“Maybe,” Verhoven said. “But like I told John, he didn’t know any concrete details. And whatever little he did know, he never got to pass on to the Feds.”

“Then we’re fine.”

“Not exactly. Lorene’s been shot.”

“How bad?”

“Bad enough that she may not be able to execute the operation.”

There was a long silence. “Then you’ll have to do it alone.”

“Actually, there may be another way.”

“Another way?”

Verhoven glanced over his shoulder. Lorene had been skeptical about Tillman at first. She said it had seemed awfully convenient for a guy who’d been as standoffish as Tillman suddenly to show up, all eager beaver at such a crucial time. But no FBI plant would have done what he’d done. According to Lorene, he’d killed two FBI men. Not to mention he’d saved her life.

“I have a man with me,” Verhoven said. “A very special man.”

“Absolutely not,” Wilmot said harshly.

“He can get me the weapons and breaching charges I need for the operation. And he’s trained to use them.” Verhoven glanced toward the truck. Tillman Davis was eyeing him, so he quickly looked away. He didn’t want the guy getting a read on his face.

“I said no,” Mr. Wilmot said.

“Mr. Wilmot—”

“Jim, listen to me very carefully. This operation has been planned down to the last detail. There’s no redo. Everybody involved has been vetted with extreme care. We can’t just let some random person jump into the middle of this thing.”

“Mr. Wilmot, with all due respect, he’s not some random person—”

“Kill him, Jim.”

“Mr. Wilmot.”

“I said, kill him. And do it now.”

Jim Verhoven respected Wilmot enormously. It had taken a man of extraordinary vision and courage to conceive an operation this bold and this complex. But Verhoven was a man who’d grown accustomed to giving orders, not taking them.

“Do it now, Jim.”

The phone went dead in Verhoven’s hand.

The moment Tillman saw Verhoven’s face, he knew exactly what Verhoven had been told to do. l h ad to do. He reached for his Glock just before Verhoven reached for his.

Verhoven feigned surprise. “What are you doing?” he asked as Tillman steadied the gun on him.

“I saw your face. Whoever you were talking to told you to kill me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Tillman measured Verhoven’s expression. The man was clearly lying, but killing him or locking him down for the police would blow any chance of discovering his plans. But maybe there was another way to play this. It was a risky proposition—and if he miscalculated, he would pay for it with his life—but if he wanted to stop the attack from happening, it was his only real option. Tillman decided to take the chance.

He handed his Glock to Verhoven.

“If you’re going to do it, do it now. Make it fast.”

Verhoven’s face tightened, but he said nothing.

Tillman found himself feeling strangely at peace. He didn’t want to die, but if he did, he felt okay with it. He would be sacrificing his life for something larger than himself and go out in a blaze of private glory. Or maybe he just wanted to end it all—the relentless shame and boredom he carried around his neck like twin millstones. Whatever it was, he finally felt liberated from the previous two years of purgatory in which he’d been living, the neither-here-nor-there murkiness he’d been slogging through for so long.

“Come on, dammit,” Tillman said. His pulse hammered in his ears, and a roaring sound echoed through his head. “Whatever you’ve got planned is bigger than either of us. I’m willing to die if it’ll make this cesspool a little better.” Tillman was surprised by how convincing he sounded.

Verhoven smiled fondly at him and pushed the gun back toward Tillman. “The reason this place is a cesspool is precisely because we don’t have enough men like you.” When Tillman made no move to take his gun back, Verhoven slid the Glock into the holster on Tillman’s belt. “I was never going to kill you, Tillman. We need you. We need you more than you’ve ever been needed in your life.”

Their eyes met. Verhoven seemed to be in the grip of powerful emotions.

“All right then,” Tillman said. “Let’s find someplace I can help your wife.”

They got back in the truck. Lorene was still sleeping, oblivious to the drama that had just played out between Tillman and her husband.

They drove for another hour before reaching the town of Weston, not far from the Virginia border. Tillman withdrew four hundred dollars from an ATM machine. He then drove on to Buckhannon, where he rented a room in the Friendly Tyme Motel on US 33 under the name Doug Rogers, paying for one night in cash. After installing Lorene and Verhoven in the room, he drove to St. Joseph’s Hospital, where he stole three bags of plasma, an IV setup, a tube of bacitracin, a bottle of rubbing alcohol, a box of large gauze pads, and a 1993 Honda Accord.

By noon, Lorene’s wounds were cleaned and dressed and she had two pints of fluid in her. Her color had improved, and she had stopped shaking.

“Now,” Tillman said as he threw the bloody gauze into the wastebasket, “it’s time to stop playing footsie. What the hell are we doing here?”

Verhoven looked evasive. “I don’t know the details of the main attack itself. We’re not part of that. Our mission is a support operation.”

“Okay, but what’s our target? If I’m going to help you and maybe get myself killed in the process, I deserve to know what I’m getting into, don’t you think?”

Verhoven met Tillman’s gaze but didn’t answer.

“For godsake, Jim!” Lorene said softly. “He saved my life. Yours, too, for that matter. Either we trust him or we don’t.”

Verhoven nodded but still hesitated for a moment. “It’s the State of the Union address,” he said finally. “We’re going to decapitate the entire top tier of the US government. We’re going to kill them all.”

26

I-79, NEAR THE VIRGINIA BORDER

Gideon’s encrypted cell phone rang as he was heading north on Interstate 79, cruise control set four miles above the speed limit.

“Do you have any clue just how deep in the shit you are right now?” It was Nancy on the line. “You’re wanted for questioning as a person of interest in connection with the shoot-out at Verhoven’s compound.”

“‘Person of interest’? What does that even mean?”

“It means Dahlgren’s already spinning this to try to make it look like it’s your fault. I suspect he’s even trumping something up so that he can arrest you.”

“He’s the one who provoked the situation.”

“Were you there?”

“I’m not sure I should answer that, given what you just said.”

“You’re not the only one who’s in trouble. He tracked the equipment I gave you, which probably gives him some sort of unauthorized-use-of-federal-property charge if he feels like using it. After that, it’s just a question of what other junk he wants to pile on.”

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” he said.

Gideon took Nancy’s answering silence as confirmation of her own regret. The cell phone beeped again. Tillman’s number popped up on the screen

“Can you hold on, Nancy?”

“Is it Tillman?”

“Yeah.”

“Tell him to ditch his phone. Both of you need to do that as soon as we’re done with this call. Our cells are encrypted so they can’t listen to us, but they can still triangulate the signal to locate you.”

Gideon's War and Hard Target

“Okay. 82222222 d‡Hold on.” Gideon put her on hold and took...

“We need to set up a delivery time and place for those items we talked about,” said his brother. That was their cover. Gideon was Tillman’s arms dealer.

From the way Tillman spoke it was clear to Gideon that Verhoven was in the room with him and might even be listening in on their conversation. “Where and when?” Gideon asked.

“There’s a park on Sully Road in Centerville, just off twenty-eight. Be there in two hours.”