Jesse Gant was vacuuming so she didn't hear the doorbell. Bobbie had had some friends over the night before and they had left the kitchen littered with junk food remnants. Jesse enjoyed cleaning it up. It was a normal thing and normal things still gave Jesse great pleasure. She could remember a time in her life when there had been very little that would be considered normal.
She was a tall, slender woman with short red hair. Her face was etched with lines, most oriented in a way that indicated she smiled and laughed much more than she frowned. Freckles were liberally sprinkled on her skin and her green eyes were following the progress of the vacuum sucking up the remnants of chips and cookies.
Most women would have screamed the moment they felt the hand touch their shoulder, but Jesse merely reached down and shut off the vacuum as she turned to face the man standing behind her. "So he's dead?"
Bailey nodded. "Yes."
"When did he die?"
The dour face never changed expression. "We think a few weeks ago. We're not sure."
Now it was Jesse's turn to nod. "I knew Tony was sick. I was secretly hoping he would try to see Bobbie but he never did. How did I have a kid with such a screwed-up guy? It's really the most important decision a woman makes."
Bailey sat down in one of the kitchen chairs. Jesse pushed the vacuum cleaner away to give her access to her own chair. The man stared at her, trying to decide if she had changed much in the years he hadn't seen her.
"Anthony kept you both alive all these years."
"But if I had married a nice doctor or something I wouldn't have had to worry about that. You know not everyone has to worry about getting assassinated."
"I don't believe we can choose who we fall in love with." The words coming from Bailey were almost comical, but Jesse knew they were to be taken very seriously. Men like Bailey didn't stop by for chats and didn’t say things idly to make conversation.
Jesse rose and got a couple of cups for coffee. She still knew how he took his.
"The woman, Neeley, is coming here. I arranged a diversion so we could talk, but she will be here soon."
Jesse's hands tightened on the coffee mug. "Why is she coming here?"
"For the package you have apparently been keeping for Gant all these years. She believes she needs it to survive."
"I don't have it," Jesse said.
To that, Bailey made no comment.
Jesse looked at the hard face. "And does she need it to survive?"
Bailey sipped the steaming coffee. "We all need insurance. Tell me, Jesse. Why did you leave the Cellar? You were one of the best. I know I was quite fond of you."
Jesse leaned back in the ladder-back chair, causing the cane bottom to squeak in protest. "Mister Nero asked me to leave. He assured me I would have lifelong safety if I would retire. I was only twenty."
"My, that is surprising.” To Jesse he sounded not at all surprised. “Why did Mister Nero want you out?"
Jesse stared out the window, watching the slow movements of the clouds and let her thoughts return to that long ago day in Nero's office. "He said he had made a mistake in selecting me. That I fit the profile he needed but that I had something extra that made me unfit for duty."
Bailey was very interested. "And what was that?"
Jesse spoke with no embarrassment. "I apparently generated the emotion of love in people who were supposedly not capable of it."
Bailey nodded. "Yes, fascinating. I always suspected something of that sort. Bad for business. It was bad for Anthony-- and his brother Jack."
"But remember, I brought Tony in," Jesse said. "It wasn't my fault that the robots in the Cellar began hearing violins. I didn't do anything on purpose. Besides, Mister Nero got reams of psychological studies from the whole business. I'm sure he never recruited anyone like me again. I do regret that Tony and Jack never spoke again."
“Some of that was due to Mogadishu,” Bailey said.
Jesse shook her head. “No. Jack understood that. He works for the Cellar now, doesn’t he? So he understands necessity. More than marrying Tony, my greatest regret in my life was splitting the two of them. But I have Bobbie so screw ‘em.”
Bailey put down his empty cup. No more coffee was offered. "Please believe that my interest was purely that, and I am offering no judgments. It's just been a curiosity. Mister Nero speaks of you warmly."
Jesse spoke slowly. "Yes, I know. I've always been grateful to him. And to Neeley, even though I never met her. It was good to know Tony wasn't alone. Especially at the end. He would have been afraid of the darkness."
"Why did you leave Anthony? Because of Jack?"
Jesse carried the two mugs to the sink. Speaking softly she said: "Not because of Jack. Because Tony—and even Jack who was very like him—and I didn't want the same things. If I’d have gone with Jack, I would have been repeating the same mistake. I did learn that lesson from Mister Nero."
Bailey watched her, deciding that she had changed very little. "I understand."
"What will happen to me and Bobbie?"
"I can assure you that you will continue to be safe. Just give Neeley the package."
"I told you I don't have it. It was Tony's insurance, not mine. He knew Mister Nero well enough to know that for me to have it would only be dangerous. If I had it, wouldn't Mister Nero have sent you here the minute Tony was dead to claim it?"
Bailey pursed his lips and then slowly nodded again. Whether he believed her, she couldn't tell.
"Where's Racine?" Jesse suddenly asked.
"Don't worry about him. I'll take care of him."
Jesse turned to look at her guest. "I always worry about Racine. I never understood why Mister Nero tolerated him."
"He is a man with useful talents and few scruples. The very thing you fear is an asset to many. But even the most useful assets have their own particular shelf life and I can assure you, Racine’s has expired."
"If he gets within two states of Bobbie, I'll kill him."
Bailey nodded. "That's completely understood.”
Jesse led him to the door.
He paused. “There’s some new information that we have just learned that puts the past in a different light.”
Jesse considered her guest. “A new perspective on the past is only important if it changes something in the present.”
Bailey smiled, something Jesse could never remember him doing. “I knew I could count on you.” He stepped onto the porch. “Don't mention my visit to Neeley and her companion."
"What companion?"
Bailey smiled for the second time. "A most interesting woman, very versatile."
Jesse led him to the door. "Versatility is a good thing."
Hannah and Neeley had hidden the car behind a large pile of brush. They had left the main road twenty minutes previously and were on the northern shore of Cheat Lake. The Lake had been formed by a dam on the Monogahela River. The towns that had been in the valley had been flooded, the people moved elsewhere. It was a gloomy place and the town still lay beneath the lake’s gentle swells.
The dirt road they had taken ended at this lush greenery covered shelter. One of the hundreds of old brick furnaces that dotted the state stood to their right. Farther to the left was a small cropping of boulders forming a natural fence. It was from this area that the noises were coming.
Bailey's trailers arrived within ten minutes and only the tires crunching on the graveled rocks announced their arrival. The motor had been silenced farther back and the car allowed to roll the last part of the way. The men left the car cautiously, their guns drawn.
They seemed to hear the faint noises simultaneously because as if synchronized, they moved together toward it. They heard soft laughter and throaty whispers. As the men drew closer it was obvious the men couldn't hear the words but they understood the tone. Their weapons lowered a bit as their anxiety dropped replaced by a baser instinct.
Crawling closer to the rocky stone wall, the men gave in to natural curiosity. Over the wall they could hear moans and whispers.
The younger of the two men put his hands up on the edge of the natural formation to pull himself up. The other man followed suit. Looking over, they both saw the same thing-- nothing but the small cassette recorder.
Hannah and Neeley waited for them to turn around. Neeley had a gun pointed at them. Hannah walked up and took their weapons. She even patted them down, noting that their ruse had worked well. She tossed the guns to Neeley.
"OK. What now?"
Neeley braced herself. "Now I shoot them."
Hannah looked at Neeley. "It’s not necessary. They’re only here to slow us down."
“How do you know that?” Neeley demanded in frustration, but Hannah didn’t answer. After a few seconds, Neeley stomped a foot in frustration. "All right, all right. Jeez, you make me crazy. You wanted to kill Racine not long ago."
“Racine is different.”
Neeley motioned for the men to approach and handed Hannah one of the other guns. "We'll put them in the old furnace, but I swear Hannah, if they make any moves, we shoot."
"Agreed."
The walk to the brick furnace was short and uneventful. By squatting, the men managed to squeeze in the front. Neeley stood guard as Hannah backed their car up against the opening, effectively imprisoning them. She left the keys in the ignition. On the way out she spotted a kit bag of gear in the back seat. She pointed it out to Neeley and they took it out of the car and placed it in theirs.
Hannah and Neeley drove toward Morgantown, free of surveillance for the first time in quite a while.
They went the rest of the way in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Neeley knew exactly where to go and she pulled up in front of the small house on the edge of town a little before noon.
Hannah and Neeley got out of the car, just as a tall woman stepped out the front door of the house. She held a sawed off shotgun in her right hand, the comfortable way she handled it indicating she would have no trouble firing it and hitting whatever she pointed it at.
"Neeley?" the woman called.
Neeley nodded. "This is Hannah," she added.
"I'm Jesse." She lowered the shotgun and led the way into the house, sliding the shotgun into an umbrella stand as she went by. The three women went into the kitchen where they awkwardly arrayed themselves around the center counter. Hannah looked from Jesse to Neeley and decided that Gant must have been an exceptional man to have had both these women in his life.
"I know Tony is dead," Jesse said by way of opening the conversation. "I assume you have been continuing my payments from him," she added, looking at Neeley.
Neeley nodded. "Where's Bobbie?"
"He's at school." Jesse looked at the clock. "He'll be home in an hour. I'd like you to be gone by then. What are you here for?"
"We need help," Neeley said. "I don't know how much you know about what Gant did for a living but . . ." Neeley started to stammer.
Jesse gave a sad smile. "You want Nero off your back?"
"You know about the Cellar?" Neeley was surprised. Gant had never hinted that his ex-wife knew.
"I worked for it for a little while," Jesse said. "Then I had Bobbie and the two didn't go together. I had something more important than the Cellar and Nero knew it. He wanted to keep Tony though, so we struck a bargain. Tony stayed, I was allowed to leave."
"Do you know about the tape?" Hannah asked.
Jesse nodded.
"But you don't know where it is?" Hannah continued.
"No." Jesse looked at her, sizing her up. "You do, don't you?"
"We have the cache report," Neeley said, a bit surprised once more at Hannah’s sharp perception and understanding of a situation she herself found confusing. She took the piece of paper out and put it on the counter.
Jesse glanced at it. “Your FRP is the bridge on route 42. Now you need to leave right away. Bringing that report here puts my son and mine life in danger."
"Do you know what's on the tape?" Neeley asked.
"Yes."
The other two women waited, but Jesse didn't say anything else for a little while, then she faced Neeley across the counter. "Did you love Tony?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Do you know what the Cellar is?" Jesse asked both of them.
"I know some of what it does," Neeley said.
"But you don't know its overriding objective, do you?"
“I don’t care,” Neeley said.
That brought a faint smile to Jesse’s lips. “I felt the same way, especially when I saw what happened in Mogadishu.”
Hannah shook her head. “The Cellar was involved to the extent that Gant—Tony—and my husband, tried to recover the videotape. But it was Racine, who fired the RPG that downed that helicopter. It was he who killed those men and initiated the problems that led to all the other deaths there. And Nero didn’t order that. It was Senator Collins.”
Jesse assimilated that information. “Tony never knew?”
Neeley shook her head.
“Stupid question,” Jesse said. “If Tony had known, Racine would be long dead. Gant had all those rules.” Her hand flew to her mouth. “Oh my God. Jack.”
“Jack?” Neeley asked.
“Tony’s twin brother. Jack was in the Ranger Battalion there in Mogadishu. He never forgave Tony for what happened. For his dead men.”
“Is that why Gant—“ Neeley caught herself—“Tony never spoke to his brother.”
A sad smile played over Jesse’s face. “No. That was because of me.”
“Oh,” Neeley’s sharp intake of breath was audible.
Jesse looked at Hannah. “How are you involved in this?”
"John Masterson was my husband," Hannah said.
“The men in our lives,” Jesse said wonderingly, shaking her head.
"You had Gant," Neeley said, pointing at Jesse, "I had Jean-Philippe and Hannah ended up with John. And here we all are so many years later."
“Do you think it was all chance?” Jesse asked.
Neeley frowned. “What do you mean?”
“There is no such thing as chance when you have Nero involved,” Jesse said.
Hannah was nodding. “I think Mister Nero wanted us all to end up here, the three of us sitting together.”
“Why?” Neeley asked.
“I have an idea,” Hannah said. “But now is not the time. Let's get out of here and get the tape.”
Jesse nodded. "Yes, please go. Your presence here can only mean trouble."
Neeley slowly stood. "Gant—Tony-- was a good man."
"I know,” Jesse said. “He--" she paused as the phone rang. Jesse picked it up.
The other two women could immediately tell something was wrong by the way Jesse's face went white as she listened. Then she simply said three words and hung up: "We'll be there."
"Who was that?" Neeley asked.
"That was Racine," Jesse said as she reached under the counter top and her hands came back up, an automatic pistol in her right one. She pulled the slide back, chambering a round. "He has Bobbie. He wants all three of us to meet him. He said he'll give me Bobbie if I give him both of you and you give him the papers from Jean-Philippe and the video." She pointed the gun at the other two women. "You're coming with me."
Hannah held her hands up. "Hey, whoa, take it easy. We'll come freely."