Another nod, a glum one. “Havin’ a Southern boy like myself as Secretary of Agriculture is certainly helpful, and it’s an impressive item on my résumé, but it’s not the kind of power my Papa wants . . . needs. He assumes if I were president, he could control me. That the Alliance would have their man in the most important chair in the world.”
“He’s admitted this to you?”
Nicky sipped his tea, gestured with his free hand. “In so many words. It was only this past year that he revealed the Alliance itself to me . . . making it clear I was not to be in any way affiliated with the group, not on the board or for that matter even just a member in good standin’. I had to be my own man, he said.”
“Meaning his man.”
“Oh, yes, and of course, when the time comes, the Alliance’s man.”
Reeder sipped his tea, hating the sweetness. “Knowing what you know, Nicky, you could be your own man.”
“Possibly. There are moments where I think that’s a distinct possibility, Joe. But I also know the power my father wields over me. My weakness is that I do love him, and that I want him to love me . . . laugh at that if you like.”
“Not laughing.”
A loose-limbed shrug. “I hope I could resist his influence. But right now, I’m worried. Worried that I’m Secretary of Agriculture not because Tennessee is a farm state, but to get me into the line of succession.”
“You’re way down that list,” Reeder said, “but that has occurred to us. We think we’re looking at a plan to take out the President and Vice President at the Camp David meeting.”
“What if it’s more than that? Everyone’s there, Joe, but me—everyone but me! If a bomb drops on Camp David . . . you’re looking at the President.”
The silence in the kitchen was like the terrible stillness after a bomb blast itself.
Calmly, Reeder said, “We realize that. And if Harrison and the VP are taken out, the rest of the Cabinet would be targets in the fleeing motorcade. That’s how we read it.”
Nicky’s smile was a terrible thing. “But what if people from within staged a coup? Some of us know that that almost did go down last year.”
Reeder shook his head. “At Camp David? The Secret Service would never let that happen.”
But hadn’t he fought an SS agent in that alley?
Nicky was saying, “The Alliance has people marbled through the government like fat in a rib-eye steak. Men and women in government service with their own take on patriotism—almost certainly including certain members of the Secret Service!”
Reeder fought back nausea.
Nicky pressed on: “Who better to kill the President and Vice President and every cabinet member above me in the line of succession? Who better than the very people assigned to guard them?”
“Some tainted people might be in the Secret Service,” Reeder admitted, “but surely not in the presidential detail. That’s the elite of the elite—the men and women willing to put their lives on the line. To take a bullet.”
“Like you did. For a president you disliked.”
“Hated!”
Nicky shook a forefinger at him. “And if you shared the Alliance’s beliefs, who would have been better placed than you to dispatch a bullet rather than take one? Someone like that, maybe several, who knows how many, are ‘guarding’ President Harrison right now.”
“Come forward with what you know about the Alliance,” Reeder said. “Right now! We’ll arrange for every media outlet to carry it, and that would nip in the bud any goddamn Camp David coup.”
“No,” Nicky said.
“. . . No?”
“We’re talking about my father, and my suspicions. I know things, but I don’t know of any plan to do a damn thing at Camp David or anywhere else.”
“Plausible deniability,” Reeder said.
“It goes beyond that, because all I have are those suspicions. Guesses. And a man can’t testify to those, not that I would. All I can do is point you in the right direction and hope to hell I’m either wrong . . . or that you can stop this insanity. By the way, I don’t even want to be president, puppet or otherwise.”
The two men were staring at each other when Parker stepped in from outside.
“That’s ten minutes,” the agent said. “Time to go, Peep.”
“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”
Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States of America. Served 1901–1909.
EIGHTEEN
By the time Reeder finally emerged from the Cape Cod, Patti Rogers—tucked behind the beech, Glock in hand—had just endured the longest fifteen minutes of her life . . .
. . . Reeder talking to his old Secret Service buddy before giving up his weapons and cell and going inside, the SS agent smoking on the little landing until going in himself, and finally Reeder coming out with Parker, shaking the man’s hand, retrieving guns, baton, and phone, then trotting across the yard to her while Parker watched. If Reeder’s old pal drew his sidearm with the apparent intention of shooting, Rogers would have shot the man, federal agent or not. Maybe the guy would be wearing a vest. But maybe not.
Then they were moving through the connecting backyards again, hugging the trees, and they didn’t talk until they were in the Buick with her back behind the wheel.
“Well?” she asked.
“First, drive. Parker’s giving us an hour and we better start using it.”
She started the car. “Anywhere special?”
“Not here.”
They were out of Blount’s immediate neighborhood before Reeder said, “Gaithersburg. Know where it is?”
“Yes,” she said.
That was a suburb of about sixty thousand, northwest of DC.
“What’s in Gaithersburg?” she asked.
“Nothing, I hope. No Alliance troops or FBI, either.”
“Why Gaithersburg of all places?”
“Why not? Avoid the Capital Beltway. Fisk’ll be having traffic-cams scanned.”
“You think?”
“Sorry.”
As she got her bearings and headed northwest, he filled her in on his conversation with the young Secretary of Agriculture.
“Well,” she said, “suspicions confirmed, but how much good does it do us otherwise, if Nicky won’t come forward?”
“It’s his father,” Reeder said. “Took balls to go as far as he did.”
She couldn’t argue with that.
He set his cell to speaker, then placed a call that was answered on the third ring.
After hearing Hardesy’s “Yeah,” Reeder asked him, “Where are you two?”
“Reston, at my college roommate’s place. He’s out of town and that’s fine with me.”
So they were safe in Virginia. There were worse places to be.
“Can you get your hands on some firepower?”
“. . . Could be I can call in a favor. What might we need?”
“Anything with some punch that isn’t a handgun but can be used on the move. Controllable. Nothing producing random gunfire, like a machine gun.”
A long pause, then: “See what I can do. What then?”
“There’s an Applebee’s on Frederick Road in Gaithersburg.”
“We’ll find it. I assume we leave the weaponry in the car.”
That had some sarcasm in it, but Reeder’s response did not: “Not your handguns. How long you need?”
“Travel time, getting to my source . . . let’s say three hours.”
“Try to shorten it,” Reeder said.
“Give it a try,” Hardesy said, and they clicked off.
Eyebrows up, Rogers asked, “Firepower? No machine guns?”
“You don’t want the President taken down by friendly fire, do you?”
She stared at him so long and so hard he had to tell her to get her eyes back on the road.
“Please tell me,” she said,
“that you’re not talking about storming Camp David.”
“I’m open to other suggestions.”
“Good God, Joe! Isn’t that a little over the top?”
“So is Nicky Blount’s father leading a coup to overthrow the government and leave his bouncing baby boy as the only one standing. Nicky turns out to have more going for him than I would ever have guessed, but I still don’t want him to be the next president.”
She was shaking her head, the concept rattling around in her skull like something broken. “And we don’t trust the presidential protection detail why?”
“It’s likely at least some of them are Alliance.”
He seemed so goddamn calm! But her heart was racing. She didn’t realize how heavy her foot was on the gas till he advised her to slow down and engage the cruise control, which she hadn’t because of the serpentine way she was traveling.
Finally she said, “Do I have to tell you that place is a military installation? A fortress not only protected by the Secret Service, but staffed with Navy and Marines? You know that, and yet you’re still contemplating, what, shooting our way in?”
“Someone has to protect the President. With the Secret Service infiltrated, who else is there but us?”
She drove numbly for a minute or maybe an hour.
Finally he said, “There’s one other way. We can drive up to the checkpoint and I can ask to be put through to Harrison. But how likely is that request to go directly through? Someone on the inside who’s compromised would have us taken care of. And anyway, we’re basically the FBI’s entire Most Wanted List right now.”
“Jesus. If there were only some way to warn the President.”
Reeder was so quiet and blank, she could read him.
“Joe?”
“. . . I have a direct line to the President right now. A cell phone he gave me.”
“What?”
“But alerting him at this point doesn’t make sense, not until we have an actual plan of action. Telling him that people around him aren’t to be trusted could backfire. It’s not like he’s trained in kinesics.”
She gaped at him. “You have a phone that’s in the President’s pocket? And we’re not using it?”
“Not yet. The less time he has to think about it, the less chance he’ll give himself away.”
“I don’t know, Joe . . .”
“This has to be my call.”
She smirked at him without humor. “I remember. It’s not a democracy.”
“Not even close.”
They drove in silence for an hour or maybe a minute.
She said, very quietly, “Think Miggie can find us a way in?”
He raised his cell phone. “My next call.”
With Miggie on the speaker, Reeder asked, “Security at Camp David—what can you tell us?”
“What you already know,” the computer expert said, clearly taken somewhat aback by the query. “That it’s good and goddamn tight, as one might expect.”
But Mig was already tapping on his tablet in the background.
“Kind of hoping,” Reeder said, “for something a little more detailed.”
“. . . It’s a self-contained system, not online. No way for me to hack it.”
“None?”
“There’s an underground control room, multi-person team inside, pretty much in the center of the compound. They manage all the electronic equipment from there. Motion detectors, infrared, the works. And no way for me to sneak into the system.”
“Not good news,” Reeder admitted. “What else?”
“Besides the Marines, the Navy, and the F-22s?”
Rogers said, “They have planes?”
“They can get them with a finger snap,” Miggie’s voice said. “Two different occasions, F-15s intercepted small planes near Camp David that got too close to President Obama.”
Reeder asked, “You see a way in? Use your imagination.”
“Not that I see,” Miggie said, “or imagine. Maybe if you had someone inside . . . but from the outside? Suicide.”
She and Reeder exchanged glances: they did have someone inside—the President himself.
“Miggie,” Reeder asked, “is the tunnel still in use?”
“Tunnel?”
“Runs between Aspen Lodge and the command center. Anyway, it did back when I was on the presidential detail.”
Miggie’s tapping again could be heard, then he said, “Yes . . . yes, it is. Don’t know how that helps, but it’s still functional, according to what I can access.”
“Can any part of the system be shut down without tripping all the alarms?”
“There’s a way to shut off a single sector, but it has to be done from the control center—if you had someone inside.”
“Suppose we did,” Reeder said, “and a sector could be cleared. What’s the best approach?”
A long pause, broken by a sigh. “From the woods on the southeast.”
“Through the golf course.”
“Yes. If no one is playing, that’s where there’ll be the least security . . . but also the least cover.”
“Late enough in the day, shouldn’t be anybody playing. President Harrison is a morning golfer.”
Mig asked, “How would you know that?”
“I know where the shadows fall, different times of day. Seen pictures of Harrison playing golf there. Old habits die hard.”
“But sometimes fast. Anyway—the second tee, Joe. I’ve got a feeling you know it.”
“I do.”
“Section A-22. That’s the only sector that needs shutting down. Your inside guy can report it as a system check and buy you maybe, oh . . . ten minutes? But you’ll really have to hustle.”
“Oh yeah. That’s over a mile through woods, unless we take the fairway, which would mean no cover.”
“But it’s also the shortest path to Aspen Lodge, and your tunnel.”
“Thanks, Mig.”
“Are you really going to try this, Joe? Isn’t there some better way?”
“Feel free to call me back with one,” Reeder said, and clicked off.
“You can’t be seriously contemplating this,” she said, her gaze fixed on him again.
“Eyes on the road. I’m going to mull it some. When we sit down with Wade and Hardesy, I’ll tell you what I’ve come up with.”
In Gaithersburg, with Hardesy and Wade not due for a while, Rogers located the Applebee’s, then drove around the area checking to see if they’d been made by any government agents. She knew the kind of vehicles they drove and the way they dressed and even how they had their hair cut. If somebody was on to their meeting, she had a good chance of knowing.
Finally satisfied, she pulled into the restaurant parking lot and backed into a place at the rear with the alley behind them, giving them two channels of flight. The lunch rush was over, though enough extra civilians were around to give them some cover—not that it was very likely the Buick could be on the FBI radar.
They stayed in the car and waited for Hardesy and Wade. No reason to go in and expose themselves any longer than necessary.
She turned to Reeder. “How’s that mulling coming?”
His shrug was barely perceptible. “Let’s just say there’s zero margin for error.”
“Meaning everything goes exactly right, or we check into a federal penitentiary.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Oh?”
“They may kill us.”
They lapsed into silence and the next thing Rogers knew, Reeder was nudging her.
“They’re here,” he said.
She sat up, yawned, stretched. “How long was I out?”
“Not even half an hour.”
“They made good time.”
“Or they struck out on the guns.”
Hardesy and Wade were backing in next to them in a nothing Kia. They all got out and met in front of their vehicles. The two agents looked somewhat on the bedraggled side, Lucas in his black windbreaker and jeans,
Wade in the dark gray sweats.
Reeder asked, “Any luck?”
Hardesy said, “Two AR-15s. Wish I had four.”
“Two’ll do. Semiauto?”
“Yeah. My guy is a friend, but he’s not that good a friend. Fully auto’s more than we can hope for, given our circumstances.”
Reeder nodded. “Let’s go in and stop looking like a drug deal. I have a few things to run past you.”
Hardesy gave Rogers a look and she just shrugged.
They asked for and got a table in a back corner. The place was maybe half-full. Wade and Hardesy ordered food, Reeder and Rogers coffee, their breakfast still holding them.
Wade summoned a smile. “Ever try jailhouse food?”
By the time their beverages arrived, Reeder had given them the gist. Nobody was smiling now. Then, covered by clatter and conversation around them, he went over the plan in detail. Wade and Hardesy’s food came and neither touched it.
At one point, Hardesy said, “I don’t know if I’m prepared to shoot a United States Marine or sailor or even a Secret Service agent. Some may be Alliance-turned traitors, but others sure as hell won’t be.”
Reeder sipped his coffee. They might have been discussing an office football pool.
“I’ve considered that too,” Reeder said. “The thing is, they’ll be trying to kill us.”
Hardesy shook his head glumly. “I’m just saying I don’t know if I can drop them.”
Reeder showed nothing at all in his expression. “They are military sworn to protect and defend their country and their president. Ready to give their lives for that. Those who are uncompromised, and that may be most of them, are in a war where they’re being unwittingly used by the enemy.”
Wade was nodding gravely. “The Alliance.”
“The Alliance,” Reeder said. “Any brave men and women who go down will be dying for their country.”
Rogers sighed. “Maybe, but that’s a roundabout way of looking at it.”
“No doubt. And since I first considered going this route, killing our own has weighed heavily. The Secret Service, the Marines, they are all battle-ready, which means bulletproof vests. We’re not using any kind of armor-piercing ammo, correct?”
Hardesy shook his head. “No. Nothing like that.”
Executive Order (Reeder and Rogers Thriller) Page 23