The Eighth Day (28 page)

THE MORNING MIST was just burning off as Bill pulled up the gravel drive. His parents called it “the cabin,” but this was a house nestled in Roscoe, New York, the epicenter of the trout-fishing world. William Hiccock’s father discovered the joys of fishing late in life. Every day the weather allowed, however, he made up for the time lost with a vengeance.

Holding his peeled-back, plastic-lidded cardboard cup in one hand, Bill grabbed the bag from the Roscoe Diner off the front seat. It contained one black coffee, one tea with milk, and three fresh-baked muffins.

“Mom, Dad,” he called as he placed the bag on the kitchen table.

Alice Hiccock, in a robe and slippers, came down the stairs first, beaming at the sight of her one and only son. “Hello, Billy. You look thin.”

Bill laughed and hugged his mom.

Dad came down the stairs. “How are you, Billy?”

“Fine, Pop, how have you guys been?”

“Oh, can’t complain, things have been good,” his mom said as she opened the bag and poured the coffee and tea from the cardboard cups into her own mugs. “We see ya on TV every once in a while doing your job for the president. It feels real good to know my son is such an important person in the government.”

Alice got plates from the cabinet and, for reasons Bill could never fathom, sliced each muffin and placed them on the small dishes. Hiccock got his father’s attention and motioned toward the door. In response, the older Hiccock said, “Come out here, Bill. Let me show you my new rod and reel.”

Hiccock and his dad walked out to the porch.

“How’s it going, Dad?”

“Oh, you know, a little of this, that, and the other thing.”

“Fishin’ good?”

“Been pretty good.”

“Yeah, I got to get around to trying that sometime.”

The moment lingered. “You didn’t come here to fish, Bill. What’s got you up in God’s country during the middle of your big investigation?”

“Well, Dad, that’s on hold for a while.”

“Bad guys taking a vacation?”

“Pop, something’s come up. I’ve made a powerful enemy.”

“If you’re a worker, then it’s best not to rock the boat. But if you’re a leader, and you aren’t making waves, then you’re probably doing it wrong. When I was …”

Hiccock realized he had just assumed the emotional equivalent of sitting on his father’s knee as the man pontificated on life, work, union brotherhood, and good Christian values. As cherished a memory as that was, he forced himself to snap out of it. “Pop, they’re going after me through you.”

“Me?”

“They dug up some crap about the time the 42nd Street shuttle burned.”

“What? That was over forty years ago. What the hell …?”

“The Sabot Society.”

“Some Jewish group?”

“No, Dad, Sabot. As in wooden shoes, remember?”

Bill watched his father looking over the railing, imagining him traveling back four decades. “You remember that old story about the shoes? I must have told you that when you were six.”

“The current terrorist attacks are about to be blamed on the Sabot Society.”

“Who are they?”

“That’s the problem, Dad. They think it’s you.”

“What? What kind of lamebrain came up with that idea?”

“Do you remember a guy named Bernie Mercer?”

“Bernie …? Yeah, he was the kid who told me the shoe story. He was an apprentice in Signals and Switches.”

“Well, now he’s got his signals crossed. He’s the head of the group the FBI thinks is blowing up the country.” Bill detected a glimmer of recognition in the face that foreshadowed what his own would look like in thirty years.

“That idiot? He couldn’t blow up a balloon! He got canned right after the fire.”

“Did he start it?”

“Nah. He was a screw-up!”

“Dad, they think you and he did the job on the shuttle.”

“Those sons-a-bitches. It was a grease fire. The NTSB confirmed it in their report.”

“Wait a minute. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the fire?”

“It was rolling stock within the U.S. borders. That’s their turf. They found the cause to be a fire under the train on track three. Back then, grease fires from hotbox axle bearings were a pretty regular thing. This one got out of hand because a box had been leaking grease for months and it got all over the undercarriage of the train. When that happens, the least little …”

“Wait. You say the fire was on track number three? Didn’t the computer train run on the track by the wall?”

“Yep, track number four.”

“So it wasn’t the computer train that burned?”

“No, not at all. It was a manual consist.”

“Then why did they cancel the automated train after the fire?”

“The TA never really wanted it. The fire gave management an excuse to shut it down. And we in the union, well, you know how we felt about it.”

“So this was a non-event!”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. They had to cut open 42nd Street just to get the burned car out.”

“Yeah, but what you’re telling me is that the fire was in no way the first case of industrial sabotage committed by the Sabot Society.”

“Nah, it was a stupid track fire that got out of hand ’cause of crummy maintenance. I, of course, would never say that in public so as not to taint the work practices of my brother union members.”

Bill sighed. “Pop, I can’t tell you what a load off my mind that is.”

“Does this help you in your work, Billy?”

“It makes the FBI’s case against me tougher, but I’m learning a lot about politics and how the truth or facts seldom enter into it.”

“See? And you thought you were finished with school, son.” The man actually tousled Bill’s hair.

“Boys, the coffee’s getting cold,” his mother called out.

“Coming, Ma,” Hiccock said as if he were sixteen again. When you go home, you are always sixteen again. He touched his father’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t have a copy of that NTSB report, would ya?”

“As a matter of fact …”

The follow-up from Bufford’s farm and the investigating agents across the country was aggravating Director Tate’s ulcer this morning. They were all having trouble making hard connects on anything but the Long Island and New Jersey truck bombings. There were a few isolated connections but no more than there would have been by opening any phone book and making a circumstantial case against any person you randomly picked. To his chagrin, Tate had heard that some of the agents had started calling the operation “Homegroan” amongst themselves. Director Tate’s peptic level was not about to get any lower when he answered his phone.

“NTSB 20-4-64-00234,” Reynolds called out over the phone.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the NTSB report you left out of your premature Hiccock obituary. It’s real boring reading on how it was not an act of sabotage. You should read it soon.”

“Is that all you called for?”

“The daily briefing’s been moved up because of the stock market crash. I’m going in to the boss in thirty minutes. Should I slot you in so you can fill him in on the bust?”

“Ray, I’m still getting a handle on just what we have. Maybe in the afternoon.”

“What do I tell him when he asks?”

“That the investigation is proceeding and the FBI is …”

“Hold it. Every enemy of this country can read that in the
Times
. What do we tell the President of the United States of America, Tate?”

“It’s slow going. They’re deeper and more covert than we thought. I’ll have more once the West Coast reports in.”

“Okay, duly noted. If anything changes in the half hour, call me.”

Hanging up the phone, the director’s conscience started nagging him. Holding back information from the administration was technically a violation of the law. Countering that was the guideline that afforded him, as the head of the FBI, the sole discretion as to what was conjecture and what was fact. There were no regulations mandating that he convey speculation. Tate chose to regard the negative reports he’d received from his trusted underlings in the field as opinion and not fact. At least until their written reports were on his desk.

All that logic aside, for the first time in his long public career he felt vulnerable. He opened his desk drawer and fished out the business card of a New York attorney he met at a cocktail party a few years ago. He fingered the edge of the card. Unfortunately, the current political situation had placed more emphasis on this operation than he would have liked, forcing him to operate more out in the open. The terrorist attacks were so high profile, and the assault on the farm so massive, that it now could not be contained or explained as an expeditionary tactic to gather information.

Furthermore, that Hiccock creep hadn’t helped matters any by undermining his authority and limiting his more reasonable response options. Looking back down at the gold-leafed engraved card, he decided to call the Park Avenue lawyer and cash in the chit the man owed him. What he couldn’t decide was if he was going to ask the lawyer to represent him in the congressional probe that would surely follow, or ask him for a cushy, private-sector job.

Two hours after Tate left a message for the lawyer to get back to him, he found himself in the Oval Office.

“Mr. President, we always operated with the understanding that Hiccock’s investigation and our own was one and the same. Different methodologies working toward the same end and sharing the same resources.”

The president cut him off with a wave of his hand. “Forty-eight hours ago, you depicted Hiccock as a mole planted in my administration in order to disinform and misdirect me away from your investigative path. I fired the man and ruined his career because of that. Now all of the sudden, Bill’s the guy who uncovered the missing part of your theory—the online recruitment of the homegrown terrorist. Can you see why I’m getting so agitated over this, Tate?”

Tate took a deep breath, the color draining from his salon-tanned face. “Sir, we may have been premature on the tie-in with Hiccock’s father.”

The president just stared. It didn’t take much imagination to envision what was going on in his head.

Reynolds broke the uneasy silence. “Sir, actually Hiccock is on a leave of absence.”

“We grant leaves of absence?”

“Not usually, Sir, but this is an unusual situation and it was his idea.”

“What was Bill’s reasoning in asking for a leave when we agreed to fire him, Ray?”

“In case this sort of thing happened, Sir. To save you the embarrassment if you needed him back.”

This was almost more than Tate could handle. Hiccock was out-pointing him at every turn.

“Ray, get Hiccock back in the house.”

“He cleaned out his desk yesterday and went back to New York. His father’s place, I think.”

Mitchell swiveled in his chair to Reynolds. It was as though he’d forgotten that Tate was in the room, though Tate knew he couldn’t be that lucky. “Do you think we can convince him that his leave just ended?”

“It’s the tension on the line and the tension in your body that scare away the fish. Just ease it in, keep it lax, and wait … wait … ’til your opponent there feels relaxed enough and decides to have a leisurely snack.” Harry Hiccock’s soft tones skimmed over the water as he stood fifteen feet into the stream in wading boots, the very poster boy for “relaxed.” His son, Billy, was trying, but was still broadcasting enough tension to keep the fish at bay.

Bill could sense his biorhythms changing with the next deep breath he took. It was like on the first days of spring when he was a kid in the Bronx and it felt so good it hurt as your lungs expanded. He knew it was his imagination, but the colors became more vivid and the air smelled sweeter. This wouldn’t be such a bad lifestyle.

The deep chopping sound filtering through the trees drew him out of his reverie. Although this sound was not uncommon in a spot where weekend warriors and reservists in the National Guard ferried back and forth from Stuart AFB, Hiccock immediately identified the distinctive sound of a Sikorsky, as would anyone from D.C. Turbo fans and heavy rotors broke over the forest canopy, and Bill knew enough to get his dad and himself back up to the house.

Reynolds was already on the porch, standing next to his mom who stood gaping at the huge green-and-white hulk of Marine One, the president’s personal helicopter. Hiccock introduced the COS to his father then asked, “Catching up on some fishing, Ray?”

“Actually we’re here to catch the one that got away.” Ray nodded to the copter as the president descended the stairs.

Alice Hiccock let out a small gasp. “I better make a fresh pot.” She primped her hair and went inside.

The president, with two agents flanking him, strode up to the porch, taking in the lush green foliage all around.

“Sorry to interrupt your ‘leave of absence,’ Hiccock, but I need to talk to you.” He turned and held out his hand to the senior Hiccock. “Hello. You must be William’s father.”

“Yes, Sir. Harry Hiccock, Sir. Welcome to our home.”

“Thank you. It’s a beautiful spot. It has to be a great place to fish. I was admiring the streams and inlets from the air.”

“Do you fly cast, Sir? Because this is the best place on the planet for that.”

“As the not-so-favorite son of the Great State of Ohio, forgive me if I don’t give you the presidential endorsement on that statement. But I will say you might have the second best.”

“You two always get together like this just to talk fishing?” Bill said, thinking he could get away with a little sarcasm in front of the two most important authority figures in his life.

“Billy!” his father admonished, almost as if to tell him to go play out back.

“Your son’s right, Harry. You and I will have to trade fish stories another time.” He nodded toward the tree line. “Take a walk, Bill?”

With the two Secret Service agents in tow, they made their way to a small clearing.

“I’m afraid Tate’s got nothing, Bill. I am in a real pressure cooker here.”

“It wasn’t the Sabot Society?”

“Hell, we don’t even know if they’re responsible for anything other than the Long Island bombing. Just a bunch of copycat, misdirected wackos if you ask me.”