Episode Four:
"Resurrection"
Part 1
Jay did not trust the newcomer, Kaitlyn Westbrook. He found her story implausible to say the least. Not being able to verify one word of it didn't bolster his confidence, either.
"Marlow trusts her," Tyler whispered. The two of them were seated in the back of a red Ford Explorer that Kate, under an assumed name, had purchased and brought back to them at the warehouse. Meanwhile, Kate and Will were in the manager's office pouring over maps to a country estate that belonged to Vivian Buchanan, the owner and CEO of Belenus Pharmaceuticals.
After Will had announced that Kate would be joining them – without any group discussion, Jay noted sourly – Marlow had headed back to New York. She was staying at her post for the time being and couldn't risk being gone too long, since Chambers was in all likelihood having her every move tracked. Jay appreciated the chances the FBI agent was taking on their behalf and had told her so before she left.
The four fugitives had slept in sleeping bags thoughtfully provided by Agent Marlow inside the drafty, echoing warehouse. Jay had hardly slept at all. He knew Kim was probably going out of her mind with worry because they hadn't wanted to risk calling; Will and Kate were both convinced that telephone calls were the surest way to get caught. Jay planned to put his foot down this morning once they got underway, however: He was not going to keep Kim waiting days and days without any news, nor was he going to go that long without hearing for himself that she was all right.
Watching through the grime-covered window as Kate tucked her long blonde hair up under a Yankees baseball cap and leaned in close to Will, Jay was overcome once more by a strong sense of – well, resentment might have been a more accurate description than distrust, to be honest. Ever since Kate had joined their merry band of rebels, Will had been treating her like his closest confidante. And how could be so certain she was who she said she was?
"I don't like it," Jay whispered back to Tyler for the sixth time that morning. "She could be leading us straight into a trap, and look at him. He's like a puppy following her around."
"Okay, first of all, Will is not stupid. He's kept us alive and free this long, hasn't he? And furthermore, I don't think he's taking orders from her. She's a fucking CIA operative for Christ's sake, Jay, do you think he's not going to ask for her input?" Tyler scuffed his shoe along the ground, and Jay had the uncomfortable sensation that his friend knew that Jay's problem with Kate went deeper than mere distrust. "Just give him some room to work, man."
"Well," Jay huffed, as the pair under discussion started out the side door of the warehouse toward them, "regardless, I'm calling Kim the minute we get to a payphone."
Tyler perked up. "Good idea. I want to talk to Liz, too."
Jay couldn't resist ribbing his friend a little. "Moving kinda fast there, aren't you? What happened to you making out with Nell while I was burning 'evidence' in New Haven?"
"Shut-up." Tyler landed a light punch on Jay's shoulder. "Lightning struck, man, what can I say?"
"You two look chipper," Kate greeted them. Jay grudgingly admitted that she was very easy-going and likable. "I tried to convince Will to stop at a Starbucks on the way out of town, but nothing doing – he said 'maybe' to a McDonald's drive-up."
Will tossed Tyler the keys and slid into the backseat with Kate. Jay took shotgun. "So, where are we going in our sweet new ride?" Tyler inquired.
"Connecticut," Will and Kate said together.
Jay rolled his eyes. How cute, they're reading each other's minds – or sharing a brain…
"What's in Connecticut?" Tyler asked. "And if you say New Haven, I'm turning this car around right now. No way in hell am I going back there."
"Smart man," Kate commented. "We're heading well away from New Haven, I promise. Vivian Buchanan has a country house upstate, which should be empty this time of year, given that she always spends summers in Miami with her husband, Ted. Will's been there before, and he thinks we might be able to find out more about Buchanan's pharmaceutical company, and what they might really be working on."
Jay was rather proud of himself for having dug up so much information on Vivian Buchanan and her company, especially as he listened to Will bringing Kate up to speed on that intel from the front seat. He glanced periodically into the rearview mirror, noting with some satisfaction that Kate seemed impressed by his thoroughness as well.
As he watched, however, on more than one occasion Jay couldn't help noticing the tender way Kate gazed at Will when he wasn't looking at her.
She's in love with him, Jay realized, and suddenly, a lot of his discomfort made sense. Kate hadn't been totally up-front with them about her motives after all. Not that being in love with Will was a bad thing, but…
She's got some pretty stiff competition from a dead girl, I hate to break it to her. I've never seen Will's face look like it did when he talked about Maya being murdered…
"This is excellent work, Jay," Kate piped up from the backseat. "You interested in a job with the CIA? We've got senior analysts who couldn't have pulled this much together in twenty-four hours, even with top-level clearance."
Wondering if she was flattering him or being honest, Jay played the compliment off. "Ms. Buchanan isn't exactly a difficult woman to find out about. She's an active socialite and one of the richest, most powerful women in the country. I just knew what to look for."
"Jay's the only modest lawyer you'll ever meet," Tyler said to Kate over his shoulder. Jay knew his friend was trying to make up for his own coldness by being extra-friendly. He saw Kate smile rather half-heartedly and experienced a grim satisfaction. Maybe she wouldn't be so quick to assume she was part of the club –
"Hey, stop!" Jay shouted. Tyler slammed on the brakes. "Sorry, I didn't mean – There's a town up there, a gas station. They'll have a payphone."
"Don't do that," Tyler muttered, pressing a hand to his chest as if to still his racing heart. Pressing on the accelerator again, he looked to Will. "Is it okay?"
"What do you mean, 'is it okay'?" Jay challenged, the tightness in his voice conveying the somewhat irrational anger that had been building in him all morning. "I'm calling Kim, Tyler, so pull off."
"Look," Will began.
But Kate broke in, "Will, he has to call his girlfriend sooner or later. If they track us from here or from six hours' north, does it really matter? The poor woman is probably half-mad with worry. Let him phone."
To Jay's complete non-surprise, Will relented once Kate had put in her thoughts. "Fine. But keep it short," he cautioned.
Tyler pulled up to a mom-and-pop gas station. Kate disappeared inside in search of coffee and breakfast for them all while Tyler, Jay and Will clustered around the outdoor payphone.
"I don't see what the big deal is," Jay groused. "It's not like the FBI has tapped every payphone between New York and Canada on the off-chance that we'll use one, and you keep assuring us the hideout is off the radar."
Will sighed. He looked tired even after a full night's sleep, and Jay was unpleasantly reminded that Will was operating with a hole in his belly.
"The FBI doesn't just tap phones, Jay. They have programs set up to listen in on everyday conversations, deals with phone companies to let them broadcast programs that catch phrases like 'Drexler' and 'Burchell.' Once they pick up those phrases, they can tap into the call, even trace it. It's a mountain of data to plough through, sure, but the fact is, you never know when somebody's listening."
Tyler cast his eyes around surreptitiously, as if expecting masked men to crawl out of the roadside bushes. "Always good to have a pep talk," he mumbled.
Jay decided to take his chances that some random agent somewhere would not listen in on his conversation. Since he planned on avoiding catch-phrases like "the Drexler," it didn't seem like much of a risk, honestly. He deposited his coins and dialed the number of Will's hideout, which Will had made both he and Tyler memorize the day before.
Kim answered on the second ring. "Hello?"
Hearing her voice was such a relief Jay's knees almost buckled. He gripped the edge of the booth for support, smiling and nodding to let his friends know everything was okay. "Baby, it's me. We're fine, we just couldn't get to a phone before now. How are you?"
Kim sounded close to tears of relief herself. "God, Jay, I was imagining the worst. But listen," her voice dropped to just above a whisper, "something's…happened. Is Will there with you?"
Jay's heart rate trebled. He could tell by Kim's tone that something was wrong. "Yeah, he's here." Jay cut his eyes toward Will, who frowned, picking up on the change in Jay's demeanor. "What's up?"
"There's a girl here." Kim was still speaking very quietly, so Jay had to press the receiver tightly to his ear to hear her. "She came last night. Jay, she…she says she's Will's girlfriend, Maya."
Jay almost dropped the phone. "She says she's who?"
"What's happening?" Tyler hissed, looking scared.
Jay waved him off as Kim continued, "She says she's Maya. She says some men came to her house and nearly caught you and Tyler there with her, and then they took her hostage and forced her to make some kind of a tape in which she pretended to be tortured and shot so they could use it to get information out of Will."
Kim was speaking very quickly, and Jay tried desperately to keep it all straight so he could relay it to Will, who was watching him with growing alarm.
"She says she managed to escape the day before yesterday and hitch-hiked up here. She says Will told her about the house, so she got to the main road and then walked the rest of the way so as not to lead anybody back here."
To Kim, Jay said, "Hang on." He placed his hand over the receiver and, through lips that threatened to tremble with fear, he informed Will, "Kim says there's a girl at the hideout claiming to be Maya."
For one second, Will's mask slipped. Behind it, Jay saw the vulnerability and the desperation that had in all likelihood led whoever Will Traveler really was into this life of espionage. Perhaps for the first time, Jay thought he understood what Will had meant when he said it wouldn't "work that way" for him to simply prove his innocence and reclaim his life: Will Traveler had no life to reclaim. Maya had probably been his first and only chance at a real life.
"Go get Kate," Will ordered Tyler, who dashed toward the store without hesitation. To Jay, he said, "Ask Kim what the girl looks like."
While Kim relayed a description that, to Jay, sounded exactly like Maya, Tyler and Kate came hurrying toward them, Kate shoving bags of food and cups of coffee into Tyler's arms. Her face looked pale and set, Jay noted, as if she were about to be force-fed something awfully unpleasant.
The moment she joined them, Will demanded curtly, "How certain are you that Maya is really dead?"
Kate didn't blanch. "All but absolutely. I can take you to her body if you need to know for sure."
Jesus Christ, like Will needs to see his dead lover's body…
"Do it." Will turned back to Jay and held out his hand for the receiver. Jay reluctantly gave it to him, standing close enough to hear Kim's replies as Will instructed, "Kim, it's Will. Tell this girl that we're on our way back to you right now, but we can't get there until morning. Don't tell her anything about our meeting with Marlow, and try to keep her away from the computer, okay?"
"Okay," Kim said, sounding scared. Jay's every instinct told him to jump in the car and race straight back to her. "I'll try, Will."
"Good." Will handed the phone back to Jay and started for the car with Kate in tow.
Tyler stepped up beside Jay. "Tell Liz I love her," he whispered.
"Tyler says to tell Liz he loves her," Jay told Kim. "Are you going to be okay, baby?"
Kim made a valiant effort to sound calm and normal. "Fine, we'll be fine. Just… I love you, Jay. Whatever happens, I love you."
"Don't you do that," Jay commanded, fear seizing up his chest so it was difficult to breathe. "Don't say good-bye. I'll see you soon, okay? I love you."
"Okay. 'Bye."
As the line went dead, Jay fought down the urge to run after Will and pummel him. Some part of him recognized that the situation was not really Will's fault; the people who had trained him, assigned him this mission, and decided to hunt them all down were responsible. But his fear and concern for Kim made rationality difficult to come by.
Kate and Will were deep in conversation when Jay and Tyler reached the car. "We've got a decision to make," Will announced immediately.
"What decision?" Tyler shot back, sounding as frightened and upset as Jay felt. It occurred to him that maybe his friend really had fallen in love with Liz. "Kim and Liz are in trouble. We have to get back there, right now."
"And I have to know for sure whether Maya is really dead," Will retorted, his own voice reflecting fear and anger.
"You won't be able to tell if this girl is Maya when you see her? What, do you think they cloned her or something?" Tyler did not look like he intended to back down.
Will ran a hand through his hair, obviously fighting to keep his frustration in check. "Yes, Tyler, I'll know if this girl is Maya or not – but if she's not, then Chambers or Kensington or whoever else can keep trotting this little trick out to keep me on the hook. Don't you see?" Will's tone suddenly turned pleading, and Jay saw that it had the same effect on Tyler that it did on him: Resistance became futile. "I have to know for sure that she's gone. I have to see it for myself, or I'll always wonder. And that will make us all vulnerable."
As if seeing their defenses weakening, Kate quickly put in, "I can take Will to where Maya's body is buried. Before I left D.C., I spoke to the man who killed her, because I needed to know for sure that she was gone before I sent Will off into the unknown."
Jay respected Kate for that, he had to admit. Seeing her feelings for Will, he was rather impressed that she hadn't simply written Maya off with a song in her heart – the less competition, the better, right?
"But that's about five hours north of here," Kate went on. "So you two have a decision to make."
"Which is?" Jay prompted, looking from her to Will.
Will took over. "Which is, you can head back to the hideout and try to get Kim and Liz away safely – "
"Great, let's do that," Tyler interrupted.
"Wait," Jay ordered, placing a restraining hand on Tyler's shoulder. He searched Will's eyes for an honest answer to the question he was afraid to pose. "You didn't hesitate to go in after Kim before, Will. Why are you hesitating now?"
Meeting Jay's gaze directly, Will answered, "Because if this girl is Maya, then Kim and Liz have nothing to be afraid of. If she isn't, then chances are we're too late to do anything for them anyway – they're only being allowed the illusion of freedom to lure us back there."
Jay shuddered. In his heart, he knew Maya was dead; he didn't trust Kate, but he could tell she was being up-front about what she knew on this score, and none of it sounded promising. That meant Kim and Liz were sitting ducks. The moment Jay, Tyler or Will showed up at the hideout, the trap would be sprung, and they would all be caught in it.
"So what's our other option?" Tyler was saying. "Go with you guys and leave Kim and Liz to twist in the wind?"
"You can go to Buchanan's country estate and try to find something we can use as leverage," Will countered.
In the back of his mind, Jay heard Will say on a not-so-long-ago morning, "One thing I know for sure: In this business, knowledge is power." Those words had rung true for Jay then; they rung true for him now. Much as he hated to admit it, if Will was right and Kim and Liz were already as good as captured, the best way to save them was not to go rushing head-long into an ambush: It was to find a weapon with which to fight for their freedom.
"And if there's nothing there?" Jay asked of Will. "If we go to Buchanan's and we can't get in or it's a bust?"
"Then we'll find some way to get them out," Will vowed, his voice steely with determination. "I swear to you, I won't let Kim or Liz die because of me."
Tyler and Jay turned to each other. As usual, Jay saw that Tyler was prepared to leave the decision up to him; he felt the burden of responsibility descend like a lead blanket on his shoulders.
Go to Kim or go look for answers. Either way, I'm taking a chance with her life.
But Jay had been too reasonable for too long to start being ruled by his passions now. "We'll go to Buchanan's," he decided, and Tyler nodded his agreement. "See if we can find something the Fourth Branch wants worse than our hides."
Kate handed over the car keys. "You guys take this. We'll find another ride." She pressed Jay's hand reassuringly as he took the keys, and he found himself surprisingly appreciative of the gesture.
"Take care of him," Jay said to her quietly, glancing at Will, whose face was white and jaw was set.
"I will," she promised. "You take care of yourselves. Buchanan's place may not be guarded, but that doesn't mean it won't have security – watch your backs."
Part 2
Will and Kate hardly spoke as she drove north through the rolling hills of Massachusetts into the wooded, remote regions of Maine surrounding Deer Harbor. He stared out the window without really seeing the passing scenery, trying to keep his mind blank – a technique he had often practiced during his training, while learning to deal with sleep deprivation, hunger, and various other kinds of physical discomfort.
This is so much worse than pain…
Could Maya be alive? This thought chased itself around and around Will's head. He was afraid to let himself hope. Kate seemed so certain; Will knew of no reason why she would lie to him about Maya yet be honest about everything else. Of course, she could have been deceived, but there again, Will could not see whose ends such a lie would serve when Freed didn't know of Kate's betrayal.
Maya is dead. You heard her die.
That terrible, inescapable conclusion could not seem to snuff out the flicker of hope that had kindled in Will's heart upon hearing that a woman claiming to be Maya had appeared at the hideout. He had, as he had admitted to Kate, told Maya that he had a back-up plan in case their original scheme to escape by boat had failed; he hadn't gone into specifics with her, but Maya had become rather adept at espionage herself over the past two years, so it was entirely possible that she had taken it upon herself to follow up on his hints and had discovered the location of his hideout.
Unfortunately, if the real Maya would have been able to do that, then it was also entirely possible that someone now claiming to be her could have traced the real Maya's digital footprints to the hideout's doorstep. Nothing was ever totally secret, Will understood that much about the world of the Fourth Branch.
"Are you hungry at all?" Kate asked tentatively from the driver's seat, as they approached the exit for a small town about thirty miles northwest of Deer Harbor.
"No." Will couldn't imagine ever being hungry again, although it had been hours since he had eaten. He had even forgotten the pain and stiffness in his side, where Marlow's bullet had pierced him. His mind was totally consumed by the drive to see for himself if Maya was dead or alive.
"Will," Kate started uncertainly, slowing at the turn-off for a wildlife preserve, "you don't have to do this yourself. I know what Maya looked – I mean, looks – like. I can do this. You don't need to see – "
"I've seen dead bodies before, Kate."
"I'm aware of that, Will, but not like this. Not someone you loved."
She hesitated, as if wondering how far she should push him when his temper was obviously so raw. Will experienced a pang of regret that she would still be afraid of him, yet since he had aimed a gun at her head with every intention of pulling the trigger twenty-four hours earlier, he supposed it was to be expected.
"What?" he prompted. "What do you want to say?"
Kate gnawed on her bottom lip as the stolen car she was driving came to rest at the end of a deserted lane that looked as if it might have been used at one time, many years ago, for a ranger's access road. "It's just…Will, Maya's been dead for two weeks now, and it's not like she was embalmed or put in a vault…"
Pain – actual, physical pain brought on by grief – shot through Will with more force than Marlow's bullet. He closed his eyes. "I realize that," he managed to say through numb lips. "But I have to know. I have to see for myself."
Her sigh conveyed a world of regret and compassion. "All right. It's just down this hill."
Will took a shovel, purchased from a hardware store somewhere north of Boston, from the trunk and started down the hill with Kate following slowly at a respectful distance. He didn't need her to guide him: He could see the tell-tale signs of recently-disturbed earth near the base of a giant sycamore.
He saw again the face of the man, Martin, who had been tasked to kill Maya. "Your girl Mary would have been proud," Will heard the other Hometown agent say, moments before Will's bullet slammed home into his chest.
Her name was Maya.
His hands were shaking where they gripped the shovel, but slowly, methodically, glad of something to do to distract his racing thoughts, Will began to dig. He knew how deep the grave would be – not six feet, which was a waste of time and energy for a mark, but not above three, to keep wild animals from sniffing it out and uprooting the evidence. He knew how the body would be contained – in a black plastic sack, good for keeping blood and gore from spilling out.
What he did not know was how horrible it would be to see Maya's corpse.
The sun was beginning to sink low in the sky, lighting the western horizon in a fiery blaze of oranges and reds, when Will struck something less solid than dirt or rocks. He stopped digging and placed the shovel on the ground above him; the hole he had dug was probably four feet deep around him.
From the moist earth rose the unmistakable smell of rotting flesh.
Will used his hands to clear dirt from the black plastic. The stench of decay made his gorge rise, but he refused to be sick – he would not be disgusted by Maya, not even by her dead body. He would be strong. He would be the man she had wanted him to be, the man she had made him believe he could become, if only he could escape from Freed…
It had happened fourteenth months ago, the first time that Will knew for sure he was in love with Maya. They had been more than friends for two months. He had been attracted to her from the first, to her feisty spirit coupled with understandable trepidation over the situation her drug-addict brother had landed her in by keeping his stash in her bookstore. He liked how intelligent she was, how educated, yet how down-to-earth and pragmatic.
Will hadn't kept the proper objectivity in light of that attraction. What he should have done was treat her so coldly she dreaded to see his face. If he couldn't control his own emotions, which sometimes happened to even the best agents, he should have manipulated hers so that the mission was not compromised. But Will had never been able to treat Maya coldly, not from the first moment when, upon hearing his chosen alias, her beautiful face had broken into a wide grin and she had chirped, "That's perfect! Will Traveler – like a storybook hero."
He was no one's hero, Will had wanted to tell her, though he hadn't. Their meets had always been charged with…some indescribable something, perhaps a romantic idea of the soldier-spy on her part and a longing for closeness, for acceptance, on his. Yet over time, as Will had out of necessity shared more and more about his mission with her, whatever blinders she wore toward him had been stripped away. Instead of loathing him, he had been astonished to find that she seemed to care for him even more.
Their first kiss had startled both of them. He had left quickly, not to return for almost three weeks – a week longer than usual. When he had come back, since staying away forever was not an option unless he wanted to report the indiscretion (which he didn't, because it would mean not seeing her again), Maya had taken him for a long walk at the marina and had told him that she cared for him, that she wanted to be more than part of his cover. Will had warned her it would be dangerous; she had said it was worth it. And so, in stolen moments here and there that had gradually become the life's blood of Will's existence, they had progressed from infatuation to what felt like real, true, sincere love.
One warm May afternoon, following one of their scheduled meets, Maya had casually suggested that they go for a picnic. Will had known her house was bugged; so had Maya. They had always been careful to be polite but businesslike during their meets because of this. Still, Will hadn't supposed at the time that his superiors would think anything of the two of them going out for dinner or taking walks or eating picnic lunches, so they had never bothered to hide the fact that they were doing these things. They simply hadn't alluded to the romantic nature of them.
They had driven Maya's pick-up out to a pretty, secluded stretch of woods she knew about. Under a brilliantly-blue spring sky, with a warm breeze wafting across their hidden valley, they had sipped dandelion wine and nibbled on Brie, sesame crackers and grapes. Wine always went straight to Maya's head; after her second glass, she was giggling uncontrollably while Will, stretched out on his back beside her on the picnic blanket, pointed out cartoon characters in the clouds.
"That one kind of looks like Scrooge McDuck," he commented, more to hear her laughter than because the puffy cloud truly resembled the character.
Maya collapsed in a fit of giggles. "Scrooge McDuck? Did you watch Duck Tales as a kid, Will Traveler?"
"Mine was a misspent youth," he quipped.
She rolled toward him, eyes shining with laughter. "I don't doubt that."
Her laughter slowly died away as she gazed at him, suddenly serious. "Am I ever going to know anything about you, Will? Anything about who you really are?"
Uneasiness spread through Will's gut. Until now, he had been able to pretend that they were a normal couple – only, not in normal circumstances. Her question brought home to him just how abnormal their relationship really was.
"Maybe someday," he answered carefully. He wanted to be honest, yet he didn't know if he could handle losing her because of the truth. He had come to depend on Maya more than he had realized until that moment. "It's not very safe for me to talk about with you, that's all."
"And when this mission is over? Will it be safe then?"
She was scooting closer to him on the blanket, an unmistakable look in her eyes. Will could feel his heart speeding up and his brain slowing down. This was what he had been wanting, dreaming about, longing for – but now that it was here, he was afraid, afraid of endangering her.
Falling in love wasn't against the rules – discouraged, but not forbidden. Hiding romantic rendezvous with another member of Hometown, on the other hand, was absolutely out-of-bounds. He was risking everything, possibly even his own freedom and maybe Maya's given her immunity deal with the FBI, just by being here with her. If they took the next step…
Will attempted to bring his emotions in-check. "When this mission is over," he said, with an effort to steady his rather husky voice, "I don't know what my next assignment will be. But I don't think it will mean you and I working together, so…"
"So?" Maya propped herself on an elbow and leaned in close, brushing her lips across his. Will's stomach flip-flopped. "So all those shadowy people who control our lives won't mind that I'm in love with you?"
His eyelids, which had drifted closed in dreamy anticipation of her kiss, flew open. Will found himself staring directly into Maya's cornflower-blue eyes: He read the truth of her words there.
"I love you, Will Traveler," she repeated against his mouth. Her hands slid under his shirt, across his chest, over his stomach. "And I want to be with you. Be with me, Will…"
He couldn't help himself. He had always been helpless when it came to Maya, he understood that with a sudden, shocking clarity; his love for her was like a force of nature, matched only by hers for him. Whatever happened would just have to happen, whatever consequences he would just have to face, because he could no more have turned away from her at that moment than he could have willed himself to stop breathing.
They made love as twilight fell, desperately and passionately at first, as if driving away the demons that circled them, then slowly and sweetly, enjoying the taste and feel of one another. Will had made love before, just never with someone he actually loved. He could feel that love changing him, awakening and quickening parts of his soul he had assumed were dead forever, if they had ever existed at all; in place of hollowness, he felt full to bursting with joy…
On that enchanted evening, if he could only have known where loving him would have led Maya – to this shallow grave in the middle of nowhere, to a life ended brutally and senselessly – he would have turned her away, Will knew that in his heart of hearts. He would have made himself everything she hated instead of trying desperately to be worthy of her love.
That's why I have to leave the others as soon as possible. Caring about me is a death sentence…
With trembling fingers, Will pulled apart the seam running lengthwise down the black plastic. The sickeningly-sweet smell of decomposition made him recoil despite his best efforts not to. Closing his eyes, he turned his face away for a moment, regaining his composure. Then he forced himself to look at what the plastic had concealed.
A hand. A small, slender hand, the fingernails still perfectly manicured to round tips, still polished the pearly-pink color she had preferred.
Maya.
An arm, smeared with blood and purple-black with what in places were bruises and in others was decay. A shirtsleeve, one he recognized because he had seen her wear it a dozen times, had watched in fascination as she slipped it off over her head in that slow, sexy, sultry way that came so naturally to her.
Maya.
A spray of golden hair, wavy, so she must have curled it that morning, standing in front of the mirror frowning with concentration. "No girl wants straight hair," she had once told him, "unless they have natural curls." He had laughed. Now, that beautiful hair was wriggling with worms and matted with blood, bone chips and brain matter.
Maya.
A cheekbone, high and delicate; an eyelid, half-open, the white still visible underneath, the pale-blue iris hidden; a forehead, a slightly up-turned nose, a graceful jaw; lips, eyelashes, teeth…
Maya…
A bullet hole, neat and round, just above the temple.
A scream: "Will! He's got a gun, Will!"
And I didn't help her. I didn't even tell the truth when I thought it could have saved her. I never deserved her…
"Will?"
He had lost track of how long he had been kneeling there, his nose de-sensitized to the stench of death and decay, until Kate's voice broke him out of his macabre reverie. Night had fallen; the air had turned chill, although Will's face and body were covered in a thin layer of sweat that had nothing to do with the physical exertion of digging up a grave.
"Will?" Kate's eyes were misty. "Is it…Is it her?"
"Yes." His voice sounded harsh and foreign to his own ears.
He knew they had to keep moving; people's lives depended on it. He made his good-bye quick: Laying down the shovel, Will leaned over and pressed his lips to the gruesome flesh of Maya's forehead. He heard Kate gasp but didn't care what she thought. Even in the grave, Maya was beautiful to him.
Death has not conquered thee, he thought, and couldn't suppress a wan smile. Maya would have appreciated Shakespeare at her gravesite, bibliophile that she was.
"What do we do now?" Kate asked, trying hard to sound normal as Will climbed out of the grave and began unceremoniously shoveling dirt back in atop his lover's body.
I will come back for you, Maya, I promise. But not now…Now I have other people to protect, better than I did you.
"Bring me the phone," Will instructed without pausing in his work. He saw her hesitation and barked, "Now, Kate."
She dashed back to the car while he finished filling in Maya's grave. By the time she returned, he was leaning on the shovel, trying to order his thoughts so he could deal with the current crisis.
"What are you going to do?" Kate looked worried. Will could only imagine what a sight he was, covered in inch-thick dirt and hollow-eyed from grief.
"Call Kim." Will was already dialing. "They know where the hideout is, so it doesn't matter anymore if we call there. I won't talk long enough for them to trace us," he assured her.
Kim answered on the second ring, suggesting she had been waiting by the phone. "Hello? Jay?"
"It's Will."
He licked his dry lips. What he had to say to Kim would not be easy. Just as he had sold Jay and Tyler on his plan to get them to safety the day after Freed's suicidal car-bomb, he now needed to persuade Kim to do what was best for her. But he knew his plan would go against her every instinct.
Focus. Just focus.
"Will? Is everything…okay?"
"No, it's not." Will kept his voice calm and level. "Don't react to anything I'm saying, Kim, just listen carefully. The woman who is there with you is not Maya. Maya is dead."
He heard her take in a sharp breath, yet she said nothing as he went on, "We can't get to you in time, Kim. Whoever that woman is working for, and I'm betting it's the Fourth Branch, they already know where the hideout is. We're too far away to help you.
"I want you to listen to me now, Kim. This is very important. Do you understand?"
"Yes." She sounded small and frightened and very far away.
Will took a deep, composing breath. "I want you and Liz to surrender peacefully to these people. When you hang up, I want you to tell this woman that you know Maya is dead, and you are willing to go along quietly with her wherever she wants to take the two of you."
"I can't do that, Will," Kim protested brokenly. "The last time…"
He knew she was picturing that son of a bitch burning a hole in Liz's slender arm. Imbuing his voice with strength, Will insisted, "Last time, you weren't cooperating, Kim. This time, I want you and Liz to do whatever these people say, and I want you to make it clear to them from moment one that you intend to cooperate fully. Whatever they ask you, no matter how much danger you think it might put Jay or Tyler or me in, I want you – I need you – to answer them honestly. Whatever they tell you to do, no matter how awful you think it is, I want you to do it."
"Will, I can't – "
"Kim, you're not in a position to resist." Will couldn't stop himself from looking over at Maya's grave. Fingers of dread crept up his spine: Soon, Kim and Liz could be dropped into the cold, unforgiving earth. "These people will hurt you. They will hurt Liz. And when they get done hurting you, they will kill you. Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"If you do what they want, you have a chance of staying alive long enough for me to get you out. Do you understand that?"
Kim hesitated ever so slightly, but when she answered, Will heard the resignation in her voice and knew, with a deep sense of relief, that he had won. "Yes. I understand."
"Good." He paused, wishing he could look into Kim's eyes, picturing her as she had looked in his bedroom – so vulnerable yet so indescribably strong.
Women are truly amazing creatures.
"A few days ago, I asked you to trust me, Kim, and you did. Do you still trust me?"
This time, there was no hesitation. "Absolutely."
"Then trust me, Kim: I will come for you. Soon."
"I believe you, Will." Kim no longer sounded frightened; she sounded determined, which was precisely what he wanted. "Tell Jay I love him. I'll love him no matter what."
Inside, he heard another voice say,"I love you, Will Traveler."
Will hung up the phone as his knees began to quake. Beside him, Kate reached out to steady him, but he was already sinking to the ground, overcome by a terrible, powerful wave of sickness.
"Will! He's got a gun, Will!"
He knew tears were streaming down his face; he could feel his shoulders shaking with sobs that wrenched painfully from his throat. For two weeks, Will had held back his grief. For two years, he had held inside an ocean of feelings for his friends and for Maya. In a sudden, uncontrollable rush, those emotions spilled over, bringing him literally to his knees in the dew-damp grass twenty yards from his beloved's grave.
"Will."
Kate was kneeling in front of him, opening her arms. He let her hold him; he rested his forehead on her shoulder and slipped his arms around her waist, clinging to her warmth, her solidness, like a lifeline in a hurricane. Her felt her own hot tears dropping into his hair where her cheek rested on top of his head. Her hands moved in rhythmic, soothing circles across his back and shoulders.
And in his mind, the echoes, swirling louder than his own sobs:"I love you, Will Traveler…What if you don't come back…I love you, Will Traveler…Will, he's got a gun, Will…I love you…I love you…I love you…"
After what seemed like a very, very long time, the last of Will's tears slipped from his eyes, leaving him shaky but calmer. Kate held onto him for a long while after his sobs ended, and he let her, thankful for the comfort. He couldn't even bring himself to be embarrassed about losing control like he never had before in his life, least of all in front of another person.
"I'm okay," he said at last. And he was.
Kate seemed to sense that, because she leaned back from him. With her hands resting lightly on the sides of his face, she brushed drying tears from his cheeks with her thumbs. "You did the right thing," she told him. "Telling Kim to surrender, I mean. It was the only thing you could do."
Will nodded. His insides felt squishy and wriggly. Unsteadily, he got to his feet, leaning on Kate for support; he was so weak, it was like recovering from a long fever.
Recognizing that he was in no shape to be making the important decisions that needed to be made immediately, Kate effortlessly took charge. "I'll call Marlow," she offered, leading Will back to the stolen vehicle. "If Kim and Liz are going to be interrogated, she'll be compromised, so she needs to get out of town right away."
Will slid into the passenger's seat. Kate took the wheel, fishing the cell phone out of her bag as she headed for the highway. "Where are we going?" he inquired, feeling rather childlike and helpless. Although he had to admit, it was nice not to be the one in charge for the moment.
"After I reach Marlow, I'm calling Jay and Tyler and telling them to head our way. We can meet in the middle somewhere – grab the map out of the glovebox and see if you can find a place, would you?" Kate was dialing Marlow's number. As she waited for her to answer, she added, "If they haven't found anything we can use at Buchanan's by now, they aren't going to, so we might as well meet back up and figure out our next move."
Will pulled out the map and began searching for a halfway point between Buchanan's Connecticut country estate and their location just outside of Deer Harbor while Kate warned Marlow that she was no longer safe. When she hung up, he turned to her and said simply, "Thank you, Kate."
She reached across the seat and squeezed his hand, holding onto his fingers for a long minute. "We'll get them, Will. I promise you, if it's the last thing I ever do, I'll help you get the bastards who did this."
Part 3
Kim hung up the phone and stood by the stairwell on trembling knees, one hand gripping the banister to keep her upright. Down the hall in the kitchen, she could hear the quiet murmur of voices: Liz and the girl who had claimed to be Maya were fixing supper, broccoli and cheese soup.
"We can't get to you in time…"
She had heard the despair in Will's voice, and she wondered, with a horrified shudder, how he had confirmed that Maya was dead. She wondered how the meet with Marlow had gone, who the supposed CIA operative was, if any help could come from that avenue. She hoped Jay was safe, and Tyler. She wished she had never agreed to stay behind.
Much as she would have liked to curl up on the rug and descend into a catatonic state while someone else figured out this nightmare, Kim knew she couldn't. So she squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, drew on that Doherty grit her father was always bragging about, and marched down the hall to face her enemy.
Liz's face, already drawn with worry, turned bone-white from fear when Kim entered. Apparently, the truth was written all over her face. Since the imposter had her back to the doorway, Kim took advantage of the momentary eye contact with her friend to convey as best she could without words one simple message: Follow my lead.
A spark of understanding in Liz's hazel eyes told Kim she understood.
We really could be sisters.
"That was Will." Kim's voice brought the imposter's face around to her. She kept her tone as normal as possible.
"Is he okay?" The girl's profuse concern made Kim sick to her stomach, though she had to hand it to her – the imposter was an excellent actress. "Is he on his way back?"
"They aren't coming back here, not any of them." Kim held the imposter's gaze. "I know you aren't Maya, so why don't you drop the act and tell us what you want."
For a second, the girl seemed poised to protest. Then a sly smile stole across her features, and she shrugged. "It's a shame, really," she commented coolly. "I've heard Traveler's cute. I wouldn't have minded playing his girlfriend."
Liz walked quickly to Kim's side. "What now?" the younger woman asked, her eyes darting toward the living room, where the loaded pistol still sat on the desk.
"Now," Kim replied, her eyes still on her enemy's, "we go along quietly."
The imposter did a double-take. "Wow. I didn't expect you to sell your boyfriend out so easily, Doherty."
"I'm not selling anyone out." Kim's temper threatened to flare. Remembering her promise to Will, she continued more evenly, "Jay and Tyler and Will are not going to come back here when they know they'd be walking into a trap. And I assume you have friends close by, so even if Liz and I could take you – which we probably couldn't – we wouldn't get far. So I don't see any need in putting ourselves in danger when it won't do us any good."
The imposter nodded, looking impressed. "Sounds good to me. Let's go in the living room where it's more comfortable, and I'll make the call."
In the living room, she whipped out a cell phone and dialed while Liz and Kim settled on the couch. Liz clutched at Kim's hand. Knowing that the other girl had to be terrified of another interrogation given what she had so recently gone through, Kim slipped her arm around her new friend's shoulders and hugged her tightly.
"We'll be okay," she assured Liz, too quietly for their captor to hear. "Will said to do whatever they want and tell them anything they want to know, and they won't hurt us."
"Are they coming back for us?"
"Yes." Kim hesitated before adding, "But I'm not sure when."
Their captor was speaking into the phone, and the girls fell silent to listen. "This is Dawes. Traveler saw through the deception – he must be with Westbrook, she must have taken him to the body."
Westbrook? Kim and Liz shared a puzzled look.
The woman listened for a moment, then continued, "Doherty and Schultz say they're prepared to cooperate. I don't think Traveler will let Burchell or Fog come back here, sir. I think we should bring these two in…Right…Okay."
She snapped the cell phone shut and turned to her prisoners. "Sit tight, ladies. We're about to have company."
Minutes later, the house where Kim had felt so naively safe was filled with a dozen heavily-armed men, all wearing FBI garb. Special Agent in Charge Fred Chambers strolled into the living room and smiled indulgently at Kim, who barely resisted the urge to slap him across the face.
"Hello, Miss Doherty," he greeted her, his voice dripping with feigned kindness. "Glad to see you and Miss Schultz are safe."
"I'm sure you've been really torn up over our welfare," Kim shot back through clenched teeth. "What do you want from us?"
"I thought that would be obvious, Kimberly," Chambers rejoined. "We're going to use you and Miss Schultz to force your boyfriends and Traveler out into the open."
"Will won't bring them back here. He already said."
"Oh, I don't doubt that. But you see, Kimberly, I know a little something about your boyfriend and Mr. Fog: Traveler may be prepared to give you two up as a bad job, but there's no way they'll leave you to rot in federal prison."
The woman named Dawes spoke up, "There's a lot of research notes over by the computer, sir. I wasn't able to log onto any of Traveler's accounts, but I'm sure the hard drive will tell us a lot about what they've been up to."
Chambers considered Kim for a moment. "Dawes tells me you've agreed to cooperate. Why the change of heart?"
Kim shot a pointed glance at Liz's bandaged arm. "I'm not a hero, Agent Chambers. I'm a photographer. I don't intend to be tortured, not even for Jay."
"That's a wise decision, Kimberly. But let me make something very clear to you." His eyes and voice became suddenly cold, and a shiver of fear chased down Kim's spine. Beside her, she felt Liz stiffen with the same reaction.
"I know how smart you are, and I'm betting you think you can outsmart me. So let's make sure we understand one another: I only need one of you alive to get Burchell and Fog to surrender.
"Now," Chambers settled onto the coffee table, his elbows resting on his knees as he looked from Liz to Kim, "Miss Schultz here seems to be pretty important to Mr. Fog, but in the end, she's the weakest link. I don't think Mr. Burchell would risk his life for her. I do know Mr. Fog would risk his life for you, though, Kim, and Traveler seems fairly partial to you as well. So when we're talking about who's expendable," he smiled cruelly at Liz, "I'm afraid that would be you, Miss Schultz."
Liz had begun to shake again, the way she had in the car following her interrogation a few days earlier. Kim clasped her friend's hand tightly and tried to bore holes into Chambers' forehead with her eyes.
Apparently pleased by the effect he was having on Liz, Chambers proceeded, "Now, here's how this is going to work, Kimberly. If I get the impression that you're jerking me around, or should you attempt to escape or try to contact your boyfriend or Will Traveler without my knowledge, Miss Schultz will be the one who suffers. And when she's suffered enough, in my opinion, she'll die."
"You son of a bitch," Kim snarled, as Liz went positively weak with terror beside her. "Stop it. I told you, I'll cooperate."
Chambers ignored her. "Now, of course if Miss Schultz decides to be a hero, I won't have any choice but to kill her. How fast or slow her death is would, naturally, depend on how heroic she tried to be."
Kim's self-control was being pushed to the breaking point. Had Will known this would happen? Was that why he had extracted his promise from her based on the trust she had placed in him?
You'd better be right about this plan, Will, because if I'm going to help this asshole for the time being, I want payback – and soon.
To calm herself, Kim pictured Jay's lovely eyes and handsome face. She recalled every feature in exquisite detail, memorizing him like she would a photograph. Her anger didn't disappear, but it did abate enough for her to address Chambers without flinging curses at him.
"Liz and I are not going to give you any trouble, Agent Chambers. We will answer your questions, and we won't try to contact Jay or Tyler or Will or anyone else without your permission."
"That's good, Kimberly. Let's keep it that way." Chambers stood and motioned to Dawes, who sauntered over and smirked down at them. Kim dearly wanted to wipe that smile off her face. "Agent Dawes here is going to ask you some questions. She has a particular interest in Will Traveler. Seems he left a friend of hers for dead several days ago."
Great. Give us somebody who has a bone to pick with Will.
Kim knew she couldn't let her or Liz be placed in this woman's hands if she had a grudge against Will – nothing they did would be "cooperative" enough for her, Kim was certain. Thinking fast, she blurted out, "Don't you want to know where they were going when they left here, Agent Chambers?"
He pivoted slowly on the spot. "By 'they,' you mean Traveler, Burchell and Fog, I presume?"
Kim nodded. "Yes."
"And why would you be so eager to volunteer that information, Kimberly?"
"I want you – I need you – to answer them honestly," Will had pleaded. Kim took a deep breath and followed his advice: "I'll tell you what you want to know if you promise not to leave us with someone," she cut her eyes pointedly toward Dawes, who was waiting like a cat about to pounce on a mouse, "who has a reason to hurt us no matter what we do."
She wondered if any of the kindness Chambers had shown her at the outset of this journey was real. Deciding her only chance was to play to that side of him and hope it hadn't all been a ruse, Kim added, "You told me once that you wanted to help me, Agent Chambers. I know you disagree with a lot of the decisions I've made since then. But I think you know that everything I've done has been to protect Jay, because I love him and I know he's innocent. So please, please don't forget that Liz and I are not the bad guys here. We don't deserve to be treated like terrorists."
Chambers hesitated. Seeing that, Dawes interjected hotly, "Traveler shot another agent in the chest, twice, and then tortured her and left her for dead, Chambers. I agreed to this op because I was promised revenge – "
"On Traveler. And if we find him, you can take him apart piece by piece for all I care," Chambers cut her off, his mind obviously made up. "Miss Doherty and Miss Schultz are out-of-bounds on that score, Agent Dawes. I'm afraid you'll have to wait for your revenge."
Fuming, Dawes demanded, "So who's going to question them?"
"I'll do it myself," Chambers answered loftily, haughty that his authority was being called into question. "Show them into the kitchen. I'll be there shortly."
Now it was Kim's turn to smirk at Dawes as she helped a trembling Liz to her feet. "You may look smug now," Dawes hissed, "but wait until Traveler comes in. I'll let you watch while I cut him."
"Whatever." Kim tugged on Liz's arm, anxious to be free of the other woman's vitriole.
Liz, however, hung back. Kim was frightened for a moment that the girl had become paralyzed by fear – until she realized that Liz was staring at Dawes with frank disdain.
"You know," the younger girl said coolly, "Tyler and Jay and Will are going to come for us. And when they do, Will's going to kill you. I think I'll enjoy watching that."
Something about Liz's tone, whether it was her supreme confidence or her complete coldness, made the other woman blanch. Kim bit back a laugh; it wouldn't do to make a mortal enemy of someone like Dawes, given that Chambers wouldn't always be around to protect them. As she hastily steered Liz into the kitchen, however, Kim admitted to herself that she was quite proud of her new friend for turning out to have some grit of her own.
Part 4
For once, Tyler's blue-blood upbringing proved useful for something other than securing the best table at a high-class restaurant: When he and Jay arrived at Buchanan's sprawling country estate, located in a rural area of northwestern Connecticut far away from the Martha's Vineyard crowd, Jay was convinced the house would be secured to the hilt. Tyler, however, knew how wealthy people – even wealthy people like his father, who had plenty of secrets to protect – treated these not-for-show, out-of-the-way retreats: as disposable objects.
"They'll have a basic alarm system," Tyler insisted, driving the Explorer Kate had given them right up to the back door. Jay kept looking around for armed guards, twisting his neck this way and that until he looked like he had a tic. "And Will showed us how to disarm one of those, remember?"
"He popped open the box and yanked out some wires," Jay retorted.
"Yeah, but he said to see if there were phone lines, because if not the alarm can't call out," Tyler recalled. For some reason, seeing Will breaking and entering had made an indelible impact on him – even more so than seeing him threatening an FBI agent with a gun. "So we'll bust open the back door, disable the alarm, and if it's connected to a phone line, we'll get the hell out of here."
Jay sighed. "And what if it's connected to guys with guns, Tyler? What then?"
"Look at this place, Jay. It's completely deserted. God knows when Vivian Buchanan or her husband were last here." Tyler stepped out of the car. When Jay hesitated, he leaned back in and declared, "I'm going in. You can stay here or come with."
I get so tired of being treated like an imbecile. I went to Yale, too…
Tyler knew his short temper was directly related to the mind-numbing fear about Liz's safety that had gnawed at his gut all day. He and Jay had agreed shortly into the drive that Will's plan was the best for all involved; they had also agreed, though, that leaving their girlfriends to the mercy of people who were likely to show none was probably the most difficult thing they had been forced to do since the Drexler went up in flames.
All they could do was hope that Vivian Buchanan's country estate held some answers, Tyler reminded himself, smiling a little as he heard Jay fall into step behind. If they found nothing…
Well, maybe Maya would turn out to be alive after all, and the girls wouldn't really be in any danger. And Will could stop looking like someone who had lost all hope.
"Here goes nothing," Tyler muttered. He grabbed a rock from the landscaping alongside the three-storey colonial manor house's back porch and, before Jay could offer up more protests or Tyler could talk himself out of it, he smashed the glass panels above the door handle.
Immediately, a blaring siren shattered the afternoon silence. Even though he knew they were much too far away for any neighbors to hear the alarm and call the police, Tyler's heart was pounding as he carefully reached in through the broken glass, unlocked the door, and stepped into a large, airy kitchen.
"There," Jay, right on his heels, pointed to a box on the wall a few feet away.
They rushed over to it together. Tyler jerked the front of the metal box off and, trying to picture exactly what Will had done in that New York drugstore, grabbed a fistful of wires and yanked.
He had a split-second to wonder if he could be electrocuted before the alarm went silent. Probably should ask those kinds of questions beforehand in the future, just in case…
"No phone lines." Jay sagged against the wall with relief after peering around the back of the box. "I think we're safe."
"Of course we are." Tyler managed to sound as if he had never doubted his plan for a moment. "And no guys with guns, either. I told you, places like this are so unimportant to people like the Buchanans that they don't even think about anybody breaking into them."
Jay shook his head, gazing around at the perfectly-appointed kitchen. "If I had a place this nice, I'd surround it with landmines. Not to mention if I had my darkest secrets hidden away here…"
"Well, I'm sure they have a safe, and I doubt it's as easy to break into as the house," Tyler admitted. He was leading them down a bright hallway into a tastefully-decorated dining room, then through a sunny foyer and up a curved wooden staircase. "Dad always kept his office on the second floor of our country houses – let's see if all rich traitors think alike, shall we?"
Jay didn't comment on Tyler's description of his father. Tyler appreciated that, since learning of Carlton's life-threatening injury, Jay had dropped the subject of Carlton's betrayal. In fact, neither he nor Will had mentioned Carlton's name since the meeting with Marlow. Tyler found himself thinking of his father at odd moments – like the present one – with a mixture of anger and sorrow that left him as off-balance as his worry for Liz.
"Here we go," Jay announced, pulling open a door at the far end of a hardwood hallway. "Jackpot."
Vivian Buchanan's "study" contained shelves and shelves of books on topics as far-flung as modern Wicca and practical mechanics. Not unexpectedly, one floor-to-ceiling bookshelf sported an impressive collection of pharmaceutical texts. Beyond that, however, the room was sparsely decorated; search though they might, Tyler and Jay found no sign of a hidden safe, and Buchanan's filing cabinets turned out to hold nothing more than the results of drug trials and FDA approvals which looked, at least to their novice eyes, completely on the up-and-up.
Just when Tyler was starting to despair of ever finding anything useful, Jay stopped in mid-step where he had been for the past half-hour pacing back and forth, back and forth in front of the built-in, cherry-stained bookcases. Tyler glanced up from the computer, where he was trying and failing to find anything incriminating on Buchanan's hard drive (other than the fact that she downloaded a ridiculous number of recipes off iVillage for a woman with a full kitchen staff, Tyler had located nothing strange).
He asked tensely, "What is it? Did you hear something?"
Just our luck if the Buchanans have decided to go summering this weekend…
"This room is too small. This wall should be farther back." Jay pointed to the wall which separated the study from a guest bedroom next door. "I've been walking this and counting my steps – shut-up, I know it's OCD, I can't help it," he snapped at Tyler's arched eyebrows. "Anyway, that's not important. The point is, this room should be longer than it is by at least five feet."
Tyler's heart rate doubled. "A false wall," he realized, jumping to his feet and rushing over to the bookcase that lined the wall in question. It was the one, he noted, that held books on so many widely-ranging topics. "Jay, help me look for a knob or a button – "
"There." Jay was pointing at the very center of the shelf. Stepping back, Tyler found himself staring at an old, dog-eared copy of Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography. A quick perusal of the shelf showed that it was the only patriotic book in the eclectic mix.
"It can't be that simple."
Tyler was afraid to hope, yet he knew Liz's life very likely depended on them finding out more about Vivian Buchanan than her obsession with recipes. Heart in his throat, he reached up to pull the book from its slot –
Instantly, a series of soft clicks filled the room. The next moment, the bookshelf began sliding forward, cutting a tell-tale curved swath in the thin layer of dust coating the hardwood floor. Now that he looked closely, Tyler could see that same patch of wood was slightly more worn than the rest of the boards, as if it had been passed over time and time again by the hidden door.
The room within was small, no larger than a closet, but packed floor-to-ceiling with filing cabinets labeled A-Z. Tyler and Jay stared at one another in disbelief.
"Do you think it's rigged?" Jay wondered aloud, taking a tentative step forward. "Maybe there's some kind of silent alarm in here that alerts a security detail somewhere?"
"I wouldn't even know where to begin looking for something like that," Tyler confessed. Boldly, he stepped into the room and yanked open the first filing cabinet. "But I don't see how we've got much choice, Jay. We've been here two hours and haven't found a damn thing. I think we'd better start searching these files and just keep our ears open for visitors, don't you?"
Jay nodded without hesitation. Tyler knew he was thinking the same thing: If it could help protect Kim and Liz, it was well worth the risk.
Thirty minutes later, they had grabbed the most promising-looking files and spread them across the study's floor. Tyler's heart pounded as he looked over the file on the Hadley Foundation, the non-profit organization his father had helped found to offer after-school programs for at-risk inner-city youth in New York. It became clear to him after only a rough once-over that the Hadley Foundation's board was made up of some of the most powerful members of the Fourth Branch: his father, Maxwell Abrams, Jack Freed, Vivian Buchanan.
"This makes a sick kind of sense," Tyler mused aloud. Jay stopped in his reading and waited for an explanation. "The Hadley Foundation made a lot of money off its insider-trading of Holloway Insurance stock the day of the Drexler bombing, right? And according to this," he held out a copy of a bank statement for Jay to inspect, "the day after the bombing, the same amount of money the Foundation made off those shares was deposited into a research expenditure account for Belenus Pharmaceuticals."
"So Buchanan used the Drexler to bankroll more drug research?" Jay looked doubtful. "Seems like a pretty risky fundraiser."
Tyler shook his head impatiently. Why was everyone so clueless about the economy? "No, you're missing the beauty of it, Jay. Profiting from the Drexler bombing was just a side-plot to these people, but they're all so addicted to making money and scheming big deals that they couldn't resist letting the Drexler work for them. So Buchanan's company gets a cut from the bombing, not so she can go take a Caribbean vacation, but so she can fund research on whatever this bioterrorism plot is Will and Kate were talking about."
Horrified realization dawned on Jay's face. "Christ, that is so…twisted."
"I know. I bet somewhere in here we could find evidence of Derek Sellars and Three Continents Investing, too." Tyler couldn't contain his growing excitement. "I know it's not hard evidence that the Fourth Branch exists, but Jay, there could be enough here to prove that the Drexler bombing was a conspiracy, and that we were framed for it."
"You're forgetting that the people we'd have to take this information to are in on it," Jay reminded him. Tyler's hopeful bubble threatened to burst until Jay added, "But it's good stuff, Tyler. It's stuff people like Vivian Buchanan aren't going to want out in the open. It should help us keep Liz and Kim safe."
Tyler nodded, determined to focus on their immediate mission. He had difficulty doing so for a while after their exchange, however, because his mind kept circling back to Liz – her silky skin, her raven hair, her glowing eyes – and how badly he wanted to rescue her not from the imminent danger she was in but from this whole nightmare.
We could make a life together she and I, a real life. But what kind of life will we ever have on the run?
Abruptly, Tyler's attention was caught by a photograph that had tumbled out of one of the files Jay was lifting. "Hey, I know that guy," he cried, snatching up the black-and-white newspaper photo, which showed Vivian Buchanan in a gorgeous black cocktail dress chatting with an equally important-looking woman at a benefit for – Tyler noted the irony – the Drexler Museum. In the background, just to Buchanan's left, was a distinguished white-haired man wearing a tuxedo.
"That's Ollie Drummond," Tyler told Jay. "Oliver Drummond, actually. He used to head up my father's security detail when I was a kid. Maybe my father was at this same benefit." He looked the photo over for a date and found one on the back. "No, that doesn't make sense. Drummond didn't still work for my father when this was taken."
Jay had returned to the file folder out of which the picture had fallen. "No, he works for Buchanan." He held up an employment dossier labeled Drummond, O. "Looks like he started as her head of security about ten years ago. Doesn't say if he's still employed by her or not."
"That's so weird. What are the chances of the same guy heading up security for both my dad and this Buchanan woman?" The wheels in Tyler's mind were spinning, trying to make the connection. "Do you think he's Fourth Branch? He never struck me as being wealthy or powerful, just tough. He and Dad were always friendly, though."
"I don't think he's Fourth Branch the way Buchanan and your father are, but I think he's definitely involved." Jay extended another photo to Tyler, this one a candid shot of Drummond in shirt sleeves playing golf with Ted Buchanan, Vivian Buchanan's husband. "Recognize that tattoo on Drummond's right wrist?"
Squinting at the picture, Tyler tried to place where he had seen the unusual symbol before. Something to do with Daniel Taft, one of Will's aliases…
"The guy on the boat, in Deer Harbor! The guy who tried to blow us up!" Tyler cried. "You said this was some kind of military thing, right?"
"First Recon. The Marines," Jay clarified. He was smiling like the cat who had caught the canary. "My dad's old unit."
With a jolt, Tyler recalled that Freed had intimated that Jay's father was involved with the Fourth Branch. Knowing how sensitive Jay was about his father, Tyler tread carefully as he posed his next question. "You think the First Recon is part of the Fourth Branch?"
"I don't know, but too many of their members are cropping up for them not to be involved somehow." Jay took the photo of Drummond back and studied it. "These guys, First Recon, they're the best of the best – the top of the line for Special Forces. They can do just about anything: underwater assault, aerial assault, prisoner rescue, deep cover missions. You name it, they're trained to do it. And they're deadly in combat, especially hand-to-hand."
"Sounds like the people we've been dealing with," Tyler noted. "Maybe they're the muscle behind the brains, you think?"
"I have a feeling that ten years ago, Vivian Buchanan started work on her little bioterrorist research project." Jay's exceptional mind was, Tyler could see, swiftly pulling the facts scattered around them together. "And the Fourth Branch needed to be sure her research stayed safe and secret – and probably that she didn't get cold feet or grow a conscience when it came time to murder thousands of innocent Americans. So they send Drummond in to provide 'security' for her, and I'm sure he did, but I'll bet you Buchanan knows her every move is being watched."
Tyler glanced over the damning evidence littering the floor. "You think this is why she has all this stuff laying around? Her security blanket, so to speak?"
"Will was collecting evidence that he could use to 'fight back,' Maya told us that. I don't see why Buchanan wouldn't do the same thing."
In spite of himself, Tyler suddenly recalled his last meeting with his father, how Carlton had seemed more frightened than angry: "This is the real world, Tyler. There are choices that have to be made. And some of those choices are bigger than you."
Carlton could have kept him in that limousine and handed him over the FBI, or to the Fourth Branch directly, for that matter. He could have allowed Ellington to execute the two of them the moment they showed up at Elysium. Gradually, it began to dawn on Tyler that perhaps his father was as trapped in this mess as he was. Perhaps he had been pulled into the Fourth Branch by his father, another powerful and wealthy man; then, surrounded by people like Ollie Drummond, he might have come to understand that he could not escape with his life.
And now, he really may not.
The words that had seared through him like hot pokers suddenly took on a new meaning when considered in this light. Carlton had said he had always known Tyler was not the one to lead the Fog family "forward"; at the time, Tyler had assumed his father meant to keep the family strong and secure. Now, he wondered if his father had meant something very different – that he had wanted a different life for Tyler than the one he himself had led, a life that did not involve brutal people like Drummond and Freed and Buchanan.
Will said I needed to talk to my father, to let him explain. I wonder if I'll ever get the chance…I'd like to know who he really is, what his involvement really is with all of this, how he really feels about me…
His father's fate would have to wait, however. Tyler ordered himself back into the moment, to work out the plot that was slowly coming together in his mind.
"Do you think Will is military?" he asked Jay.
"I don't know. Somehow I don't think so," Jay answered thoughtfully. "My dad, he was a real solider. I mean, it was more than the training. It was like…his whole life, his whole psyche. I think that's what drove him over the edge in the end, because he wanted so badly to be loyal to people who had betrayed him.
"Will's not like that," Jay went on, visibly shrugging off painful memories. Tyler sympathized. "He's got the training, that's for sure. But he doesn't have that persona. I think," Jay tapped the photo of Drummond, "that members of the First Recon probably helped Freed put together Hometown. They probably trained his agents with the same skills they would train a member of their own unit, but with a totally different mind-set."
"One meant for spying on Americans, not for killing enemy combatants," Tyler supplied.
Jay nodded. "Exactly."
At that moment, Tyler's cell phone rang. He seized it, heart leaping into his throat. "It's Will," he murmured, looking to Jay, whose face was also drawn with fear.
But it wasn't Will. It was Kate, and she had bad news to deliver.
Tyler and Jay listened together, both with mounting horror. They had found Maya's body; Will had told Kim to surrender and cooperate; they were heading toward Tyler and Jay now, ready to meet at a halfway point and work out a plan.
"Have you found anything?" Kate asked hopefully.
Tyler took back the phone. "Not a smoking gun," he admitted. "But we've got a lot of stuff here. We'll load up what we've got and head your way."
He hesitated. Since he had discovered the connection between Belenus Pharmaceuticals and the Hadley Foundation, an idea had been rolling around in his mind – probably a crazy one, but somehow, he felt compelled to share it with Will. Kate hesitated when he asked to speak to his friend; Tyler could imagine that, after seeing Maya's corpse, Will wasn't in the best shape. In the end, however, she handed the phone over to him.
"What is it?" Will sounded deadened.
Quickly, Tyler explained what they had found. "I think we can get some real leverage against the Fourth Branch if we can find somebody to help us put these pieces together," Tyler finished in a rush, aware of Jay's eyes on him. Outside, the sun had set, and the room was growing ever darker. "If we had all the time in the world, we could do it ourselves, but I don't want Liz or Kim with these people one second longer than they have to be."
"I'm listening, Tyler. What's your plan?"
Tyler took a deep breath and prepared for the plunge. "Somehow or other, everything we're finding connects back to my father. I'd like to go to Baltimore and find out what he knows."
Jay threw up his hands in exasperation. On the other end of the line, Will sighed, "Tyler, your father can't help us. Even if he wanted to, he's so heavily guarded right now, we'd never get to him without getting caught."
"We'd never get to him without the Fourth Branch knowing we've been there, you mean," Tyler corrected. "Between you and Kate, Will, I bet you we could get to my father. And I don't mean just to talk to him."
Tyler drew in another steadying breath, ashamed and mortified by what he was about to suggest, but knowing in his gut it was the right course of action.
"I mean to take him hostage."