by Sean Parnell
“Evening,” Pitts said. “They ran it at the ECP, but feel free to call up there.”
The tall agent examined the card, both sides, and frowned.
“Haven’t seen one like this, sir. But you wouldn’t be down here if they hadn’t cleared you upstairs.” He handed it back. “Not a lot of harm you can do here anyways.”
“I know,” Pitts said. “Sad way to end things.”
“Sure is. I was on the president’s detail when he was solid. Now he’s on a ventilator. Can’t even breathe on his own.”
“Well,” Pitts said, “I was supposed to relay a message.”
“Doubt he’ll even hear you, sir, but you can try.”
“Where’s the First Lady?”
“Sleeping in the bedroom suite. She’s all tuckered out these days. Turns in early.”
“Okay.” Pitts patted the large man’s arm. “I won’t be long. It’s sort of private.”
“Take your time.”
The young agent opened one of the tall wooden doors for Pitts, then closed it behind him after he limped inside. The main room was very large, with a sofa and comfortable chairs, and the president’s Stryker hospital bed and life-support machines were tucked into one far corner. The space was illuminated only by one table lamp with a low-watt yellow bulb and the seepage of light from the headboard monitors. Pitts glanced up at the room corners, searching for surveillance cameras, but saw nothing.
It didn’t matter anyway. None of this would take very long. Half of him wanted to be caught and stopped. The other half knew that even if sirens went off, he’d do what he had to do before they dragged him away. He felt nauseated and weak, but he took a long breath and closed in.
The president’s face looked blue. His wrists were tied down to the bed so he wouldn’t jerk any tubes out, and a light purple blanket was pulled up almost to his throat. A white flex intubation tube, about half an inch wide, ran from a mechanical ventilation machine into his slack lips, where its plastic collar was taped to the skin of his face. His eyes were closed. His once-full gray hair looked like the cobwebs you’d find in an old basement closet. The machine, which had three levels of pressure and gas graphs peaking and dropping on its monitor face, sounded like a very relaxed scuba diver.
In, and out . . . Long pause . . . In, and out . . .
Pitts looked at the door to the bedroom suite. He’d met Mrs. Cole a couple of times. He prayed she wouldn’t wake up and come out, and then he prayed for himself and for President Cole, and for Katherine and the girls. He asked forgiveness from Christ. He begged the Lord to consider this as euthanasia, rather than murder.
He reached over and switched off the ventilator. The scuba sound stopped.
Then he held his breath, half expecting the sudden lack of rhythmic sound to alert the agent outside. But nothing happened. Maybe the kid was taking a walk, or he really couldn’t hear much through the heavy wooden doors.
President Cole’s cancer-wizened body twitched. His lungs, which were no longer functioning on their own, tried to expand but only stuttered like an old jalopy on a freezing January morning in Montana.
Pitts had been born in Montana. He wished he was there. He wished he was anywhere but in this room. He wished he was dying, instead of Cole.
The president’s back arched up once, only half an inch, and then all of him slumped and he lay still. Pitts waited another full minute, counting the seconds in his head, and then one more just to be sure. He reached out and touched the president’s wrist. Nothing. No pulse. He waited one more full minute, which made a total of three, the amount of time a man of a certain age would never recover from, after oxygen deprivation to his brain.
He stared at the president’s chest. Not a twitch. He turned the ventilator back on. It had no effect and the monitor graphs were all flatlined. The machine emitted a single long tone like the old TVs used to do at the end of the broadcast day.
Pitts crossed himself, turned, and slowly stalked back to the suite’s entrance door. He stepped out into the hall, where the Secret Service agent was just sliding back into his seat. He was eating a Twinkie from a vending machine. Pitts looked down at him and sighed.
“I think he’s just taken his last breath,” he said. “You might want to get someone down here.”
Chapter 39
Washington Reagan National Airport
Steele and Goodhill’s Finnair flight from Helsinki landed later than expected. They’d had to fly commercial because the Program air crews refused to have Steele aboard again, at least until they were assured that his hijacking days were over.
After the op in Russia, Allie had flown them and the D-Boys back to Split, Croatia, where the Deltas had changed into matching hockey outfits, stowed their combat gear in sports duffels, walked across the tarmac to a waiting charter, and were gone within fifteen minutes. Goodhill had given his gear bag to the Delta first sergeant and asked him to deliver it to the Program team room at Langley AFB.
Also in that duffel was Hank Steele’s .45, which Goodhill had recovered from Major Petrov’s corpse. Steele was so grateful to Goodhill that he found himself unable to thank him. Blade never mentioned it again.
From Split, the duo had boarded an Austrian Airlines flight to Helsinki and had gone to a Program safehouse, where a contract physician looked Steele over. The doc stitched up his temple wound, iced his bruises, and fitted him for a temporary knee brace. Then, they’d actually done the very things that Ted Lansky had railed about in his office—gone to a spa and sauna to “cool off” and had some decent Finnish meals, including herring. They’d also talked about Eric’s father.
When they came through the gate at Reagan, CNN was on the first TV monitor they saw. Passengers were standing around watching, and the mood at the gate was somber and quiet. Anderson Cooper was talking about the death of former president Denton Cole, his upcoming lying in state at the Capitol, and the follow-on funeral service to be held three days hence at the National Cathedral.
Steele just stood there with his hands in his jeans pockets and watched. Goodhill looked up at Cooper and muttered, “Dude looks like Max Headroom.”
“Who’s that?” Steele asked.
“Never mind,” Goodhill said. “You’re too young.”
Ralphy Persko was waiting for them at the end of the terminal hallway. He fell into step beside Steele and Goodhill, said nothing about Steele’s limp or stitched-up face, and they walked toward baggage claim and the exit. Goodhill was slinging only a backpack and Steele had nothing on him.
“The TSA let you come greet us?” Steele said.
“Yeah, but they saw my ID card and frisked my privates,” Ralphy said. “I think I’ve still got a wedgie.”
Steele had pinged Ralphy from the airplane while still over the Atlantic. He wanted to hear what he’d discovered about the cyberattack on Cutlass Main II, but Ralphy had to tell him instead about the killing of Martin Farro. Steele went cold silent and told him the rest could wait until he arrived.
“Okay, Ralphy, so whatcha got on that Cutlass event?”
“Moscow cell,” Ralphy said. “We took care of those dudes, but I still think they had an insider.”
“Tell me more.”
“I think somebody used a dongle.” Ralphy meant a small computer thumb drive that could be used to inject lines of malicious code, which was why USB drives were absolutely verboten around DoD computers of any sort. “Could have been something as small as the remote for a mouse, or maybe a network booster.”
“Let me know when you guys decide to speak English again,” Goodhill growled.
Steele and Persko ignored him.
“Any idea who?” Steele said.
“Not a freakin’ clue. I backtracked the codes to the caviar dudes, which is how we counterpenetrated and fried ’em, but I got no fingerprint on who physically dropped it. It only takes a few seconds to do it. In and out, and it’s back in your pocket.”
“Or purse.”
“Yeah.” Ralphy look
ed at Steele and wondered who he was thinking about. “If you wanna be an equal-opportunity paranoid, like me.”
“Any word on Marty’s last date?” Steele’s question came through clenched teeth.
“Well, trickle-down intel is Europol pegged her as a PIJ gun for hire, Lila Kalidi.”
“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Steele said. “But I’d like to ring hers.”
They reached the luggage carousels where groups of passengers were standing around waiting for their bags, and since they hadn’t checked anything, they headed straight for the exit doors. Then Steele slowed, and stopped. There was a large young man in a suit, ex-Ranger type, standing there with an iPad like a limousine driver. The name in all caps on the iPad display was graceland import exports.
Steele walked over to him, with Goodhill and Persko trailing close behind.
“Who you here for?” he asked the big buff kid.
“Max Sands, sir.”
“That might be me. Show me something.”
The ex-Ranger type slipped a badge carrier from his suit and showed Steele Secret Service credentials.
“Who’s your boss?” Steele said.
“Director Murray.”
“He’s in my cell phone contacts. I can call him.”
“Feel free, sir.”
“Okay,” Steele said. “Where we going?”
The agent looked at Goodhill and Persko, then back at Steele.
“Not them, sir. Just you.”
Steele didn’t say much as the agent took him on an evening ride in a black BMW X1 SAV. He was bone-tired and thinking mostly about Russia and Helsinki, the things Petrov had confessed, and what Goodhill had told him about working with his father long ago in Mogadishu. The unfinished puzzle that remained his past still had many pieces missing, but he’d never dreamed that this man called Blade, who’d just saved his life, would also be the one to supply a few more amoeba-like shapes. Going forward, no matter what happened between him and Goodhill, he owed him and knew that from now on he’d trust him.
The big guy, who barely fit in the driver’s seat, drove the car through Crystal City, into the Hilton’s underground parking garage, out the other side, and then wove through the small streets of Aurora Highlands, checking his rearview for tails as he conducted a countersurveillance routine. Then he headed due west through Arlington Ridge, cut south for a while, circled around heading back north, and Steele realized they were entering the grounds of the Army Navy Country Club. They skipped the main entrance and stayed on the long main drive that cut through the golf course.
“This is you, sir,” the agent said as he pulled over in the dark under the trees.
Steele looked out his passenger window. There was a single park bench planted in the shadow of a large willow tree. Ted Lansky was sitting there in a trench coat, chewing on his dead pipe and reading the Washington Post by the light of an old-fashioned streetlamp.
Steele got out and the BMW coasted away. Lansky slid over on the bench and patted the slats next to him. Steele sat down.
“Evening, sir,” he said.
“Evening, Steele.” Lansky looked at his stitched-up face. “Have a nice vacation?”
“I’d apologize for it, sir, but it’s not in me.”
“You don’t have to.” Lansky folded the newspaper. Steele saw the headline: final journey of a patriot. “President Cole kicked you off on that questionable quest, God rest his soul.”
“How’d you know that, sir?”
“Mrs. Cole told me.” Lansky pulled his pipe from his teeth and looked at the bowl as if wondering why there was no tobacco. “She also said her husband wanted you protected from any consequences.”
“I guess I’ve got friends in low places.”
“More than you know. President Rockford personally called JSOC to get you extracted, after Goodhill practically begged me. I would have let you burn.”
Steele knew that was a lie. Rockford wouldn’t have done it if Lansky hadn’t lobbied hard.
“Well, thank you anyway.”
“The funeral’s being held at the National Cathedral, but you won’t be able to attend. Nobody from the Program can. Too much media and too many spooks. Germans, Brits, French, Israelis, even the Russians. Heads of state. Everybody but the designated survivor.”
“Who’s that going to be, sir?”
“Speaker of the House, which seems fair, ’cause Cole didn’t like her.”
“Who does?”
“Her grandbabies, I guess.”
“Well, sir, understood.” Steele sighed. “Would you please thank President Rockford for me?”
Lansky tilted his head back and looked over Steele’s shoulder.
“You can do that yourself.”
Steele turned to see headlights approaching on the access road from the north. Then he heard the throaty rumble of motorcycles and heavy vehicles. Four leather-clad cops on Harleys cruised by, then two heavily armored black Suburbans. Then they slowed, and the president’s twenty-thousand-pound Cadillac limousine, otherwise known as “the Beast,” cruised to a stop right there in front of the bench.
Four Secret Service agents appeared from the Suburbans and one strode to the Beast’s rear passenger door. He scanned his surroundings, opened the door, looked over at Steele, and cocked his head. Steele got up and walked to the limo.
“You carrying?” the agent asked him.
“No.”
President Rockford leaned over from the far side of the rear seat. He was wearing a tuxedo, and his blond hair gleamed under a dome light.
“Join me for a short chat, Steele,” he said.
Steele slid into the seat and the Secret Service agent closed the door, but not all the way, so he could keep an eye on things.
“Good evening, Mr. President,” Steele said. The way he was dressed compared to the commander in chief made him feel like a pool boy at a royal wedding.
“Glad you made it, son,” Rockford said.
“Thanks to you, sir.”
Rockford waved his big hand. “It was Lansky. I would’ve let you burn.”
Steele smiled.
“Listen, Eric. I know how Denton felt about you. I’m inclined the same way, but there isn’t a lot I can do here. I’m putting the Program on ice, and since you’re their top dog, I thought I should tell you myself.”
Steele felt cold, like he’d swallowed a frozen baseball. He knew the Program was under assault, and that wasn’t his fault, but he also thought that maybe this final decision was because of him and the things he’d done.
“And no,” Rockford said, “this isn’t because of you. You’re part of an honorable heritage, a long line of patriots. This nation is grateful. Maybe we’ll find you something else. But for now, take some time off.”
“Yes, sir. I understand.” Steele offered his hand, which the president took in his firm grasp. “Good luck and Godspeed, sir.”
“And to you.” The president smiled through his golf course tan. “Now get out of my car. I have to go pretend I care about a speech and a fund-raiser.”
A minute later, Steele found himself standing there alone. Lansky was gone too, and the only sounds were the breeze in the trees and a gaggle of honking Canada geese, wandering around and leaving their crap on the greens.
He walked over to the country club’s main building and caught an Uber home.
Chapter 40
No Acknowledged Location
EYES ONLY
SAP (Alphas/Support-FLASH)
From: NOLO
To: All CONUS PAX
Subj: ICE
Source: Staff Ops/Duty Officer
Confidence: Level IV
IMMEDIATE, all CONUS PAX, emphasis those assigned Cutlass Main II, plus/or, mobile, home stations, air assets, ground assets: Program is on Immediate Cease Extremis (ICE). HQ will advise re: comms, developments, compensations, recalls to duty, reassigns. Nothing further.
STATUS: No change pending.
Operational window: Immediate Exec
ute
Alpha response—None
Chapter 41
The National Cathedral, Washington, D.C.
There were fourteen tourists aboard the enormous steel elevator as it rose up from underground parking level two and hissed into the glass booth facing the National Cathedral.
Eight of them were an extended Chinese family, chattering and arming their digital Nikons and Canons. Three more were a pair of tall blond Swedes and their poster-child Aryan little girl. Two were an oversexed, giggling college couple hoping to find some hidden dark corner of a belfry in which to desecrate the convictions of their parents’ faith. And the last was a nun dressed in full brown woolen vestments from head to foot, carrying a typewriter case.
The elevator doors slid open and they all spilled out into a beautiful, crisp, late-autumn day. The cathedral’s spires were haloed in blinding spears of sunlight, and its gray stonework gleamed a near purple. The funeral of President Cole was still more than forty-eight hours away, but already the vast slate drive before the edifice was being cordoned off with wrought iron barriers by scores of National Park Service laborers, and District of Columbia cops were directing the placements of cable news vans and trying to keep producers and grips from irreparably trampling the manicured front lawns.
An advance detail of Secret Service agents—fit men and women in off-the-rack Macy’s suits—was already scouring the grounds for points of egress and ingress for their American principals, and the agents of the Diplomatic Security Service were doing the same for their protectees, who would be all the attending foreign heads of state. Both sets of pistoleros—the first from the Treasury Department and the latter from the State Department—were deploying countersniper scouts with high-powered binoculars to scan the surrounding business buildings and apartments for potential assassins’ perches.
