The Yellowstone Event (Book 3): A Nation Gone Crazy Read online

  As far as the adoption agency knew she had no income other than her monthly disability payment.

  And it certainly wasn’t enough to support a child being brought into the home.

  No, legal adoption for Marilyn Petty was out of the question for more reasons than she could count.

  So when this opportunity presented itself… the opportunity to just keep a newborn baby instead of turning it over to its mother… she saw it almost as a gift from God.

  God had seen her suffering.

  He’d seen the agony she went through since the morning she found young Jacob dead in his crib. He’d seen her wail and ask why, again and again.

  He’d decided to give her a second opportunity.

  An untraceable baby. A baby whose mother was out there somewhere. But who had no chance of running back to the DHS to demand her infant.

  Marilyn had been doing this for a couple of years now.

  Working for the DHS, that is. Not stealing babies.

  She knew the drill.

  She knew that once the DHS completed an operation they vanished like thieves in the night.

  There was no contacting them. No way to find them.

  Someone who did contract work for them had to wait until the DHS came calling.

  A released suspect, like the true mother of Marilyn’s new baby, didn’t have a prayer of getting him back.

  Chapter 3

  One should never underestimate the value of friends. Especially best friends.

  Especially best friends who love you like a brother.

  Jeff had every right to be pissed off at Tony.

  After all, they’d had a standing date every Friday night to meet at David and Jessica’s house for more than a year.

  It was their “Warrior Quest” night. Their night to team up and play Warrior Quest against nameless, faceless adversaries the world over on the internet, while eating popcorn and drinking beer.

  It was something Hannah wasn’t interested in. Neither were Jeff’s occasional girlfriends.

  Hannah usually stayed home on those nights, relishing in the chance to have some peace and quiet, soaking in the solitude and her “me” time and knowing her gamer was safe and sound and not walking the streets somewhere.

  Then, three weeks earlier, Tony had disrupted their routine with a cryptic call on Jeff’s voicemail.

  “Hannah and I have to leave town for a week or so. I can’t tell you where or exactly when we’ll get back. If anyone comes looking for us, don’t tell them anything. I can’t elaborate any further, just trust me on this.”

  Yes, Jeff had every reason to be pissed off at his best friend. Seriously, who does this?

  Who leaves their Warrior Quest partner high and dry and goes running off somewhere and won’t even say where?

  Jeff was left fuming and partnerless, watching his other friends advance in the game while he sat idly by watching his ranking drop.

  Fuming and plotting. And practicing what he’d tell his so-called “best friend” upon his return.

  Perhaps he’d threaten to break up the partnership. Find someone else to play the game with.

  Someone more responsible. More reliable. Less likely to just spirit his wife away without notice to God-knows-where.

  Best friends don’t treat their best friends in such a manner.

  Jeff was ready to let Tony have it, once the little weasel dared to show his face again.

  Then Tony came knocking on Jeff’s door.

  And Jeff opened it to find Tony, beaten up and wrapped in heavy bandages, obviously desperate for help.

  And all of Tony’s transgressions were suddenly forgotten.

  “Tony! What the hell happened?”

  Tony ignored the question. There was just no time.

  “Jeff, I need to borrow your car. I have to go to St. Louis. I have to get Hannah. We have to find our baby.”

  “Whoa, slow down. Why is Hannah in St. Louis? And you mean she had the baby? I thought she wasn’t due for a couple of months.

  “What’s going on, Tony? Who beat you up? And who has been answering your cell phone every time I’ve tried to call you? And who were those men who’ve been by asking all kinds of questions?

  “And who in heck is Gwen? If you’ve been cheating on Hannah, Tony, I’ll beat you myself. She’s too good a woman for you to cheat on her.”

  “There’s no time, Jeff. I need to borrow your car. I’ll explain everything later.”

  A casual friend likely would have told Tony to take a hike and closed the door in his face.

  A good friend would have refused the car, but dragged Tony into the house to get down to whatever was going on.

  But Jeff was neither.

  Jeff was Tony’s best friend.

  And best friends are worth their weight in gold.

  “Get in the car, Tony. I’m driving.”

  Twenty minutes later the pair was driving east on Interstate 40 and Jeff was on his cell phone, doing his own explaining.

  His current girlfriend Becky was at work, nearing the end of a very long and very tiring shift at Mercy Hospital when the phone in her pocket vibrated.

  She had no choice but to answer it. She’d programmed the phone to ignore all calls when she was at work.

  All calls except the ones from her elderly parents and from Jeff.

  And none of them would call her at work unless it was something important.

  She ducked into a vacant exam room and answered.

  “Baby, I’m with Tony. He’s been beaten up badly. I’m taking him to St. Louis.”

  It took a moment for the words to register.

  Mostly because they made no sense at all.

  “Wait. What? Is Tony okay?”

  “Yes. I think so. I mean, he’s covered in bruises, but nothing seems to be broken.”

  “And you’re taking him where? Did you say St. Louis?”

  “Yes. Apparently Hannah is there, and she already had the baby, but somebody stole it. The same people who beat Tony up.”

  Becky took a deep breath and tried to make sense of it all.

  She was an emergency room nurse. She was used to dealing with hysterical people throwing information at her so fast it didn’t seem to make much sense.

  She also knew the best thing to do under such circumstances was to remain as calm and patient as possible.

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Nothing. At least not for now. I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Okay. Have you notified the police in St. Louis?”

  “No. Tony says they can’t do that.”

  “Their baby has been kidnapped and they can’t notify the police? Honey, what in the world is going on?”

  “All I can get out of him is that the government is involved. They’re the ones who beat him up and took the baby. And that when Hannah disappeared he called the police and they arrested him and he was in jail for four days. That was before he went to Washington…”

  Chapter 4

  “Wait a minute. Hannah’s missing? I thought it was the baby who was missing. And you’re going to St. Louis or Washington? Honey, you’re making no sense.”

  “I know. It’s all confusing to me too.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I don’t know. As soon as I can.

  Becky didn’t like this. Didn’t like it one bit.

  But she liked Hannah, though they weren’t as close as their men were.

  And she trusted Jeff. He wasn’t the type of guy who’d make up flimsy excuses so he could go out partying with the guys. He’d never cheat on her.

  And he wouldn’t leave without notice to drive his best friend to another state unless it was absolutely necessary.

  “Do you have your phone charger?”

  “I have the one in the car. I’ll keep it plugged in whenever I’m in the car so it stays charged.”

  “Did you take enough money?”

  “I didn’t have much cash, but I brought plastic.”
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  “Do you want me to call in sick for you?”

  “No. They might want to talk to me. I’ll call them from my cell. They won’t know I’m out of town. And I won’t have to lie to them. I really am sick. Sick of going to work and sick with worry for Tony and Hannah.”

  “Okay, honey. Be safe, and give me a call as soon as you sort everything out and let me know what’s going on.”

  “I will, baby. I promise.”

  Becky hung up the phone and placed it back into her pocket.

  She hated feeling helpless. When there was a personal crisis going on and she was powerless to help fix it.

  But there really was little she could do to assist in this particular situation. She’d trust Jeff to do what he could, and she’d try to keep her mind occupied.

  That was fairly easy to do in a hospital emergency room. It was a place chock full of its own crises. A place where no one knew, quite literally, what might come through the door at any moment.

  And it didn’t take long for Becky to get her mind off the whole situation with Jeff and Tony.

  For at that very moment the ER doors swung open and a young couple came in, carrying an unconscious little boy of eight or nine years.

  With a big ugly bullet hole in his abdomen.

  “Please, somebody help us!” the young mother wailed.

  The young father was stammering at the security guard who met them at the door, even as a trauma nurse took the boy from his arms.

  “I don’t know how he got ahold of it,” the father agonized. “It was on a high shelf in the closet. We didn’t even know he was in there… then we heard the gun go off…”

  Becky was off and running to Treatment Room 1.

  She’d have time to worry about Jeff and Tony later. Right now she had another life to save.

  Jeff took the exit for I-55 North just outside of Memphis.

  He looked at Tony, who was staring out the window.

  “We’ll have to stop for gas soon. Have you eaten?”

  But he got no answer.

  Tony was lost in his own thoughts.

  After a moment, he turned to Jeff and asked, “Did you say something?”

  “Yes. I said I have to stop for gas soon. I’ll wait until we’re away from Memphis so the traffic is lighter. Want me to grab a couple of sandwiches?”

  “Yeah. Sure.”

  The last thing Tony wanted to do was eat. He wanted to find Hannah and hold her. And reassure her that everything would be all right.

  The trouble was he’d have a hard time convincing her of that when he couldn’t even convince himself.

  Jeff noticed his friend was a little less tense now. A little more relaxed, now that they were well on their way to see Hannah and find the baby.

  Maybe now he’d be able to carry on a conversation instead of speaking in hysterical bits and pieces.

  “Tony, are you ready to tell me what’s going on?”

  “I told you already. We’re going to St. Louis.”

  “From the beginning, Tony. Start from the beginning.”

  Tony took a deep breath.

  “Hannah found out there’s a super-volcano underneath Yellowstone National Park. It’s what’s always generated the heat for the geysers and hot springs and stuff…”

  “I know. That’s all over the news. And it’s getting ready to blow too they say.”

  “You want me to tell you the story or not?”

  “Sorry. Go ahead.”

  “She works for the company that did the survey on the volcano. That determined it was getting ready to erupt again.

  “But the government, for whatever reason, wanted to keep the whole thing secret. They didn’t want the word to get out, so they kidnapped Hannah.

  “I went to Washington D.C. with Bud to get her back, and they threw us in jail too.”

  “Wait a minute. Who’s Bud?”

  “He was my bail bondsman and lawyer. The one who got me out of jail in Missouri.”

  By now Jeff’s head was spinning, trying to keep everyone and everything straight. But he said nothing.

  Tony continued, “Bud sent information about the volcano to a friend of his. Some professor at some big college somewhere. Very well-known and very respected.”

  A light came on in Jeff’s head.

  “Oh, you’re talking about Dr. Hamlin. He’s all over the news too.”

  “Yeah. That sounds about right. Anyway, he got the word out, and the world found out about the volcano. So there was no longer any reason to hold us and they set us free.

  “But Hannah gave birth while she was with the kidnappers. They were supposed to bring the baby to her before she flew back to Little Rock. But they never showed up.”

  Finally, Jeff had a pretty good idea what he was dealing with.

  And a mission, now that he knew how he could help.

  He got the sense Tony had a lot more to share.

  But now wasn’t the time to push him for more details.

  Now was the time to haul ass to St. Louis.

  He checked his rear-view mirror and didn’t see any highway patrol vehicles, then picked up his speed another couple of notches.

  Chapter 5

  Wayne surprised everyone in the cardiac intensive care unit.

  He’d had a massive heart attack.

  The big one.

  The one few people recover from.

  But he was either the toughest son-of-a-gun who ever lived or the luckiest.

  He opened his eyes after the fourth day in the CICU and looked around.

  He said, “Where am I?”

  And he caught everyone off guard, for no one expected him to wake up again.

  “You’re in the cardiac ICU at Hillsborough Hospital. Do you remember having a heart attack and passing out?”

  “I don’t remember passing out. I remember stumbling into the elevator and trying to make it to the ground floor.”

  “From what I hear, sir, your timing was perfect. I heard the elevator door opened in the lobby, right in front of two fire department paramedics who’d just finished up another emergency call in your hotel. They treated you on the spot and then transported you here.

  “Can you tell us your name, sir?”

  “Wayne Hamlin.”

  “And your date of birth?”

  “April fourteenth, nineteen-forty-six.”

  “You look awfully familiar to me, Mr. Hamlin. But I can’t place you. Are you a politician here in Washington, or maybe somebody famous? A movie star, perhaps?”

  “No. I’m a professor at the University of Missouri Springfield.”

  “Oh my God. That’s where I’ve seen you. They’ve been showing your photo on the news non-stop. Everybody in the country’s been looking for you.

  “We’ve got you listed on our patient records as a John Doe because you came in wearing only your underwear, with no identification.”

  “You say everybody in the country’s been looking for me? Who, exactly? And why?”

  He was suddenly a bit panicked, worried that the same people who got Bud had started a search for him as well.

  And that perhaps whatever happened to Bud would happen to him next.

  The heart monitor above his head raced from seventy four beats a minute to over a hundred, setting off an alarm.

  “Try to relax,” the nurse told him.

  “When I say everyone I mean the press, mostly. The President of the United States called you a hero for revealing to the world what his DHS was trying to keep secret.

  “He said he was personally going to award you the Medal of Freedom.”

  “What in heck is the Medal of Freedom?”

  She laughed out loud.

  “Well, now I don’t feel so bad, because I had the same question. Apparently it’s the highest award a President can bestow upon a civilian. It’s roughly the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor that military heroes get.”

  She leaned forward and whispered in his ear.

  �
�If you ask me I think he’s full of crapola.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When he says he didn’t know anything about the government trying to keep the whole Yellowstone thing a secret.

  “I mean, how could something that big go on without the President giving his approval for it? I think he knew and just doesn’t want to admit it.

  “Just how long have I been unconscious?”

  The nurse checked his chart.

  “Well, let’s see… you came in on Wednesday.”

  “And what day is today?”

  “Sunday.”

  “Oh my goodness. I have to call my wife. She must be worried sick.”

  “I imagine she would be. Is she local?”

  “No. She lives in Springfield.”

  “Missouri?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “Well, the phone on your bedside table only makes local calls. I’ll let you borrow my cell phone if you promise to give it back.”

  “Yes ma’am. I will.”

  What a silly woman, he thought. Like he was going to climb out of bed, rip out his IV and abscond with her phone wearing only his hospital gown.

  He kept that thought to himself. She seemed to be a nice person. No sense hurting her feelings.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket and handed it to him.

  “Do you know the number?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll be back in a few minutes to pick it up.”

  The nurse, whose name he did not know because her nametag was turned backwards, walked out of the room to update Wayne’s records.

  And to tell the other nurses they had a celebrity in the ward.

  Wayne tried his home phone three times, and was distressed to get a busy signal all three times.

  He assumed that she was on the phone chatting away to her friends, as she tended to do in the afternoons after her soap operas went off.

  Or maybe not. Maybe the phone was off the hook. If the media was searching for him she might have grown tired of hearing it ring off the wall.

  Her cell phone number, on the other hand, would be harder for reporters to get ahold of.