“Shut up.” Smoke smacked Possum on the ear. “I gotta find out where they park that helicopter, then we’re gonna take it. Maybe hot-wire it.”
“You don’t got to hot-wire it,” Possum dared to offer as his ear rang with pain. “I seen something ’bout them on the Discovery Channel. All you do is push a button, they start right up. Then you lift this little handle and steer with a stick.”
“Driving a helicopter ain’t the same as driving a truck.” Cat broke his silence. “I don’t know if we could pull it off.”
“Find out where the state police airport is,” Smoke ordered his road dogs. “Look it up on the GPS.”
Unique didn’t need a GPS to find her way around, nor did she have one. Smoke did not supply her with special weapons and equipment, although she could get anything she wanted from him, if needed. But Unique had her own special techniques that radiated from her Darkness where the Nazi dwelled deep inside her soul. As she drove her Miata along Strawberry Street, she felt weightless and airborne. She was flying through the night, her long hair streaming behind her and the wind cool on her delicately pretty face. She parked a block from the blond undercover cop’s row house, not having a clue that he was Andy Brazil–the very cop that Smoke had just been talking about.
Unique had not known Smoke back in the days when Andy and Hammer had arrested him, and therefore she had never seen or met either one of them, to her knowledge. Were Unique not controlled by evil, it might have seemed a remarkable coincidence that she was stalking not only Smoke’s enemy, but also Trooper Truth, and had no clue. But in fact, nothing that happened in Unique’s life was coincidental or accidental. She was guided by her Purpose, which had directed her to leave the trash bag on the undercover cop’s porch and tape an envelope to his front door.
Twelve
Overlooking the city from the top of one of Richmond’s seven hills was a historic row house that Judy Hammer had taken great pains to restore and furnish impeccably. She was paying bills at her antique rolltop desk, the lights of the city spread out beyond the window in a comforting circuitry that reminded her she had a tremendous responsibility to Virginians and had become a role model to women throughout the nation.
All the same, it was no easy matter finding eligible men when one is creeping closer to sixty and carries a gun in her Ferragamo handbag. Hammer was feeling lonely and discouraged and had been terribly unnerved by seeing the photograph of Popeye on the website. It had also been another bad day in the news. A woman was suing McDonald’s for allegedly having been burned by a pickle from an improperly constructed hamburger. Then a legally blind man and his brother tried to burglarize an apartment, and the pair made the tactical error of deciding the blind brother would be the lookout. Not to mention the people who were getting blood clots from flying coach and the local police who were dredging the James River again for guns, since most suspects claimed they tossed their weapons off bridges after committing their crimes.
Hammer was a little surprised that she hadn’t heard from Andy by now. She worried that the silence might indicate a failed connection with the governor. Perhaps he and Macovich had been unable to make contact, or if they had, the results were not helpful. Just as these thoughts were making the rounds in her mind, the telephone rang.
“Yes,” she answered curtly, as if she hated for anyone to bother her.
“Superintendent Hammer?” Andy’s voice traveled over the line.
“What is it, Andy?” Hammer said.
He was driving east on Broad Street, where surly teenagers lingered on corners and in front of boarded-up buildings, glaring at the unmarked car with all of its antennas and hidden blue lights.
“I’m not too far from Church Hill,” Andy said as he kept up his scan of shifty-looking people. “If it’s not inconvenient,” he bravely pushed ahead, “maybe I should drop by and tell you what’s going on.”