by Joseph Flynn
He put his hand out and Rockelle took it.
“A pleasure meeting you, SAC Crogher,” she said.
He couldn’t remember the last time anyone had told him that.
The Vice President’s Mansion
With guests starting to arrive, SAC Crogher decided to detail Special Agent Augie Latz to watch over the bride and groom.
“Two packages?” Latz asked, using service jargon for protected people. “Who gets priority?”
The special agent knew it was a dumb question as soon as he’d asked it.
He said, “Sorry, the vice president’s niece, of course. If necessary, I catch the bullet for her. Captain Yates will be armed and can take care of himself, but if I’m near him and see he’s about to shoot someone I either stop him or take the shot for him, depending.”
Crogher gave the special agent a long look. With Rockelle Bullard neutralized, he was looking to take another wild card out of the deck. “Right, but a half-step slow, Latz. You better be up to speed when it counts.”
“Yes, sir.”
The special agent hustled into the mansion where the bride and groom had their respective dressing rooms: Miz Fahey in the VP’s office; Captain Yates in a lounge just up a short flight of stairs. He knocked on the office door and asked if everything was okay, if they needed any help from him.
Kira called back, “Tell Welborn I’ll expect him to be in top form tonight.”
A chorus of feminine giggles followed, along with a maternal voice saying, “Kira, really.” Then the older woman laughed, too.
Latz strained to stay alert and not let his mind wander to thoughts of —
Vice President Wyman was coming his way from the reception hall with Captain Yates and two other guests, a great-looking older woman who, from the resemblance, had to be Yates’ mother and an older guy carrying a gift-wrapped box who looked like the captain, too. Yates’ father?
Vice President Wyman asked, “All’s well, special agent?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Might the ladies tolerate a brief interruption in their preparations?”
“I just arrived, sir. You’ll have to ask them about that.”
Wyman tapped on the door and said, “Eliza, Kira, might I intrude for just a minute?”
“Everyone’s dressed, Mather,” his sister called to him.
“Come in, Uncle Mather. Tell me if I’ll make Welborn swoon.”
“Don’t you always?” Welborn asked.
“No peeking, no peeking!” Kira warned and the bridesmaids echoed.
The door opened a crack and a hand pulled the vice president inside.
“And that was the last anyone ever saw of the poor man,” Welborn joked.
He stepped over to the Secret Service agent and extended his hand, “Captain Welborn Yates.” Taking his hand, Augie said, “Special Agent Latz.”
Welborn introduced his parents, Marian Yates and Sir Robert Reed. Ms. Yates nodded. Sir Robert shifted the gift box to his left arm and shook the special agent’s hand. Having been trained to notice the details of his environment, Latz spotted a gold leaf embossment on the gift box’s wrapping paper: a crown and below that the letters EiiR.
Sir Robert said, “Thank you for your service today, special agent.”
“You’re welcome, sir.”
The captain took his parents up to the lounge and closed the door. Latz was left to himself again. He started thinking … about his job this time. It was common enough for a package to introduce himself to his bullet-catcher. Let the special agent know he was a regular guy and someone worth dying for. But introducing Mom and Dad? That was a new one. And Dad, with his polished Brit accent, holding the gift box in his arm just so, making sure Latz couldn’t miss the golden doodad on it. Like he was sending a message.
Special Agent Latz took his BlackBerry out of his pocket and Googled the doodad. He learned it was something called a royal cypher, for Queen Elizabeth, the second one. Why it wasn’t QE2, he didn’t know. But the idea of a cypher was interesting. Like it was some kind of coded message between Sir Robert and him.
Yeah, right. He kept up the melodrama and —
As long as he had his phone in his hand, he speed-dialed SAC Crogher.
“Latz, sir. I was just introduced to Sir Robert Reed and I was wondering: Did anyone look inside that gift box he’s carrying?”
If it really was from the Queen of England, he kind of doubted it.
Mather Wyman beamed at his niece Kira and tears welled up in his eyes. She was beautiful even at the end of a long day of shuffling paper at the White House. Now, on the morning of her wedding, in a glorious white dress designed by someone with an actual sense of style, she was positively radiant. He couldn’t have been more proud of her if she were his own daughter, as he’d long ago come to think of her.
What really touched his heart, though, was how she’d accessorized. Draped around her neck in the fashion of a scarf was a crisp white cloth with the image of her late father, Neil Fahey, on it. Mather Wyman had heard the story of the miracle behind how that image came to be. It gave him renewed hope he he might someday see … Elvie, his late wife, who looked back at him from a photo in a cameo setting pinned above Kira’s heart.
“Do I look all right, Uncle Mather?” Kira asked.
The vice president took out a handkerchief to dry his eyes.
“No one has ever looked better,” he said. He didn’t want to muss his niece’s dress or makeup so he put an arm around his sister’s shoulders. “Right, Eliza?”
The bride’s mother agreed completely.
As his job had taught him, Vice President Mather Wyman knew when it was time to bow out of the headliner’s way. “If you’ll excuse me, there’s something I need to retrieve from the bathroom, and then I’ll be on my way.”
Unable to resist, he took his niece’s hand and kissed it.
Then he went into the bathroom and closed the door. He opened the door to the towel cupboard. He wanted to collect his cigars, four Cohibas. He’d started hiding his smokes from Elvie who hadn’t approved of the habit, but pretended it didn’t exist, so long as he changed his clothes, showered and brushed his teeth before coming anywhere near her after smoking. Taking things one step farther, Mather always made a point of storing — hiding — his cigars where his wife would not have to see them.
It was just a game they had, but it fit in well with the bigger secrets they’d kept.
After Elvie had died, he’d kept putting his Cohibas in places no one else would find them — such as the top shelf of a towel cupboard where anyone under six feet tall would have to stand on a stool to get at them. At six-three, the vice president had no trouble making the reach.
But when he took down the small humidor he found that one of his cigars was missing. He distinctly remembered there had been four left the last time he’d taken one out to smoke. Now, there were only three. So who …
One of the ladies in the other room?
That was why he’d stopped into the bathroom. To prevent a discovery and any tomfoolery that might result from it. He did a quick mental survey. Didn’t think that any woman out in his office stood taller than five-eight, far too short to reach the cigars. Unless one of them stood on his desk chair. But that seemed … not so farfetched that he hadn’t worried about someone getting at his cigars.
But if the ladies had taken a cigar, they would no doubt be making sport of it.
Pretending to smoke it and so forth. He’d seen no evidence of that.
So again, who’d been at his Cohibas? It was a small thing, but disturbing.
There was a knock at the door. Eliza asked, “Mather, will you be in there much longer?”
The vice president held the humidor in what he hoped was a discreet manner and opened the door. “Just leaving, my dear,” he told his sister. “Would you mind stepping into the hallway with me for just a moment?”
Eliza agreed and the vice president said goodbye to Kira and her friends.
“Well this is mysterious, isn’t it?” Eliza asked, as she closed the door to the office behind her. “What is it, Mather?”
In a quiet voice, he asked, “Has anyone else visited my office this morning?”
“You mean outside of the bridesmaids and me?”
“Yes.”
“Just an old friend.”
“A tall old friend?”
“Well, yes, Zack Garner is quite tall.”
Special Agent Augie Latz, standing unnoticed though entirely visible outside of the office at the foot of the stairway leading to the lounge, listened in on the conversation. Heard every softly spoken word. That was part of his job. The next step was an exercise in judgment. If he were to decide the content of what he’d heard had nothing to do with a threat to any protected person or wasn’t evidence of a criminal conspiracy, his job would be to forget what he’d heard.
Latz decided Garner stopping by before he’d taken up his post was at least as significant as the royal cypher. He called SAC Crogher to let him know.
“Always seems a shame to tear the paper off a neatly wrapped gift,” Welborn said to his parents. “Especially when there’s a royal emblem on it.”
“Cypher,” his father corrected. “And this package is no more than a bit of stagecraft from the lads at the embassy. Her majesty’s actual gift to you and Kira awaits you at my villa in Barcelona.”
“Is it a pony?” Welborn asked.
His mother laughed.
“An equine gift was considered,” Sir Robert said, “but more on the order of an Arabian stallion. Something spirited you and Kira might ride when you visit your mother and me on our new property in South Carolina.”
“You’re moving to the U.S.?” Welborn asked his father.
“With her majesty in retirement, there’s really no need to keep me on. I’ve been pensioned off, but it is quite a nice pension,” Sir Robert said.
“And you didn’t think of going back to Canada?” Welborn had learned that though his father had lived most of his life in England and had served in the British military he had been born in Toronto.
Marian Yates told her son, “We did consider British Columbia, but it was a bit chilly for me. We looked at the Caribbean, too, but with the villa in Barcelona …” She shrugged.
“So you’re going live in South Carolina. Have you filed your immigration papers, Dad? I know a few people who might help, if there’s any hang-up.”
Sir Robert smiled. “I believe my chances are good once I marry a U.S. citizen.”
“Mother, really?”
“Really.”
“When?”
“We’ll let you know. It will be quite a small and private ceremony. You and Kira and maybe a few others. Now, let’s get on with your wedding.”
She deftly undid the gift wrapping, preserving both the paper and the royal cypher. Sir Robert removed the top of the box and took out a matte pearl white vest. He held it up in front of his son and was pleased.
“Size is spot on, I’d say.”
Welborn took off his shirt and put on the vest. It fit closely but not constrictively.
“Lighter than I would have though,” Welborn said. “Not bulky at all. Will it work?”
“My boy, it’s the same model I’m wearing.”
Welborn looked at his father, studying his suit coat closely.
“Can’t tell, can you?” Sir Robert asked.
“No.”
“This is the newest, finest body armor available in the world today. The Japanese like to think they have something to match it, but their vest bunches as one moves, leaves a chap looking rumpled. Not at all what a man wants on his wedding day.”
Welborn slipped on and buttoned the shirt that went with his dress uniform. He checked his reflection in a full-length mirror. If anything, it looked like maybe he’d done a few extra reps on the bench press to impress Kira. The Brits were very clever with their tailoring, even the bulletproof kind.
As if reading his son’s mind, Sir Robert said, “Should stop anything short of .50 caliber round. Might leave some bruising or a cracked rib or two if you get hit by a volley but —”
“Robert, please,” Marian said.
“Quite right, my dear. No time to talk shop.”
Welborn handed Sir Robert his Berretta. The one SAC Crogher thought he’d be carrying. There was no way he could do that without Kira noticing. Which would probably spoil the mood. Not make for a great remembrance. So Dad would have his back, and he would shelter Kira with his armored torso if worse came to worse.
“Everything’s going to be just fine,” Welborn told Mom and Dad.
Salvation’s Path Church, Richmond, Virginia
The FBI came in force to arrest Reverend Burke Godfrey but not in numbers great enough to fight a pitched battle against men with automatic weapons in fortified positions. They’d also neglected to ask the Army to lend them a few M1-Abrams tanks to clear away the garbage trucks blocking the access roads to the church’s campus. Even if they’d had military armor, they wouldn’t have risked the tank crews’ lives, assuming that the trucks were filled with explosives.
What the federal agents did have from the start was air superiority. The equipment on their helicopters and Nightstalker planes could see in the dark, eavesdrop on conversations and cell phone communications and provide live video feeds to decision-makers in the local command center and in Washington. The FBI’s birds weren’t armed, but military air assets were on call and would arrive in a matter of minutes if summoned.
The first Bureau chopper arrived with the troops on the ground and provided both video and the pilot’s observations to the command center where Ed Pastorini, the FBI’s Crisis Management Unit leader, would orchestrate everyone’s movements. He turned to Deputy Attorney General Linda Otani who had been sent along to make sure every move the government forces made would be defensible in court — or before a Congressional hearing. AG Michael Jaworsky wasn’t about to let Burke Godfrey walk or the president be crucified because any of the troops had screwed up.
“How many people are there behind the barricades?” Otani asked the chopper pilot.
The response was immediate. “Approximately one hundred uniformed personnel on the ground and on rooftops, another dozen in view in building windows.”
“Uniformed?” Otani asked.
“Yes, ma’am. Military fatigues complete with body armor, Fritzes and assault rifles.”
The DAG looked at Pastorini. He knew what she wanted.
“Fritz is jargon for helmet,” he said. “They’re geared up for combat.”
“Do we know if any of these people are active duty U.S. military?”
Pastorini shook his head. “Too soon to say, but we’re already taking pictures of faces. They’ll be matched against the databases. Then we’ll know more.”
Otani asked the helicopter pilot, “Do you see any children?”
“Negative.”
“Thank God for that,” she said.
“There could be a building full of them,” Pastorini said.
“Shit.” The DAG knew he was right.
When it came to human shields, you couldn’t beat kids.
Pastorini said, “Your call, ma’am. What do we do next?”
Before Linda Otani could answer, they heard the sounds of gunfire coming over the radio, and the helicopter pilot said in a flat tone, “Hostile fire. They’re shooting at us.”
“Get out of there,” Pastorini told him.
“I’ll call the attorney general,” Linda Otani said.
“I’ll call the Air Force for a drone,” Pastorini replied.
The White House, Chief of Staff’s Office
Galia Mindel sat behind her desk, her face impassive as she listened to Attorney General Michael Jaworsky relay the report he’d received from Richmond. For just a moment, she could identify with the late Alexander Haig on the morning President Reagan had been shot and Haig had impulsively said, “I’m in control here.”
Exercising an abundance of caution, she said, “I’ll get back to you shortly, Michael, after I’ve spoken with the president.”
“Please do, Madam Chief of Staff. None of those shots hit the FBI helicopter, but all of them came down in populated areas. No casualties were reported, but that was strictly a matter of good fortune. If the forces inside Reverend Godfrey’s compound open fire again, we’ll not only have to protect our people, we’ll have to evacuate the civilian population for a considerable distance.”
Doing something like that, Galia knew, could cut various ways. Provoke anger against the government, Godfrey or both.
“I’ll make it quick, Michael.”
She called the president, reached her in Thing One just as it was arriving at Number One Observatory Circle. Have a nice time at the wedding, Madam President, Galia thought. She described what was happening in Richmond, and recommended a course of action.
In the months between Patricia Darden Grant’s election and inauguration, she and Galia had gamed any number of scenarios that might confront the new president in her first term. Among them was the situation in Waco, Texas that Bill Clinton had confronted. Having the benefit of seeing what didn’t work, a frontal assault, they opted to go another way. Galia’s solution, in part, was inspired by the Israelis’ approach to defending their territory: Build high concrete walls.
Only these walls would keep Godfrey’s people inside instead of keeping hostile neighbors outside. Godfrey liked barricades? Great. They’d give him concrete walls thirty feet high and two feet thick. The walls would encircle his property. They would be watched around the clock, and anyone trying to slip out would be arrested.
All communication with the outside world would be cut off. Phone lines would be taken down; cell communications would be jammed. As would TV, radio and Internet access. Isolation would be complete.