“Madam President, let me be the first to congratulate you on your ascendancy to the presidency. There are many, many people in the country right now that are actually supportive of the events of the last twenty-four hours. How would you respond to them?”
“There is nothing to congratulate here. I was simply in the right place at the wrong time. And no one should be supportive of the assassination of three of our nation’s leaders. I condemn it wholly and without equivocation. Regardless of whether you agree with our elected officials, they are elected by us. There is no room in this country or my administration for this type of thinking. Next question.”
“Yes, John,” Jamie said, pointing at a longtime Fox News correspondent.
“Given that you recently won a special election for senator in North Carolina and subsequent appointment by your peers as the Senate Pro Tem, one could aruge that you had the most to gain from the murders of the top two in the succession line ahead of you. Can you give us a statement reassuring the people of the United States that you had nothing to do with this, and that any investigation into these murders will not lead back to you?”
“I can and I will. I had nothing to do with these murders and I understand the rumors, theories, and suspicions that I might. I moved to North Carolina because it’s a beautiful state. I had no idea that my good friend Senator Hite would be murdered. Think of the blood trail here. It’s a fiendish plot, and I had nothing to do with it, I can assure you. That said, I intend to fully investigate each of these murders, including that of Senator Hite, where it all seems to have begun.”
She called on a third reporter, this one from CBS.
“My sources tell me, Madam President, that there are multiple armed women who have been killed and that they have been found by the DC Metro Police Department. Several were in Anacostia and others throughout the city, and even in Northern Virginia. The police are saying that they suspect these women are the assassins. And the lead assassin is a captain in the United States Army named Cassie Bagwell. I have documentation of logistical and coordination e-mails between Captain Bagwell and the assassins. What do you know of this?”
“I’ve known Cassie all of her life. I find it hard to believe that she would be involved in any of this. It’s rather shocking, but I have seen the same reports you have. As I said, I will fully investigate this,” Jamie said. “Now, it has been a long twenty-four hours. Good night and may God bless our United States of America.”
Jamie stepped away from the podium and began walking to the door through which they had entered. The crowd erupted again with another unintelligible volley of questions. They exited through a basement walkway onto a loading dock, where security was waiting. As they were climbing into the Suburban, Zara let General Savage climb into the rear seat. She flipped it back, essentially locking him in place, and then let Biagatti climb in on the same side, while Jamie was on the other side. The chase car was behind them. The Suburban driver was to her left. Suddenly Zara said, “Oh my God, I forgot something. Just a second.”
Zara closed the door, with Biagatti shouting, “Hey!”
Slipping behind the loading dock’s metal door, she moved along the interior loading bays, found a stairwell going down, and popped out in the underground tunnel that went to the Capitol. She hooked a right, away from the Capitol Building and toward Union Station, and found a way out on the opposite side of the building.
Zara jogged to Union Station, then hailed a cab and gave the address for the CIA safe house where Mahegan was being held.
CHAPTER 22
CASSIE PRESSED THE BAND-AID PAD AND SAID, “SAVAGE HAS THE package, but Zara escaped.”
Hobart replied, “Roger.”
She was kneeling behind a low brick wall that was a block from the target house. In her BLEPs, she could only see four blue dots on location. The fifth blue dot was on Capitol Hill, moving west along Pennsylvania Avenue.
“Sniper on the roof. Northeast. Looking at you.”
Hobart replied, “Roger.”
Hobart had been able to retrieve from the trunk of the Panamera an SR-25 7.62 mm sniper rifle, with Leupold scope and muzzle suppressor.
“Fire when ready.”
“Ready.”
There was a metallic ratcheting from across the soccer field, but no loud muzzle blast. She held up the night vision goggle to her eye and saw the sniper jerk. A small black spray exploded from the sniper’s head.
One down, three to go. As the Delta Force saying went: Hobart never missed.
“I’m guessing one in the front door and two in the basement,” Cassie said.
“Movement on roof. Go,” Hobart said.
Another ratcheting sound served as a starter gun for her. She didn’t wait to see the result. Again, Hobart never missed. She darted around the street corner and then hurdled a series of low black fences as if she were an Olympic sprinter, each gallop perfectly timed. Amped. Juiced. Wired. Cassie was on the move.
She pushed on the near window, but it didn’t budge, so she moved across the doorstep and pushed up what must have been the study window, the one Jake had mentioned. Stepping into the room, she visualized Jake and the team in these chairs and on the sofa discussing how to save her. She scanned the room from left to right. Front door. Open hallway, with adjoining living room. Stairwell heading upstairs. Bookshelves to the ceiling in the study.
She trundled up the stairs, found the rooftop terrace, and confirmed two dead bodies.
Hobart never missed.
She cleared the rooms upstairs. Two bedrooms and a small gymnasium. As she moved back down the steps, her BLEPs showed two red dots on the roof and two blue dots in the basement.
“Rear door, give me some C-four,” she said.
“Poet who don’t know it,” Hobart muttered. “Two minutes out.”
She slid silently down the stairs and took up position directly outside the door to the basement stairwell, with her back pressed firmly against the wall.
Footfalls creaked up the steps. One of the platforms squeaked about midway up, and whoever was ascending, stopped. Cassie’s breathing was steady, focused. She visualized her movements.
Wait for Hobart to detonate the back door.
Their focus will be aimed away from the steps. Put two bullets in the lock and bust her way into the stairway, diverting their attention from Hobart. Both will be distracted for a second, which was all Hobart would need to get off one shot.
“Ready,” Hobart said.
“Go,” she whispered.
The explosion pushed a heat wave all the way against the wall, warming her back. She spun and fired two rounds into the dead bolt, which shattered in a fine spray of miniature shrapnel into the air, some clicking off her BLEPs. She pushed through the door with her pistol up, just as she had visualized.
The assassin’s head was turning back toward the door, away from the explosion. Smoke was boiling up the narrow stairway. Cassie recognized this woman, had seen her assaulted by the guards at the Valley Trauma Center. Had connected with her on some level at that time, their eyes making contact, passing an unspoken message: help me.
When their eyes connected again, Cassie didn’t hesitate to give her a third one in the middle of her forehead. The pistol rocked in her hand and the woman fell backward. Cassie double-tapped her in the chest for good measure. Noticing the key chain on the woman’s belt, Cassie snatched it loose and palmed the loop as she bound down the steps, three at a time, pistol at the ready. Landing on the floor of the basement, she saw Mahegan standing in the Lexan detention cell. He was handcuffed and looked thicker, bulkier than usual. Why? Hobart was crawling through the hole the blast had created in the rear door. The second assassin was wounded, but not dead.
Cassie aimed and then stopped. In the assassin’s hand was a key fob. Cassie froze. Mahegan’s bulkiness. Suicide vest.
The assassins had strapped a suicide vest on him. What Cassie didn’t know was whether it was a pressure-release or pressure-applied device. If th
e assassin was holding the clip, like a hand grenade spoon, or lever, when released it would detonate, killing Jake. Only if she had to press and release the fob to detonate, did they have a chance.
“We’ve got you, bitch. I press this thing, your boyfriend dies,” the assassin said.
Press. Pressure applied will detonate.
Hobart fired a shot through the woman’s head.
“Sorry I didn’t kill her the first time,” Hobart said, scrambling to his feet. His SR-25 had smoke wafting from the bore. Cassie rushed to the dead woman and carefully removed the fob from her hand.
“Hang on to this,” she said, handing him the black plastic device.
Jake was saying something through the soundproof glass, motioning with his manacled hands. He looked drugged. Eyes were half-lidded. Movements lumbering and slow. He shuffled toward the door, using his hands to try and point at his chest.
Then she saw it. An LED device was on his abdomen, counting down from fifty-nine seconds. She fumbled with the keys to unlock his cell, trying each one, focused on sliding them into the heavy-gauge padlock. Finally the fourth one worked. She opened the lock, removed the chain, and flung the door open at the same time there were footfalls from the floor above.
“Twenty-five seconds,” Jake said. His voice was steady. Calm. Words measured and paced. No fear.
She found the key to the double-lock handcuffs as she pulled him toward the door. Hobart was on him, unzipping the vest. The footfalls had made it to the stairway, but all that mattered was getting this vest off Jake.
“Ten seconds,” Jake said.
The second key was stuck. Cassie said, “Fuck it,” and removed her Leatherman to snip through the chain that was also looped through a metal D-ring on the suicide vest. The noise at the top of the steps was now moving down the stairway. Someone was coming to the basement.
“Five,” Jake said.
Hobart slid behind Jake and yanked the vest from his big arms. Cassie pulled him from the glassed-in room, still holding the handcuffs. Hobart flung the vest against the far wall, following Jake and Cassie out.
Cassie wheeled Jake and Hobart in her direction, toward the near corner and up against the Lexan glass. She pressed Jake and Hobart behind her as she held the door with both hands.
The vest exploded, fire and shrapnel finding the open portal and following the path of least resistance.
The Lexan glass held, but the door blew off the hinges, nearly ripping her shoulders out of socket. She flew backward as the door shot like a missile across the room.
Someone had stepped onto the concrete floor, but rapidly leapt into the more protective stairwell. As the fire licked out and then receded, Cassie pinned her body against Jake and Hobart, who were holding on to her.
Cassie checked herself the same way she would do after an airborne drop. Everything was intact. Good to go.
Jake and Hobart were both on one knee, behind Cassie. The Lexan had held and funneled all of the explosives in the direction of the stairwell. Cassie bolted forward and collided with Zara, whose black hair was singed into jagged edges. She aimed a pistol at Cassie, who spun and kicked the weapon away. Zara followed suit and tackled her, negating the use of her own pistol. Cassie whipped a sharp elbow into Zara’s face, making blood and saliva fly from Zara’s mouth. Cassie clasped the back of Zara’s head with laced fingers and drove her knee into Zara’s nose. A loud cracking sound erupted, and blood sprayed in every direction.
Zara reached her hand into her pocket as Cassie stepped back to deliver a finishing kick to the woman’s throat.
“Cassie!” Jake shouted as he dove toward them.
Zara’s hand held a syringe, its needle glistening with liquid that was driving toward Cassie’s leg. A shot rang out. Zara’s hand exploded. The syringe flipped into the air. Cassie’s boot heel pulverized Zara’s throat. Jake slid behind Zara, not wanting to interrupt Cassie’s momentum or get in the way of a second shot from Hobart.
Cassie realized she was still holding the handcuffs, which whipped across Zara’s face once, twice, three times. Blood sprayed from her nose and the gashes the hard metal created. Cassie then slid behind Zara, who was crumbling into the concrete floor, and put the handcuff chain across her throat, pulling in opposite directions like she was using a fancy new workout machine.
“Don’t need your juice, bitch,” Cassie spat.
Jake and Hobart pulled her away, but she fought them. Just a few more seconds and Zara would choke out.
“Stop, Cass, we need her alive,” Jake said.
His voice had always been reassuring to her. She eased her flex and Zara spat, gasping for air. Tossing the cuffs to Hobart, she said, “Lock this bitch up.”
Surveying the room, she thought forward. What was the next step? They were so close to accomplishing the mission to find out who exactly was in charge of the Resistance. She looked at Jake.
“We’ve got to get to Savage. He has the package,” Cassie said.
“Roger,” Jake said.
Cassie led them up the steps and back to the soccer field, where the MH-6 waited. Hobart jogged past her, smirked, and said, “See? Better without the juice.”
Cassie nodded, still feeling a mixture of emotions and thoughts tumbling through her mind. Loading the bench seats, she strapped Zara onto her side, while Jake and Hobart sat on the opposite side. She pressed her Band-Aid comms device and asked the pilots, “Status on VD and Patch?”
“Touch and go,” the pilot said.
“Roger. You know where to go.”
The MH-6 lifted and nosed over, passing through restricted airspace, heading west.
CHAPTER 23
THE MH-6 LANDED ON THE LAWN OF THE CIA SAFE HOUSE WHERE SHE had placed cyanide tanks in the SCIF circulation unit yesterday. While Zara believed that she had been an unwitting participant in the scheme, Cassie had known what was in those tanks, had known everything all along. Operation Double Crossfire, the objective of which was to smoke out the highest-level Resistance operatives in the government, had produced Syd Wise and Carmen Biagatti, the masterminds.
They already knew that Zara was complicit, but it had been unclear the level to which the Resistance penetrated the whole of government. There were others, for sure, but the goal was to cut the head off the snake so that the body would die. No form of government could fully operate with opposition gumming the gears from within. Nor could the administration move its agenda forward with active opposition blocking the way.
Cassie jumped off the wing seat, followed by Jake and Hobart, who were dragging Zara along. Cassie led the way into the house and took a left through the kitchen and a right into the long hallway leading to the SCIF. The hallway had white chalk outlines and plastic numbered evidence markers dotting throughout. The door had buckled but held, and the wall was riddled with pock marks. Someone had sealed the few areas of penetration using epoxy and resin.
Tugging at the warped door, she saw Jamie, Biagatti, and General Savage sitting around a six-seat table, one at the end and each of the other two on either side. Jake and Hobart waited in the hallway.
“About time you got here,” Savage said. “Can’t handle all this estrogen.”
“Well, you’ve got more coming your way,” Cassie said.
“What is going on?” Biagatti squawked. “Why are we even here? This is a crime scene and I’m vice president of the United States.”
“Carmen, we’ve still got to sign the paperwork and swear you in and all the stuff that actually makes that happen,” Jamie said. She turned to Cassie and asked, “Is it done?”
Cassie nodded. “We’ve got Zara and we’ve got all of her private, back-channel communications.”
Jake dragged Zara into the SCIF and sat her in a chair next to Biagatti.
“What is this?” Biagatti spat.
“If Syd Wise were still alive, he’d be here, too,” Cassie said.
“And? Is that my concern?” Biagatti shrugged.
“Ask Zara,” Cassie said
. Cassie was still focused and could feel the drug filter receding. Otherwise, she might have pummeled Carmen Biagatti for all the damage she had done to the country.
“You’re deranged,” Biagatti said to Cassie. “This woman can’t even talk. You’ve beaten her so badly. She looks like she’s been in a CIA black site.”
Cassie said nothing, but a grin formed at the corner of her mouth. Jamie Carter got up and left the room with Savage.
“She’s all yours,” Savage said.
“Where are you going, Jamie Carter?” Biagatti spat. “What the hell is going on?”
Jamie stopped at the door and said, “Carmen, I may be disappointed I didn’t win the presidency, but I’m not a traitor.” With that, she followed Savage from the SCIF into the hallway. They closed the door behind them, and now it was just Cassie, Jake, and Hobart with Biagatti and Zara.
“You said the magic words,” Cassie said. “Black site.” She grinned and sat across from the two women. She pushed a piece of paper and pen across the conference table to each woman. “You’re going to write on these pieces of paper the names of every Resistance member you’ve worked with.”
“You really think this is productive?” Biagatti asked.
“Probably not,” Cassie said. “We can be more productive if that’s what you want.” She pointed at Hobart, who stepped out and then came back in with a half sheet of plywood, a garden hose, and Jake, who had a burlap sack with some weight to it.
“Really? Waterboarding?” Biagatti said. “This scares me?”
“Worth a shot,” Cassie said.
“What else you got?” Biagatti scoffed. “Bitch.”
“Oh, I don’t know, but it sure is getting stuffy in here. How about some oxygen?”
Biagatti went silent, her eyes flitting up to the vents. Cassie walked over to the control panels, opened the compartment, and placed her finger on the CIRCULATION button.
“Jake, Hobart, ProMasks, please.”
Cassie put her finger on the button that would ignite the system that pulled compressed air from the tanks positioned on the racks outside.
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