First Daughter - Eric van Lustbader [122]
Why was it, Jack thought, that he felt as if he were listening to Emma and not Alli? A strange thing was happening to him. It had begun when he and Alli entered the house and now had continued as they moved out into woods. There was the very curious sensation of the world finally starting to make sense to him—well, if not the whole world, then his world, the one he'd kept hidden from others and which kept him apart from them. Like his ability to sense Emma, though she was no longer in this world, at least by the limited understanding of man-made science, he felt as if his world and the one that had always been closed to him were beginning to overlap. Hope rose, completely unfamiliar to him, that one day he might even be able to straddle both, that he might live in one without giving up the other.
This gift he very badly wanted to bestow on Alli. To this end, he said, "There's someone I'd like you to meet."
Alli regarded him with skepticism. "Not another shrink. I've had my fill of probing and prodding."
"Not another shrink," Jack promised.
Rather than return to the front of the house where he'd parked, he took her through the underbrush. On the other side was parked Gus's white Continental, which Jack kept in pristine condition.
Alli laughed in delight as she climbed into it. Behind the wheel, Jack turned the key in the ignition, and the huge engine purred to life. With the lights extinguished, he rolled away without the Secret Service detail parked on Westmoreland being any the wiser.
He turned on the tape player, and James Brown took up "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" in midsong.
"Wow!" Alli said.
Yeah, thought Jack. Wow.
Ten minutes later, when they arrived at Kansas Avenue NE, they couldn't get near the old Renaissance Mission Church building. Barriers had been erected on the street and sidewalks on either side of it. There must have been more than a dozen unmarked cars and anti-terrorist vans drawn up on the street within the barriers.
Jack's heart seemed to plummet in his chest. Telling Alli to wait in the car, he got out, flashed his credentials to one of the twenty or so suits milling around. Then he saw Hugh Garner, who was spearheading the operation, and put away his ID.
"Hello, McClure," Garner said. "What brings you here?"
"I have an appointment with Chris Armitage of FASR," Jack lied.
Garner pulled a face. "So do we, McClure. Trouble is, we can't find him, or his pal Peter Link." Garner inclined his head. "You wouldn't know where they've got to?"
"If I did, I wouldn't be here talking to you," Jack said. "I'd like to speak to someone else in the FASR offices."
"I'm afraid that's impossible." Garner looked smug. Hailed by one of his detail, he turned, gave a couple of orders, turned back to Jack. "No one's here. This office has been shut down."
Jack thought of all the busy, dedicated men and women he'd seen on his way into Armitage's office. "Where is everyone else?"
"In federal custody." Garner grinned. "They've forfeited their rights to due process. They'll be held as long as necessary. Neither you nor anyone else can see them without a written order signed by the National Security Advisor himself."
Jack rocked back on his heels as if struck a blow. "What the hell are you talking about?"
"The president went on the air an hour ago with evidence supplied by the Russian president himself that the FASR and E-Two are being funded by Beijing." Garner's grin widened. "Under the Anti-Terrorism Act of December 2001, they've all been charged with treason."
JUST SOUTH of where the sawhorses blocked off the avenue was an alleyway.