by Jack Mars
The scene changed again, to a large oceanfront mansion. The camera panned the ocean side of it, as seawater flowed up as far as the dunes. A moment later, the camera showed a curved driveway cul-de-sac, which was underwater. Small waves lapped at the doors of a seven-car garage.
“Katie, here at the beach most of the dunes held, but the seawater flowed around the dunes and onto the streets anyway. Myron Standish is a fourth-generation Southampton resident. He evacuated in the initial panic, and arrived home this afternoon to a rude surprise.”
Now, the camera was inside the garage. The angle showed a line of cars. The car nearest to the camera was a Rolls Royce. A middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair stood halfway down the line, one hand resting on the hood of a car. He wore an orange fleece jacket, and green rubber boots that came up to his knees. The water in the garage was halfway to the top of his boots.
Noel Mitchell reappeared in the garage with his trusty microphone. He pointed it at the man.
“Myron, what’s the situation here?”
The man shook his head. “Well, the water is actually going down. It was almost up to my waist a couple of hours ago.”
“Were the cars underwater?” Noel Mitchell said, almost too gleefully.
“The cars were up to their windows, some of them. One of them, the water was up to the roof. You could barely see the car at all.”
“What sort of cars do you have here? And what do you suppose is going to be the effect on them?”
“These are great cars,” Myron said. “The best of the best. The long black car is a Mercedes 600 limousine from 1969. This is the car you used to see the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin show up to their concerts in. It’s very hard to maintain. I’m going to guess that the hydraulic system is wrecked. All of these cars—you’re talking about salt water getting into some very sensitive places. The car at the end is a Rolls Royce Silver Shadow. I’ve got a ten-year-old Lamborghini Diablo here, barely ever driven—that was the one almost completely underwater. A Tesla, all electric—forget it. These cars are my babies, and this is nothing short of a disaster.”
“How much would you say the cars are worth?”
For a moment, Myron Standish had trouble speaking. His face flushed. His throat seemed to thicken, and his Adam’s apple bobbed. Was he going to cry? It almost seemed that way.
“For the bunch of them? Appraised? I don’t know. Two million dollars.”
“Do you have insurance?”
Myron ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah. Of course. But will it cover everything? The workmanship required… it’s expensive. And you know the insurance companies. They get tricky when it’s a flood.” He sighed heavily.
“What would you say to Al-Qaeda, if you could?” Noel Mitchell said.
The camera pulled in very tight. Myron looked directly into the eyes of a million viewers. “I’d say listen. This is America. You picked the wrong fight. Your days are numbered, because we’re coming for you.” His eyes narrowed. He paused, looking for a way to sum up everything he felt. “I hope you die like the rats that you are.”
The camera angle changed. Now Noel faced the audience, with Myron and his ruined cars in the background. There was a glimmer of mirth in Noel’s eyes.
“Noel Mitchell, reporting from Southampton. Back to you, Katie and Chuck.”
The Asian news anchor appeared on the screen again.
“Next up,” she said. “Heroic American expat Michael Penza is the pilot who helped our covert operators ambush Islamic terrorists in the Canary Islands. He joins us to describe how he crashed his helicopter into the ocean to avoid Al-Qaeda missiles, swam to shore, and then survived the ensuing gun battle on the beach. Stay with us.”
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO
February 1
9:15 a.m. Western Europe Time (4:15 a.m. Eastern Standard Time)
Nerja, Andalusia
Costa del Sol, Spain
“Más café?” the waiter, a dark black African, asked.
More coffee?
“Sí, un poco más.”
Yes, a little more.
Gregorio Fuentes sat at an outdoor table with a red checkered tablecloth at his favorite tiny café, on a narrow cobblestone side street just off the Balcon de Europa. Seagulls floated above the steep hillside of the whitewashed village, crying to one another. A waft of salt air came from the ocean.
Gregorio held the morning newspaper open, reading about the terrible events in the Canary Islands. He barely glanced up when the waiter asked if he would like a refill. He still had sugar-sprinkled churros left on his plate, and his cup was empty—of course he wanted more coffee.
It was a perfect time of day, and a perfect time of year, to be here. The weather was sunny and warm, but not hot, and the tourists were few. From the corner of his eye, he could see a handful of them picking through some silkscreen clothes available for sale from street vendors. He did not like tourists.
Never mind that. He would not let their presence gore his mood. He was here, it was off season, the town was quiet and beautiful, and he was Gregorio Fuentes. He could remain Gregorio Fuentes for a time if he liked, and the idea appealed to him. The operation had been a failure. But that happened in war—things did not always go your way. Moreover, there was no reason to rush back. The war against Crusaders and apostates wasn’t going anywhere.
He sighed happily. Sometimes a man needed a holiday from war, and Allah himself must understand that.
He glanced at his coffee cup—still empty. Where was that waiter?
The waiter instantly reappeared, as if conjured by Gregorio’s mind. He passed through the waist-high swinging doors from the inside of the café, bringing the coffee pot with him. He reached with the pot and began to pour the black coffee into Gregorio’s small white cup.
There was something interesting about this waiter. Yes, he was dark, a Sub-Saharan African, a hardy young man who had somehow made the arduous journey up through the vast Sahara desert, and the dangerous passage across the Mediterranean, to arrive here on the coast and pour coffee into Gregorio’s cup.
The man wore black pants, and a black vest over a white dress shirt. The man was slim and his clothes were ill-fitting. The vest in particular seemed much too bulky for the man’s thin frame.
“Will there be anything else,” the man said in Spanish, “Señor Muhammad?”
Muhammad?
Gregorio looked at the man closely now. Their eyes met. It was almost as if time had stopped. Gregorio could hear his own heart beating in his chest.
“You are Rajan Muhammad, the one who murdered Yisrael Abdul Salaam. Are you not?”
Boko Haram. They knew who he was. They knew where he was. He could never come back here. If he lived, he could never…
He reached inside his jacket for the gun holstered there.
Suddenly, the waiter threw the coffee pot in his face. Scalding hot liquid burned the skin on his face, and on his neck. Worse, it burned his eyes! The instant pain was so extreme, for a moment, Gregorio forgot about his gun.
“Did you think we cannot see you?” the waiter shouted. “Did you think we cannot reach you?”
The waiter ripped his vest away, revealing the bulky suicide belt underneath.
“No,” Gregorio said.
A searing light came, followed by heat, and pain.
Down the narrow street, a group of tourists hit the pavement as glass shattered, metal twisted, and the tiny street-front café blew apart.
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE
February 3
11:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
McLean, Virginia
“How’s Susan?” Gunner said.
It was bitterly cold outside. They were again at the diner just across from the famous one-arch McDonald’s. Ten minutes from SRT headquarters, ten minutes from Gunner’s house, it was starting to become their place to meet. They sat in a booth along the big bay window, the buzz of conversation and the tinkle of silverware on plates all around them.
This time, Luke let Gunner face the TV set. Luke didn’t want to know anything about the state of the world. Instead, he looked out the window at the frozen, icy landscape. There were about six inches of new snow on the ground, with more coming down. The plows hadn’t come by in a long while, and nothing much was moving. Now and then, a four-wheel-drive vehicle went by.
“You mean Susan, the President of the United States, Susan?” Luke said.
Gunner nodded. “Yeah. How’s she doing?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her.”
Gunner half-smiled. Sort of. “You’ve been back in town since yesterday, and you haven’t talked to her at all?”
Luke shook his head and raised his eyebrows. “No.”
“Dad!”
“Well, son, I just haven’t had a lot of time for girls. I had to write up my mission report, I had to meet my favorite person at the diner for a late breakfast, and in between, I needed to catch up on my sleep. I didn’t get much while I was away.”
“I know,” Gunner said. “It must be exhausting being a superhero.”
Luke nodded. “It sure is.”
He gestured to the waitress with his empty mug of coffee. She was making her rounds. In less than a minute, she passed by with two glass coffee warmers, one with a black top, one with an orange top. She poured coffee from the black top into Luke’s mug, and then kept going.
“When are you planning to talk to her?” Gunner said.
“I don’t know,” Luke said. “Why? Do you need to send her a message?”
Gunner shook his head and laughed. “No. I don’t need to send her a message. It’s just that if she were my girlfriend, I don’t think I would wait so long to get back in touch with her, that’s all.”
“She’s pretty busy herself,” Luke said.
“I know, but…”
Luke looked at his son closely. Tall for a kid his age, handsome, and cool with the English flopsy haircut… he was starting to come across as confident and self-possessed, even after everything he’d been through, and even though these were supposed to be his awkward years. It seemed natural, not a put-on. He seemed like a kid who wasn’t going to have awkward years.
Gunner’s eyes were serious. He was sending Luke a message here. What was it? He wanted a normal family again, and he was hoping Susan would be part of it? He couldn’t bear to go through a break-up, and lose a surrogate mother? Heck, he’d only met Susan three times. But still, the pain of losing his own mother… if Luke and Susan broke up, would that cause Gunner to relive that pain?
Or was this something else entirely?
Luke took a stab in the dark. “What do you know about it?”
“About what?” Gunner said.
“About having a girlfriend?”
Gunner’s face turned red instantly, and he stared down at his food. But he couldn’t suppress a smile.
Don’t go into the spy game, kid. You’re lousy at keeping secrets.
“Okay,” Gunner said. “I’ve been seeing this girl Rachel for a few weeks.”
Luke’s heart skipped a beat in his chest. For a moment, the walls seemed to close in and it was like he was inside a tunnel. He got the disturbing sense of life flying by at warp speed. He stared at Gunner now, hard. The kid wasn’t even fourteen yet. What could he mean by “seeing” this girl Rachel?
Help!
“Well, well, well,” he said. “When were you planning to tell me?”
“Now,” Gunner said. “I was planning to tell you now, as soon as you got home. I just wanted to make sure it was for real first.”
“Let me ask you a question,” Luke said. “What constitutes for real when two thirteen-year-old kids are involved?”
Gunner looked up. His eyes were sincere. “She’s sixteen.”
CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR
February 4
8:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time
The White House Residence
Washington, DC
“How does it feel to always be right?” Susan said.
Stone shrugged. He looked down at the glass of red wine in his hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Susan was dressed the way she always preferred—like a teenager. She wore an old pair of blue jeans, so faded and ripped they were practically falling off her body. She wore a hooded pale blue sweatshirt. She wore pink fuzzy socks on her feet—the floors here were cold at night. Her hair was pulled into a ponytail.
She and Stone sat across from each other at the small round alcove table in the Family Kitchen. There was a bottle of red wine on the table. She was drinking it, and in fact was on her second glass—he was still working on his first. There was a tension between them tonight. It was the first she had seen him since he had been back in town. He had filed a report about the mission within twenty-four hours, but he hadn’t stopped by.
“Well, you went after the kidnapped girls instead of the tectonic weapon,” Susan said. “People in my world wanted to hang you for that.”
Stone’s hard blue eyes gazed into hers. “I think anyone in my position would have done the same. We had the information on where they were being held. It was nearby. In a sense, if you have the right people with you, it was low-hanging fruit. Also, my men would have mutinied if I said no. Sometimes you have to lead from behind.”
“Then you gambled and went to the coast, even though we told you to wait. Your job was probably on the line at that point. There’s only so much I can do to protect you… without it looking weird.”
He shook his head. “The people on my team are the best. I believe what they say, even if it sounds crazy. If they tell me there’s a weapon heading to the coast and it’s going to cause a tsunami, I act on that information. I believe in my people, even if you and your people don’t.”
Susan shook her head. “Even Stephen Lief turned out to be all right. I was in a bad spot there for a minute, and he saved my bacon a little bit. I never would have imagined it. To tell you the truth, I was already sick of him.”
Luke smiled, and he seemed softer now. “I heard you sent him out west on a chili-tasting tour.”
Now Susan laughed. The wine was starting to go to her head, just a little.
“Yeah. I did.”
“The Vice President is a man of the people,” Luke said. “He’s probably got an iron stomach.”
They lapsed into silence for a long moment. Stephen Lief was not what they needed to talk about, and they both knew it. She looked at Stone. He was very good-looking, of course—not in a movie star way, but in a rugged, sexy, killer-for-hire kind of way. And he was the new version of himself—clean-shaven, short-haired, in a white dress shirt rolled to his forearms. He was making a run, however haphazard, at playing the DC game, running an agency, being a dad…
And what else?
“You put me in an awkward position sometimes,” she said. “You know that, don’t you? People around here, some people, know about us. Many others suspect. People like Frank Loomis. When you disobey my orders in public…”
She trailed off.
Luke’s glass was raised to his mouth.
“You send the military police to arrest me.”
She nodded. “Yeah. That happened. What choice did I have?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
She took a sip of her own wine. It was really good. She could picture drinking the entire bottle. Then again, she had a busy day tomorrow. Every day was a busy day.
“Your job, and your attitude, makes it hard for me to maintain this… relationship, or whatever you want to call it. I’ve got people leaking information to the press. I’ve got military people, people in Congress, and talking heads on TV and the editorial pages second-guessing me. I’ve got other people who think I’m letting you do whatever you want because you’re in here sexing me up on your off hours.”
Luke smiled. “Isn’t that what’s happening?”
She found his complacency the tiniest bit irritating. “Look, Stone.
You’re out there playing Indiana Jones, and I’m back here trying to run an organization of three hundred million people while everyone is calling me names. If the world ends, I’m the one they’re going to blame. No one even knows who you are.”
He nodded. “I know. It’s rough. For you.”
“If stories about us ever get leaked…”
He reached for the bottle and poured another two fingers of wine into his glass.
“Yeah.”
“Well?” she said. “Do you have any ideas what to do about it?”
He shook his head. “Not at this moment. No.”
The doors to the kitchen were closed, one Secret Service agent right outside. He was listening to this conversation, in all likelihood. That’s how it was. It was always going to be that way, and she was used to it by now. She had no illusions about privacy. People knew. If anything, it was amazing that anyone didn’t know by now.
Susan stared at Stone. Exasperating, mercurial, high-flying Luke Stone. He had saved everybody’s neck once again, and had done it by going his own way.
“Listen, you want to get out of this joint?” she said. “Maybe take a walk somewhere?”
“Now?”
She nodded. “Yeah.”
“It’s like ten degrees outside,” he said. “Where do you want to go?”
“I figured I’d take you on a tour of the residence here. We can start with the Presidential bedroom.”
“But I’ve already seen that,” he said.
She shook her head. “There are new sheets and pillowcases. You haven’t seen those. Also, I got a new comb. It has a big handle which says No Tailgating on it. You’re supposed to put the comb in your back pocket with the handle sticking up so people can read the words. That way they know not to get too close.”
