King and Maxwell

by David Baldacci

  trunk along with a supply of the president’s blood type. Built into the front bumper were night-vision cameras and tear gas cannons. The vehicle’s shell was a combination of ceramic, titanium, and the old reliable steel. The tires had a Kevlar skin and were run-flat. The doors were as heavy as a large jet’s cabin portal because of their eight-inch armor plating. The windows’ first few layers were bulletproof to absorb a round while the inner layers were a special type of plastic that would catch any bullet like a fly in a web.

  Two drawbacks were speed and fuel consumption. The Beast topped out at sixty miles an hour and got only eight miles to the gallon because of all the weight.

  Michelle noted the driver and other agent in the front seat. She then gazed out the window, taking in the thirty-vehicle motorcade. Then she looked over the plush interior of the rear compartment.

  Cole looked at her in slight amusement. “First time in the Beast?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I left the Service before I could rotate to protection detail at the White House.”

  “I remember my first time. I thought I was in a dream.”

  “Must feel pretty old hat by now.”

  “Not a chance. It’s an honor and a privilege and it’s pretty damn cool.” He settled back in his seat and gazed out the window. “I can never go anywhere on the sly. I’m not even allowed to drive on a public street.”

  Michelle sat back, too. “Probably a good idea. You don’t want to have to talk your way out of a speeding ticket.”

  He smiled and then gazed at the agent in the front.

  “Window up, Frank,” said Cole.

  The partition glass separating the two sections of the Beast slid up.

  Cole waited for it to finish its glide and then focused on Michelle. “I’m going to speak frankly, Ms. Maxwell.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “My administration is in a world of trouble.”

  “I sort of got that impression.”

  “The thing is we were trying to do something positive, something that would help another country become free.”

  “The best of intentions, the worst of outcomes.”

  “My opponents are always screaming at me to send in troops, use America’s massive military. But when we actually do something, the effect of which would be the same at far less cost to us, they threaten impeachment.”

  “I think it’s called politics, sir.”

  “Only this time I think I went too far out on a limb. And it’s about to snap.” He eyed her with desperation. “Have you and your partner been able to find out anything?”

  “We have, sir.” She took him through all that they had learned, including the kidnapping of Tyler Wingo and his friend Kathy.

  “My God, I knew nothing about that. And you think Sam Wingo was set up and that this Alan Grant is behind it all? For a political scandal that led to his parents’ deaths over two decades ago?”

  “That’s what we believe.”

  “And he’s the source of the leaks to that blogger?”

  “We believe that too.”

  “And your proof?”

  “We’re collecting it. In fact, if you let me make a call to my partner he may have an update.”

  “Please.”

  Michelle dialed Sean. He answered on the second ring.

  “I got your text,” he said. “The Beast, huh? With the president?”

  “Yes I am,” she said happily.

  “Well, we have great news too. We got Tyler and Kathy. They’re both okay. They’re at Fairfax Hospital. Kathy was wounded in the arm, but she’ll be okay. They’ve got heavy FBI security. Her parents were notified and are at the hospital with her.”

  “Sean, that is fantastic news.”

  “And we got two of Grant’s thugs. Littlefield and McKinney are going to put the screws to them. If they talk, we may have a direct line back to Grant.”

  “Better and better.” She turned to Cole. “Sir, they got the kids back. They’re safe. And they got the kidnappers. The FBI has them in custody. It may lead us directly to Grant.”

  “Thank God,” said Cole. “That’s a miracle.”

  Michelle glanced out the window. They were just heading over Memorial Bridge into Virginia. There were no cars on the road other than the motorcade, because the Beast did not share the road with mere mortal cars and drivers. It was a beautiful evening now that the rains had passed and the descending sun shimmered off the frosty surface of the Potomac.

  “So why are you meeting with the president?” asked Sean.

  On Michelle’s screen a text from Edgar popped up. Her eyes widened and her gut clenched.

  “Michelle?” said Sean.

  “Oh, shit!” exclaimed Michelle.

  “What is it?” said Cole.

  “Michelle, are you okay?” said Sean.

  Michelle turned to the president. “We have to get—”

  She never got a chance to finish.

  CHAPTER

  78

  THE STEERING WHEEL OF THE Beast was ripped out of the driver’s hands and cut a sharp turn to the left. At the same time the gas pedal hit the floor and the sixteen-thousand-pound vehicle accelerated and hit the bridge’s stone balustrade at close to its maximum speed. The stone railings were strong, but they were never designed to stop a car that heavy going that fast. The front end of the Beast burst through the stone and its front wheels cleared the pavement. The rear wheels kept spinning, retained their traction, and with another burst of power the Beast cleared the bridge entirely and was suspended in midair for a moment. Then its nose pointed downward, and that was the direction it headed. It hit the water a few seconds later. The rear end came down and the car settled on the surface of the Potomac.

  The Beast could do many impressive things. Floating was not among them. It quickly sank.

  “Michelle!” Sean yelled into the phone. There was no response.

  He turned to Wingo. “Something is very wrong. She’s with the president and—” His phone buzzed. It was another call coming in. It was Edgar.

  “Edgar, what is going on?”

  “I just texted Michelle,” he said. “She’s with the president.”

  “I know that. She called me. But then something happened. I can’t get through to her.” Edgar said nothing. “Edgar, are you there?”

  When Edgar next spoke, his voice was strained. “Sean, I just got a news break on my screen.”

  “What is it?” Sean said, his heart pounding.

  “The presidential limo just ran off the Memorial Bridge and plunged into the Potomac.”

  “What? How?”

  “That’s what I just texted her about.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “The satellite, Sean. They hacked the satellite that the presidential limo uses for navigation and communication. It’s too complicated to explain how they did it.”

  “Okay, they hacked it, so what?”

  “The limo has over thirty million lines of code, Sean. The computers run everything on that vehicle. You hack the brain—”

  Sean finished for him. “You control the car,” he said dully.

  “Yes. Speed. Steering. Brakes. Everything.”

  “Grant,” said Sean looking at Wingo. “That son of a bitch just got his revenge on a president who had absolutely nothing to do with his parents’ deaths.” He added in a shaky voice, “And Michelle is with him.”

  Edgar said, “What are you going to do?”

  Sean dropped the phone, punched the gas, and the car flew forward.

  Wingo had turned the radio on and they listened to the just-breaking news story. It sounded grim. Rescue operations were quickly being assembled, but they would need heavy equipment to get the car off the bottom of the river. The good news was that the limo had its own oxygen supply and was completely sealed so no water could get in.

  Wingo said, “The Feds will be doing everything they can. And you heard the radio. The vehicle is sealed, and they have oxygen down th
ere.”

  Sean stared straight ahead. “First, crashing through the barrier might have ‘unsealed’ the Beast. It’s a tank, but even tanks can be damaged.”

  “And second?”

  “The computer controls everything in the Beast, Sam. You own the computer, you own the Beast. And Alan Grant is way too smart to have missed something like that.”

  As the limo hit the bottom of the river Michelle undid her shoulder harness and checked the president. He was unconscious. She checked his pulse. It was strong, though his face was pale. She cupped her hands around his neck, feeling for fractures or bulges, but found none. She next did something she could hardly believe she could even think about.

  She slapped him in the face, not once but twice.

  He came around on the second strike. He looked dully at her.

  “What the hell just happened?” he gasped.

  “Are you hurt, Mr. President? Does anything feel broken, bruised, sore?”

  He gingerly moved his arms and legs. “Sore but everything feels intact,” he replied. “What happened?”

  Michelle drew a short breath. “We went off the bridge. We’re in the Potomac.” She glanced out the windows and saw nothing but black. “The bottom of the Potomac, actually,” she amended.

  “In the Potomac?” he said incredulously.

  Michelle found the control in the console for the window partition. Miraculously it still worked. The Beast still had power, but down here that probably wouldn’t last. The motor had cut off, though, and she doubted it would restart underwater. Besides, where would they drive?

  The glass slid down and she crawled through to check on the agents in the front. The air bags had deployed, she immediately noticed, which gave her hope.

  The hope faded when she saw the blood and open eyes.

  She checked their pulses but already knew the answer. The bags had deployed when they’d struck the railings. They had probably survived that. What they hadn’t survived was the impact with the water. There were no more air bags left to save them from that. She looked at the side windows and the steel frame around them. They were bloody. Impact had probably been there. Death had probably been immediate.

  She and the president were alone at the bottom of the river.

  She slid feet-first back out and returned to the rear compartment.

  “How are they?” Cole asked anxiously.

  Michelle shook her head. “They didn’t make it, sir.”

  “Oh my God.”

  Michelle looked around at the comfy leather with the thick cushions and padding. This little cocoon had saved their lives while the agents up front had taken the full brunt of the collision.

  Michelle looked down at her phone. No bars, obviously.

  Sometimes her service was spotty on land, much less underwater. But—

  She opened the center console. There was a phone there.

  She pulled it out. “This will test the manufacturer’s warranty,” she said.

  The president undid his bowtie and unbuttoned his top button. “Getting a little close in here,” he said.

  “I’m sure they’re assembling a rescue team as we speak, sir. Divers will be on the scene soon.”

  Michelle had rowed all over the Potomac. She knew the river well. She knew it was very shallow for the most part. The mean depth of the nearby Chesapeake Bay was only twenty-one feet. The spot they were in right now wasn’t much deeper than that. But sitting in what was basically a tank with twenty-plus feet of water over them, a rescue attempt would be complicated.

  She glanced at the doors. Eight inches of armor plating. They were not easy to open, even with hydraulic assistance. With tons of water pushing on them, they would be impossible to open without heavy machinery. And that would take time. And water would come in. She could see a scenario where water would fill the compartment as the door was slowly being forced open. They might drown with their rescuers barely inches away.

  They might get equipment like you would see at a car junkyard with a magnetized end in an attempt to lift the car out. But would it work underwater? And would it be strong enough to lift an already super-heavy car out of twenty-plus feet of water?

  The best bet might be to tie a cable to the front of the Beast and pull it to shore with equipment that remained on land.

  But again, all of that would take time.

  Although this was her first time riding in it, she knew that the Beast had a portable oxygen supply that would be deployed automatically in the event the air supply in the cabin was compromised. So they should have some time. Now she was grateful for the vehicle’s seal. She looked around. No water was coming in that she could see.

  She looked at the phone again. She would try to contact—She drew a breath. She was startled to see it catch in her throat.

  She looked at Cole. He seemed to have turned a shade paler. Now she focused on what he had said before.

  Getting a little close in here.

  “Sir, can you move to the rear-facing seat?”

  She helped him undo his shoulder harness and aided him to the other side of the cabin. She popped the backseat down and crawled into the armored trunk. She saw the fire extinguishers and the blood supply canister. She crawled through and unhooked the trunk’s floor covering. There were the oxygen tanks. She examined them closely. They seemed to be full, but they didn’t seem to be deployed. She rapped on one of the tanks with her knuckles and then bent her ear to the pipes running into the cabin. She could hear no air flowing through them.

  Most people would be panicking by now. But like pilots trying to save a plunging plane, Michelle had been especially trained for crisis situations. She was too busy trying to save the president and herself to start screaming.

  There was no manual wheel on top of the oxygen cans that would allow her to open them herself. She cursed this obvious flaw in the plan. She took a shallow breath and felt herself becoming a little light-headed. It was maddening to think that ample oxygen was right here but they couldn’t get to it.

  She kicked it with her foot in the hope that it might start flowing, but when she put her ear to the lines she heard nothing. How could the fail-safe have failed? It was like all engines on a plane stopping at the same time. It just didn’t happen.

  Then she remembered Edgar’s text. Get out of the limo. There’s a problem with it.

  Somehow, against all odds, the mighty Beast had been sabotaged.

  She climbed back into the rear compartment.

  The president looked at her. “The oxygen isn’t working, is it?” he asked.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Did the driver have a medical emergency?”

  “I don’t think so, sir.”

  “Then how did this happen? Were we hit by something?”

  “I think the Beast was… somehow taken over by a third party.”

  “Taken over? How?”

  “I’m not sure.” Michelle looked back at the phone, then snatched it up and dialed the number, praying that the Beast’s world-class communications system would live up to its billing.

  “Hello?” The voice sounded panicked, desperate.

  “Sean, it’s me.”

  “Michelle, talk to me. Give me the status.”

  She did so. Two agents dead. President okay. Oxygen not working.

  “Grant took control of the Beast,” Sean said. “And he ran it off the bridge.”

  “Edgar sent me a text while I was talking to you that there was a problem with the limo. What’s going on up there?”

  “I just got on the scene. It’s barricaded off, as you can imagine. I