Executive Order (Reeder and Rogers Thriller)

by Max Allan Collins

  “Stop or I’ll fire!”

  Shoes pounding the sidewalk, the eyes of the homeless on them from the recessions of doorways, they hurtled along. Up ahead an unmarked white van had paused at the mouth of a parking lot—were they being herded toward their own capture?

  Twelfth Street lay fifty yards ahead, and she didn’t know if they could even make it to the corner. Behind them, and the agent pursuing them, a car engine’s throaty purr built to a roar. Now a vehicle was in pursuit, too!

  They reached the white van, Reeder running with a hand on the nine mil in his waistband while she fumbled with her hip holster to get at her own weapon.

  But no one jumped out of the van.

  Still twenty-five yards from Twelfth, the two fled the agent whose approaching footsteps were small punctuation marks in the throbbing of the car engine that still built and built . . .

  That was when an uneven patch in the pavement sent her down, and she hit her right knee on the sidewalk, as if she’d stopped to pray, which might not have been a bad idea; then she pitched forward and her hands burned, skidding and skinned by the rough concrete.

  Reeder went back for her, helping her up. As he did, their eyes met and for once she could read him as well as he could her: they were screwed.

  As Reeder pulled her to her feet, Rogers finally saw the car that went with the engine roar: a dark green Dodge. No outrunning that.

  But the vehicle veered, forcing the pursuing agent to dive out of the way, slamming him into the rear of the white van, his pistol flying and hitting the cement somewhere, bouncing clunkily away.

  Then the car was squealing to a stop next to them, Reeder with the nine mil out now, Rogers too, when the passenger door flew open, and from the driver’s seat, Pete Woods leaned over, shouting, “Ride’s here!”

  Reeder got the rear door for her, helped her limp in, then climbed in front, all in a blur.

  Woods peeled away as Reeder’s rider’s side door slammed, the vehicle flying north on Twelfth.

  The Homicide detective behind the wheel was in his early thirties, slender, collegiate-looking with steel-framed glasses that made the sharp green eyes seem even sharper. Reeder had caught him at home, as reflected by the dark brown sweatshirt and tan chinos.

  “Did I just almost hit a fed?” Woods asked.

  “You complaining or bragging?”

  “Not sure yet. Care to tell me what you got me into, exactly? Those broad strokes you gave me are feeling a little too broad.”

  “Get our asses out of here and we’ll see.”

  They sped along, Woods working the side streets to put some distance between them and anyone in pursuit.

  Reeder craned to give Rogers a concerned look. “Nasty spill you took.”

  “Concrete chewed me up a little, spit me out some. At least I didn’t tear my slacks.”

  “Good you have priorities.”

  Woods asked, “Am I going anywhere in particular?”

  “For right now,” Reeder said, the nine millimeter in his lap, “away from anybody trying to kill us.”

  The young detective’s eyebrows lifted. “Well, at least I have a goal.”

  Rogers got out her cell and punched in Ivanek’s number. It took four rings for him to answer, and she could picture him staring at UNKNOWN in the caller ID, wondering if it was safe to answer.

  “Yeah,” his voice said.

  “You need to get out of there. We’re compromised from within.”

  “Fisk?”

  “I’d like to think not. The rogue gov element grabbed Anne, but we got her back. Bohannon—executed. Mob-style.”

  “Good God.”

  “We’ve got less than a minute, Trevor, before they trace this call. Join us off the grid.”

  “. . . where? When?”

  “Washington Monument. Half an hour.”

  “That’s an awfully wide open area.”

  “Exactly,” she said, then clicked off.

  Frowning, Woods glanced back; they were on a residential side street. He said, “Washington Monument—really?”

  Reeder said, “It’s a good call. We’ll be out in the open, yes, but so will anybody coming at us. And something as public as that might discourage the bad guys from hitting us.”

  “This,” Woods said, “might be a good time for you to tell me exactly what bad guys we’re talking about.”

  In the half hour it took to get to the monument, Reeder gave the detective chapter and verse. The young cop reacted with squints and gaping glances, but never once interrupted or commented. He had been through the coup attempt last year and knew Reeder was to be believed.

  While Reeder filled the detective in, Rogers kept an eye on her cell. Already there was a text from Kevin saying he was safe. Then Hardesy and Wade texted in, confirming they’d got away clean. They were nearing the Mall by the time Miggie reported in. He, Anne Nichols, and their newly bald charge were not yet at the cabin, but were well and safely on their way.

  After Woods parked his Dodge up Independence Avenue, the trio walked toward the National Mall. The night was brisk but not quite cold, the foot traffic on the sidewalk sparse and touristy. Thanks to clever lighting, the obelisk that was the monument glowed against the darkness, beckoning them like a ghostly forefinger.

  They took one of the gently circular walks radiating across the flat surrounding landscape to the city’s tallest structure. Encircled by flags that flapped lazily in the slight night breeze, so tall it hurt to crane your neck for a real look at it, the Washington Monument seemed to have nothing obviously to do with the Father of the Country but nonetheless stunned in its odd singular majesty.

  Tourists gawked and milled respectfully, but none looked overtly like federal agents or for that matter undercover conspiracists. If either of those two groups knew enough to disguise themselves as sightseers, that meant this meeting place was known to the opposition and the Special Situations Task Force was done before it started. Only slightly out of place, she and Reeder and Woods lingered near the monument’s base, their eyes more on the walks around them than the building, as if they were waiting for someone. And of course they were.

  Finally Ivanek, looking like a wandering undertaker in his black suit, moved down one of the sidewalks toward them. The skeletal profiler, eyes intense under that cliff of brow, approached Rogers and Reeder with a wary smile. Without having to be told, Woods headed off to watch the other side of the monument.

  Ivanek grunted something that was almost a laugh. “I guess this is a fitting meeting spot at that.”

  “Oh?” Rogers said, as somewhere in her mind she wondered if Trevor, the loner among the task force members, might have gone over to the other side.

  Ivanek glanced up at the towering marble-and-granite structure. “This is Secret Society Central—what this thing and George Washington have in common is Freemasonry.”

  “Let’s stroll,” Reeder said.

  They walked slowly around the structure, pretending to be just another trio of rubberneckers, as she filled the profiler in on their situation. When they’d returned to their starting point, Trevor stood with hands on hips.

  “So,” he asked Rogers, but his eyes then traveled to Reeder, “where do we go from here?”

  Reeder answered with a question. “What contact have you made with Fisk today?”

  Ivanek told them, concluding, “I couldn’t read her, Joe. Maybe you could have. She just seemed like Fisk. If she’s one of them, nothing she did or said was different . . . I mean, her task force disappeared on her and wasn’t checking in. How else would she act?”

  Rogers and Reeder exchanged glances and nods.

  “Your prevailing theory, then,” Ivanek said, folding his arms, “is that the President and Vice President will be taken out when they leave by Marine One and Marine Two?”

  Reeder said, “With rocket launchers that lay the blame on Russia, yes.”

  Ivanek winced in thought. “But Marine One and Two are equipped with antimissile
tech, and anyway, they routinely fly decoy helicopters, in shifting formation. If I were getting rid of the top two men, I’d find a way to do it before they left the compound.”

  Rogers said, “Why’s that?”

  “They have security second-to-none at Camp David,” Ivanek said. “It’s designed to protect against an attack from without—an invasion. Of course, if they were hit from within, and since we think the government has been infiltrated, then—”

  As if someone had spit in her face, Rogers felt the warm flecks of moisture just a microsecond before she realized Ivanek had been shot and another micro before she heard the report of the rifle. Ivanek collapsed to the pavement, hiding what she knew would be a massive exit wound, the entry wound small and wet and red-black.

  She fell to a knee as if to check him, but that wasn’t the case since the profiler was clearly dead. Her gun was out of its holster and in hand and pointing at a flat area with its flapping flags and backdrop of trees, a vast world of night that meant she was aiming at nothing at all.

  Reeder was just behind her, also taking a knee, also ready to return fire, but where? And at whom? Around them, chaos ruled, tourists screaming on the run, mothers and fathers clutching children, even ones as old as ten or eleven in their arms, and running blindly into nowhere. Woods came around, keeping low but moving fast, his gun out as well, as he yelled, “Where’d the shot come from?”

  As if in answer, Woods got hit in the chest, and fell back, his gun leaping out of his hand as if the thing had gone suddenly molten.

  Reeder scrambled over to Woods, on his back, kicking like an upended turtle. Rogers scuttled over. Around them a terrible near-silence had descended. Sightseers who hadn’t run into the night were splayed on the ground or behind whatever minimal cover they could find. Others could be heard running, but that seemed far away.

  Then another shot cracked the night as concrete dust kicked up less than a foot away. Was this the same son of a bitch who’d killed Tony Wooten right next to her at the Skygate Apartments?

  Staying low, moving fast, she and Reeder dragged the detective around to the far side of the monument.

  “One shooter, you think?” Rogers asked.

  Reeder said, “Better be.”

  Then they heard the sirens.

  Rogers said, “Time to go?”

  “Time to go,” he said.

  She leaned over Woods. “How bad?”

  “Hit the vest,” the detective said, wincing, hurting. “Kevlar’s never . . . never a bad accessory for . . . a night out with you two.”

  “Can you stand, you think?” Rogers said. “We need to move.”

  “What about the sniper?” Woods asked.

  Reeder said, “Those sirens had to send him scurrying. But we can’t let your brothers-in-blue pick us up, either.”

  The sirens were screaming. She and Reeder probably had a minute, maybe two. Maybe.

  Rogers said, “We’ll help you up—we’ve got to go.”

  Woods pawed at the air. “Get out of here, you two. I got this. I’ll . . . I’ll say you called to give yourself up to . . . to somebody neutral, and we came here to pick up another of your crew. Who somebody shot. Now. Get to the bottom of this shit. Here. Take my car.” He got his keys out and handed them over.

  She gave him a quick nod of thanks and her eyes told him to take care. Then she and Reeder, his arm around her, were just another couple hustling away to safety.

  On the way to Woods’s car, they stayed alert for a tail, hugging trees and bushes as much as possible. Not knowing where that sniper had gotten himself to made things tense.

  At the Dodge, Reeder opened the driver’s door for her and she got behind the wheel.

  “Where to?” she asked.

  It wasn’t like there was anywhere they could go.

  “I need some rest,” he said. “And so do you. We stay up much longer, our judgment will go to hell. But I don’t know if we dare go to a hotel or motel. And we can’t risk driving far, or for long, in this car. No matter what Woods cooks up to cover us and himself, somebody—maybe a lot of somebodies—will be looking for this vehicle.”

  She started the engine.

  “I know somewhere,” she said.

  “There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.”

  Lyndon B. Johnson, thirty-sixth President of the United States of America. Served 1963–1969. Twenty-four years in Congress before becoming Vice President under John F. Kennedy.

  SEVENTEEN

  They stayed off the interstates, avoiding as much as possible traffic-cams and other security cameras. As Rogers drove, Reeder got Miggie on the burner.

  “Everybody safe?” the computer expert asked.

  “Patti and I are fine.”

  Quickly he told Miguel what had happened at the Monument.

  “Oh, hell,” Mig said hollowly. “First Jerry, now Trevor . . . God. What next?”

  “We do our best not to join them. Your end?”

  “Everybody’s okay. No sign of a tail. Should be at the cabin soon. Nichols is sleeping in back right now.”

  “Both of you need to get some rest. Sleep in shifts, when you get to the cabin.”

  “That’s what we planned. GPS says you’re on the move, too.”

  “We are. Patti and I’ll find somewhere we can sleep before we drop. But tomorrow I want to make a visit, first thing.”

  “Anywhere special?”

  “Just the cabinet member left behind for this Camp David trip, now that Amanda Yellich is off the list.”

  A pause filled itself with cell-phone crackle.

  “Joe, I told you before how tight a lid the Secret Service keeps on that.”

  “And you’re just the guy to pry it off.”

  Another crackly pause.

  “I’ll get back to you,” Miguel said, and clicked off.

  Reeder slept for fifteen minutes and then the burner in his hand vibrated.

  “Turns out the held-back cabinet member,” Mig said, “is a familiar name.”

  “Secretary of Agriculture,” Reeder said. “Nicholas Blount.”

  “Jesus! If you knew that, why—”

  “I didn’t. Just an educated guess, based on Lawrence mentioning the Blount dynasty. If procedure hasn’t changed, Nicky will be at home or perhaps some summer or winter place.”

  “His home,” Mig said. “Chevy Chase, 6900 block of Brennon Lane. Do I have to remind you a spate of agents from your alma mater will be on hand?”

  “No, but see if you can define spate.”

  Miggie tapped on his tablet.

  Then: “Six—three two-person teams rotating over twenty-four hours.”

  “After the attempted coup last year,” Reeder said, “I expected more. But then a contingent of agents would only attract unneeded attention. Hey. Is my pal Lawrence asleep?”

  “No. Wide awake and pouting.”

  “Enough dashboard light to see his face?”

  “Sure.”

  “Ask him if Wilson Blount is the Alliance chairman. And as you do, watch his face close—you’re going to read him for me.”

  “Do my best . . . Lawrence! Reeder wants to know if Senator Blount is the chairman of the Alliance board.”

  Reeder could make out Morris’s muffled, “Hell no.”

  “Hear that?” Miggie asked.

  “Yeah. Did his eyes go up and to the left?”

  “His left or my left?”

  “Yours.”

  “Yup. For half a sec, I’d say.”

  “Thank Lawrence for me . . . I’ll check back in the morning. That concealed gun cabinet in the cabin is—”

  “I remember where it is.”

  They clicked off.

  Rogers, at the wheel, had gathered most of the conversation from Reeder’s end and what she could hear of Miggie’s.

  She asked, “So Blount is the chairman? Based on some minimal eye movement on Mo
rris’s part?”

  He gave her half a smile. “Wouldn’t exactly hold up in court. But it makes sense. The Senator is who angled to get the qualifying age for the presidency lowered last year, and now we learn that his young son is the one cabinet member not at Camp David right now.”

  “It’s thin,” she said, “but credible. So we talk to Nicky Blount? How do we get past your Secret Service buddies?”

  The sky was already showing patches of pink light in the east.

  “Working on it,” he said.

  Then he fell asleep.

  When he woke up, Rogers was pulling into the entry drive of an underground garage using a keycard. Reeder twisted and saw a street sign: WOODMONT AVENUE.

  Once they were settled into a space away from cameras and potential passersby, Reeder asked, “Are we anywhere special?”

  “Bethesda. The Landow Building. Offices and retail, and very little traffic this early on a Saturday.”

  “And you have a keycard for a parking garage in Bethesda why?”

  “Gabe Sloan and I—not long after we were first partnered up—stopped some domestic terrorists who wanted to blow this place up for jihad or something. The owners asked us how often our work brought us to Bethesda and we said fairly often, and . . .”

  “They gave you each a permanent parking pass. I got a few perks myself on the job. Who knows about this?”

  “The late Gabriel Sloan. How long should we sleep?”

  “Make it two hours.”

  “Okay.” She set the dashboard alarm. “I’ll take the back. That seat you’re in reclines. Try not to snore.”

  He grinned at her, and it felt good. “Same back at you.”

  Sleep didn’t take him immediately, possibly because of the catnaps he’d caught on the ride. He worked out a tentative plan to get in to see Nicky Blount, and wondered if he was too geared up to fall asleep again, and then did.

  When the dash alarm buzzed, Reeder quickly leaned over and shut it off. He rubbed his face, his neck. He hadn’t realized how exhausted he was. Standing post all those years had taught him to survive on little or no sleep. But he was older now.

  Rogers was still deep asleep, and snoring a little, but gently. He decided to let her sleep a while, then got out of the car and called Miggie.