Split Second

Four boxes later they had their answer: neatly organized scrapbooks detailing two separate things. One was the Ritter assassination. King and Michelle looked at dozens of articles and photos of the event, including several of King, two of a much younger Kate Ramsey looking sad and alone and even one of Regina Ramsey. The text on the pages was heavily underscored with pen. "Not so strange for her to have collected these," said Michelle. "It was her father, after all."

However, the other subject cataloged here was far more chilling. It was all about John Bruno, from his early days as a prosecutor to his presidential candidacy. King spotted two yellowed newspaper articles describing investigations into corruption in the D.C. United States Attorney's Office. Bill Martin's name was prominently mentioned, but Bruno's wasn't. However, Kate had written at the top of each page: "John Bruno."

"Oh, shit," said King. "Our little political activist is involved in some serious stuff here. And regardless of whether Bruno deserved it or not, she's tagged him as a crooked prosecutor who ruined her father's life."

"What I don't get," said Michelle, "is that these stories were printed before Kate was even born. Where did she get them?"

"The man in the Mercedes. The guy making her hate Bruno for what he did to her father. Or didn't do." King added, "And maybe she blames Bruno for her father's death, reasoning if he'd been at Harvard or Stanford, he would've been happy and his wife wouldn't have left him and he never would have gone gunning for somebody like Ritter."

"But all that for what purpose?"

"Revenge? For Kate, for somebody else."

"How does that tie into Ritter and Loretta Baldwin and all the rest?"

King threw up his hands in frustration. "Damn it, I wish I knew. But I do know this: Kate is only the tip of the iceberg. And now something else makes sense." She looked at him. "Kate wanted to meet so she could tell us about this suddenly new revelation about Thornton Jorst."

"You think she was prompted to do that? To throw us off track?"

"Maybe. Or maybe she did it on her own, for another reason."

"Or maybe she's telling the truth," offered Michelle.

"Are you kidding? Nobody has so far. Why should the rules change now?"

"Well, I have to say, Kate Ramsey is a world-class actress. I never pegged her being involved."

"Well, her mother was supposed to be a superstar in that regard. Maybe she inherited those genes." King looked thoughtful for a moment and then said, "Get Parks on the horn and see what he's come up with on Bob Scott. I'm suddenly very interested in my ex-detail leader."

As it turned out, Parks had been very busy in the last several hours. He'd confirmed the address in Tennessee for Bob Scott and told Michelle that it had several intriguing attributes. It was a thirty-acre parcel in the mountainous rural eastern part of the state. The property had also been part of an army encampment during World War II and for twenty years thereafter, before it was sold to private owners. Since then it had changed hands several times.

Parks told Michelle, "When I found out it was once owned by the United States Army, I started wondering why Scott might want to own a spread like that. He'd been living in Montana for a while, real militia person, I guess, so why the move? Well, I've been poring overmaps, blueprints and diagrams, and I found out the damn property has an underground bunker built into a hillside. The government and military had thousands of them constructed during the Cold War, from small and simple to the gargantuan one at the Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia to house the United States Congress in the event of nuclear war. The one Scott owns is pretty elaborate, with bunk rooms, a galley, bathrooms, shooting range, water and air filtration facilities. Hell, the army probably forgot it was even there when the property was sold. One other interesting thing: it has cells for housing prisoners of war, in case of invasion, I guess."

"A prison," said Michelle. "Pretty handy for holding kidnapped presidential candidates."

"That's what I'm thinking. And on top of that, this place in Tennessee is barely two hours by car from where both Ritter was killed and Bruno was kidnapped. Those three places roughly form a triangular shape."

"And you're sure it's the same Bob Scott?" asked Michelle.

"Pretty damn sure. But for this old warrant, it would have been tough to track him down; he's gone pretty far underground."

"Are you still planning to go down there?" asked Michelle.

"We found a friendly Tennessee judge who issued us a search warrant. We're going to pay that place a visit, but under a pretense because I don't want anyone getting shot. And once inside, we see what we see. It's a little dicey from a legal point of view, but I figure if we can get Bruno out before something happens to him, and bag Scott, then it's worth it. We'll let the lawyers figure it all out later."

"When are you leaving?"