Five hours later Bidwell asked, slowing down as traffic thickened, “Stay on this road or switch to 81 up ahead?”
Taylor, who'd been alternately dozing and amusing himself with license plate bingo, announced, “I'm starving.”
“I could eat, too,” Hardesty admitted.
Wilson tapped the map on his knee. “Let's get off the road for awhile. Maybe spend the night in Cumberland. I'm tired of wondering what's going on out there.”
“Talk radio,” Hardesty said. “Boneheads.”
“That and a gift for saying things that I'd just as soon not hear,” Bidwell said quietly, “or share.”
“Yeah,” and Wilson glanced uncomfortably at the towheaded child in the rearview mirror, “there's that, too. What we don't know, in this particular case, could turn out to be really, really bad for us. I wish ... I wish I could call in.”
“I wish I had someone to call,” Bidwell murmured.
“I might have,” Hardesty said, sounding tired. “Not somebody in the loop, but somebody who pays attention. I don't know if they'll have ferreted out all our connections yet. The radio isn't quite ... insistent enough ... on finding us. It almost feels like they'd like to have us out here, so they can scapegoat us if anything goes wrong.”
“That rumor,” Bidwell said, “that you had taken Taylor and me hostage was not reassuring.”
“Well, so far as they know ... I mean, the guy they talked to did give up his gun to me,” Hardesty said.“Regent Four and Regent One both know I have it. If they've done any homework at all they know my background.”
“Fill me in,” Regent Five said flatly. “Nobody ever suggested anything to me except that you were a private teacher, helping Taylor not fall too far behind in his studies.”
She rolled her shoulders, looking across the seat at him. “What is it you want to know?”
“You're ex-military, obviously,” he said.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Used to be Air Force. Long time ago.”
“What'd you do, a long time ago, in the Air Force?”
“Marksmanship instructor, for one thing,” she answered.
Wilson managed – barely – not to goggle. “How does that not equal sniper?”
“We didn't have snipers on the ground,” she answered. “All our sharpshooters were airborne – they figured their shots over several miles, and usually in four dimensions. It's called shacking bombs and splashing bogeys.”
“Easier than figuring for temperature layers and approach angles without giving yourself away to hostile sonar,” Bidwell murmured.
Wilson stared openmouthed at him. “You were a submariner?”
“No,” Bidwell said. “Taylor's mother's brother is.”
Wilson settled back and held his own counsel.
“What we need is the Internet,” Taylor said presently. “If we had Abby Sciuto or Agent McGee, we'd be on top of everything that's happening, in real-time.”
“You watch too much TV,” Bidwell began, but Hardesty shook her head.
“What would they do, Taylor?”
He thought about it, chewing his lip. “Well ... if I was McGee ... I'd be looking for a ... voice-over-Internet connection.”
“He really does watch too much TV,” Wilson muttered. Hardesty had begun to grin, but the next words out of Taylor's mouth sobered them all.
“McGee hacked an internet connection with his cell phone and a really old computer Gibbs had in his basement. They made Ziva hold up the antenna.” He looked triumphant. “The bad guys were in the NCIS office. I don't think it was very easy, but McGee was able to figure out what the evidence was and Gibbs figured out what it meant, and nobody knew they were even online.”
Hardesty put her head in her hands. “Cell phone.”
“Wireless,” Bidwell said. “Pre-paid. Disposable.”
“Cliché tool for every bad guy on TV,” Wilson muttered. “Why didn't we think of it sooner? We could watch the feeds into headquarters ...” he blinked at the gazes turned, owl-like, upon him. “Well ... okay. We'd have to be careful how we access that.”
“Do you really think they haven't changed the dial-in yet?” Hardesty asked interestedly. “In my day we did that every twelve hours, regardless.”
“In your day the ISP didn't charge for every changeover,” Wilson shot back. He rubbed one hand over his face. “My supervisor has a conniption if we change it once a week. It costs money.”
“Yeah – how's that privatization for fun and profit treating you?” Hardesty needled.
“Not my idea,” he answered, equally tiredly.
“We still don't have a cell phone,” Taylor pointed out.
Hardesty chuckled. “Which means we can't be tracked by GPS or tower-id. Maybe what we need is even older, and lower-tech. Maybe what we need is a library.”
“A what?” Wilson said, disbelievingly.
“A library,” Hardesty answered. “You know, free Internet?”
“Public terminals,” Bidwell breathed. “We thought it was going to change the world, back in 1999.”
“It did,” Hardesty reassured him. “Little old ladies and school kids. Commander Keen and community bulletin boards, and downloading email with shareware. PGP and ftp and 9800 baud, man. Next thing you know, they're figuring out how to do it all at home.”
Bidwell grinned. “You sound like you were there.”
“I was,” she said. “I think we want to be again. What time is it?”
“Ten-fifteen,” Wilson said. “Why?”
Hardesty growled. “We need to eat; we need a place for a base camp – showers, laundry, sleep – and a library. But ten-fifteen in the morning is the wrong time of day for, say, a schoolboy to be using the library.”|
“What about a business center?” Wilson said. “You know, one of those 'conveniences' for business travelers – check your email, print your boarding pass, look up the best bars or restaurants nearby -- that sort of thing.”
“That could work too,” Bidwell said. “Where do you find those? Hotels? Convention centers? What we're after are public terminals, right?”
“More or less. Most hotels make you use your key card ...”
“Okay, then. We find a place with a business center and a guest laundry, and we go to ground. Catch up on the news, shower, get some sleep. Make a plan.” Bidwell's voice and manner had shifted to one of command.
“Works for me, Boss,” Hardesty murmured.
“Yeah, Dad,” Taylor said.
Wilson nodded. “I'm good with that.”

The first place Bidwell stopped had a business center, but no guest laundry, and no available doubles. The second place had a laundry and a restaurant on the premises, but no business center. Finally, on the road to the airport twenty miles away, he hit the jackpot: a chain-operated hotel out of which buses loaded with high-school tennis teams were loading up for departure.
Bidwell read the red-LED crawler on the sign. “Free hi-speed wireless ... well, they probably aren't furnishing a printer in every room yet. Let's check it out, Tim.”
They came back to the car a few minutes later. “Diner downstairs, business center next door to the fitness room – treadmill, free weights and an indoor pool. There's a with a laundry room with vending machines in every hallway. Oh, and there's continental breakfast in the mornings. A suite: two queen beds, walk-in closet, HBO and pay-per-view, and free local calls.”
“Not too shabby,” Hardesty said. “How much?”
“Sixty bucks a night, or two hundred until Friday, after taxes,” Wilson said. “We thought that might be a bargain, all things considered. The sofa makes a bed, too. There's a regular efficiency kitchen –dishwasher, stove, microwave, fridge, cabinet full of dishes and cookware. Even a toaster and a coffeemaker.”
“Sounds like all the comforts of home,” Hardesty said.
“I figure we should lay in some groceries,” Wilson said. “The diner's in between breakfast and lunch right now, and there's a grocery store around the corner. If you guys want to unload and settle in ...”
“Why not?” Bidwell murmured.

Wilson turned out to be something of a rough-hewn chef; from two armloads of reusable, insulated, zipper-top grocery bags he produced an astonishing number of victuals, stocking the fridge and pantry. Salt, pepper, mustard, ketchup, butter, oil, mayonnaise, tea, cocoa, coffee, sugar, powdered milk, canned goods, eggs, bacon, cheese, milk, juice, biscuit mix, a loaf of bread, peanut butter and jelly, and a variety of fresh and frozen veggies emerged. He flourished the day's local paper, a bottle of dish soap, a roll of paper towels and a packet of dishtowels out of the last crevices in his panniers. Noise and movement followed; presently coffee appeared on the table, with cups, cream, and sugar. Ice water and juice followed, and pans and dishes rattled; the room filled with the aroma of bacon and the sizzle of cooking. Hardesty, last of the three who had remained at the hotel to finish showering, appeared just in time to see Taylor, sporting clean socks and an over-sized T-shirt, settle down to a plate filled with bacon, toast, jelly, scrambled eggs, and hash browns.
Wilson dished up an omelet; Bidwell, at the other end of the counter-top, deftly buttered the toast that had just popped up and loaded it onto the plate. He handed it on to Hardesty with an appreciative grin: she had improvised, from the hotel's towels, a turban and kilt to go with her own clean socks and over-sized T-shirt. She chose a chair opposite Taylor, her back in a corner. Bidwell reloaded the toaster, drained a mug of coffee and poured himself a refill.
“Mushrooms and onions?” Wilson asked.
“Bacon and cheese, too,” Bidwell said.
“Okay, two fully loaded, coming up – do you want picante sauce?”
“No, thanks.” More coffee followed the first mug. “How dark do you want your toast?”
“Anything short of smoking,” Wilson said. “Pour me some OJ, would you?”
Hardesty obliged. “You've got some skills, Tim.”
“Thanks,” he said. “You pick it up,” and he slid omelets out of the skillet onto two plates with practiced ease, “cooking for six brothers and sisters when your mom works nights and your dad works days.”
“Most guys,” Bidwell said, slathering butter on toast to add to the plates, “would teach the little kids to pour cereal and milk, and call it good.”
“Most guys didn't have my mom,” Wilson answered. “Breakfast needed to carry you all day – we took sack lunches to school and bought nickel milk. I still make a killer PBJ, if I do say so myself.”
“What about supper?” Hardesty asked.
“Mom usually fixed that,” Wilson said. “She'd make herself breakfast and us something simple – I remember sometimes, toward the end of the month, we'd have cornbread and red beans one night, then the next night we'd have chili and cornbread, and the night after that we'd have hobo stew – chili and red beans over cornbread.” He shook his head. “Come payday we'd have hamburgers or sloppy joes, and lots of times tuna fish with noodles or chicken and dumplings.”
“How'd you get into the line of work you're in?”
“Couldn't help it,” he said. “Dad was a maintenance man with the fire department, and mom was a night dispatcher for the highway patrol. I knew I didn't want to run into burning buildings, and I'm not mechanically inclined at all.”
“Come retirement, you should go to cooking school,” Bidwell said, seriously. “This is good, and you didn't waste around about fixing it.”
“Eggs are easy,” Wilson answered. “Coffee's simple. Anybody can do toast.”
Hardesty groaned. “Speak for yourself. Biscuits, now, I can do. Sourdough or buttermilk either one. Toast, I burn nine times out of ten.” The men looked at her. She shrugged her shoulders. “Not my gift. But I can bake, and barbecue.”
“And teach,” Bidwell said mildly. “I'll clear the dishes. Who wants first crack at the news?”
“I think,” Wilson said, “I'll stroll down and have a look at the Internet in the business center.”
“Dad,” Taylor said, seriously, “you should call Uncle Ben.”
“I know,” Bidwell said.
Hardesty punched a button, and the television came on. She scrolled through channels, past Univision, HBO and pay-per-view, until she reached a solemn announcer standing in front of the White House.
“...Mikaela Benton and her daughters are believed to be among the hostages,” the announcer finished. “Back to you, Charlie.”
“Is there any word on where the hostages are?”
“The last confirmed sightings of Angela Hardesty and Timothy Wilson were in Covington, day before yesterday, Charlie,” the announcer said. “At that time Wilson appeared to be held at gunpoint. It's believed that the Vice President and his son were also in the vehicle that Hardesty commandeered. The vehicle has not been found, and there's been no further word from Wilson or the Bidwells.”
Hardesty sank slowly down on the couch, staring at the screen. It had filled with a copy of the picture from her driver's license.
“What's the situation where you are, George?”
“Colonel Robertson has called for a vote of the Senate tomorrow,” George answered. “Several of the members had gone home to their districts for the holiday weekend, so it's anticipated the vote won't be held before midafternoon Washington time. With President Benton's condition still critical, and the Vice President missing, what we're hearing is ...”
Bidwell shut down the sound. “That's treason!”
Wilson said softly, “They don't know if you're still alive, sir.”
“What really matters,” Hardesty said, “is they think they've got the perfect takeover right in their hands.”

To be continued ...