The Oracle Year(25)
Chapter 10
Thirty miles west of Duluth, Minnesota, a navy-blue-and-white Sikorsky H-92 helicopter holding the designation Marine Two touched down on the front lawn of a large Victorian home, throwing up huge clouds of billowing, pristine snow, sparkling in the cold sunshine.
The house stood alone on an estate of a hundred acres of rolling midwestern hillsides and woods, and a large section of the lawn had been cleared of the three feet of snow on the ground in anticipation of the aircraft’s arrival. Two hundred yards to one side from Marine Two sat a sleek black executive copter fitted with wide skids to allow it to land on the snow, tiny in comparison to the huge Sikorsky, like a shiny, dark-skinned beetle.
Several other helicopters were dotted along the lawn and the long, curving drive leading from the house to the nearest road, over a mile away. These were matte black, with discreetly mounted weapons pods, and had disgorged contingents of Secret Service agents and U.S. Marines in winter gear, who now stood at strategic points on all sides of the house, looking both inward and outward.
A lone figure sat on a glider on the home’s wide front porch, sipping from a thermos and swinging slowly forward, back, forward. He was bundled against the cold—puffy coat, earflapped hat, thick scarf.
Inside Marine Two, Anthony Leuchten peered out the window at the figure sitting on his porch. He was smaller than expected, the name “Coach” having conjured up images of burly midwesterners with red cheeks and girthy waistlines. But this man seemed short, almost delicate.
“That’s him, huh?” he said. “The Coach.”
“Yeah,” Jim Franklin answered. “More or less.”
Leuchten frowned. The details for this meet had only been finalized earlier that day—a matter of hours, really—set to occur at his family home in rural Minnesota, completely snowed in, accessible only by air. And somehow, the man had arrived first, and was already sitting on his porch drinking coffee when the advance security teams arrived.
Leuchten found that extremely irritating.
He turned back to the FBI director, sitting across from him in a beautiful, pale leather seat with the presidential seal incised into its headrest.
“You aren’t wasting my time here, are you?” Leuchten said. “Because this would be a really bad time to have my time wasted.”
Franklin gave him a very dark look, black as pitch.
Leuchten knew the FBI director hated him. He was used to it. A lot of people hated Anthony Leuchten.
People hated him because he won. Mustering energy to care that people were frustrated when he beat them seemed like a tremendous waste of time—which was something he did care about, very much. There was a vision to be realized, after all, and only so much time in this life to get there.
He locked eyes with Franklin, keeping his face blank, and then he winked. A flicker of confusion rippled across the other man’s face, which Leuchten enjoyed immensely.
He leaned forward and rapped on the helicopter door. A marine standing just outside opened it, letting the warm cabin air out and the freezing Minnesota winter in. Leuchten made his way out of the aircraft and along the shoveled-out path to his own front porch, where the Coach sat waiting, still swinging, watching him.
As he drew closer, the Coach’s face—smiling—came close enough for him to make out. And then Leuchten stopped cold, because the Coach was not a small, delicate man after all. The Coach was a woman.
Leuchten forced himself to take another step, watching as the woman on the porch got to her feet. He thought back to the conversations he’d had with Franklin about the Coach, and not once could he remember the FBI director mentioning that his mysterious fix-it man was in fact a mysterious fix-it woman. Franklin hadn’t corrected Leuchten, either, not in all the times he’d referred to the she as a he.
Leuchten resolved to ask the man why he had done such a rude, suspicious thing—right before he fired his insubordinate, ineffective ass.
All this ran through Leuchten’s head as he approached the porch, his polished loafers slipping on the snowy path. As he neared the steps, the briefest shadow of displeasure crossed the Coach’s face, but it was wiped away instantly, replaced by an even larger grin.
“Mr. Leuchten, sir,” she exclaimed, stepping forward with hand outstretched as Leuchten reached the porch, “it is an honor and a privilege to meet you.”
Leuchten reached out his ungloved hand to meet the Coach’s mittened one.
“Goodness, look at me,” the Coach said, quickly tugging the mitten off her hand. “No manners at all. I’m just excited, sir, that’s all.”
She grasped his hand and shook it warmly, a firm, dry grip.
Leuchten considered the Coach, deciding that she reminded him of Bea Arthur. High-cheekboned face surmounted and defined by a thin, aquiline nose like half an isosceles triangle. Sharp, clear blue eyes behind rimless spectacles, with that smile powering the whole thing. Overall, it gave the impression that under her puffy winter coat, she was wearing a T-shirt that said world’s best grandma.
Even with a career spent around good politicians and all their native charisma, and being able to exude no small amount of charm himself—when necessary—Leuchten felt himself warming to the Coach’s aw-shucks demeanor. He pulled back, forcing himself to remain aloof. He knew frustratingly little about this woman beyond Franklin’s stories of her superhuman ability to solve problems no one else could—and he’d been skeptical when he’d thought the Coach was a man. Now that he knew she was a woman . . . it all just seemed ludicrous. Some sort of ridiculous game.