The Divine Appointment (34 page)

“How’s she going to help?”

“I don’t know for sure. But she’s on her way down here to take us to someplace safe so I can write an article for tomorrow morning’s edition of the
Post
.”

“What’s her name?”

“I still don’t know, but we’re going to find out soon enough. She’ll be here within an hour.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing. What if she’s one of the people chasing us?”

Washington DC

Cooper Harrington repeatedly punched his fist into the gray leather seat of his limousine. It was 8:00 a.m., and he was en route to the Hart Building to prepare for the Judiciary Committee’s vote, scheduled for 9:00 a.m. He had just finished speaking with Hal Crowder. All his yelling had been useless. It had been two hours since Holland Fletcher and Jill Baker had escaped, and Cooper knew they could cause him the worst possible trouble.

Why did Crowder wait so long to call me?

Cooper was certain that Crowder and his band of Keystone Kops weren’t going to find Fletcher and the Baker woman without some help. He was running out of options and out of time. He only knew one other person who could help. Cooper dialed the number.

“Sure, I still have some friends in the Bureau,” Les Hughes said.

“I need to find these two, Les. I’ll make it worth your while. They may know something about the Carlson murders and who’s investigating them.”

Cooper lied to former Director Hughes to get his cooperation. If he had told him the real reason he needed to find Holland and Jill, then Les wouldn’t help him. In fact, Cooper was convinced that Les Hughes would run from the assignment. At least that was Cooper’s reasoning, right or wrong. As deep as he was into this crater, one more lie didn’t matter.

“I’ll see what I can find out,” Les agreed, “and I’ll call you back in a little while.”

Alexandria, Virginia

Hal Crowder and Frank Melton crisscrossed Alexandria in Melton’s Silverado looking for Jill Baker and Holland Fletcher. Meanwhile, Hal’s Yukon was towed to a service station near his office on K Street NW for repairs. It had been approximately two and a half hours since Fletcher had blasted Hal’s front tire.

Hal and Melton hadn’t seen hide nor hair of Fletcher or the Baker woman. Hal wasn’t even positive that the couple was in Alexandria. That was the direction they had traveled from the Hampton Inn in Arlington, but they could be anywhere. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Hal’s men on the ground at Reagan National Airport reported that Jill Baker hadn’t yet arrived for her 8:45 a.m. flight and hadn’t returned her rental car. Hal directed his men to stay in place and to keep the airport under surveillance. She still might turn up there, he reasoned.

Another man had riffled through Fletcher’s apartment, looking for any clue that might direct Hal to the couple’s location. He came up empty. Hal had instructed him to wait in the parking lot outside Fletcher’s apartment in case he and the Baker woman returned.

Two of Hal’s other ruffians sat in a car parked on the curb in front of the
Washington Post
headquarters.

Hal had spoken to Cooper Harrington several times over the previous thirty minutes. Cooper wasn’t happy, to say the least. Every time Cooper called, Hal had to tell him that the couple hadn’t been found yet but that he and his men were working on it. And after every report Cooper yelled and cursed. But by their last conversation, he had calmed down. He’d told Hal that he had someone monitoring the couple’s wireless phone usage—and without a court order. Hal didn’t want to know how Cooper was able to accomplish that bit of illegal surveillance.

Hal and Melton flashed photographs of Fletcher and the Baker woman and fake DC police badges at two dozen convenience-store clerks. They finally found a clerk on George Washington Parkway who thought he remembered the red-haired man entering the store and asking for directions to a parking garage on Roosevelt Avenue.

“That’s her rental car,” Hal said from the passenger seat of Melton’s Silverado. They were on the third floor of a parking garage. He exited Melton’s vehicle and circled around the rental car. No one was inside, and the luggage he’d seen Jill Baker place in the rear seat earlier that morning was missing.

“They’re together in Fletcher’s car somewhere,” Hal said to Melton as he reentered the Silverado.

Just as Melton guided his vehicle toward the exit from the parking garage, Hal’s phone rang.

“Crowder,” he said.

“This is Cooper. We have a lead on Fletcher and the girl.”

“Where are they?”

“Somewhere near a wireless tower at the intersection of North Washington and Pendleton Street.”

“They used a wireless phone?”

“No. But they made the mistake of leaving the batteries in their phones,” Cooper explained. “They both registered at this tower a few minutes ago.”

“How big a radius from the tower does it pick up signals?”

“Ten blocks,” Cooper reported.

“We’re close to that intersection now.”

“Get ’em, Crowder,” Cooper said. And then slowly, in a growling voice with an emphasis on each consonant, he said it again, “Get them.”

Melton stopped the Silverado before entering the street from the parking garage.

Hal closed his wireless. “Go that way,” he instructed Melton and pointed toward the north. “A wireless tower at North Washington and Pendleton picked up a signal from Fletcher’s and the Baker woman’s wireless phones.”

Melton accelerated the pickup onto Roosevelt until the duo was traveling northward on North Washington Street. They sped through the intersections with Cameron, Queen, Princess, and Oronoco streets—without obeying the red traffic lights—before reaching the intersection with Pendleton. Melton steered the vehicle into the parking lot of a church on the southeast corner, made a U-turn, and stopped at the edge of the parking lot outlet onto North Washington.

Hal and Melton scanned the area in all directions.

“He said it could be anywhere within a ten-block radius of this intersection,” Hal said.

“That’s still a big area to cover.”

Hal scratched his chin. “Yeah, but if you were trying to hide, where would you go?”

“Probably some place with a lot of people. Some place out in public. That’s what I’d do.”

“I agree. Some place with a lot of people. Like a mall or grocery store or something like that.” Hal panned his vision up and down North Washington again. “Let’s keep going north. I don’t recall seeing anything like that in the other direction.”

Melton’s vehicle reentered North Washington and continued north. The next intersection was Wythe Street.

“I see two gas stations up ahead,” Melton said. “Exxon on the right and Amoco on the left.”

“Let’s start with the Exxon and then we’ll cross over to the Amoco.”

Melton guided the vehicle into the parking lot of the Exxon and looped the building twice. They didn’t see Fletcher’s Camry outside, nor did they see Fletcher or the Baker woman through the glass windows in the front of the building. When traffic cleared, Melton maneuvered his vehicle across North Washington and into the parking of the Amoco convenience store.

“There it is!” Hal exclaimed when he saw Holland Fletcher’s Camry parked at the rear of the building. Melton accelerated his vehicle through the parking lot and then to a sliding stop in front of the Camry. Hal whip-lashed in the passenger seat. The front bumper of Melton’s vehicle was mere inches from the front of the Camry.

Remembering Fletcher’s silver pistol, Hal drew his own weapon from his shoulder holster and leaped from the vehicle before it came to a complete stop. He sprinted to the driver’s-side door of the Camry with his weapon pointed at the window in the door.

Alexandria, Virginia

“Mrs. Proctor,” Holland said, “I can’t believe you’re the mysterious woman who’s been calling me.”

Holland and Jill sat, shaking their heads in disbelief, in the rear seat of a black Mercedes-Benz S65—the same car Holland had seen on two other occasions. It was moving north on George Washington Parkway and was two minutes removed from the parking lot of the Amoco convenience store on North Washington Street.

Evelyn Proctor sat in the front passenger seat, and an African American with a gravelly voice that Holland hadn’t forgotten since the Fourth of July drove the car.

“Why’d you do it?” Holland asked.

Evelyn Proctor peered into the backseat at Holland and Jill. A wicked grin lit her features. “You know what they say about a woman scorned, don’t you?”

Hal Crowder peered through the driver’s-door window of the camel-colored Camry. There were two wireless phones on the front passenger seat. He slammed his fist like a sledgehammer into the roof of the Camry and kicked the driver’s-side door with his foot. Then he yelled and screamed and cursed—both at the empty car and from the excruciating pain in his foot. If a new dent emerged in the side of the car from his blow, it wasn’t noticeable among the others.

Hal hobbled back to Melton’s truck and rested against the front-right fender. A minute later he phoned Cooper Harrington with the bad news. More yelling and screaming and cursing ensued—all from Cooper—and the only thing Hal could do was grimace and take it.

The Oval Office, the White House, Washington DC

President Wallace, Porter McIntosh, and Judge Shelton gathered in the Oval Office to watch the Judiciary Committee vote. They were dressed in white shirts, silk ties, and dark suits, but President Wallace’s suit coat hung in his closet. They looked like they were going to a funeral. All three anticipated the vote to be eighteen to zero, but they wanted to watch, anyway.

President Wallace especially. He knew that the next several days would be one of those points in history where the United States of America would be changed. It was a fork in the road where either America would begin the long journey back to God or she would continue down the path of moral decay and destruction. Regardless of the outcome of the nomination of Dunbar Shelton to the Supreme Court, things were going to change. America would be different somehow. And President Wallace prayed that the changes—a changed America—would be for the better.

President Wallace sat on one of the leather sofas in the Oval Office and Porter and Judge Shelton sat on the other. The plasma monitor across the room from President Wallace’s desk displayed the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing. Senator Montgomery was front and center with his wispy white hair and angry face. All the other committee members flanked him on both sides and appeared very solemn. Senator Montgomery banged his gavel and called the meeting to order.

“The clerk will now take a roll-call vote,” Senator Montgomery said. “Those in favor of recommending confirmation of Judge Dunbar Shelton shall vote aye and those against shall vote nay.”

The clerk was not visible on the monitor but his voice could be heard as he called out each senator’s name, beginning with the chairman of the committee, Senator Montgomery.

“Senator Montgomery,” the clerk said.

Senator Montgomery sat tall in his oxblood leather executive chair and leaned into the microphone. “Nay!”

“Senator Montgomery votes nay,” the clerk repeated.

And so it went. Senator after senator voted against recommending confirmation of Judge Shelton’s nomination to the full Senate. President Wallace painfully stared at the monitor and occasionally glanced at Porter and Judge Shelton. Their vision was likewise fixated on the television across the room. After the last senator voted, the monitor switched to a talking head who declared Judge Shelton’s nomination officially over and who mused about why President Wallace hadn’t withdrawn it before then.

“That’s about what we expected,” Porter said in President Wallace’s direction.

“I’d say it’s exactly what we expected.”

“What do we do now?” Judge Shelton asked.

President Wallace stood and walked to his desk. He was silent.

It was Porter who responded to Judge Shelton’s question. “Senator Proctor is scheduled for a press conference in five minutes to announce when the vote will go to the Senate floor. Once he has officially made the announcement, then we can decide when to take our next step.”

“Do you really believe the Senate will confirm me after that vote by the committee?”

“Dunbar,” President Wallace began.

Porter and Judge Shelton turned their heads and eyed him.

President Wallace stood tall in front of his desk and set his chin. “This thing is a long way from over. You and I both know that God’s in complete control of this situation. That’s one reason I nominated you. Because we share the same faith in God. And we both know that we’re here for this turning point in the life of our great country.”

Judge Shelton gave a nod. “I agree, Mr. President.”

“And I have complete faith that you’ll be confirmed.”

At precisely 9:30 a.m. Senator Proctor appeared on the monitor in the Oval Office. He wore a dark gray suit with pinstripes and smiled widely through his black beard and mustache. He stood before a bank of microphones in the hallway outside room 216 in the Hart Building. He looked smug, but his appearance didn’t bother President Wallace. Neither did the venom that spewed when he opened his mouth. President Wallace reckoned that Senator Proctor’s day was coming…very soon.

“The country has now seen what a complete and utter mistake it was for President Wallace to nominate Judge Dunbar Shelton to the Supreme Court,” Senator Proctor proclaimed. “We cannot have an extremist like Judge Shelton on the Supreme Court, and I had hoped that President Wallace would have withdrawn the nomination.”

Senator Proctor’s corpulent body consumed the monitor, and his voice reverberated through the speakers in the Oval Office. He gestured with his hands as he spoke.

President Wallace generally ignored him and only glanced occasionally at the monitor.

“Since he has not”—here Senator Proctor shook his head, as if in deep regret—“we have no option but to take a vote on the Senate floor. As you just witnessed, the Judiciary Committee voted unanimously against Judge Shelton’s confirmation. I’m confident that the full Senate will do the same, so I plan to schedule a vote as soon as possible.”

President Wallace couldn’t have cared less about Senator Proctor’s prophecy. He hardly watched or listened. But Senator Proctor was finally to the only part of the press conference that interested the president: the date and time of the Senate vote. President Wallace leaned his back against the front edge of his desk and focused intently on the monitor.

“Next week begins the Senate’s August recess,” Senator Proctor announced, “and I for one want this matter concluded as soon as possible so that the country can begin the healing process. This has been a sad occasion in the life of our nation. An event that never should have occurred. And wouldn’t have if President Wallace had done the right thing. He didn’t. So I will bring this nomination to the Senate floor for a vote tomorrow afternoon at one o’clock. That should bring an end to this terrible chapter in our nation’s history.”

“The end to your political career,” Porter shot in the direction of the television.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” President Wallace said. He pressed a button on his desk and the monitor disappeared. His eyes fixed with intensity on Porter. President Wallace recognized that a historical moment faced the three men in that room, but only he could give the order. Without hesitation or regret he spoke.

“Porter, schedule a press conference for this afternoon, and get everything ready to be released. I want Senator Proctor to be the lead story on the evening news and on the front page of every newspaper in the country tomorrow morning.”

“Done,” Porter replied confidently. “It’ll be the only topic of conversation around the water fountains and coffeepots across the country tomorrow morning.”

Then President Wallace looked at Judge Shelton. “The game’s on. To the victor go the Supreme Court and the Senate.”

Washington DC

The black Mercedes pulled into the driveway of a two-story brownstone in the Montrose Park area of upper Georgetown.

“Whose house is this?” Holland asked.

“Mine,” Evelyn Proctor replied.

Jill’s mouth gaped open. “This is the safe house?”

“None better.” Evelyn Proctor smiled confidently. “Nobody will think about looking for you here, and the great senator won’t be home for hours—if he even comes home.”

Holland and Jill shot looks of concern at each other. But this thing had become much bigger than both of them. Holland realized that they had to trust somebody, and Evelyn Proctor’s motivation for helping them—although sinister—was still directed at discovering the truth. Holland raised his eyebrows at Jill, seeking approval. She nodded slightly.

“Mrs. Proctor,” Holland said, “all we need is a telephone cord. Jill’s got her laptop.”

“I can do better than that.”

En route to Brentwood, Tennessee

Eli had departed Jackson at approximately 8:30 a.m. central time for his meeting with Tag and Anna Grissom at their house in Brentwood. Tag and Anna were expecting him at 10:30 a.m. The traffic was light on the I-440 loop around Nashville, and he was in Brentwood with time to spare. He exited his BMW at 10:20 a.m.