“Enlightenment must come little by little — otherwise it would overwhelm.” Idries Shah PPenelope Spence awoke to find her head resting on Michael Walker’s shoulder and her left arm hooked under his, holding it tight. Blinking her eyes, she tried to orient herself. She was wrapped in a soft cotton blanket she couldn’t remember seeing before. They were in what appeared to be a rest stop along an interstate highway. The clock on the dashboard said it was just a few minutes before 7 a.m. She tried to untangle herself carefully, but when she did Walker’s eyes fl ickered open. He cleared his throat before saying, “Good morning.” “Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.” “I was already watching my body wake up,” Walker answered. “What does that mean?” Penelope said with a laugh. “It’s not important.” “If you say so,” Penelope answered while fighting a yawn. “Where are we?” “We’re at a rest stop in Richwood, Kentucky, about 15 minutes from the Cincinnati airport.” As if on cue, a large passenger jet in its fi nal approach for landing rumbled overhead. “How long have we been here?” “About four hours.” As she stretched and covered a yawn with the back of her hand, Penelope asked, “How long have I been asleep?” 166 Rod Pennington & Jeffery A. Martin “Long enough.” “I’m going to the powder room.” “Here.” Walker handed her a small plastic bag. A puzzled expression crept over her face as she looked inside the bag. It contained travel sized versions of all of her normal personal hygiene products, including her preferred toothpaste and deodorant. In plastic wrap was a new toothbrush, and there was also a washcloth and small hand towel. For a brief moment she considered asking how he knew exactly what toiletry items she preferred but decided she really didn’t want to know. “Th anks.” When she returned from her brief but refreshing trip to the ladies room, she was surprised to see Walker talking to a man who was leaning against the Bronco. He was a younger version of Walker and looked enough like him that he could be his son. Each was reading a copy of Th e Washington Post; a third copy was waiting for her on the hood. “Who’s your friend?” she asked. “Timothy Ellison, Penelope Drayton Spence.” Timothy Ellison shook her hand firmly, but not too firm, and made strong eye contact. “Ms. Spence, it’s a true pleasure.” Normally she hated it when men over 25 called her Ms. or Mrs., but there was something gentle and sincere about Ellison that practically made her want to adopt him. He was handsome with a rugged outdoorsy demeanor; the sun had started early smile lines on his face. Like every mother with unmarried daughters, she let her eyes drift to his left hand. There was no ring on the third finger and no shadow of one that had been recently removed. “Tim has worked on the Hermes Project since the beginning,” Walker said. “If I’m ever not around, listen to him and do what he says.” Ellison handed her a copy of The Washington Post. “Very impressive, Ms. Spence.” “Please,” she said as she spread the paper across the hood of the Bronco so she could get the full effect. “Call me Penelope.” To her surprise, Mark had done precious little copy editing. “Wow!” she muttered to herself. Every word on the front page of today’s edition had her byline. Mark had even added her as a source for the background pieces on the condition of Senator Horn. For a journalist, this was the equivalent of hitting a grand slam in the ninth inning of the seventh game to win the World Series while pitching a no hitter. It just doesn’t happen. 167 The Fourth Awakening “Here, Ms..,” Ellison caught himself. “Penelope.” He smiled as he handed her a hotel keycard. “What’s this?” Walker opened the passenger door and said, “Our next stop.” . WWalker backed partway into a parking spot in the rear of the Airport Sheraton, well away from the view of the front desk and any surveillance cameras. Jumping out of the Bronco, he grabbed a screwdriver, removed the license plate and tossed it into the nearby trash dumpster. Next he opened the tailgate and flipped the tarp back. Underneath, Penelope saw a familiar looking carrying case for a laptop and three pieces of luggage. Her luggage! “I see you grabbed more than just my laptop.” He shrugged as he pulled the four bags out of the Bronco and set them on the curb. This time she wasn’t upset; quite the opposite. She was eager to see what he had selected for her. Looking at the offending T-shirt he was still wearing, she didn’t hold out much hope. “So what would have happened to all of my stuff if I hadn’t come along?” Penelope asked. “You’d have found it sitting on your friend Joey’s porch,” Walker answered with a smile. Walker jumped back behind the wheel of the Bronco and slowly backed it up until its rear bumper was touching a six-foot high retaining wall. Locking the doors, he tossed the keys in the dumpster. “What in the world are you doing?” Walker smiled. “We aren’t going to need this car anymore and by making it hard to see the license plate, it is likely the hotel staff will walk around this thing for weeks before they do anything about it.” Leaving the laptop case for her, Walker and Ellison picked up the other three pieces of luggage and nodded toward the rear door of the hotel. By using the swipe keys that Ellison had already secured, they were able to avoid the front desk and any video equipment that might be near it. Their rooms were on the fi rst floor at the end of the corridor. Again using the magnetic card Timothy Ellison had given her, she opened the door to 168 Rod Pennington & Jeffery A. Martin her room and stepped inside. Ellison had booked them two adjoining rooms. Walker lined up the suitcases and pointed to the door that connected the room. “I’ll be in there. Please don’t leave the room for any reason, and keep the blinds pulled. If you need anything, tap on this door.” Penelope nodded that she understood. “How about I give you an hour to get cleaned up and change, then we’ll get some breakfast.” He was almost out the door when he turned back. “Wear your charcoal skirt, white blouse and the black Manolo Blahnik shoes.” “Why?” “For once, could you just trust me?” “It depends on what else I find in my suitcases.” Walker laughed as he pulled the door shut. Penelope couldn’t remember enjoying a bath so much in her life. Walker had done brilliantly. One of the suitcases, the largest one, was filled with some of her favorite shoes; including, of all things, her old college dancing shoes. Men. The other had the perfect mix of casual and formal clothes, just the right amount of underwear and her make-up kit. This man was certainly building up a considerable number of credits in her mental ledger. Feeling somewhat like a school girl getting ready to go to a movie with a boy she liked, she tried on a series of different white tops, hoping to find the one that best complimented the requested charcoal skirt, before settling on a simple white silk blouse. She was slipping on her black Manolo Blahniks, which also happened to be her favorite pair of shoes, when she heard a soft tap on the connecting door. She opened it and was immediately startled by what she saw. The man she had driven a third of the way across the country with was gone. No crude T-shirt, no long greasy blond hair and no pillow to give the impression of a budding potbelly. Michael Walker was clean-shaven, and wearing a perfectly tailored, three-button dark blue Armani suit with pinstripes. His shirt was pale blue and custom fitted. Around his neck was a tasteful pale blue Luigi Borrelli tie, and he wore handcraft ed Forzieri black leather Oxford dress shoes. With the hint of silver on his temples, he looked like he had just stepped off one of the pages of GQ. “You clean up nice,” Penelope said as she adjusted his tie and smoothed 169 The Fourth Awakening down his lapel. Catching just the faintest whiff of Emporio cologne, she said, “Smell nice too. Did you go to all of this trouble just for me?” “No,” he answered. Penelope pulled away; if Walker noticed he didn’t indicate it. “We have to make the right impression at the airport. We don’t want anyone slowing us down. We’re going to need you to wear the blonde wig and these,” said as he handed Penelope a pair of contact lenses. “They will make your eyes brown instead of blue.” Penelope didn’t like either idea, but didn’t protest. “I suddenly feel very underdressed.” “You’re dressed fine for your role.” She took another step back. “My role?” “For the next few hours all eyes need to be on Tim and me, not on you.” “Why?’ “If our latest bit of information from inside Homeland Security is correct, they are no longer looking for me.” He locked eyes with her. “Their main target is now you.” . NNoah Shepherd’s entourage filled the entire elevator. In addition to Robert Smith and Marcus Wolfe, there were four Homeland Security lawyers. It was his usual approach to display overwhelming numbers and power when dealing with a potential adversary. He wanted to do everything possible to intimidate Mark Hatchet and Th e Washington Post. A surprise visit might be enough to get them to back off from trying to discover the actual work that was being done at the Hermes Project and just leave it as some secret, classifi ed program. If he was successful, this story would blow over in a few days. Especially if he could locate Penelope Drayton Spence. Shepherd was a fit and elegant man in his early fi fties with an air of sophistication usually seen in career diplomats and those running entire departments of government. Coming from old money, Shepherd supported the arts and was also a generous contributor to politicians of both parties. He belonged to all the ‘proper’ social clubs and contributed to all of the right causes. He was well traveled and fluent in nine languages, including Mandarin, Japanese, and Russian. He was famous for requesting original copies of important documents and doing his own translations. “Crap,” Marcus Wolfe quietly muttered, when the elevator doors 170 Rod Pennington & Jeffery A. Martin opened and they were greeted by twelve men and two women in expensive business suits, all carrying notepads. In addition to Hatchet, the group included the publisher, editor, several senior editors, four corporate lawyers and even more outside counsel. Mark Hatchet extended his hand. “Director, we’ve been expecting you. This way, please.” All activity stopped in the busy newsroom as everyone’s eyes followed the parade of dignitaries down the corridor. Shepherd was not used to being outmaneuvered and he didn’t like it one bit. He had suspected there was a leak in his office and this confi rmed it. Worse yet, apparently it was at the highest level. Only three people knew they were coming this morning; Smith, Wolfe and him. He glared at Robert Smith as Hatchet guided them toward the conference room. After the introductions were completed and everyone was seated, Hatchet, sitting directly across the polished mahogany table from Shepherd, began the proceedings. “What brings representatives of Homeland Security to our offi ces this morning?” “We,” Shepherd said as he straightened his tie, “wanted to express our disappointment that your newspaper has decided to renege on your agreement not to pursue a story involving national security at the highest level.” Hatchet glanced at the Post’s head of legal, Leon Steinberg. Steinberg slid a piece of paper across the desk toward Shepherd, while a secretary moved around the table and handed each of the Homeland Security staff a copy. “I think you’ll find that in order, Director Shepherd.” “What is this?” “This, sir, is a release from Senator Clayton Lee Horn to Penelope Drayton Spence, allowing her to use any and all material from her meeting with the senator and their joint interview of Michael James Walker while he was being detained in the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, on Saturday aft ernoon.” Steinberg was a bull of a man with a thick neck and broad shoulders. He’d grown up in Brooklyn and earned his law degree at City College at night while working construction during the day. There was nothing he liked better than a good scrape with some prissy Ivy League elitist. His career was almost exclusively built on eating guys like Shepherd for lunch, and Steinberg considered them his primary source of roughage. “You will find that this release covers everything published in Th e Washington Post concerning this topic.” 171 The Fourth Awakening “That will be difficult to verify, considering the condition of the senator,” Shepherd said. Leon Steinberg smiled as he passed a second document across the table. “This is a copy of a notarized statement from Senator Clayton Horn’s Chief of Staff, Joan Louise Inman, verifying the accuracy of the release.” Steinberg waited until everyone had the document in front of them before he reached into his folder again. “And this is notifi cation of The Washington Post’s intention to withdraw from its agreement not to pursue this story.” “I must admit,” Shepherd said, not bothering to wait for the fi nal document to be distributed. “I find this disappointing.” “Sir,” Mark Hatchet said, “we do not enter into suicide pacts to remain idle while our competition is looking into something that may not be an issue of national security. At present we consider this story to involve the potential cover-up of a government experiment that, if exposed, would simply prove embarrassing.” “We strongly disagree with that characterization and reiterate that you are pursuing information, and have already published an unacceptable level of detail concerning, a project whose secrecy is of grave importance to the national security of the United States of America.” “We’ll be in a better position to evaluate your claims later today aft er we’ve talked to Dr. Carl Altman and have had the opportunity to review the Hermes Project fi rsthand.” Everyone on the Homeland Security side of the table fl inched except Director Noah Shepherd. Hatchet and his bosses could tell from their reaction, they had drawn blood. If The Washington Post had been able to find the Hermes Project, this was rapidly disintegrating from a containment operation to damage control. “I’m afraid any information you receive from Dr. Altman will be classified and we’ll seek a federal injunction to prevent it from being published.” Before Hatchet could answer, Leon Steinberg jumped in. “You can try, sir. But the federal government hasn’t won a prior restraint decision since before the Pentagon Papers, and that was over 30 years ago.” Shepherd rose to his feet, and his entourage to theirs a half-beat later. “Let me again express our deep disappointment and concern over the irresponsibility of the decisions being made on this matter.” 172 Rod Pennington & Jeffery A. Martin In the back of his governmental limo with Special Agents Smith and Wolfe, Shepherd was so furious he almost raised his voice. “We have a leak.” Shepherd’s eyes locked on Smith. Wolfe he was sure of, and there was no reason for him to have given the newspaper a heads up. Smith, on the other hand, had been close with both Walker and Altman. “Who else knew about this meeting?” “The other people who were with us?” Wolfe off ered. “No.” Shepherd said fl atly. “They were not notified there was even going to be a meeting until it was time to leave, and they were not informed of where we were going until we arrived.” “One of your two secretaries?” Smith said. “Possibly,” Shepherd said. “But not very likely. They only arranged our entourage but were as much in the dark as everyone else.” Assistant Director Smith could see where this was headed, and didn’t like the direction. “What about the computer guys?” Director Shepherd thought for a moment. “I don’t think so. While it is true Obee is the one who discovered that the Spence woman was working for the Post within minutes of her first appearance at the brig, he didn’t know about the meeting. Besides, he has no loyalty to anyone in the Hermes Project and he seldom leaves his room.” “What about the other guy?” Wolfe asked. “I only dealt with Zhack, or whatever he calls himself,” Smith said weakly. A heavy silence settled over the car. Having played political games himself for years, Director Shepherd knew that as situations changed allegiances could as well. Adjustments often had to be made. Perhaps the Assistant Director was feeding Walker information in the hope that when this unraveled he could avoid becoming everyone’s scapegoat. Th at was what he would have done. “Whatever it takes,” Director Shepherd said. “I want Penelope Spence found before she can file her next story.” . TTimothy Ellison, now dressed just as nattily as Walker, joined them for breakfast, where Walker was already explaining what they were going to do and why. “We’re going to have about fi ve hours of vulnerability, from the time 173 The Fourth Awakening we enter the Cincinnati airport until we leave the Salt Lake City airport,” Walker said. “After that we’re home free.” “Aren’t you afraid we’re going to be seen?” Penelope asked. Walker didn’t answer but exchanged smiles with Ellison. “What?” “Trust me,............