Son of Fletch (23 page)

“Your choice. It’s your story.”

“Don’t you have some sort of influence at Global Cable News?”

“Me? Not much.”

“You’re consulting/contributing editor for GCN.”

“Well, yeah. They pick up the phone to me.”

Jack looked out his window. “I guess I could call Jack Saunders. He must know somebody who would be interested in this story.”

“Yeah,” Fletch said. “You might do that.”

“But I’ve got all this videotape, “Jack said. “What would the print press do with it?”

“Good point. Well, we might give GCN a try. If that’s what you want to do.” As he drove, Fletch pressed Andy Cyst’s home number into his cellular phone panel. “Andy! Sorry to wake you up.”

“Yes, Mister Fletcher,” Andy slurred into the phone. “It’s all right, Mister Fletcher. Really.”

“Come on, now, Andy. I haven’t bothered you since yesterday.”

“Yesterday: Sunday. The day before: Saturday.”

“Do you guys think you’ll be able to make anything much out of that Blythe Spirit story?”

In the car, Jack’s eyes cut to Fletch.

Andy’s voice became more awake. “Actually, Mister Fletcher, it may turn into a good story. We’re surrounding it with talking heads, other experts, to give their opinions on the therapy Blythe Spirit is offering, and at what prices! Looks like it might turn into a story of genuine medical fraud.”

“Atta boy, Andy. I thought we might end up about there.”

“And, Mister Fletcher: until two this morning I was looking into something called The Tribe. You remember you asked about something called The Tribe? Well, it looks like a helluva story—”

“That’s what I’m calling about, Andy.”

“What?”

“The Tribe. Expect a news break on The Tribe any minute now. What you get at first won’t be the real story. Not even close. Probably won’t even mention The Tribe by name.”

“What’s the break?”

“At a supposedly secret camp in the woods in Alabama, thirty-eight members of The Tribe just shot each other.”

“Did you say, ‘shot each other’?”

“It was foggy. One nut started shooting and they all started shooting. Thirty-eight dead. Among the dead is a man who called himself The Reverend Doctor Commandant Kris Kriegel.”

“The escapee from the federal pen in Tomaston, Kentucky.”

“The same.”

“He’s dead?”

“No deader than he should be.”

“Which is pretty dead.”

“Very dead.”

“I was researching him last night. I mean, this morning. That was the clue I took from you. Kris Kriegel.” Now Andy’s voice was excited.

“Also escapee John Leary has finished shaking the earth.”

“By the way, they recovered Juan Moreno’s body yesterday. In some farmer’s gully in Tennessee.”

“That’s nice.”

“Mister Fletcher, have you got this story? I mean, of the shooting?”

“Who, me?”

“No? You haven’t?”

“Andy, at ten-thirty your time, do you think you could meet someone at National Airport?”

“Sure. Who?”

“A young reporter named Jack Faoni.”

“Why does that name sound familiar to me?”

“He has everything. Complete computer files on The Tribe from around the country, around the world, membership lists, lists of those targeted for assassination”—Jack grinned broadly across the car seat at Fletch—“bank accounts, their plans, personal knowledge of Kris Kriegel. He’s even got videotape of the shooting this morning.”

“Wow!”

“All in one little plastic shopping bag.”

“How? Who is this Faoni?”

“Just a kid I’ve been working with the last few days.”

“The woman you went to see at Blythe Spirit yesterday is named Faoni.”

“Yeah. I had to establish this kid’s credibility. He appeared out of nowhere, you see. A complete unknown to me.”

“And he’s good stuff?”

“Oh, yeah,” Fletch said. “I think there’s good stuff in him. He’ll need your help, though. Is Sally free? This tape he took in the fog will need the best editing. Obviously, it should be the lead and on the air as soon as you can manage it. Unless California falls into the sea, or something else of greater interest to more people happens.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I would think you’d all want to work on a longer documentary format for later, but not much later.”

“Yes, sir, Mister Fletcher!”

“Faoni will have to hold some of the stuff back. That’s got to be understood from the beginning. The Attorney General of the United States has had much personal input into this story.”

“I understand.”

“Book rights and film rights to Faoni, if he wants them. He’ll be on the Air T flight from Huntsville arriving at Washington’s National Airport at ten thirty-six EDT.”

“I’ll be there.”

“Andy?”

“Yes, Mister Fletcher?”

“Please don’t call me later. Okay? I need to get some sleep.”

“Gee, Mister Fletcher. I’d never think of disturbing your sleep. Never. Not ever.”

After clicking off the phone connection, Fletch handed Jack his airplane ticket. “I got this for you at two o’clock this morning in Atlanta. You even have an assigned seat.”

While Jack studied his ticket, Fletch said to Jack, “A woman named Slavenka Drakulic, a victim of the most recent Balkan ethnic-cleansing wars, wrote in
The New York Times Sunday Magazine:
‘We are the war. I am afraid there is no one else to blame. We all make it possible. We allow it to happen. There is no them and us. There are no numbers, masses, categories. There is only one of us and, yes, we are responsible for each other.’”

“Got a pen and piece of paper?” Jack asked.

“In the glove compartment. Just thought that quote might add something to your story, if it fits in anywhere.”

“How do you spell her name?”

“By golly. The kid can even work pen and paper!”

F
LETCH STOPPED THE
station wagon outside Air T’s departure gate at Huntsville Airport. “I won’t be going in with you, if you don’t mind. Home and bed for me. Thanks for the interesting weekend.”

Before getting out of the car, Jack said, “You went to Wisconsin yesterday to see my mother.”

“She sent her best.”

“How did she seem to you?”

“She kept herself concealed behind a curtain, Jack. I couldn’t really see her.”

“Oh.”

“As astute as ever.”

Jack got out of the car.

“Wait a minute,” Fletch said.

On the sidewalk, Fletch unbuttoned his shirt. “You’ve been wearing that shirt since Friday night. Mine isn’t exactly fresh, either, but at least, for the most part, I’ve been in air-conditioning since I put it on yesterday morning. I
don’t want you put off the plane because you stink even higher to heaven.”

“Switch shirts?”

“Why not?”

“Here?”

“We have a choice? You don’t have time to buy a new shirt.”

“No. I don’t.”

On the sidewalk, Fletch and Jack switched shirts.

Jack’s shirt smelled really bad. It felt grimy.

Jack asked, “How did you know I didn’t shoot at that cop? Because I didn’t know how to load the gun you handed me?”

“More than that.”

“What?”

“I doubt you’d attempt anything without accomplishing it. Even murder.”

F
LETCH WAS WITHIN
ten miles of the farm.

As soon as he could after leaving Huntsville Airport he had stopped at a truck stop for coffee. Before even ordering his coffee, he had bought a new shirt and thrown Jack’s into a rubbish barrel.

His new T-shirt had a logo on it which read: WHY HUG THE ROAD WHEN YOU’VE GOT ME?

He had a choice of either that logo or a beer advertisement.

Fletch felt strangely lonely.

The sight of Jack heading into the airport terminal in Fletch’s own shirt, carrying his plastic shopping bag full of a Big Story on disks and audio and videotapes, that silly small tattoo of a blue eye staring behind him from the top
of the calf muscle of his left leg, almost winking as he walked … the way Jack turned before going through the circular door, grinned and waved at Fletch, knowing full well his father was watching him …

He was missing the kid.

Shoot. I didn’t even know he existed before Friday
.

Fletch found the phone on the car seat beside him and pressed the number of the farm.

Carrie answered. “Hello?”

“Hello.”

“Where are you?”

“I’ll be home in a few minutes.”

“That’s good. Hey, Fletch! Guess what?”

“What?”

“I made a firecracker cake!”

Fletch said, “Oh, boy.”