Term Limits

by Vince Flynn

  “Two possibilities,” answered Heaney. “The first being they obviously wanted to make sure he was dead, and the second”—Heaney pointed toward the shell casings by McMahon’s feet—“two or more men fired the shots. Your ballistics people should be able to answer that for us.” Kennedy and Heaney trotted back down the stairs.

  “Let’s take a look at the one out front again.” McMahon led them out the front door and down the steps. “This guy got two to the face and one to the neck.” McMahon bent over and lifted the man’s jacket. “His gun is still holstered, but his radio is missing. We found it up there on the porch, by the broken window.”

  Kennedy looked to the broken window and back at the man by her feet. “They took the radio so they could find out if the guy inside knew what was going on.”

  Heaney looked toward the side of the house. “Were the shots fired from over there?”

  “Yes.” McMahon moved toward the side yard. “We found some shell casings over here. It looks like the perp took three shots. Two hit the man square in the face and the third hit him in the neck.” Heaney and Kennedy looked at the shell casings and judged the distance of the shots.

  “I assume the last marshal is out back?” asked Irene.

  “Yes. Follow me.” The three of them walked around the side of the house and to the backyard. As they approached the body, McMahon said, “Single shot to the head.” Skip bent down and opened the marshal’s jacket. “His gun is holstered and his radio is on his hip.”

  Heaney and Kennedy looked at the body for only a second, then turned their attention away from the marshal and the house. They took the whole landscape in without saying a word, swiveling their heads from side to side, their eyes focusing tightly on the darkness beyond the reach of the floodlights. Without turning, Heaney asked, “Skip, can you get them to turn these lights off?”

  McMahon said something to one of the agents, and the lights were cut, leaving only the small light over the back door on.

  The general started walking across the yard for the tree line. McMahon and Kennedy followed several steps behind, and a moment later they disappeared into the woods.

  Heaney navigated the dark forest with ease, ducking under branches and over fallen limbs that McMahon and Kennedy struggled with. Upon reaching the creek they stopped and turned back toward the house. Kennedy asked, “What do you think, General?”

  General Heaney looked at the FBI agents standing by the back door. “They can’t see us, can they?”

  “Not standing under that light they can’t,” responded Kennedy. “And we’re not even wearing camouflage gear. The light only goes to about the end of the yard and then dies out.”

  Heaney looked over to the other side of the creek. “I think it was two or more men. It could have been one, but it would have been really difficult. They were in and out in under a minute, and the marshals never knew what hit them, as is evidenced by the fact that none of them drew their guns. One or two men crept through the woods back here and took out the sentry by the back door with a single rifle shot to the head. The marshal by the front door was taken out next with an assault rifle, and then the man in the car at the end of the driveway was killed.”

  “I agree,” said Kennedy.

  “Why that order?” asked McMahon.

  “When they killed the guy in the car, they had to shoot him through the window. If they kill him first, the marshal out front hears the window smash and grabs his gun or radio or both. He grabbed neither because he was already dead when the window was shot out. In any case, the men outside died within seconds of each other.” The general shook his head. “These marshals never stood a chance. The guys who did this were good. The head shots are as accurate as you can get, and they’re commando style, three quick bursts to the head.”

  “How in the hell did they get so close to the guy in the car? He was shot point-blank.”

  “There’s plenty of cover around here. With the right camouflage, a commando would have no trouble sneaking to within ten feet of that car. After they take care of the three guards outside, all they have to worry about is the last marshal inside. The killers grab one of the marshal’s radios to make sure the guard inside wasn’t alerted . . . since his gun is still in his holster, it’s pretty obvious he wasn’t. They shoot him from the window, and then Turnquist comes downstairs to find out what the noise was, or maybe he was on his way down when it happened. They’re in and out in under a minute, a minute and a half tops, and all they leave behind is five dead bodies and a couple dozen shell casings. Very clean, very professional. I’m sorry to sound so heartless, but I’m just giving my professional opinion.”

  “No apologies needed, General. That’s what I brought you out here for. What do you think, Irene?”

  “The general is right. Things can always go wrong when you’re running an operation like this, but in relation to some of the missions we’ve run, this thing would have been a cakewalk. These marshals aren’t trained to deal with this kind of a lethal threat. We train our commandos to be able to defeat the best surveillance systems in the world, get by guard dogs, sneak past trigger-happy terrorists armed to the teeth, and then silently kill and get away without being noticed. . . . The guys who did this are good, and they’re used to facing a lot tougher obstacles than four U.S. marshals armed with radios and pistols.”

  McMahon bit down on his upper lip and thought about the remaining congressmen and senators, most of whom had less protection than Turnquist. Kennedy’s point was clear: if these guys weren’t caught, he would be spending more of his nights standing over dead bodies. “I need them to slip up . . . I need a break,” murmured McMahon.

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” replied Heaney.

  27

  THE DARK GREEN CHEVY TAHOE ROLLED EASTWARD down Highway 50. It was just past midnight and traffic was light. Michael kept the speed under sixty-five and stayed in the right lane. His left hand loosely gripped the steering wheel while he leaned on the middle armrest. The stereo was tuned to an AM news station, but he wasn’t listening. The question of who was behind the murders of Turnquist and Olson was pulsing through his mind.

  The exit for the cabin was approaching, and O’Rourke hit the blinker. Veering to the right, the truck started up the exit ramp. As he slowed for the stop sign, he rolled down his window and let the cold night air blow on his face.

  The cool breeze blowing through the window felt refreshing, but as the car accelerated, the wind rushing through the window grew annoying. Michael pressed a button, closing it. Five minutes later the unmarked road to the cabin came up quickly, and Michael braked hard. Gravel spun from under the tires as he banked into the turn and sped down the narrow road. Pulling in between two cars, he got out, walked around to the back of the truck, and lowered the tailgate. Duke jumped down and started smelling the ground as he ran in circles. Walking toward the porch, Michael whistled once, and Duke bounded to his side.

  Michael patted Duke on the head and told him to stay. Walking into the cabin, Michael took off his jacket and set it on the back of the couch. Seamus and Scott Coleman were sitting at the kitchen table. The greetings were curt. Michael apologized for being late and grabbed a mug out of the cupboard. While sitting down, he asked, “What in the hell are we going to do to stop this?” As Michael poured some coffee into his cup, he looked up for a response but got none. He took a gulp of coffee and asked, “Do we know any details about what happened to Turnquist?”

  Coleman said, “The congressman was shot approximately twelve times at close range. Four U.S. marshals were also killed. The word is it was very clean and very professional. Not one of the marshals got a shot off.”

  Michael closed his eyes and asked, “Do we have any idea who is doing this or why?”

  Seamus shrugged his shoulders and said, “Erik and Turnquist have been in Washington for a long time. I’m sure they’ve made plenty of enemies over the years. The real question is, who would have the type of contacts to do something like this on such
short notice?”

  Coleman set his cup of coffee down and said, “I agree. We have to assume that whoever is behind this has the power and the connections to put together an operation like this in under a week. That shortens the list considerably.”

  Michael thought about the type of people who would have that kind of power and said, “Unfortunately, we don’t have any contacts that run in those circles.”

  “I have a few,” said Coleman, “but if I start asking questions, they’ll want to know why I’m so interested.”

  Seamus shook his head. “Bad idea. The last thing we want to do right now is draw attention to ourselves.”

  “I agree,” said Michael, “but we have to do something.”

  Seamus pushed his coffee cup forward. “I have someone I can trust who is very connected in the intelligence community, or at least was.”

  “Who?” asked Coleman.

  “Augie Jackson.”

  “Who is Augie Jackson?”

  “He’s a very good . . . very old friend. We were in the Marines together during WW Two. After the war he went to work for the CIA and went on to become one of the Agency’s top European analysts. He retired about a year ago. He’s as honest a man as I’ve ever met.”

  “How often do you keep in contact with him?”

  “We talk at least once a month. Every summer we fly into Canada for a couple of days of fishing, and I usually go down and see him in the fall for a little duck hunting. . . . He lives in Georgia.”

  “Do you think you can ask him what he thinks without drawing any attention to our involvement?” asked Michael.

  Seamus thought about it for a minute and said, “I think so.”

  “All right, see what you can find out. I trust Augie.” Michael took another sip of coffee. “Now, what do we do in the meantime?”

  Coleman leaned back and crossed his arms. “This is tough. In all of our planning we never predicted that something like this might happen.” The former SEAL rolled his eyes. “I don’t know . . . something tells me we should lay low and see what happens. I think there’s still a good chance that the reforms will be implemented.”

  Michael said, “Absolutely not. You guys got this thing rolling, and you’re going to stop it before anyone else gets killed.”

  Seamus stared at Michael. “We don’t have the contacts to go snooping around.”

  “The FBI does.”

  “So?”

  “I think we need to alert them that someone else is involved in this.”

  “What will that solve?” asked Seamus.

  “If we call them, they’ll have to take us seriously. They will have to look into who would have the motive and the contacts to kill Erik and Congressman Turnquist. If they start asking questions and poking around, maybe it will scare these people away before they kill anyone else.”

  Seamus frowned and Coleman said, “I don’t like the idea.”

  Michael placed his forearms on the table. “You two started this thing, and whether I like it or not, I’ve been dragged into it. I am not going to condemn you for what you’ve done, but I will if you sit around while more good men get killed. We are going to do everything we can to stop this other group from killing again even if it means getting caught. Am I clear?”

  Coleman and Seamus reluctantly nodded yes.

  The clock on the desk said it was 6:12 A.M., Wednesday. McMahon was sitting in his chair with his face resting on a stack of reports. He’d left Turnquist’s house around midnight and came back to the Hoover Building to brief Roach. Since then he’d been busy assigning new agents to Turnquist’s murder and preparing for an 8 A.M. briefing at the White House. Sometime around 5 A.M., he’d laid his head down for a quick nap. He was too tired to get up and go over to the couch. The warning from Irene Kennedy and General Heaney that they could be spending more of their evenings standing over dead bodyguards and politicians had McMahon a little discouraged. He knew how to pace himself through the ups and downs of an investigation, but this was more frantic than most. The bodies were no longer coming in one at a time, and now that some fellow law enforcement officers had been killed, the investigation had taken on a more personal tone. When it was just senators and congressmen getting killed, he looked at the case with more detachment.

  McMahon was immersed in a vivid dream when a noise startled him. It took a moment for him to realize he was in his office and it was his phone, not his alarm clock, that was making the irritating noise. His head snapped up, and he lurched for the receiver. “Hello.”

  Michael was sitting in the back of the BMW as Coleman navigated the narrow residential streets of Adams Morgan. Next to O’Rourke on the backseat was a mobile scramble phone that Coleman had purchased through a third party in Taiwan three months earlier. The secure phone was mounted in a leather briefcase. Attached to the receiver was a voice modulator that converted Michael’s voice into generic electronic tones. The phone was touted as being trace-proof and could be used stationary, but neither O’Rourke nor Coleman was willing to trust it completely, so they stayed mobile when using it.

  “Special Agent McMahon?” asked Michael.

  McMahon went rigid upon hearing the electronic voice. Before responding, he pressed a button next to the phone starting a trace on the incoming call. Hesitatingly he said, “Yes, this is he.”

  “I will assume you are recording and tracing this call, so I’ll be brief. The people that killed Senator Fitzgerald, Congressman Koslowski, Senator Downs, and Congressman Basset did not kill Senator Olson, Congressman Turnquist, and their bodyguards.”

  There were several seconds of silence on the line while McMahon tried to grasp what he had just heard. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “There is a second group of killers. A group that killed Olson, Turnquist, and their bodyguards.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  Michael had anticipated McMahon’s pessimism and had asked Coleman for some bits of information that would give the call credence. “We let Burmiester live.”

  McMahon thought about the old man who lived across the street from Congressman Koslowski. The man they had found drugged and tied up the morning of the first three assassinations. “A lot of people know about Burmiester. That doesn’t prove anything.” McMahon was trying to stall and give the computers time to trace the call.

  “Mr. McMahon, we do not kill Secret Service agents and U.S. marshals. As we stated in the last message we left for you, we have a deep respect for members of the law enforcement community. Our fight is with the politicians, not you.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong—”

  Michael cut him off. “Ask yourself one question. If we were willing to kill four Secret Service agents to get at Olson and four U.S. marshals to get at Turnquist, why wouldn’t we have blown the president out of the sky last Friday?” O’Rourke let the question hang in the air and then said, “The answer is that we didn’t kill Olson and Turnquist. Someone else did.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because we don’t want to see innocent people die.”

  “And Basset and the others were guilty?”

  O’Rourke looked at his watch. “Mr. McMahon, I don’t have time to be drawn into a debate with you right now, so listen carefully. I don’t know who would want to kill Turnquist and Olson or why, and I’m really not in a position to find out. All I know is that they’ve killed eight federal law enforcement officers, and they’ll probably kill more if you don’t stop them.”

  “And what about you? Are you done killing?”

  “Yes.”

  McMahon started to speak, but the line went dead.

  28

  ROACH’S LIMO PULLED UP IN FRONT OF THE West Executive Entrance of the White House, and the director and McMahon rushed to the door. They were almost twenty minutes late. Jack Warch was waiting for them and ushered them quickly past the security checkpoint and to the Situation Room.

  The president was speaking and stopped when they
entered. Everyone turned and looked at Roach and McMahon as they took their seats. “I apologize for being late, Mr. President,” said Roach. “There was a last-minute development we had to take care of.”

  President Stevens ignored the explanation and looked back at Mike Nance. The attendees were CIA director Stansfield, Secret Service director Tracy, Secretary of Defense Elliot, Joint Chief General Flood, and Stu Garret.

  Nance said from the far end of the table, “As you were saying, Mr. President.”

  “Obviously, the FBI and the Secret Service can’t guarantee the safety of our congressmen and senators. Over the last two days my phone has been ringing off the hook. Every politician in this town is demanding that they be given more protection, and I don’t blame them. It’s bad enough that we can’t catch these terrorists, but it’s inexcusable that we can’t stop them from killing.” Stevens shot Roach a look of disgust. “After some discussion with General Flood and Secretary Elliot, I have decided to declare martial law for the immediate area surrounding the Capitol, the Senate and House office buildings, and the White House. Elements of the First Marine Expeditionary Force and the 101st Airborne Rangers will be used to secure the perimeter. These units will be in full combat dress and will carry live ammunition. General Flood has informed me that he will have this phase of the operation in place by sundown tonight.