“Mr. President,” the man in the black suit repeated, “we need to move right now.”
Taylor stared at the man, then at his father. “Dad? I thought Uncle Benny was President.”
“That's right, son,” Bidwell said. “There's a lot of confusion right now. Colonel Robertson and some other people are trying to ...” his voice broke as he cuddled the boy's head against his shoulder, looking past Taylor to the man in the black suit. “They're trying to upset us.”
“Boneheads,” Taylor said, muffled, and Hardesty flinched.
“Indeed,” Bidwell murmured. His eyes crinkled, though, and he shot Hardesty a glance revealing gratitude for the break in tension afforded by the sound of his son, imitating her favorite epithet, on what must have been the most harrowing day of his life.
The black-suited man reached for Hardesty's hand; she offered to return the shake only to have something pressed from his palm into hers. “Ms. Hardesty, I presume,” he said. “Your recent actions do you a great deal of credit. I regret we were not able to save more of your belongings. We were informed only that you are a homeschool teacher.”
“So I am,” she answered forthrightly, slipping her wallet into her pocket after a single glance revealed, from the scorch marks, what had gone with the rest of her possessions. “I thought our unit on natural history ought to include some first-hand experience as well as the recommended reading in the curriculum, agent ....”
“Wilson,” he said, and shook her hand for real.
“Agent Wilson,” she repeated. “So far as my stuff goes ... it's just stuff. I can always replace things.” She drew in a breath. “I hope there haven't been any ... irreplaceable losses.”
“Can't confirm or deny that,” he answered briskly. Then his voice softened to prevent distressing Taylor. “Some reports we've had suggest things not going well, though. Robertson's people overran my colleagues at the White House a half-hour or so ago. No word since.”
She gave him a quick look and a confirming nod. “I hope no news is good news.”
“From your lips,” he murmured. His earbug chirped and he stopped, listening, his posture going tense as a cello-string.
Bidwell regained his clasp of her hand. “Angela,” he said firmly, so softly nobody else but Taylor could hear. “How do I thank you for saving my son for me?”
“Keep him safe, and yourself?” she made it a question in the same low voice, then went on in a conversational tone. “We were studying a little geology, a little wildlife biology, a little environmental science, a bit of orienteering and a little nutrition. We had a good lesson in sanitation, too.”
“Don't forget the first aid,” Taylor said. “Dad, she fixed my foot. I had a really awful blister, but it doesn't hurt a bit now.”
Bidwell's eyebrows went up as he gazed at her.
“We ... Taylor ... covered a lot of ground,” she said. “I just put a little antibiotic ointment and a bandage on the blister. It might be a good idea to have it professionally cleaned up, just in case.”
Wilson stepped up beside them. “Sir, I don't want to sound like a broken record, but I really think we need to find you a safer place than out here in the open.”
“You're saying your people don't have a handle on Robertson?”
“I'm saying what my people have handles on makes me very unhappy,” Wilson answered.
“What about that county hospital we passed on the road in?”
Nonplussed, the agent looked from the man and boy in his charge to Hardesty.
“A quick checkup for the boy,” she said. “Shower and change of clothes for both of us, out of sight, out of mind?”
“Let's roll,” Wilson said firmly. “Not county – it's currently inundated with some of the unfortunate enthusiasts who've been scouring the area for you, trying to earn Colonel Robertson's reward. I can get us to a secure ER in ... twelve minutes, from here.”
“Hence Regent Four,” Bidwell murmured. “Why anybody thought a Marine master gunnery sergeant belonged 'undercover' as a poacher I cannot fathom.”
Hardesty whistled softly. “That was a Marine?”
“You took his rifle,” Wilson said. “What was your impression?”
She thought back. “Quick, mostly. But I surprised him, so maybe my evaluation wasn't fair.”
“Surprised him?”
“He was expecting a frightened small boy, and probably an equally frightened teacher. He caught us asleep, or as nearly so as doesn't matter, a long way from help. Come to think of it, his stealth techniques and his gear preparation weren't half-bad. Maybe if I'd been thinking about it the MREs would have been a giveaway, but I had other things on my mind, and they're commonly available these days.” Grudgingly, she looked the rifle over, quickly, again. “Oh. Well, yeah, this is the way a Marine would keep a rifle. But ... this thing's an antique.”
Wilson shook his head. “It's an iron-sights single-action. If I didn't want to be seen sporting a sniper's weapon ... I might carry one of these myself.” He extended a hand. Hardesty slipped the sling off her shoulder. Turning his body a bit away, Wilson took up the weapon, one hand sliding forward under the forearm, snuggling it into his shoulder and bringing it down smoothly. “Wait ...” he paused, shifting his body weight, sliding a thumb along the top of the receiver. “It's a reproduction.”
The softest possible mechanical click followed, and the brass buttplate folded down on a thin wire. Out of the cavity behind it fell a vernier sight. Hardesty hadn't seen the latch. “Niiiice.”
“Special equipment,” Wilson said. “Probably costs half as much in so small a caliber as the commoner Sharps reproductions. Lighter to carry in the field, too. Round barrel to keep from giving away the true nature of the weapon. Somebody put some thought into ordering this.”
Bidwell considered. “I'm glad they're on our side.”
“You sure about that? What happened to Regent Six?”
Wilson snapped the rifle down, took a quick look around the area. “Dammit.”
Hardesty retrieved the weapon. “I've seen this thing from the business end before. Who was running your Marine pretending to be a poacher?”
“We thought it was the Detail,” Wilson growled. “I've known Four and Six for ... years.”
“Really?” Bidwell looked at him. “D'you suppose they knew Robertson too, before this week?”
“I don't suppose a damned thing, starting now,” Wilson answered. “Could we please leave?”
Hardesty looked at him. “And we should trust you because?”
“Oh, for pity's sake,” Bidwell interrupted. “We have to trust somebody. Let's start with one another. Does anybody think Taylor is a security risk?”
“No,” Hardesty and Wilson chorused. Each turned and eyed the other.
“That's settled, anyway,” Bidwell murmured, aggravated.
“So we start here,” Hardesty said. “Look, Agent Wilson ... I've walked in your moccasins. Long time ago. You're Regent ... Five?”
“Three,” he said, exhaling tiredly. “You were a ... Shepherd?”
“Guardian angel,” she answered. “Three, as a matter of fact. Back when the earbugs had visible coil connectors. But so far as I know we never ordered anything like this.” She patted the rifle. “Issue would have been a nine – mostly Sig Sauers, a few Glocks for people who had to move through commercial airports. It was all before 9-11-01, so things were under way less stress, in some ways.”
“Robertson's people think we're not stressing things enough, now,” Wilson said.
“The President bringing sixteen Al Qaeda leaders to the World Court wasn't enough for him?” Bidwell growled, and Taylor flinched. “It's okay, son. I'm just ... talking about work.”
“Must not have been impressive, to a guy like Robertson. All that folderol with trials and legal proceedings and convictions and so forth ... time-consuming and peaceful. Boring, when a nice endless war could've been used to waste our national resources and young people instead,” Hardesty said sarcastically. “Yeah, I know the type.”
Wilson's careful scrutiny became a different sort of examination. “Subtlety?”
“Whenever there's enough time, which we are running out of,” Hardesty said mildly. “You?”
He grinned. “We should be moving out. There's a secured medical facility about twenty minutes from here. You'll excuse me if I want to be sure you're both sound before we undertake more strenuous activities, I'm sure?”
Hardesty nodded. “Make me feel better to get coffee, a shower and clean clothes, too.”
“There's a county hospital two blocks over,” Bidwell said. “Why not there?”
“Oh, other than the overwhelming number of unfortunate bounty-seekers flooding it with sprains, strains, heat exhaustion, poison ivy, and probably gastrointestinal misery from drinking out of the creeks while they were trying to collect Robertson's million-dollar price on Taylor's head,” Wilson said flatly, “it's not secure.”
“Not to mention,” Hardesty murmured, “as close as it is to here we'd be sitting ducks.” She held Taylor on her shoulder while Wilson handed Bidwell up into the SUV nearby, then passed the boy to his father.
“Shotgun?” Wilson asked.
“Sit with me, Miss Angel,” Taylor said. “You can tell Dad all about what we did in the woods.”
Hardesty flinched faintly and Bidwell chuckled. “I'd like to hear that, myself.”
“I taught him how to make a cat-hole latrine,” she said simply. “He can tell you the rest better than I can, probably.”
Bidwell gave her a considering look. “I will ask him.”
“Marty Robbins is my favorite singer ever,” Hardesty said, and swung into the front passenger seat, the rifle settled against the dash.
“Uncle Tim,” Taylor said presently, having run into a difficulty in his narration of his adventures to his attentive dad, “what are those clothes people wear to blend into the woods called?”
“Camouflage,” Wilson answered almost absently. “Why?”
“That man Dad told me not to trust wore them, and so did the redheaded lady with him.”
“What redhead?” Wilson glanced at Hardesty.
“I never saw her face,” Hardesty replied. “From her voice, though ... and the way she behaved ... somebody familiar with the Detail, firsthand. As much or more as Waddell himself, except she's got a thieving heart.”
“Why do you say that?”
“She told that man she'd've stolen one of Uncle Benny's fast cars,” Taylor said. “Isn't that what caching means, Miss Angel?”
“Not exactly,” Hardesty said. “It means taking something and putting it out of sight so you can find it when you need it, and not everybody will know you have it.”
Wilson growled wordlessly.
“She said Uncle Benny had half a dozen Ferra ... Furra ... fast cars,” Taylor said.
Bidwell caught his breath. “Half a dozen Ferraris? Where did she say they were?”
“At the house,” Taylor answered. “Is that important?”
“That tells us who she was,” Bidwell said quietly. “Doesn't it, Regent Three?”
“That tells me,” Wilson said, “We need to ditch this vehicle. Probably everything in it, and the clothes we're wearing, too – I've never met anybody more paranoid, or fixated on gadgets, than that woman. Regent One, indeed. I think it probably also means the reports we had a little while ago from DC are at least partly correct. You probably are the President now, sir.”
“I don't want you to be right about that, Tim,” Jason Bidwell said, sounding suddenly weary. “I really don't, because Ben and Mikaela are friends of mine.”
“Five years working hand-in-glove, two election campaigns, yeah,” Wilson said. “You'd have to be either really close, or good at hiding a cutthroat rivalry. I've seen you all together.” He sucked in a breath, let it out in a long sigh. “Rivals you're not. ... Thank God the girls are away at school.”
“Taylor should have been, too,” Bidwell said. “On the other hand, if Taylor had been in school, he'd be no safer now than the girls are. Tim, can you find out anything?”
“Boss,” Hardesty interrupted. “Taylor's right here with us. I think we need to concentrate.” So rudely reminded of their immediate responsibilities, the two men spared the seven-year-old boy a glance, Bidwell at the top of his blond head, Wilson at his small form in the rear-view mirror. Neither of them looked comfortable. “Look, I know you're worried. I know you're thinking about a big picture. But we really, really don't have enough solid information to go there.”
“What we do have,” Bidwell said, “Is all the money I could get my hands on, without a public scandal. I thought we might get hit for ransom. So ...” he hefted an aluminum briefcase from behind his seat, “I brought along some cash. There's really not much here – but it's better than nothing.”
Hardesty grinned. “Gentlemen, hush!”