PROLOGUE
Washington County, Indiana: New Year’s Day, 1952
Fran Jamison awoke and sat up on the edge of the bed, pulling the covers around her shoulders for a few extra seconds of warmth. The sun was just coming up, and she was anxious to get started on New Year’s Day dinner. Joe, her husband, grunted and rolled over as she stood and began to dress in the cold, semi-dark room. Pulling the curtain aside from the east-facing window nearest the bed, she could see that a fresh layer of snow had fallen during the night, giving the flat land around the farmhouse a cold sparkling beauty in the slanting sunlight. She opened the bedroom door and quietly walked down the upstairs hall, toward the bathroom and past a room shared by their twin daughters and another room that was their son’s. The door to the boy’s room was partly open; she glanced at Joey’s form under several quilts and paused to listen to his gentle snoring.
A few minutes later Fran was downstairs in the kitchen, making a batch of biscuits for breakfast. In the refrigerator was a turkey, ready to go into the oven when the biscuits were done. The radio was on and the Salem station was playing a Hank Williams song she hadn’t heard before.
Fran was at the sink filling the percolator with water when the morning brightness dimmed as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. Suddenly, she felt queasy. The sounds of the radio and the running water seemed low and distant, as though she had cotton in her ears. But in less than a minute the sunlight and sounds returned to normal. She sat the coffee pot in the bottom of the sink and slumped into a kitchen chair, a wave of weakness passing over her.
A few seconds later, terrible feelings of foreboding and dread welled up, unexplained, from Fran’s stomach. Her hands shook, and perspiration streamed down her face.
She jumped up, dashed from the kitchen and up the stairs, taking them two at a time. When she reached the upstairs hallway, she saw the door to Joey’s room was shut. The bathroom door was standing open, just as she had left it earlier. She opened Joey’s door, saw his empty bed and began to scream.
“What the hell? Frannie?” Joe mumbled as he lurched from his bed. He was unable to find his robe and, clad in his undershorts, rushed into the hall. Fran’s screams had also awakened the twins, who ran, panicked, into the hall, four identical green eyes wide with fright.
Joe grabbed Fran by the arms and began to shake her. “What is it?” he shouted. “What’s the matter?”
Fran’s screams dropped down into choking sobs. “Joey’s gone!” she gasped. “Something’s happened to Joey!”
Joe turned and burst into Joey’s room, flicking on the overhead light. Joey’s jeans and red flannel shirt were hanging on a chair beside his empty bed. His shoes were under the chair. Joe walked over to the window. It was locked from the inside. Through the partially frosted pane, he could see a field of undisturbed snow below. As if suddenly deaf, Fritz, the family’s German shepherd, was sleeping soundly on a rug at the foot of Joey’s bed.
For the next half hour the four frantically searched everywhere in the house for Joey. Joe even went up into the attic and down into the basement; finally, he went outside. He found nothing but a blanket of untouched snow. No footprints except his own. No tracks of any kind. There was nothing in the barn except the family Ford, some hay, and two milk cows.
Joe called the Sheriff’s office in Salem. The Sheriff, suspicious of Joe’s account of the boy’s disappearance, questioned the parents for more than an hour while deputies searched and house and barn. Later in the day, the Sheriff spoke to witnesses who had seen Joey and his mother at the IGA grocery in Salem the afternoon before he was missing. They appeared perfectly normal. The Sheriff, who had known the Jamison family for years, quickly dismissed any suspicions he had about Joe and Fran.
For the next two weeks police and volunteers combed the countryside for miles around the Jamison farmhouse, checking every barn, outbuilding, wooded area, and ravine. Icy ponds were dragged. Scores of people questioned. Eleven-year-old Joey Jamison had simply vanished.
On the second Sunday of the month, a prayer service for the missing boy was held at the Salem Methodist Church. Many years later both his parents went to their graves never knowing what happened to their son.
✳
The White House, Washington: Friday, December 19, 1980
Jimmy Carter, alone in the Oval Office, sat in a dusty-rose, wing-backed chair in front of a gently burning fire. A maroon file folder lay in his lap. He could barely hear the muffled sound of sleet pelting the thick, bulletproof windows that looked onto the South Lawn. He had just finished eating lunch at his desk and within the hour was scheduled to hold a third and final two-hour meeting with President-elect Ronald Reagan. Carter dreaded the meeting. He and Reagan didn’t like each other and were barely able to conceal it. Carter was annoyed at Reagan’s inability to grasp the simplest ideas the departing president had tried to discuss. He has the attention span of a gnat. Carter was annoyed with himself that he couldn’t clear his mind of the meeting and concentrate on something else. Well, at least it’ll be over in two hours. Then they can swear him in next month and he can worry about the hostages. If he can concentrate long enough to worry.
Carter stared at the fireplace and let his mind drift. He remembered his amused surprise when he moved into the White House four years ago and discovered that the heating and cooling systems were so sophisticated that the fireplace in the Oval Office didn’t draw naturally like a normal fireplace—the smoke had to be pumped out by hidden exhaust fans. If they weren’t turned on before a fire was started, smoke would fill the room.
A log popped, causing Carter to start and knock the folder from his lap onto the blue-carpeted floor. He leaned over and picked it up. Only the title page, the first of eleven pages, had partially slipped from the file. He studied the title: “A Summary of Three Reports on the Pine Bush Phenomenon.” “EYES ONLY — THE PRESIDENT, COPY 1 (ONE) OF 1 (ONE),” was stamped above the title and on each of the single-spaced, hand-typed and numbered pages. Each page, as well as the front of the folder, carried the imprint of the National Security Agency.
Carter reread the file’s contents for the third time that day. It only raised his irritation level. He knew the pages were filled with lies. And he knew there was nothing he could do about it. What he didn’t know was why. Why, whenever he asked for a summary or a report dealing with this subject, was he given lies? Prompt. Well-prepared. Documented. But lies. Presented to him in such a way that they couldn’t be disputed or challenged. Not without him looking like a kook.
Carter knew he should discuss the file with Reagan. He stared at it in his right hand. Then he stood, opened the fireplace screen and threw the folder and its pages onto the burning logs. He’ll find out soon enough. If he can stay awake that long. Or maybe he’ll never figure it out. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe there’s nothing that can be done anyway. He watched the pages and the file folder burn to ash. Then he walked over to his desk and signed a logbook, carefully adding the date and time. His signature certified that he had personally destroyed the file.
A quiet knock on the curved door leading to his secretary’s office told him that Reagan’s motorcade was pulling into the north portico of the White House.
✳
Ulster County, New York: The Near Future