My King The President (14 page)

I was tired, but when Liz poured two glasses of wine instead of making cups of hot chocolate, I knew I was not going to get any sleep right away. “I’m going to take a shower, Jeb. You used up all the hot water this afternoon, but it’s probably warm enough by now. Don’t go away.”

I had two, maybe three sips of the wine, and was starting to pull the sweater off, when all hell broke loose. It was as if all the trip wires had been sprung at once. I jumped off the sofa like a rocket, started to run outside, but remembered where Liz was, and hesitated. The noise outside the cabin became enough to wake people up two counties away: Cal’s recorded gunfire, some of Pete’s explosions, whistles, sirens, shouting, including Pete’s voice coming through the Walkie Talkie. “It’s a whole fucking
platoon
, Cal.”

I dropped the Walkie Talkie and ran to the back room just as Liz came out of it, half in and half out of Cal’s white terrycloth robe, her eyes full of terror. “Jeb?”

I grabbed her hand, and with my other one, a butcher knife from the kitchen table. Not taking the time to look around for a flashlight, I yanked her through the back door just as I heard a round from something a lot more powerful than a rifle crash into the living room wall. “Don’t talk, Liz, come on, we have to get to the boat.”

Halfway down the treacherous path to the boat shed, Liz snagged the robe on a limb, causing her to stumble. “Forget it!” I screamed. “Just leave it there.” I forced myself to go slow enough not to slip, turning every other step down to help Liz, ignoring her nakedness.

We reached the lean-to where the Zodiac hung from its lashings. My eyes had almost begun to adjust to the lack of light, and I noticed new raindrops between Liz’s face and mine when I grabbed her by both arms and yelled, “Listen to me, Liz. We only have a few seconds. This boat is our only chance. I have some experience with it, but not when the river was anything like—”

A crash came from above and behind us. Then a flare exploded above the river, illuminating for a second the unholy look of fear in her eyes. She was trying to say something, but no sound was coming out. I cut the first two leather straps. The rear end of the rubber boat dropped down to the ground. I pointed to the inside straps. “Hold on to these. I’ll try to steer. Whatever you do, hold on to those straps. Don’t let go, no matter what happens.”

She nodded, and I cut the remaining two straps. The nose of the boat fell and we pushed it to the edge of the small, level clearing that was now only inches from the water. I grabbed a paddle, threw it into the bottom of the boat, and helped Liz climb in. When I was sure her feet were secured and she was holding tight to the side straps, I pushed the nose into the river and dived in myself. We were instantly caught up in a maelstrom. Images flew past my eyes at speeds no camera shutter could possibly capture. Black, heaving walls of forest sped by, split by the yellow inferno of crashing water that had enveloped us, moving faster than from a broken hydrant. Spray, cold as liquid ice soaked me to the skin in seconds.

Several times, the rubber boat, thrown by the river’s centrifugal force in the curves, brushed scrub bush limbs and pine needles, scourging our faces and shoulders. I lost my steering paddle within the first thirty seconds of our ride into hell, and like Liz, held onto the straps with all my strength. Before we had been carried downstream of the winding river more than half a mile, probably no more than five hundred yards from the cabin as the crow flies, one final explosion lit up the night sky behind us. The resulting sound took a second longer to beat against our ears, over the awesome sound of the water. I knew in that millisecond that the cabin was gone. Forever.

The next thirty minutes held at least that many miracles. I tried to anticipate turns and wave action, but the river was sending the Zodiac down the twisting, freezing, yellow liquid valley willy-nilly, like an out of control bumper car traveling at Nascar speed. Twice, I was thrown over the side, but managed to somehow crab-crawl back in, losing both shoes somewhere in between. I will never know how Liz found the strength to hold on. The rain was now coming down in sheets, at forty-five degrees to the river, but felt like a warm shower compared to the ice water spewed up and over us by the Quail. I think the only thing that saved our lives was that the water was too high to expose the boat’s thin bottom skin to the rocks I knew were there when we hit the rapids. We were simply carried over the tops of all of them, too terrified to realize how cold it was. Too numb to even pray. Maybe our fingers had frozen around the straps. Before I knew it, two more miracles happened. The river smoothed out a little, and the rain let up some. Soon, we drifted into an area where the Quail broadened considerably, and a few minutes later, the current carried us well into the reservoir.

Exhausted and shivering uncontrollably, I was suddenly aware it had stopped raining. I had no idea when it had quit. Had I blacked out? I don’t know. The Quail’s tempest had pushed us half a mile or more into the flat water of the broad lake. Soon as the boat’s motion was quiet, I looked up to see a half moon trying to break through the scudding clouds, then I lowered my eyes and dully watched Liz give up her own consciousness. At the same time, I heard the thumping. At first I thought it was an echo in my ears. I was so tired; I didn’t realize it was a helicopter until we were speared by its nose light.

I had always thought of helicopters as the ugliest of all aircraft. Unlovely and unnatural. Ugly as beggars. Whores of the sky. But this one was an angel. Sent down from heaven by God. Somewhere, I found enough strength to peel off my soaked sweater, and help Liz, who was moaning like a keening widow, to get her arms and head into it. My hands were so frozen, I could hardly grasp the heavy wool material enough to drag it down over her breasts, but some inner force in me not yet called upon desperately wanted to warm her, and cover as much of her nakedness as possible from the leering white Cyclops sweeping over us. Its curious light was intermittently showing me her body was already a dangerous shade of blue. I pulled the sweater down far as I could, then fell back into the Zodiac’s flooded floor.

Sharp lucidity and total blackness visited me by turn during the next series of mini-nightmares: The frogman creature who appeared from the lake. The sight of Liz’s nearly nude body in the harness, swinging like a pornographic pendulum over me. Myself in the sling that cut into my armpits and crotch. Watching the tiny orange boat shrink even smaller, buffeted now not by the Quail’s wrath, but by the angel’s breath. Two pairs of strong arms pulling me inside. Liz, covered by a blanket. A blanket for me, too. No wind any more. No rain. Pretty little colored lights everywhere. A metal door slamming shut. Another miracle that tasted like brandy. A voice. Close up. The angel? The angel’s voice? No. NO! I
knew
that voice, and it was from no angel. The voice of the fucking devil himself.

“Welcome aboard, Jeb,” Thurmond Frye was saying. “Looks like you’ll live after all. And now you owe me one.”

Chapter 13

The first thing I saw was Lucille Sweeney’s face.

When I was a kid, maybe eight or nine, the Sunday edition of Cal’s paper still carried several of the old-time comic strips; reprints of some that had been popular when he’d been a boy himself, including a few that dated from as far back as the 1940’s and ‘50’s, such as “Li’l Abner”, “Dick Tracy”, “Terry and the Pirates”, along with my favorite, “Buz Sawyer.” One of the chief characters in that series was a female football player named Lucille Sweeney. Lucille had a face that would scare Dracula and a fullback’s body that could run over an eighteen-wheeler. She was also the friendliest, kindest soul imaginable, and unless she was badly provoked, would never have harmed a fly.

But this Lucille Sweeney wore a white uniform, smelled like a mixture of carnations and Johnson’s baby oil, and had great hands! She had apparently finished massaging my back and was trying to turn me over so she could do my front when I woke up. I slowly realized that except for the towel discreetly draped over me just south of my Mason-Dixon line, I was naked, but I didn’t care. Didn’t give a happy damn. I was dry, I was warm, and I was alive. Every muscle in my body was screaming. Even those that controlled my eyelids, but good old Lucille was well on her way to kneading out the knots in every single one of them. “Where am I, Lucille?”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Willard. My name is Mavis, not Lucille. Mavis Zinman. I’m a nurse. Just take it easy. We’ll have you back to your old self in no time. You’ve been asleep fourteen hours, and your girlfriend is still asleep, but don’t worry, she’s fine otherwise.”

I absorbed this information in silence. From where I lay, I could see that the ceiling of the room I was in was high; a single light fixture recessed in it. The walls were papered, but sported no pictures. Old fashioned, yet odd.
Farmhouse
? The soles of my feet were touching the foot of a brass bed, and over the tips of my toes, I could see a single window that had no curtains. Venetian blinds had been pulled up, and I could see blue sky. Nothing else, which told me the room was on at least the second floor of whatever building I was in.

Lucille/Mavis was talking again. “That must have been some ride. Took me quite a while to get you both cleaned up. You’re lucky to be alive.”

I managed to turn my head to the side, noticing the table by the bed, on top of which were a large, half-full washbasin, and a bar of soap in a dish next to my wallet. My clothes were nowhere in sight. She still hadn’t told me where we were. I asked her again, and, “What about my father and the others?”

“You’re in one of the safe houses we occasionally borrow from our CIA cousins. I’m not allowed to tell you where, or anything else. Please be patient. Mr. Frye will be back soon. I’m sure he will answer all your questions.” Her hands and fingers increased their expert pressure on my upper thighs. “You have an athlete’s body. Nice. Very nice. No wonder you survived. You must be hungry, too.”

It’s amazing how the power of suggestion works. Her last few words made me forget how my body ached. I was starving. I also had to empty my bladder, and told her so.

“Of course. I’m finished anyway.” She stood, and for the first time, I noticed the first two or three buttons of her uniform were undone, revealing a cleavage that most women would have envied. She didn’t miss seeing my glance, and the sly smile that split her plain face went, it seemed to me, a tad beyond the call of her duty. She pointed left. “You’ll find a robe in that closet. The bathroom’s at the end of the hall. You like bacon and eggs at four in the afternoon?”

“I love bacon and eggs at four in the afternoon. Grits, too.”

“No grits, I’m afraid.” She picked up the washbasin, balanced it neatly on one broad hip, opened the door and looked back before leaving. “Come downstairs when you’re ready. Over light or scrambled?”

“I don’t care.”

I watched her go through the door, walking on legs that would have supported a Steinway.

Her massage had done wonders, but I still felt like I had after the first excruciating day of every spring training football practice. I found the blue robe in the closet easily enough—it was the only garment there. I started to open the door into the hallway, then stopped. The door itself was not an old wooden one like the closet door. I rapped lightly with my knuckles. Metal. And heavy. I looked closer. So was its frame. I checked the door knob and its housing. It looked normal, but when I opened it and checked on the opposite side, I saw a stainless steel plate and keyhole. So. You could only lock or unlock it from the outside. Great. This wasn’t a room, it was a goddamn cell.

I knew I had missed something, turned and went back inside. Looked around closer. Sure enough, there was no light switch on any wall for that recessed overhead light. I squinted up, and saw a small dark circle in its middle.
Closed circuit camera
! Then I noticed the mirror hanging opposite the bed, to one side of the closet. It looked much too large for the room.
Two way
?

I padded down the hall to the bathroom, certain the hall and the bathroom, plus the two upstairs rooms I passed were equally equipped. While standing there relieving myself in the bathroom, it struck me that nurse Mavis was probably just as good with needles and certain drugs as she was with a washcloth and baby oil. Thurmond Frye was going to play some hardball, if he hadn’t already. I began to boil inside all over again.

There was no need to go back into my “room” so I went down the single flight of sturdy oak stairs, toward the smell of frying bacon, wondering which one they had stashed Liz in. All the doors I had passed were the same. Identical locks. At the bottom of the stairs, I turned left toward the roomy kitchen, noting on the way that there was yet another door under the stairwell.
Must be to a cellar, or basement. Bet that’s where the monitors are
.

I wasn’t surprised to see Frye’s man sitting at the kitchen table. He smiled up at me. “Jason Barnes. You do remember me, don’t you?”

My stomach told my brain not to argue. Nurse Mavis Zinman proved to be as good a cook as she was a masseuse, and I polished off the small mountain of food she set before me, eating like a year-old hound. I looked up only once at Barnes, who said, “I’ve already eaten.”

Mavis set the coffeepot down on the table, and left the room. I poured myself a second cup, pushed my plate away, and tried to think of what to say first. There was no sense in making matters worse than they were, so I decided not to say or do anything to antagonize my host and hostess. Just the opposite. “You guys saved our lives. I should thank you for pulling us out of the river. You were aboard the helicopter, weren’t you?”