She scowled. “What on earth for at this time of night? Can’t he meet you during normal hours?”
“This is Washington, honey. There’s no such thing as normal hours.”
“Fine,” she said as she rolled over and pulled the covers taut. “But before you go, can you get me a drink of water? Talking to all those people tonight has left me really parched.”
“Sure,” he said before spinning on his heels and leaving.
Madeline had to make sure there was no chance that he would walk in on her. And with the time it took for him to meander down the hall and get a drink, she’d be able to scramble up onto the dresser and affix the explosive device just like Shane Samuels had instructed her to do. By the time her husband returned, she was propped up by a couple of large pillows leaning against the headrest. Madeline forced a smile as he set the glass on her nightstand.
“Thank you,” she said. “Have a good meeting, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead before exiting the room.
She doubted she would see him in the morning—or ever again. He was always long gone by the time she got up.
This wasn’t how she envisioned leaving him. She wanted to fire both canons of ammunition from a marriage full of disappointment. But in the end, this moment was perfect.
She closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep.
* * *
NOAH YOUNG WAS WISHING he was anywhere but in a meeting with Richard Joseph, the magnanimous Virginia senator. Joseph could be obnoxious and nasty when pushed on issues he believed to be important to his party. But for the most part, he was one of the few senators willing to cross the aisle to work with others for the good of the American people. Young was surprised that such a person actually existed in Washington. And it didn’t take long before he counted Joseph as one of his friends.
But several intelligence briefings warned Young about Joseph, highlighting secretive meetings he held with people involved in a number of different illegal trades. Young heeded the advice, keeping Joseph at arm’s length—at least he heeded it publicly. However, Young never liked being told what to do much, especially by an entire agency of people paid to be paranoid. Yet to keep the CIA and FBI brass satisfied, Young decided that he would hold any such meetings with Joseph late at night and out from underneath the CIA’s watchful eye.
“Would you like a drink?” Young asked.
Joseph declined. “Not tonight. I still have some business to attend to after this.”
“Keeping banker’s hours, I see.”
Joseph chuckled. “Only the kind kept by Washington bankers.”
“You know, they called New York ‘the city that never sleeps’, but the Big Apple has nothing on Washington.”
“It’s only because everybody in this town can’t sleep because of what they’ve done. Guilt will keep many people up late at night, tossing and turning in their warm beds while they know full well what havoc they have wrought.”
“Sounds like you’re all too familiar with this,” Young said. “I wish I wasn’t, but it’s one of the hazards of living in this town.”
“And that doesn’t even crack the top ten list of the dangers of living here.”
Young laughed softly. “Is one of those reasons you can’t sleep why you wanted to meet with me?”
Joseph nodded. “It is. I made a mistake, and I need your help to wriggle out of it.”
“What happened?”
Joseph sighed. “Swear you won’t tell anyone, okay?”
Young raised his left hand and held it, palm out. “I swear. There. Happy now?”
“I’m never happy, but that will suffice for the purposes of this discussion.”
“Just get on with it, Senator,” Young said. “I’m getting more antsy by the moment.”
“Okay, okay. Have you ever heard of a group called—”
Before Joseph could finish, an explosion shook the White House. Books toppled to the floor, furniture rattled across the room, the wet bar’s entire glassware shattered as it fell, and a large flash of light followed by a light gray smoke filled the air.
Instinctively, Young dove to the ground and tried to maintain his wits. The White House was obviously under attack. He never took the warning seriously, but he was wishing he had now, though he wasn’t sure what he could’ve done differently.
After the immediate shock wore off, he tried to ascertain the direction of the explosion. When he scrambled to his feet, he noticed smoke pouring out of the residential area. Without hesitating, he raced toward it and started calling for his wife.
“Madeline, can you hear me?” Young called. “Please say something, honey!”
In the moment, he wasn’t thinking about how cold she’d been lately or even the news that she was having an affair. He still cared about her and didn’t want anything to happen to her.
Once he hit the section of the house just outside his bedroom, flames were raging all around him. Plumes of black smoke rolled across the floor, filling the air. Despite his best efforts to keep moving, Young couldn’t move. He stumbled before collapsing to the ground.
The last thing Young remembered was hearing Joseph’s voice.
“Mr. President? Mr. President? Are you all right?” Joseph asked.
Young couldn’t respond in his unconscious state. And he stayed that way as a large pair of arms scooped him up and carried him away.
CHAPTER 27
HAWK AND ALEX WERE still at the office with Black and Blunt when their phones all blew up with text messages at the same time. Hawk scanned the note on his screen and slowly shook his head. He absolutely knew an attack on the White House was a possibility, but he didn’t think it would actually ever happen, especially when their intel said the planned attack wasn’t supposed to happen until the next day.
Blunt snapped his fingers. “Somebody turn on the television. This has got to be all over the news.”
Every cable news station aired live footage of the White House, the entire residential wing ravaged by a raging fire.
Blunt slammed his fists on the table and let out a string of expletives. “This isn’t what we needed. We were so close to finding out more about Obsidian.”
“All isn’t lost yet,” Hawk said, “especially if President Young survived that attack.”
“Look,” Alex said, pointing at the feed crawling across the bottom of the screen. She read it aloud: “Initial reports say that President Young survived the blast. No further details are available at this time.”
“That just means he’s still alive,” Blunt said. “I know how this works. They don’t want anyone to know if he’s dead or not since that might trigger more threats.”
“Where’s the vice president?” Black asked.
“I’m sure he’s under the full protection of the Secret Service, hunkered down in a bunker somewhere,” Blunt said. “But that’s not our biggest problem right now.”
“I want to know how we got it all wrong?” Alex asked. “If none of this was supposed to happen until tomorrow, did Big Earv miss the most important piece of information there was?”
“That’s what it looks like,” Blunt said. “We need to get down there and investigate.”
“You think they’re going to let us in?” Black asked. “Think Randy Wood will give us the time of day now after we were off in our prediction?”
Blunt’s phone buzzed and he picked it up. “Speak of the devil. Randy, I’m putting you on speaker while I’m here with the rest of my team. Now, tell us what the hell is going on.”
“I should be asking you the same thing.”
“Is the president okay?”
“As far as I know,” Wood said. “We still don’t know what happened, but we sure would appreciate your team coming down and taking a peek at the scene in case we missed something.”
“It’s not pretty, is it?” Blunt asked.
“I’m still driving to the White House, but it’s not according to two of my
agents I’ve spoken with who are already on the ground ready to conduct an initial walk through once the fire is quenched. They said that entire portion of the White House is burned so badly that the structural damage may take years to fix.”
“Any casualties yet?”
“None that we can confirm, but it’s still early. There may be people first responder teams haven’t even reached yet.”
“If they haven’t, it’s likely too late,” Blunt said. “That fire looks monstrous.”
“I think every fire truck in the city is on site. But as soon as I know more, I’ll call you. But have your team get down here as soon as possible.”
Blunt hung up and clapped his hands. “Let’s get going.”
The team split up, taking two vehicles. Hawk and Alex drove over together, while Blunt rode with Black.
During the ride, Hawk traded theories with Alex about how they managed to pull off the attack.
“Samuels was the one with all the weapons,” Hawk said. “He’s got to be the one responsible for setting off this attack.”
“Unless he had help,” Alex suggested.
“Who would help him?”
“There’s only one potential suspect in my mind—The first lady. Agree?”
Hawk nodded. “If she did help Samuels, do you think she did it willingly or unknowingly?”
Alex shrugged. “The first one seems unlikely, but then again, she is a decorated military hero. It’s not like she wouldn’t know how to handle explosives and munitions.”
Hawk’s phone buzzed with a call from Blunt. Alex answered.
“Anything new?” she asked, placing the call on speaker.
“It’s the first lady,” Blunt said. “She’s dead.”
“Well, it definitely had to be unknowingly now,” she said.
“Come again.”
“Oh, it’s just a theory Hawk and I were bandying about. Samuels is the obvious suspect here, but we would’ve heard about it if he got into the White House.”
“Unless he got some help from Madeline,” Blunt said.
“Exactly. But she’d have to be clueless about what exactly he was doing if she wound up dead.”
“I agree. So maybe Samuels was telling her one thing but planning something else without her knowledge.”
“That’s the strongest possibility we’ve come up with thus far,” Alex said.
“Let’s talk more when we get there. I’m not believing anything until I see her body,” Blunt said before he hung up
Scores of law enforcement vehicles surrounded the White House, lights flashing and creating a constant red-and-blue strobe effect on the side building. Hawk and Alex met up with Blunt and Black before walking across the parking lot toward a woman with a bullhorn. She barked out orders as officers hustled back and forth across the grounds, complying with her orders to detain anyone trying to get a closer view.
“Someone may be trying to get back to the scene and admire their work,” she said. “Don’t let anyone have that pleasure without getting fingerprinted and spending a few hours in jail. Everyone understand?”
Heads bobbed up and down, signaling their agreement. A moment later, she dismissed the officers as they dispersed around the grounds.
“Are you the one coordinating all the efforts here?” Hawk asked.
She nodded. “Special Agent Amy Ingram, FBI. Who are you with?” she asked.
“We’re special consultants for the CIA,” Blunt said. “You haven’t seen Randy Wood, have you?”
She shook her head. “About the only thing I’ve seen since I arrived here has been the back of this bullhorn.”
“No ambulances?” Alex asked.
“Oh, there were ambulances,” she said. “In fact, there were several of them, taking some of the injured people to hospitals in the area.”
“Where did they all go?”
Ingram stared at Blunt. “I don’t know if you’re authorized to hear that information.”
“Would it help if I got Randy Wood on the phone?” Blunt asked.
“I don’t answer to Deputy Director Wood, so it wouldn’t make much difference if you did or not.”
Hawk watched Blunt clench his fists and decided to lead him away before a territorial spat erupted. This was a time when everyone needed to stay on the same side, especially if they were going to get through the night and hopefully catch the people responsible for the attack.
“Just calm down,” Hawk said to his boss. “I know you don’t like interagency fights. Please don’t start one.”
“Fine,” Blunt said. “I’ll see if I can find Wood.”
Hawk walked back over to Alex, who was engaged in a professional conversation with Ingram.
“Hawk, there were at least four people taken to area hospitals.”
“See if you can find out which one they took Young to,” Hawk said.
“Why?” Ingram asked.
“Because those may not have been paramedics who rushed to his aide,” Hawk said.
Ingram’s mouth fell agape as she glared at Hawk. “Are you suggesting that—”
“Look, I’m not suggesting anything,” Hawk said. “I’m telling you that this was a pre-meditated attack and that someone may have done this to kidnap the president.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “All responding EMS vehicles must be approved and driven by approved personnel.”
“You think that really matters in an emergency? You think that the guards out front are taking the time to examine paperwork when the president’s life is on the line?”
“Well, they better,” Ingram said.
“I appreciate the dedication you have to your job, but in a situation like this, security gets lax for a reason. Not everyone is going to be the stickler you are for protocol, no matter how they’ve been trained. This is a unique situation that is a high-stress environment. People do things they don’t normally do when they’re under duress, which I’m sure you can attest to.”
Alex cocked her head to one side. “Just tell us what hospitals the EMS vehicles came from.”
“I can’t,” Ingram said. “Go talk to someone else who’ll help you. But it’s not going to be me.”
“Have it your way,” Hawk said before he turned his back and walked away from the stubborn FBI agent.
“What now?” Black asked.
“We go find the president,” Hawk said. “We need to make sure he’s where he’s supposed to be and not in the hands of Obsidian.”
“I’ll drive,” Black said.
“Alex, stay with Blunt,” Hawk said. “Keep him sane. And when he calms down, call me and help us figure out which ambulance whisked away the president.”
Hawk hustled back to Black’s car, and five minutes later, they were roaring along the surface streets, retracing the path someone would’ve taken to reach Georgetown Hospital.
“Are you sure they would’ve taken the president to this one?” Black asked.
“Call it a hunch,” Hawk said.
“You better be right. Because if you’re wrong, it may be too late if Obsidian took him. That is what you’re still thinking, right?”
“What?”
“That Obsidian snagged Young.”
Hawk sighed. “I don’t know if I trust any of my theories these days. This operation has been a trying one, to say the least.”
“We’ve all been tested,” Black said. “But I’m not so sure we’re on a wild goose chase here.”
Hawk furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t think Young was the target. Cultivating fear seems to be the way that an organization like Obsidian rises to power. If everyone is terrified, they’ll give up things they don’t need to just to feel safer.”
“And Obsidian rides in to deliver on its promise to keep everyone safe, primarily by putting an end to the crime it invited in the first place.”
“You have to admit that it’s not a bad theory,” Black said. “And there just so happens to be the added benefit of n
ot destroying all its goodwill because the president is going to survive this attack.”
“I would bet they would’ve preferred that he did.”
Black’s phone buzzed. He held it up as he responded to Hawk. “Well, the first lady certainly did survive, according to this text I just received from Blunt.”
Hawk grabbed the phone from Black. “Eyes on the road,” he said. After reading the message, Hawk sighed.
“That’s one helluva sleeper agent,” Hawk said.
“Maybe she was working with Obsidian, but not at the level everyone else was.”
Before their discussion continued, Hawk’s phone buzzed with a call from Blunt.
“What’d you find out?” Hawk asked.
“Don’t worry about the president,” Blunt said. “He’s safe and sound.”
“Are you sure?” Hawk asked.
“Big Earv was the one who was in the house at the time of the explosion. He fought his way through all the debris and smoke to rescue President Young.”
“Why do I get the feeling that you’re not finished yet?”
Blunt chuckled. “Because I’m not.”
“Okay, so what’s next?” Hawk asked.
“Young did have a guest—Senator Richard Joseph,” Blunt said. “Apparently, they were meeting about something when the explosion went off.”
“And?”
“And Joseph is missing,” Blunt said. “Hardly anyone else even knew he was here or would’ve thought to search for him. But several first responders saw another ambulance rushing away from the scene.”
“Assuming this is Obsidian, what would they want with Joseph?” Hawk asked.
“That’s what I want you to find out,” Blunt said.
“We’re on it,” Hawk said. “But we’re going to need Alex’s help.”
CHAPTER 28
BLUNT DISMISSED ALEX and told her the name of someone at the FBI who would help her get a terminal set up so she could assist Hawk and Black on their search for Joseph. Then Blunt walked up to Wood, who was barking out orders to several special agents working on site.
“After 9/11, I thought pretty much anything was possible when it came to attacks on American soil,” Wood said as he stared at the firefighters working to assess the structural integrity of the White House. “I never would’ve imagined two enormous towers collapsing to the ground like that in the middle of New York City. But just when you think you’ve seen it all—” He sighed and shook his head before he turned and looked at Blunt.
Brady Hawk 18 - A Deadly Force Page 14