The Chosen (18 page)

Chapter
2
4

L
ess than
five minutes
after
Kris le
ft
the house to go meet with Julian one morning, Keith received a text message on the burner cell phone that David had given him.  He had not actually spoken to David since the meeting with Jessie and Kyle, but only David had this number so only David could have sent the text.

The text message ordered, “Check your email.”  Keith logged into the secure account that he had given David for sending the photos, but thi
s email had no photos attached.
Instead, Keith read the following message:

“You are being watched closely.
Leave the television on upstairs. Do not go out into the street. Exit the house using the tunnel. When you reach the stre
et, you will see a late model Nissan
,
license plate
GAZ681, parked
at a meter.
W
hen you reach the car
,
text STREET
,
and I will unlock the doors remotely and start the engine for you.  Drive to the
h
arbor and meet me by the docks. Bring the mobile phone that you use to communicate with Jessie. Leave now. The situation is urgent.”

“What?” Keith reread the message.
  Was this some kind of a joke?
David didn’t seem like much of a prankster. Keith
ran back upstairs and turned on the television. He routinely kept all of the windows covered so that passersby would be less aware of who lived there and what they might be doing. That was partly because
Keith had always assumed that f
ederal authorities were watching the house and partly because he knew that in a neighborhood as crime
-
infested as this one someone would surely be watching.

Hurrying downstairs he opened the tunnel and stepped
into
it.
From inside the tunnel h
e could only move the temporary wall hiding the
opening part of the way
—usually the door was closed from inside the house rather than inside the tunnel. He hoped that whoever was watching
woul
d not come in and find it. Maybe they were just waiting for confirmation that he was gone to come in and search the house. Maybe the house had been a trap all along. Oddly enough, it never occurred to him that this meeting with David might
also
be a trap
, and
he made his way through the tunnel as quickly as he could. 

Keith’s level of physical fitness had varied widely in his life
. At one point his weight had ballooned
to 250 pounds
,
and
he had
not be
en
able to
even
walk around the park without
becomi
ng winded
.  Three years later he had trimmed down to 145 pounds and ran
a half marathon. At this point in his life he was solidly between those two extremes—certainly not overweight and generally healthy but in no condition to run a
marathon
either. He hurried along at as much of a jog as was possible in
the
small tunnel with stale air and no light; his pace was just sufficient to allow him to trip a few times without
falling down
.

Finally
,
Keith
saw
the light from the street. The grate was open at the end of the tunnel
,
and he slipped out onto the street without being noticed and squinted in the sunlight looking for the car. Across the street from him several cars
were
parked by meters
;
he crossed and found the right one.  Immediately after sending his text message he heard the car doors unlock and the engine start.  Within seconds he was behind the wheel heading to the address David had given him. As he drove his uneasiness grew.  Keith liked conspiracies, subterfuge
,
and cloak and dagger, but the events of the last few months had caused most of the excitement to evaporate leaving
,
instead
,
a cold growing fear that he too would
become another
nameless person in a government prison. When
he
had lived alone in his
trailer near
the Lincoln National Forest
,
he had fallen asleep many nights thinking that one day the Feds would come for him
,
and he would have
a
glorious standoff with the government in which he would die in a huge firefight. That had seemed glamorous at the time, especially since there were no federal agents and there was no danger of a firefight—just the night sounds of the forest as small animals fled capture by larger ones and insects sang themselves to sleep. Since his parents’ deaths, the danger had become real and personal—no longer just a fantasy. But witnessing Michael’s and Jeff’s arrests had made it more personal still—he had seen them handcuffed and shuttled off to some unnamed prison, and now he dreamed many nights that he and Kris were being arrested too.  In those dreams there was no firefight—no glory—just a terrible icy fear and a sense of betrayal as government agents took him away. He had never told Kris about those nightmares, but they
had become so frequent
that he dreaded going to sleep. Now as he neared the docks he wondered if this were the day that his nightmares were going to become reality.
F
or the first time, he wondered if maybe this were a trap.
After all, w
hat
did he really know about David
? He had flippantly told Jessie and Kyle that he would vouch for David because he was a good judge of character, but how could he v
ouch for someone he
hard
ly knew?
How could he have revealed so much to a stranger on the basis of a gut feeling?

David was waiting for him at the docks. For an instant Keith had an impulse to keep driving, but he couldn’t.  David knew where they lived; he knew about the tunnel; he could enter th
e
house without Kris ever even knowing he was there. No, Keith had to find out what this
was
all
about.

Getting out of the car he tried to stay calm and appear relaxed, “What’s up?”

“Walk with me,” David responded. “You’re being watched and followed everywhere. The Feds are desperate to stop
T
he
Line
U
p
,
and they’re positive that you and Kris are involved. You can’t meet with Jessie and Kyle
again
n
or
can you
have any contact with them. Arresting Kris would be awkward right now because of the publicity she
’
s getting.
Arresting you is awkward because you’re her brother and the light shining on her illuminates you a little too. That’s the only reason you
’
re still walking around. But Jessie and Kyle are a different story—if the Feds find them they won’t just arrest them—they’ll kill them both immediately.”

“If I don’t work with Jessie and Kyle, they can’t get the pictures and that stops
The
Line
U
p
anyway.  What am I supposed to do?”

David ignored his other comments.
“Did you bring the phone?”

Keith nodded and reluctantly pulled it out of his pocket. 

“Text Jessie:  ‘No more emails. Situation serious.  Do not send Kyle back to the house. He has been spotted.’”

Keith looked up from the texting. “Spotted?  How?”

“The Feds have some informants on the street.  They flagged a skinny kid in a hoodie making two trips to the building.  They don’t know who he is yet, but if he goes back
, they will
. Text this to Kyle, ‘Pick up
flash drive
with photos at
noon at
the corner of
Center Street
and Michigan Avenue
.
Wait there; s
omeone will find you.  Don’t be late. No hoodie.’”

As soon as the message had finished sending, David took the phone from Keith’s hand and threw it into the harbor. Keith watched in shock as it sank beneath the water.

When he looked back at David he saw that
he
was holding a flash drive.  “Insert this into your laptop. It will wipe out the hard drive. If your laptop is seized, the best Homeland Security techie won’t even be able to find evidence that it once contained a spell checker.  Use it as soon as you get back. The White House is about to announce that
The
Line
U
p
is the most heinous act of domestic terrorism to affect our country in years; the Feds can search your house without a warrant whenever they want to, and that includes searching and taking your laptop.”

“What makes you think they haven’t searched it already?” Keith asked.

“I would have heard about it.
T
hey’re not the only ones with informants.”

“Who are you?” Keith stared at David.

“Don’t ask.
From now on, stay with Kris.
G
o where she goes; go to her meetings with
Cicchetti;
go to
her interviews. Tell her you
’
re concerned about her safety now that the case is getting so much attention. Don’t leave her side
, a
nd don’t take any more risks. You’ve done what you needed to do.  Take care of yourself, Keith.”

David slapped him on the shoulder, got into the car, and drove away, leaving Keith standing on the docks. He stared down at the water for quite a while before
s
tart
ing
his long walk back. Suspecting that the Feds were watching his every move was one thing—hearing it confirmed was another.
T
o learn that David had been watching him too was equally
disconcerting. He could no longer talk to Jessie or Kyle—that too was unsettling. 
Y
et, in spite of all that as he walked
back to the house he felt
a profound appreciation for the fact that he was free—no SUV had scooped him up to
shuttle
him off to a labor camp or some military pris
on.
For one
moment
, he felt as if while everyone else was watching him, perhaps Someone else had been watching over him—keeping him safe. That thought made Keith uncomfortable—what would make him deserving of special help
?
  Certainly
,
he was not more deserving than Michael or Jeff or O’Brien.  So why was he free and not them? If there were some other force at work guiding and protecting him, why hadn’t
i
t guided and protected them? The more he thought
about it
the more nervous and uncomfortable he became—after all, he might be able to evade the Feds forever, but if God were intervening on his behalf, there would be no escaping from Him. By the time he
reached
the house he had almost convinced himself that his own freedom had to be due to own exceptional cleverness rather than divine intervention, but the more he repeated
those words
to himself the more he knew
they were
a lie. 
A
lot of clever people
had been
imprisoned
—
he
knew because he had seen their pictures and read their stories.

∞

At noon Kyle stood
on
the corner
of
Center
and Michigan
trying to look
in
conspicuous.  He had no idea who he was meeting or why—just that Jessie had shared Keith’s message with him.
A
s he was about to leave
,
a homeless man with a long beard and a shabby coat
shuffled
up to him and asked him for change. “All I got is a couple of pennies, man
,
” Kyle answered.

Without saying a word the vagrant held out his hand, and when Kyle gave him the change, he pressed a f
lash drive
into Kyle’s palm.
Kyle looked at him suspiciously—the man was filthy
,
but there was something familiar about his eyes—something he had seen before.  He wrapped his hand around the flash drive.

“God bless you
,
son,” said the vagrant.
“See you tomorrow.”
And he hobbled off down the street, while Kyle took the flash drive and headed back in the direction of the convenience store where he was going to purchase Red Bulls as his excuse for making th
e
trip in the first place.