Luke nodded. “I remember. The brass at JSOC didn’t want you to go. They thought – ”
“I was too old. That’s right. But I went anyway. And we dropped in there at night, you, me, who else? Simpson – ”
“Montgomery,” Luke said. “A couple others.”
Don’s eyes were very alive. “Right. The pilot screwed the pooch and dropped us into the river, one of the tributaries. We all hit the water with forty-pound rucks on.”
“I don’t like to think about it,” Luke said. “I shot that rhinoceros.”
Don pointed at him. “That’s right. I forgot about that. The rhino charged us. I can still see it in the moonlight. But we crawled up there, soaking wet, and slit that murderous bastard’s throat – decapitated his whole team in one swift and decisive strike. And we didn’t split a hair on one child’s head. I was proud of my men that night. I was proud to be an American.”
Luke nodded again, almost smiled. “That was a long time ago.”
“For me, it was yesterday,” Don said. “I just started writing that one. Tomorrow I’ll add the rhino.”
Luke didn’t say anything. It was a mission, one of many. Don’s memoir was going to be one long book.
“So that’s my whole point,” Don said. “It’s not bad in here. The food isn’t even bad – well, not as bad as you might expect. I have my memories. I have a life. I’ve put together a workout routine, most of which I can do right here in the cell. Squats, pushups, chins, even yoga and tai chi moves. I have a sequence, and I move through it for hours each day, change it up, reverse it. It has a mindfulness component to it as well. I believe it would start a fitness craze if people knew about it. I’d like to trademark it – Prison Power. It’s put me in much better shape than when I was out in the world and free to do whatever I pleased.”
“Okay, Don,” Luke said. “This is your retirement villa. That’s nice.”
Don raised a hand. “I want to live, that’s what I’m telling you. They’re going to give me the needle. You know it and I know it. I don’t want the needle. Listen, I’m realistic. I know I’m not going to get a pardon, not in the current political environment. But if the intelligence I’ve given you pans out, I want the President to commute my sentence to life in prison without possibility of parole.”
Luke was frustrated by their meeting. Don Morris was sitting in what amounted to a stone bathroom, writing his memoirs and developing what he hoped would become an exercise fad. It was pathetic. Luke had once thought of Don as a great American.
The control knob on Luke’s blood turned from simmer to boil. He had his own problems, and his own life, but of course Don didn’t care much about that. Don had become the center of his own universe in here.
“Why’d you do it, Don?” He gestured at the cell. “I mean…” He shook his head. “Look at this place.”
Don didn’t hesitate. “I did it to save my country, and I’d do it again. Thomas Hayes was the worst President since Herbert Hoover. Of that, I have no doubt. He was running us into the ground. He had no idea how to project American power in the world, and no inclination to do so. He thought the world took care of itself. He was wrong. The world does NOT take care of itself. We have dark forces arrayed against us – they run amok if for one second we’re not watching them. They step into any power vacuum we leave them. They victimize the weak and defenseless. Our friends lose faith. I could no longer stand by and let these things happen.”
“And what did you get?” Luke said. “Hayes’s vice president is running the country.”
Don nodded. “Right. And she has a bigger pair of cojones than he ever did. People surprise you sometimes. I’m not unhappy with Susan Hopkins as President.”
“Great,” Luke said. “I’ll tell her that. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear it. Don Morris is not unhappy with your presidency.” He stood. He was ready to go. This little encounter was going to be a lot to chew on.
Don jumped off the bed. He put his hand on Luke’s shoulder again. For a second, Luke thought Don was going to blurt out something emotional, something Luke would find embarrassing, like, “Don’t go!”
But Don didn’t do that.
“Don’t discount what I told you,” he said. “If it’s real, then we’ve got trouble. Just one nuclear weapon in the hands of the terrorists would be the worst thing you could dream of. They won’t hesitate to use it. One successful launch and the genie is out of the bottle. Who gets hit? Israel? Who do they hit back with their own nukes? Iran? How do you put the brakes on that? Call a time-out? I doubt it. What if we get hit? Or the Russians? Or both? What if automatic retaliatory strikes get triggered? Fear. Confusion. Zero trust. Men in silos, their fingers getting itchy, lingering over that button. There are a lot of nuclear weapons left on Earth, Luke. Once they start launching, there’s no good reason for them to stop.”
CHAPTER SIX
October 20
3:30 a.m.
Georgetown, Washington, DC
A black pickup truck was following him.
Luke had taken a late flight back. Now he was tired – exhausted – and yet still wired and awake. He didn’t know when he would sleep again.
The taxi had dropped him off in front of a row of handsome brownstones. The tree-lined streets were quiet and empty. They seemed to shimmer in the light from the ornate overhead lamps. As the cab pulled away, he stood in the street and soaked up the cool night. The trees were losing their leaves – they were all over the ground. As he watched, a few more drifted down.
He had come straight from the airport to Trudy’s place. The shades were drawn but at least one light was on in the street level apartment. No one was home – the lights were clearly on a timer, and probably a cheap one from a department store. The pattern was always the same. Trudy must have set it before she left.
She still owned the place – Luke knew that much. Swann had hacked her bank account. There were automatic payments in place for her mortgage, her association fees, and her electricity. She had paid two years of estimated real estate taxes upfront.
She had disappeared, but the apartment was here, going right along by itself as if nothing had happened.
Why did he keep coming here? Did he think she would suddenly be home one night? Did he think these past months would have erased themselves?
He paused for just a few seconds, facing away from the pickup truck, picturing it back there, remembering it from when he had walked passed it just a moment ago.
It was large, heavy duty, the kind of truck you saw on construction sites. The windows in its cab were smoked, making it impossible to see much inside. Even so, he had the sense that there were two silhouettes behind those windows. The truck’s headlights had been off when he walked past, and they were still off – there had been no approaching lights to tip him off. What had given the truck away was sound. He could hear its engine rumbling.
There was a gas station and convenience store at the bottom of the hill. It was lit up on the outside above the pumps, but the store itself looked to be closed. Luke walked down the middle of the street, toward the beckoning light.
He glanced to his left and his right without turning his head. On either side, expensive cars were parked nose to tail against the curb in unbroken lines. This was a crowded neighborhood, and there wasn’t much parking. There was no obvious way to get off the street and onto the sidewalk.
He broke into a sprint.
He did it without warning. He didn’t accelerate gradually from a walk to a run. One moment he was walking, and a heartbeat later he was running as fast as he could. Behind him, the pickup roared into life. Its tires burned rubber on the pavement, the shriek of the wheels tearing open the quiet night.
Luke dove to his right, sliding head first over the hood of a white Lexus. He slid off the car and tumbled onto the sidewalk, landing on his back, rolling into a sitting position while pulling his Glock from the shoulder holster inside his jacket, all in one move.
The Lexus started to disintegrate behind him. The truck had stopped, and its passenger side window was down. A man in a ski mask was there, firing a submachine gun with a giant sound suppressor. The gun had a drum magazine attached to the bottom, probably twelve dozen rounds. Luke absorbed all of this information in an instant, before his conscious mind was even aware of it.
The windows of the Lexus shattered, the tires popped and the car sank to the ground. THUNK, THUNK, THUNK – bullets punched through its side panels. Steam rose from under its hood. The man in the truck was spraying it with machine gun fire.
Luke ran forward, ducking low. The bullets followed him, shattering the next car as it had the Lexus. Glass sprayed all over him.
A car alarm went off, rang for five seconds, then stopped as the bullets pierced the vehicle and destroyed the alarm system.
Luke kept running, his breath hot in his lungs. He reached the gas station and bolted across its wide open yard. The overhead lights cast eerie shadows – the gas pumps seemed like looming monsters. The pickup truck skidded into the lot behind him. Luke glanced back and saw it bounce over the curb and take the corner hard.
He raced down another side street, then darted left into an alley. It was an old cobblestone street. He stumbled over the rough and pitted surface. The truck’s engine squealed, very close. Luke didn’t look. A grinding, crunching sound came as the truck bounced over the cobblestones.
Luke felt it there – the truck was one second behind him.
His heart pounded in his chest. It was no use. He turned his head and there was the truck, right behind him. Its massive grille barreled forward, growing bigger and bigger as it came. It looked like a huge, grinning mouth. The hood of the truck was nearly as high as his head.
To Luke’s left there was a dumpster. He sensed it more than saw it. He dove behind it, falling to the cobblestones, landing hard in a tiny alcove. The impact rattled his bones, and he pressed himself against the wall, as tight as his body would go.
An instant later, the pickup rammed the dumpster, crushing it against the wall of the alley. The truck passed, just missing Luke, dragging the dumpster with it. It skidded to a halt in the alleyway fifty feet past the alcove. Its brake lights shone red. The dumpster was crushed between the driver’s side door and the wall.
Luke could retake the initiative, but to do so, he had to move.
“Get up,” he said.
He hauled himself to his feet, gun in hand, and wedged his body into the alcove. Two-handed, he aimed at the back window of the truck.
BLAM, BLAM, BLAM, BLAM.
The window shattered. The noise of his gun was deafening. It echoed down the alleyway and out into the silent city streets. If he wanted attention, and he did, this would bring it.
The truck’s tires screamed and shredded on the cobblestones, the driver trying to get free of that dumpster.
The passenger – the shooter – used the butt of his gun to smash out the remains of the back window. He was going to try for a shot.
Perfect.
BLAM.
Luke shot him, dead center in the forehead.
The man slumped, his head hanging out the back window, his gun clattering uselessly into the pickup’s bed.
The truck skidded sideways, its grille sliding along the wall, the driver’s side facing Luke now. Luke would take the driver too, if he could, but not with a kill shot. He would keep him alive to answer questions.
The driver was good – better than his friend. His window had been shattered by the collision, but he had ducked way down below it. Luke couldn’t see him.
BLAM, BLAM, BLAM.
Luke put three shots into the driver’s side door. The sound was hollow, metallic, as the bullets punched through. The driver screamed. He was hit.
Suddenly, the truck skidded sideways to the right, like a joyrider doing donuts in the snow. The pickup bed swung around and rammed the wall. But the truck had broken loose from the dumpster. If the driver was still able, he was free to make a run for it.
Luke aimed at the rear left tire. BLAM.
The tire popped, but the truck squealed out and peeled off down the alley. It bounced out onto the street, skidded, and went left. Gone.
Nearby, sirens were already approaching. Luke could hear them coming from several different directions. He holstered his gun and limped out of the alley, his knee already stiffening. He had scraped it falling to the cobblestones.
A DC police interceptor roared up, lights flashing, throwing crazy blue shadows against the surrounding buildings. Luke already had the badge out for them, the old badge from the defunct FBI Special Response Team. It still had a year left before it expired. He raised his arms high in the air, the badge in his right hand.
“Federal agent!” he shouted at the cops who burst from the car, guns drawn and trained on him.
“On the ground!” they told him.
He did exactly as they said, moving slow and deliberately, no threat to anyone.
“What’s going on here?” one of the cops said as he snatched the badge from Luke’s outstretched hand.
Luke shrugged.
“Somebody’s trying to kill me.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
10:20 a.m.
The White House, Washington, DC
It was like a state funeral, the grand opening of a used car lot, and an amateur comedy show rolled into one.
Susan Hopkins, the President of the United States, and wearing a blue dress and shawl made especially for this occasion by the designer Etta Chang, looked out across the South Lawn at the gathered dignitaries and journalists. It was a select group, and the hardest invitation to score in town for the past month. On a bright sunny autumn day, under blue skies, the White House – one of the most enduring symbols of America – was rebuilt and ready to go.
Secret Service men towered behind and just in front of Susan, taking any shooting angles away – she felt almost like she was lost in a forest of tall men. Washington, DC, Virginia, and Maryland were restricted flight zones this morning. If you hadn’t flown in by 7 a.m., you were out of luck.
The ceremony was running long. It had started just after 9 a.m., and already it was pushing toward 10:30. Between the opening military procession with the bugler playing Taps and the riderless horse in honor of Thomas Hayes, the release of a flock of white doves to symbolize the many others who had died that day and that night, the fighter jet flyover, the children’s choir, and the various speeches and blessings…
Oh yes, the blessings.
The rebuilt house had been blessed, in turn, by an Orthodox rabbi from Philadelphia, a Muslim imam, the Catholic Archbishop of Washington, DC, the minister of the North Capitol Street AME Zion Church, and the famous Buddhist monk and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh.
The wrangling that had gone into picking the religious dignitaries – that alone had soured Susan’s taste for this event. An Orthodox rabbi? The Women of Reform Judaism were vocal with their annoyance – they had pushed for a female rabbi. Sunni or Shiite for the imam – there was no pleasing both. In fact, Kat Lopez had stuck a finger in both their eyes and gone with a Sufi.
Catholic groups were not thrilled about Pierre. The First Gentleman of the USA was gay? And married to a woman? Cats and dogs were lying down together. That question was resolved when Pierre decided to take a miss and watch the event from the apartment in San Francisco.
Pierre and the girls had largely disappeared from public life since the scandal. It was right to keep the girls away from the spotlight after everything that had happened, but this was an important event and Pierre hadn’t even wanted to come. That worried Susan a little. Really, more than a little. And of course, now the gay rights activists were furious with him for what they saw as his bowing to pressure from the Catholic Church.