First Family

by David Baldacci

  THERE IS probably no more formal, preplanned space for sale in the world than the Oval Office. Who was allowed into the room, from the prime minister of a relatively unimportant country, to a large compaign donor, could take days if not weeks of wrangling behind the scenes. Simply an invitation to the Oval Office for folks not routinely engaged in business with the man must be fought for with equal parts ferocity and delicacy. Once you gained entry to the hallowed space, the treatment you received—a handshake, a pat on the back, a signed photo as opposed to merely the picture—was all in the details. And in the negotiations. The Oval Office was not an environment that encouraged spontaneity. The Secret Service in particular frowned on anything approaching unplanned movements.

  It was late, but Dan Cox was knocking out a few of these obligatory requests before he left in the morning for his UN address. He had been briefed on who these people were; mostly elite campaign supporters who’d opened their checkbooks and, more importantly, induced lots of their rich friends to do the same.

  They came in one by one, and the president went into automatic greeting mode. Shake hand, nod, smile, pat back, say a few words, and accept the groveling thanks in return. For some particularly heavy hitters, deftly pointed out by his team of aides who hovered everywhere like the guardian vultures they were, the president would pick up some national treasure off his desk and talk to them about it. A lucky few even received a small memento. And these happy folks left believing that they had registered a personal connection with the man. That some brilliant thing they had said had precipitated the world leader giving them a signed presidential golf ball, or box of presidential cuff links, or pens that had the seal on it, all of which the White House kept by the ton for just such occasions.

  This carefully planned process was ripped savagely apart when the door to the Oval Office was flung open, no mean task since it was quite a heavy door.

  Dan Cox looked up to see his wife standing there—no, rather, teetering there in her high heels, stylish dress, her coat trailing behind her, her eyes wild and unfocused, her normally perfect hair in disarray. Right next to her were two anxious-looking Secret Service agents. The conflicted looks on their faces were clear. Despite the unofficial policy allowing the First Lady to enter the Oval Office mostly when she wanted to, on this occasion they obviously hadn’t known whether to let her in or tackle the woman.

  “Jane?” the astonished president said as he dropped a golf ball he was about to hand to a real estate developer from Ohio who had raised a truckload of money for Cox’s campaign.

  “Dan!” she exclaimed breathlessly. And she was indeed out of breath since she’d run all the way from where the limo had dropped her off and the White House has a pretty large footprint.

  “My God, what is it? Are you ill?”

  She took a step forward. So did the agents, as they delicately moved in front of her. They might have thought she actually had become ill, or had been doused with some poisonous substance and they were duty-bound not to let it infect the leader of the free world.

  “We need to talk. Now!”

  “I’m just finishing up here.” He glanced at the man who had retrieved the golf ball from the floor. Smiling, Cox said, “Been a long day for everybody.” He took back the ball. “Let me just sign that for you…” Usually terrific with names, the interrupted president had just had a very human brain fart.

  Jay, his “body man,” sprang forward to remedy this. “As we discussed, Mr. President, Wally Garrett here has raised more money for your reelection campaign in the Cincinnati area than anyone else, sir.”

  “Well, Wally, I really appreciate—”

  What the president really appreciated would never be known because Jane had shot forward, grabbed the golf ball from her husband’s hand, and flung it across the room, where it struck a portrait of Thomas Jefferson, one of Dan Cox’s personal heroes, leaving old Tom with a gouge where his left eye had been.

  The Secret Service agents rushed forward, but Dan held up his hand, stopping them in their tracks. He nodded at his aides and Garrett was rushed from the room without his coveted golf ball. However, no politician who had achieved the position Dan Cox had, ever left anything to happenstance or let a donor go away unhappy. The Ohio man would receive a signed photo of the president, and VIP tickets to an upcoming event, with the understanding that what he’d just seen would never be made public.

  Dan Cox reached out to his wife. “Jane, what the hell is—”

  “Not here, upstairs. I don’t trust this room.”

  She glared at the agents and aides, turned and rushed from the room as fast as she had entered it. The aides and agents looked from her to the president as soon as the thick door had slammed behind her. No one dared to speak. There was no thought that any of them had about what they had just seen that they would ever voluntarily verbalize in front of their boss.

  Cox stood there for a few moments. Any politician who’d reached the level that he had, had truly seen it all. And handled it all. Yet even for the veteran Dan Cox, this was a new situation.

  “I guess I better go see what she wants,” he finally said. The sea of bodies parted and the president headed out.

  Larry Foster, his protection detail chief who had been called while this had been going on, appeared and said, “Mr. President, do you want us to accompany you…?” The strain was evident in the veteran agent’s face as he struggled to finish his thought in the most judicious way possible. “All the way, sir?”

  Meaning beyond the door to their private quarters, which was typically taboo for the security detail to cross, unless asked.

  Cox seemed to consider this for a moment before saying, “Uh, no that won’t be necessary, Larry.” As he walked out, he added over his shoulder, “But stay close. Um, just in case Jane needs anything.”

  “Absolutely, Mr. President. We can be in there in seconds.”

  Cox headed upstairs to confront his wife. The Secret Service team followed and stood a few feet beyond the portal to their private quarters, listening for anything that would indicate the president was in jeopardy in any way. No doubt each of them was wondering the same thing. They were duty-bound to protect the president from all danger. They had been trained to sacrifice their own lives so that single life could continue.

  Yet what they had not been exactly prepared for was a situation that might be materializing a few feet away right now. What if the danger the president was in was coming from his wife?

  Could they use deadly force if necessary? Could they even kill her to save him? That was not really spelled out in the Secret Service manual, but each agent was thinking the answer to that was probably “yes.”

  This had happened once before if presidential lore was to be believed. Warren G. Harding had been president and he and his mistress had been found out by Mrs. Harding. They had taken refuge in a closet in the White House and the angry First Lady had attempted to chop down the door, allegedly with a fireman’s ax. The Secret Service had to delicately relieve her of the weapon and Harding had survived. However, he had succumbed later in a San Francisco hotel room under mysterious circumstances while still president. Some thought the missus had finally gotten her revenge through a poisoned dish served to her husband. That had never been proved because Mrs. Harding had not allowed an autopsy, and had ordered her husband’s body quickly embalmed. It was a fine example of a cheated-on wife’s sheer will topping the desires of an entire nation.

  Fire axes were no longer kept in the White House. And while there was a small kitchen in the private quarters, the First Lady never really did any of the cooking anymore. Or if she did, it was far from certain that any president who knew how Harding had died would actually eat it.

  Larry Foster racked his brain, trying to remember if there were any letter openers in the personal quarters that could be used as a weapon. A heavy lamp that could crack a presidential skull? A poker from the fireplace that could end that supreme life on his watch? Foster thought he could feel the
ulcer actually forming in his belly as he stood in the hall contemplating the end of his career. Though it was far from warm inside the White House, sweat stains appeared under Foster’s armpits and trickles of the stuff rose on his forehead. He and his team inched closer as their collective heart rates spiked.

  Each of the agents could envision the next day’s headlines in six-inch-high letters:

  SECRET SERVICE KILLS FIRST LADY TO SAVE PRESIDENT.

  There were half a dozen heavily armed agents poised in the hallway to take action if necessary. And all six of their asses clenched with nearly this very same thought at nearly the very same time.

  Twenty anxious minutes later Larry Foster’s phone rang. It was the man.

  “Yes sir?” he said quickly.

  He listened intently, his features finally dissolving into confusion. But he was the president so Foster only had one thing to say.

  “Right away, sir.”

  He clicked off and looked at his second in command. “Bruce, call Andrews and get a bird ready.”

  “You mean AF-One?”

  “Any plane the president rides on is Air Force One.”

  “But I mean—”

  “I know what you meant,” snapped Foster. “No, we’re not taking the 747. See if one of the support planes is available. The 757 maybe, no insignias.”

  “Wolfman is taking an unmarked 757 to New York?” Bruce said, looking astonished.

  Foster said grimly, “We’re heading somewhere, but I don’t think it’s New York.”

  “But we haven’t sent an advance team anywhere else.”

  “We’re going stealth, like we do to Iraq and Afghanistan.”

  “But we still advance-team it. It takes a week of logistics minimum for the man to make a trip.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know, Bruce. Thing is, we don’t have a week. We’ve got a few hours and I don’t even know where the hell we’re going. So call Andrews and get me a ride. And I’m going to get on the horn to the director and see how the hell I’m supposed to handle this. Because let me tell you, I’ve seen a lot over the years, but this is new territory for me.”

  CHAPTER 74

  QUARRY CHECKED the machinery and oxygen levels that were keeping Tippi alive. It was all working fine off the fully charged generator. It was still dark outside; the sun would not be up for hours yet.

  As he touched his daughter’s face, he thought about his phone call with Jane Cox. He had never talked to a First Lady before; folks like him never had that opportunity. He had read about her for years, of course, followed her husband’s career. He had expected more from her on the phone, educated, refined, but battle-tested person that she was. But she had disappointed him. She’d sounded human on the phone. Meaning scared. So safe in her high tower all this time; never saw the shit going on down below. Well, she had seen it now. And she would see it even closer soon enough.

  He took a long breath. This was really it. At any point up to this Quarry could have called it off. And he almost had until the walls in the basement had brought him back. He pulled Pride and Prejudice from his pocket. By the light of his daddy’s old flashlight he read the last chapter of the novel. And this really would be the last chapter he would ever read to her.

  He closed the book and laid it gently on her chest. Quarry took one of her hands and squeezed. He had done this for years, always hoping that she would squeeze back, but she never had. He had long since given up the thought that he ever would feel Tippi’s fingers curl around his own; they didn’t this time either. He put her hand back down, slid it under the covers.

  He slipped the small tape recorder out of his pocket, set it on the bed and turned it on. For the next several minutes he and his daughter listened to Cameron Quarry saying her last words on earth. As always, Quarry spoke the last line along with his dead wife.

  “I love you, Tippi, darling. Momma loves you with all my heart. I can’t wait to hold you again, baby girl. When we’re both healthy and fine in the arms of Jesus.”

  He switched the recorder off and pocketed it.

  The memories washed over him, coming in long, undulating waves. It could’ve turned out so differently. It should’ve turned out so differently.

  “Your momma will be real happy to see you, Tippi. I wish I could be there too.”

  He leaned down and kissed his daughter for the final time.

  He left the door open, and then turned and looked back in the room. Even in the dark he could make out Tippi’s form under the illumination of the machines that had been the only thing keeping her from the grave all these years.

  They had tried to get the Quarrys to pull the plug many times.

  Persistent vegetative state. No brain activity. Brain dead in fact, they had told the couple, throwing in big medical jargon that Quarry felt certain was meant to both intimidate and confuse. After listening to them wax eloquent over the ultimate fate of his daughter, Quarry had asked each of them one simple question. “If she was your child would you let her die?”

  The blank faces and still tongues he had gotten were all the answer he needed.

  A part of him was unwilling to leave his child now, but he really had no choice. He stepped off the porch and looked toward the treeline. In the little bunker that Quarry had dug out and reinforced with wood sat Carlos, remote in hand, with one cable line hooked into a port on the device, and the other end embedded in the wall of the little house. The bunker was covered with dirt and grass, and underneath all that was lead sheathing that would block X-rays and other electronic imaging. Knowing that the Feds would be bringing specialized equipment, Quarry had fashioned the lead covering from old X-ray blankets he’d gotten from a dentist’s office.

  No one looking at it from even a few feet away would be able to determine that a man was in there watching, and the lead covers would block most anything the Feds would have with them. The other cable line Quarry had run down the tree and then underground and into the bunker where it was hooked into the small TV monitor that Carlos was now no doubt staring at right now. It gave him the live feed from the camera in the tree. Carlos was supposed to stay in the bunker for as long as he needed for things to clear out. The bunker was ventilated and he had plenty of food and water. The plan was for him to escape to Mexico and from there to keep heading south. Quarry hoped he made it.

  Quarry stood in a spot where he knew Carlos could see him on the TV. He gave a thumbs-up and then a salute. And then he left and drove home.

  Quarry had written a letter that he left in the room in the basement. It wasn’t addressed to Ruth Ann or Gabriel, but it was about them. He wanted the people who would be coming to know the truth. This was his doing and nobody else’s. He also left his will.

  He crept upstairs and looked in on Ruth Ann, who was sleeping soundly. He next went to Gabriel’s room and watched the little boy sleeping peacefully. Then he pulled a silver dollar from his pocket and placed it on the table next to the bed.

  Under his breath he said, “You go to college, Gabriel. You get on with your life and you forget you ever knew me. But if you do think of me from time to time, I hope you’ll remember I wasn’t all bad. Just dealt a hand in life I didn’t know what to do with. But did the best I could.”

  He walked through the house to his library. The fire was out now, doused with a bucket of water. He flexed his arm where the burns were, where the completed mark was. He clicked the light on, stared at the walls of books for a bit, and then turned off the light and closed the door for the final time.

  A half hour later he parked his truck next to his Cessna. Twenty minutes later he was lifting off from the ground. As he soared over the land he looked down to where the little house was. He didn’t wave, didn’t nod, didn’t indicate he knew it was there at all. Now he had to be focused. What was past was past. He had only to look ahead now.

  Daryl had illuminated the runway for him using lit torches spread ten feet apart. He landed with a hard jolt because of the winds, taxied down, turned ar
ound, got out, and chocked the wheels.

  If things went according to plan he and Daryl would fly out of here and land in Texas. It all shouldn’t take more than a few hours. From there they had set up a way to sneak across the border into Mexico. It was easier to go south across the border than it was to go north over it. Once there Quarry would use a stolen cell phone to call the FBI and give them the exact location of the mine so that Willa and Wohl could be rescued. They would be perfectly fine there until then, with plenty of food and water.

  It was a good plan, but only if it worked.

  He grabbed his knapsack and trudged toward the mine entrance.

  Well, he would have his answer in a very few hours.

  CHAPTER 75

  WHEN SEAN AND MICHELLE pulled into the packed dirt road leading to Atlee the sun was very near to starting its ascent up the eastern seaboard.

  “Creepy,” said Michelle as they drove down the lonely, winding road. “You left a message for Waters?”

  “Yeah, but no telling when he might get back to us. And this might be a wild-goose chase anyway.”

  “My gut’s telling me otherwise.”

  “Mine too,” he admitted.

  “How do you want to play this out?”

  “Get the lay of the land. See what we can accomplish. Pray for a miracle, find Willa.”

  Michelle pointed up ahead. “That looks like it might be Atlee.” The place had appeared as they rounded a curve. Big southern long-leaf pines lined both sides of the drive heading to the old antebellum mansion. It made the darkness even more opaque.

  “I don’t see any cars out front,” said Michelle, as she slipped her pistol out.

  “Lots of places around here to park I would imagine.”

  The ringing phone startled them both.

  It was Aaron Betack. Sean listened for a couple of minutes and then clicked off and looked at his partner.

  “The shit has hit the fan at the White House. Apparently Jane Cox