“Hey, I gave him a chance. I told him to drop his weapon,” O’Day said. “I yelled so loud I’m surprised you didn’t hear it outside, Price. But the gun started moving, and I wasn’t in a mood to take chances, you know?” His hands were steady now. The immediate shock period was over. Others would come later.
“Any idea who they were?” Price asked, after he’d gone through it the first time.
“They were talking in some language, but I don’t know what one. Wasn’t German or Russian—aside from that, I don’t know. Foreign languages sound like foreign languages. I couldn’t recognize any words or phrases. Their English was pretty good, accented, but again, not sure what the accent was. Physical appearance, Mediterranean. Maybe from the Middle East. Maybe from some other place. Absolutely ruthless. He shot Mrs. Daggett down, not a blink, no emotion—no, that’s wrong. He was pissed, very pumped up. No hesitation at all. Boom, she’s down. Nothing I could have done,” the inspector went on. “The other one had his gun on me, and it happened so fast, I didn’t really see that happening so fast.”
“Pat.” Andrea took his hand. “You did great.”
THE HELICOPTER LANDED on the White House pad, just south of the ground-floor entrance. Again a ring of agents with weapons was in evidence, as Ryan ran to the aircraft while the rotor was still turning, and nobody tried to stop him. A Marine crewman in a green flight suit pulled the door open and stepped out, which allowed the agents on the helicopter to carry SANDBOX off and hand her off to her father.
Jack cradled her like the baby she no longer was but always would be in his mind, and walked up the slope to the house, where the rest of his family was waiting under cover. News cameras recorded the event, though no reporter got within fifty yards of POTUS. The Secret Service members of the Detail were in a mood to kill; for the first time in the memory of the White House press corps, they looked overly dangerous.
“Mommy!” Katie twisted in her father’s arms, reaching for her mother, who took her away from Jack at once. Sally and Little Jack closed in on the pair, leaving their father standing alone. That didn’t last for long.
“How you doing?” Arnie van Damm asked quietly.
“Better now, I guess.” His face was still ashen, his body limp but still able to stand. “Do we know any more?”
“Look, first thing, how about we get all of you out of here? Up to Camp David. You can calm down there. Security is airtight. It’s a good place to relax.”
Ryan thought about that. The family hadn’t been up there yet, and he’d only been there twice, most recently on a dreadful January day several years before. “Arnie, we don’t have clothes or—”
“We can take care of that,” the chief of staff assured him.
The President nodded. “Get it set up. Fast,” he added. While Cathy took the kids upstairs, Jack headed back out and over to the West Wing. Two minutes later, he was back in the Situation Room. The mood was better there. The initial shock and fear were gone, replaced with a quiet determination.
“Okay,” Ryan said quietly. “What do we know?”
“Is that you, Mr. President?” It was Dan Murray on the table-mounted speakerphone.
“Talk to me, Dan,” SWORDSMAN commanded.
“We had a guy inside, one of mine. You know him. Pat O’Day, one of my roving inspectors. His daughter—Megan, I think—goes there, too. He got the drop on the subjects and blew’ em both away. The Secret Service people killed the rest—the total count is nine, two by Pat and the rest by Andrea’s people. There are five Service agents dead, plus Mrs. Daggett. No children were wounded, thank God. Price is interviewing Pat right now. I have about ten agents on the scene to assist with the investigation, with a lot of Service people on the way there, too.”
“Who runs the investigation?” POTUS asked.
“Two statutes on this one. An attack on you or any member of your family is under the purview of the Secret Service. Terrorism is our bailiwick. I’d give the Service lead on this one, and we’ll provide all possible assistance,” Murray promised. “No pissin’ contest on this one, my word on it. I’ve already called Justice. Martin will assign us a senior attorney to coordinate the criminal investigation. Jack?” the FBI Director added.
“What, Dan?”
“Get your family put back together. We know how to do this. I know you’re the President, but for the next day or two, just be a guy, okay?”
“Good advice, Jack,” Admiral Jackson observed.
“Jeff?” Ryan said to Agent Raman. All his friends were saying the same thing. They were probably right.
“Yes, sir?”
“Let’s get us the hell out of town.”
“Yes, Mr. President.” Raman left the room.
“Robby, how about you and Sissy fly up, too. I’ll have a helo waiting for you here.”
“Anything you say, pal.”
“Okay, Dan,” Ryan told the speakerphone. “We’re going to Camp David. Keep me informed.”
“Will do,” the FBI Director promised.
THEY HEARD IT on the radio. Brown and Holbrook were heading north on US Route 287 to join Interstate 90-East. The cement truck drove like a pig, even with its multirange gearbox, top-heavy, slow to accelerate, and almost as slow to brake. Maybe the interstate would be better driving, they hoped. But it did have a decent radio.
“Damn,” Brown said, adjusting the dial.
“Kids.” Holbrook shook his head. “We have to make sure no kids are around, Ernie.”
“I think we can handle that, Pete, assuming we can horse this rig all the way there.”
“What do you figure?”
A grunt. “Five days.”
DARYAEI TOOK IT well, Badrayn saw, especially with the news that all of them were dead.
“Forgive me for saying so, but I did warn you that—”
“I know. I remember,” Mahmoud Haji acknowledged. “The success of this mission was never really necessary, so long as the security arrangements were properly looked after.” With that, the cleric looked closely at his guest.
“They all had false travel documents. None had a criminal file anywhere in the world, so far as I know. None had anything to connect him with your country. Had one been taken alive, there was a chance, and I warned you about that, but it appears that none were.”
The Ayatollah nodded, and spoke their epitaph: “Yes, they were faithful.”
Faithful to what? Badrayn asked himself. Overtly religious political leaders weren’t exactly uncommon in this part of the world, but it was tiresome to hear. Now, supposedly, all nine of them were in Paradise. He wondered if Daryaei actually believed that. He probably did; he was probably so sure that he believed that he could speak with God’s own voice, or at least had told himself so often that he thought he did. One could do that to himself, Ali knew, just keep repeating any idea enough, and however it had first entered one’s mind—for political advantage, personal revenge, greed, any of the baser motivations—after enough repetitions it became an article of faith, as pure in purpose as the words of the Prophet himself. Daryaei was seventy-two, Badrayn reminded himself, a long life of self-denial, focused on something outside himself, continuing on a journey that had begun in his youth with shining purpose toward a holy goal. He was a long way from the beginning now, and very close to the end. Now the goal could be seen so clearly that the purpose itself could be forgotten, couldn’t it? That was the trap for all such men. At least he knew better, Badrayn told himself. For him it was just business, devoid of illusions and devoid of hypocrisy.
“And the rest?” Daryaei asked, after a prayer for their souls.
“We will know by Monday, perhaps, certainly by Wednesday,” Ali replied.
“And security for that?”
“Perfect.” Badrayn was totally confident. All of the travelers had returned safely, and reported in every case that their missions had been properly carried out. Whatever physical evidence they’d left behind—just the spray cans—would have been collected as tr
ash and carted away. The plague would appear, and there would never be any evidence of how it might have gotten there. And so what had apparently failed today was not a failure at all. This Ryan fellow, relieved though he might be at the rescue of his child, was now a weakened man, as America was a weakened country, and Daryaei had a plan. A good one, Badrayn thought, and for his help in implementing it, his life would change forever now. His days as an international terrorist were a thing of the past. He might have some position in the expanding UIR government—security or intelligence, probably, with a comfortable office and a sizable stipend, able finally to settle down in peace and safety. Daryaei had his dream, and might even achieve it. For Badrayn, the dream was closer still, and he need now not do a thing more to make it a reality. Nine men had died to make it so. That was their misfortune. Were they truly in Paradise for their sacrificial act? Perhaps Allah truly was that merciful, enough to forgive any act done in His Name, mistakenly or not. Perhaps.
It didn’t really matter, did it?
THEY TRIED TO make the departure look normal. The kids had changed clothes. Bags were packed and would go out on a later flight. Security looked tighter than usual, but not grossly so. That was mistaken. Atop the Treasury Building to the east and the Old Executive Office Building to the west, the Secret Service people who usually crouched were now standing, showing their full profiles as they scanned the area with their binoculars. Beside each was a man with a rifle. Eight agents were on the south perimeter fence, examining the people who were passing by or had come just to be there after hearing the horrid news, for whatever purpose. Most had probably come because they cared to some degree or another, maybe even to offer a prayer for the Ryans’ safety. For those who had some other purpose, the agents watched, and this time, as with all the others, saw nothing unusual.
Jack strapped in, as did the rest of his family. The engines over their heads started whining, and the rotor turning. Inside with them were Agent Raman and another guard, plus the Marine crew chief. The VH-3 helicopter vibrated, then lifted off, climbing rapidly into the westerly wind, first heading toward the OEOB, then south, then northwest, its curving flight path designed to confuse someone who might be out there with a surface-to-air missile. Light conditions were good enough that such a person would probably be spotted—it takes a few seconds to make a successful launch—and anyway the helicopter was equipped with the newest variant of the Black Hole IR-suppression system, which made Marine One a hard kill. The pilot—it was Colonel Hank Goodman again—knew all this, took the proper protective measures, and did his best to forget about it as he did so.
It was quiet in the back. President Ryan had his thoughts. His wife had hers. The kids looked out the windows, for helicopter flying is one of the greatest thrill rides known to man. Even little Katie twisted in her seat belt to look down, her dreadful afternoon suppressed by the wonder of the moment. Jack turned, and seeing that, he decided that the short attention span of children was as much a blessing as a curse. His own hands were shaking a little now. Fear or rage, he couldn’t tell. Cathy just looked bereft, her face slack in the golden light of sunset. Their talk tonight would not be a pleasant one.
Behind them, a Secret Service car had collected Cecilia Jackson from their Fort Myers home. Admiral Jackson and his wife boarded a backup VH-60, along with some carry-on bags, and more substantial luggage for the Ryan family. There were no cameras to record this. The President and First Family were gone, and the cameras with them, while pundits put together their thoughts for the evening news broadcasts, trying to find a deeper significance in the events of the day, coming to conclusions well in advance of the federal officers who only now were allowing the ambulance crews to remove the thirteen bodies from the crime scene. The flashing police lights looked dramatic as TV crews set up to do live broadcasts, one of them from the very spot where Movie Star had observed the burned operation.
He had prepared for this eventuality, of course. He drove north on Ritchie Highway—the traffic wasn’t bad at all, considering the police still had the road blocked at Giant Steps—and at Baltimore-Washington International he even had time to turn in his rental car and catch the British Airways 767 for Heathrow. Not first-class this time, he realized. The aircraft was all business class. He didn’t smile. He had hoped the kidnapping might actually succeed, though from the beginning he had planned also for its failure. For Movie Star the mission hadn’t failed at all. He was still alive, and escaping yet again. Here he was, lifting off, soon to be in another country, and there to disappear completely, even while the American police were trying to establish if there might have been another member of the criminal conspiracy. He decided to have a few glasses of wine, the better to help him sleep after a very stressful day. The thought that it was against his religion made him smile. What aspect of his life wasn’t?
SUNSET COMES QUICKLY. By the time they started circling at Camp David, the ground was an undulating shadow punctuated by the stationary lights of private homes and the moving lights of automobiles. The helicopter descended slowly, flared out fifty feet above the ground, then settled vertically for a whisper-soft landing. There were few lights beyond the square landing pad’s perimeter. When the crew chief opened the door, Raman and the other agent stepped down first. The President undid his lap belt and walked forward. He stopped just behind the flight crew, tapping the pilot on the shoulder.
“Thanks, Colonel.”
“You have a lot of friends, Mr. President. We’re here when you need us,” Goodman told his Commander-in-Chief.
Jack nodded, went down the steps, and beyond the lights he saw the spectral outlines of Marine riflemen in camouflaged utilities.
“Welcome to Camp David, sir.” It was a Marine captain.
Jack turned to help his wife down. Sally led Katie down. Little Jack came out last. It hit Ryan that his son was almost as tall as his mother now. He might have to call his son something else.
Cathy looked around nervously. The captain saw it.
“Ma’am, there’s sixty Marines out there,” he assured her. He didn’t have to add what they were there for. He didn’t have to tell the President how alert they were.
“Where?” Little Jack asked, looking and seeing nothing.
“Try this.” The captain handed over his PVS-7 night-vision goggles. SHORTSTOP held them to his eyes.
“Cool!” His arm reached out, pointing to those he could see. Then he lowered the goggles, and the Marines turned invisible again.
“They’re great for spotting deer, and there’s a bear that wanders on and off the grounds every so often. We call him Yogi.” Captain Larry Overton, USMC, congratulated himself for calming them down, and led them toward the HMMWVs that would transport them to quarters. Yogi, he’d explain later, had a radio collar on so that he wouldn’t surprise anybody, least of all a Marine with a loaded rifle.
The quarters at Camp David appeared rustic, and truly were not anywhere near as plush as those in the White House, but could accurately be described as the sort of hideaway a millionaire might set up for himself outside Aspen—in fact, Presidential Quarters are officially known as Aspen Cottage. Maintained by Naval Surface Detachment, Thurmont (Maryland), and guarded by a short company of handpicked Marines, the compound was as remote and secure a location as anything within a hundred miles of Washington could possibly be. There were Marines at the presidential cabin to let them in, and inside were sailors to guide each to a private bedroom. Outside were twelve additional cottages, and the closer you were to Aspen, of course, the more important you were.
“What’s for dinner?” Jack Junior asked.
“Just about anything you want,” a Navy chief steward replied.
Jack turned to Cathy. She nodded. This would be a whatever-you-want night. The President took off his jacket and tie. A steward darted up to collect them. “The food is great here, Mr. President,” he promised.
“That’s a fact, sir,” the chief confirmed. “We have a deal with some local folks. Fr
esh everything, right off the farm. Can I get you something to drink?” he asked hopefully.
“That sounds like a great plan, chief. Cathy?”
“White wine?” she asked, the stress bleeding off her, finally.
“We have a pretty good selection, ma’am. For domestic, how about a Chateau Ste. Michelle reserve chardonnay? It’s a 1991 vintage, and about as good as a chardonnay gets.”
“You’re a Navy chief?” POTUS asked.
“Yes, sir. I used to take care of admirals, but I got promoted, and if I may say so, sir, I do know my wines.”
Ryan held up two fingers. The chief nodded and went out the door.
“This is insane,” Cathy said after he left.
“Don’t knock it.” While they waited for drinks, the two big kids agreed on a pizza. Katie wanted a burger and fries. They heard the buzz of another helicopter coming into the pad. Cathy was right, her husband thought. This is insane.
The door reopened, and the chief returned with two bottles and a silver bucket. Another steward followed with glasses.
“Chief, I just meant two glasses.”
“Yes, Mr. President, but we have two more guests arriving, Admiral and Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson likes a good white also, sir.” He popped the cork and poured a splash for SURGEON. She nodded.
“Doesn’t it have a wonderful nose?” He filled her glass and one other, handing that to the President. Then he withdrew.
“They always told me the Navy had guys like that, but I never believed it.”
“Oh, Jack.” Cathy turned. The kids were watching TV, all three sitting on the floor, even Sally, who was trying to become an elegant lady. They were retreating into the familiar, while their parents did what parents always did, came to terms with a new reality, in order to buffer their children from the world.
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