Part 12 (1/2)
The lines broke formation and Maddy and Kristi moved to a van where a young man was handing out Romanian SKS rifles and checking them off on a clipboard. The gun felt as heavy and awkward to Maddy as it had the day before, but she moved to a table and disa.s.sembled it with ease. Kristi was still putting things back together as Maddy loaded her clip of blanks and moved away to give others more room to work. She looked out on the large open field around her and saw squads forming up with their sergeants. Tommy wasn't in their squad today, but she could see him nearby, standing miserably with his SKS cradled in his arms like a baby. He seemed more out of place than Maddy, and Maddy still felt like she'd been dropped into an alien world.
She'd seen no sign of David that morning when they got up and headed out of the house. Ed and Warren drove them in their truck, with Tommy, Kristi, and Maddy in the back, wrapped in blankets again. Maybe David was sleeping in, finally relaxed after the servicing by Tommy. Maddy found the dynamics around her impossible to fathom. It made her look to Kristi as a beacon of straightforwardness. Kristi's simplicity was her strength, as far as Maddy was concerned.
With the squad formed up, Sergeant Cooper took over as their leader and ran them through a one-hour course in moving as a group in silence, using hand signals only. Before she knew it, Maddy became absorbed in the game of it, finally learning and effectively using the signals as well as accurately reading those given by others. Cooper put her in charge of a patrol through the woods running a circle around the training grounds, spreading her team out and sending members forward this way and that. At one point, as she turned to her rear to signal those behind her, she saw Kristi with a big grin on her face, flipping her the finger. Maddy laughed and covered her mouth. She felt she might be having more fun than she ever remembered having.
Kristi and Maddy sat with other squad members at lunch, everyone breaking open MREs and complaining about them.
”If an army runs on its food,” Kristi said, ”we're in deep trouble.”
Maddy ate and chatted and b.i.t.c.hed and complained, and she noticed that she was saying just about the same thing as everyone else in the group. This was virtually a first, for in any group she found herself in at home she always felt she was on an entirely different frequency.
”I wonder where Tommy is,” Maddy asked Kristi. They were leaning against a tree, separated now from the others.
”I have no idea. But Ed and Warren are over there,” she said, pointing to a group huddling together about fifty yards away.
Maddy watched the groupEd, Warren, Sergeant Drecker, and a man she hadn't seen before.
”Who's that guy with them?” Maddy asked.
”I think the dude's name is Jacovich. He's an officer or something. He comes to David's house sometimes.”
Maddy saw David strolling up to the group, wearing the same c.r.a.ppy clothes he'd worn when he picked her up in Chicago. He shook hands with the officer and the group fell back into deep conversation.
”I wonder if Jacovich is going with us to Idaho?”
Kristi peered over at them and shook her head. ”I don't think so. I think he's like the top dog around here. He wouldn't leave being a commander to go to Idaho.”
”Why not? We're going to Idaho. Maybe he wants to be in on that life too. David did say that some guys from this regiment, or whatever it is, are going out there with us.”
Kristi shrugged. ”You're asking the wrong person, Maddy. I'm a grunt, remember? But I do know that when he's come in on some of our meetings he's said things like, 'When you're out there,' so I don't think he's going.”
Sergeant Cooper yelled for them, and Maddy's squad formed up to head back in the woods and learn how to use their scopes and radios. As they trotted by David's group she saw that their heads were still together and the conversation was heated. She couldn't imagine what they were talking about, but was surprised to find she wasn't much interested. Scopes and radios were a lot more interesting.
Jan pulled onto another of the county roads that had linked her from one camp to the next. The roads were pocked and gutted, ailing from the harsh Michigan winters and the empty county treasuries. Small towns interrupted her drive, often appearing suddenly after a long stretch of thick woods. They were tiny villages, usually with a bar and a convenience store and some auto repair shops. The bigger towns were distinguished by the presence of a Walmart, the Mecca that drew people in like a medieval market day.
Her next destination was a camp that seemed to hold the most frequent and extensive training weekends of any that Maddy visited on her Web searches. None of the websites sent up red flags as being more radical than the other in its politics. But this one, the Fifth Regiment, Michigan Militia, seemed the most organized, developed, and, by dint of size alone, influential. There were jam-packed training sessions almost every weekend, and many had waiting lists for entry. The regimental commander was listed as Major William Jacovich, USMC, Retired, so their leaders.h.i.+p was trained military.
She'd phoned Peet twice to report on her progress and let her know when she'd be arriving at the third camp, where they were to meet up. All she'd gotten back were text messages from Peet saying ”okay,” which was unusually terse for Peet.
Jan was nearing the Ohio border when she finally reached the camp. Wooden signs nailed to trees guided her from the narrow county road onto a rutted dirt one. It was barely wide enough for her Jeep, and with thick woods on either side, there would be no way to move aside for an oncoming car. It was a bright afternoon, but the path to the camp felt dark and gloomy, shaded by the canopy of towering oaks and broad evergreens. More hand painted wooden signs led her through, announcing the distance left to the camp as if urging her to not lose heart and throw her car in reverse. A large pond appeared on her left and the road curved around it, finally bringing her into a parking lot. It looked like she'd pulled into an RV camp. Spread out beyond the parking lot full of pickup trucks were a dozen or so campers, each pulled into its own little camp site. By the pond was an area with picnic tables and rusty old grills. A wobbly looking dock stretched out onto the pond.
She got out of her car and stretched, reaching down to touch her toes and rolling back up until her eyes peered straight forward, toward the RVs. Just as she focused, a woman emerged from between two of the campers and Jan nearly lost her breath. It was Catherine. She blinked and looked again, and she was still there, as if she'd dropped from the skies. As Jan stood paralyzed, Catherine continued to move forward from the campers, turning her head in Jan's direction and breaking into a smile. She waved and started to jog toward her.
It took about ten seconds for Catherine to reach Jan, plenty of time for a complete roller coaster ride inside Jan's brain. ElationCatherine had come all this way to see her. Terrorsomething had happened to Peet. l.u.s.tCatherine's b.r.e.a.s.t.s were bouncing as she ran. Angerhow could Peet let Catherine blindside her like this? DesireCatherine looked like no other woman she'd ever known. ReliefCatherine was here, and everything would be okay. FearCatherine lied and she was going to break her heart.
Jan was standing completely still when Catherine reached her.
”h.e.l.lo,” Catherine said cheerfully. ”Fancy meeting you here and all that.”
She reached for Jan's hand, and Jan shoved her hands in her pockets.
”What the h.e.l.l is going on?” Jan said. Her heart was cras.h.i.+ng against her chest.
Catherine was dressed in jeans and a black sweater with a gray silk scarf around her neck, and exquisite, dangling silver earrings. She looked like the last person in the world you would see in this scruffy RV park. She was gorgeous, but out of place, both in the park and in Jan's life.
”First things first, Jan. Please don't be angry with Peet. I told her I was coming here in her place, ordered her to cooperate with me really. She's very worried that you'll be angry with her.”
”She should be.”
Catherine stood in front of Jan, looking up at her. Jan leaned against the Jeep and crossed her arms.
”I took advantage of my position, obviously, to come here in her place. It's not Peet's fault. But that's not what I want to talk to you about,” Catherine said.
”I'm not here to talk about anything. I'm here to try to find Maddy Harrington.”
”Yes, of course. So am I. We can sort this all out later. It's just that I was a bit terrified that you were upset with me for some reason. You didn't return my calls.”
Jan didn't respond.
”I called and called, and the more time that went by that you didn't return my calls, the more I thought I'd imagined the whole thing between us,” Catherine said. ”It drove me crazy.”
”So you ordered my partner to stand down and drove up here to confront me in the middle of an investigation?” Jan said. ”That's unbelievable.” She pushed herself past Catherine and started walking through the parking lot.
”I'm here now. And we have work to do. You can tell me how mad you are at me when we have dinner later.”
Jan kept walking.
”I can help, you know. I am an experienced agent, after all. Perhaps you didn't know that.”
Jan was about to say that she knew all about Catherine's field agent days, but she only knew that from looking her up on the Internet. She wasn't quite prepared to reveal all that she'd found. She kept walking through the parking lot and out onto the RV campground. She saw a trailhead sign posted nearby: Fifth Regiment Training. As she headed toward it with Catherine in tow, she saw a uniformed man approach the trail opening from the woods, with a clipboard in hand. He stopped short when he saw them.
”May I help you?” He was a tall and rangy man with a prominent forehead and a cleft in his chin so deep you could drop a quarter into it. Jan thought he seemed a little nervous, and his hand was hovering over the radio he wore on his belt, as if he were about to draw on her if she said the wrong thing.
”We're looking to talk with someone from your outfit about this girl,” Jan said, handing over the photo of Maddy. The man took the photo and gazed at it. He wore corporal stripes on his s.h.i.+rt with the name ”Watson” sewn to the pocket. He handed back the photo.
”What about her?” he said.
”Sounds like you may know her,” Catherine said.
”No, I don't know her,” Watson said. ”Why are you asking me about her is what I want to know.”
”We have reason to believe she's up here taking part in your training camp. We need to talk to her,” Jan said. ”Why don't we just head back there and take a look?”
Watson looked alarmed. ”No, that's not going to happen. The major would never allow it.”