Today would mark the fourth.
Then the president leaned down, forcing Gray to follow him. The man ruffled the fur of a dog sharing the platform with him. Gray tensed, recognizing that shepherd.
Kane.
Gray zoomed out to watch James Gant straighten and shake the hand of Captain Tucker Wayne. The man must have recovered his uniform. His dress blues were decorated with the medals and awards from his tours in Afghanistan. It was appropriate that Tucker should be standing there on the dais, a war hero and his dog being thanked by a grateful commander in chief.
But Gray knew why Tucker and Kane were really there.
All the earlier anger at Painter’s secrecy dried up, leaving behind only relief and respect. The director must have received the recorded video from Dubai and understood—but what did he want Gray to do?
Gray searched the stage. Painter must have put Tucker up there for a reason. The former army ranger was not a regular member of sigma, only a hired hand, so no one was likely to recognize him. But what was the message Painter was trying to send to Gray?
Then he knew.
It wasn’t just Tucker on that stage—but also Kane.
Gray shifted his concentration to the dog. The shepherd stood quietly, tail out, nose pointed up. Gray had seen that particular pose a few times before, when the dog had found the source of a scent.
Kane was pointing, like any good hunting dog.
Gray followed his gaze to a red balloon behind the podium, not far from the president’s head. Gray fingered the telescopic sight to zero in on that balloon.
It twisted in a slight breeze, revealing a small Greek letter in a darker shade of red, barely discernible unless you were looking for it.
Σ
He smiled and made some final adjustments to his weapon.
In his ear, he got the order he needed: “FIRE.”
Steadying his breath, Commander Gray Pierce pulled the trigger.
34
July 4, 12:00 P.M. EST
Washington, DC
No shot was heard—only the popping of a balloon.
Even that noise startled everyone on the podium.
Not Tucker.
He had been waiting for that signal. He used the distraction to press the button on the transmitter in his pocket. Small squibs, hidden under the president’s white polo shirt, exploded. Packets of the president’s own blood erupted out his back in a violent blast and seeped heavily over his heart in front.
The First Lady screamed, catching some of the spray on her face.
The Secret Service enveloped the president immediately, gathering him up and whisking him off the platform. Tucker got knocked to the side; Kane danced out of the way.
Another cordon of agents formed a living shield to protect the fleeing president. More crowded around the First Lady and rushed her in another direction.
Tucker tapped his leg, gathered Kane to his side, and rushed after the president’s group. Chaos exploded across the picnic grounds, the sudden violence catching everyone off guard. People yelled, kids were hidden under the bodies of protective parents, a barbecue got knocked over, setting fire to a tent. But a majority of those in attendance were military or former service members. Most had probably been under fire.
They made room for the flight of their wounded commander in chief; some even added to the body shield to protect the fallen president.
The president’s entourage reached the parking lot and the motorcade. As planned, the USSS Electronic Countermeasures Suburban, used by the Secret Service to stop any airborne attacks, ejected its arsenal of infrared smoke grenades, creating a thick pall to protect the president in his final flight to the waiting ambulances.
In that momentary confusion, a pair of Secret Service agents who were in on the ruse hauled the president into one of the emergency vehicles. Tucker climbed into the back. Kane jumped in after him.
The neighboring ambulance erupted with flashing lights and sirens and took off. The WHCA Roadrunner, the mobile command and control vehicle, sent out the false instruction, drawing the rest of the secure-package motorcade to follow the decoy. Armored vehicles gave chase, while local law enforcement blocked streets.
Staring out a window, Tucker watched an armored presidential limo race through the smoke with additional escorts, bearing to safety the First Lady, who must be beyond distraught, watching her husband shot right in front of her. They needed her to be the grieving wife for the cameras during the next few hours.
It was cruel, but no one could know of the subterfuge today.
Especially the enemy.
Amazingly, Painter had orchestrated a deception of this caliber after a single day of planning. He recruited only those he fully trusted, reaching out to a handful of people in various intelligence branches, but mostly he kept this entire operation in-house.
One of the Secret Service agents helped the president take off his buttoned polo. Gant wore a pained expression. The reason became clear as his bloody undershirt was stripped off and the exploded remains of the squibs removed. A blistered blast burn decorated the spot under his shoulder blade.
“Sir,” one of the Secret Service agents started, worried.
He was waved away. “I’m fine. Better than a bullet through the head.”
Another agent started the ambulance and set off, running dark, no flashing lights, no sirens. They headed in the opposite direction from the motorcade. The decoys were racing to George Washington University Hospital, where another team waited to continue the deception. In the story to come, it would be reported that the president was undergoing an extensive emergency surgery to repair his lung, that his chances were poor. They didn’t want to risk a second attempt on his life, so they would make it sound bad. But such a ruse could not be maintained for long without the threat of exposure.
So they set a six-hour time limit.
Six hours to bring down a shadowy cabal that had survived centuries.
Painter’s voice filled one ear. “Report.”
“The package is secure,” Tucker sent back, knowing their voice channel was kept secret by a modified version of the CCEP type-1 encryption algorithm developed by the NSA to keep presidential communications secret. “What about Commander Pierce?”
“We’re working on that right now.”
With advance knowledge of the sniper attack, Painter had set up a ring of tiny high-frame-rate, slow-motion cameras around the stage, all fixed on that balloon. Those cameras should have recorded the bullet’s passage and allowed immediate processing of the trajectory. A three-dimensional laser modeling of the park permitted the analysts at Sigma command to quickly trace the path of that bullet back to its source.
They needed Commander Pierce secured as soon as possible—not only for his safety but also to obtain whatever knowledge he had regarding the moves of the enemy, including the whereabouts of the president’s grandson.
Tucker felt a pang of regret, unable to escape the guilt of leaving Amanda’s child behind. He intended to do whatever he could to correct that mistake.
The first step toward that goal: find and secure Gray.
Without that man’s information, all of this subterfuge would accomplish nothing. In six hours, it would be announced to the world that the president had miraculously survived his surgery, and the thin advantage of the moment would evaporate.
He knew Painter didn’t expect to uproot the Bloodline completely by these actions, but he had one clear goal, the same one as Tucker: to find and recover Amanda’s child and expose everyone involved in this current bloody affair.
Even with such a defined objective, the odds were exceedingly long.
And without Gray, there were no odds.
Painter came back on the line. “We have his location. A utility bunker of an office tower. Seven hundred yards away.”
Tucker sighed in relief.
He locked eyes with the president. “We found him, sir.”
James Gant nodded, wincing. “We’d
better not lose him.”
12:01 P.M.
Gray watched the hatch fall open.
He still held the sniper rifle in his hands. He had witnessed the explosive chaos following his single shot. As he watched, he held his breath, concerned the sarin gas would still be released, killing everyone in the park. When nothing happened, he suspected that threat had been a lie, after all. He saw Tucker race off with the president, rushing him to a secure location.
He understood the situation immediately.
They were faking the president’s death.
A risky move on the director’s part, but Gray understood why that risk had been taken. It spoke volumes about their desperation. They were likely backtracking a trajectory already, looking to find him, hoping he could supply additional information.
That was a problem.
I don’t know anything more than they do.
That is, unless Painter was ignorant of Robert Gant’s involvement with the Guild. Maybe the director suspected the president’s family or inner circle was involved—but he didn’t necessarily know who in the administration was the mole.
Gray stared down at his hand. He still had one more round. Was it enough to stall, to buy Painter time to find him?
A shout rose from the dark hatch. “Leave the rifle! Show your hands!”
“Where are you taking me?” he called back, both stalling and trying to get more information.
The answer came as a shock—literally. An electrical jolt burst from his ear, blinding him, triggering his jaw to seize, his knees to buckle, sprawling him flat.
“Leave the rifle,” the guard repeated. “Show your hands.”
Gray belly-crawled and thrust his arms over the open hatch. He breathed heavily, gasping.
“Now climb down the service ladder.”
Gray dawdled—not because it hurt to move but to slow things down. He swung his legs into the opening, fumbling with a toe to find the first rung.
“You were warned,” the guard said.
Gray braced for another shock, but instead a mechanical countdown whispered from his implanted earpiece, arising from the unit itself.
Ten … nine … eight …
It was the timer for the implanted C-4 bomb in his right ear. Whoever held the transmitter must have stepped beyond his ten-yard limit. They were forcing him to follow, tugging at his electric leash.
He had no choice but to obey. He picked at that packed ear, knowing it wouldn’t do Sigma any good to have half his skull blown away. He had to stay alive, to do his best to learn more—which meant he had to work fast.
… seven … six … five …
Once done, he ignored the ladder’s rungs and slid down the frame instead. His feet hit the floor of a concrete corridor as the countdown reached three.
Then, thankfully, stopped.
A circle of soldiers, all in black, surrounded him, weapons in hand. One dashed back up the ladder, wearing latex gloves, and searched the concrete roost.
“Rifle’s there and some blood for a DNA trace,” the man reported and clambered back down. He held the syringe-injection system in one hand and bagged it away, cleaning up any evidence. “All clear.”
The team leader stepped up, a head taller than the others, with a crucifix-shaped tattoo on his neck. He pocketed a device the size of a packet of gum.
The transmitter.
“Move out,” he ordered.
Pistols encouraged Gray forward, down a set of stairs to a subbasement, then through a hidden door into a tunnel system.
Gray stared behind him as the door sealed, hoping his plan worked.
As his feet dragged, the countdown began again in his ear.
Ten … nine … eight …
Like a dog on a leash, Gray hurried forward obediently.
For now.
12:32 P.M.
“Report,” Painter said, standing in the communications nest at Sigma headquarters.
“We arrived on-site,” his unit commander reported from the field. “Found the bunker empty. No sign of Commander Pierce. Only a sniper rifle and several drops of blood.”
Painter closed his eyes and fought against the tide of despair at losing Gray’s trail. He turned his mind instead to what was left behind.
A rifle and blood.
Painter understood.
They were planning on pinning the assassination on Gray and, in turn, destroying sigma’s reputation. But as in any chess match, it was now Painter’s turn.
“Grab the rifle and bring it here,” he ordered. “Destroy the blood evidence and scour the place clean. But you’ll need to be quick.”
In the aftermath of the attack, chaos still reigned, but it wouldn’t be long before forensic teams discovered the sniper’s hiding place. His team needed to be finished by then. But he refused to let panic distract his focus.
He knew Gray wouldn’t have lost focus, either.
“Before you start cleaning,” Painter warned over the radio, “thoroughly search every square inch of that space. If I know Gray, he would try to leave us some clue.”
“Understood.”
Painter ended the conversation and spoke to Jason Carter, who stood in the doorway to Kat’s office. “Hold down the fort here. Let me know if anything goes wrong.”
Like it hadn’t already.
“I’ve got things covered,” Jason assured him.
Painter hurried out the door and down the stairs, headed for the lowermost floor.
President James Gant was already down there with his daughter.
The man had arrived in secret a few minutes ago. The Smithsonian Castle had been closed all day, specifically for this purpose. No one paid attention to the shuffle of the janitorial staff into the building; no one saw them enter the special elevator that led down to the command bunkers of sigma. For now, everyone believed the president was undergoing emergency surgery at George Washington University Hospital, that the likelihood of his survival was extremely poor.
Painter had his communications nest monitoring events, making sure the deception remained in place, massaging the press where needed. But such a level of fraud could not last forever without risking exposure. In less than six hours, it would have to end.
Knowing time was ticking down, Painter returned to the hospital ward. Two Secret Service agents protected the hall; another manned a post by the elevator. The fourth stood guard inside the small ward.
Painter found Gant sitting on the edge of Amanda’s bed, holding her hand. He had stripped out of the janitorial coveralls and wore wrinkled navy-blue slacks and a borrowed gray shirt. Amanda still balanced between moments of lucidity and sedation, monitored by her neurologist, who remained concerned about the subdural hematoma.
At the moment, she slept.
Gant looked up as he entered. “She spoke a few words when I came in. She’s still worried about her baby.”
“We all are.”
He nodded. “What’s the word from your field team? Did they find your man?”
Painter hated to dash the gleam of hope in a father’s eyes, but he’d had enough deception for one day. “Already gone. But I’m hoping he left some clue behind. We should know in a few minutes.”
Gant sighed, turning to his daughter. He spoke slowly, full of regret. “I pulled her into the limelight and made her childhood a spectacle, a target for the press. And I still had no time for her. No wonder she rebelled, lashed out. No wonder she fled without saying a word. What trust have I earned in her life?” He glanced up, wiping a tear, but never let go of her hand. “I promised her I’d find William. Don’t make me let her down again.”
Painter stepped over and placed a hand on his shoulder, silently making an oath to do everything he could to help.
“What they did to her, to my family …” Gant said. “If I ever find out who orchestrated this, who tortured my baby girl, I will make them regret it for the rest of their days. There will be no quick death. I will make them suffer like no other. I’ll turn the
ir world into a personal hell on earth.”
Painter knew that if anyone had the power to do that, it was President James Gant.
A commotion drew both their attentions around.
Jason came flying into the room, winded. “Director.” The young man never stopped moving, continuing past the end of the bed and toward the neighboring medical office. “Linus just got a hit.”
Painter got drawn into the wake of his excitement. It took him an extra moment to remember that Linus was Jason’s partner in that vehicle-identification program. Hope flared inside him.
Had they found something?
He rushed after Jason into the medical office. The kid was already at the computer, typing fast.
“What is it?” Painter asked.
The president stood in the doorway, too, listening in.
“I’ll show you,” Jason said, typing as he spoke. “That’s why I came running down here. Linus had been checking all the major thoroughfares leaving Charleston, searching for any further hits on that Ford. The problem is that the farther you get out from the city, the more variables come into play, so many different roads that could be taken, spreading wider and wider like the branches on a tree.”
“What did you find?” Painter pressed.
“This.” Jason pointed at the screen. A clear photo of the front of a Ford explorer appeared. “Picked this up from a security camera at a drawbridge outside of Orangeburg, South Carolina.”
Through the windshield, Painter spotted Lisa behind the wheel. His breathing grew heavier, both relieved and terrified. A man sat next to her, his arms awkwardly raised behind him, like he was stretching. Or maybe his hands were bound behind him.
“You found her,” Painter mumbled. “How long ago was this taken?”
Jason looked both apologetic and worried. “Two days ago … the same day Dr. Cummings was kidnapped in Charleston.”
The president spoke at the doorway. “Who is Dr. Cummings?”
She’s everything to me.
Aloud, Painter replied, “She was one of the operatives sent to investigate the North Charleston Fertility Clinic.”
Gant’s face grew grim, likely remembering the footage he’d been shown, of women floating in gel-filled tanks.
Bloodline: A Sigma Force Novel Page 34