by Stephen Frey
And she appreciated it when things were predictable. Predictability enabled one to prepare, and preparation was a key success factor in any endeavor.
“I’m getting it for myself, Chad.” He wasn’t bad-looking, either. “If I get it.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“I’m not sure yet,” she cautioned, glancing at her watch. She still had time. “Don’t count this thing in the sales column yet.”
“I didn’t mean that. I meant the part about you not having a boyfriend.”
She grinned as she glanced at the camera in the ceiling corner, which seemed to be aimed straight at her, wondering. “Okay, I’ll take it. It’s a lot of money, but hey, so what?”
“Impulsive. Love it. What about dinner tonight? Can you be impulsive about a date with me?”
“Where are we going? Wendy’s?”
The guy’s happy expression disintegrated. “Is it that obvious I don’t—”
“I’m just kidding. And I wouldn’t care where we went. Besides, I like Wendy’s.”
“Hey, I can do better than that,” he said confidently, looking relieved. “I think I’ve still got a hundred bucks left on my third Visa card.”
They laughed together, and it felt right. A sense of humor, and he didn’t take himself too seriously. Good, because both of those things were requirements in a man for her. Jennie tapped the phone’s box as she gave him her sincerest smile. “Just ring this up, okay?”
“Sure.”
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her old flip phone.
He shook his head and snickered when he saw it. “Dinosaur.”
“I know, but can you transfer the numbers and the pictures over?”
“Absolutely,” he agreed as he took the old phone from her. “Let me get the SIM card out and work a little magic in the back. Give me a minute.”
When he’d returned and the new phone was ready, he started to hand her the plastic bag filled with all the ancillaries—case, cords, her old phone, receipt—but pulled it back at the last second as she went for it. “I should show you a few really cool apps before you leave.”
She shook her head as she checked her watch again. “No time. Gotta go. And I’m busy tonight. Sorry.”
“Come back tomorrow then,” he suggested, relinquishing the bag. “Seriously, it’ll save you a lot of time if I do it.”
“Maybe.”
“What’s your name?” he called as she headed for the front of the store and the huge mall beyond.
“Jennie,” she called back over her shoulder as she tossed her hair. “Jennie Perez.”
“I like it.”
“Yeah, yeah,” she murmured as she moved into the mall and her heels began clicking on the tiles of the wide main corridor. “I know what you like.”
The Tysons Corner Center, known in the area as Tysons One, was a sprawling, multilevel mall located in upscale McLean, Virginia, just outside the Capital Beltway, fifteen miles west of the White House. One of the largest malls in the region, it was anchored by the big names: Bloomingdale’s, Lord & Taylor, Nordstrom. And with only a week to go until Christmas, the cavernous structure was jammed with shoppers searching for last-minute gifts.
“Wish I lived around here,” Jennie murmured to herself as she admired the big diamond on the finger of a woman who was walking past. Jennie lived farther west, in Sterling. It was an okay area, but it wasn’t anything like McLean. “Maybe someday.”
As she hurried toward the south entrance, zigging and zagging through the crowd, she took a few random pictures with the new phone. She had to admit the definition and color were much better than the old flip phone she’d been using. She tapped the reverse camera option on the touch screen and took a picture of herself.
“Ugh,” she moaned softly as she looked at the photo. “Do I really look like—”
Jennie stopped abruptly as she neared the entrance—six doors across, which led to the buffer lobby beyond, and then six more doors beyond that leading to the outside and a cold, gray December afternoon. Three men were just entering the mall from the buffer lobby. They were dressed in matching long black overcoats, and they wore baseball caps with the brims pulled low over their eyes.
Her gaze flashed right when something else caught her attention. For a few critical moments she was distracted from the entrance by a beautiful little girl who was coming out of a store. She couldn’t have been more than seven years old. She had long, shimmering blond hair and gorgeous eyes, and she was carrying a new doll in a large box. She was being followed by a man who was slipping a credit card back into his wallet and who must have been her father, given how proudly he was watching her.
As the three men at the entrance lifted guns from beneath their coats, Jennie spotted a security guard running toward them. Her eyes raced back to the little girl, who was clutching her new doll and smiling at it, unaware of what was about to happen.
Jennie wanted to run; every instinct inside her was screaming for her to get away and save herself. But she couldn’t. She had to help that little girl. She’d hate herself for the rest of her life if she didn’t. She’d never been a coward, and she wasn’t going to start being one now.
THE BLACK VAN pulled to a quick stop in the deserted Philadelphia alley. This location was twelve miles from the address on the driver’s license, and that was exactly how Travers wanted it. He wanted the young man to have a long way home—if that address on the license really was his home.
Travers glanced at Boyd from the back of the van. “Ready, Agent Smirnoff?” he called.
Boyd nodded. “Yeah, good to go. Nobody around, Agent Walker. You’re clear.”
Travers leaned over so he was close to the young man, whose hands were secured tightly behind his back. “We’ll be watching you, Kaashif,” he whispered through the heavy dark blue T-shirt, which was wrapped around Kaashif’s head so it covered most of his face. “You understand me?”
“Yes, sir,” Kaashif murmured fearfully.
The young man still wasn’t sure he was going to be set free. Travers could tell by the frightened tone of his response. “I’ll be watching you, but you’ll never know when.” Kaashif probably thought that was an idle threat, but it wasn’t. “You understand?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Guess you’ll have to make up that calculus test.”
“I shall.”
“Liar.”
“I am not a—”
Travers reached for the handle, yanked the van’s side door open, and pushed Kaashif roughly out onto the broken glass strewn across the pavement. “Clear!” he yelled to Boyd as Kaashif tumbled out.
Three minutes later Boyd pulled to a stop in another alley not far from where they’d ditched Kaashif. They needed to put plates back on the van so they wouldn’t arouse suspicion from local law enforcement. They’d removed the plates in case Kaashif had somehow gotten his blindfold off quickly once he was out of the vehicle.
Travers leaned back in the seat and rubbed his eyes as Boyd climbed out of the van. He still had that terrible feeling they were running out of time and that an attack was imminent. He grimaced as he listened to Boyd reattach the plates. Would the plan work before the attack went down? That was the key question now. Because his instincts told him the moment was at hand, and hell would rain down on the country if they didn’t do something soon.
CHAPTER 4
WITH A quick burst of automatic gunfire, the three men wearing long black coats murdered the security guard racing toward them. The older man tumbled to the mall floor on his stomach with his arms outstretched as the hail of bullets shredded his body.
Two of the men turned their weapons on the crowd while the third destroyed the security cameras overlooking the area. Then he turned his gun on the crowd, too.
Calm turned to chaos in a heartbeat. People in front of Jennie
shrieked and raced past her or darted into stores for cover as the sound of the guns peppered the air. But for a few seconds, all she could do was gaze straight ahead. Her shoes seemed cemented to the floor as the terrible scene erupted in front of her.
At that point everything seemed to slow down, so she could see every detail of what was unfolding.
The father coming out of the store to Jennie’s right lunged for his daughter. But a bullet tore through him just as he reached his little girl, killing him instantly as the storefront glass shattered behind him when another bullet blew through it. The little girl screamed as her father tumbled to the tiles in front of her.
Jennie had been about to turn and run. But she couldn’t leave the little girl out there alone, helpless. So she raced the few steps to her and grabbed the girl’s tiny wrist.
As she did, she locked eyes with the assassin on the right. She’d heard the term “killer instinct” so many times, but she’d never actually seen it. Until now. The man had cold, dark shark eyes. And yet, as lifeless as they seemed, she could still see passion burning in them. “Come on!” she urged the little girl as the man pointed his gun at her. “Run with me! Run!”
As Jennie turned to flee, a bullet tore through her shoulder from behind. It sent her tumbling to the floor and the new phone spinning from her hand. She came to rest on the glass-strewn tiles exactly as the security guard had, on her stomach with her arms outstretched. And the little girl came down right beside her.
Jennie had never been to Alaska. In fact, she’d never been anywhere near it. But she’d read an article on the Internet about a man who’d survived a grizzly bear attack on Kodiak Island by playing dead even as the huge animal toyed with him. The awful pain in her shoulder spread quickly through her body, but somehow she managed to stay still and not moan.
“Close your eyes,” she whispered to the little girl as they stared at each other. She tried not to show any fear. The little girl was obviously terrified, and if Jennie showed fear, the little girl might start screaming. Then she wouldn’t have a chance. “Don’t move. Don’t even breathe. You must listen to me.”
“Okay,” she whispered back, closing her eyes as she’d been told.
She was terrified, all right, Jennie could see, but she was listening. Jennie shut her eyes and went perfectly still, too.
“Shoot her,” someone yelled from the distance.
“She’s already dead” was the response of the deep voice, from very close.
Even as the cold barrel of a gun brushed her cheek, Jennie didn’t flinch. Even as she smelled the leather of his shoes and the awful pain coming from the wound knifed through her body, she kept still. She just hoped the little girl could, too.
“Shoot her anyway. Make sure she’s dead. Come on!”
The cold metal withdrew from her face as the screaming in the mall faded and the awful sounds of the dying and the wounded rose. For a moment Jennie believed she was safe, that whoever was standing over her wasn’t going to obey the command.
But then the barrel of a gun pressed firmly against her back, slightly off-center to her spine. Somehow she fought the urge to scream.
CHAPTER 5
“A FRIEND of mine told me it looked like a war zone outside with all the military personnel,” Bill said quietly to Troy as they entered the Oval Office. They’d been escorted by two Secret Service agents every step of the way since arriving on White House grounds. “And like Walter Reed Hospital in here.”
The level of security around President Dorn had been ratcheted up dramatically since the assassination attempt a few weeks ago in Los Angeles. Before the shooting Dorn was constantly complaining to the Secret Service that they were getting in his way and not letting him be himself by wading into crowds to shake hands and kiss babies. But those days were gone for good now, by the president’s own admission. The assassination attempt had affected him profoundly. For the first time in his life Dorn had met his mortality face-to-face, and he’d never again allow himself to be so vulnerable.
“Your friend was right,” Troy muttered back as the two agents who’d been tailing them finally turned around and left them alone.
To the right was a long table covered with medical devices and boxes of all shapes and sizes. Beside it was an adjustable bed, raised so whoever was in it would be sitting up.
“Come in, Jensens,” President Dorn called to them weakly.
He was sitting behind the desk across the room, in a wheelchair. The assassin’s bullet had barely missed his heart on that outdoor stage in L.A. It had been off target a critical fraction of an inch only because Rex Stein, Dorn’s former chief of staff, had lunged in front of Dorn at the podium just as the shot had been fired from a building across the street. It had killed Stein, but he’d saved the president’s life by deflecting the bullet with one of his ribs before it tore out of him and into the president.
A sturdy-looking nurse wearing a white uniform stood behind the president with her arms folded tightly across her chest. She looked uneasy to Troy, like she hated that, against his team of physicians’ stern advice, the president had still deemed himself well enough to leave Walter Reed two days ago and return to work in the West Wing. More to the point, he guessed she was worried that Dorn might keel over and die at any moment—on her watch—and that she’d be blamed.
Before following his father’s footsteps across the royal blue carpet emblazoned with the seal of the president, Troy subtly saluted the arrows the eagle clasped in its left talon.
“It’s good to see you again, Mr. President,” Bill said respectfully as he stepped behind the desk and shook hands with Dorn. “You’re looking much better, sir.”
Troy took his turn to shake hands, making certain to ease off on his normally firm grip. Bill, Jack, and Troy had met with President Dorn at Walter Reed after the shooting. Though he was obviously still weak, Dorn looked in much better shape and spirits than he had that day. He’d looked pretty close to going flatline then, but now he was getting back to being the “presidential floor model,” as Bill had always called him because of his dark good looks and commanding charisma. As liberal and dovish as Dorn had proven to be, Troy still had to respect the man’s courage and dedication to country. The nation had gotten a tremendous emotional boost watching him walk back into the White House two days ago on television, even if it had been slowly and with the help of an aide on either side.
The president had been in the process of shutting down Red Cell Seven before the assassination attempt, but that and the massive explosion of a huge liquefied natural gas tanker only ten miles off the coast of Virginia at almost the same moment as the shooting had apparently changed his thinking. If the tanker had reached the shoreline, countless thousands in Norfolk and Virginia Beach would have died. Thankfully, two Navy fighter jets scrambled out of the Norfolk naval base had destroyed the ship before it churned close enough for the terrorists commanding the craft to blow it up and inflict their devastation.
Thanks to Jack, Troy thought. Jack was the one who’d uncovered the LNG plot, and a lot of people had him to thank for their lives—though they didn’t know it. Then Maddux had taken his revenge, the bastard.
“Hello, Mr. President.”
Though Dorn looked better to Troy, his breathing was still measured and a little shallow. His movements were deliberate, and though he was trying hard to seem energetic, it was obvious that he was tired—physically and emotionally.
“Hello, Troy.” Dorn smiled up warmly as they shook hands, then he gestured over his shoulder. “Guys, that’s Connie. She’s here to take the reins of power in case I expire unexpectedly.”
Connie nodded stiffly to Troy and Bill, obviously not enjoying her momentary celebrity status or the president’s remark. “Hello.”
Dorn grinned wryly. “She thinks I came back to the White House too soon.”
He waved to her and then at the door. “Giv
e us a few moments, please.”
Connie glanced nervously at the bed and the table beside it. “Mr. President, I’m not supposed to leave you at any—”
“Connie, if I collapse these men will get you back in here very quickly. They don’t want my death on their shoulders either, okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
“But don’t go far.”
“No, sir.”
“And over there,” the president went on, pointing at the man who was sitting in a wingback chair a few feet away, “is Stewart Baxter, my new chief of staff.”
“We met Stewart at Walter Reed a few weeks ago,” Bill reminded Dorn. “He was there that day we came to see you.”
“Oh, right, of course.” Dorn’s grin faded as he watched Connie leave the Oval Office. “Stewart is replacing Rex Stein, God rest his soul.”
Baxter had a full head of snow-white hair, but other than that and a few shallow lines at the corners of his thin-lipped mouth, he looked extremely fit for a man who was almost sixty. His skin had a healthy glow to it, and there was no paunch above his belt.
“Hello, Stewart,” Troy said in a friendly tone as they shook hands. Baxter’s expression was locked in an arrogant smirk, as it had been at the hospital. “Good to see you again.” Baxter had a reputation in Washington as a man who got things done. Still, not many people liked him. Troy understood why. He gave off a very negative vibe. “I trust you’ve been well.”
“Did I meet you that day?” Baxter asked as if he wasn’t really interested, not bothering to get up from his chair to shake hands. “I remember your father but not you.”
Impossible, Troy figured. It hadn’t been that long since they’d met, and an Oval Office chief of staff was trained to remember everyone. Baxter was simply trying to establish dominance. It seemed like everyone in Washington was always doing that. Like everyone here was part of some inept wolf pack. It was one of the main reasons Troy hated this city. Everything here was about image, not results.
