Wilson vanished into the van. Hardesty looked at her passengers with a glint in her eye. “Gentlemen,” she said mildly, “when Tim rejoins us we are indeed going somewhere. Boss, do you know how to get to Bethesda?”
Bidwell nodded.
“Good. You'll be driving, then. Taylor, you stick to your dad like you were Velcroed on, hear me? We've got about a half a snowball's chance of making this work. I want to be sure the two of you are absolutely safe.”
“Angela ...”
“I know. But one of us has been tracked consistently since we all met up. You're not wearing or carrying anything you had, and neither is Taylor. I'm not. So who does that leave?”
“You had that cell phone.”
“Uh-huh, I did. Hidden in a box of bullets AFTER we got together. It wasn't there before – that box was full of ammunition, not half-full and hiding a cell phone originally issued to members of the Regent team.”
Bidwell went white. Taylor looked scared.
“I put it to good use this morning. Or at least, I think it was a good use. It's in the backpack now, I would guess?”
Bidwell nodded.
“Okay. Well, we're getting pretty close to the end of this thing. If Tim's in on it on purpose ... I'm sorry, guys. I don't have a gun or even a knife, and I don't know what he's packing. If he's not in on it on purpose ... I guess we'll see which side he's on when we get there. I don't know what he's doing. I don't know what he's thinking. I may have handed y'all over to him like ... pigeons in a cage or rabbits in a trap.” Hardesty, briefly, hung her head. “Not what I was supposed to do, gentlemen, and for that I apologize.”
“I'm the one who said we had to trust each other,” Bidwell pointed out.
“I'm the one who didn't tell you I saw him with the rifle and the box,” Taylor said. “I thought you knew he had 'em.”
“I did know, while I was negotiating for this car,” Hardesty said. “Did he have them later?”
“Yeah,” Taylor said, sounding breathy. “He was fiddling with 'em in the back seat, that first night. I think he thought I was asleep.”
Bidwell blinked. Hardesty leaned her head against the steering wheel. “Wonder just how good the bug in that thing is.”
“One way to find out,” the Vice President suggested.
“Sure enough.” Hardesty turned the key and drove away slowly, but instead of parking in sight of the sub shop she drove past it. “Come to think of it ... that thing was with you this morning. That might explain how I got close enough to wreck a convoy.”
“Wreck?” Bidwell asked. “I didn't see any damage to the Plymouth.”
“That,” Hardesty answered, “is one of the things that's different about growing up in Hazzard County.” She gave him a wicked grin and an over-played wink. “You learn how to steer toward the wreck, 'cause by the time you get there it's someplace else and you can go right on through.”
He looked at her, closely. “I'm not sure I want to understand that, Angela.”
“You do,” she said. “And whenever you're riding with anybody but me, you want the driver to understand that, too. I know we're all professional paranoids since nine-eleven, but people do forget. It's not a cop-show principle; it doesn't get reinforced every night on three networks. You'd have to have wanted to ride with – or better yet be out there to outrun -- King Richard or The Intimidator to have seen it worked where it was invented.” She licked her lips. “Ever watch Top Gun, Taylor?”
“Sure,” he said. “I didn't like it much, though. It's too girly.”
Hardesty's grin blossomed. Bidwell looked completely nonplussed.
“Movie's old, boss,” she murmurmed. “Times change, tastes change, Taylor grew up in a world at war. They're not flying Tomcats anymore.”
Bidwell nodded reluctantly. “More contractors. Not so many look like Kelly McGillis.”
“More pilots, but none of 'em look like Tom Cruise. You can do that stuff in peacetime. You can't afford it when the next guy on your six really wants to kill you.” Hardesty raised her head. “Do we wait for Tim here? Or do we go see Mikaela and the girls first?”
“You know where they are?”
“Yep.”
“If we could all go see the President together, he'd like that, I bet.” Taylor piped up.
“Colonel Robertson and his outfit would purely hate that, too.” Hardesty said firmly.
Bidwell looked at her. “What are the chances?”
“Realistically? Awful. But then again ...” Hardesty grinned. “I never expected to get you and Taylor together, this close to home safe, when I took off with him that morning.”
“What are you going to do when this is over, Angela?”
She blew out a breath. “I'm going home, boss. Texas is way more peaceful than this big city.”
“You'll be back,” Taylor predicted. “You'll get bored.”
Bidwell burst out laughing. “That,” he said, when he could manage it, “is a guaranteed slam-dunk, son.”
“I like being bored,” Hardesty said plaintively.
“Right,” Bidwell said. “That's why you're here.”
“Well, technically, I'm here 'cause I gave you my word I'd do a job for you. You can't say Taylor hasn't had some amazing learning experiences lately.” She rolled her shoulders, glanced into the backseat via the mirror, and grinned at her charge. “He's sure taught me some important lessons.”
“And you're here 'cause you hate not having a regular paycheck, too,” Taylor pointed out.
“There's that,” she admitted. “But what I'm earning, lately, isn't measured in dollars and cents.”
Bidwell sucked in his breath, watching the look she gave the boy. “That makes two of us. Unrealistically, what are the chances we could all go see Ben as a group?”
“Pretty good, if we get after it,” Hardesty said. “Do we bring Wilson, and keep an eye on him?”
“No,” Bidwell decided. “Unless you're afraid we can't do it without him.”
“If that was all I was afraid of we'd be there already,” Hardesty answered. “I'm afraid he's a good guy who doesn't know how he's being used, too.”
Taylor said softly, “Here he comes.”
“Well. I guess we find out,” Bidwell said. He opened the door and walked around the car as Hardesty scrambled into the backseat, making room for Wilson on the passenger side.
Wilson swung into the car and settled into the seat, tossing the backpack casually into the space between himself and Bidwell behind the wheel.
“Thanks,” Hardesty said, retrieving the bundle.
“No problem,” Wilson answered. “What about the van?”
“Did you leave the keys in it?” Bidwell asked.
“Yeah,” Wilson said.
“Good,” Hardesty said. “It'll either bring the cops here, or wherever it ends up. If it ends up somewhere else, that's all to the good, from our point of view.”
Wilson bit his lip. “I could take it somewhere else, catch up with you at Bethesda.”
“How would you get there?” Taylor asked mildly.
“Ditch the van somewhere close to a bus stop,” the Secret Service man replied. “Take the bus.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bidwell said. “How long?”
“I should be there in a couple hours, tops.”
“Do that, then,” the Vice President said firmly. “Take the rifle with you. If you haven't seen us by ... he glanced at the clock on the dashboard, “sixteen hundred hours, head for the hotel. If we're not back together by an hour after you get there ... go to the FBI and tell them everything you've seen and heard since Hardesty walked out of the woods with Taylor.”
“The FBI? My boss will eat me alive.”
“That's a chance you'll have to take, Tim.” Bidwell's eyes were warm, but his mouth was tight and Hardesty could hear the worry in his voice. “What we know now is your boss might be – probably is but we don't know for sure -- working with Robertson's outfit too. Don't go to the Hoover building. Go to a local office. Or if you'd rather talk to somebody at ATF ...”
Wilson shuddered. “No, thanks. Fibbies, here I come.”
Bidwell stopped next to the van's driver's door. “See you in a couple of hours, Tim.”
Hardesty hefted the backpack. “You'll need this, Tim. You can give it back when we hook up again; if we can't, you'll need it for evidence.”
He shouldered it and nodded. “Thanks. See you at Bethesda.”
Bidwell waited until the van had pulled into traffic. “I hope we didn't just send an armed assassin after the President.”
“Me too,” Hardesty muttered.
“I wish,” Taylor said, “Olivia was here. Or Agent McGee.”
“Me, too,' Bidwell said.