“Everybody get some sleep,” Noah said. “We’re only about six hours out from Alexandria, so let’s plan on hitting the road around eight. That’ll put us there midafternoon, give us time to scope out the situation a bit before we contact Molly.”
They went into their respective rooms. Sarah waited until the door was shut before she grabbed Noah by the hand and dragged him toward the bathroom. “Shower time,” she said, “and then I’m gonna show you why you like me better than your old girlfriend, Molly.”
*
The motel had a continental breakfast set up, so they all met there for waffles at seven fifteen and were out the door and on the road a couple of minutes before eight. Sarah took the wheel and got them back onto the interstate, set the cruise control at eighty and kept up with the heavy truck traffic.
Noah’s phone rang at just before eleven, and the caller ID said “Brigadoon Investments.” He answered quickly.
“Hello?”
“Camelot, an update,” said Doc Parker. “First, you should be getting near your destination by now, am I correct?”
“Yes, sir, about two and a half hours out.”
“Very good. Ms. Hanson is under surveillance, as I promised, and at this point we have seen no sign of any threat to her. She went to her office at Dexter Reedy this morning and is still there. I took the liberty of getting her schedule from their security people, so I can let you know that she will be leaving her office at around five this evening, after which she will probably go out for dinner. I’ll email you a copy of it in just a moment, along with their security dossier on her, gives you details like her friends and associates, all these, bad habits, etc. Have you decided how you are going to make contact with her?”
“At this point, I’m not planning to make contact at all. What I want to do is put her under our own surveillance, with Sarah, Moose and myself tailing her while Neil does his electronic magic and watches her through all of the electronic eyes out there. I want us to stay out of sight until we know whether or not Nicolaich is even planning anything here. I don’t suppose you’ve gotten anything out of your house guests, have you?”
“One of them has grudgingly admitted that a man fitting Andropov’s description seemed to be giving the orders, but that’s all we’ve gotten from him. This fellow is nothing more than an American gun-for-hire who would be spending the rest of his life in prison should we turn him over to the feds, so we’ve offered to recruit him if he cooperates more fully. He seems to be thinking about it today.”
“Sir, are you sure we would want him? He may well have killed some of our people.”
“Clandestine agencies often recruit former mercenaries, Camelot,” Parker said. “It’s not an entirely uncommon practice for their previous sins to be forgiven in the process.”
“Understood. Anything new on Allison or Mr. Jefferson?”
“Allison is in a medically induced coma at the moment,” Parker said. “The doctors said they couldn’t get her to stay quiet long enough to let her brain swelling go down, so they just put her to sleep for a while. Donald, on the other hand, is doing quite well. He does seem to have lost some sensation, it seems, mostly in his chest and legs. They actually had him up walking around yesterday afternoon, and they’re saying they expect him to be able to return to work within six weeks.”
“That would be good. We’ll keep both of them in our thoughts.”
“Yes, do that. I’ll let you know if I hear anything else.” The line went dead.
Noah relayed the information about Allison and Jefferson to the others, and then pointed at a billboard promoting a café at the next exit. “Molly’s going to be in her office the rest of the afternoon,” he said. “Let’s go ahead and grab some lunch now.”
Moose and Neil agreed, so Sarah nodded and moved into the right lane so that she could take the exit. A few minutes later, they pulled up in front of Wild Bill’s Café and went inside. The restaurant was rustic, reminiscent of something that might have been seen in the Wild West a century and a half earlier, despite modern appliances, menu and prices.
“So,” Moose said around the roast beef sandwich he was eating, “I gather we’re just going to keep an eye on this girl?”
“That’s the plan,” Noah said. “If Nicolaich is truly planning to use someone from my past to try to draw me out, then I have to agree with Sarah that Molly is the logical choice. He wants to use her for bait to trap me, but I’d definitely prefer to turn the tables. Dexter Reedy has good security, and apparently so does her subdivision; Nicolaich would be watching her, trying to figure out any pattern that would let him get to her without interference. The idea is for us to watch her, too, and hopefully spot him before he can make his move.”
“And if we do? What then?” Neil asked.
Noah looked at each of them in turn. “We take him alive,” he said. “I promised Doc Parker that I would make it slow and painful. I plan to do exactly that.”