Chapter 30
Chapter 30
W e landed in Georgia twelve hours later. Day five and counting. I’d slept on the plane for the first time in days, which was good because I’d been running on fumes and my ability to make quick and intelligent decisions was becoming compromised. But the sleep was fitful and there was little peace in it. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw either Miriam, Ruth, or Sadie lying helpless and abused. Once I was able to shake those images, I saw Bones, lifeless and riddled with holes.
When we approached the gate, a new security detail met us. Four guys dressed in tactical gear surrounded the vehicle while two more covered us with rifles from an elevated position. They waved us through, we drove the half mile to the house, and Aaron walked out the door when we pulled up the drive. He was dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt, and boots and carried a pistol. Oddly, Esther did not appear.
Aaron led us through the house, retracing the steps of the six abductors. Through a side door. Up a carpeted stairwell. We stopped at Esther’s room, and he explained how they put her into a deeper sleep. Then the girls’ rooms where he detailed the death of the dogs and how the girls were taken. Then we retraced our steps, exiting the house, walking through the pasture, stopping to understand where the snipers had lain prior to entry, and then slipping through the pines to where the SUVs had been parked. It was simple. It was also unbelievable that they’d gotten away with it.
Aaron was quiet. And his strength was waning. What man could endure this torture? The not knowing. It was horror defined. When we returned to the house, I wrote on a piece of paper and showed it to Aaron. It read, “Can we talk?”
He gestured to his office but I pointed to the pecan grove and pressed my finger to my lips. I also pointed to his phone and shook my head. Aaron understood and left it in his office. We walked into the grove beneath the sweeping arms of old pecan trees. Free of the house, he turned to me. “Anything?”
I shook my head. “No.”
He instantly deflated. If a chair had been present, he’d have sat down. Without too much detail, I briefed him on our conversation with Ariel Underwood and how that might lead us to the source who funded his girls’ abduction. Then I relayed my conversation with Waylon Maynard, ending with, “Sir, something’s off. He was fishing. And I don’t trust him.”
Aaron was not convinced. “Yet everyone in DC does.” Then he shook his head. “I’ve known him a long time. He’s good people.”
“I realize that, but he had a sense that you told me something you didn’t tell anyone else. That’s why he called. He thinks there’s something he doesn’t know. So I want to ask you to do two things.”
Aaron waited.
“I need you to confer exclusively with Maynard. Bring him into your confidence. Tell him things you don’t tell your team. I’m not saying it has to be true, but let him think he’s your primary confidant. I’ll do the same on my end. We’ll make him think he’s the center.”
“I can do that, but why?”
“I don’t exactly know, but my hunch is that he knows more than he’s saying. If I’m wrong, then you’ve just confided in the most trusted man in politics who alone can help you get elected more than any other.”
“And if you’re right?”
“That brings me to the second thing.” Aaron waited. “I need you to begin talking about suspending your campaign.”
“Why?” He waved his hand across the exit route of the abductors. “So these miscreants win?”
“No, sir. I don’t want you to actually do it. I just want you to begin talking about it, privately. With me.”
“What does this accomplish?”
“I want to see what he does. Bear with me... I want you and I to walk back into your office where you shut the door, sit me down, and begin talking with me, and only me, in hushed tones, about suspending. I need for you to have given it some thought. The weight of all this is too much.”
In a rare show of emotion, Aaron broke, snapping, “It is too much.”
“I’m sorry, sir.” A pause. “I don’t mean to be so insensitive.”
He shook his head. “It’s not you. It’s just...” His eyes wandered to the covered dock at the pond. Esther sat alone, staring out across the water. “She’s inconsolable.”
“We’ll find them, sir.”
“And if you don’t?”
I had no response, because there wasn’t one.
He gathered himself. “Continue.”
“I’ll object to the suggestion, but after you convince me otherwise, I’ll float the idea that you need to run it by Maynard.”
“What will that accomplish?”
“Two things. It will make him think we think this entire thing is about money.”
“Well, isn’t it?”
“No, sir.”
“What, then?”
“It’s about the presidency. Your job. It’s about power.”
“Continue.”
“I told Maynard that if a presidential campaign could cost a billion, the ransom could be half that.”
“You believe that?”
“Doesn’t matter what I believe. What matters is what he does with it. You get a ransom note anywhere near that, and my suspicions are founded.”
“I’m listening.”
“I want you to bemoan raising the money. Talk about your personal finances, how everything you have is invested in the campaign, how even selling the farm is not a drop in the bucket. How you would need help from donors.”
“I follow you.”
“If sometime in the next few days, you and Esther get a ransom note that first demands you not make it public, and second demands several hundred million dollars wired to an offshore account, then I think you’re not far from a phone call from Maynard. And I’ll bet once you”—I held quotation fingers in the air—“‘reveal’ the ransom letter to him, even slide it across the desk, he’ll offer to rally the troops.”
“But he’d offer to do that anyway.”
“Yes. Which will not make him suspicious of us. This is about timing. Sir, we are fishing. We need to know if he’s listening to you.”
“You think my office is bugged?”
“Sir, I think your life is bugged.”
He waited, considering this.
“But I’m the vice president of the United States.”
“And someone just abducted your three daughters while your wife slept down the hall. No way that happens without someone or someones on the inside.”
Aaron’s face told me his mind was traveling down all the rabbit trails created by this revelation. “I’m listening.”
“If he’s listening, then I want to see how long it takes him to contact you and how he approaches you in that contact. What’s his posture? His suggestion?”
“You think there’s a connection between Maynard and my girls?”
“I don’t know if there’s a connection or he’s capitalizing on it.”
Aaron nodded.
“There’s a lot we don’t know. I also want to give you a phone. It’s been cleaned and encrypted by Eddie. I don’t want anyone to know about it and I only want you to communicate with me on it. Don’t let anyone, not even Esther, know of its presence.”
“You realize this is against the law.”
“I do. But honestly, sir, I don’t care. And neither do Miriam, Ruth, and Sadie.”
“Okay, let’s say he takes the bait. What then?”
“Play along.”
“You want me to actually begin the process of suspending my campaign?”
“No, sir. I want you to begin talking about it.”
Aaron’s eyes wandered to Esther. “For this to work, we need Esther. She can spot a fake a mile away. She’ll never go for it if she’s not in on it.”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Aaron continued, “And if you’re right, and Waylon is as conniving as you say—which flies in the face of about four decades of selfless work in Washington—then he won’t trust your and my private conversation. He’ll test Esther. See what she knows. If she’s in, he’ll believe. If she’s not, he won’t.”
“Agreed.”
“In the meantime, what will you do?”
“Return to Freetown, gather my team. Ariel’s idea about Frank’s generals and how he might have inserted this chip without their knowing has merit. We need to follow up on it. If, by some chance, we uncover something, I’ll text you on the new phone. You can call me when you’re clear.”
“Clear?”
“This plan involves you, me, and Esther.”
“Stackhouse?”
I shook my head.
“You think he’s compromised?”
“No, sir, I don’t. But we have to reduce the variables. Control what we can. And the fewer people that know, the more we can control.”
He paused. “Maynard’s been playing this chess game a lot longer than us.”
“I realize that. Which is why I think he’ll wait a few days between sending the note and calling.”
“How many?”
“Three. Maybe four. He would want you in pain.”
“I’m already there.”
I said nothing.
He continued, “Let’s say you’re right. What does Maynard want? The presidency? He’s turned that down. Multiple times. So what’s his endgame?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“And if you’re wrong? We’re spending energy and resources that we need elsewhere. And you’re gambling with my girls’ lives. The consequences of that”—he shook his head—“are more than I can fathom.”
When Bones first took me under his wing, he often separated me from my fellow cadets. I trained alone. Learned to work alone. To make difficult decisions alone and then act on them. Quickly. And without deliberation. I alone bore the weight and consequences of right and wrong decisions. When I asked him why, he said, “It’s easier to turn a johnboat than an aircraft carrier.” For years I didn’t understand. What we do is a combination of defense and offense. Rescuing the taken requires both. And we need to be able to pivot on a dime if the strategy demands it. Staring at Aaron Ashley, I was reminded of why. Because convincing a team to do hard things, in the middle of a hard thing, is wasted energy. That training must happen before the war. Not during. I had bounced Miriam and Ruth on my knee and was at the hospital when Sadie was born. I had birthday cards in my dresser drawer at Freetown addressed to “Uncle Murph.” There was nothing I wouldn’t do, and Ashley knew that. And I knew he knew that. I also knew the pain was talking. And when it came to pain, none was deeper than what Ashley was currently living.
“Sir... this is not a job. I don’t clock out.”
He palmed his face. “I’m sorry, Murph. It’s just that—”
“Sir, we’ll get them back.”