“He was beaten and left unconscious on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. He’s in the ICU.”
“Liz, if he’s unconscious, what can I do?” Drake asked. “The senator just wanted me to talk with him.”
“You will, when he’s conscious,” she said. “But we think this wasn’t a random beating. Someone stuffed a copy of Senator Boykin’s bill in the pocket of his jacket with ‘Read It!’ written in red. He was being warned.”
Drake paused, and took a deep breath. “All right, I’ll be there as soon as I can. How are you doing?”
“I’m fine,” she said and then added, “I miss you.”
He was surprised by her directness, and wasn’t sure how to respond. He remembered the kiss she’d given him in San Francisco, as well as the guilt he felt about liking her kiss.
“I’ll let you know when I’m arriving, Liz,” he said and ended the call.
In the small bathroom off the old study he was now using as his bedroom, Drake ran cold water over his face and stared into the ice blue eyes looking back at him in the mirror. Since his wife, Kay, died two years ago, he hadn’t been able to sleep in their old bedroom. Losing her hurt him in a way he never wanted to feel again; he still ached whenever he thought of her. Now, he found himself thinking about another woman and he ached in a different way; guilt mixed with tenderness, perhaps, and fear of losing someone again.
Liz Strobel was the executive assistant to the Director of Homeland Security when they’d met. Tall, beautiful, and smart, she was now the senior advisor for intelligence and homeland security on his father-in-law’s Senate staff. Working with his father-in-law added another layer to his conflicting emotions of attraction and guilt.
Drake dried his face, ran his fingers through his hair, and pointed at the mirror. “Get a grip,” he told himself. “One kiss doesn’t mean you’re in love. Don’t get all worked up over it.”
Kay told him before she died to find someone, rather than spending the rest of his life pining for what was not to be. She was probably laughing at him right now, saying “I told you not to worry about it, you big lug.”
I’m not there yet, Kay, but I’m trying to work on it.
Drake stripped down and took a shower. The stinging hot water started to relax the muscles in his legs and back, and oxygenated air fueled the formulation of a plan in his mind for the problem at hand.
When he was dressed, he called Mike Casey in Seattle.
“Mike, do you have a protection team currently available?” he asked.
“I could have. Who’s the protectee?”
“Oregon Congressman Rodecker,” Drake said. “Liz just called and said he’s in a hospital in D.C. Someone’s playing hardball about a bill he’s fighting.”
“How many men will he need?” Casey asked.
“Two for now,” Drake said. “I’ll know if more are needed when I get there.”
“How soon do you need them?”
“Can you fly them there tomorrow,” Drake asked and then added, “with a brief stopover in Portland to pick me up?”
“The Gulfstream just got back from a run to Hawaii. I can have it there in the morning. You need me to ride shotgun for you?” Casey asked.
Drake laughed. “I don’t think your wife would appreciate me asking, after what happened in San Francisco.”
“Well, Megan does think the lady assassin who poisoned me by mistake was a hooker coming to your room,” Casey chortled. “How long do you think you’ll need the team?”
“I have no way of knowing, Mike.”
“Tell you what,” Casey said, “I’ve always wanted to see the cherry trees in bloom in the capital. There’s business I can do while I’m there. Buy me dinner at some extravagantly expensive restaurant and I’ll discount the travel expense for your congressman.”
“You’re on,” Drake said. “Text me your ETA and bring along whatever additional research your guys were able to dig up about the American Muslim Youth Camps Foundation. I’ll fill you in on the connection and we’ll kill two birds with one trip to D.C.”
CHAPTER 14
John Prescott returned from his meeting with Layla Nebit and sequestered himself in his office to think. What options did the president realistically have if Allah’s Sword shot down another jetliner?
He concluded the options were limited, in terms of national security. But that wasn’t his worry. The United States didn’t meet the demands of terrorists, at least openly, and wouldn’t start doing it now.
The president’s problem, from a PR perspective, was the perception that he was soft on terrorism, even with America’s drone program.
The only option with that perspective that kept floating to the surface of his mind was finding someone to blame other than a terrorist. They needed some nation or group that would draw attention from the Muslim Brotherhood and more importantly, Senator Boykin’s bill. Focus the media and world attention on an enemy everyone could agree on. The first and only candidate that came to mind was Syria.
Prescott ran through the facts he had to work with:
The U.S. had supported the Syrian rebels against the abusive Assad regime.
Syrian rebels had been the recipient of the MANPADS shoulder-fired missiles that America collected in Libya and secretly sent into to Syria.
Many of those MANPADS had fallen into the hands of Assad’s forces.
Syria had turned to Russia for help and got the President to blink, convincing Assad that the American president was afraid of challenging Russia.
Even if the MANPADS weren’t from Libya, they were Russian-made.
Everyone knew Assad was crazy and reckless enough, after gassing his own people and giving the finger to the West, to shoot down American jetliners. His retaliation for America’s support of the rebels he was fighting, therefore, wasn’t that farfetched.
Syria was the perfect patsy. The White House would just have to find a way to make the world believe the Syrian leader was responsible for the attacks.
Prescott fine-tuned his plan for another hour before he called Nebit at the White House, and invited her to meet him at the Hay-Adams the next day.
Down the hallway in another office, Mark Hassan berated Jameel Marcus for the way his men dealt with Congressman Rodecker. He stood behind his desk, facing an original watercolor painting of the perfection of the Egyptian Pyramids on the wall, struggling to calm himself.
“I asked you to rough him up, not put him in the hospital, Jameel!”
“That cracker put his self in the hospital! He should know better than to fight back.”
Hassan took a deep breath. “Call off your men on the other four. That’s an order. I’ll find another way.”
“Hassan, I don’t take orders from you,” Jameel hissed. “I do you favors, when I want to. When it works for US! It’s time for jihad, Hassan. You want to join the fighting, you call me. Otherwise, stay the hell away.” To Hassan’s shock, the man hung up on him.
Hassan let the beauty of his painting sooth his anger for a minute, then sat down and called his contact in the NSA on an encrypted smartphone.
“Carl, this is Mark Hassan. We met at a fundraiser Layla Nebit hosted. My firm lobbied against some of the bills that were aimed at putting you guys out of business.”
“I remember, Mr. Hassan,” Carl Sumner said cautiously. “What can I do for you?”
“We’re helping the White House with Senator Boykin’s bill. They’re interested in knowing about any opposition the bill is facing. Is that something you might help us with?”
“Send me the names. I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Thank you, Carl. I’ll make sure Ms. Nebit knows you were helpful.”
Carl Sumner was an ambitious young climber in the NSA. Hassan knew that when Nebit introduced Sumner to the Prescott Group, she was passing him along as a valuable resou
rce. No one played the game better than she did, even John Prescott. Using her name in D.C. was almost as good as having an executive order from the president.
The happy hour crowd filled the Off the Record bar at the Hay-Adams Hotel by the time Layla Nebit made her way to Prescott’s table. She stopped at a dozen tables to exchange greetings with her unofficial constituency. She had the president’s ear and bestowed blessings on the few she favored, while everyone else vied to be counted among the few. The desire to be considered an insider gave Nebit an immense amount of power.
Prescott wasn’t jealous. He’d seen presidential power players come and go, and knew how quickly their power waned when their reign was over. Nebit was different. Her power didn’t just exist because she had the run of the White House. Nebit’s power existed because of the genuine fear she created in people, Prescott included.
Nebit was born in Egypt, the daughter of a professor at the American University in Cairo and an Egyptian movie star. Her father left Egypt under suspicion of being a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and came to America to continue teaching. Nebit became a U.S. citizen and was educated here. She inherited a keen understanding of geopolitics from her father. From her mother, she inherited a grasp of the ancient and great power an intelligent woman could have over men and put it to good use as she pursued her career as a political operative.
But it was also her ties to the upper echelon of the Muslim Brotherhood when she was younger that gave her power and influence. Before the recent rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, Prescott lobbied for the Egyptian government. From the records the government maintained on the Muslim Brotherhood that considered it an outlaw organization, he’d been able to confirm Nebit’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. There were also reports of people who crossed her family over the years mysteriously disappearing. Her family’s relationship with the terrorist organization, whatever it was, was not to be overlooked.
Now, here she was, the president’s closest and most beautiful advisor, sitting down at his table and making everyone in the place envy him.
“I hope you’re worth the money we pay you,” she warned preemptively, “because the second jetliner was shot down twenty minutes ago taking off from Denver. Two hundred and eighty passengers killed, the first day we lifted the travel ban. The crash site is secured, but witnesses are reporting something streaking up to the plane just before it exploded. The networks aren’t reporting everything for twenty-four hours. That’s all the time we have. What are the president’s options?”
CHAPTER 15
The Puget Sound Security Gulfstream G450 landed at Washington Dulles International Airport. It taxied to the Landmark Aviation services hub, where Mike Casey arranged for the plane to be serviced and parked for the duration of their stay.
Two white Chevy Tahoes, rented on-site from Hertz, were quickly loaded with gear and luggage for the drive to Georgetown University Hospital.
“Liz will meet us at the hospital,” Drake said in the lead Tahoe, as he and Casey drove out of the parking lot. “She thinks they’ll be able to move the congressman out of ICU tomorrow.”
GPS directed Drake onto I-66 from the airport, then over the Francis Scott Key Memorial Bridge to M Street and the campus of Georgetown University.
When they drove into the parking lot, east of the main red brick building of the hospital, Liz was waiting for them at the main entrance to the first floor lobby. She gave each of them a hug and shook the hands of Casey’s two men when they approached from the second Tahoe. Drake was both relieved and disappointed that he received the exact same greeting as Mike.
“Thank you for coming so quickly,” she said as she led them into the hospital and the bank of elevators on the far side of the lobby. “The congressman’s in the Neurosurgical Intensive Care Unit in a coma. They’re monitoring his intracranial pressure to see if he needs surgery. If the pressure continues to ease, he’ll be moved to his room tonight.”
Drake held the door open for her when the elevator arrived and asked, “How bad is it, Liz?”
She punched the button for the sixth floor. “It’s bad. He took a vicious stomping, judging from the bruising and marks on his head and body. He has broken ribs, contusions everywhere, and a subdural hematoma that’s causing the coma.”
“Does he have any protection?” Mike Casey asked.
“Just hospital security,” she said. “His attack is being considered a random mugging. Senator Hazelton thought it best to keep it that way for now. We hope he can ID his attacker or attackers when he wakes up. His defensive wounds indicate that he put up a pretty good fight before he went down.”
“Drake wanted him guarded until we get this sorted out,” Casey said. “I brought two of my best protectors, Liz,” Casey said. “One of them will be with him round the clock.”
“Thank you, Mike,” she said as they reached the sixth floor and the Neurosurgical ICU. “I’ll introduce you and your men to hospital security, and then let’s go to the café on the second floor where we can talk.”
Drake watched as she introduced Casey and his two men to the director of hospital security in the hallway outside the ICU. The PSS protection team consisted of a former Army Ranger and a former Marine Force Recon. Both were dressed in blazers, button-down shirts without ties, and gray slacks. They still looked to be, however, every bit the spit and shine soldiers they formerly were. Puget Sound Security was known for hiring the best of the best when they left the military, and these two men were no exception.
Standing alone back by himself during the introductions, Drake felt the cold dread of the place penetrate his senses; the smells, the controlled movements of the nurses as they rushed about, the grief and panic on the faces of family and friends sitting in the waiting area. His mother had been a nurse and she had died in a place like this when a drunk teenager ran a stop sign and T-boned her car. He’d been a high school senior then and he remembered that hospital all too well.
He saw Liz shake the hands of both of Casey’s men again and then walk to him with Casey in tow.
“Let’s go get some coffee and I’ll tell you what we know,” she said, as they re-entered the elevator and rode down to the café.
After a quick trip through the cashier’s line, they were seated around a table in one of the two empty conference rooms off the main seating area.
Casey leaned toward her and asked, “What can you tell us about the two jetliners?”
“We know that a vet with PTSD isn’t responsible,” she said firmly. “Even the networks stopped suggesting that when the second jet went down.”
“I didn’t believe it for a second,” Casey bristled.
Liz agreed with a nod of her head. “The launch tube for a Russian SA-24 was found on the beach in L.A., just west of the airport. We think it’s one of the ones we rounded up in Libya that wound up in the hands of the Syrian rebels.”
Drake raised his hands in surrender. “We’ll never learn, will we?” Drake asked. “You would think after providing arms to bin Laden in Afghanistan to fight the Russians, and then having those same weapons used against us in Iraq, we’d stop arming our enemies. Has anyone claimed responsibility for the planes yet?”
“DHS is briefing the senator’s Intelligence committee tomorrow, but so far I haven’t heard that anyone has.”
Casey shook his head and stood up. “I need some fresh air and then to find a place for us to stay. Recommendations, Liz?”
“The Georgetown University Hotel is here on campus. There’s a Holiday Inn a half a mile away, and the Savoy Suites Hotel about a mile away. My choice would be the Savoy.”
When Casey left to make their reservations, Liz put her hand on Drake’s arm and said, “Senator Hazelton said to tell you you’re welcome to stay with them, and there’s room for Mike as well. He wants you to come over for dinner tonight, if you’re available. There are some things he wants to disc
uss with you in private.”
“I think I’d better stay with Mike and his guys, at least for tonight. The senator will understand. Will you be there tonight?” Drake asked.
Liz smiled and said, “I think private means private. You need to see your in-laws tonight. I offered to take you to dinner when you were in D.C., so pick a night. I have a feeling you might be here a while.”
CHAPTER 16
After checking in at the Savoy, Drake took a shower and donned a sports coat and tie in the room he was sharing with Casey. Dressed for dinner, he took one of the rented Tahoes and drove a short distance to N Street NW in Georgetown.
It was the first time he’d been to his in-laws new home, and he was impressed. It was a white brick, two story row house built in the Federal architectural style. Its stately look fit the Hazeltons; classy and understated, unlike so much of the capital architecture.
Drake rang the doorbell at the top of a short flight of stairs and was warmly greeted with a big hug from his mother-in-law, Meredith Hazelton. Wearing a simple white cashmere sweater and tan wool slacks, she was the quintessential senator’s wife comfortable and relaxed in her own home. Drake saw for the hundredth time where Kay had inherited her beauty.
“Oh honey,” she said, as she kissed him on the cheek and slipped her arm through his, pulling him into her house. “Come in. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Me too,” Drake said, as he stepped inside. “Your home’s a beauty.”
“It is, isn’t it,” she beamed. “It was built in 1900, but it’s been completely remodeled. Come, I’ll show you around.”
Drake walked with her arm-in-arm as she led him through the formal first floor, and then up the stairs to the family area on the second floor. There were two separate bedroom suites at either end of the floor, she pointed out, with a common area that served as the family room in the middle. Across the room from the built-in entertainment center on the north side of the floor was a closed mahogany four-panel door on the opposite south side.
Call It Treason (The Adam Drake series Book 4) Page 5
