“What are you looking at?” he bellowed. “I want to be wheels up in thirty!”
One of his men moved toward Calista, and Eskridge snapped at him to leave her where she lay. Then he stood there and admired his handiwork with the sneer of a man whose temper had gotten the better of him. Slowly, his chin dropped to his chest, and he ran a calloused hand down his face as if someone had spat on it.
Gibson took off the headphones and turned off the SUV’s engine, suddenly paranoid that it might be heard from the runway. He sat in silence, watching Cold Harbor bring up a fuel truck, unsure how he felt about what he’d witnessed. How should he feel? Calista didn’t deserve better, but she deserved something else. He didn’t know what that might be, though, so this would have to do.
Calista had never struck him as the suicidal type, but this clearly had been her plan all along. She had fallen prey to the same ruthless calculus behind all her decisions. Everything she did, she did for her family’s legacy. Anyone who threatened it or stood in its way paid a terrible price: Duke Vaughn, Suzanne Lombard, Michael Rilling, George Abe, Benjamin Lombard. She’d had her own sister murdered. And those were just the ones Gibson knew of. Nothing and no one was immune. Not even Calista Dauplaise herself.
How long had it taken her to reach the conclusion that she herself had become a threat? To admit that she would always be a scandal away from toppling her son? That if she died, at least, the threat died with her? It would have made perfect sense in her mind. He doubted that she had questioned it for even a moment.
And he’d be damned if it hadn’t worked. Her affairs were now in order. She had settled up with those who would settle, mortally wounded those who would not. Eskridge would soon be branded a traitor and a murderer. And somehow, Calista had managed to die a martyr and a patriot. That was quite some trick.
Gibson didn’t dare restart the engine until he saw the C-130 rise above the trees. While he waited, he changed out of his Tyner Aviation uniform and into something less conspicuous. Then he powered up his cell phone, which had been off since before Dulles. He hadn’t had any calls or texts, but his phone vibrated to let him know he had an e-mail. It was from Nicole and had arrived last night. There was no message, but attached was a photograph of Ellie.
His daughter stood on a grassy field in a dirty soccer uniform. In her hands, she held a trophy of a girl kicking a ball. She smiled, but something had caught her eye, and she looked past the camera. Perhaps a group of girls calling her to join them? Gibson wiped away a tear. He couldn’t believe how she’d shot up in the last eighteen months. She was all legs and would be tall like her mother. His daughter.
His eye flicked up at the image of Calista lying on the runway, alone beside her limousine. One of her legs was twisted under her at a cartoonish angle. Gibson shut the phone rather than look back at Ellie. He didn’t want to associate the two images in his mind. Besides, he still had one errand left to run for Calista.
And hopefully for him as well.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
The radio that morning was dominated by stories of a brazen midnight attack at Dulles International Airport by armed assailants. As he drove, Gibson skipped around the dial listening to the various accounts. No one could agree on a motive. There were conflicting reports coming out of Hangar Six as to whether anyone had been killed. He listened to two commentators argue about whether it qualified as a terrorist attack. The number, race, and gender of the attackers varied from station to station. Although whether that was genuine confusion or intentional misdirection by the FBI, Gibson didn’t know. But it was only a matter of time before they put it together if they hadn’t already.
A lap around the power plant turned up nothing out of the ordinary. Gibson parked and went inside with the laptop and headphones, the laminated sleeve, and a bag of drive-through burgers. The burgers were meant as a peace offering; he’d inhaled his on the way there. At the end of the service corridor, he started to collect the hood and restraints from their hiding place but stopped. It made no difference whether Ogden knew where he’d been held. They were past all that now. Gibson took the gun, though; they weren’t past that quite yet.
Ogden sat on the floor in the corner of his cell. He licked his lips at the sight of Gibson but made no move to rise. The cell and its resident had both taken a turn for the worse. The alarm clock lay smashed against a wall, and trash littered the floor. The cell stank like old, moldy shoes in the back of a forgotten gym locker. Ogden was filthy, and his jumpsuit was stained and torn. His beard was matted and thick except for one bare patch where he had obsessively yanked out the hairs. Ogden kept on licking his lips and staring at him.
Gibson put down the stool and sat down. Neither man spoke. He slid the bag of burgers across the floor, scattering protein bar wrappers in its wake. It glided to a halt against Ogden’s foot. For a minute, he ignored it but then caught the scent of real food. He snatched up the bag, tore open the wrapper, and ate the first burger ravenously.
“I’d slow down,” Gibson said. “Or it will make you sick.”
Ogden didn’t acknowledge the advice and took a bite of the second burger, chewing methodically.
“I made the same mistake. I had burgers for my first meal too. At a truck stop in West Virginia where you guys dumped me. Unless you count a banana as a meal, but really that was more of a snack.”
“I didn’t think you were coming back,” Ogden said, speaking for the first time. He’d finished both burgers and seemed more aware of his surroundings.
“That why you broke the alarm clock?”
Ogden cut to the chase. “Did you talk to my people? Am I getting out of here? Do we have a deal?”
“No, I haven’t talked to them,” Gibson said. “I don’t think there’s time for that now.”
“Why not?”
“There’s something you need to read,” Gibson said. He crossed the room and placed the laminated sleeve on the cot.
“What is it?” Ogden asked, climbing to his feet.
“I don’t know,” Gibson said and waited by the door.
Ogden sat on the edge of the cot and slid the papers out of the envelope. As he read, his eyes narrowed, and his body language changed. He sat forward intently, leaning over the pages as he read. Halfway through, he glanced up at Gibson disbelievingly before returning to his reading.
“Where did you get this?” he demanded when he was finished. “Do you know what this means?”
“It means you’ve been breached.”
“This is treason, Vaughn.”
“That’s kind of the point.” Gibson handed him the laptop and headphones before Ogden could reach any more premature conclusions.
Ogden watched in mute fascination. Gibson saw him flinch at Calista’s death. When it was over, Ogden put the laptop aside and thought long and hard about what he’d seen.
“When was this taken?” Ogden asked.
“A few hours ago.”