The American rk-1

by Andrew Britton

  He pushed the thought from his mind as he came up on 12th Street. It was better not to think about it. When he heard his cell phone ringing, he was grateful for the distraction, but not for long. “Ryan, it’s Harper.”

  “John, listen-”

  “No time, Ryan.”

  He caught the urgency just as Rivers had done less than a minute earlier, and fell silent immediately.

  Harper continued: “Naomi turned out to be lucky, after all. Our man has a driver’s license and a French passport in the name of Claude Bidault. The passport is real, but the actual owner reported it lost six months earlier while on vacation in Crete. Got that?”

  “Yeah. Keep going.”

  “Susskind finally hooked up with this guy Thompson in Norfolk. Using the Nichols ID, Vanderveen picked up 3,000 pounds’ worth of material at NIT exactly eight days ago. The arrogant bastard walked right under our noses twice at the same port… Anyway, he has a vehicle that we can’t account for. It’s a Ford Econoline van, white, maybe with a ladder rack on top.”

  Ryan was already running. Standing on 12th when the phone rang, he had taken two long looks either way down the street, then decided to go north, for no particular reason he could think of. Harper’s voice seemed to bounce at his ear as he dodged the heavy crowds of pedestrians, most of whom were people leaving work for a quick lunch. Some of them shot him angry looks or curses as he pushed through the throngs, and the whole time the deputy director’s words were hitting him with the force of a sledgehammer: “…and Virginia tags, Ryan, RND-1911. HRT is moving out in plainclothes, but they-”

  “Tell them to stay north of the Mall.” His mind was moving in a blur, trying to recall a white Ford van, but… No, he hadn’t seen one. He was sure of it. He said again, “North of the Mall, John. That’s where he’s gotta be. What’s happening at the marina?”

  “That whole area is locked down tight. They doubled up on the barriers, and the CAT team is moving into place,” Harper said, referring to the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, a highly secretive group that managed to keep a low profile, despite the fact that they accompanied the president wherever he went. “They’ve been able to keep it pretty quiet so far.”

  “That won’t last,” Ryan said, already breathing hard from the exertion of a full-blown sprint. He was passing cars in a flash, and there was a white van right there… But no, it was a Chevy. He didn’t break stride, racing past the parked vehicle as a number of pedestrians turned to gawk in his wake. He was scanning faces, too, looking for anyone who might resemble the description that Harper had just given him.

  He made a quick decision. “Can’t walk and talk, John. Gotta go.”

  “No, Ryan, WAIT-”

  He cut the connection and jammed the phone into his pocket, slowing down for a second to feel for the Beretta and get a long look both left and right down Constitution Avenue.

  Nothing. He stayed straight on 12th, running hard.

  Jeff Storey, the agent in charge of the president’s detail, was floored by the message that he had just received. A terrorist, in the city with a van full of fucking explosives, and they wanted him to sit tight? It was beyond belief…

  Storey had been a special agent in the Secret Service for nearly sixteen years, with the last four spent on the president’s detail, and the last two of those four in charge of that detail. He looked around nervously. Jesus Christ, the assistant director had said 3,000 pounds. The concrete bollards would stop the van itself, but the kill radius for that kind of weight was at least… what? He tried to remember. It had to be at least 1,500 feet, and from his position on the podium, Storey could easily make out the medium-sized print on the barriers where 6th turned into Maine. Sit tight, my ass, he thought. We’re sitting ducks.

  Standing there on the podium, listening to the French ambassador lead up to the introduction of President Chirac, thinking about how easy it would be for a van to come barrelling down that street, Jeff Storey came to a decision. He was the one in charge of the president’s detail, not Joshua fucking McCabe, and there was no way that he was going to see the president dead on his watch. In sixteen years with the Secret Service he had never found the need to draw his weapon on the job, but he did so now. He was standing on the podium with a group of diplomats and aides, blending into the background with the others behind the three heads of state when he convinced himself it was time to act. As the Sig 228 came up and out of his holster, the eyes of the two agents standing next to him went wide, and there was no turning back.

  The AIC lifted his sleeve to his mouth and said, in a calm but forceful tone, the words that caused the world to come crashing down around him: “Storey to detail! Hurricane! I repeat, Hurricane! ”

  Moving behind the press pool with two junior agents in tow, Jodie Rivers looked up in surprise at the sudden movement on the podium. Her surprise quickly turned to horror, however, when she saw that Storey had grabbed the president roughly, and was pulling him back as the other agents surrounded the pair with their weapons out. The French president and his aides were looking on with confusion clear in their faces, as was the Italian prime minister, when the DSS agents assigned to each man came crashing onto the stage, following the lead of Storey and his detail.

  The reporters and photographers on the gangplank were in a frenzy at the scene, cameras flashing everywhere as the people in the press pool tried to make sense of the situation. Their screamed questions went unanswered as a line of agents formed to block the president’s predetermined escape route, but the metal barriers came crashing down as the media let go of the last shreds of decorum. The thin line of agents was quickly overrun by the huge crowd of reporters and cameramen.

  Rivers couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This was exactly why McCabe had ordered Storey not to do anything rash. “What the hell is he DOING!” she screamed, before realizing that the two junior agents standing next to her had even less of a clue than she did.

  Back in the CT watch center, McCabe, Susskind, Landrieu, and Harper were also staring in horrified disbelief at the scene that was playing out live on MSNBC.

  McCabe was the first to lose it, his face flushing a very deep red. “This is exactly why I told him to sit tight!” he shouted, unconsciously giving voice to the thoughts of Jodie Rivers. “We need to cut that feed right now!”

  Harper’s face was pale, and he was shaking his head. “It’s too late. If Vanderveen saw that, he has nothing to lose by blowing it.”

  “Fuck!” McCabe slammed a closed fist down onto the table in front of him. A moment of clarity cut through the reactionary anger, and he suddenly realized that his career with the Service was almost certainly over, not to mention the fact that a lot of people were probably about to lose their lives. “FUCK!”

  Ryan crossed the street when he reached the Pavilion at the Old Post Office, cutting under the arches of the Ariel Rios Federal Building and breaking into a wide open space less than 100 meters away from the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center. He ran north as 13th Street loomed ahead, and then found himself facing the pink-gray granite expanse of Freedom Plaza. He was breathing hard and there was a painful stitch in his side, but he kept his head up as his eyes scoured the line of cars in front of the National Theatre.

  There. He knew immediately that it was the right one, even though the vehicle didn’t have a ladder rack and he couldn’t tell for sure if it was a Ford from the side. He knew because the van was sitting low to the ground, much lower than it should have been. Whatever that vehicle was carrying, it definitely wasn’t light.

  Then he was running again, despite the fact that Vanderveen was probably just waiting for him to get closer to the van before blowing it. Something inside Ryan’s head told him that he should be feeling fear, that there was definite cause for it, but he couldn’t lock on to any single emotion. He only knew that he had to get to that van as soon as possible.

  Although he didn’t make a conscious effort to do so, his right hand went back to the holster
and came up with the pistol. It turned out to be a bad move; Vanderveen wasn’t anywhere in sight, but there were a lot of people walking around, and a lot of people eating lunch on the benches around the fountain. One woman saw the gun in his hand and began to scream, and then there were a lot of screams…

  Trooper 1st Class Jared Howson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was about 50 meters east of the Ford on Pennsylvania when he saw a distant figure with what looked like a gun in his hand, racing through a crowd of cowering pedestrians.

  Howson just stared for about ten seconds before he remembered that he was a police officer, and had a gun of his own. He pulled the standard-issue Glock 17 out of its holster and sprinted back down the street toward the van, not once taking his eyes off the other man or the weapon he was holding.

  Although Jeff Storey had undeniably broken standing orders, he was still a Secret Service agent with sixteen years of experience, and knew that, given the current situation, he would be a lot better off on the water than he would on the streets. Still surrounded by the members of his detail, he dragged President Brenneman, who was still too shocked to be angry, down the dock as a number of agents peeled off to cover their movements.

  The AIC grabbed a UHF radio from one of his men. It was already set to Channel 4, their dedicated maritime link. “Storey to Coast Guard cutter Alder, Storey to Alder. I need immediate escort for Boater at LZ number 3. Do you copy?”

  Coming back a split second later: “Storey, this is Alder. Roger that, we’re two minutes out, over.”

  “Two fuckin’ minutes,” Storey mumbled. “Unbelievable.” He put in a second hurried call for transport at the designated landing zone, which was on the southern tip of the East Potomac Golf Club, as well as asking for additional helicopter support, never breaking stride as he pulled the president toward a turbocharged motorboat manned by USSS personnel less than 50 feet away. Behind them, the chaos continued to build as some of the reporters, finally realizing that they might actually be in danger themselves, began to trample each other in their rush to get away from the waterfront.

  The DS agents for the French and Italian delegations, unaware of the specific threat, bundled their respective principals into armor-plated limousines and screamed at the drivers to move. The heavy vehicles pulled away from the curb at a surprising rate of speed, minus motorcycle outriders, following Maine onto 12th Street, and then heading north toward Pennsylvania Avenue and the safety of the White House.

  Ryan was amazed when he reached the van and it was still intact. He didn’t know where Vanderveen was, but knew the man was definitely somewhere in the area, and had to be watching him at that very moment. He arrived at a dead sprint, pulling up short and slamming his left elbow into the glass on the passenger side.

  A wave of pain shot up his arm, but the safety glass gave way immediately. Another three judicious blows pushed the crumpled sheet of glass onto the passenger seat. He was reaching to unlock the door from the inside when a voice yelled, “HOLD IT!”

  He whipped his head around to see a young police officer pointing a heavy black pistol at his chest. The adrenaline coursing through his body, Ryan’s mind took in the scene at the speed of light: Metro PD uniform, two chevrons on the sleeve, young kid, scared eyes, and shaky hands on the gun. It all combined to give him a very bad feeling.

  “DROP THE GUN!” the officer screamed.

  “I’m a Federal officer,” Ryan snarled. “I have to get into this vehicle right-”

  “SHUT UP! DROP IT!”

  “Ah, fuck. Fuck!” Ryan could see he wasn’t going to win, and he was out of time. “Okay, I’m dropping it. Don’t shoot me, for Christ’s sake.” His right hand left the gun on top of the shattered pane of glass, and slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled his hands out of the interior and held them out by his sides. “Listen to me-”

  The policeman was coming down a little bit now. “Keep your hands where I can see them! Turn around and-”

  “Shut up! You listen to me. I’m a Federal officer. The person who owns this van is the same man who killed Senator Levy and blew up the Kennedy-Warren.” Ryan watched a look of disbelief spread over the young man’s face. “There is a bomb in this vehicle. I’m stepping back… Take the gun off the passenger seat and let me get in there, okay? I need to get in there.”

  “I saw him…”

  Ryan latched on to it, talking fast: “Black hair, brown eyes? About my height, heavy?” The officer nodded, the confusion spreading to his eyes. “He’s a terrorist, and there is a bomb in this van. Take the gun, man. Take the fucking gun.”

  More wavering. Without taking his gaze or his weapon off the man standing before him, Jared Howson reached in through the door frame and lifted the Beretta off the seat.

  Will Vanderveen was absorbed by the live footage on MSNBC. He had known, or felt, rather, that something was wrong when the conference was still going on ten minutes after it was scheduled to end.

  Although it didn’t seem like much to get excited about, Vanderveen knew that every second of the president’s schedule was accounted for by the agents comprising his protective detail, and the unusual length of the Q amp;A session following the return of the Sequoia was definitely out of the ordinary. Then, in that shocking moment when the president had been grabbed from behind by one of his agents and dragged away from the podium, his single violent expletive could have been clearly heard by the guests in the next room. His anger had been made worse by the fact that the agents were taking the president farther down the dock, which meant he was moving away from 12th Street.

  Still, he hadn’t given up hope. He was still watching intently, trying to see if the DS agents who arrived on the podium a split second later were pulling their principals back toward the motorcade. It was hard to see, because the cameraman had removed the camera from its stable platform, and judging from the jerky image, was having a hard time holding it steady in the crowd. Vanderveen knew that with all the people currently spread out over the marina, the Service would never be able to land a helicopter. So it was either the cars or a boat, and he felt a little bit better when it appeared that the agents were moving the French and Italian leaders back toward the cars. His earlier reconnaissance of the waterfront had served him well, and he might still be able to salvage some of his plan.

  It was only then that he realized, with a sudden feeling of dread, that he had missed the whole point. Why had they pulled the president off the podium in the first place? He felt a tingle of fear as he stood up and turned to look out the window. What he saw turned the fear to shock in an instant.

  It couldn’t be, he thought, but try as he might, there was no denying it: the person standing on Pennsylvania north of the plaza, held at gunpoint by the same police officer Vanderveen had talked to earlier, was none other than Ryan Kealey.

  He nearly smiled at the scene. There was something almost comforting about the sight of his former commanding officer — it was like seeing a living link to the past. There was something vaguely amusing about it, too; after all, it wasn’t every day that a former Delta operator was caught out by a rookie cop, and that kid in particular didn’t look as if he belonged anywhere near a loaded firearm. Ryan must be getting sloppy.

  Then the smile faded as he realized that they probably weren’t alone. The Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team might already be surrounding the hotel, and they wouldn’t be interested in merely arresting a man who had killed eight of their own.

  The decision came in a heartbeat: it was time to cut his losses. He had flipped the switch in the cab two hours earlier, right before his conversation with the police officer. Everything was ready. Vanderveen picked up his. 40 caliber USP and jammed it into the waistband of his jeans, then pulled on his long, heavy coat to conceal the bulge. In his pocket was the cell phone, which he withdrew as soon as he stepped into the hall.

  He briefly wondered how much of the blast he would feel in the shelter of the hotel, then decided that he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait for the
motorcade, but for all the failure of the day, there was one small feeling of triumph: Ryan Kealey would not live to see the end of it.

  Walking down the hall toward the elevators, Vanderveen flipped open the cell phone and pushed and held the number 1.

  They were making some progress, but the young officer still had his 9mm trained on Kealey’s chest. “You come running down here with no ID, waving a gun, and now you say there’s a bomb in this van? I… look, I can’t let you in there.”

  Ryan couldn’t understand why they weren’t already dead. Was this the wrong vehicle? Had he made a mistake? “I’m getting into this van,” he said. It wasn’t a request, and he began to move cautiously back to the passenger-side door. “Shoot me if you have to, but I’m getting in.”

  The gun wavered, then finally dropped. “Shit! I’m not gonna shoot you.” Howson slipped Ryan’s weapon into his holster, lowering his own to his side. Then, a second later: “What do I do?”

  Ryan opened the door from the inside, flinching when he realized that he hadn’t checked for a trip wire. “You talked to the guy?”

  The officer nodded and pointed to his right. “Yeah, I think he went in there.”

  Ryan glanced toward the dark gray facade of the JW Marriott hotel. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it over while simultaneously turning his attention back to the van. “Speed dial 3, then ask for Rivers.” He was glad he had stored her number. “Tell her where to come… Don’t go into that building.”

  Ryan was in the cab a few seconds later, head down and busy as the police officer raced toward the hotel. In his right hand Howson carried the standard-issue 9mm Glock. In his left hand he held nothing, as he had already slipped the cell phone into his pocket and promptly forgotten about it.

  Vanderveen stopped dead in the hall, staring in disbelief at the message on the cell phone’s display: Network Unavailable. What the fuck did that mean? He cursed low, under his breath, and didn’t notice when a passing woman shot him a disapproving glare.