The American

by Andrew Britton

  He whipped his head around to see a young police officer pointing a heavy black pistol at his chest. The adrenaline coursing through his body, Ryan’s mind took in the scene at the speed of light: Metro PD uniform, two chevrons on the sleeve, young kid, scared eyes, and shaky hands on the gun. It all combined to give him a very bad feeling.

  “DROP THE GUN!” the officer screamed.

  “I’m a Federal officer,” Ryan snarled. “I have to get into this vehicle right—”

  “SHUT UP! DROP IT!”

  “Ah, fuck. Fuck!” Ryan could see he wasn’t going to win, and he was out of time. “Okay, I’m dropping it. Don’t shoot me, for Christ’s sake.” His right hand left the gun on top of the shattered pane of glass, and slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled his hands out of the interior and held them out by his sides. “Listen to me—”

  The policeman was coming down a little bit now. “Keep your hands where I can see them! Turn around and—”

  “Shut up! You listen to me. I’m a Federal officer. The person who owns this van is the same man who killed Senator Levy and blew up the Kennedy-Warren.” Ryan watched a look of disbelief spread over the young man’s face. “There is a bomb in this vehicle. I’m stepping back… Take the gun off the passenger seat and let me get in there, okay? I need to get in there.”

  “I saw him…”

  Ryan latched on to it, talking fast: “Black hair, brown eyes? About my height, heavy?” The officer nodded, the confusion spreading to his eyes. “He’s a terrorist, and there is a bomb in this van. Take the gun, man. Take the fucking gun.”

  More wavering. Without taking his gaze or his weapon off the man standing before him, Jared Howson reached in through the door frame and lifted the Beretta off the seat.

  Will Vanderveen was absorbed by the live footage on MSNBC. He had known, or felt, rather, that something was wrong when the conference was still going on ten minutes after it was scheduled to end.

  Although it didn’t seem like much to get excited about, Vanderveen knew that every second of the president’s schedule was accounted for by the agents comprising his protective detail, and the unusual length of the Q&A session following the return of the Sequoia was definitely out of the ordinary. Then, in that shocking moment when the president had been grabbed from behind by one of his agents and dragged away from the podium, his single violent expletive could have been clearly heard by the guests in the next room. His anger had been made worse by the fact that the agents were taking the president farther down the dock, which meant he was moving away from 12th Street.

  Still, he hadn’t given up hope. He was still watching intently, trying to see if the DS agents who arrived on the podium a split second later were pulling their principals back toward the motorcade. It was hard to see, because the cameraman had removed the camera from its stable platform, and judging from the jerky image, was having a hard time holding it steady in the crowd. Vanderveen knew that with all the people currently spread out over the marina, the Service would never be able to land a helicopter. So it was either the cars or a boat, and he felt a little bit better when it appeared that the agents were moving the French and Italian leaders back toward the cars. His earlier reconnaissance of the waterfront had served him well, and he might still be able to salvage some of his plan.

  It was only then that he realized, with a sudden feeling of dread, that he had missed the whole point. Why had they pulled the president off the podium in the first place? He felt a tingle of fear as he stood up and turned to look out the window. What he saw turned the fear to shock in an instant.

  It couldn’t be, he thought, but try as he might, there was no denying it: the person standing on Pennsylvania north of the plaza, held at gunpoint by the same police officer Vanderveen had talked to earlier, was none other than Ryan Kealey.

  He nearly smiled at the scene. There was something almost comforting about the sight of his former commanding officer — it was like seeing a living link to the past. There was something vaguely amusing about it, too; after all, it wasn’t every day that a former Delta operator was caught out by a rookie cop, and that kid in particular didn’t look as if he belonged anywhere near a loaded firearm. Ryan must be getting sloppy.

  Then the smile faded as he realized that they probably weren’t alone. The Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team might already be surrounding the hotel, and they wouldn’t be interested in merely arresting a man who had killed eight of their own.

  The decision came in a heartbeat: it was time to cut his losses. He had flipped the switch in the cab two hours earlier, right before his conversation with the police officer. Everything was ready. Vanderveen picked up his .40 caliber USP and jammed it into the waistband of his jeans, then pulled on his long, heavy coat to conceal the bulge. In his pocket was the cell phone, which he withdrew as soon as he stepped into the hall.

  He briefly wondered how much of the blast he would feel in the shelter of the hotel, then decided that he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait for the motorcade, but for all the failure of the day, there was one small feeling of triumph: Ryan Kealey would not live to see the end of it.

  Walking down the hall toward the elevators, Vanderveen flipped open the cell phone and pushed and held the number 1.

  They were making some progress, but the young officer still had his 9mm trained on Kealey’s chest. “You come running down here with no ID, waving a gun, and now you say there’s a bomb in this van? I… look, I can’t let you in there.”

  Ryan couldn’t understand why they weren’t already dead. Was this the wrong vehicle? Had he made a mistake? “I’m getting into this van,” he said. It wasn’t a request, and he began to move cautiously back to the passenger-side door. “Shoot me if you have to, but I’m getting in.”

  The gun wavered, then finally dropped. “Shit! I’m not gonna shoot you.” Howson slipped Ryan’s weapon into his holster, lowering his own to his side. Then, a second later: “What do I do?”

  Ryan opened the door from the inside, flinching when he realized that he hadn’t checked for a trip wire. “You talked to the guy?”

  The officer nodded and pointed to his right. “Yeah, I think he went in there.”

  Ryan glanced toward the dark gray facade of the JW Marriott hotel. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it over while simultaneously turning his attention back to the van. “Speed dial 3, then ask for Rivers.” He was glad he had stored her number. “Tell her where to come… Don’t go into that building.”

  Ryan was in the cab a few seconds later, head down and busy as the police officer raced toward the hotel. In his right hand Howson carried the standard-issue 9mm Glock. In his left hand he held nothing, as he had already slipped the cell phone into his pocket and promptly forgotten about it.

  Vanderveen stopped dead in the hall, staring in disbelief at the message on the cell phone’s display: Network Unavailable. What the fuck did that mean? He cursed low, under his breath, and didn’t notice when a passing woman shot him a disapproving glare.

  He hoped it wasn’t the hotel. For all of his planning, he had not anticipated this possibility. If it was something to do with the building materials, he’d have to get outside before he could get a signal. That was thirty seconds in the elevator, forty seconds through the makeshift hall leading to The Shops at National Place, and another twenty seconds through the stores themselves to F Street. He knew because he had already timed it. Ninety seconds total — more than enough time for any number of unpleasant things to occur. Plenty of time for Ryan to get into the hotel, and more than enough time for the HRT to set up a hasty perimeter.

  Maybe it wouldn’t come to that. He pushed and held the button a second time, willing his creation to do its work.

  Ryan was in the van for less than five seconds when he found what didn’t fit. His hand was sweeping between the seats when it banged into a boxy metal object. Shifting his weight over the seat to stare down at it, he couldn’t see what practical purpose it might have served. It looked lik
e a cover of some kind, but when he tried to lift it, it didn’t budge. Then he pulled on the other end and it came right up. He flinched, waiting for the inevitable blast. When nothing happened, he looked down and saw a single switch.

  He flipped it without hesitation. Leaning back in the seat, breathing hard from fear and the long sprint, his mind raced to figure out what had just transpired.

  Two seconds later, sounding distant through the thin steel partition, Ryan heard the unmistakable high-pitched tone as a cell phone began to ring somewhere in the cargo area.

  After another few seconds had passed, he looked in the rearview mirror to see a procession of black limousines turn from 12th onto Pennsylvania at breakneck speed, only to make another sharp turn onto 13th a split second later.

  Jared Howson burst into the lobby with his gun up, oblivious to the wide-eyed stares and screams that accompanied his entrance.

  A security guard was standing just inside the door, but didn’t move to interfere with the policeman or the gun in his hand. Howson turned right toward the concierge, scrambling to recall the name he had seen on the passport.

  “Bidault! Claude Bidault! What’s his room number?” No one responded. They just stared at him with their hands held high. “WHAT’S THE ROOM NUMBER?”

  One of the men finally grabbed a keyboard, his hands shaking. “Bidault?” Howson nodded impatiently. “Room 545,” the concierge said. “Elevators are that way.”

  But Howson was already gone, the Glock 9mm down low in a two-handed grip. He moved fast toward the elevators, then caught a flash of a dark green oilskin jacket and stopped instinctively, trying hard to remember. He had seen that jacket somewhere before… He sprinted past the atrium toward the escalators.

  Kealey moved into the hotel with less fanfare, but everyone knew why he was there. A few fingers pointed him past guest registration on the main lobby level.

  Indecision for a moment. He didn’t have a weapon, but Vanderveen was running and would soon be gone. Hold or follow? A glimpse of a Metro PD uniform at the top of the escalator made the decision for him.

  He moved in that direction, only to find his path was blocked by a large security guard. The man had a radio up and was speaking into it urgently. He turned his attention to Kealey: “Stop right there, sir! I said stop!”

  Ryan slowed to a fast walk, his hands up in front of his chest, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. “I have a reservation here. I’m sorry for the trouble, I’m just late meeting someone…”

  He hit the security guard hard in the solar plexus, then lifted his knee into the man’s face. The guard fell back, tumbling into a coffee cart and sending several steaming urns crashing to the floor.

  Ryan was aware of swarming blue uniforms in his peripheral vision as he sprinted up the escalator. He was passing covered glass doors when he heard a popping noise up ahead, and then what sounded like two more shots carrying over the cries of terrified onlookers.

  He picked up the pace as the screams intensified in volume.

  Howson knew he was moving too fast, but he was young and his adrenaline was through the roof. More importantly, there was an open area up ahead, and he’d definitely caught another flash of the oilskin jacket.

  The whole way, from the van to the lobby, the lobby to the escalator, the escalator to here — all forty-five seconds of it — all he could think about was the story it would make. He couldn’t wait to tell it on the old man’s porch… There was no little voice, nothing inside telling him to slow it down, otherwise there wouldn’t be any story, and he was running hard. He saw light spilling from left to right at the end of the hall, heard the sound of a bustling crowd, and kept pushing forward. Past a steel-shuttered elevator pit, past a plastic Dumpster filled with trash, and then into the basement level before realizing his mistake, because the lure of the light had prevented him from turning right.

  It came without warning. There was no explosion of sound, no tunnel of light, and no pain. All he felt was a grazing sensation at the back of his head, and then darkness.

  Ryan was about twenty steps and seven seconds behind. He saw the prone figure of the police officer as soon as he entered the construction area, and tried not to look at the gaping exit wound in the young man’s face, or the spray of blood and tissue on the tile in front of him as he reached down and snatched up Howson’s Glock.

  Ryan sensed that Vanderveen was not waiting to get the drop on him, and he needed to move fast now if he wanted to catch up. He turned into the open area recklessly, the 9mm down low in the same two-handed grip that Howson had adopted less than two minutes earlier. Twenty feet in front of him, Ryan saw people running in his direction out of Filene’s Basement, the only store on the lowest level. He bounded up the stairs, passing black bins of cashmere and racks of discounted Prada, forcing his way through the frantic crowd, knowing full well that this might be his last chance at getting close enough to put the man down for good.

  Vanderveen was about fifteen seconds ahead of Kealey when he passed through the glass doors leading out onto F Street, moving quickly but casually. His posture was relaxed, and calm enough so that none of the passersby immediately noticed what was dangling from his right hand.

  The few extra seconds gave him the time he needed to scan the street for police cars or the unmarked Suburbans that were favored by so many of the government’s more notorious agencies. He wasn’t thinking about what had gone wrong; there would be plenty of time for that later. At the moment, his only goal was to get out of the city as fast as possible.

  He stepped into the road, crossing the first lane before a westbound Camry with a dented hood screeched to a halt a few feet to his right. As the shocked and relieved driver furiously leaned on his horn, Vanderveen walked around the side of the vehicle.

  The man had been smoking while he drove, and the window was rolled halfway down, despite the cold. He started to say something smart as the person he had nearly hit approached his door, but never got it out. Vanderveen smoothly lifted the .40 with his right hand and jammed it into the driver’s ear, pulling the trigger once.

  Ignoring the screams of nearby pedestrians, Vanderveen pulled open the door and yanked hard on the driver’s body, which tumbled lifelessly out into the road.

  Then he was in the car and moving away, not bothering to fully close the door until he had already upshifted twice. Looking up to the rearview mirror, he saw the glass doors of the National Place building swing open as a figure emerged at a dead sprint.

  Kealey burst out onto F Street in time to see the red Camry pulling away in a squeal of tires. He had the Glock up in a heartbeat, banging away two shots at the retreating vehicle, going for the tires but catching the bumper instead.

  Then it howled around the corner onto 14th, disappearing from view. Kealey swore under his breath, saw the body on the street and moved to pull someone out of their vehicle. Seconds later, a pair of black Suburbans with light racks flashing on top came flying up behind him on 13th Street, slamming forward to a halt at the intersection. Then there were men streaming out of the vehicles with their MP5s locked onto his head, screaming, “FBI! Drop the gun! Drop the gun right now!”

  Kealey turned and shouted back, for what seemed like the tenth time in as many minutes, “I’m a Federal officer! Susskind knows me, for Christ’s sake! The guy you’re looking for just turned that corner—” He almost pointed before he realized he still had the gun in his hand. “In a red Camry. I got the plate—”

  “Put the gun on the ground! Do it!”

  The people approaching him didn’t look all that accommodating. He had his left hand on the door handle of a silver Mercedes, the middle-aged woman behind the wheel staring up at him in fear and shock. Ryan took his hand away and lifted his arms at the elbows, the grip of the gun pinched between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Swearing again, he set the weapon on the pavement and stepped back as the agents swarmed in around him.

  It was over, and Vanderveen was gone.

&n
bsp; CHAPTER 35

  LANGLEY • CAPE ELIZABETH

  The debriefing was held at Langley more than eight hours later, with very few people in attendance. The director’s office was spacious enough to accommodate the small crowd, which included Naomi Kharmai, who had been flown back from Ashland courtesy of the Virginia State Police, Jonathan Harper, DCI Andrews, and Ryan Kealey.

  It had been relatively easy for Harper to get Kealey out of FBI custody. Susskind spoke to the D.C. field office’s HRT commander just minutes after the second shooting on F Street, and orders had been relayed from there to the team that was holding him. The handcuffs came off almost immediately, and his Beretta was retrieved from Howson’s body and returned to him. The agents that he rode with expressed regret at the incident, but only reluctantly; the muted apologies he received were next to inaudible. The Suburban in which Kealey was seated departed immediately for Tyson’s Corner, but most of the agents remained behind to secure the scene and wait for reinforcements.

  He couldn’t really blame them for arresting him. He had been out on the street in civilian clothes with a gun and no identification, standing less than 5 feet from a man with a gunshot wound to the head. In retrospect, Ryan realized that being confronted by the highly trained HRT operators was a lot better than most of the alternatives. At least they hadn’t shot him out of panic.

  When he arrived at the TTIC less than twenty minutes after leaving the scene, the helicopter blades were already turning. Despite angry protests from Director Landrieu and Joshua McCabe, Harper had arranged for transport for Ryan and himself so they could be immediately flown back to Langley. Unfortunately, that was where the rapid movement ended. They had been forced to wait for hours, as the DCI had been caught up in a lengthy inquisition by a shaken President Brenneman at the White House. Now, seated in the director’s capacious office, the events of the morning seemed like nothing more than a horrible dream.