He dialed.
As it rang, he continued walking in tight circles.
Candy McClure’s voice came like a purr across the line. “I thought you’d never call. Here I am, all dolled up and nowhere to go.”
“I need you in D.C.”
“I’m already here.”
“Why?”
“I saw the press briefing, too. Bennett just announced precisely when he’s gonna be on the mark. I knew you’d jump at it. You’d better hope Bennett’s not playing you.”
“I thought about that. But I don’t think he’ll pull out of a congressional testimony. He’d lose more political capital than he can afford right now.”
“What do you need?”
“Secret Service protocols designate three primary high-alert routes from the White House to Capitol Hill, ranging from 1.9 to 2.3 miles. They’re all circuitous, so we can’t count on the straight shot up Pennsylvania Ave. Right now that stretch of blocks is under heavier surveillance than anywhere on the planet. I can’t risk being seen in the area again, not until the day of. I’ve identified three potential perches. Can you go to them and get me a comprehensive set of data for each hide?” He told her the measurements he required. “I need it down to the inch.”
“I was thinking to the millimeter,” she said. “But if you want me to work sloppy, I can back off my game.”
“I’m down to ninety hours, and I still have to procure the weapon. I need this ASAP.”
“I’m out the door,” she said. “But, X? One more thing to consider.”
“What’s that?”
“If I can predict you, they can, too.”
* * *
Orphan A sat on the edge of the bed in his hotel room, hands folded. The four surviving Collins cousins had departed earlier that morning, but Wade remained hunkered down on the Pelican case, hefting various weapons. He refused to leave. He wanted to be right here at command central, manning the fort so he’d know the instant his shot at revenge came through the line.
His face was red from crying, blood vessels blown out around his nose and eyes. He was the only person Holt had ever seen whose sobbing conveyed not grief but rage.
There was no more Sound. Only Fury.
The authorities had identified what remained of his cousin’s and brother’s bodies and leaked a story about a drug heist gone bad. The speed and deftness of the cover-up was particularly impressive—amazing what got done behind the scenes when the commander-in-chief was tugging the marionette strings. People who said the government was inefficient didn’t know the right parts of the government. The media was having a field day with the incident, calling it Watergate-gate.
Wade and his cousins failed to find it amusing.
Holt’s disposable phone vibrated.
Wade’s hands stopped moving at last, the pistol at rest between his massive palms.
Holt looked at the text, the sender ID nothing more than a redacted space. FRIDAY. BE READY.
Holt rose and handed Wade the phone as he passed him. Resting by the front door was a black duffel bag that had arrived earlier this morning. It was zippered shut and secured with zip-ties.
Wade read the message and rose from his perch.
It seemed, for a time, that he kept rising.
“I’ll round up the boys,” he said. “You get us within range of him. That’s all you need to do. Just get us within range.” He wiped at his nose. “Can you do that?”
Holt crouched over the duffel, flicked out a folding knife, and severed the zip-tie. He tugged the duffel open and dumped its contents by Wade’s feet.
Scattered on the floor were emergency-response-team jackets, Secret Service badges, department-issued combat-utility uniforms.
Holt grinned. “Wolves in wolves’ clothing.”
44
Shock-and-Awe Charm
When Mia opened the door, she noted what Evan was holding and her face froze with surprise.
It wasn’t the expression Evan had been hoping for.
He stood there dumbly, Peter’s wrapped present tucked under an arm, a bulky gift for Mia front and center. He offloaded it to her, and she struggled a bit under its weight.
“It’s—wow, cool—a … um, first-aid kit.”
“It’s actually a Black Hawk medical pack, designed to SEAL-team medic specs. I packed it with essentials—syringes, field dressing, alcohol pads. I guess the morphine vials are a little much.”
She hefted the immense olive-drab pack onto an accent table, displacing a mound of LEGOs. “Maybe so.”
“There’s a sternum clasp and cinch straps for the sides to help maintain load integrity during stress maneuvers. Not that, you know … But I figured after Peter’s injury…” He read her eyes and stopped. “I’m not very good at this, am I?”
“No. But you’re so bad that it actually makes you good.”
“Pity factor?”
“No,” she said. “More like shock-and-awe charm.”
“I’ll take it.” He followed her inside, the condo filled with the scent of fresh-baked pie. The TV was on in the background, a commercial featuring a silver-haired couple toasting with umbrella drinks while a rugged voice ran down a list of horrifying side effects. “I’m sorry I’ve been gone. Traveling for work.”
She started clearing dirty plates off the kitchen table. “No worries. Been busy here, too.”
“I brought something for Peter, too. Is he—”
“Evan Smoak! Check it out!” Peter shot out of his room. He rotated his right arm in the socket, showing off the healed shoulder even as he streaked toward Evan. Then he saw the wrapped package and froze: Flying Hug Interruptus. “What is it? What is it?”
Evan handed it to him, and Peter sat on the carpet to unwrap it. The half-moon plaque came clear. “It’s … um…?”
“A plaque,” Evan said. “From the White House gift shop.”
“Like, the actual White House?”
“The very one.”
Peter went to lift the plaque, but it came apart, a clean break splitting the brass patina. “Oh, shoot. It’s broken.” He looked up at Evan, his charcoal eyes wide. “What happened?”
I cracked it over the head of an MPD officer.
Or it shattered from the overpressure of a frag grenade in my hotel room.
Or it fractured when I crashed through the floor on top of an assassin and used it to break my fall.
Evan cleared his throat. “Must’ve been mishandled by airline baggage.”
Mia came around from the kitchen and crouched behind Evan. “Let’s have a look.”
“Don’t worry,” Evan said. “I know exactly who can fix this. I’ll bring it back soon, good as new.”
Across the room the news had taken over from the Cialis commercial. “—new information about the death of the deputy chief of staff, who we’ve now learned heroically intercepted a bomb intended for the president, taking the brunt of the blast—”
Out of the corner of his eye, Evan noticed Mia’s head rotate to the TV. She did a double take. In the reflection of the screen, he saw her look down at the White House plaque. Then she shook off the notion, rolling her eyes at herself.
Evan folded the broken gift back in the paper and rose quickly to help with the dishes.
* * *
Later he sat on the couch next to Mia, spooning fresh rhubarb pie into his mouth as she sipped coffee. Peter had gone to bed after demanding two stories, a glass of water, a closet check, a search under his bed, and a trip to the bathroom. Evan had taken care of all but the latter.
“So,” Mia said. “Whaddaya say we break in that Navy SEAL medic kit and get crazy? I can make a string bikini out of adhesive tape. You could oil down your chest with triple-antibiotic ointment.”
He had to fight off a smile. “It was either that or a catheter kit. So be grateful.”
She reached across and brushed his temple with her knuckles. “I am,” she said. “Grateful.”
“Plus, it’s not a Navy SEAL medic
kit. It’s designed to SEAL-team specs.”
She was laughing at him now.
“Here’s where I should stop talking?”
She said, “Here’s where you should stop talking.”
She leaned to kiss him when her cell phone rang. She answered. “Mia Hall.”
As she listened, her expression altered, the warmth and softness draining out of it. “Don’t you dare try to intimidate me. I will bring the full weight of the law down on your head, and I will crush you.”
She looked at the phone, the screen showing that the call had been severed. She hurled it aside onto the cushions. “I won’t let that piece of shit scare me,” she said. “I won’t.”
But her voice was shaking.
“Who is it?” Evan asked.
“Remember that case I closed?”
Seven felony counts. Oscar Esposito. Case number PA338724. Four-year-old girl who knew her name only as “Idiot.”
“Remind me,” Evan said.
“Domestic abuse.”
“That’s right.”
“He was out of custody throughout the court process, so the judge allowed a surrender date later than the date of sentencing so he could, you know, get his affairs in order. Like he’s an international mogul instead of a strung-out reprobate renting a by-the-day room at the Voyager Motor Inn in Huntington Park. So he’s out there free till the end of the month. I objected, of course, flight risk, blah-blah, but she said if he was gonna run, he would’ve done so before the conviction happened. I pulled every lever, but ultimately I’m limited in what I can do.” She scowled, bunching the faint freckles on the bridge of her nose. “So of course he’s been blowing up his soon-to-be-ex wife’s phone, trying to figure out which domestic-abuse shelter she’s staying at. If she caves, I think he’ll kill her and the little girl.”
Evan set down his plate on the coffee table. “Restraining order?”
“Three hundred feet. But until he violates it, he’s out there. Free to make anonymous threatening calls. To her and me.”
“What’s he threatening you with?”
Mia waved him off. “The usual. He’s gonna rape me. Kidnap me and keep me in a cellar. That when he’s done, I’ll beg to be put out of my misery.”
Her eyes belied the hard-bitten tone.
Evan realized he’d come forward on the couch, his legs tensed. She took note of the shift in his posture. “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” she said. “I’m telling you this in confidence. Nothing better happen. Not like the other time. Okay?”
He pushed his thoughts away.
He had a president to assassinate and a criminal enterprise to take down. His plate was full enough.
“Okay,” he said.
“This is none of your business.”
“I understand.”
He stood to go, but she took hold of his hand.
“That doesn’t mean leave,” she said.
* * *
He lay in the softness of Mia’s bed, her skin glowing milk-white in the spill of light through the window. The sweat had dried on his chest, his body a lovely confusion of heat and coolness.
She rested on her side, her eyes closed, and he could barely make out the birthmark at her temple beneath the tumble of her hair. Three stretch marks rode the hump of her hip, a Japanese fan, the skin looking so feather-soft he had to lean to press his lips to it.
She gave a pleased murmur he felt in his spine, and then she shifted onto her belly.
Somewhere in the dark room, his phone hummed.
He got out of bed silently, located the RoamZone in his heap of cast-off clothes, and stepped into the bathroom, easing the door shut behind him.
He answered, “V?”
“I have the field specs on all three locations,” Candy said. “Texting them now.”
His phone buzzed and buzzed some more, the data coming through. Measurements, dimensions, elevations.
She said, “Tell me I’m the best.”
“You’re the best.”
“No shit,” Candy said. “Let me know when you’re ready to come out and play.”
She hung up.
As he studied the data on the three perches, one came clear as the most suitable.
A soft tapping issued through the door. He opened it to find Mia standing there, wearing his T-shirt, the hem falling to mid-thigh. Her eyes were at half-mast.
“Is it a woman?” she asked.
Evan hesitated. “Yes,” he said.
“Are you sleeping with her?”
“No.”
“Okay,” she said, kissed him, and trudged back to bed.
The afterimpression of her lips lingered on his. In his hand the RoamZone’s screen displayed the coordinates he required to end the life of the president of the United States.
He wondered if he could ever bring these two lives of his into alignment without destroying one or the other.
For a long time, he stood on the cold tiles of the bathroom, phone in hand, staring across the threshold at Mia’s nestled form on the bed.
Then he dressed quietly and slipped out.
45
The Entitlement of the Mighty
Martin’s Tavern had hosted every president since Give ’Em Hell Harry, a slice of D.C. lore that the Martin clan didn’t hesitate to advertise at every turn.
President Bennett sat at “The Proposal Booth,” where JFK had allegedly popped the question to Jackie. Commemorated by a brass plaque screwed into the wall, the apocryphal event had recently been corroborated by an aging eyewitness, a former ambassador named Marion Smoak, who recalled watching the young senator from Massachusetts consummate the political alliance that would serve as the cornerstone of Camelot.
The Georgetown eatery, nearly a hundred years old, made every effort to look its age—dimly lit wooden booths, antique fox-hunt engravings in warped frames, charmingly hideous stained-glass lamps hanging over a bar worn from decades of forearms and workday stress.
In the cramped space between booths, tables were arranged cheek to jowl. If you weren’t the president, you’d have to watch your elbows.
At Agent Templeton’s request, the Service had cleared out the restaurant. Through the window Bennett could see agents at intervals all up the sidewalk, hands crossed over their groins, the trademark posture. At least a third of the plainclothes “civilians” in eyeshot, at closer look, sported surveillance kits, earpieces snugged into place, pockets bulging with radio transmitters.
Until recently Bennett had felt like the king of all he surveyed.
Since Orphan X had announced himself, the world had remained just as vast, but it seemed the space from which Bennett could view it was shrinking.
Naomi Templeton sat across from him, that blunt-cut blond hair framing an obstinate face. “—hoping you will reconsider and cancel, Mr. President. It’s like sending a Google Maps route to Orphan X.”
Bennett dragged the tines of his fork through the gravy-covered slab of turkey. He could taste the giblets in the sauce, rich and meaty. He looked across at Johnson’s favorite table.
And then at Nixon’s.
“My appearance before Congress is a gesture of grace, Templeton. Backing away from it would be disastrous. I am not going to let an assassin dictate the operations of the highest office in the nation.”
“Mr. President—”
He set down his fork firmly, the slender handle plinking on the rim of his plate. “I’m the leader of the free world. At your disposal you have the most advanced and resource-rich security apparatus history has ever known. If you can’t get me seventeen blocks safely, we both deserve to die.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. “Yes, sir.”
He nodded. “Continue.”
She returned her focus to the leather-bound folder before her. “It’ll be the formal motorcade package, forty vehicles, and extra SUVs to accommodate a second CAT team. I want our backup to have backup. We’ll cordon off the blocks along the route and send an intel car in the lead, running re
al-time facial recognition on everyone behind the barriers. Let’s see.” She tapped her pen against her chin, her eyes scanning down the page. “Motorcycle units blocking side streets, post standers at every intersection, three Park Police helos in the air the whole way.”
“And the ground game?”
“We’re locking down all the buildings along the primary route as well as the two contingency routes—that means each doorway, entrance, and exit secured. By the time the motorcade pulls out of 1600 Penn, not a single window between you and the Capitol will be open. My men are already acquiring master keys to every condo building, every office, every hotel room. We’ll secure utility rooms, roof access points, circuit boards—anything that could throw a wrench. FSD—sorry, Forensic Services Division—has worked up interactive 3-D digital models of every structure along the trajectory, complete with floor-by-floor blueprints. This afternoon I’m personally leading the briefing to walk everyone through the route one square foot at a time. Thursday morning we’re getting EOD on loan from the army to spot-weld manhole covers shut, remove mailboxes, all that jazz. They’ll run dogs through alleys and garages, make sure we pass the sniff test. Building-extraction scenarios are complex when we’re dealing with the Capitol Building, but we’ve worked up several…”
As she continued, Bennett took a measured sip of the 1865 Château Lafite that Billy kept stored in the back for him. The grapes had been harvested the year the Confederacy surrendered, and they’d aged through both world wars and a host of others, through the polio epidemic and the Great Depression, the airplane and the A-bomb, space travel and supercomputers, only to spend themselves in a moment’s pleasure upon his palate.
The world flowered in order to be picked by the daring. It was a privilege, yes. And the entitlement of the mighty.
“… full-body scanners at the door,” Templeton was saying. “Airspace will be cleared, of course, but we’ll also shut down drone flights, model aircraft, everything. Capitol police will have two mobile command centers in the vicinity, feeding directly into the White House Communications Agency switchboard.…”
Out of the Dark Page 24