Chapter 40
Jamie, Abby, Phillip and Kendra had just brought Bobby and Emily home from Goofy Golf and were sitting in the basement enjoying some adult conversation against the backdrop of the Orioles game on Sunday night when Amanda sent Emily down to tell Kendra that her father was on the phone. Since there was an extension in the basement, she only had to pick it up, while Phillip turned the sound down on the television set.
"Hi, Daddy. How was the Cumberland?"
"Fabulous. Deb had the full spa treatment, I played eighteen holes of golf with a classmate from West Point that I hadn't seen in fifteen years, and we danced every night."
"I'm so glad. I went over to the guest house on Friday like you asked and since I had some extra time, I explored the place a little bit – with Amanda's permission, of course. I found a fascinating book on the Georgetown during the Civil War in the library, one that was published in 1885. Daddy, the guest house belonged to Matthew and Amanda Davis during the war, and later, they sold it to a friend, Mrs. Louisa Stetson, who was Lee's great-great-grandmother. The James Bishop that's buried in the cemetery near there, the one Jamie took his code name from? He was Amanda's first husband, killed at First Bull Run. "
"Well, no wonder we felt so comfortable there," Matt said. "We just came home after a hundred and thirty years, that's all."
"That's right. You and Mom really need to get to know Mavis Marston, who was the receptionist and gatekeeper at the Agency for years until the reorganization. Her family lived here during the Civil War too, and she's a gold mine of historical information. I found her when I went to the library at Georgetown to do some more research after I found the book; her daughter Maureen is the reference librarian."
"Fascinating. Have you had a good weekend?"
"Oh, yes. We've had fun with Bobby and Emily, 'we' being Phillip, Jamie and Abby and I. Yesterday we took them to the community pool, and we just got back from Goofy Golf. Jamie's considering a move to the Kansas City office, so he's going out there tomorrow to meet the staff out there, and of course I start my official training at the Agency tomorrow. Now that I know you're home, I'll get Phillip to bring me home. I want to see you before you have to leave for Fort Monroe."
"That would be great, Kenleigh girl. I thought about waiting until early tomorrow morning, but I'm not sure about the traffic, so I'm leaving about seven."
"We'll be over there in fifteen minutes."
Kendra hung up and said, "Saddle up, King-man. Mom and Dad are home."
Kendra gave Jamie a hug, wished him a good trip, and she and Phillip left. Jamie turned off the baseball game, since they weren't watching it anyway, and said, "I need to go pack."
"Yes, and I need to wash my hair and make sure I've got my clothes ready for work this week. I'll see you at supper."
The next morning, Lee left early for a meeting with the Agency's director, retired admiral Bruce Wilson. Jamie had to be at National by 7:30 for an 8:30 flight to Kansas City, so Amanda and Abby drove him to the terminal on the way into Washington. When she pulled up to the curb in the departures area and stopped, Jamie jumped out of the back seat where he'd insisted on riding, grabbed his luggage, kissed Abby through the open passenger side window, and disappeared into the crowd of people entering the terminal.
"I didn't mean for him to just kiss me and leave, Amanda," Abby said apologetically.
"We said our goodbyes at the house. It's fine, Abby."
His status as a federal agent meant that Jamie boarded before the rest of the passengers, and that he was automatically upgraded to first class. He was sitting in his seat on the aisle at the front of the first- class cabin, closest to the cockpit, when the rest of the first- class passengers began to board. For this flight, he'd gone back to his 'James Bishop' look, complete with the black glasses, a white dress shirt open at the collar, designer jeans, Doc Martens, and a tweed sport coat. He looked like a young college professor, and he certainly looked older than twenty-two.
First class filled up until there were only two empty seats: the window seat next to Jamie and the aisle seat across from him. Coach passengers began boarding in a steady stream and he watched them, all the while pretending to read the airline's in-flight magazine.
Two travelers, a man and a woman, came through the doors together, but instead of continuing on to coach, the woman stopped. "Excuse me, sir? I'm in the window seat there."
Jamie stood up to let her pass and she sat down. The man with her, who was apparently traveling coach, said, "I'll see you at the other end," and kept going.
The woman sat down, buckled her seat belt, and reached for her own copy of the airline magazine, clearly not interested in conversation with Jamie. When five minutes went by and she hadn't turned a page, he decided to risk a rebuff and say something.
"Airline travel is really very safe these days," he said. "There's no need to be nervous."
"Young man, you have no idea what makes me nervous and what doesn't," she snapped, and went back to her magazine.
"Well, that went over well," Jamie thought, and returned to his own magazine. The passengers finished boarding, the cabin crew closed the doors, and after a few minutes, the plane began to move. When it was their turn to take off, they picked up speed and hurtled down the runway and then lifted off the ground. Under cover of the engine noise, she said, " I'm not nervous, I'm terrified. I've gotten myself into a terrible mess and I don't know how to get out of it."
"What sort of mess?" he asked.
"One that could seriously harm a lot of people."
He reached into the breast pocket of his coat and pulled out his badge, flipped the leather folder open, and showed it to her. Her eyes grew wide, but she didn't say anything for a few moments. Finally, he prompted her: "Tell me about it, Ms…."
"Miss Karen Leggett. I have been very stupid, Mr. King. I'm fifty years old, never married, and a school librarian in Bennington, Vermont. Back in March, I attended a library conference in Boston, and one night a group of us went out for drinks at a local pub. While I was there, another member of the group and I struck up a conversation, discovered we had a lot of mutual interests besides books, and spent the rest of the evening talking."
"The man you boarded with."
"Yes. He introduced himself as Roger Layman. He said he'd been the librarian at Williams College in Massachusetts, but that he'd recently left the job to 'pursue other interests'."
"So you couldn't get a copy of the college catalog and check to see if he was really on the staff there. Convenient."
"Yes. He was living in Boston so he could use the library at Harvard, he said. After the conference ended on Friday, I spent the weekend at his apartment. I've never done anything like that before, Mr. King."
"Jim. Don't be too hard on yourself, Miss Leggett; men like Layman – or whoever he is – have been taking advantage of vulnerable women for hundreds, even thousands of years. In my business, we see it all too often, I'm afraid," Jamie said.
"I was vulnerable, so naïve. I cared for my elderly parents until they passed away about ten years ago, and by then I'd lost all hope of ever marrying. When he came along, I just …you understand."
"Yes, I do." Jamie patted her hand. "What is his plan? Did he tell you?"
"Some of it. I have a piece of wire in the collar of my shirt; exactly one hour into the flight, I'm supposed to go to the lavatory, take it out, loop it around the tap in the basin, and come out. It will explode, which will create a diversion, and in the confusion, he's going to come up here, force his way into the cockpit, and hijack the plane."
"Where does he plan to take it?"
"He won't tell me."
"I see. What weapons does he have?"
"He has two bottles of what looks like mouthwash, but he says that when they combine, they'll make a bomb. Is that even possible?"
"Whether or not it's possible isn't the point; the threat is what's most important. Take out the thermite wire and give it to me."
"You know what it is?"
"It's my job to know, Miss Leggett."
"Karen." She pulled the wire out of her collar and handed it to him.
"Thank you. You did the right thing by telling me about this."
"I called in anonymous tip before we left Washington, too. I was afraid to do anything else, but I called in a tip and I prayed that it would do some good, and here you are. Are you a religious man, Jim?"
"Not particularly, but my girl is, and I'm starting to come around to her way of thinking. Try to relax."