by Joseph Flynn
So as they returned to their townhouse, Sweetie asked, “Do you like to be called Maxine or do you have a nickname?”
The girl looked at her and said, “Mama and Daddy call me Maxi; I like that.”
“May Putnam and I call you Maxi, too?”
The girl looked at Sweetie, considered and nodded.
Then she asked, “Do you have a nickname?”
“My friends call me Sweetie.”
The girl giggled and ran up the front steps. Putnam took Maxi to her room to talk with her before she went to sleep. After an hour, Sweetie looked in on them. Maxi was asleep in her bed; Putnam was curled up on the floor, a stuffed elephant tucked under his head for a pillow. Sweetie put a blanket over him and closed the door behind her.
She went to the living room, sat in her favorite chair and said her rosary.
Not ready for sleep after that and not knowing what else to do, she turned on the television, with the sound down, and saw a panel of reporter wearing their most serious faces and talking in grave tones. A caption beneath the panel read: Armies on the Mall.
By reflex, Sweetie asked herself: Is Jim involved in this?
Her answer was to jump up, leave a note for Putnam and rush out the door.
All but certain McGill was on the Mall and would be glad to see her.
The Oval Office
“The Secret Service won’t let —” Galia Mindel started to say, attempting to repeat a warning she’d given the president several times already.
The president held up a hand to cut her off.
Despite having misgivings that left her trembling, the chief of staff knew better than to ignore a presidential order to keep quiet. The president was on the phone now, had placed the call herself and the party on the other end had just picked up.
“Jean? I’m terribly sorry to wake you, but I need you to get down here right away. The Oval Office, yes.” The president listened for a moment. “Yes, I’m afraid it is that serious. After we’re done speaking, I’m going to call the chief justice and have him be here with you.”
Oh, God, Galia thought, she’s really going to do it.
The chief of staff saw the president smile.
“Thank you, Jean. That means the world to me, but this is something I really have to do myself. No, I’ll have left before you arrive. That’s why it’s important that you hurry.”
Not allowing Galia an opportunity to speak, the president placed a call to Chief Justice Craig MacLaren and dragged him out of his bed, too. He promised he’d be at the White House within minutes. By the time the president put the phone down, Galia had tears in her eyes.
“To hell with the Secret Service,” the chief of staff said, “I won’t let you do this.”
The president put her hands on Galia’s shoulders, kissed her on each cheek.
“You are my beloved older sister,” she said. “It looks like Jean Morrissey is becoming my kid sister, and she’s more impetuous than I am. If it turns out that she needs you, I want you to be there for her. Promise me that, Galia.”
The chief of staff bobbed her head and then sobbed, throwing her arms around the president. Patti let her hold on for a moment and then eased free from the embrace. She stepped behind her desk and picked up the jacket that she had draped over the chair.
It was a brown leather bomber jacket. The presidential seal lay prominent on its right breast. In an arc above the seal were the words Commander in Chief. The only place Patricia Darden Grant had worn the jacket before that night was at Camp David.
Tonight, though, she intended to leave no doubt what her role would be. She thought the jacket looked good with her denim shirt, Levis and her black AdiZero shoes. Her hair was pinned back and she wore no makeup. Even at a time like this, appearances mattered. You had to look the part to bring it off successfully.
Taking a moment to compose herself, Patti Grant got her game-face on.
With her usual impeccable timing, Edwina Byington opened the door to the Oval Office and said, “Madam President, Marine One is ready for take off.”
Just then an image of McGill appeared on the muted television in the Oval Office. The image was grainy and flickering. The media may have been denied their usual tools to bring the world into everyone’s living room, but it looked like someone had figured out a way to make a cell phone do the job. The president saw her husband approach an armed man.
She strode out the door.
Jim had forced her hand.
The country and the world had to be shown.
The president of the United States fought her own battles.
The National Mall — Washington, DC
McGill knew he was walking toward Fisk. He could see the distance between them diminish, but he didn’t feel his feet touching the ground. He felt as if he were gliding a millimeter above the winter-withered grass. He was sure that, if he wanted, he could set upon Fisk and have the man’s throat in hand, crush his windpipe before he could bring his rifle to bear, much less get a shot off.
Not that Fisk was motionless. His feet looked rooted to the earth, but his head tilted over one shoulder and then the other. His arms drew close to his chest and then relaxed. His hands tightened and then loosened their grips on the assault rifle. His knees flexed, as if to relieve tension in his legs rather than leap toward McGill or run away from him.
McGill took all this in, along with the blur of figures in the background, the body of men who called themselves a militia and came to their nation’s capital bearing arms, the better to express their political grievances. Or maybe to see how many people they could kill as a means of establishing their preferred order. They weren’t McGill’s concern right now.
He had eyes only for Fisk.
He stopped ten feet away from the man.
“Are you Harlan Fisk?” McGill asked.
Fisk brought his carbine tight against his chest, as if that would keep him safe.
He nodded and said, “That’s me.”
“You know who I am?” McGill asked.
“I do.”
McGill got right to the point. “Did you threaten to kill my children?”
Fisk’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down in his throat, as if he had a sudden problem swallowing. He looked past McGill, seeming to search for a more distant threat.
“You think somebody’s going to shoot you?” McGill asked. Then he laughed, “You’re not worried that you’re being recorded, are you? That you might incriminate yourself if you make an admission of a crime. Believe me, that’s the least of your troubles right now.”
Anger flared in Fisk’s eyes as he put them back on McGill.
He flicked the carbine’s safety off.
McGill said, “You’re going to shoot me? You’ll be dead before you can point your weapon my way.”
Fisk looked past McGill again still searching, looking at the trees lining both sides of the Mall.
“If you’re trying to spot snipers, don’t bother. Those guys are too good. They have real-world experience. Nobody’s playing games here.”
Fisk stared at McGill, angrier than ever.
“What about you, coming out here unarmed?”
“I came here to talk because I was told you wanted to see me.”
“I want you to let my Elvie go,” Fisk said.
“Because of the threat you made, even if you won’t repeat it now. That won’t happen. But if you and your friends lay down your guns, give up without a fight or trying to run, things could look pretty good for Elvie.”
Fisk gave a harsh laugh.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? One man taking down the First Michigan Militia without firing a shot.”
McGill shrugged. “Seems like the wisest course to me. That and you apologizing for making your threat. Saying it will never happen again.”
Fisk squinted when he tried to find the snipers this time.
It didn’t help. He looked back at McGill.
“Even if your snipers kill me, some of m
y boys will kill you.”
McGill nodded. “And then all of them will die. Right here and now. Is that what you want? To be the fool who led all these other fools to their deaths? Be a hell of a way to go down in history. An example of exactly what not to do when you’ve got a grievance to express.”
Fisk’s face tightened. His lips curled as if he might start to snarl. McGill saw the guy just might be nuts enough to start a bloodbath. He thought it was time to go to Plan B.
“Okay,” McGill said, “I can see how you feel. You’ve put in a lot of effort, you’ve come a long way. Just giving up, that would hardly be satisfying. You need to do … what? See if you can knock my head off my shoulders?”
Fisk said, “That’d be a real good start. Those other bastards behind you could lock me up, execute me if they want, I’d still feel okay about it if I pounded you first.”
“Sure, you’d be a hero. People would remember you the way you want.”
McGill leaned forward from his waist and said in a quiet voice, “So let’s do it. Just you and me. Bare hands.”
“I disarm, your asswipes will kill me for sure.”
“And let your people kill me? The way you just said.” McGill shook his head. “No they won’t. If you won’t fight me, it’s only because you’re afraid. Your people will see that, too. Then where will you be?”
McGill saw that Fisk was trying to sort out how he’d found himself in this box.
So he helped him, and said, “You know Elvie ratted you out, right? That’s how the real military was able to spring this trap on you.”
For a second, McGill thought Fisk would try to shoot him. He was deciding which way to move to give the snipers he hoped were watching and waiting their best shot. Then Fisk clicked the carbine’s safety back on and tossed the weapon off to his right.
“The knife, too, if you’re feeling manly,” McGill said.
Fisk unstrapped his knife and tossed it to his other side.
Two of his people came and retrieved their leader’s weapons, and backed off.
McGill took a step back, too. He expected Fisk to charge him.
He didn’t. He looked at McGill, spread his arms and raised his hands to chest height. Moving in on McGill slowly, he smiled and told him, “I’m going to break you in two.”
That being the case, McGill gave Fisk the best chance he’d ever get.
He rushed the bigger man.
As Deke Ky had informed McGill, SAC Elspeth Kendry and Deputy Director Byron DeWitt had arrived at the outer ring of security lining the Mall. The two senior officials had just badged and threatened the Metro cops into submission and were about to start forward when a woman’s voice called out, “Elspeth! DeWitt! Wait a minute!”
They turned to see who wanted their attention. Rushing toward them were Margaret Sweeney and McGill’s two friends from France. Before Sweetie could say another word, Elspeth held up a hand like a traffic cop and told them, “No, no damn way. You’re all staying right here.”
Sweetie looked at DeWitt.
He looked at Sweetie and turned to Elspeth. “This woman is McGill’s partner, his confidant, probably more important to him than anyone besides the president and his kids. She might be helpful.”
Elspeth looked as if someone had just cleaved her skull with a dull axe.
“You want to bring the French, too?” she asked, clearly hoping for a no.
“Strength in numbers,” DeWitt said.
Elspeth looked as if she might scream when a new voice, this one gruff and masculine, asked, “Are we in time?”
Celsus Crogher and Welborn Yates hurried over to the others.
Each was wearing the combat fatigues of his former or current service.
Celsus said, “What the hell are we waiting for? Don’t you know Holly G. is on the way?”
Elspeth’s eyes bugged out. Then she had to run to catch up with the others as the man who used to have her job and the others bulled their way through the lines of security.
Harlan Fisk reacted just the way McGill thought a guy his size would. If you wanted to crush a guy in a bear hug and he was nice enough to step forward, you put the clamps on him and watched him turn purple, listened for his spine to crack as you crushed the life out of him. McGill could have gone chest to chest with Fisk and delivered half-a-dozen blows before Fisk’s hands had the time to lock behind his back.
Problem with that strategy, though, is that any one of the blows he delivered to Fisk — throat-collapsing, cervical spine-fracturing strikes — might be fatal. In the flurry needed to keep Fisk from succeeding with his plan, Fisk would certainly be killed. McGill didn’t want that.
Not yet anyway.
So before he collided with Fisk, McGill ducked to his left, swung both of his arms up in an arc, catching Fisk’s right arm from behind, sweeping it aside like a windshield wiper pushing a leaf out of the way. Now, the upper half of McGill’s body was outside Fisk’s line of attack. Supporting his weight on his left leg, McGill slammed his right knee into Fisk’s right quadriceps.
The man bellowed as if he’d been shot.
As Fisk started to crumple, his injured leg no longer up to the task of supporting his weight, McGill planted his right foot, pivoted and slammed the palm of his left hand into Fisk’s right ear. For good measure, McGill kicked the outside of Fisk’s right knee with his right foot.
Watching from a distance of twenty-five yards, Pruet said, “Sacré bleu.”
Literally, holy blue. Colloquially, holy shit.
Odo chuckled and did his best to mimic the flow of McGill’s attack.
Deke Ky, Celsus Crogher, Welborn Yates, and Byron DeWitt all wore grim smiles.
First Lieutenant Cole, a complete professional, kept his eyes on all those guys on the other side carrying automatic weapons. Not a one of them looked happy. He heard his commanding officer through his ear bud. The CO had just given a heads-up to his snipers, who were in place and ready to rock ‘n’ roll. They were told who to take out first, namely the guys who looked like the second tier of militia leadership.
And any sonofabitch who raised a rifle to firing position.
Elspeth Kendry was as amazed as anyone at what McGill had accomplished.
As to her professional future, though, she thought she might retire soon.
Just like Celsus Crogher had.
Go live somewhere relatively peaceful. Beirut, maybe.
Fisk fell to his hands and his left knee; he couldn’t place any weight on his right knee. His right leg trailed off limply behind him. His head drooped toward the earth and his eyes were squeezed shut in pain. He tilted his head as if trying to clear water from his right ear. That wasn’t going to work, McGill knew.
The man was done fighting. His right leg was useless. Even if it had remained undamaged, the blow to his ear had ruined his sense of balance, certainly for the moment, maybe for good. There was no way in the world Harlan Fisk was any longer a threat to McGill or anyone else.
McGill thought he should feel good about this.
As far as he knew, though, Fisk was still unrepentant.
Maybe that was why he still wanted to hurt Fisk. Boot his head off his shoulders like an old-fashioned placekicker trying to put a football through the uprights from fifty yards out. The temptation was so strong McGill felt the devil had to be inside him now, hovering around his soul, looking for a place to land and claim it as his own.
McGill took a step back from Fisk.
Hoping the increased distance would calm him down.
Or maybe give him a running start for his kick.
Fisk took his head out of play by collapsing to the ground. Cries of shock and horror came from his men. Several of them started forward toward McGill. He looked at them without fear. His rage began to escalate. To hell with all these guys, he thought.
Then a voice, using a loudspeaker, got everyone’s attention.
“Hold your positions or you will be fired upon.”
Whoever had spoke
n did a fairly good imitation of the voice of God.
Fisk’s men stopped their advance. Looked around. Saw they were about to be mowed down like ripe wheat if they continued forward.
McGill turned his gaze back to Fisk. Despite the potential consequences, he knew all it would take for him to bring a knee down on Fisk’s spine, just the way Elspeth had done with Ozzie Riddick, only with greater force, would be for Fisk to give him one fuck-you.
Fisk didn’t comply. He only managed to look up at McGill and offer him a smile. Like he knew something McGill didn’t. Like he would have the last laugh.
Close enough, pal, McGill thought.
You just chose your own fate.
McGill took one step toward Fisk when he and everyone else heard a helicopter coming in low, loud and fast. A beam of light from above found McGill. He knew it wasn’t a beacon from heaven. He didn’t hear a fanfare of trumpeting angels; he recognized the engine note of the approaching aircraft.
Marine One.
The president was about to arrive. To save him from himself. As bloodthirsty and crazed as he might be, he wasn’t going to kill a fallen man in front of Patti. McGill’s head slumped now, and he, too, fell to his knees.
“Is that my husband?” the president asked.
Neither the flight crew nor the squad of combat Marines in the passenger cabin could make a positive identification of the man on his knees or the one lying face down. Traveling with the Marines was a Navy corpsman. Bodies were repositioned so the corpsman would be the second man out of the aircraft, after the Marine officer taking the point position.
The president knew better than to try to force her way to the front.
All she could do for the moment was worry and pray that Jim wasn’t seriously hurt.
Marine One landed with a jolt hard enough to put some spring into the guys going out the door. The president had been told to wait until she was give the all clear sign before exiting the aircraft. She’d nodded, but everyone understood she wasn’t going to wait long so they’d better be quick about their business.
She counted to ten, thought about taking a quick peek out the door.