Designated Survivor

by John H. Matthews

  “What the hell, Mandy,” Grace said. “I was just asking you about soccer.”

  “We both know you weren’t,” she said. “You saw the photo of Foster there and somehow in that twisted mind of yours tied everything together. I don’t know how, but you did.”

  Grace looked over at the photo and back at her.

  “True, it was kinda weird seeing Foster there, but it was more shocking to see William Whitlock in the photo,” Grace said.

  Amanda stretched her arms longer and gritted her teeth, her right forefinger already on the trigger of the pistol.

  “Does this mean you’re not going upstairs to get your shin guards?” he said.

  “What did it?” she said.

  “Everything out in Charlottesville made no sense; the SEAL trying to kill me, only one Secret Service agent dead from a shootout. Once Graham and William were suspects, it really confused me, until I realized it was a cover. There was never any threat against them, but it threw any suspicion against them away,” Grace said. “I had a feeling about Foster when I was there. He was too easy to push over. No self respecting Secret Service agent would let some gang of thugs come out of the woods and take their asset out from under them without a fight. I also didn’t buy that they were radio silent. I saw his radio on a different frequency before we left when he had no reason to change it from the secure channel we’d already communicated on. And I knew that Graham or William couldn’t have pulled this off alone. I told Arrington I thought there had to be someone in the intel community involved.”

  “Why’s that?” she said.

  “Someone had to know the ins and outs of the security details, have access to the secure phones everyone carries, access their records to know who could be threatened,” Grace said. “And Neurotomy, the college kids making the phone calls. That was your baby, wasn’t it?”

  She cocked her head. “Why do you think that?”

  “We’ve gone through their data,” Grace said. “They had access to all of the employee files for every agency they needed. Only someone high up could have arranged that. Tell me, what was Foster to gain?”

  “A senior position in DC,” she said. “Perhaps a move to the bureau.”

  “That’s nothing compared to you,” Grace said. “You were going to be the first female director of the FBI.”

  “Haven’t you checked? I already am,” she said.

  “Interim director isn’t the same,” Grace said.

  “It will be,” she said. “Abrams told me she’s going to appoint me. The Senate will have no choice to confirm me or come off looking sexist.”

  “I’m impressed. You’ve really thought this through,” Grace said. “How’d you even get the money to pay Abbasi?”

  “Whitlock,” she said. “He knew I could still take him down, even if it meant my own career.”

  “And that’s why you killed him,” Grace said. “But you also had to take out the other two agents in the house. I had no idea you were that good a shot.”

  “Doesn’t hurt when the two agents are misogynistic assholes and don’t think lady assistant director can fire a weapon,” Amanda said. “I picked them off clean. Whitlock was harder. He got to his gun but I fired first.”

  “You’re the poster girl for feminism,” Grace said. “And what about Monroe. Did you target him in order to get the appointment at the FBI? Was it similar to how we met? Did you use the same hotel in Bethesda?”

  “It wasn’t like that,” she said. “It was more.”

  “It was more and then you blackmailed him into appointing you assistant director.”

  “Screw you,” she said. “This is Washington. You do what you have to.”

  “Yes, you do,” Grace said. “Like when I recognized you in that hotel bar when you were drunk and falling all over me.”

  “Bastard,” she said.

  “Opportunist,” he said.

  Grace made a motion to step forward. Amanda took a half step back. “Stop there, Grace.”

  “So, what, you’re going to shoot me with that .380?” Grace said. “I could take three of those to the chest and still have you on the floor before I come close to passing out.”

  “You wanna try?” she said.

  He stared at her finger on the trigger of the baby Glock pistol.

  “You have no more than seven shots to get me if I do, if you have it fully loaded,” Grace said. “So, yeah, I wanna try.”

  Grace took a lunging step forward, his right foot slamming down onto the dark hardwood floors. Amanda Paulson pulled the trigger over and over. She stopped after five clicks and no bullets had fired.

  Grace put his hand in his jeans pocket and pulled out seven .380 caliber bullets.

  “You knew before you came here tonight?”

  “I had a strong suspicion,” he said. “Then right before I killed Arash Abbasi I knew.”

  “You found him?” she lowered her gun and her shoulders.

  “Sure did. He sang about Whitlock, but he wouldn’t give you up,” Grace said. “But his bank accounts couldn’t lie. You were pretty sloppy in your transfers to him, but I guess you were kinda rushed.”

  “So what now?” she said.

  “Well, right now Foster is being arrested. The president has already appointed a new interim director, and Richard Graham will be resigning from his posting, a casualty of your little game.”

  “And what about me?” she said. “Are you taking me in?”

  “No,” Grace said. “They are.”

  The front and back doors of the house slammed in at the same time as a dozen heavily armed FBI SWAT agents flooded into the house. Grace stepped away as they pulled her arms to her back and roughly pushed her face forward onto the floor and began to put handcuffs around her wrists.

  Grace glanced around the room then walked over to the end table beside the sofa and picked up the bottle of Jameson 18 he’d brought then turned and left the house.