He breathed heavily, as if he had just sprinted a mile.
He regretted everything. That was the truth. It hurt him to think that the work he did had ever caused her pain, it hurt more than she would ever know. He had left the job last year for that very reason, but then he had been called back for one night – one night that turned into a night, a day, and another impossibly long night. A night during which he thought he had lost his family forever.
Becca no longer trusted him. He could see that much. His presence frightened her. He was the cause of what had happened. He was reckless, he was fanatical, and he was going to get her, and their only son, killed.
Tears streamed silently down her face. A long minute passed.
“Does it even matter?” she said.
“Does what matter?”
“Does it matter who the President is? If Gunner and I were dead, would you really care who was President?”
“But you’re alive,” he said. “You’re not dead. You’re alive and well. There’s a big difference.”
“Okay,” she said. “We’re alive.” It was agreement that wasn’t agreement.
“I want to tell you something,” Luke said. “I’m retiring. I’m not going to do it anymore. I might have to take a few meetings in the coming days, but I’m not going on any more assignments. I did my part. Now it’s over.”
She shook her head, but just slightly. It was as if she didn’t even have the energy to move. “You’ve said that before.”
“Yes. But this time I mean it.”
*
“You want to always keep the boat on an even keel.”
“Okay,” Gunner said.
He and his dad loaded the boat with gear. Gunner wore jeans, a T-shirt, and a big floppy fishing hat to keep the sun off his face. He also had a pair of Oakley sunglasses his dad had given him because they looked cool. His dad wore the same exact pair.
The T-shirt was okay – it was from 28 Days Later, which was a pretty awesome zombie movie with English people in it. The problem with the shirt was it didn’t have any actual zombies on it. It was just a red biohazard symbol against a black background. He guessed that made sense. The zombies in the movie weren’t really the undead. They were people who got infected with a virus.
“Slide that cooler athwartships,” his dad said.
His dad had all these crazy words he used whenever they went fishing. It made Gunner laugh sometimes. “Athwartships!” he shouted. “Aye, aye, Captain.”
His dad motioned with his hand to show the placement he wanted; across the middle, sideways, not near the back rail where Gunner had originally stowed it. Gunner slid the big blue cooler into place.
They stood, facing one another. His dad gave him a funny look from behind his sunglasses. “How are you doing, son?”
Gunner hesitated. He knew they were worried about him. He had heard them whispering his name in the night. But he was okay. He really was. He had been afraid, and he was still a little bit afraid now. He had even cried a lot, which was okay. You were supposed to cry sometimes. You weren’t supposed to hold it in.
“Gunner?”
Well, he might as well talk about it.
“Dad, you kill people sometimes, don’t you?”
His dad nodded. “Sometimes I do, yeah. It’s part of my job. But I only kill bad guys.”
“How can you tell the difference?”
“Sometimes it’s hard to tell. And sometimes it’s easy. Bad guys will hurt people who are weaker than them, or innocent people who are just minding their own business. My job is to stop them from doing that.”
“Like the men who killed the President?”
His dad nodded.
“Did you kill them?”
“I killed some of them, yes.”
“And the men who took Mom and me? You killed them, too, didn’t you?”
“I did, yeah.”
“I’m glad you did that, Dad.”
“I am too, monster. They were the exact kind of men who are good to kill.”
“Are you the best killer in the world?”
His dad shook his head and smiled. “I don’t know, buddy. I don’t think they keep tabs on who the best killers are. It’s not really like a sport. There’s no world champion of killing. In any case, I’m retiring from the whole thing. I want to spend more time with you and Mom.”
Gunner thought about it. He had seen a news show about his dad on TV the day before. It was really just a short segment, but it was his dad’s picture and name, and video of his dad when he was younger and in the Army. Luke Stone, Delta Force operator. Luke Stone, FBI Special Response Team. Luke Stone and his team had saved the United States government.
“I’m proud of you, Dad. Even if you never got to be world champion.”
His dad laughed. He gestured toward the dock. “Okay, are we ready?”
Gunner nodded.
“We’ll head way out, drop anchor, see if we can find a few stripers feeding on the dropping tide.”
Gunner nodded. They pulled away from the dock and moved slowly through the No Wake zone. He braced himself as the boat picked up speed.
Gunner scanned the horizon ahead of them. He was the spotter, and he had to keep his eyes sharp and his head on a swivel, as his dad liked to say. They had been out together fishing three times earlier in the spring, but they hadn’t caught anything. When you went fishing and you didn’t catch anything, Dad called that being “on the snide.” Right now, they were on the snide big time.
In a few moments, Gunner spotted some splashes in the middle distance off the starboard quarter. Some white terns were diving, dropping like bombs into the water.
“Hey, look!”
His dad nodded and smiled.
“Stripers?”
Dad shook his head. “Bluefish.” Then he said, “Hold on.”
He gunned the engine and soon they were skimming, skittering, still picking up speed, as the boat got up on plane with Gunner nearly thrown backwards. A minute later, they eased up to the thrashing whitewater, the boat came off plane, and they settled back into the swells.
Gunner grabbed the two long fishing rods with the single hooks. He handed one to his dad and then cast his line without waiting. Almost instantly, he felt a tug, a heavy pull. A wild liveliness came into the rod now, vibrating with life. Some unseen force nearly yanked the rod out of his hands. The line snapped and went slack. The bluefish had broken him off. He turned to tell his dad, but the old man was hooked up now too, his rod bent double.
Gunner grabbed a net and got ready. The bluefish – silver and blue and green and white and very, very angry, was hoisted from the water and into the cockpit.
“Nice fish.”
“A slump breaker!”
The bluefish flopped on deck, caught in the green mesh of the hand net.
“Will we keep him?”
“No. He gets us off the snide, but we’re here for stripers. Blues are exciting, but striped bass are bigger and they’re better on the grill, too.”
They released the fish – Gunner watched as his dad seized the still-jerking, snapping bluefish, and removed the hook, his fingers just inches from those hungry teeth. His dad dropped the fish over the side, where with a quick tail whip, it headed for the deep.
No sooner had the fish disappeared than his dad’s phone started to ring. His dad smiled and looked at the phone. Then he put it aside. It buzzed and buzzed. After a while, it stopped. Ten seconds passed before it started ringing again.
“Aren’t you going to answer it?” Gunner said.
His dad shook his head. “No. In fact, I’m going to turn my phone off.”
Gunner felt a surge of fear in his stomach. “Dad, you have to answer it. What if it’s an emergency? What if the bad guys are taking over again?”
His dad stared at Gunner for a long second. The phone stopped buzzing. Then it started again. He answered it.
“Stone,” he said.
He paused and his face darkened. “Hi, Richard. Yes, Susan’s chief-of-staff. Sure. I’ve heard of you. Well, listen. You know I’m taking some time off, right? I haven’t even decided if I’m still on the Special Response Team, or whatever it’s called now. Yes, I understand, but there’s always something urgent. No one ever calls me at home and tells me it isn’t urgent. Okay… okay. If the President is serious that she wants a meeting, then she can call me personally. She knows where to reach me. Okay? Thanks.”
When his dad hung up, Gunner watched him. He didn’t look like he was having as much fun as just a minute ago. Gunner knew that if the President called, his dad would quickly pack his bags and go somewhere. Another mission, maybe more bad guys to kill. And he would leave Gunner and his mom home alone again.
“Dad, is the President going to call you?”
His dad ruffled Gunner’s hair. “Monster, I sure hope not. Now what do you say? Let’s go get some stripers.”
*
Hours later, the President still hadn’t called.
Luke and Gunner had caught three nice stripers, and Luke showed Gunner how to gut, clean, and filet them. It was old ground, but repetition was how you learned. Becca even got into the act, bringing a bottle of wine out to the patio and setting a cheese and cracker plate on the outdoor table.
Luke was just firing up the grill when the phone rang.
He looked at his family. They had frozen on the first ring. He and Becca made eye contact. He couldn’t read what was in her eyes anymore. Whatever it was, it was not supportive approval. He answered the phone.
A deep voice, a man: “Agent Stone?”
“Yes.”
“Please hold for the President of the United States.”
He stood numb, listening to blank air.
The phone clicked and she came on. “Luke?”
“Susan.”
His mind flashed back to an image of her, leading the entire country, and much of the world, in singing “God Bless America.” It was an amazing moment, but that’s all it was, a moment. And it was the kind of thing politicians were good at. It was practically a parlor trick.
“Luke, we’ve got a crisis on our hands.”
“Susan, we always have a crisis on our hands.”
“Right now, I am up to my ass in alligators.”
Nice. He hadn’t heard that one in a while.
“We’re going to have a meeting. Here at the house. I need you there.”
“When is the meeting?”
She didn’t hesitate. “In an hour.”
“Susan, with traffic, I’m two hours away. That’s on a good day. Right now, half the roads are still closed.”
“You won’t be sitting in traffic. There’s a helicopter on the way to you now. It’ll be there in fourteen minutes.”
Luke looked at his family again. Becca had poured herself a glass of wine and sat faced away from him, staring toward the late afternoon sun sinking toward the water. Gunner stared down at the fish on the grill.
“Okay,” Luke said into the phone.
CHAPTER SIX
6:45 p.m.
United States Naval Observatory – Washington, DC
“Agent Stone, I’m Richard Monk, the President’s chief-of-staff. We talked on the phone today.”
Luke had come off the Naval Observatory helipad five minutes before. He shook hands with a tall, fit-looking guy, maybe late-thirties, probably right around Luke’s age. The man wore a blue dress shirt with sleeves rolled up his forearms. His tie hung askew. His upper body was scientifically muscular, like in an ad for Men’s Health. He worked hard and he played hard – that’s what Richard Monk’s look told anyone who would listen.
They walked the marble hallway of the New White House toward wide double doors down at the end. “We’ve adapted our old conference room into a situation room,” Monk said. “It’s a work in progress, but we’re going to get there.”
“You’re lucky to be alive, aren’t you?” Luke said.
The mask of confidence on the man’s face faltered, only for a second. He nodded. “The Vice… Well, she was the Vice President at the time. The President and I and a bunch of staff were on a West Coast swing when President Hayes summoned her back East. It was very sudden. I stayed behind in Seattle with a few people to tie up some loose ends. When Mount Weather happened…”
He shook his head. “It’s too horrible. But yes, that could have been me, too.”
Luke nodded. Workers were still pulling bodies out of Mount Weather days after the disaster. Three hundred so far, and counting. Among them were the former Secretary of State, the former Secretary of Education, the former Secretary of the Interior, the head of NASA, and dozens of United States Representatives and Senators.
The firefighters had only put out the central underground fire yesterday.
“What is the crisis that Susan called me out here for?” Luke said.
Monk gestured toward the end of the hall. “Uh, President Hopkins is there in the conference room, along with some key staff. I think I’m going to let them tell you what’s going on.”
They passed through the double doors and into the room. More than a dozen people were already seated at a large oval table. Susan Hopkins, President of the United States, sat at the far side of the room from the door. She was small, almost unassuming, surrounded by large men. Two Secret Service agents stood on either side of her. Three more stood in various corners of the room.
A nervous-looking man stood at the head of the table. He was tall, balding, a little paunchy, wearing glasses and an ill-fitting suit. Luke sized him up in about two seconds. This was not his normal venue, and he believed himself to be in deep trouble. He looked like a man who was currently being grilled from all sides.
Susan stood. “Everyone, before we begin, I want to introduce you to Agent Luke Stone, formerly of the FBI Special Response Team. He saved my life a few days ago, and he was instrumental in saving the Republic as we know it. That is not an exaggeration. I’m not sure I’ve ever before met an operative as skilled, as knowledgeable, and as fearless in the face of adversity. It’s a credit to our nation, our Armed Forces, and our intelligence community that we identify and train men and women like Agent Stone.”
Now everyone stood and applauded. To Luke’s ears, the applause sounded stilted and formal. These people had to applaud. The President wanted them to. He raised a hand, trying to make it stop. The situation was absurd.
“Hi,” he said when the clapping ended. “Sorry I’m late.”
Luke sat in an empty chair. The man standing in the front stared directly at him. Now Luke couldn’t tell what was in the man’s eyes. Hope? Maybe. He looked like a desperate quarterback about to launch a Hail Mary pass in Luke’s direction.
“Luke,” Susan said. “This is Dr. Wesley Drinan, Director of the Galveston National Laboratory at the University of Texas Medical Branch. He is briefing us on a possible security breach at the Biosafety Level 4 lab there.”
“Ah,” Luke said. “All right.”
“Agent Stone, are you familiar with Biosafety Level 4 laboratories?”
“Uh, Luke is fine. I’m familiar with the term. Maybe you can bring me all the way up to speed, however.”
Drinan nodded. “Of course. I’ll give you the thirty-second elevator pitch. BSL-4 labs are the highest level of security when dealing with biological agents. BSL-4 is the level required for work with dangerous and exotic viruses and bacteria that pose a high risk of laboratory infections, as well as those which cause severe to fatal disease in humans. These are diseases for which vaccines or other treatments aren’t currently available. In general, I’m talking about Ebola, Marburg, and some of the emerging hemorrhagic viruses that we’re just discovering in deep jungle regions of Africa and South America. Sometimes we also handle newly mutated influenza viruses until we understand their transmission mechanisms, infection rates, mortality rates, and so on.”
“Okay,” Luke said. “I get it. And something was stolen?”
“We don’t know. Something is missing. But we don’t know what happened to it.”
Luke didn’t speak. He simply nodded at the man to keep him talking.
“We had a power failure two nights ago. That in itself is rare. Rarer still is that our backup generators didn’t immediately kick on. The design of the facility is that in the event of an outage, there should be a seamless shift from main power to backup power. It didn’t happen. Instead, the facility went to emergency reserves, which is a low-power state that only keeps essential systems running.”