The First Family

by Michael Palmer

  “This is an agency in crisis,” Ellen said. “Russell Ferguson is incompetent, and management isn’t going to change. You’re understaffed, overworked, and the screening standards have gone downhill. You’ve told me this a thousand times. Don’t get me wrong. I’m beyond grateful for what you did. But if I’m being honest, you’re the only one on the job right now I trust.”

  Karen’s efforts to transform the culture of her workplace had served only to make her current job more difficult. There was no getting around it—the Secret Service was irreparably tainted in Ellen’s eyes.

  It would help if they had some answers. Who had gotten to Duffy? Who else had been compromised? Was it connected to Yoshi and the TPI? Why was Cam targeted? Who was the shooter? It had taken days for the FBI to produce useful surveillance footage of the Tsarnaev brothers in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombings. There was no telling when a meaningful lead on the Dirt Bike Shooter might come through.

  With so much uncertainly swirling, Ellen was pushing to have the entire first family detail replaced (with Karen as the only exception), but the logistics were complex, not to mention her husband’s opposition.

  “He says it would show a lack of faith. That it sends the wrong message to the American people.” Ellen set her coffee cup down. “Well, it should, shouldn’t it,” she said. “It’s all about perception with him.”

  “I can work on it with Russell,” Karen assured her. “I’m sure we can change the president’s mind here. But it’s not easy to reassign an entire team. It will take weeks.”

  “Well, it doesn’t take weeks to pull a trigger, now does it?” Ellen retorted. “Anyway, don’t bother. You’ll just waste your time. I’ve already talked to Geoffrey and his mind is made up. Someone tried to kill Cam, and my husband thinks I’m overreacting. Enough terrorist organizations are raising their hands to claim responsibility that he thinks it was one of them. That they somehow got to Duffy, and Duffy is the only one. He also thinks Lee is off his rocker and he’s pissed at himself for giving so much credence to his theory.”

  “Lee is seldom wrong.”

  “Which is the only reason Geoffrey was willing to investigate Yoshi. Now, it’s in the hands of the FBI and DOJ. But as far as a link between Susie and Cam, or Lee’s suspicions that Yoshi had been giving these kids something other than ProNeural, Geoffrey’s done giving that any consideration.”

  “He said that?”

  “No,” Ellen said. “He was actually quite a bit harsher.”

  Karen was not surprised. Lee’s narrative, while intriguing, had not fit neatly together. Yoshi was questioned and released, and while everyone believed his arrest on mail and wire fraud charges was imminent, there’d been nothing to validate Lee’s thinking.

  The media had picked up on the story and angry parents had begun unenrolling their kids from the TPI. Karen had no doubt some anxious executives at ProNeural’s Silicon Valley headquarters were busy lawyering up. Lee had managed to uncover a juicy scandal, but nothing more. Even the environmental tests he ordered had come back negative. The medical records search, while not complete, had also been a bust.

  Those records were Lee’s latest obsession and his final hope. He spent every minute he could spare obtaining and reviewing medical records of hundreds of TPI students from over the years. The process was painfully slow and O’Donnell’s task force had no extra resources to help, leaving it up to Paul and Lee to do much of the work.

  If Cam were sicker, if he had the red spot in his eyes, something—but, no, he was simply tired, moody, and morose. Was it because he was depressed, traumatized, or having nocturnal seizures? The attack on him notwithstanding, something was not right with him. But it was not, as yet, enough of a something to keep him home from school.

  Karen sighed. Ellen and Cam had formed a united front. “Has the president cleared this?”

  Ellen’s eyes turned fiery. “He’s my son, too, you know.”

  “I’m sorry—I just—I really think it’s too soon,” Karen said.

  “Well, Cam wants to go to school on Monday and I’m supporting his decision. I’ve spoken to several experts in traumatic experiences, and they’ve urged him to return to his normal routine as quickly as possible. If he just sits in his bedroom all day, he’ll think obsessively about what happened. He needs to be distracted. He has to move around, engage with his peers, be with people he trusts.”

  Karen noted how Ellen emphasized that last word.

  “And for your information, yes, the president thinks it shows strength of character, not only for Cam, but for America. Like it or not, we’re symbols. We will not be deterred or terrified into submission. There are many reasons to resume our lives, but few to cower. If Cam needed the time to recover, of course we’d give it to him. But he wants to go.”

  In the end, what choice did Karen have? The parents wanted it, Cam wanted it, and she was not the decision maker. Still, Karen did hold a modicum of control. She doubled the detail, with four cars instead of two, and got the Uniformed Division to coordinate a rolling escort—no stopping at red lights this time. If Cam was going to return to school so soon, too soon, Karen was going to do everything in her power to ensure he got there and back safely.

  * * *

  MONDAY MORNING, Cam was in an armored SUV, headphones on, backpack at his feet. He seemed relaxed, eyes glued to his phone instead of scanning his surroundings for would-be killers. Karen did the driving. Woody Lapham rode shotgun.

  Something is off with Cam, thought Karen. It was not just the odd bruising she had noticed on his arms that morning, or how he scratched his skin even though there appeared to be no bug bites, or how tired he still looked.

  He’s acting too relaxed for a kid with so much wrong with him, she thought.

  When they got to the school, Karen and Lapham walked Cam into the building. At first, Cam’s peers hung back, gawking at him, unsure what to do. It was not until Taylor Gleason came forward and put his arm around Cam that something shifted. More students surrounded Cam, spoke to him, and soon he was just another kid going to school. Karen wondered if she’d underestimated his resilience.

  Cam took a few steps in lockstep with the masses before breaking away from the crowd. He spun around, calling Karen’s name. Karen whirled, thinking something was wrong. He had never called for her. She rushed over to him.

  “Thanks for being there for me,” Cam said. “You’ve been—you’ve been a really good friend.”

  Hollowness opened in Karen’s chest. She was overcome with a feeling she could not name. It was almost as if Cam were saying good-bye for good.

  * * *

  AFTER KAREN coordinated the surveillance duties, she returned to the SUV for a long day of keeping watch. With the extra bodies, they could cover more entry points. She stationed additional agents by the main entrance. They carried handheld metal detectors and would use them on anybody who tried to enter the school. School staff fully supported these precautions.

  All Karen had to do was wait for the end of the day, which would come six hours from now. The agents did their jobs. They watched. They vetted. And nothing happened.

  Around lunchtime, Karen received a phone call from Lee. She got out of the car, desperate to give her legs a good stretch. Long stints on surveillance duty served the younger set far better.

  “We’ve got one,” Lee said, sounding elated.

  “Got one what? Where are you?”

  “At the clinic with Paul. I’m reviewing medical records from the TPI, and we’ve got one.” He spoke so quickly it was hard to understand.

  “Noah Pickering,” Lee continued. “He was a math student at the TPI. And surprise, surprise, one of the best. According to his medical records, Noah became irritable, moody, and withdrawn. Sound like anybody we know?”

  “Yeah, Cam,” Karen said.

  “His record also shows a visit to the ER because of uncontrolled arm movements, jerking, according to his admission form. Clearly it’s myoclonus. He hung himself
in his bedroom closet a year before the Stewart twins had their tragic car accident.”

  “Autopsy?”

  “Yes, but because cause of death was obvious they didn’t do much. Specifically they didn’t do any microscopic histology.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s examining organ tissues under a microscope. They did note the liver seemed a little large, but unfortunately, again because of the obvious cause of death, they never explored it further.”

  Karen heard the hesitation in Lee’s voice.

  “You don’t think it was suicide, do you, Lee?”

  “No, I do not. Same as I don’t think the brakes on the Stewarts’ car just suddenly failed. These were murders, Karen, no doubt about it. Even without an autopsy on Noah Pickering, evidence of myoclonus is enough of a link. I wish I could have taken a peek at the poor kid’s retina. I’m sure that red spot would have been there.”

  “But Cam doesn’t have it—the red spot, I mean.”

  “He’s younger than all of them,” Lee said, postulating. “I keep returning to the same thought, that the length of exposure to some toxin dictates when symptoms appear and the level of severity.”

  “So Cam could have a red spot in his eyes at some later point?”

  “It’s highly unusual—unheard of, to be honest—but yes. Perhaps much later, along with myoclonic jerks, worsening organ enlargement, everything we’ve seen in Susie.”

  Karen gave this some thought.

  “Whatever is happening to Cam,” she said, “taking him out of the TPI hasn’t solved the problem. Something is not right with him, Lee, and I’m not talking about his mood. His complexion is like ash. And this morning I noticed some weird bruising on his arms and he’s itching them all the time, but there aren’t any bites I could see.”

  “Yeah, Josh told me Susie has the same,” Lee said. “Something, I don’t know what, has metabolized in his system. Trust me on this, Karen, Cam’s a very sick boy, we just can’t fully see it yet. Everything we’ve seen in Susie is all headed his way.”

  * * *

  THREE O’CLOCK could not come around soon enough. News reports of the Dirt Bike Shooter were incessant and frustrations continued to mount over the investigation’s lack of progress. Karen wanted Cam out of school and home safe so she could finally relax. She had spent most of the day watching for threats and thinking of ways she and Lee could convince the president to increase the efforts on the TPI investigation.

  Noah Pickering has changed everything, hasn’t he?

  At ten minutes to three, Karen and Lapham drove around to the front entrance to pick up Cam as soon as school let out. At three o’clock the school doors opened and a throng of students swarmed outside. They were smiling, laughing, with backpacks slung over shoulders, sunglasses in place to combat the afternoon glare. Normally, Cam exited with the first wave, but at five minutes past the hour there was no sign of him. He was not one to loiter when that final bell rang. When school was done, so was he. So where was he?

  Ten minutes past the hour, still no Cam. Still not answering his cell phone.

  “Get inside, get inside,” she ordered Lapham.

  Two minutes later.

  The head of school, Ms. Barnes was her name, looked frazzled as she joined Karen and Lapham in the hallway in front of the main office. She was short, with dark hair, smoldering eyes, and a posture stiff and straight as a ruler. Other agents were inside, scouring the school. An announcement went out over the PA.

  Six minutes later.

  Still no word from Cam.

  The agents on patrol returned, looking deeply troubled. According to the head of school, Cam’s last class of the day was biology, so they had gone to that classroom to see if he was there. He was not, but his teacher was. The teacher said Cam had not attended class that afternoon. She had assumed he stayed home from school, given recent events.

  Karen’s world tilted. “Find him!” she snapped.

  Within minutes the police were on the scene, helping with the search. Joint Special Operations Command had been notified. POTUS and FLOTUS had been alerted as well. Bishop was missing. A full search of the school was under way. Karen called Taylor, who said he had not seen Cam since the morning.

  Twenty minutes later, the school was quiet.

  No sign of Cam. Still not answering his phone, still not returning her texts.

  Please God—please—let me find him.

  He had a breakdown, Karen thought hopefully. He’s hiding out in a closet somewhere on the premises. He’s scared. It was too soon to send him. Too soon!

  Thirty minutes later.

  No Cam.

  An agent radioed Karen. He had found something. Ms. Barnes led Karen and Lapham to a classroom on the lower level that would have been unremarkable were it not for one wide-open window. This side of the building had no entrances. Nobody had been watching the classroom, or seen what might have entered through that window.

  “Do you ever leave these windows open?” Karen asked, hoping the answer was yes.

  The head of school shook her head. “No, of course not.”

  “I want the classroom schedule. I need to know when it was last used.”

  Thirty-two minutes later.

  “We aren’t using this classroom at all,” Ms. Barnes said.

  Oh, God, no. He’s gone, Karen thought. Whoever tried to kill him—whoever killed the twins, and made Noah Pickering’s death look like suicide—snuck into the school through the window of an empty classroom, hid out until the moment was right, and then took him. Gone—gone on my watch. I’ve lost Bishop. I’ve lost him.

  Agents and police were outside the window, scouring the grounds. A separate team was trying to ascertain the location of every security camera in the area. Karen examined the window closely and saw something of note.

  “How would somebody open this window from the outside?”

  Lapham studied the window closely, as did Ms. Barnes.

  “They couldn’t have,” Lapham said. “It’s built to open only from the inside.”

  CHAPTER 43

  For a brief period of time nobody could figure out what had happened. Had a kidnapper been hiding out inside the school? Did someone somehow sneak past all the security? All of these possibilities seemed hard to fathom. The security was too tight. Karen kept returning to the window that opened only from the inside. It was a critical clue, but she did not know how it factored into his disappearance. That is until a search of Cam’s bedroom turned up the answer. On his bedroom dresser was a note addressed to his parents. Cam had not been abducted, as Karen first believed.

  He’d run away.

  Mom and Dad,

  I’m so sorry to do this to you. But I needed space from everything and everyone. I couldn’t stand the pressure and attention the shooting caused, not for one more second. If I stayed at the White House I was going to burst. I feel terrible doing this to you both. I know I’m going to cause all sorts of problems. But I don’t feel safe anymore and this was the only thing I could think to do.

  I’m sorry. I’ll be in touch.

  Love,

  Cam

  There was no doubt about it—the note was in Cam’s handwriting. It could not have been a forgery. Nobody could have snuck into the White House and planted it in his room. The working theory was that Cam was not coerced into running away, but had done so of his own volition.

  He was four hours gone.

  Television monitors inside the White House Situation Room gave Karen a window into the world outside. It was not a pretty picture. Every network, reporters from all conceivable media outlets, descended on the White House to report on Cam’s disappearance. Their portable lights glowed bright enough to hold back the twilight.

  Creating an artificial barrier between the iron fence securing the grounds and the throngs of people who showed up to be at the epicenter of this national crisis stood a brigade of police, SWAT, and members of the National Guard. Guns were out in force to hold peo
ple back.

  Every inch of the perimeter was professionally secured. Hidden from view were the best snipers the Secret Service employed. All active Secret Service agents in the D.C. area had been called into work. Meanwhile, the FBI, on top of hunting the Dirt Bike Shooter, was coordinating the search for Cam, mobilizing a truly massive interagency operation.

  Karen took in the macro picture as a detached observer. Cam’s disappearance was her fault, and the enormous response—the logistics, coordination, allocation of resources—was the fallout of her failure. There was no conceivable way she could ever take part in the actual search. Her job now was to provide information when requested. She would do so while coming to terms with her soul-shaking feelings of guilt, and fear for Cam.

  Four chairs separated Karen from the president, yet she could feel the white-hot anger radiating off him like a scalding sun. Ellen Hilliard, looking shattered, was seated beside her husband, eyes hollow, hands clasped tightly in her lap, numb with grief.

  Next to Karen, his gray suit a rumpled mess, sat the director of the Secret Service, Russell Ferguson. Ferguson had the air of a man facing the firing squad. Beads of perspiration sank into the deep creases of his furrowed brow. His eyes held no expression, his jaw set tight, a look of utter desperation on his face. The president’s chief of staff, John O’Donnell, glared at Karen from his seat across the table.

  “Go over it again,” the president demanded.

  Karen did. Starting with that morning, when she brought Cam to school against her better judgment, and ending with the open window in the classroom that never got used.

  “And nobody saw anything?” The president spoke through clenched teeth, his voice almost a growl.

  “No,” Karen said softly, averting her gaze.

  “We believe that is accurate. Our analysis there is complete,” O’Donnell said.

  “Show me,” the president said.

  O’Donnell used a computer connected to one of the wall-mounted monitors to bring up a satellite image of the school for all to see. A red circle marked the spot where it was believed Cam had slipped away undetected. Graphics of figures denoted the location of the Secret Service.