Sometimes, on long assignments, I even carry a third.
“Please, Mario,” I groaned softly, “Please have a third.”
One of my arms hung limply at my side. I used my good hand to feel around his front pockets. They were smooth.
“No, no, no,” I murmured, “Please, Mario.”
I felt around to the back pockets. One was smooth and the other held the bulge of his wallet.
“No,” I whined desperately. “It can’t end like this.” I felt the tears begin to flow.
My hand slid down over his wallet, and then I felt it – a small, rectangular shape sitting sideways underneath. I frantically pulled his wallet out, and then reached back in. When I pulled out the third communicator, I almost cried out in joy.
I struggled to my feet, holding onto his unconscious body for support. I realized that he might even be dead already.
I found the headphone wire, and plugged it into the side of the communicator, using one hand as my fingers slipped from the blood. I had to search for the microphone wire, but finally found it down his sleeve. It took me three tries to get it in the hole at the bottom of the unit.
Grabbing the earphone from his ear, I placed it in mine. When I reached for his wrist, the communicator slipped from my hand. Just before it hit the floor, it reached the end of the wire, and jerked to a stop. I took a deep breath as I pulled it back up.
Holding it more firmly with two fingers, I used the other two to pull the microphone from his wrist. I held it up to my mouth. “Hello?” I whispered.
It was silent. It occurred to me that he may have already used up all the power in this communicator. I was just about to panic again, when I thought of something else. Holding the unit up, I searched for an on switch.
There it was, on the bottom. I slid it over and a green LED came on.
Instantly, I heard voices in my earphone. They were speaking in calm tones.
“Hello?” I whispered again.
The voices stopped. “Who is on this line?” a voice said.
“I need to speak to Chief Luger.”
“This is Chief Luger. Who the hell is this?”
“Sarah Hayes.”
There was a pause. “Sarah, what the hell are you doing on this secure channel?”
“I’ve been kidnapped by the Raven. Please listen, it’s very important.”
“Sarah, what’s going on?”
“The President’s flag pin. It’s a homing device. There’s a missile coming. You have to get it off him.”
He began to say something in response, but it was drowned out by the loud roar of the missile taking off outside. I screamed and collapsed to the floor, holding my ears. The cords pulled out of the communicator and it bounced a few times and lay still, the green LED unblinking.
Time seemed to pass slowly as I waited, but I knew it was measured in seconds. Suddenly, a loud explosion was heard in the distance, and I screamed again, covering my ears and crying in fear and terror.
A minute later, the door burst open, and I looked up to see the man who wasn’t Jamie standing there. His smile disappeared when he saw me lying on the floor, and he glared at the communicator and its green light.
“What the fuck did you do?”
I could only stare back at him.
He pulled out his gun and pointed it at me. “What did you do?”
Yes, kill me. I failed to save him so I deserve to die.
“Answer me!” He clicked back the hammer.
Suddenly, the whup-whup-whup of a helicopter filled the air, and I saw the missile launcher explode in a loud and fiery blast. Ghorbaan ducked down, and darted out the door, killing me no longer his priority.
As if a light switch had been turned on, the air was filled with automatic weapons fire, so heavy and thick, I knew that the man who I had known as Jamie was dead.
I didn’t grieve as much for him as I did this morning.
Chapter 54
I was still lying there a minute later when a marine cautiously came through the door. Random gunfire was still going off, and he motioned for me to stay down. After a minute, he spoke into his communicator, and then stepped towards me.
“Are you ok?”
“Just my shoulder. This agent here is worse than me. Is he still alive?”
The marine pressed his fingers to Mario’s neck, and then spoke into his mike. “We need an emergency medevac, immediately.”
I sighed in relief. “Is the President dead?” I asked numbly.
The marine looked at me. “I don’t know. We were in the air when the missile hit. I’m sure they’re still sorting things out down there.”
He looked at the handcuffs on my wrists, then up at the hook on the ceiling, then down to the communicator on the floor.
He knelt next to me. “What you did was amazing. Let me take a look at your shoulder.”
He felt around, and I groaned in pain when he touched a certain spot.
“It’s dislocated,” he said. “Let me help you up.”
As he eased me to my feet, more marines came in.
“Get this man down and on a stretcher,” the first marine barked.
He kept an arm around my waist as we walked outside. Near the doorway, the lifeless body of Ghorbaan lay staring up at the sky. I refused to think of him as Jamie anymore. Jamie was my friend, and always had a smile for me. He wasn’t this monster lying here. I didn’t look back.
Chapter 55
The Marine led me to the Blackhawk helicopter and helped me inside.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To the hospital. You need to have that shoulder set.”
“Can we go to Camp David instead?”
“Ma’am, the place is a war zone.”
“Please? I need to know if he’s okay.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Finally, he said, “Damn, I’m probably going to get my ass chewed out for this, but based on what you did, you deserve to be taken wherever you want. Strap in.”
After we took off, he came over and knelt beside me. “I can try to reset your shoulder if you want. We do it all the time in the battlefield. It’s fairly simple.”
“Will it hurt?”
“Yes, but when I’m done, it will feel better, I promise.”
“Okay.”
He took hold of my wrist and gently moved it up so my elbow was at my side and bent at a right angle, and my hand was pointing straight ahead. I winced.
“I’ll go slowly,” he said. He held my elbow with his other hand, and pressed it into my ribs. Then he began rotating my forearm to the side. “Let me know when this hurts too much.”
After a few seconds, I said “Ow,” and he stopped. Then he gripped my bicep and pulled it forward, and then swung my arm back in. Halfway in, I felt a pop, and almost instantly, the pain went from unbearable to just bad.
“You were right,” I said, moving my arm around. It was still sore, but nothing like what it had been. “Thanks. I’m Sarah, by the way.”
He smiled. “I’m First Lieutenant Hilliard, but you can call me Tyler. And it was my pleasure, Sarah.”
By the time this was done, we had arrived at the Camp, but we had to circle several times before the pilot got permission to land, which gave us a chance to survey the damage. Directly behind Laurel Lodge, a large crater several hundred feet across was torn in the earth, still smoking in places. The back wall of the lodge was gone, blown in from the blast. My heart caught in my throat, fearing the worst for the President. Emergency vehicles surrounded the lodge with lights flashing. Tyler was right, it did look like a war zone.
We landed, and when we walked away from the spinning rotors, a Navy officer greeted us. He pointed at me.
“Put her back on the chopper and get her out of here. No civilians allowed.”
“But sir,” Tyler interrupted.
“No buts, Marine. Get her out of here now.”
“Is the President alright?” I asked.
He ignored me. “Yo
u have your orders, Marine.”
Tyler took hold of my arm.
“Please,” I said, “I just want to know if he’s alive.”
“Hold up there!” a voice called from behind the officer.
I peeked around him to see Chief Luger striding towards us from a golf cart, sporting a large bandage on the side of his head. He pulled the officer to the side and spoke to him for a minute. When they finished, the officer stepped back in front of me.
“I apologize, Ma’am. I wasn’t aware of your role in this event. Welcome to Camp David.”
“Come with me, Sarah” Luger said.
I turned to Tyler. “Thank you, First Lieutenant Hilliard.”
“Thank you, Sarah. It’s an honor to know you.” He held out his large hand and I shook it.
Luger led me away to the cart, and we climbed in and started off.
“The President is fine,” he said. “A few small cuts and bruises. Some were hurt worse, and one agent is in serious condition. We were lucky there was no one killed.”
I breathed a sigh of relief.
“You saved everyone, Sarah. We would have all died if not for you.”
Tears came to my eyes. “I heard the explosion. I thought I had failed.”
“I wasn’t the only one hearing your broadcast. All the agents were on that channel. One of my men standing next to the President in Laurel Lodge reacted immediately, grabbing the flag pin from his lapel and running towards the back door. He had made it to the patio, and we heard the missile coming in, and we all assumed he was too late. But without pausing, he threw it as hard as he could into the woods. A second later, the missile struck, and the world went to hell for a minute. The explosion blew in the back wall, and debris was flying everywhere. We all got hit with something, but fortunately by that time, the other Secret Service agents had the President on the floor, covering him with their bodies.”
I took a deep breath.
“I understand that the Raven is dead,” Luger said.
“Yes. He was Jamie.”
Luger almost drove the cart off the path. “What? I thought Jamie was dead?”
“The real Jamie is dead. I never met that one. The Raven took Jamie’s identity and got a job in that restaurant so he could meet White House interns.”
“I’ll be damned.”
The tears welled again. “He used me to get to the President. And I unwittingly helped him.”
Luger put his arm around my shoulder. “That may be true, but in the end, you’re here and he’s dead, and you stopped him from killing anyone.”
“Where’s the President?”
“In the bunker.”
“I didn’t know there was a bunker here.”
He smiled. “Plenty of things about this place you don’t know.”
The elevator door opened and my heart leapt when I saw the President, leaning over a table and studying a map with another Navy officer. He must have seen something out of the corner of his eye, because he turned to look at me.
His face spread into a wide grin, which matched mine. I ran to him and leapt into his welcoming arms, ignoring the pain in my shoulder and smothering his face with kisses. He squeezed me tightly and kissed me back.
I knew that, at least for the moment, I was where I belonged.
Chapter 56
Despite the day’s events, I knew it wouldn’t change my decision. The country’s need for its president outweighed my need to be with him. He disagreed, but in the end McGraw convinced him it was the right thing to do.
He still refused to deny the allegations of an affair with me, despite the fact we knew the accuser would never step forward with the evidence. The press hounded him for answers, but he wouldn’t discuss it, claiming over and over that his private life was his business.
Of course, his refusal to deny it lay in stark contrast to how he reacted to April’s claims, and it soon became apparent to everyone that something had happened between us. I even made the covers of Time and Newsweek in successive weeks. Senator Quinn was quoted as saying she suspected something was happening between the President and me all along.
As for the missile attack, history was rewritten to exclude me. Special Agent Mario Ostrovsky was transformed into the hero of the day, foiling the assassin’s attempt by escaping his restraints and warning everyone about the attack. I was happy about that, not wanting any more publicity shined on me than I already had. But, to his credit, Mario wasn’t a willing participant, and rejected all requests for interviews, even refusing to show up for his medal ceremony.
Details of Ghorbaan’s life came to light. He was born in 1983 to an American Red Cross worker stationed in Beirut. When she was killed during the Lebanese Civil War, one-year-old Daniel Murphy was taken in by the Arabs, and raised as a radical Islamist. He was trained as a warrior, and educated at Princeton and Yale. His outward appearance gave him the ability to move in Western society without suspicion. In recent years, he had parted ways with the radicals, and instead became a mercenary gun for hire.
Like every news story, the furor eventually died down. Since the President and I refused to discuss it, the press found themselves churning through the same speculation over and over, until the public tired of it. I was yesterday’s news, and glad to be it.
I went back to school in the fall, and between the reporters and fellow students hounding me, it was a struggle to keep my grades up. The only person I shared my story with was my father, who held me in his arms as I cried and told him everything. When I was done, he kissed me on the forehead and told me how proud he was of me. That was all I needed to face the criticism, his faith giving me the strength to weather the storm.
The President took a big hit in the polls, and stayed low for months, but as Thanksgiving came and went, they started to climb again. And by the turn of the New Year, he was back where he started, and those who had been claiming he had no chance for re-election were changing their tune, now saying he was the favorite.
The President consented to my request that he not contact me. He visited nearby San Francisco in December, and while it was difficult knowing he was so close, I fought the urge to make the hour drive. Sometimes when I saw him on the news, I wondered if it had all been a dream – something I had completely imagined while idly daydreaming one day. Then I remembered the intense passion we had shared during those special nights together, and smiled as I realized my imagination wasn’t that good.
Chapter 57
February
“Who can tell me what an Executive Order is?”
Half of the class raised their hand. The professor pointed to a guy in the back. “Yes, Mr. Blake?”
“Um, that’s when the President orders an intern to do something, and she has to comply.”
There were several snickers around the classroom, but I felt nothing. Back in the fall these kinds of comments would upset me, but I was so used to them now, they had no effect. I just stared down at my desk.
“That will be enough, Mr. Blake,” the professor said sternly. “If you spent as much time studying as you do making jokes, perhaps you’d be passing this class.”
I reminded myself it was only four months until graduation. Then I could find a real job and be ridiculed by coworkers instead of students. I sighed.
The bell rang and I quickly got my things together and left. Andrew, the guy who had made the comment, stepped in front of me outside the door, blocking my path.
“Sarah, I just wanted to let you know that I was joking.”
“Please move.”
“Why don’t you go out with me this Friday, and let me apologize formally?”
“No, thank you.” I tried to step around him, but he moved with me.
“Come on, I can help you relieve some of those tensions I know are building up inside you.”
“Get out of my way, Andrew.”
“Is there a problem here?” It was the professor, standing beside me.
“Um, no,” Andrew said, stepping out of
the way. “We were just talking.”
“Mr. Blake, Miss Hayes may be reluctant to do something about your behavior, but I’m certainly not. If I see one more incident, I’ll have you in front of the Student Ethics Committee on sexual harassment charges. Are we clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
I walked away without looking back. Four more months. Please, let them pass quickly. While the taunts and whispers no longer hurt, the pain of being without him was still as strong as ever. Even now, eight months later, I could still remember his smile. Not the public ‘vote for me’ one, but the private one that only I got to see. I missed the touch of his hands on me, his confidence in knowing exactly what I wanted and needed. The way no other man had touched me. I despaired I would never be touched that way again.
I had been avoiding the news lately, since the presidential election campaign was heating up, and he seemed to be on television constantly, giving speeches and interviews. When he talked, I stared at his lips, recalling how soft they felt against mine.
Last week, the State of the Union speech was on, and it was a nightmare. Every channel I turned to was carrying it, and I finally had to turn off the television. But I could still hear it, and thought I was going insane until I realized the sound was coming from the dorm room next door.
My mind was in a daze as I hurried from class, and when I walked around a corner, I bumped into a guy going the other way. He had long, curly blond hair, and wore round mirrored sunglasses. His face was clean-shaved except for a soul patch beneath his lower lip. He wore faded jeans and a black T-shirt that said ‘Got Pussy?’ on the front.
I rolled my eyes. Typical California dude. He did have a nice body though.
“S’cuse me,” he said, with what sounded like a Swedish accent.
“No problem,” I replied, and brushed past him.
He said something else, but I ignored him and kept walking. Great body or not, I wasn’t ready to welcome another man into my life. And at this point, it felt like I never would be.
Yes, Mr President Page 22
