by C. J. Box
Paul Ebbett was presently in the best of these, Suite A. (“When I’m back after November,” he’d exclaimed with a sparkle in his eyes, “let’s make sure they rename it the Presidential Suite.”) It was 1,300 square feet, with four bedrooms, three baths, a living room, a dining room, a fair-to-middling kitchen, and a separate room and bathroom actually labeled MAID’S QUARTERS. The view of the city was panoramic, but that was taken on faith; the shutters and curtains were all closed, as they were in the entire row of suites, so snipers couldn’t deduce which room Ebbett was in.
In lieu of the view, however, one could indulge in channel surfing on four massive TVs, ultra-high-def. Tomson was especially partial to TVs because when he got home—every two weeks or so—he and the wife and kids would pile onto a sofa and binge on the latest Disney movies and eat popcorn and corn dogs until they could eat no more.
Special Agent Art Tomson was a very different man at home.
Only the candidate was inside at the moment. Chief of Staff Quonn was on the convention center floor, testing microphones and soundboards and teleprompters, and Tomson and Morton now sat in the hallway outside the double doors to Suite A. Tomson looked up and down the corridor, whose walls were beige and whose carpet was rich gray. He noted that the agents at each of the stairway doors and the elevator looked attentive. They didn’t appear armed, but each had an FN P90 submachine gun under his or her jacket, in addition to a sidearm and plenty of magazines. Although armed assaults were extremely rare, in the personal protection business you always planned for a gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Kim Morton said, “Wanted to mention: acoustic tile’s hung six inches below the concrete. Nobody can crawl through.”
Tomson knew. He’d checked. He thanked her anyway and cocked his head once more as transmissions about security status at various locations came in.
All was clear.
He told this to Morton.
She said, “Guess we can relax for a bit.” Eyeing him closely. “Except you don’t, do you?”
“No.”
“Never.”
“No.”
Silence eased in like an expected snow.
Morton broke it by asking, “You want some gum?”
Tomson didn’t believe he’d chewed gum since he was in college.
She added, “Doublemint.”
“No. Thank you.”
“I stopped smoking four years and three months ago. I needed a habit. I’m like, ‘Gum or meth? Gum or meth?’”
Tomson said nothing.
She opened the gum, unwrapped a piece, and slipped it into her mouth. “You ever wonder what the double mints were? Are there really two? They might use just one and tell us it’s two. Who’d know?”
“Hm.”
“You don’t joke much in your line of work, do you?”
“I suppose we don’t.”
“Maybe I’ll get you to smile.”
“I smile. I just don’t joke.”
Morton said, “Haven’t seen you smile yet.”
“Haven’t seen anything to smile about.”
“The two-mint thing? That didn’t cut it?”
“It was funny.”
“You don’t really think so.”
Tomson paused. “No. It wasn’t that funny.”
“Almost got you to smile there.”
Morton’s phone hummed with a call. She grimaced.
Tomson was immediately attentive. Maybe one of the other security guards had seen something concerning.
She said into the phone, “If Maria tells you to go to bed, you go to bed. She’s Mommy when Mommy’s not there. She’s a substitute mommy. Like the time Ms. Wilson got arrested for protesting, remember? When they pulled down the Robert E. Lee statue? And you had that substitute teacher? Well, that’s Maria. Are we clear on that . . . ? Good, and I do not want to find the lizard out when I get home . . . No, it was not an accident. Lizards do not climb into purses of their own accord. Okay? Love you, Pumpkie. Put Sam on . . .”
Morton had a brief conversation with another son, presumably younger—her voice grew more singsongy.
She disconnected and noticed Tomson’s eyes on her. “Iguana. Small one. In the babysitter’s purse. I stopped them before they uploaded the video to YouTube. Maria’s scream was impressive, man, oh, man. The boys would’ve had ten thousand hits easy. But you’ve got to draw the line somewhere. You have children, Agent Tomson?”
He hesitated. “Maybe we can go with first names at this point.”
“Art. And I’m Kim. By the way, it meant a lot when I met you. You didn’t hit the ground running with my first name. Lotta people do.”
“The world’s changing.”
“Like molasses,” she said. “So, Art. I’m looking at that ring on your finger. You have children? Unless that is a terrible, terrible question to ask, because they all wasted away with bad diseases.”
Finally a smile.
“No diseases. Two. Boy and girl.”
“They learned about lizard pranks yet?”
“They’re a little young for that. And the only nonhuman in the household is a turtle.”
“Don’t let your guard down. Turtles can raise hell too. Just takes ’em a bit longer to do it.”
More silence in the hall. But now the sort of silence that’s a comfort.
Inside the suite he could hear Ebbett had turned on the news—every set, it seemed. The candidate was obsessed with the media and watched everything, right and left and in between. He took voluminous notes, often without looking down from the screen at his pad of paper.
Morton nodded to the door and said, “He’s quite a story, isn’t he?”
“Story?”
“His road to the White House. Reinventing himself. He went through that bad patch, the drinking and the women. His wife leaving him. But then he turned it around.”
Ebbett had indeed. He’d done rehab, gotten back together with his wife. He’d been frank and apologetic about his transgressions and he’d had successful campaigns for state representative and then governor. He’d burst onto the presidential scene last year.
Morton said, “I heard he came up with that campaign slogan himself: ‘America. Making a Great Country Greater.’ I like that, don’t you? I know his positions’re a little different and he’s got kind of a mouth on him. Blunt, you know what I’m saying? But I’ll tell you, I’m voting for him.”
Tomson said nothing.
“Hm, did I just cross a line?”
“The thing is, in protection detail we don’t express any opinion about the people we look after. Good, bad, politics, personal lives. Democrats or Republicans, it’s irrelevant.”
She was nodding. “I get it. Keeps you focused. Nothing ex—what’s the word? Extraneous?”
“That’s right.”
“Extraneous . . . I help the boys with their homework some. I’m the go-to girl for math, but for English and vocabulary? Forget it.”
He asked, “You always been in security?”
“No,” she answered. A smile blossomed, softening her face. She was really quite pretty, high cheekbones, upturned nose, clear complexion. “I always wanted to be a cop. Can’t tell you why. Maybe from a TV show I saw when I was a kid. Walker, Texas Ranger. Law & Order. NYPD Blue. But that didn’t work out. This’s the next best thing.”
She sounded wistful.
“You could still join up, go to the state police or city academy. You’re young.”
Her eyes rolled. “And I thought you agents had to be sooooo observant.”
Another smile appeared.
“Anyway, can’t afford to take the time off. Single-mom thing.”
Tomson saw Don Ivers approaching quickly. Tomson and the younger agent had worked together for about five years; he knew instantly there was a problem. Noting the man’s expression, Kim Morton tensed too.
“What?” Tomson asked.
“We’ve got word from CAD. Possible threat triad.”
Tomson explained to Morton, “Our Central Analytics Division. You know, data miners. Supercomputers analyze public and law enforcement information and algorithms to spot potential risks.”
She nodded. “Computer game stuff.”
“Pretty much, that’s right.”
Ivers continued, “About an hour ago there was an anonymous call about a white male in a red Toyota sedan. Plate was covered with mud. The driver was standing outside the car and making a cell-phone call. The citizen who called 911 heard this guy mention Ebbett and rally. That’s all he could hear. But he saw there was a long gun in the backseat. It was outside a strip mall in Avery.”
“About five miles south of here,” Morton said.
Ivers continued, “That put all red Toyota sedans on a watch list.”
“The caller say anything more about the driver?”
“He was in combat or camo, medium build, bald with an old-timey mustache. Droopy, like gunslingers wore. The computers started to scan every CCTV—public, and the private ones that make their data available to law enforcement. There were two hits on the target vehicles. At nine this morning one was spotted in a parking lot near a gun shop in Haleyville.”
Tomson turned to Morton, his eyebrow raised.
She said, “Twenty miles south.”
“He parked in front of a closed-up drugstore in a strip mall,” Ivers said. “The closest active store was the gun shop. We got their security video. The first customer of the day was a bald white male, thirties to forties, with a drooping mustache.” Ivers sighed. “He bought forty .338 Lapua rounds. Prepaid debit card he paid cash for. Owner said he was a scary guy.”
“Brother,” Tomson said, sighing. He added to Morton, “Lapuas are high-powered sniper rounds.”
“And he didn’t park in front of the shop,” she said, “to avoid the camera in the gun shop.”
“Probably.”
Ivers added, “Then another hit. Two hours ago the Toyota was videoed parked near—but not in front of, again—a hardware store in Prescott, twelve miles away. He bought a toolbox and six three-quarter-inch PVC pipes. No CCTV inside, but the clerk’s description was the same as the others. Same debit card as before.”
“Where’d he buy the card?” Tomson asked.
“A Target in Omaha a month ago.”
“Been planning this for a while.”
Morton grimaced. “Those towns? That’s a straight line to where we are now: Haleyville, Prescott, Avery.”
Tomson asked, “Status of vehicle?”
“Nothing since then. He’s taking his time, sticking to back roads.”
“What would he want the pipes for?” Morton asked. “To make bombs?”
Tomson said, “Probably not. That’s pretty thin. You couldn’t get much explosive in them.”
“A tripod for his gun?” she suggested.
An interesting idea. But when he considered it, that didn’t seem likely. “Doubt it. Anybody with a gun that fires Lapua rounds would have professional accessories to go along with it. And in an urban shooting situation like here, he could just use a windowsill or box to support the weapon for a distance shot.”
Tomson said, “Put out the info on the wire. Let’s advise Searcher.”
He knocked on the suite door. “Sir. It’s Art.”
A voice commanded, “Come on in.”
The candidate was jotting notes on a yellow pad. Presumably for his speech that night. He’d do this until the last moment. A transcriptionist was on staff, and she would pound the keys of the computer attached to the teleprompter until just before the candidate took the stage. Open on the table was Barbara Tuchman’s brilliant—and disturbing—book about the First World War, The Guns of August. One of the first items on Ebbett’s agenda as president would be to revitalize the U.S. military—“make a great army even greater!”—and stand up to foreign aggression.
Tomson said, “Sir, we’ve received some information about a possible threat.” He explained what they’d discovered.
The candidate took the details without any show of emotion. “Credible?”
“It’s not hunting season, but he could be a competitive marksman, buying those rounds for the range. The camo? A lot of men wear it as everyday clothing. But the license plate was obscured. And he’s headed this way. I’m inclined to take it seriously.”
The candidate leaned back and sipped his iced tea. After he’d reinvented himself, this was the strongest thing he imbibed.
“Well, well, well . . . hm. And what do you say, Ms. Morton?”
“Me? Oh, I’m just a girl who spots tomato-throwers. These men know all the fancy stuff.”
“But what’s your gut tell you?”
She cocked her head. “My gut tells me that with any other candidate this’d probably be a bunch of coincidences. But you’re not any other candidate. You speak your mind and tell the truth and some people don’t like that—or what you have planned when you take office. I’d say take it seriously.”
“She’s good, Artie.” A smile crinkled his face. “And I like that she said when I take office. Okay. We’ll assume it’s a credible threat. What do we do?”
“Move the press conference inside,” Tomson said. “The location’s been in the news and a shooter would know that’s where you’ll be.”
The conference, planned for a half hour before the candidate’s speech at the rally, was to be held in an open-air plaza connected to the convention center. The candidate had wanted to hold it there because clearly visible from the podium was a factory that had gone out of business after losing jobs overseas. Ebbett was going to point to the dilapidated building and talk about his criticism of the present administration’s economic policies.
Tomson had never been in favor of the plaza; it was a real security challenge, being so open. The choice had been Tyler Quonn’s, but Ebbett had liked it immediately. Now, though, he reluctantly acquiesced to moving the conference inside. “But I’m not changing one thing about the rally tonight.”
“No need, sir; the center itself is completely secure.”
“The press’ll probably like it better anyway,” Ebbett conceded. “Not the best weather to be sitting outside, listening to me spout off—as brilliant as my bon mots are.”
Tomson noticed that while Kim Morton got the gist of what he was saying, she didn’t know the French expression, and this seemed to bother her.
English and vocabulary? Forget it. . . .
He felt bad that his partner was troubled.
Tomson called Tyler Quonn and explained about moving the press conference. The chief of staff apparently wasn’t crazy about the idea but agreed to follow Tomson’s direction. Then Ivers opened his tablet and they studied the area, setting the iPad on the coffee table. Tomson explained to Morton and Ebbett, “Assuming he was going to try a shot at the press conference, we’ll locate where a good vantage point would be. Get undercover agents and police there to spot him.”
Then Ivers added, “I keep coming back to the pipes. The PVC. And the toolbox.”
“He could slip into a construction site, fronting as a worker. You know, bundle the gun up with the pipes.” Tomson shrugged. “But there’s no job site with a view of the plaza.”
“There’s construction going on there,” Morton said, her unpolished nail hovering over the screen. She was indicating a city block about a mile from the convention center.
“What is it?” Ivers asked her.
“A high-rise of some kind, about half completed. All I know is the trucks screw up traffic making deliveries. We avoid that road commuting here.”
Tomson picked up the tablet and went to 3-D view. He moved his fingers over the screen, zooming and sweeping from one view to another. He grimaced. “Bingo.”
“Whatcha got, Artie?” Ebbett asked.
“You’ll be inside the convention center for the rally. But the only way to get into the hall itself is along the corridor behind this wall.” He zoomed in on a fifty-foot wall,
with small windows at about head height. The windows faced the job site.
Ebbett chuckled. “Artie, come on. It’s nearly a mile away. At dusk. Who the hell could make that shot?”
“A pro. And shooting a Lapua round? It’s so powerful, what’d just be a wound with another gun would be fatal with a slug like that. Sir, this is a level-two threat. I’m going to ask you to cancel.”
Ebbett was shaking his head. “Artie, just let me say this: my enemies, and the enemies of this country, want to make us afraid, want to make us run and hide. I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I know it makes your job tougher. But I’m going to say no. The rally goes on as planned. Move the press conference inside, okay. That’s as far as I’ll go. Final word.”
Without hesitation the agent said, “Yes, sir.” Then, given his orders, he turned immediately to the task at hand. “Don, you get a team together. I want eyes on every CCTV from here to that job site, looking for that Toyota. And I want two dozen tactical officers inside and outside the job site. And I need to come up with a different route to get Governor Ebbett into the hall, one that doesn’t involve any outside exposure. Not even a square foot.”
Ivers said, “I’m on it. I’ll call in when I’m in position.” He hurried down the corridor.
Tomson said, “I’ll find a covered route to get you to the hall, sir.”
As he and Morton turned to leave, Tomson glanced down once more at the coffee table, where The Guns of August sat. It hadn’t occurred to him earlier, but now he remembered something; the cause of the First World War, in which nearly twenty million people died, could be traced to one simple act—a political assassination.
* * *
In conclusion, my fellow Americans:
This country was founded on the principles of freedom and fairness. And I would add to those another principle: that of fostering. You may remember someone in your youth who fostered you. Oh, I don’t mean officially, like a foster parent. I mean a teacher, a neighbor, a priest or minister, who took you under his wing and saw within you your inner talent, your inner good, your inner spirit.
