by Bryan Devore
“And you are leading me out,” Clarke said.
“Yes, ma’am. They told me you requested it to the director. I appreciate that, but I have to remind you that I work on the advance team—not technically a special agent in charge.”
The president looked at her with a hint of a smile and said, “Under the circumstances, I think we can make an exception.”
“Yes, ma’am—of course.”
Rebecca raised her wrist microphone and said, “Stagecoach, this is Reid—acting SAIC. Bring Firefly down. ETA three minutes. All post agents elevate to code three. Command Center, alert Transport and Air Force command. Moving now.”
A troop of agents led the way out the room, with Rebecca walking beside the agent pushing the president. As they moved down the hallway, hospital staff applauded from a secure distance. An elevator took them to the garage, where the shiny black presidential SUV limousine waited with red and blue lights flashing from inside its front grill. Two other stretch SUV’s, four CAT SUVs, an ambulance, and a dozen police motorcycles completed the motorcade. The rest of the large parking garage level had been cleared.
As one agent helped the president into the backseat, Rebecca stood watch by the front passenger door. Her eyes scanned the empty distances of the garage, just as John had taught her. That was when she saw something move in the far shadows. Then nothing. She stared hard for a moment before deciding it couldn’t be anything. They had the area secured. It had to be the product of her own hypervigilance.
Everything was ready. She closed the back door, then got in the front passenger seat and pulled her heavy door shut. Speaking into her wrist microphone, she said, “Firefly in Stagecoach. Eighteen minutes out from Bald Eagle.” Then she nodded at the agent behind the wheel. The engine revved, and the presidential limousine moved forward with the line of other vehicles in the motorcade.
As they drove out of the garage, she was surprised to see the sunlight quickly fading from the short winter day. She had spent the past sixteen hours inside the hospital, mostly in rooms with no outside windows. It was still snowing. The streets had been cleared of traffic by French police blocking intersections along their route. The passing facades of buildings were gray in the vanishing light. Shop windows reflected the motorcade’s flashing lights. As daylight faded, the streetlamps seemed to grow and expand like metallic flowers in incandescent bloom. They drove through the Left Bank, along the Seine, with a view of the Louvre across the river, and a last glimpse of the yellow-lit Eiffel Tower on the left, before the motorcade turned onto the highway flanking the twenty arrondissements.
“Any updates on the investigation?” President Clarke asked.
Rebecca turned her head enough to see her in her peripheral vision while still facing forward. “Yes, ma’am. They’ve tracked the source of the tunnel assault to a warehouse two miles from the hotel. Owned by a shell corporation based in the Caymans. We’re still following the legal and financial trails. Not sure yet which terrorist group or organization was involved. No one is claiming responsibility for the attack. But a body found at the warehouse has been identified as a French organized-crime figure with ties to the Russian mob and terrorist factions in Yemen.”
“But we don’t know who is ultimately responsible?”
Rebecca looked back at President Clarke. “No, ma’am. Not yet. But we will find out. And when we do, we’ll hunt them down and make them pay for their crimes.”
“You’re damn right we will,” Clarke said. She looked out her side window, into the night. “No matter how long it takes.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rebecca knew that the president had already scheduled to be at Andrews Air Force Base in a few days, when the bodies of the fallen Americans arrived Stateside.
They pulled through the secured entrance at Charles de Gaulle, right on schedule. The motorcycle police slowed and fell in behind the group. The CAT SUVs closed in to tighten the bubble as they sped along the tarmac toward the enormous Boeing VC-25 known to the public as Air Force One. It was parked unbelievably close to other vehicles and security personnel by the hangars reserved for the US Air Force and the Marines HMX-1 division. The huge blue and white jet’s many coats of wax gleamed in the surrounding lights, and Rebecca had little difficulty believing that this was the most technologically advanced aircraft in the world.
She couldn’t help being proud to be a part of this. And she could never forget John and all the other men and women who had died to protect something greater than themselves.
“Are you ready, ma’am?” she asked as the limousine slowed to a stop.
“Yes.”
Rebecca opened her door and stepped out into the falling snow. The air felt cold against her face as her sharp eyes scanned the faces along the rope line. Her team of PPD agents had everything covered. CAT agents were on standby, and at least one of their SUVs would race beside Air Force One on the runway during takeoff. The US military liaison was in the tower to ensure that air traffic control had cleared the surrounding airspace for miles before the departure.
But just then she again noticed something strange—something that stood out in her mind and worried her as the shadow in the hospital garage had done. It was someone in the crowd behind the rope line a hundred feet away. A man with slightly graying hair. It was difficult to make out his face through the falling snow, but he seemed to be smiling. And he was looking directly at her. His posture was too stiff, and he seemed to barely move within the vibrant group. And then she saw that the agents working the rope line had missed a critical warning sign: his hands were tucked deep into the dark coat that hung to his knees.
She raised her wrist to radio for one of the agents to have the man remove his hands from his pockets and keep them visible while they moved the president. But before a word left her mouth, he pulled his empty hands out and let his arms hang at his side. It was as if he had read her mind. It took her a few seconds to lower her wrist and move on with the rest of her visual sweep.
Seeing that everything was now safe and that all three layers of the protective bubble were sealed and secured, she pulled the coded switch on the president’s door and opened it. She reached out her hand as the president carefully got out of the limousine. Then, with the crowd clapping and cheering, Rebecca slowly helped President Clarke through the falling snow, toward Air Force One.
THE END
About The Author
Bryan Devore was born and raised in Manhattan, Kansas, and received his Bachelor’s and Master’s in Accountancy from Kansas State University. He also completed an exchange semester at the Leipzig Graduate School of Management in Leipzig, Germany. He is a CPA and lives in Denver, Colorado. He welcomes comments and feedback, and can be contacted at [email protected].
Novels by Bryan Devore:
The Aspen Account
The Price of Innocence
The Paris Protection
To read the story behind the book visit
www.bryandevorebooks.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
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Epilogue
About The Author