The senator had handpicked a team of medical personnel, ready to administer whatever emergency treatment Vanessa might require on the flight back to Washington. As she was lifted from the car and laid on a gurney, the doctor in charge began issuing orders to those assisting him.
“Sweetheart, what have they done to you?” Armbruster clasped his daughter’s cold hand as he ran alongside the gurney toward the helicopter.
Gray detained the doctor long enough to shout, “It was awfully easy to get her out of there. Too easy. The damage might already be done.”
Nodding that he understood, the doctor didn’t wait to hear more. He jumped into the chopper, and within seconds it was airborne, leaving Barrie and Gray in the windy crosscurrents on the empty shopping mall parking lot.
Barrie had recorded the transfer on video. Although the quality wouldn’t be up to normal broadcast standards, it would be invaluable. They watched as the helicopter banked and headed back toward D.C.
“What’d you mean by that?” she asked Gray as she replaced the camera in her satchel. “What you said to the doctor.”
“I’ve got a feeling that the folks at Tabor House knew we were coming.”
She looked at him sharply.
“Think about it,” he said. “Except for a token show of force there at the end, we essentially walked in and walked out with the First Lady of the United States.” His face set and tense, he stared after the chopper. “We might have been too late to save her life.”
“Freeze! FBI!”
The shout came out of the darkness behind them. Reflexively, they spun around. Four men were coming toward them at a run, handguns extended and aimed. Headlights flashed on. Two cars roared onto the parking lot and screeched to a halt only yards from them.
“Hands on your head, Bondurant.”
Apparently he saw the advisability of complying. One of the agents came forward, found the pistol in his waistband, and took it. Another agent seized Barrie’s satchel and patted her down. “I’m not armed.”
“Don’t say anything,” Gray told her as he was being handcuffed and read his rights.
Following his lead, Barrie submitted to the arrest without a struggle. The story she had to tell, along with the video, would surely absolve her and Gray of any crimes committed during the rescue of the First Lady. But telling it now would be a waste of breath. She would wait until Senator Armbruster and Vanessa herself could corroborate the allegation that the President had killed his son and had planned his wife’s death.
Barrie was escorted to one of the cars, Gray to the other. The agent held the door for her and assisted her into the backseat.
What she saw there, lying on the seat, filled her with such terror that she screamed and tried to back out of the open car door. “Gray!” But the agent had his hand on her back, pushing her inside.
Through the car window, she saw Gray. He’d heard her scream, sensed her alarm, and was struggling with the agents who were trying to force him into the other car. But with his hands cuffed behind him, he couldn’t fight back. He was shoved into the backseat. Doors were slammed shut. With a squeal of tires, both cars sped away.
Barrie sobbed as she gazed at the other passenger in the backseat of the gray sedan, who stared back at her with sightless eyes, an obscenely vacant expression on her face, matted wig askew. Dolly.
* * *
George Allan looked down at his two sleeping sons, their heads barely visible above the covers. His younger son, in the bottom bunk, was the rascal, the athlete, the destined-to-be heartbreaker. His charm would glide him easily through life.
The older boy had inherited Amanda’s seriousness. Even in sleep, he seemed to be sorting through a problem. Of the two, he was the smarter, the overachiever. His intellect and self-discipline would guarantee his success in whatever field he chose. George hoped it would be medicine.
He kissed each of them softly, then closed the door behind him as he tiptoed from their room. The door to the master bedroom suite was ajar. Amanda had left the nightlight on for him. No matter how bitter their quarrel, how estranged they felt, they shared the same bed every night. It was as though she left the light on so that he could always find his way back to her.
He gazed at her sleeping face. Strands of silky dark hair painted stripes across her pillow. Her breathing was slow and even. She looked lovely. He wanted to touch her, to kiss her, but he didn’t for fear of waking her.
He backed out of the room, went down the hall to his office, and quietly closed the door. In desperate need of a drink, he poured himself one, carried it to his desk, and settled gratefully into the chair.
It had been a long night. He had waited with David until they’d received word that Vanessa was safely with Clete in the hospital.
George was very tired. He savored the drink, sipping it slowly, tracing the warmth it spread through his system. Its intoxicating properties were hampered by the sobering thoughts that haunted him—namely, what David had instructed him to do, as opposed to what he had done.
He finished his drink and unlocked his lower desk drawer. It wasn’t a high-caliber gun, but when fired into the roof of one’s mouth, it was sufficient to do the job painlessly. He checked the chambers of the revolver and saw that each one was loaded; then snapped the cylinder back into place and laid the gun on his desk pad.
Then he fished into his breast pocket and withdrew a small plastic bottle. The tamperproof seal was intact, and the lithium was still inside, not flowing lethally through Vanessa’s system as David believed.
At the final showdown, George had defeated David by stopping short of cold-blooded murder. He hoped that Amanda would view this as a victory. Perhaps this swan song of defiance would make up for his years of weakness. She might even love him for it. At least a little.