Hellbent

He’d returned to Castle Heights to make a few arrangements, laying the groundwork for the battle to come. In light of the conversation he’d overheard in the church, he needed to check the notebook again. Staring at the words now, he sensed the puzzle piece slide into place.

He walked past the living wall, catching a whiff of mint, and stepped through one of the south-facing sliding doors onto the balcony. He crouched before a square planter at the edge that held a variety of succulents and slid clear an inset panel. It hid a camouflage backpack, which he removed and carried inside.

He returned to the island, the notebook page looking up at him, the scrawl rendered clear in the negative space.

Joey came down from the loft, ready to go. She paused and took him in sitting over the notebook.

“You know what it means now,” she said.

He nodded absentmindedly.

“You gonna share?”

Evan shut the notebook as if that could somehow contain the problem within. “Yeah. (202) 456-1414 is the main switchboard for the West Wing,” he said.

She processed this. “And ‘Dark Road’?”

“A code word. Presumably to kick the caller to a security command post in the White House.”

“And the 32,” she said. “That’s an extension.”

He nodded again.

“That goes to who?” she asked.

He looked at her.

“Holy hell,” she said.

“Indeed.”

“Why?” she said. “Why would he be involved?”

Evan rubbed his face. Again he pictured Jack dropping him off at departures at Dulles back when Evan was a nineteen-year-old kid. Jack’s hand on his forearm, not wanting to let him go.

Evan said, “When I was in that booster bag, I heard Van Sciver reference 1997.”

“And?”

“That was the year of my first mission.”

“What was it?”

“I can’t tell you that,” he said. “But in 1997 President Bennett was the undersecretary of defense for policy at the DoD.”

“And the Orphan Program existed under the Department of Defense’s umbrella,” Joey said slowly, putting it together.

All at once the rationale for the shift of the Program’s aim under Van Sciver’s leadership came clearer. So did the sudden push to exterminate Orphans — Evan most of all.

He didn’t just know where the bodies were buried. He’d buried most of them himself.

Joey said, “So Bennett greenlit your first mission.”

“Yes. And as the leader of the free world now, he wants to clean up any trace of his involvement in nonsanctioned activities. Any trace of me.”

Joey set her elbows on the island and leaned over, her eyes wide. “Do you get what this means? You’ve got dirt on the president of the United States.”

Evan spun back in time to his twelfth year, riding in Jack’s truck, Jack describing the Program to him for the first time in that ten-grit voice: You’ll be a cutout man. Fully expendable. You’ll know only your silo. Nothing damaging. If you’re caught, you’re on your own. They will torture you to pieces, and you can give up all the information you have, because none of it is useful.

“I know the who,” Evan said. “But not the what.”

“What do you mean?”

“I know what I did in ’97. But I don’t know anything else. Or how it connects to Bennett.” He looked down at the red notebook as if it could tell him something. “But someday when this is all over, I’m gonna find out.”

“When what’s all over?”

“Come and I’ll show you.” He shouldered the camo pack, grabbed the keys, and started for the door.

* * *

The Vegas Strip rose from the flat desert earth like a parade, a brassy roar of faux daylight. Evan kept on the I-15, let the bombastic display fly by on the right-hand side, Joey’s head swiveling to watch it pass. For a few minutes, it was impossible to tell that it was nearly four in the morning, but as the glow faded in the rearview and the stars reasserted themselves overhead, it became clear that they were driving through deepest night.

Joey worked her speed cube without looking. Whenever Evan glanced over, he saw that she was once again spinning it into patterns from memory. The clacking of the cube carried them across the dark miles.

Once the grand boulevard was far behind them, Evan pulled over and wound his way through back roads. The pickup rumbled onto a dirt road that narrowed into a sagebrush-crowded trail. At last he pulled over at a makeshift range. Tattered targets fluttered on bales of hay beneath the moonlight, Monet gone bellicose. When they stepped out of the truck, shell casings jingled underfoot.

“What are we doing here?” Joey asked.

“Planning.”

“For what?”

“For the next time I eat something and light up the GPS in my stomach.”

“Now Van Sciver’ll know it’s a trap,” she said.

“Right.”

“So he’ll spring a trap on our trap.”

“And we’ll spring a trap on the trap he’s springing on our trap.”