The Washington Decree

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

  Then a wave of warmth wakened his body parts. Maybe his temperature was returning to normal. He tried to speak but couldn’t. He stamped his feet hard on the grass; it felt like they could bear his weight.

  “Ladies and gentlemen . . .” It was the voice of Secretary of the Interior Betty Tucker. In her tight dress, she didn’t have to do much to get the crowd’s attention. “The President of the United States of America, Bruce Jansen.”

  “We’ve got a situation here.” Wesley could hear Kane muttering into his lapel microphone.

  “You bastard!” Suddenly the words escaped Wesley’s mouth. So his power of speech was returning, too.

  He could sense Doggie’s agitation; she had heard Kane’s message as well. He glanced up at her. Her face was white as a sheet. From fear, perhaps, but not helplessness. He knew her; in a second he was afraid she would overreact.

  He shook his head at her, but she merely smiled back. It was a horrible, unreal feeling, her standing there, so vibrant and alive. Don’t let it happen! he pleaded silently. Behind the president he could see the black-clad agents’ attention focused on Kane as they listened to him through their earpieces. In three seconds they’d storm over and forcibly remove him and Doggie. Without the eyes of the world watching, they would find an isolated spot to liquidate them, then invent a suitable story. And in the meantime Kane would escape. A simple, classic plan.

  He tilted forward in his seat to try and judge whether his legs could support him.

  “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen!” came the president’s voice from the podium. “It’s wonderful to see all of you assembled for this happy occasion.” He waved to a couple of reporters.

  “Prime Minister Watts has come to pay us a visit, and the bonds between our two nations have once again proven their strength and durability.”

  As Jansen continued reading the speech Wesley had written the night before, Doggie squeezed his shoulder cautiously with her free hand. It was a signal. She was about to tear herself free of Kane and charge towards the rostrum, and Wesley would have to fill the role of bodyguard as well as he could. First he’d try the same kind of karate chop to Kane’s neck as Kane had dealt him, and it would have to be quick, before Kane had a chance to go for his weapon. He’d have to improvise; then whatever happened would happen. Just so long as Doggie didn’t suffer as a consequence.

  But just as Doggie was literally swinging into action she was struck by Kane’s blow to her neck, just like the one he’d administered to Wesley.

  Before Doggie had sunk to the ground, Wesley was up and running towards the podium, causing both Homeland Security agents and Kane’s men to draw their weapons.

  “Get away from here!” screamed Wesley, as he felt a shot from Kane’s gun hammer into his buttock. “Stop them, Mr. President!” he yelled, as he fell to the ground and rolled over a few times, propelled both by his momentum and the incredible pain. For a moment the president looked down at him, then gave a sign to the security men to hold their fire. But it didn’t stop Kane from shooting again. This time Wesley didn’t know where he’d been hit, but the impact propelled him three more feet along the slippery grass. Now he could hear cries and commotion from the assembled guests behind him while the TV cameras zoomed in on his writhing, bloody body.

  Then he could hear gasps from the audience and pulled himself up on his elbows to face his assailant, who was about to administer the coup de grâce. Kane had his gun aimed perfectly, hand steady, but his eyes were blank. Suddenly his other hand reached for his neck, where a dart was embedded in his jugular vein, creating a little spray of blood like a punctured garden hose.

  By now several bodyguards had thrown themselves at the president and prime minister and shoved them off the podium. In the meantime, Ben Kane had flopped to the ground, and Secret Service agents had overmanned Sheriff Perkins, the dart champion.

  “Watch out, get away from here! It’s a conspiracy! They’re about to fire a missile from the Washington Monument!” Wesley managed to yell before a roar erupted from the top of the obelisk. He didn’t see what happened next, heard only a whoosh of air, desperate screams, and finally the deafening explosion as the missile blew up the entrance to the White House reception hall, transforming its mighty pillars to rubble.

  CHAPTER 43

  The following minutes were like Armageddon. There were body parts powdered white by the thick cloud of plaster dust. Feverish hands lifting chunks of rubble off of victims and screams of pain and despair filling the air.

  The corpses of the bodyguards lying on top of the president were dragged aside, and Jansen and Prime Minister Watts were brought to the Cabinet Room. They lay the president on the conference table and other, less-important persons—like Wesley—on the floor, while the dead were left lying where they fell. The Diplomatic Reception Room was completely pulverized and still burning, while reporters, cameramen, and photographers on the lawn in front of the hall struggled to get their wounded colleagues down to the southern entrance of the park. Cameras and all sorts of electronic equipment lay strewn everywhere like beer cans after a rock concert. Behind it all rose a chorus of sirens.

  Wesley looked up gratefully at a British security agent who was putting his finger deep into a hole in one of Wesley’s arteries that had been ripped open along with a section of his chest.

  He could feel all too clearly the projectile that was lodged in his hip socket, but not Kane’s other shot that had passed through his upper arm and taken a chunk of chest muscle with it. “Why can’t I feel anything in my chest?” he asked.

  “You will shortly, I’m afraid,” the man answered, with an upper-class British accent that almost made Wesley smile.

  He looked over towards Jansen. The president was lying on the table, a doctor on either side. All Wesley could see of him was a sock, hanging half off a foot. The doctors were conferring in hushed voices; evidently their provisional attempts to stop his wounds from bleeding had been successful.

  Prime Minister Watts was sitting on a chair with a wet towel over his face, apparently temporarily deafened by the explosion. He was in deep shock but had definitely gotten off easier than his bodyguards.

  “Can you see a black-haired woman in a yellow dress anywhere?” Wesley asked his attendant.

  He shook his head.

  “Not outside, either?”

  “No, I’m afraid.”

  “What happened outside, over there on the right where I had been sitting?” he asked, almost not wanting to hear the answer.

  The Englishman hesitated a moment. “A lot of them ended up under a column that fell over,” he answered, and pressed his finger harder into the hole in Wesley’s chest. Wesley was beginning to feel the blood loss. His fingers and toes were turning cold. But if Doggie were dead, what difference did it make?

  A large man came into the room to orient himself as to the president’s condition. Help would be there soon, he reported, but regretted that the emergency vehicles had been delayed by all the roadblocks. The fire, however, was already under control—FEMA’s state of readiness had functioned well, he said. Then the man turned towards Wesley and squatted down in front of him. It was Billy Johnson. He laid a hand on Wesley’s cheek and looked at him with steady, sorrowful eyes.

  “How’s it going, Wesley?”

  Wesley nodded silently.

  “Thank you for what you did. . . .” Johnson tried to say more, but the words stuck in his throat.

  Wesley grabbed his shirt sleeve. “Have you seen Doggie, Billy?” he whispered. “She was sitting over where I was sitting. Do you know anything?”

  The Homeland Security secretary turned his head away without answering.

  Wesley closed his eyes and tried to conjure up her face before him. How had things come to this? Why hadn’t he made her his long ago, and never let go? Why hadn’t they gotten out while they could?

  He was starting
to feel the wound in his chest; it didn’t hurt—it just felt wrong. He shut his eyes tighter and tried to sense her smell, hear her voice.

  “I’m here, Wesley,” said her voice, and Wesley opened his eyes a crack and smiled at the picture of her face before it began fading away.

  “Here! I’m here!” He felt a light hand on his chest.

  “Here—feel it.” This time she put her face down to his and kissed him gently. “I’m okay,” she said.

  He opened his eyes as well he could. There she was, sitting before him. Was it true? He couldn’t believe it. Then he fumbled for her hand.

  “My God, Wesley, you’re ice-cold!” she whispered. “How much blood has he lost?” she asked the Englishman. He said nothing.

  Wesley tried to fix his eyes on her. It wasn’t easy because the light was changing all the time, but yes, it was she. There she sat with her weird hair, smiling at him, even though she’d been wounded herself. A cut ran from her cheekbone to her chin, and her hair was completely gray with dust. But there she was, looking him in the eyes and smiling—the most beautiful woman in the world.

  “You’re fantastic, Wesley, simply fantastic,” she said, rubbing his hand to warm it up. He closed his eyes for a moment and was filled by a kind of ethereal peace.

  Then one of the black-clad security guards approached them. “You come with me, Miss Rogers,” he said, grabbing her arm.

  “Leave her be,” Wesley ordered, opening his eyes again, but the guard pulled her to her feet.

  “Did you hear what Barefoot told you?” came a weak voice. Wesley looked up and could see the president’s foot move a bit as he spoke. This got the guard to stop. After a moment he loosened his grip and left.

  The question was when he would be back. Perhaps he was one of those who still obeyed Sunderland’s every whim. Maybe it wasn’t over yet.

  “Doggie, listen!” whispered Wesley. “The last twenty minutes up to the explosion have been videotaped. You have to get to Lance Burton’s office and see what’s on that tape, understand? The black box on top stores all the video recordings. Push the PLAY button and send the signal out over the intranet through my server. Do you think you can figure that out?”

  She nodded.

  “And watch out for Sunderland, if he’s around.”

  She nodded again.

  He looked at the Englishman who was still helping stem the bleeding. “Are you armed?” Wesley asked. The man nodded. “Then you go with her and watch out for her, okay?”

  The man nodded again, took Wesley’s hand, and pressed it deep into the chest wound. It felt warm and sticky and much too soft—a totally surrealistic sensation.

  “Press!” he said. “Help is on the way. Don’t worry, you’re going to make it.” Then he and Doggie disappeared.

  “Is it you, Wesley?” came the president’s voice from the table.

  “Yes, Mr. President,” he whispered.

  “Did he answer?”

  “Yes, Mr. President,” said one of the doctors. “He said ‘yes.’”

  God, please keep an eye on her, Wesley prayed to himself. Maybe Sunderland’s men had got there first and deleted the files, and all was lost. Without evidence, that bastard Sunderland would have his way.

  Wesley tried to concentrate on his wound, pushing harder on it. Now he couldn’t feel his fingers anymore; his whole hand was numb.

  Then he heard Thomas Sunderland’s voice in the corridor. It sounded appalled, compassionate, paternal, and at a loss—all at once. “Where is he?” he called out, as he came through the door and rushed to the conference table. Wesley could see his shoes under the table. They were the only ones in the entire room that had maintained their polish.

  “How is he doing?” he asked with concern. “Tell me straight.” The two doctors didn’t answer.

  “I’m okay, Thomas,” came Jansen’s weak reply. “And you?”

  Sunderland tried to produce a sigh of relief. “Oh, thank God! I’m also okay, Mr. President. I wasn’t that close when it happened.”

  You bet your ass you weren’t, thought Wesley, and tried to say it out loud. But he was so weak, no words would come out. Soon he wouldn’t be able to keep pressing on his wound, either.

  “We have to get the president out of here. To a secure hospital.” Sunderland sounded concerned. “We don’t know the cause or the extent of the situation, and maybe it’s not over yet. We have to move the president. Can he be moved?”

  Mendacious cocksucker! yelled Wesley in his head.

  “We’re waiting for the ambulance,” said one of the doctors.

  “When it arrives, I’m coming along,” Sunderland stated. “I’ve seen to it that they’re ready to receive him. How about Prime Minister Watts?”

  Did Sunderland say he’d seen to it that they were ready? Who was ready? It didn’t sound reassuring.

  Again, Wesley tried to say something, but his strength was gone—except for his heart, which was beating hard to compensate for the loss of blood. It hurt almost more than the injuries themselves.

  “Where is Watts?” Sunderland repeated.

  Prime Minister Watts lifted his hand so Sunderland could see where he was sitting.

  “Oh, thank God. There you are, Mr. Prime Minister.”

  Sunderland stepped over Wesley without noticing him; he was already maneuvering his guns into position. A whole other diplomatic agenda had begun. It was time to line up one’s allies for the showdown. “And your people, Mr. Prime Minister? Have the losses been great?”

  Watts let the towel fall from his forehead and spread his arms out, expressing better than words that he had no grasp of what had happened. Sunderland nodded sympathetically. Then he saw Wesley. His eyes were cold, but the words were fittingly civilized.

  “And here we have the hero of the day. Excellent work, Wesley Barefoot. How is Mr. Barefoot’s condition?” he inquired, turning to the doctors.

  “He’ll make it if we stop the bleeding,” said one.

  “See to it he is brought to the same place as the president.”

  Yeah, and that’ll be the end of us, thought Wesley.

  Then Sunderland walked around slowly, seeing to the rest of the wounded, assuming a convincing protective-father-of-the-country air. A good moment to score cheap points, and he knew it. Like all true politicians he’d learned that the cheap points often wound up counting for more than hard-earned ones.

  Wesley managed to wag a foot at the prime minister, but Watts had replaced the wet towel over his dust- and smoke-injured eyes. The wailing of several ambulances was beginning to grow in the background, as was the sound of an approaching helicopter.

  Then Wesley lifted his leg as high as it would go and let it drop hard to the floor. Prime Minister Watts removed the towel again and looked down at Wesley with badly bloodshot eyes. Wesley whispered something, but Watts didn’t hear it.

  The PM squeezed his eyes shut. His vision was probably impaired, thought Wesley, so he raised and dropped his leg once more. That was it. Now his energy was gone; he couldn’t even feel his heart beating any longer.

  So that was that; soon it would all be over. The thought didn’t even grieve him.

  He smiled to Watts and was about to close his eyes and surrender to the fatigue when the prime minister got up. Slowly it became apparent how lucky he’d been—unlike his two dead bodyguards. Aside from his inflamed eyes and one shredded pant leg, he had not suffered one obvious injury.

  Still, he approached Wesley with unsteady steps, hunched forward. And his mouth was open, even though it hadn’t uttered a word since the attack.

  He bent over as far as he could and put his ear up to Wesley’s mouth.

  “It’s Sunderland who’s behind all of it,” Wesley barely got out.

  Watts pulled his head back and looked at him, perplexed. Then he turned his head around and p
ut the other ear up to Wesley’s mouth. Apparently, he’d gone deaf in the one ear.

  “It’s Sunderland’s work—all of it,” Wesley whispered again. It seemed like the prime minister was holding his breath, the better to catch what was being said with what was left of his hearing. Then he turned his face towards Wesley.

  “I hear you,” he said, and put his ear back to Wesley’s mouth.

  “Turn on the television. There’s a TV screen behind that panel there.” Wesley nodded towards the far wall. “The remote control’s on the tea table.”

  Watts stood up slowly, almost bent double. He was unable to stand up straight. Then he went over to the tea table and turned on the television.

  Usually the monitor in the Cabinet Room was reserved for video recordings of a governmental-administrative nature or the ones that were used in the Situation Room. Otherwise it was tuned in to NBC.

  Which it was now.

  By craning his neck as far as it would go, Wesley could just see the screen.

  It was an appalling scene with lots of people running aimlessly around. Smoke from the fire obscured the Ellipse and allowed only glimpses of what was going on. There was a great number of soldiers in bulletproof vests surrounding the Washington Monument; something was about to happen.

  Wesley began hearing what followed outside the second before the TV screen showed soldiers beginning their counterattack on the terrorists up in the monument, eight hundred yards away. Several tear gas grenades were launched at the panorama windows at the top of the obelisk, and return gunfire from within the monument could also be heard. Except for the anti-terror corps, the surrounding area had been completely cleared. The commentator, who was standing three hundred feet away, sounded like he was the one being fired at while his cameraman panned through the smoke around the White House, then zoomed in on the massacre taking place inside the colossal American monument.