The Innocent

by David Baldacci

  now.”

  “That’s not possible,” said the attendant, a woman in her thirties with short blonde hair.

  “She hasn’t been transferred out of hospice, has she?” asked Robie.

  “No.”

  “What, then?”

  The attendant was about to say something when the nurse Robie had spoken to before came forward.

  “So you’re back?” she asked. She was clearly not pleased.

  “Where is Elizabeth Van Beuren? I need to see her.”

  “She can’t see you.”

  “That’s what she said. But why?” asked Robie, his gaze digging into the nurse’s features.

  “Because Ms. Van Beuren passed about three hours ago.”

  “What happened?”

  “The ventilator tube was removed. She passed peacefully an hour later.”

  “Who ordered the tube removed?”

  “Her doctor.” ’

  “But why? Wouldn’t he have to get permission from her family?”

  “I really can’t speak to that.”

  “Well, who can speak to it?”

  “Her doctor, I suppose.”

  “I’ll need his name and number, right now.”

  Robie called and spoke with the doctor. The physician was reluctant to discuss the matter with Robie until Robie said, “I’m a federal agent. Something is going on here we’re trying to figure out. The only common denominator is Elizabeth Van Beuren. Can you tell me anything? It’s vital or else I wouldn’t be asking.”

  The doctor said, “I would not have removed the tube without the family requesting it.”

  “Who requested it?”

  The doctor paused, then said, “Mr. Van Beuren had the medical power of attorney.”

  “So he told you to remove it. Why the change of heart?”

  “I have no idea. I just did what he asked us to do.”

  “Was it by phone or did he come here in person?”

  “By phone.”

  “Pretty strange that he didn’t want to be here when his wife died,” said Robie.

  “Quite frankly, Agent Robie, I thought the same thing. Maybe he had something more important to do, although for the life of me I can’t imagine what that might be.”

  “Do you know where he works?”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Ever seen him in person?”

  “Yes, numerous times. He seemed like a perfectly normal person. He was deeply devoted to his wife. He was intimately involved in her care. I liked him.”

  “But not devoted enough to be with her at the end?”

  “Again, I can’t explain that.”

  Robie clicked off and looked at the nurse. “Is the body still here?”

  “No, the people from the funeral home already picked it up.”

  “And her husband never came in? Does her daughter know?”

  “I have no idea. I would assume Mr. Van Beuren has contacted her. He didn’t ask us to do so, and thus we couldn’t make that sort of communication.”

  Robie called Vance but still got voice mail. He next called Blue Man, but the man didn’t answer either.

  Robie raced down the hall to Van Beuren’s room. He pushed open the door and saw the empty bed. He drew nearer, picked up the photo, and looked at George Van Beuren. Short hair, muscular physique. Robie wondered if he was maybe military or former military.

  The nurse had followed him down the hall and was standing in the hallway.

  “Is this really necessary?” she asked.

  “Yeah, it really is.” He whirled around. “George Van Beuren. You said you’ve seen him. Was he ever wearing a uniform?”

  “A uniform?”

  “Yeah, like military or something?”

  “No, not that I ever saw. He was just dressed normally.” She took a step forward. “We need to collect Mrs. Van Beuren’s personal effects and send them along home.”

  “I’ll need that home address.”

  “We can’t give out that sort of information.”

  Robie took a long stride until he was within a couple inches of her.

  “I don’t like playing the asshole, but in this case I’m going to. This is a case of national security. And if you have information that might be able to stop an attack against this country and you don’t provide it to a federal officer who has requested it, you’re going to prison, for a very long time.”

  The woman gasped, then said, “Follow me.”

  A minute later Robie was flying down the road in his car.

  CHAPTER

  91

  THE VAN BEURENS lived about twenty minutes from the hospice center.

  Robie made it there in fifteen.

  The homes were solidly middle-class. Basketball hoops. Vans and American-made cars in short asphalt driveways. Do-it-yourself landscaping. Not a butler or Rolls-Royce in sight.

  Robie zeroed in on the Van Beurens’ house. It was set at the end of the street. The home was dark, but one vehicle was parked in the driveway.

  Robie stopped his car at the curb, pulled out his pistol, and crept toward the house. He didn’t knock at the front door. He peered in one of the windows. He couldn’t see anything.

  He hurried around to the back. Putting his elbow through the glass in the back door, he reached through and turned the lock. He pulled a flashlight and made his way through the house. It didn’t take him long. He ended up in the front room after clearing the others.

  He shined his light around. It hit on various objects on walls and shelves. He passed one item and then came back to it. He rushed over and snatched it up.

  It was a photo of the Van Beurens.

  Mother, daughter, and father.

  Mom was in her combat fatigues.

  Robie’s gaze focused on Dad.

  George Van Beuren was also in uniform, a very distinctive one. White shirt, dark pants. Dark cap.

  It was the uniform of the United States Secret Service Uniformed Division.

  George Van Beuren helped to guard the president of the United States.

  And then in a flash of synapses Robie finally made the connection.

  He was watching Annie Lambert walking down the hall. He had lost her for about thirty seconds. But then regained her. She had changed clothes in those few seconds.

  And then Robie forgot all about Annie Lambert and took his mind back to that airplane hangar in Morocco. Through his scope he had watched Khalid bin Talal climb the steps to his jet. After that he had lost sight of the prince for a brief period. And then he had regained him as the Saudi walked down the aisle of the plane and took his seat across from the Russian and Palestinian.

  That’s when Robie had noticed the straps around the prince’s middle. He had assumed it was the straps holding on his body armor. But the prince had not been wearing body armor before he got on the plane. Robie had been watching him closely. He would have seen the outline of the armored vest under the robes. And it took longer than a few moments to put on, especially if one was wearing a long robe and was very heavy in the belly.

  What had happened was now clear.

  Talal had been warned about a possible hit. He’d had someone, perhaps a double he routinely employed, take his place at the meeting. Maybe he thought the Russian and Palestinian would try to kill him. Maybe he suspected a traitor in his inner circle, or a sniper like Robie waiting to take his shot. He had outsmarted them all. He had had his double die in his place.

  Robie thought back to the conversation he had overheard that night. It now took on a critical importance.

  Something that everyone assumed was pointless to try.

  The weakest link.

  Willing to die.

  That could only be one possible target.

  The president of the United States.

  Now the theft of the Secret Service SUV made sense. They had someone on the inside. They had George Van Beuren.

  And the fact that they had let Elizabeth Van Beuren die told Robie that the time to make th
e attempt was right now.

  And Talal’s billions had bought him people in this country to do his bidding.

  Then he remembered something Annie Lambert had told him. When the president got back to D.C., there was going to be a big event at the White House.

  He pulled out his phone, did a quick Internet search.

  He got the results and raced out of the house.

  Tonight the president would be entertaining the crown prince of Saudi Arabia.

  Talal was multitasking tonight.

  The son of a bitch was going for both men.

  CHAPTER

  92

  ROBIE WAS HALFWAY to D.C. when he finally reached Blue Man. In terse sentences he told him about his latest deductions.

  Blue Man’s response was equally terse. He would meet Robie at the White House with backup. And he would alert the appropriate parties.

  Twenty minutes later Robie slid his car to a stop at the curb, jumped out, and ran.

  He was on Pennsylvania Avenue heading to the front gates of the White House. He looked at his watch. Nearly eleven. He imagined the party would be winding down by now. And if the attempt hadn’t occurred yet, it would have to shortly.

  He spied Blue Man and a group of men huddled outside the White House front gates. Robie could see that it was a mixture of FBI, Secret Service, and DHS. He saw no uniformed Secret Service around. He assumed it had been determined that they couldn’t know how far the conspiracy had gone, so it was best to leave the uniforms out of this.

  Robie ran up to them. “Do they know where Van Beuren is?” he asked.

  Blue Man said, “He’s on duty. We’ve spoken to the Secret Service agents inside. They’re hunting for him now. The problem is, we don’t want to show that we’re suspicious of anything. Van Beuren may not be the only asset they have in there.”

  One man in a suit stared over at Robie. He was about six-three with graying hair and a face that seemed to have a worry line for every national crisis he had endured. Robie recognized him as the director of the Secret Service. Robie recalled that the man’s father had been a veteran agent with Reagan when he had been shot. It was said that the current director had become an agent at the urging of his old man. And he had sworn that no president would ever die on his watch.

  The director said, “You’re the one who called this in?”

  “I am,” said Robie.

  “I sure as hell hope you’re right. Because if you’re not…”

  “If I’m wrong, nothing bad happens. If I’m right…”

  The director looked at Blue Man.

  “We’ll move in through the visitors’ entrance. We’ll attract less notice that way. Hopefully, they’ll snag Van Beuren before we even get in the place.”

  “And the president?” asked Robie.

  “Ordinarily with any threat like this we would have already moved him either to his personal quarters or to the bunker underneath the White House. But if Van Beuren is involved he’ll know that’s our protocol and may have set an ambush somehow. So we decided to sequester the president in an atypical place, the Family Dining Room, along with the crown prince, some of the president’s staff, and some select VIPs who we know are not threats. No uniforms are part of the security detail. All suits. Van Beuren can’t get near him. We did it subtly. Now we just have to find Van Beuren.” He said again, “But I sure as hell hope you’re wrong about this.”

  “The fact that you haven’t been able to locate Van Beuren yet tells me that I’m right,” replied Robie.

  They raced to the visitors’ entrance and moved quickly through the security checkpoint there. All uniformed Secret Service had been pulled off interior guard duty and massed in a hallway. They had not been told why. Each of them had been questioned. None of them knew where Van Beuren was. He had been assigned to a security perimeter on the lower level, near the library.

  He wasn’t there.

  All rooms on the lower level had been checked.

  Robie and the others ran down the hall and up the stairs to the main level of the White House. As they were fast-walking down the Cross Hall toward the State Dining Room, which adjoined the Family Dining Room, one of the agents with them received a message through his earwig.

  “They found Van Beuren,” he said.

  “Where?” the Secret Service director asked immediately.

  “A storage room in the West Wing.”

  They changed direction and quickly reached the West Wing. There they were directed to the room where Van Beuren had been found.

  The door was thrown open by the lead agent. Inside they saw Van Beuren. He was on the floor, unconscious and trussed up. A patch of shiny blood was mixed in with his hair.

  One of the agents knelt down next to him and felt for a pulse. “He’s alive, but somebody hit him hard.”

  Blue Man said, “I don’t understand this. Why knock out and tie up your assassin?”

  Robie was the first to spot it. “His gun is missing.”

  All eyes went to the man’s holster. The nine-millimeter that should have been there wasn’t.

  Robie said, “He wasn’t the assassin. They just needed his weapon. That way they didn’t have to try and sneak one past security. He just walked in with it. Part of the plan.”

  And then Robie remembered the last part of the overheard conversation from the plane hangar in Morocco.

  Access to weapons.

  Not a westerner.

  Decades in the making.

  Willing to die.

  He said, “The shooter has his gun. They have to be in with the president and the crown prince.”

  The director paled. “You mean part of his staff? Or one of the guests?”

  Robie didn’t answer. He was already sprinting down the hall.

  CHAPTER

  93