Lloyd panics, seeing the first guy coming toward him, still smiling, and he realizes with sharp horror why the two are wearing hazmat suits—so they don’t get soaked with blood—and he turns and has started running when there’s a hard punch to his back.
His legs fold up underneath him.
He hits the dirt hard, tasting it, and then he’s rolled over by the first man, who’s holding a sharp skinny knife in his hand. There’s a bright red drop of blood on the point of the knife. Lloyd stares at it. His breathing slows down.
The man says, “I’ve severed your spinal cord between the L3 and L4 lumbar region. I learned the technique in medical school, years ago in Tunisia, and practiced it many times in combat across the world. You will never walk again.” Then he laughs. “But the time period of ‘again’ is flexible, isn’t it?”
The other man joins him, also smiling.
Lloyd whispers, “Why?”
“Why not?” he says as the knife comes down for the last time.
Chapter
19
Lake Marie, New Hampshire
An hour or so after Mel leaves, I’ve showered, read the newspapers—just skimmed them, really, for it’s a sad state of affairs when you eventually realize just how wrong journalists can be in covering stories—and have had my second cup of coffee while chewing on a leftover venison sausage link from breakfast.
Last November this venison was a buck scrambling along a ridge on the other side of the lake before I took him down with a single shot from a scoped Remington .308 rifle. The sharpness of my shooting skills pleased me, and my Secret Service detail was pleased that their protectee had gotten his kill for that year’s deer season and could go back to the safety of his compound without being out in the open with other hunters.
After finishing my post-breakfast snack, I take up a handsaw and a pair of pruning shears and head off to the south side of our property.
It’s a special place, even though Samantha has spent less than a month here in all her visits. Most of this land is conservation land, never to be built upon, and those people who do live here almost all follow the old New Hampshire tradition of never bothering their neighbors or gossiping about them to visitors or news reporters.
Out on the lake is a white Boston Whaler carrying two fishermen who are really Secret Service. Last year the Union Leader did a little piece calling the agents the unluckiest fishermen in the state, but since then, the press has pretty much left them alone.
As I’m chopping, cutting, and piling up brush, I think back to two famed fellow POTUS brush cutters—Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush—and how their workouts never quite made sense to a lot of people. They thought, Hey, you’ve been at the pinnacle of fame and power; why go out and get your hands dirty?
I saw at a stubborn pine sapling that’s near an old stone wall on the property. To save the wall, I need to uproot the sapling. The work keeps my mind occupied, busy enough to avoid continual flashbacks to my three-and-a-half-year term and the way it ended.
There were so many long and fruitless meetings with congressional leaders from both sides of the aisle, me talking with them, arguing with them, and sometimes pleading with them, at one point saying, “Damn it, we’re all Americans here. Isn’t there anything we can work on to move our country forward?”
And constantly getting the same smug, superior answers. “Don’t blame us, Mr. President. Blame them.”
I also spent a lot of late nights in the Oval Office, signing letters of condolence to the families of the best of us, men and women who died for the idea of America, and not the squabbling and revenge-minded nation we had become. Three times I came across the names of men I knew and fought with, back when I was younger, fitter, and with the teams.
And I spent other late nights as well, reviewing what was called, in typical innocuous bureaucratic fashion, the Disposition Matrix database, prepared by the National Counterterrorism Center, but was really known as the kill list. Months of work, research, surveillance, and intelligence intercepts, coming up with a list of known terrorists who were a clear and present danger to the United States. And there I was, sitting by myself and, like a Roman emperor of old, putting a check mark next to those I decided were going to be killed in the next few days. That’s something I’m glad I don’t have to do anymore.
The sapling finally comes down.
Mission accomplished. Almost. I’ll do the final uprooting tomorrow when I need more distraction.
I look up and see something odd flying in the distance.
I stop, shade my eyes. Since moving here, I’ve gotten used to the different kinds of birds moving in and around Lake Marie, including the loons, whose night calls sound like someone’s being throttled, but I don’t recognize what’s flying over there.
I watch for a few seconds, and then it disappears behind the far tree line.
And I get back to work, something suddenly bothering me, something I can’t quite figure out.
Chapter
20
Base of the Huntsmen Trail
Mount Rollins, New Hampshire
In the front seat of a black Cadillac Escalade, the older man rubs at his clean-shaven chin and looks at the video display from the laptop set on top of the center console. Sitting next to him in the passenger seat, the younger man has a rectangular control system in his hand, with two small joysticks and other switches. He is controlling a drone with a video system, and they’ve just watched the home of former president Matthew Keating disappear from view.
It pleases the older man to see the West’s famed drone technology turned against them. For years he’s marshaled their wireless networks, cell phones, triggering devices to create the bombs that shattered so many bodies and sowed so much terror.
And the Internet—which promised so much when it came out, to bind the world as one—ended up turning into a well-used and safe communications network for him and his warriors.
After they hid their stolen pickup truck this morning, they took the Cadillac they’re sitting in from a young family in northern Vermont. There’s still a bit of blood and brain matter on the dashboard, and in the rear an empty baby’s seat, along with a flower-print cloth bag stuffed with toys and other childish things. If they keep the car, they’ll have to clean the blood off.
“Next?” the older man asks.
“We find the girl,” the younger man says. “It shouldn’t take long.”
“Do it,” the older man says, watching with quiet envy and fascination how the younger man manipulates the controls of the complex machine that projects the drone’s camera-made images onto the computer screen.
“There. There she is.”
From a bird’s-eye view, the younger man thinks, staring at the screen. A red sedan moving along these narrow, paved roads.
The older man says, “And you are sure that the Americans, that they are not tracking you?”
“Impossible,” the man next to him says with confidence. “There are thousands of such drones at play across this country right now. The officials who control the airspace, they have rules about where drones can go, and how high and low they can go, but most people ignore the rules.”
“But their Secret Service…”
“Once he left office, his daughter was no longer due the Secret Service protection. It’s the law, if you can believe it…under special circumstances, it can be requested, but no, not with her. The daughter wants to be on her own, going to school, without armed guards near her.”
He murmurs, “A brave girl, then.”
“And foolish,” is the reply.
And a stupid father, he thinks, to let his daughter roam at will, with no guards, no security.
The camera in the air follows the vehicle with no difficulty and the older man shakes his head, again looking around him at the rich land and forests. Such an impossibly plentiful and gifted country, but why in Allah’s name do they persist in meddling and interfering and being colonialists around the world?
If only they would stay home, so many innocents would still be alive.
“There,” his companion says. “As I earlier learned…they are stopping here. At the beginning of the trail called Sherman’s Path.”
The vehicle pulls into a dirt lot still visible from the air. Again, the younger man is stunned at how easy it was to find this girl’s schedule: by looking at websites and bulletin boards of her college, from something called the Dartmouth Outing Club. Less than an hour’s work and research has brought him here, looking down at her, like some blessed spirit overlooking all.
He admits, though, that going through that college’s campus brought him a yearning he thought he had snuffed out years ago, a yearning about being a student and not worrying over anything except friends and grades.
He is no longer so innocent.
He stares at the screen once more. Other vehicles are parked in the lot, and the girl and the boy get out. Both retrieve knapsacks from the rear of the vehicle. There’s an embrace, a kiss, and then they walk away from the vehicles and disappear into the woods.
“Satisfied?” his companion asks.
For years, he thinks in satisfaction, the West has used these drones to rain down hellfire upon his friends, his fighters, and, yes, his family and other families. Fat and comfortable men (and women!) sitting and sipping their sugary drinks in safety, killing from thousands of kilometers away, seeing the silent explosions but not once hearing them, or the shrieking and crying of the wounded and dying, and then driving home without a care in the world.
Now, it’s his turn.
His turn to look from the sky.
Like a falcon on the hunt, he thinks.
Patiently and quietly waiting to strike.
Chapter
21
Sherman’s Path
Mount Rollins, New Hampshire
It’s a clear, cool, and gorgeous day on Sherman’s Path, and Mel Keating is enjoying this climb up Mount Rollins, where she and her boyfriend, Tim Kenyon, will spend the night with other members of the Dartmouth Outing Club at a small hut the club owns near the summit. She stops for a moment on a granite outcropping, puts her thumbs through her knapsack’s straps.
Tim emerges from the trail and surrounding scrub brush, smiling, face a bit sweaty, bright-blue knapsack on his back, and she takes his hand as he gets to her. “Damn nice view, Mel,” he says.
She kisses him. “I’ve got a better view ahead.”
“Where?”
“Just you wait.”
She lets go of his hand and just takes in the rolling peaks of the White Mountains and the deep green of the forests, some of the trees shadowed a darker shade of green from the overhead clouds gently scudding by. Out beyond is the Connecticut River and the mountains of Vermont.
Mel takes a deep cleansing breath.
Just her and Tim, and nobody else.
She lowers her glasses, and everything instantly turns to muddled shapes of green and blue. Nothing to see, nothing to spot. She remembers the boring times at state dinners back at the White House, when she’d be sitting with Mom and Dad, and she’d lower her glasses so all she could see was colored blobs. That made the time pass. She really didn’t want to be there, didn’t really want to see all those well-dressed men and women pretending to like Dad and be his friend so they could get something in return.
Mel slides the glasses back up, and everything comes into view.
That’s what she likes.
Being ignored and seeing only what she wants to see.
Tim reaches above the knapsack and rubs her neck. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing.”
“Oh, that doesn’t sound good.”
Mel laughs. “You goof, it’s the best! No staff, no news reporters, no cameras, no Secret Service agents standing like statues in the corner. Nobody! Just you and me.”
“Sounds lonely,” Tim says.
She slaps his butt. “Don’t you get it? There’s nobody keeping an eye on me, and I’m loving every second of it. Come along. Let’s get moving.”
Some minutes later, Tim is sitting at the edge of a small mountainside pool ringed with boulders and saplings and shrubs, letting his feet soak, enjoying the sun on his back, the sweet quiet buzz of the joint he and Mel just shared. He’s thinking of how damn lucky he is.
He was shy at first when he and Mel—her identity was no secret on the Dartmouth campus—shared a history class on Africa last semester. He had no interest in even trying to talk to her until one day in class Mel mentioned the importance of microloans in Africa, and a few loudmouths started hammering her about being ignorant of the real world, being privileged, and not having an authentic life.
When the loudmouths took a moment to catch their respective breaths, Tim surprised himself by saying, “I grew up in a third-floor apartment in Southie, my dad was a lineman for Eversource, my mom worked cleaning other people’s homes and clipped coupons to go grocery shopping, and man, I’d trade that authentic life for privilege any day of the week.”
A bunch of the students laughed, Mel caught his eye with a smile, and after class he asked her to coffee at Lou’s Bakery. That’s how it started.
Tim, a scholarship student, dating the daughter of President Matt Keating.
What a world.
What a life.
Sitting on a moss-covered boulder, Mel nudges him and says, “How’re your feet?”
“Feeling cold and fine.”
“Then let’s do the whole thing,” she says, standing up, tugging up her gray Dartmouth sweatshirt. “Feel like a swim?”
He smiles, still slightly buzzed. “Mel…someone could see us!”
She smiles right back and shrugs, revealing the tan sports bra under the sweatshirt, and then starts lowering her shorts. “Here? In the middle of a national forest? Lighten up, sweetie. Nobody’s around for miles.”
After she strips, Mel yelps as she jumps into the pool, keeping her head and glasses above the water. The water is cold and sharp. Tim takes his time, wading in, shifting his weight as he tries to keep his footing on the slippery rocks, and he yowls like a hurt puppy when the cold mountain water reaches just below his waist.
The pond is small, and with three strong strokes Mel reaches the other side, then swims back, the cold water now bracing, making her heart race, everything tingling. She tilts her head back, looking up past the tall pines and seeing the bright bare blue patch of sky. Nothing. Nobody watching her, following her, recording her.
Bliss.
Another yelp from Tim, and she turns her head to him. Tim wanted to go Navy ROTC but a bad set of lungs prevented him from doing so, and even though she knows that Dad wishes he’d get a haircut, his Southie background and interest in the Navy scored Tim in the plus side of the boyfriend column with Dad.
Tim lowers himself farther into the water, until it reaches his strong shoulders. “Did you see the sign-up list for the overnight at the cabin?” he asks. “Sorry to say, Cam Carlucci is coming.”
“I know,” Mel says, treading water, leaning back, letting her hair soak, looking up at the sharp blue and empty sky.
“You know he’s going to want you to—”
Mel looks back at her Tim. “Yeah. He and his buds want to go to the Seabrook nuclear plant this Labor Day weekend, occupy it, and shut it down.”
Poor Tim’s lips seem to be turning blue. “They sure want you there.”
In a mocking tone, Mel imitates Cam and says, “‘Oh, Mel, you can make such an impact if you get arrested. Think of the headlines. Think of your influence.’ To hell with him. They don’t want me. They want a puppet to get news coverage.”
Tim laughs. “You going to tell him that tonight?”
“Nah,” she says. “I’ll tell him I already have plans for Labor Day weekend.”
Her boyfriend looks puzzled. “You do?”
She swims to him and gives him a kiss, hands on his shoulders. “D
opey boy, yes: with you.”
His hands move through the water and are on her waist, and she’s enjoying the touch just as she hears voices. Mel looks up.
For the first time in a long time, she’s frightened.
Chapter
22
Lake Marie, New Hampshire
After getting out of the shower for the second time today (following a spectacular tumble in a muddy patch of dirt) and drying off, I’m idly playing the which-body-scar-goes-to-which-op game when my iPhone rings. I wrap a towel around me and pick up the phone, knowing that only about twenty people in the world have this number. Occasionally, though, a call comes in from “John” in Mumbai, pretending to be a Microsoft employee in Redmond, and I’ve been tempted to tell John who he’s really talking to, but I’ve resisted the urge.
This time, however, the number is blocked. Puzzled, I answer.
“Keating,” I say.
A strong woman’s voice comes through. “Mr. President? This is Sarah Palumbo calling from the NSC.”
The name quickly pops up in my mind. Sarah, a former Army brigadier general and deputy director at the CIA, has been the deputy national security advisor for the National Security Council since my term. When Sandra Powell returned to academia, Sarah should have been promoted to director, but President Barnes filled the position with someone to whom she owed a favor. Sarah knows her stuff, from the annual output of Russian oil fields to the status of Colombian cartel smuggling submarines.
“Sarah—good to hear from you,” I say, still dripping some water onto the bathroom’s tile floor. “How’re your mom and dad doing? Enjoying the snowbird life in Florida?”
Sarah and her family grew up in Buffalo, where lake-effect winter storms can dump up to four feet of snow in an afternoon, and she chuckles and says, “They’re loving every warm second of it. Sir, do you have a moment?”
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