Michael Palmer - A Heartbeat Away

“He tried to run,” he said. “Guess he panicked after I made the call to Washington. I imagine you’ll be hosting him here at some point.”

“We do good keeping our prisoners where they’re supposed to be. Haven’t had a successful rabbit since I became warden. Good thing, too, because if Johnny Ray ever busted out of here we’d have a heck of a time catching him.”

“Why’s that?”

“Boy’s a natural runner,” Tobert said. “I’d guess he could run straight to California without stopping or getting winded. Guy never gets tired jogging in the yard. And I mean never.”

“Well, I don’t know what’ll happen to Bartholomew now that he’s in custody,” Griff said. “But I hope it isn’t good.”

Griff also hoped that Allaire would follow through on his promise to investigate Paul Rappaport. That part of their short phone conversation had been anything but pleasant. He had called the president’s emergency number from Bartholomew’s cramped, cluttered office at the Certain Path Mission.

“Rappaport shows up and Melvin is killed,” Griff had said to Allaire. “Murdered by someone working for Genesis. Explain to me how Genesis knew about our plan?”

“I can’t,” Allaire said. “But you had no right jeopardizing our objective by sneaking out of Kalvesta, Rhodes. You’ve gone rogue on me and I don’t like it one bit.”

“Pardon my saying so, Mr. President, but I don’t much care what you like. What I care about is what you do. And I need you to do something for me.”

“What?” Allaire said.

“Two things, actually. I want you to treat Rappaport as a suspect. Have him watched. Put a tail on him. Wiretap his phones. Get ahold of his computers. Put the CIA, NSA, FBI, and any other letters you can think of on him. Put a dossier together that will detail what he’s had for breakfast every morning for the last ten tears. I’m convinced it’s him, and somewhere along the line we’ll find that he’s tipped us off to that. He’s the force behind Genesis. He did this to become president.”

“You think he arranged to have his own daughter robbed while she was taking a shower?” Allaire asked. “You think he would arrange to traumatize her by cutting up her underwear and spreading it across her bed, just so he could get me to appoint him the designated survivor?”

“Anybody who did this to you and the others at the Capitol is capable of anything,” Griff had replied. “The setup for the release of WRX3883 has been going on for a long time. The whole Genesis thing—the blackout in New York, and those explosions—were just a prologue leading up to the State of the Union.”

“I’ll think about it,” was all Allaire had said. “What’s the second thing?”

“Have Sergeant Stafford go out with some men to the ventilation shaft to retrieve Melvin’s body. He was a hero. If you ever get out of this, he deserves a Congressional Medal of Honor, or whatever the civilian version is of that.”

“Consider it done. Now get to that prison and this time keep me posted about what you’re doing.”

Griff was replaying that conversation in his mind when he was startled by a loud buzz. He stiffened at the sound. The heavy metal door unlocked and the noise stopped.

“It’s hard coming back to prison, huh?” the warden commented, evidently aware of Griff’s history.

“You have no idea,” Griff said.

“Well, thankfully, you’re right about that.”

Griff went through the screening process without incident and followed the warden into the prison yard. The helicopters continued to circle overhead like the buzzards in his recurring Ebola dream. Crossing a patch of barren ground, they entered the Commons building. The corridors there were quiet and deserted.

“I’ve got ’em on lockdown for as long as you’re here,” Tobert announced proudly.

“Thanks. I’m sure that won’t win J. R. Davis any popularity prizes.”

“He can take care of himself. Truth is, I think most of the guys are scared of him.”

The warden opened a door marked ATTORNEY’S ROOM and motioned Griff to follow him inside.

Griff was surprised to see only a foldout table in the center of the room, with a plastic chair on either side, but no Plexiglas divider to separate the lawyers from the convicts. He took a seat at the table facing the door. Four guards stood behind him.

The door buzzed and then opened. Three more guards entered, escorting a man in an orange prison jumpsuit. His ankles and wrists were shackled. Two of the guards assisted the convict in getting seated. Faded tattoos of women covered the outsides of both his arms. His jet-black hair was buzz cut, his narrow face horselike, and his upper lip had been gashed at some point and sutured carelessly, so that the edges of the vermillion border did not meet. The result was what amounted to a permanent sneer.

But the most striking feature of Johnny Ray Davis’s countenance—the one that struck Griff almost immediately, were his eyes.

The right one was sky blue … and the left was chestnut brown.

“Johnny Ray Davis?” Griff asked, though he’d already seen photos of the pale-skinned convict.

“It’s J.R. Who’re you?”

Davis had an odd twang that Griff placed somewhere between Midwestern and Creole.

“Griffin Rhodes. Griff. I’m a virologist.”

Davis stiffened. A fearful expression chipped away some of his tough-guy persona.

“You with that woman from the mission in Wichita?”

“I was at one time. She’s dead now.”

“Good. I tried to get those fuckers busted for what they done to me,” he said. “Her and that bogus preacher. I called the police, but I couldn’t leave my name. It weren’t just me, you know. There were others, too. But the police ain’t much for listenin’ to the ramblins of a junkie. Know what I mean? Hey, you got a smoke?”

“Sorry.”

“Then how about you send someone to get me some?”

The killer already knew that whatever was going on, he had some leverage. Griff warned himself not to underestimate the man. He turned to the warden, who had felt it was in his best interest to remain in the room and oversee the most important prisoner visit of his career.

“Can you do that?” Griff asked him. “Cigarettes?”

“Marlboro Reds,” Davis clarified.

“You’ll get what you get,” the warden snapped.

A guard exited the room to get the smokes without his needing to be prompted.

Griff leaned across the table.

“What did they do to you, J.R.?” he asked in a low, sympathetic voice.

Griff could see the gears turning in the convict’s head. Davis was clearly not ready to give away anything for free.

“What’s this all about?” the man asked.

“I need to know what happened to you at the Certain Path Mission,” Griff said.

“Why?”

“It’s important.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Special privileges,” Griff said.

It was the first thought that came to his mind. The warden gave him a disapproving glare.

“That wasn’t part of any discussion I had,” he said.

Impatient and exhausted, Griff glowered back at him.

“I’m sure the federal government will find a way to subsidize you for any added cost or burden.”

The warden grinned, and so did Davis.

“Federal government, eh?” Davis said. “You mean, like the president?”

“That’s right.”

“So it ain’t just rumor.”

“What isn’t?”

Davis sat up straighter and tapped his feet on the floor in a quick rhythm.

“Rumor going round the cells is that the president himself personally arranged this little meeting.”