The Fix

by David Baldacci

  CHAPTER

  79

  DECKER RUSHED BACK around to the other side of the building. He noted the empty guard shack again. With the President’s visit, the guard was probably inside helping with security, he thought.

  Brown and Mars once more caught up to him.

  She said, “Decker, what are we going to do? Do you think they’re going to somehow try to assassinate the President and the two other leaders? Do you think the shooters are already in the building?”

  “Call Bogart, tell him what we suspect. Melvin, come with me.”

  They rushed off as Brown made the call.

  Decker ran over to the street and looked down at the manhole cover. And then he looked over at the Hoover Building.

  “The day Dabney shot Berkshire there were men working at this manhole.”

  “What were they doing?”

  “I don’t know.” He closed his eyes and thought back to that day. “There was no utility truck that I could see.”

  Mars looked more closely at the manhole cover. “It says Washington Gas.”

  “Can you open it?”

  Mars bent down and gripped the top of the cover. “Decker, it’s been sealed, look.”

  Brown had come up to them. “The Secret Service seals all the manhole covers the motorcade will pass over.” She paused and looked confused. “But the motorcade is on the other block. So I don’t think they came down this way.”

  “Did you reach Bogart?” asked Decker.

  She nodded but looked sick to her stomach. “Decker, he’s in the Hoover Building at the ceremony.”

  “Dammit. Did you tell him they need to evacuate the building?”

  “I told him what you suspected, but Decker, he can’t stop the ceremony and evacuate the building based on that. He said to call him back if we come up with something else.”

  “What, like when the President’s dead!” snapped Decker.

  In a calming voice Mars said, “Decker, what else do you remember from that day?”

  Decker focused on him. “I remember a utility truck going into the FBI building. And the guard told me that most of the exterior surveillance cameras are out of order.”

  “Anything else?”

  Decker glanced sharply at the building across from the Hoover.

  “There were workmen carrying materials into that building.”

  He led them over to it and they tried to peer through the windows, but they were taped over with thick paper on the inside. Decker tried the door. It was locked. He stepped back and looked up. “I don’t think there’s anyone in this building.”

  “It’s being renovated,” said Brown, pointing at a sign on one of the windows.

  “Then you think people would be here working, wouldn’t you?”

  She looked confused. “Do you think there’s a sniper’s nest in there? But the motorcade is on the next street over. They’d have no shot from here.”

  Decker said, “Call the gas company and find out if they had a team out here working on any lines under that manhole on the day Berkshire was killed.”

  “That might take some time.”

  “Just do it!” snapped Decker.

  Decker pulled his phone and called Bogart. The FBI agent answered and, speaking in a low voice, said, “Decker, I already told Brown, I can’t evacuate. The ceremony just started. But—”

  Decker interrupted: “What was the meeting about that Dabney was supposed to attend at the FBI when he shot Berkshire?”

  “What?”

  “The meeting! What was it for?”

  “Why does it matter? He obviously never intended to be there.”

  “But he picked that day to kill Berkshire, Ross, so just tell me!” snapped Decker.

  “Okay, okay. Dabney’s firm was consulting on some renovation work here. As you know, a new building is a long way off so they have to do work on myriad systems here—security, electrical, and other infrastructure—”

  Decker clicked off.

  He glanced around and then hustled to an alley and turned down it.

  Mars and Brown, her phone to her ear, ran after him.

  Decker reached an exterior door to the building. He tried the knob but it was locked.

  Brown and Mars reached him and she said, “Decker, what the hell is going on?”

  “Ellie Dabney said Berkshire’s spy ring wanted her husband to work for them.”

  “But he refused.”

  “I think he was smarter than that. He did that video, right? I think he met with them, pretended to be interested, and felt them out for what they were interested in. And what they were interested in was his work with the FBI on renovating their building. That was the meeting he was going to when he shot Berkshire. That was his second message to us, after the location of the attack.”

  “You mean the President is the target?” said Mars.

  Decker didn’t answer.

  “But why not just tell us directly before he shot Berkshire?” said Brown.

  “Probably because he didn’t know their exact plan. And they found out about the video and removed it, which probably told him that they were watching his every move, monitoring his every communication. They probably threatened him and his family: He does anything else to thwart them, they’re all dead. This was probably the only way he could see to do it.”

  “But why didn’t they kill him after they found out what he did with the video?” asked Brown.

  “Because that might have drawn suspicion to him at a time when they couldn’t afford it. They probably decided it was smarter to keep a close watch on him and then strike if he showed any signs of trying to go around them again. They didn’t know the Dabneys were planning to kill Berkshire.”

  He looked at Mars. “Want to pretend that door is a blocking sled?”

  Mars smiled and nodded. “I feel like I wanna hit something.”

  They backed up and charged forward. Nearly six hundred pounds of flesh and bone hit the door at speed.

  And the door lost.

  They fell to the floor on top of it but were quickly on their feet. Brown hurried in after them. Decker raced forward with the two on his heels.

  The interior of the building was a shell, with cables and electrical lines dangling from the ceiling, a set of scaffolding set up in one corner, some buckets with mops in them, and a few hand tools and power saws on workbenches. And a couple of sets of working lights.

  The only thing missing was anyone actually working.

  “Where are the workers?” said Mars.

  “Maybe because the President is here?” said Brown doubtfully.

  Decker said, “This all looks staged, in case anyone bothered to look.”

  “Wait a minute, what are you saying?” said Brown.

  “The woman who kidnapped Alex? I told her that even if she killed us, the FBI was a big organization and would keep after her. She said, No one knows what the future will bring.”

  “You’re not saying?” gasped Brown.

  “The target isn’t just the President and the two other leaders. They’re just the bonus. They told us the target might be symbolic? Well, the Hoover Building is pretty symbolic.”

  “There are over eleven thousand people in that building,” Brown exclaimed.

  “This way!” Decker barked. He was pointing to a set of stairs leading down. As they raced down the steps he said, “Anything from the gas company?”

  “You won’t be surprised to learn that they put me on hold. I’m currently listening to the Bee Gees.”

  They raced down two flights until they reached the basement. This too was an open shell. They looked around until Mars said, “Over here.”

  They joined him at the spot.

  They were staring at a huge spool of cable against one wall. It was taller than Decker.

  “What would this be doing down here?” asked Brown.

  Decker peered through the opening in the middle of the spool where ordinarily a forklift’s tines would be inserted to
lift it. “I can’t see through.” He stuck his arm in and felt around. “It’s been filled with something. It feels like concrete.”

  “Why would they have done that?” asked Brown.

  Decker tried to look behind it, but the spool was set right against the wall. “One reason would be to completely cover up whatever might be behind it,” he replied. He looked at Mars. “Ready?”

  He and Mars put their shoulders against one side of the spool, squatted down, and started pushing. The spool was immensely heavy, but the two men were enormously strong and, at least in their youths, accustomed to pushing large objects around. They strained and their feet slipped against the floor, and they swore and sweated and their veins bulged, but inch by inch the spool rolled.

  Finally, a hole in the wall was revealed. It had been punched right through the concrete.

  Decker peered into the dark tunnel that stretched ahead.

  “Anybody got a flashlight?”

  Brown held up her phone and clicked on its light. Then she pulled her gun. Decker did the same.

  She led the way.

  Mars looked at Decker. “You got any idea what’s going on here, Decker?”

  Decker glanced at him, his expression probably as serious as Mars had ever seen on the man.

  “The end of the chatter, Melvin. And maybe the end of everything else along with it.”

  CHAPTER

  80

  THEY WORKED THEIR way down the tunnel, finally coming to a junction where they saw a single beam of light from far above them.

  Brown pointed her phone light that way. “It’s the underside of the manhole,” she hissed. “The light is coming from the grab hole in the plate.”

  “Which means we’re under the street,” said Decker. “Way under the street.”

  “This must be what that manhole work was about,” said Brown. “They were somehow connecting up from the building we were in to this utility tunnel.” They hurried along and finally came to another junction. There was rubble and dirt piled up.

  “They also broke through here,” said Decker. “This appears to be where the utility tunnel originally ended.”

  They passed through the hole and into another tunnel.

  “How did all this happen right under the street and no one notice?” said Mars.

  “It’s not right under the street,” replied Brown. “We’ve been angling down this whole time. My guess is we’re over thirty feet down and there’s tons of dirt above us. Natural soundproofing.”

  They kept walking.

  “So where the hell are we now?” asked Mars, looking nervously around.

  Decker glanced at Brown. She looked ominously back at him. She said, “I think we’re under the Hoover Building.”

  They kept moving forward until they reached another hole punched in the wall. Only this one bled off to the side of the tunnel they were in.

  They cautiously entered a large space. They moved forward and rounded a corner. Another hole had been broken through the wall here. As they drew closer to it all three immediately began to cough and wheeze.

  “What the hell is that?” gasped Mars.

  “It’s gas,” said Decker, who pulled his jacket over his nose and mouth.

  He crouched and passed through the hole and into another room. There were enormous blackened concrete columns, a low ceiling, and a pile of rubble in the center of the room.

  His mouth and nose still covered, Decker looked down at the hole next to the pile of rubble. An exposed pipe was lying in the trench. It looked to him like a long, venomous serpent.

  Brown and Mars, their mouths and noses covered as well, joined him and stared down at the pipe. There was a hissing sound coming from the trench.

  “The pipe’s been compromised,” Brown said hoarsely. “That’s where the gas is coming from.”

  “Shouldn’t they have sensors or alarms for this?” said Decker.

  Brown pointed to the ceiling where several white-domed devices were attached. “They do, both. But I bet they’ve been bypassed somehow.”

  “What’s that thing?” said Mars, pointing to the right.

  Brown and Decker looked there. And both of them froze.

  It was a cylindrical metal device with wires coming out of the top. It looked like an oxygen tank that a scuba diver would use. It was attached to the pipe.

  Brown immediately said, “It’s a bomb.”

  “And it’s got a timer,” said Decker.

  The flashing digital clock was counting down. There were four minutes to go.

  “It looks too small to do too much damage,” said Mars. “Especially all the way down here.”

  Brown shook her head and coughed. “The bomb’s only the trigger. This place is full of gas. That’s where the explosive punch is going to come from.” She looked over at the columns. “And I’m betting those are load-bearing. The bomb goes off, the gas ignites, and those columns are going to go.”

  Decker added, “And the entire Hoover Building and everyone in it are going to come down. It’s like how they implode buildings scheduled for demolition.”

  “Let’s just take the bomb and get it out of here, then,” said Mars.

  He reached for it, but Brown grabbed his hand. “No. Do you see those blue wires? They’re accelerators. You take it off the pipe the countdown clock goes to zero. And boom.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “She was a bomb specialist in the Army,” answered Decker.

  Brown said, “Decker, you’ve got to call Bogart and tell him to get the President out of here and then evacuate this place. Now. Don’t make the call from in here. I have no idea if something in the phone might either set off the gas or accelerate the countdown. And you probably can’t get reception here anyway.”

  “But—”

  “Decker, move your ass. This is what I did for a living. Go! It’s the President, for God’s sake.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “Just go!”

  ‘I’m staying with you,” said Mars. “I can help.”

  “You can do jack shit. Now go with Decker. I’ll be along when I’m done.”

  “But Harper—”

  She screamed, “Dammit, Melvin, I’ve got three minutes to do this. Get out of here!”