“Should I tell that to the teachers? What about the children?” she asked as I finished the description.

“I’d like to have someone stop by here tomorrow morning to talk to the teachers again,” I said. “We don’t know if this lead is anything, but it could be important. It’s the best thing we have so far.”

“An ounce of prevention,” she said, then smiled. Actually, she laughed at herself. “That’s what is known, derogatively, as ‘teacher talk.’ You can catch a dose of it if you hang around here too much. Too many clichés. You sometimes find yourself talking to other adults as if they were five or six years old. It drives my husband crazy.”

“Is your husband a teacher, too?” I asked. It just came out. Shit.

She shook her head and seemed amused for some reason. “No, no. George is a lawyer. He’s a lobbyist on Capitol Hill, actually. Fortunately, he’s only trying to push the interests of energy businesses. Occidental Petroleum, Pepco Energy Company, the Edison Electric Institute. I can live with that.” She laughed. “Well, most of the time I can.” Her look was innocent, but not naive. Maybe just a little conspiratorial.

“Well, I wanted to pass on the news about our suspect. Maybe we have a real suspect this time,” I said. “I’ve got to run.”

“Don’t,” Christine Johnson said, and I stopped short, startled a little.

Then she smiled that knowing smile of hers. Quietly dazzling and appealing as could be.

“Absolutely no running in the halls,” she winked at me. “Gotcha!” Cute.

I laughed and was on my merry way, back to work after a brief moment of sweetness and light. I did like her quite a lot. Who wouldn’t? Maybe we could be friends somehow, someway, but probably not.

Nothing was coming out right; nothing was working very well. An old homeless white man was the best we could do. It wasn’t bad police work, but it wasn’t enough. Not even close. Two impossible cases. Jesus!

I pulled my car way down the street and watched the Truth School for a couple of hours that night. My son’s school. Maybe a homeless white man would come by—but one didn’t.

I left the stakeout about half an hour after Christine Johnson left hers.

CHAPTER

40

“WHAT DO YOU THINK of our magic carpet ride so far? On a scale of one to eleven?” Jack asked Jill, Sam asked Sara. They were floating high over the Maryland countryside.

“It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s as thrilling as can be. Unbelievable. The simple joy of flying like a bird.”

“Hard to imagine that this is work. But it is, Monkey Face. This could be important for us, for everything we’re doing, for the game.”

“I know that, Sam. I’m paying attention.”

“I know you are. Always so diligent.”

The two of them were sitting close together inside the tiny cockpit of a Blanik L-23 sailplane. They had flown the sailplane out of Frederick Municipal Airport in Maryland, about an hour from downtown Washington. It was the perfect treat for her, Sara couldn’t help thinking. The perfect metaphor. The gimp was flying. Unbelievable. Her entire life was that way now.

Down below, she could see Frederick, with its many examples of German Colonial architecture. She could actually make out several of the cutesy-pie shops on Antique Walk in town. The sky was filled with cumulus, like cotton balls moving lightly over a calm sea. Sara had told Sam that she’d gone up in a sailplane once, and it was “just about the best thing I’ve ever done.” He’d said, “We’ll go tomorrow afternoon. I know just the place, Monkey Face. Perfect! I want to fly over Camp David, where the President goes to stay. I want to look down on President Byrnes’s retreat. I want to drop an imaginary bomb on his ass.”

Sam Harrison already knew a great deal about Camp David, but the view from the air could be useful anyhow. An attack on the presidential retreat was a very real possibility in the future—especially if the Secret Service continued to keep President Byrnes tightly under wraps, as they had for the past few days.

Everything about Jack and Jill was so much harder now, but he had expected that. It was why they had several plans, not just one. The President of the United States was going to die—it was just a matter of when and where. The how had already been decided. Soon the when and where would be taken care of as well.

“Isn’t this risky, flying so close to Camp David?” Sara asked. He smiled at the question. He knew that she had been biting her tongue as they floated north from Frederick, inching closer and closer to the presidential outpost, closer and closer to danger, maybe even disaster.

“So far, it’s not too risky. Sailplanes and hot-air balloons do it all the time. Catch a distant peek at where the President stays. He’s not here right now, so they’re not as paranoid on the ground. We can’t get too close, though. Ever since that plane landed at the White House, this airspace is protected with missiles. I doubt they’d shoot down a sailplane, but who knows?”

They could see the buildings at Fort David below, just a little to the northeast in Catoctin Mountain Park. There were three Army Jeeps left in the open. No one seemed to be out on the well-wooded grounds today, though. Camp David itself looked rather odd: a strange cross between Army barracks and a rustic vacation place. Not too formidable. Nothing they couldn’t work with, if need be, if the final plan demanded it.

“Camp David. Named after Eisenhower’s grandson,” Jack said. “Pretty good president, Ike. Generals usually are.”

Jack touched the holstered Beretta on his ankle. The gun was reassuring. But nothing was going to happen to the President right now, or to Jack and Jill. No, the game was about to go off in another direction. That was the beauty of it—no one could predict where it would go. It was a game, designed as one, played as one.

He felt Sara’s hand lightly touch his cheek. “How much longer do we have?” she asked. He suspected that she didn’t want the sailplane ride to end.

Tags: James Patterson Alex Cross Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net