by Ben Coes
Dewey removed his jacket and placed it over her. He stared at her face up close. For several moments, he didn’t take his eyes off her. She appeared gentle, even peaceful. He used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe blood from her forehead and cheek.
An electric rumble echoed from somewhere outside, in the distant sky. Rotors from the incoming helicopter.
For the first time, Dewey felt a sharp pain in his hip. He glanced down. His jeans from the belt down were drenched in blood.
Dewey moved to the barn door. The chopper descended from the black sky, cutting a diagonal line toward the ground in front of the barn. Halogen lights abruptly lit up on the nose cone. The air picked up amid the din of rotor chop. It was a light blue Bell H-60ASD, a Trauma Hawk, a minihospital for severe situations. The door to the cabin flew open and two medics leapt out, carrying a stretcher. A moment later, a tall woman with short blond hair emerged. She was calm, with a sharp look in her eyes. She was dressed in bright orange ski pants, a white ski jacket, and leather boats. She walked into the barn, standing at the door, assessing the scene. She crossed her arms and watched as the medics lifted the woman onto the stretcher. She glanced impassively at the dead man in the middle of the barn. She stared for a few moments without emotion, then stepped to Dewey.
“I’m Nina Simonds,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m a TC8. Hector called me. I was on vacation, thank you very much. You must be Dewey?”
“Yeah.”
She nodded toward Kyrie. “Little disagreement?”
“He liked the Canadiens,” said Dewey.
An involuntarily smile crossed her lips.
“I’m going to need a blood sample from him,” she said.
“Go for it.”
“No, you’re going for it,” said Simonds. “I’m here to save that woman’s life. I’m not here to clean up your mess.”
Dewey stared at her, wondering if she was being serious.
“I’m not kidding,” she said, anticipating his thoughts. “He hit her and drew blood. We need to know if he was carrying parasites or some sort of unusual bacteria. If he isn’t carrying anything, it will let us be more aggressive.”
“Aggressive? What does that mean?”
“It means pushing boundaries.” Simonds stepped closer and stared into Dewey’s eyes. “A tendency toward violence. You are familiar with the concept, from what I’ve heard.”
Dewey glared at her. He turned and went to Kyrie. He knelt and took his blade from its sheath, grabbed Kyrie’s hand, and cut off the tip of the index finger. He returned with the piece of finger, blood dripping on the ground.
“Here you go,” he said. “There should be enough blood in there to get a sample.”
Dr. Simonds looked at the finger stub and then back at Dewey.
“Cute. Give it to one of the medics.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Which was?”
“Why do you need to be aggressive? Isn’t she going to live?”
“Why do I need to be aggressive?” Simonds said incredulously, nodding toward the woman as the medics lifted her into the air. “Look at her. She’s bleeding out and it looks like her neck is broken. She also has a subdural hematoma. We’ll be lucky to save her life.”
Dr. Simonds’s eyes suddenly shot to Dewey’s hip, which was covered in blood.
“What happened?” she asked in a soft tone.
“I got shot.”
She knelt down and stuck her hand near Dewey’s hip. She pulled a small knife from her pocket, then grabbed Dewey’s blood-soaked pants. She sliced a precise line down the side and pulled the material back. His hip was black and blue, soaked in red. A contusion where the bullet had passed seeped blood with every heartbeat.
Simonds looked at it for a few moments, then stood up.
“That must hurt,” she said.
“I’ll be fine.”
“I’ll get Louie to sew it up. Looks like it went right through you.”
80
NSA
Samantha swiped her pass and entered Signals Intelligence Directorate. She walked past the large bullpen of workstations where she and several dozen other analysts worked and entered Jesus June’s large, dimly lit office. Samantha looked around, then walked back into the bullpen.
“Where’s Jesus?” she said to everyone.
“He hasn’t come in yet.”
Samantha put down her bag and took off her coat, then picked up her coffee. She went back to June’s office and found the whiteboard where he had diagrammed the various elements that were at play in the ongoing investigation of Order 6. She stared at the board for more than a minute. It was a puzzle. June had started to put the pieces together, but he wasn’t done. There was something missing.
One thing was certain, however. There was a threat. The puzzle was about the threat.
She cursed herself for not figuring it out by now.
Samantha picked up her phone. “SID,” she said.
A moment later, a male voice came on. “Hey, Sam.”
It was Drew Dilworth, an agent inside NSA security.
“Hi, Drew. I need you to send a team to Jesus’s apartment. I need you to do it right now.”
81
IN THE AIR ABOVE THE PACIFIC OCEAN
AIR FORCE TWO
Air Force Two moved west across the Pacific Ocean toward Hawaii.
Vice President Donato was seated near the front of the luxurious aircraft. A small contingent of his staff surrounded him, each enjoying his or her own row. Several Secret Service agents were aboard. In the back of the plane, a handful of reporters were seated.
The front of Air Force Two was similar to a private jet, with large leather captain’s chairs around tables. In front of these work areas were several rows of seats, reserved for staff and Secret Service as well as VIPs, such as elected officials from the state the VP happened to be visiting. In fact, seated across from Donato was the governor of Hawaii, Samantha Bailani, a Democrat. Despite being from different political parties, Donato had invited Bailani to accompany him on the plane trip, knowing that arriving in Hawaii on Air Force Two would make her look important. Donato was a hard-core conservative, but he nevertheless made it a point to reach out across the political aisle.
Bailani put her iPhone down and stared at Donato. Hawaii’s popular, beautiful governor was forty-four years old. She had long black hair and a pretty smile.
“So, Mr. Vice President, may I ask you a question?”
Donato, who’d been looking out the window at the endless blue-black ocean, moved his eyes to her.
“You just did. And call me Danny.”
“Good one,” she said, then immediately corrected herself. “Sorry. I didn’t mean that.”
Donato laughed.
“What is it?”
“Why aren’t you in Washington? Isn’t the president announcing his reelection today?”
“Yes, he is.”
“So why aren’t you there?”
“It’s not complicated. I’ve been planning this trip for eight months. I could’ve stayed. I would’ve stayed, but the president wanted me to go. It’s the first vacation I’ve taken in over a year. My wife is mad at me. I need to do it. Besides, Samantha, I’m irrelevant.”
“You are not irrelevant.”
“I am. Statistically, less than ten percent of voters cast their vote based on the vice presidential nominee. Dan Quayle proved that.”
“Are you going to run in four years?” asked Bailani.
Donato shrugged. “Maybe.”
Bailani smiled. “Well, if I could, I’d support you, you know that,” she said.
“You can’t and I wouldn’t want you to do that, Samantha. But I appreciate it.”
82
FRANKFURT, GERMANY
The helicopter flight from the mountain to Frankfurt took twenty minutes. Simonds worked in the cabin of the Trauma Hawk to stabilize the woman. The chopper was single purpose, designed to stem trauma in the early m
inutes, when time was more valuable than gold. Simonds wanted to keep her alive long enough to get on board the waiting Hospital 777 plane in Frankfurt, where a medical suite on a par with the best surgical units in the world existed, modeled on the Cleveland Clinic and capable of all known disciplines within the advanced surgery spectrum.
The woman was intubated—put on an oxygen machine to do her breathing for her—and injected with a host of drugs designed to keep her alive—antibiotics, coagulants, painkillers, as well as a few more esoteric drugs focused on stimulating brain activity during periods of extreme physical trauma.
Simonds directed the medics how to remove the woman’s coat. Within a few seconds, Simonds had pushed them aside and done it herself, exposing the back of the woman’s neck. Blood was trickling from her skull.
Simonds leaned in and inspected the wound. She opened a cabinet in the back of the helicopter and a bright light illuminated a variety of jars, tubes, and bottles. She removed two small jars. She handed Dewey one of the jars, which held a tan powder. Simonds twisted off the top of the other jar, which held a white powder. She put a few fingers in her jar and pulled them out, then methodically sprinkled the powder into every part of the woman’s neck wound. She handed the jar to Dewey without looking at him and took the jar Dewey had been holding. She looked at her watch and waited. After nearly half a minute, she sprinkled tan powder into the gash, covering it.
She put her hand out, gathering the other jar from Dewey.
“What is it?”
“Cornstarch,” she said.
“What’s the white stuff?”
“Pharmaceutical cocaine.”
* * *
Forty minutes later, the CIA Trauma Hawk set down on the tarmac of a rarely used section of Frankfurt’s international airport. Dawn was approaching.
An imposing silver Boeing 777 stood a hundred feet from where the chopper landed, shiny, towering in the floodlights from the tarmac, its engine revving. The plane had the same iconic shape of the 777, but there were only a handful of windows along the sleek fuselage.
A stairway into the plane was already open—it was three times the width of a normal door to accommodate gurneys and other medical equipment. Bright fluorescent light shone from the opening. Flanking both sides of the entrance stood two men in jeans, thigh holsters, and black tactical vests, clutching MP7A1s.
A man approached from the side, meeting the chopper as it touched down. As the doors opened, he stood below, his eyes shooting straight to Dewey. He had a blank expression on his face.
“Dewey, I’m Alberto Ramirez,” he said. “Chief of station, Frankfurt.”
“Hi.”
“There’s been a development,” said Ramirez. “Hector wants you to call him.”
“I’ll do it from the plane.”
The medics took the woman off the chopper and hustled to the open door of the jet. Simonds jumped down and stepped to Ramirez.
“What’s the situation, Nina?” Ramirez asked.
“It’s straightforward. She’s got a serious cut and her neck might be broken. She’s also got a bad-looking contusion on her head. She’s lucky. But she’s bleeding to death. I’ll do everything I can, but at this point it’s up to her.”
Simonds kept moving, breaking into a jog toward the Boeing.
Dewey climbed off the helicopter, grimacing as he stepped down to the tarmac.
“You okay?” asked Ramirez.
“No,” said Dewey, wincing. He limped toward the plane, then turned. “What about Rob and Katie?”
“We have a team meeting the train,” said Ramirez. “Katie found Rob. He’s alive. He’s being medivacked to Geneva.”
Dewey climbed aboard the jet, limping as he ascended the stairs.
The CIA jet took off immediately, climbing to 29,500 feet, flanked by two Navy F/A-18s. A refueling plane was already en route from Andrews AFB. In addition, an Air Force AWACS flew in rough proximity to the CIA jet, a few hundred miles south, eight thousand feet higher, monitoring the flight from above, in a state of constant analysis and monitoring, in case someone tried to come too close.
The woman was carried immediately into the midsection of the fuselage, where an operating room was abuzz, already half filled with nurses, anesthesiologists, and surgeons. The ceiling was high—the operating suite was built all the way down to the bottom of the fuselage, occupying space most jets use for baggage.
An anesthesiologist went to the woman as the gurney was placed next to the operating table and she was lifted off. He placed an oxygen mask over her face as a nurse inserted IVs in both arms.
“I want ten ccs of lidocaine with epinephrine,” Simonds told the anesthesiologist. “Start running some propofol, then I want dexamethasone, levetiracetam, and mannitol. Phenytoin too.”
Dr. Simonds went to the side of the OR, washing her hands as a nurse tied a surgical jacket around her. Simonds dried her hands, then pulled on surgical gloves and went to the woman. Bright halogen lights shone down from the ceiling.
Simonds pressed the wound on her neck. She remained silent as she inspected the woman. All eyes were on her. Then she examined the woman’s skull. She stared for a few pregnant moments and stepped nearer, leaning down and looking close. She removed a thin, high-powered, pencil-shape flashlight from her coat and shone it on the contusion for more than ten seconds.
When she was done, she straightened up, staring down at the woman, thinking. She turned to one of the nurses.
“Number ten scalpel,” she said.
Simonds cut an inch-long incision above where the subdural hematoma was, then another nurse tended to the wound, cleaning it and tamping down blood.
“Hudson Brace,” said Simonds.
Simonds took the small burr drill and made two tiny holes through the woman’s scalp, exposing the dura, the protective membrane around the brain, being careful not to go too deep. She used the scalpel to cut a tiny hole in the dura. Blood shot out. One of the nurses soaked the blood around the incision as Simonds inserted a small, flat Penrose drain into the hole, allowing the blood from the hematoma to flow out.
As she held it there, she looked at another nurse.
“Saline,” she said, “with clindamycin. Fifty ccs.”
After the flow of blood had eased, Simonds gently pushed the syringe into the opening in the dura, injecting the solution to help evacuate the blood. Finally, she sutured shut the opening in the scalp, leaving the drain between the sutures, still inserted, to continue draining off blood.
Simonds came outside, where Dewey was standing. Her eyes went immediately to his hip. She looked behind him, at one of the nurses.
“Barb, get this guy into second unit immediately. He needs stitches and antibiotics.”
“I’m fine.”
“Have you ever had gangrene, Dewey?” she asked.
“Not that I know of.”
Simonds grinned.
“Anyway, she lost a lot of blood, but we have that under control.”
“How long until we can speak to her?”
Simonds stared into Dewey’s eyes.
“I said we have the bleeding under control. The problem is her head. She has a severe contusion. She should be dead by now.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“We drained it. Now there’s nothing we can do but wait.”
“She’s going to live, though, right?”
“We’re doing everything we can. The problem is, I don’t know how extensive the damage to her brain was. We won’t know for a while.”
* * *
Down the hallway from the first OR was another operating room. Dewey limped into the room, where a surgeon and two nurses were waiting for him.
“I’m Louie,” said the surgeon. “Have a seat.”
One of the nurses cut down the side of his wet jeans, below where Simonds had cut. The pants were soaked in blood and dripping steadily on the ground. Delicately, she pulled the material aside as Dewey winced.
“Ouc
h,” he whispered.
The hip looked raw. The pain was intense as air suddenly hit the wounds. The surgeon reached out with a large needle, aiming it at Dewey’s hip.
“I need to stay alert.”
“It’s local,” said Louie. “No morphine. It’ll let me inspect the bullet wound. If any bones are broken, tendons or ligaments torn, we’re going to need to put you under.”
“No,” said Dewey. “I’m not going under. If you need to operate, just make sure it’s numb.”
Louie hit Dewey with the needle at several points along his hip, then dug farther in, his hands gloved, looking for signs of infection or shrapnel. He cleaned the wound for several minutes, then grabbed a threaded surgical needle and started sewing up Dewey’s hip.
Ramirez entered the OR. He handed Dewey his phone.
“It’s Hector.”
“Hi, Dewey.”
“Hi, Hector. How’s Rob?”
“They’re operating on him. He has a broken neck, but he’ll live. You should know, Jean Beauxchamps died. He was shot on the train.”
Dewey was quiet, watching impassively as the surgeon repaired his hip.
“Do you still think she killed Lindsay?” asked Calibrisi.
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I’ll tell you who did, that dead guy back in the barn. He was hunting her. He was trying to prevent her from telling Lindsay something. Beauxchamps told me she climbed from the hotel next door. The guy who was supposed to kill her was too late. He realized he needed to eliminate Lindsay.”
“It’s a stretch,” said Calibrisi. “My guess is, she works for a service.”
“Who?”
“She could be a merc. We don’t know. If you’re right, the more important question is, who did he work for?”
83
OVAL OFFICE
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, D.C.
President Dellenbaugh stepped into the Oval Office. Several people were already gathered. The mood was ebullient, even excited. John Schmidt, the White House communications director, and Cory Tilley, who was in charge of speechwriting, were seated on one of the two chesterfield sofas in the middle of the room. Adrian King was seated across from them, next to Roger Faust, the head of the Secret Service. Several other staffers were gathered in front of the television cabinet. CNN was already broadcasting live from FedEx Field.