Chapter 15

Time dragged as I waited for another shoe to drop. The office where I was sequestered was about as interesting as a brown paper bag - on the inside. Without my iPad, phone, or laptop, I couldn't surf the news, play solitaire, or engage in anything to pass the time. I leaned way back in the desk chair an let my mind wander for a change.

It was interesting.

The less I 'thought, ' the more thoughts came to me.

Scenes from my lives entertained me for quite some time. Several of those scenes brought tears to my eyes, and others made me giddy with laughter. In my head, I spent time with Jennifer. She was as I discovered her on the dock in Astor that day. Her little body was wracked with pain and wasting away.

However, it was her happy voice that brought the tears. Revisiting her laughter, giggling, and silly fun times, got to me before I realized it, and I was wiping away tears for the little girl who was so sick.

Before I bawled like a two year old, I deliberately thought of other things.

Just for fun, I re-experienced my Friday lunches with Jim. He was so faithful about picking me up and choosing somewhere that he thought I'd like for lunch. We did enjoy those Friday outings, and I was so grateful for each and every one.

I spent time remembering my big buddy, Benjamin. There was so much to work with when I thought about him, that I could have spent the entire night remembering our good times, together.

Before I realized it, I had fallen asleep, and I was dreaming.

I dreamed of Catherine's killing. It hurt as much in a dream as it did live. Somehow, I needed to find the ones who ordered that attack and take their lives from them.

It was after dreaming about Catherine that I saw all my dead loved ones once again. My mother led the procession, and at the end came Catherine. If I tried to explain the meaning of the dream, I would guess that death was still demanding my life, since I kept escaping his jaws.

The pattern of the dreams changed, and I saw my enemies lining up to kill me. At the back of the pack were two new faces which I couldn't quite make out. I struggled to recognize them, but failed. It bothered me, but I had no recourse, as the dream changed again, and this time I was outside my own body, watching me defend the Kirby's carriage house.

With bullets flying everywhere, I could see the air part just enough, each time, so that the rounds that hit me did not kill me.

What the heck did that mean?

I never got the chance to find out.

The door opened and two very impressive Marines escorted me to a waiting Suburban filled with Secret Service agents. As soon as I was in the back, the vehicle leaped forward, throwing me off balance as I tried fasten my seat belt. There were two agents in back with me, one on each side. They both helped me get settled and belted down.

No one spoke as the vehicle hurried right through the main gate of Camp David without hesitating.

Wherever we were going, we were headed their fast.

Camp David's entrance road gave way to other roads, each one bigger until we were on the Interstate. The trip seemed to go forever, and I was about to start asking for answers when the agent riding shotgun handed me his phone and said, "The Judge wishes to speak to you."

I took the proffered phone and said, "Hey."

The Judge was not in the mood for small talk and said, "You kicked over a huge hornets nest, Kevin. I don't know where you get your wisdom, street smarts, hunches, or whatever it is you get, but keep having them. George is dead. We found his body stuffed in a dumpster behind his apartment building."

Before I had a chance to absorb that hit, he continued, "Kate is on the run. She took the van we kept for your wheelchair and drove away just before I gave the order to pick her up. The Secret Service and the Marines are crawling all over Camp David, trying to make sense of what's going on, but you probably saved the President's life – again - and I told him that before I called you.

"If you did not get scared and walk to the Secret Service office to demand to speak to me, Kate would have likely accessed another cache of weapons hidden inside the White House and killed you both."

He let that echo around in my head for a little while.

I had to ask, "Where are they taking me, Judge?"

"As far as we can tell, you are safe for the time being. Camp David is not where you need to be, nor is the Kirby place, so we're taking you to a safe house in Northern Virginia. We'll deal with everything you need as fast as possible, but the trips to the White House are over for the time being. Neither you, nor the President is safe until we wrap this up."

That was almost Ok, but not really. "Judge?" I asked. "When is Catherine O'Malley's funeral?"

He hesitated, and then said, "Tomorrow, at her farm outside Asheville, North Carolina."

"Then I need these guys to either drop me where my jet is hangared, or take me somewhere I can hire a car to take me to my jet. I'm going to Catherine's funeral. She died saving my life, and I am going to honor her memory by being there when they put her in the ground."

That's exactly how I went. The driver took me to Andrews, where my jet was stashed, and my pilots were waiting to take me to North Carolina.

We arrived late that night and found that the airport had a commercial hangar space that would get the G650 out of the weather, so we took it, and I ordered two cars. One was for the pilots, and I gave them a debit card, so they could go to a hotel and amuse themselves until I was ready to go somewhere else, and the second car was for me.

I used a GPS to find Catherine's place in the country, and once I was comfortable about getting there in time, I went and found a hotel for the night. Neither task was hard. If you have a physical address, the GPS takes you there, and Asheville is vacation land, so there is a hotel everywhere you look.

The night passed peacefully, because no one was trying to kill me, and I didn't need to be running from pillar to post to avoid assassination. In the morning I ordered room service breakfast, and took my time, so as to arrive out at Catherine's farm in time for the service.

The Judge called at the stroke of eight and launched right in to an update. "Kevin, you are definitely prescient. It appears that Kate murdered George and fled in his car. We found the car near the bus stop a few blocks from George's apartment, and Kate's fingerprints were pretty much everywhere, including on the murder weapon.