentence for their mother, that she’d never live long enough to see Sneakers in her home again.
And that was when he told me I should have done a better job,
she thought.

At the time it hadn’t sounded like a threat. In fact, Sunday thought the guy was a jerk; he should have been kissing her feet for keeping his punk brother out of the death chamber. Thanks to her, Sneakers was now making license plates for the state of New Jersey.

So this man was the older brother. And the woman upstairs had to be the elderly mother. Don’t let him know you suspect, Sunday cautioned herself.

But as she tried to fit together the pieces of what she had learned she couldn’t make sense of it. What has Sneakers Klint’s brother got to do with international terrorism? she kept asking herself. Her kidnapping had seemed so professional, but this guy in front of her seemed more like a lone wacko.