Dark Matter (21 page)

Rachel ducked down in the canoe as I drove up, not realizing I was behind the wheel. I swung left so that my window came to face her.

"Bring Fielding's box!" I shouted. "Hurry!"

Cradling the cardboard box in her arms, Rachel climbed out of the canoe and splashed out of the river. I ran to the bank and grabbed a handful of mud from the shallows, which I spread across part of the truck's license plate. Then I washed my hand in the river, set Fielding's box on the backseat, and helped Rachel onto the bench seat beside me.

"Did you hot-wire this thing?" she asked.

"I wouldn't know how. Fishermen are honest people. They trust each other. I hate to take it, really."

"I'll say a prayer of penance. Let's go."

We left a white cloud of oyster-shell dust behind us as we raced out of the lot.

"Are we still going to Nags Head?" Rachel asked.

"No. They could be waiting for us there. Let me use your cell phone."

She pulled a silver Motorola from her pocket and gave it to me. I dialed the White House number from memory; Fielding had told me long ago to memorize it.

"Who are you calling?" Rachel asked.

"The president, I hope."

"But you said—"

"I want to see what happens."

An operator answered on the second ring. I said, "Project Trinity." There was a silence, then a click, and the man I'd spoken to yesterday said, "State your business."

"This is David Tennant. I need to speak to the president."

"Hold, please."

A hissing silence followed, and I knew that every ticking second gave the NSA longer to track the location of Rachel's cell phone.

"Well?" she said.

"Count to forty. Out loud."

She had reached thirty-five when a voice with a New England accent said, "Dr.

Tennant?"

"Yes."

"This is Ewan McCaskell. I'm talking to you from Air Force One."

My heart thudded. "Mr. McCaskell, I need to speak to the president."

"He's talking to the British prime minister now. He should be able to come to the phone in about five minutes."

I couldn't sit on an open cell phone for five minutes.

"Will you wait?" McCaskell asked. "The president knows there have been confusing events at Project Trinity. He wants very much to speak with you."

"I can't wait. I'll call the White House again in seven minutes."

"We'll have it routed to us."

I clicked END, my heart pounding.

Rachel touched my arm. "Good or bad?"

"I don't know. That was McCaskell. He said the president wants to talk to me.

But they've obviously been talked to already. By John Skow, probably. They only know what Godin wants them to know."

"Are they back in the U.S.?"

"They're on Air Force One."

"On their way back from China?"

"No. That's a five-day trip, plus a one-day stopover in Japan. I checked yesterday. This summit is sort of a celebration of Nixon's visit in '72. A repeat performance, without the Cold War tension."

"What are you going to say when you call back?"

I shook my head. President Bill Matthews had been the senior Republican senator from Texas when he was swept into the White House on a tide of anti-Democrat frustration. No one had been more surprised than my brother, James, who had known Matthews since their days at Yale. Matthews was a charismatic figure, but not the sharpest arrow in the quiver, according to my brother. As a senator, he had relied heavily on his advisers, and that had not changed in the White House. Still, the general opinion was that he was doing a solid job on both the domestic and foreign fronts. I'd met Matthews once in the Oval Office, then again at a Georgetown reception, when I was filming the NOVA series based on my book. How did he remember me? As a level-headed physician whose brother he had liked? Or as the delusional paranoid Skow had undoubtedly described?

I drove anxiously along Highway 64 until it was time to call back. This time, when I identified myself, the connection was almost immediate.

"Dr. Tennant?" said the president.

"This is David Tennant."

"This is Bill Matthews, David. I know it's been a while since we last saw each other, but I want you to know you can tell me anything. Now, talk to me."

I took a deep breath and went straight to the point. "Sir, I know you've already heard some things about my supposed mental state. I want you to know that I'm as sane as the day we met in the Oval Office. So, please listen with an open mind. Andrew Fielding died in his office at Trinity yesterday. I believe he was murdered. Today there was an attempt on my life. A man came into my home with a gun, and I had to shoot him in self-defense. Project Trinity is completely out of control, and I think Peter Godin and John Skow are to blame."

There was a long silence.

"Mr. President?"

"I heard you, David. Look, the first thing we need to do is get you to a safe place."

"There is no safe place."

"Well, somewhere has to be safe, doesn't it?"

"Not when the NSA is trying to kill you."

"Don't worry about the NSA. I can arrange for the Secret Service to pick you up somewhere, and they can take you to a safe house while you wait for me to get back."

This sounded attractive, but I knew I couldn't risk such a rendezvous. Getting to it alive would be close to impossible. "I can't do that, sir."

"You don't trust the Secret Service?"

"It's not that. The point is that I don't know any Secret Service agents by sight."

"I see." Silence. "Well, couldn't we set up a code or a signal or something?"

"It wouldn't be secure from the NSA. Nothing like that will be safe."

"We could pick one right now."

"We have to assume the agency is listening to this call. They can pull it right out of the ether over China."

Mathews sighed. "All right, David. Tell me this. Do you trust Ewan McCaskell?"

I thought about that. There'd been no attempt on my life until McCaskell returned my call at my house, which had told the Trinity security people that I hadn't yet talked to the president. If McCaskell was tied to anyone at Trinity, he would have communicated this to them long before that phone call.

"I trust him. But I'll have to see his face."

"Well... it looks like you're just going to have to lie low until we get back.

McCaskell and the Secret Service will pick you up then. Can you get to Washington in four days?"

"I can. Mr. President, could I ask you one thing?"

"Of course."

"Do you believe anything I've said?"

Matthews replied in a less folksy voice. "David, I won't lie to you. John Skow says Dr. Fielding died of natural causes, and that you shot a Trinity security officer outside your house without provocation. He also says you've kidnapped your psychiatrist."

I blinked in disbelief. Skow had finally made a mistake.

"Hold on, sir." I handed the phone to Rachel. "Tell him who you are."

She hesitantly took the phone and held it to her ear. "This is Dr. Rachel Weiss.... Yes.... No, sir. I came with Dr. Tennant of my own free will.. . .

That's right. Yes, people are trying to kill us. ... Yes, sir. I will."

She handed me the cell phone.

"Mr. President?"

"I'm here, David. Look, I'm not sure what to think. But I know you come from good people, and I want to see you and hear you out."

The first tiny fillip of relief went through me. "Thank you, sir. All I ask is a fair hearing."

"You'll get that as soon as I get back. Keep your ass in the grass, Dave."

A bubble of laughter burst through the lump in my throat. That saying was right out of my older brother's mouth. "Thank you, Mr. President. I'll see you then."

I clicked end.

Rachel was watching me expectantly. "What do you think?"

"I think we're better off than we were five minutes ago. What did he ask you?"

"Whether I was under duress. He also told me to take care of you. My God ... I can't believe this. What are we going to do for the next four days?"

I pressed down the accelerator and sped up to seventy. "We're going to Oak Ridge."

"Tennessee?"

"Yep. I know that place like nowhere in the world. Five miles outside of town, you're lost in the wilderness. No police. No TVs to broadcast photos of wanted fugitives and stolen trucks. Nothing."

"How far away is it?"

"Eight hours." I passed a slow-moving car and settled back into the right lane. "Settle in and get some sleep."

"I can't sleep in a car."

"This is a truck."

"Wiseass."

Escaping the plane and reaching the president had produced a sense of elation in both of us, but that feeling wouldn't last long. "I'm not kidding about the sleep. You're going to need every bit of energy you have in the morning."

"For what?"

"Mountains."

Geli was running on adrenaline, her body charged by the chase. Between the hunt for Tennant and Weiss and the search for Lu Li Fielding, her resources were stretched to the limit. But when the lack of manpower vexed her, she thought back to the Iraqi desert, where her total force had numbered only eight Delta Force commandos.

Her latest headache was Jutta Klein, the German MRI expert. Klein had apparently taken advantage of her reduced surveillance and driven to Atlanta, where she'd boarded a Lufthansa flight for Germany. The German government had pledged to "assist in any way possible," but Geli knew they would welcome Klein and her newfound expertise with open arms.

Geli spun in her chair. Someone with the day's access code had buzzed through the door of the control center. John Skow stepped out of the shadows, clad in his unvarying Brooks Brothers suit, his eyes glinting with fear or excitement.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "What's happened?"

Skow straddled a chair opposite Geli and folded his almost feminine hands on its back.

"Tennant just spoke to the president. Matthews was in Air Force One, en route from Beijing to Shanghai. Our routine intercepts over China picked it up, and I just broke the executive comm codes."

Geli felt as though she'd opened the door of a hot oven. No wonder Skow hadn't wanted to talk on the air. "What did they say?"

"The president tried to arrange for the Secret Service to pick up Tennant somewhere, but Tennant wouldn't bite."

"Did Matthews buy our story? Or does he believe Tennant?"

Skow bit one side of his lower lip, like a man weighing odds. "I'd say he's leaning toward us. But he told Tennant he would get a fair hearing."

"And how will that happen?"

"Ewan McCaskell and the Secret Service will meet Tennant and pick him up when the president gets back. Tennant trusts McCaskell."

"When does the president get back?"

"Four days."

"Are we talking D.C.?"

"Yes."

"Perfect."

"Why?"

Geli had already foreseen that Tennant might run for Washington. "D.C. gives us a perfect cover story to take Tennant out. Starting now, we maximize our effort to discredit him, expanding on what we've already said. Tennant's side effects worsened to psychosis. He shot his security guard and kidnapped Dr.

Weiss."

"And?"

"Now he's threatened the president's life."

Skow's eyes narrowed. "But he just talked to Matthews. And he didn't make any threats."

Geli rolled her eyes. "Tennant is saying whatever he has to say to get access to the man he wants to kill. By painting him as a deranged assassin, we can use every metro cop in D.C. to hunt him down. And once you give him the Lee Harvey Oswald treatment, the Secret Service won't let him near the president."

"That's an elegant strategy. What do we use for evidence?"

"We have hundreds of hours of recordings from Tennant's house and phone. Is the Godin Four still running upstairs?"

"I didn't notice. Why?"

"With the right programs from the NSA—and our Godin Four— you could piece together a verbal threat against the president that no one could prove was fake."

Skow smiled with appreciation. "That's good, Geli. Very good."

"That's why I'm here. The question is, will Tennant go straight to D.C. or wait the four days?"

"My source says no," said Skow. "I've got a short list of places Tennant might run, and Washington is at the bottom."

Anger tightened Geli's jaw muscles. "Who is this source, damn it?"

"I can't give you that. I'm sorry."

"But he says Tennant will run somewhere besides D.C.?"

"Yes. Isn't it just common sense? Why should Tennant risk going straight to Washington when the meet is four days away?"

"Because he knows people there who have access to POTUS. The surgeon general.

The director of the National Institutes of Health. The politicians from his home state. Senator Barrett Jackson heads the Select Committee on Intelligence, for God's sake. He can get access to the Oval Office with a phone call. And if Tennant convinces someone like Barrett Jackson that he's sane ..."

"I see. All right. But we can't be sure where he'll run. And our assassin story will allow us to bring in other federal assets to cover the other locations."

"Good. You take care of the media. You also need to hit everyone Tennant knows inside the Beltway with a classified NSA security warning. Emphasize his mental instability. Can you do that gracefully?"

Skow's thin lips flattened into something like a smile. "That's why I'm here."

Geli nodded, feeling better than she had in hours. "You'd better get upstairs and make sure they keep the Godin Four fired up. Or get it moved back here quick."

Skow had never touched Geli before, but he reached out and laid his hand on her wrist. "You have four days to kill Tennant and Weiss. After that, the Secret Service will be running things, and they'll work very hard to trap Tennant rather than kill him."

"That's why you're going to make sure nothing he says will be believed."

Skow nodded. "Right."

"Don't worry," Geli assured him. "The president will never see Tennant again.

In twenty-four hours he'll be as dead as his brother."