AllFreeNovel
Share Us
With the hair-trigger reaction of a trained commando, he swerved to avoid a collision. Coming around the bend were four motorcycle policemen, riding two abreast. Following them were a fire truck, an official-looking car, and an ambulance. All were traveling at high speed.
Gray hugged the ditch in the opposing lane until all the vehicles had streaked past, then he executed a hairpin U-turn and took off after them.
“You’re going to follow them?”
“Damn straight.”
“But why would—?”
“Overhead,” Gray said, answering her question before it was completed. She pressed her cheek against the window and saw two helicopters bank steeply as they rose above the treetops. “Your anonymous source was right. Something’s happened.”
“But Highpoint is over there,” she said, pointing in the opposite direction.
“The presidential retreat is on the other side of the lake, but this whole area is called Highpoint. Dr. George Allan’s weekend home is on that ridge.” He motioned with his chin toward the approximate spot in the forest from which the helicopters had taken off. “That’s where they’ve been keeping Vanessa.”
“How do you know?”
“I had a hunch, and it’s just been confirmed. That car behind the fire truck was government issue, probably Secret Service.”
His hands were still planted firmly on the steering wheel. He had the accelerator of Barrie’s car on the floorboard to keep up with the taillights of the last vehicle in the emergency motorcade.
“What do you think this means?”
“What do you think?” he asked tightly.
She was reluctant to voice her thoughts. “Dr. Allan wouldn’t harm her. Not deliberately. Not with the Secret Service guarding her.”
“The White House was crawling with Secret Service the night the baby died. That didn’t stop the doctor from claiming that the kid died of SIDS. If David’s got George Allan’s balls in a vise, he’ll say and do just about anything.”
They followed the motorcade into Shinlin, a picturesque, well-tended community of about fifteen thousand. Because of the town’s proximity to the presidential retreat, the locals were accustomed to having motorcades disrupt the serenity of their tree-lined streets.
Gray maintained a discreet distance. He was two blocks behind the vehicles when they pulled into the emergency entrance of the hospital.
Barrie looked at Gray. “If Vanessa needs emergency medical attention, why wasn’t she brought here by helicopter?”
Before either could speculate, the rear doors of the ambulance burst open, disgorging George Allan. The doctor was disheveled and overwrought. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows; his hair was standing on end, as though he’d been raking it with his fingers. He, the driver, and another paramedic lifted a gurney from the ambulance.
Strapped to the gurney was a sheet-draped form.
“Oh, my God, no!” Barrie cried.
The paramedics rolled the gurney toward the automatic glass doors. The two men in the governme
nt sedan got out and somberly fell into step behind the gurney as it was wheeled into the hospital.
Dr. George Allan bent from his waist and vomited onto the pavement.
Chapter Twenty-One
When Clete Armbruster’s telephone rang, waking him from a deep sleep, he rolled over and checked the clock on the nightstand. “Goddamn.” A call at this hour portended an emergency of some sort. “Yeah?”
“Senator Armbruster?”
Expecting the clipped articulation of an aide, he wasn’t prepared for the soft, husky, female voice more suited to sex than heralding bad news. Ironically, that caused him to panic. It had been a while since he’d retained the services of a professional, but the first thought that streaked through his mind was that one of his past companions had been instructed to notify all her former clients of a life-threatening virus.
“Who is this?”
“Barrie Travis. Vanessa’s friend. The reporter.”
