No. Please. No. She wouldnt survive. Jake, where are you? Please tell me.
Maggie brushed away her tears and focused on the slow-moving streams of red taillights and Sharmays parting words, replaying like a prayer.
Youre going to see him again, I just know it.
Maggie needed to believe that.
She had to.
By the time she reached her exit some ninety minutes later, her anguish had evolved into exhaustion. As she made her way through Blue Rose Creek, she saw that her tank was nearly dry. She turned into the big twentyfour-hour Chevron that she liked.
It was clean and well lit.
Safe for a woman alone at night.
After filling up and swiping her card at the pump, Maggie stopped dead.
Thats weird.
A blue Impala with tinted windows and a bumper damaged on the drivers side was in a far corner of the stations large lot.
Was that the same car shed seen behind her in Culver City?
Couldnt be. She was being silly. Or tired. Or both. Chalk it up to a bad day, she told herself after she started her car and pulled out of the station.
A moment later, as she waited at an intersection for the light to change, she thought about taking a hot bath to soothe her nerves when she got home. Then in her side mirror, she noticed that a blue Impala had eased into her lane, two cars back from her.
What the heck?
The light turned green and Maggie quickly changed her turn signal indicator and turned right instead of left, keeping her eye on her mirror.
The Impala turned right.
She was being followed!
Stop it, she told herself. Youre not being followed.
Its probably nothing. Probably a coincidence. To prove it, she turned left at the very next street.
She checked her mirror.
The Impala turned left.
Gooseflesh rose on Maggies arms as scenarios played in her mind. She pushed on the accelerator. She didnt know this neighborhood and took the next right, glimpsing the Impala behind her, turning right.
Maggie pressed the pedal down farther and began searching the dark houses along the quiet streets, help less, not knowing what to do, eyes locked on her mirror.
As she came to a stretch where the street coiled, Maggie turned quickly into an empty driveway and her car disappeared into a darkened, empty carport.
She killed her motor, her lights and took her foot off the brake.
She slid down in her seat and peeked from her car to the street, watching the Impala roar by, its taillights dis appearing into the night.
Maggie sat up and rested her head on her headrest. She gulped air and took several deep breaths as she sat motionless, wondering what the hell had happened.
Maggie sat up and rested her head on her headrest. She gulped air and took several deep breaths as she sat motionless, wondering what the hell had happened.
Had she been followed? Should she tell police? She imagined how that would go.
Ah, yes, the crazy lady again. How can we help you? 116 Rick Mofina
What was it? Carjackers? Teenagers? The imaginings of a distressed woman?
Maggie concentrated on her watch. It calmed her. After fifteen minutes passed, she started her car and drove to her house.
No sign of the Impala.
She sighed.
As she unlocked her door and entered her home, she was numb.
Sleep.
Forget the bath.
Go to sleep.
But she noticed the red light was blinking on her an swering machine.
One message.
She pressed Play.
The tape beeped as it cued the message. Maggie rec ognized that voice.
This is Helga, Madame Fatimas friend. Madame has instructed me to tell you that she has information about your son. Information you should have.
Book Two
18
Cold Butte, Lone Tree County, Montana
Father Andrew Stone watched the wind-groomed grass undulate across the Great Plains, mile after mile until the earth touched the sky.
Breathtaking in its majesty.
Immortal for its painful history.
So deserving of what was to come.
Soon the pope would arrive here and consecrate this very ground, the Buffalo Breaks, where so many of
Stones ancestors had died.
His heart swelled at a dream come true.
But last-minute concerns were risking cancellation of the papal visit, the first ever to this corner of the country. Stone wasnt worried.
For if there was one thing hed learned from an old friend, it was that Gods plan was unstoppable. Father Stone! Were ready to start!
Nearly a hundred yards back, the principal of Cold
Buttes only school was calling him to the Papal Visit Planning Committees meeting on the letter from Washington.
Stone had read it.
The Secret Service had alerted the Vatican to the latest security and foreign intelligence-more inter cepted chatter about threats and potential attacks. Un related to the letter, the Washington Post had recently reported that a growing number of influential U.S. church organizations, fearing an attempted assassina tion, were privately urging the Vatican to cut venues in the papal visit, including the one planned right here in Lone Tree County.
Gripping his copy of the letter and the Post story hed stapled to it, Stone started for the school, certain that the visit would ultimately take place. His faith was anchored by his devotion to God and his blood ties to the land where he was born.
Stone was descended from the Swift Fox, a small Plains tribe nearly wiped out by smallpox in the 1880s. At that time, Sister Beatrice Drapeau, a nun from France, had arrived with Jesuits and stayed to minister to the dying until she died of the illness.
The sick who prayed to her memory survived.
Her story inspired Stone to become a priest. After his divinity studies and ordination he was posted to the Vatican, working among the archives on the churchs role in Native American history. There, he befriended a wise cardinal who was taken by Stones call to God and the nuns legacy.
Sister Beatrices sacrifice must not be forgotten. The cardinal raised one finger to Stone before he returned to Lone Tree County. One day, my brother, I will make a pilgrimage to Montana to honor her.
Years later, to Stones awe, the cardinal was elected pope. A few months afterward, Stones old friend, the new pope, wrote him a personal letter.
My brother, to remember our Good Sister, I will, as promised, make a pilgrimage to the Great Plains on the next anniversary of her death. You may pass this news to others so that they may join in the celebration.
Stone kept the note private but went online to share the news and the date of the popes upcoming visit to Montana.
Unlike presidential visits, news of papal visits was often made public in advance because of the scale and preparations involved. But Stones revelation had long preceded the Vaticans expected official announcement of a multicity papal visit to the United States. This frus trated the U.S. Secret Service because it gave ample lead time to anyone planning an attack.
Now, as Stone entered the school and took his place at the meeting, he braced for a heated debate on any lastditch effort to cancel the popes visit to Montana.
The very thought of canceling at this stage is a pre posterous notion, said the reverend from the office of the Bishop for the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings.
Absolutely, the woman from the governors office agreed. Were down to a few short weeks from the event.
As the letter states, U.S. and foreign intelligence have been picking up chatter about threats and poten tial attacks, a Secret Service official said through the speakerphone from Washington. Granted, its not un common, but the volume has markedly increased and gives us concern. Especially since various plots against several world leaders and several other targets have
122 Rick Mofina been thwarted in the past sixteen months. The Secret Service is in no way advising the Vatican to cancel any events. Our role is to provide the intelligence for the Vatican to make any decision.
These groups quoted in the Post want a shortened tour and suggested the visit to Lone Tree be dropped, the reverend from the Diocese of Great Falls-Billings said.
Thats got nothing to do with the Secret Service, the agent said.
Were aware these are challenging times, but to cancel any venue at this stage is contrary to the intent of the Holy Fathers pastoral mission to the U.S., the priest representing the Holy Sees Secretariat of State said from Washington. Each location plays a key role in the pontiffs ecumenical work.
In Montana, the day of celebration would involve a presentation to the pope at the school by the childrens choir before he celebrated an open-air Mass in Buffalo Breaks for about one hundred thousand people. There he would bless the site and acknowledge that God allows people to rise above failings to ensure the spirit is not extinguished.
Has anyone considered the fallout of canceling the first papal visit in the states history? the principal asked. Think of whats been done, accommodating charter groups, arranging motel rooms from Great Falls to Billings, Lewistown, Miles City, even into North Dakota. The cost, the expectations created. Not to mention all the security and background checks everyone has already undergone. And the choir. Goodness, the children have been working so hard for months, the principal said.
As Stone followed the nods that went round the table, he detached himself from the discussion.
At this stage, the decision is not ours, the Secret Service official said.
That is correct, the official from the Holy See said. We must await the Vaticans final decision.
19
Cold Butte, Lone Tree County, Montana
Logans face turned red.
Everyone stopped to stare at him.
You could have heard a pin drop on the floor of the gym where fifty students from all grades had been as sembled into the childrens choir that would perform for the popes upcoming visit.
Everyone stopped to stare at him.
You could have heard a pin drop on the floor of the gym where fifty students from all grades had been as sembled into the childrens choir that would perform for the popes upcoming visit.
Sobil Mounce-Bazley, the choir director, tapped her baton on her podium. All voices hushed. Music sheets rustled, someone coughed but no one dared speak. In the silence, Sobil ran a finger down her list until she came to the offender.
Number 27. Alto. Age nine.