The First Family

by Michael Palmer

  Josh smacked his forehead in an admonishing way. “I forgot all about my own security system,” he said. “How’s it going, Ma? How’s Susie?”

  “We’re all okay,” Karen said. “Come in. You boys must be exhausted. We have meat loaf, if you’re hungry.”

  Karen walked ahead while Lee parked his Honda on the grassy patch in front of the cabin. Hours of driving had been hard on his aching knees and tired joints. He was not looking forward to the return trip come morning, but he was anxious to get samples back to Dr. Kaufmann.

  He had brought with him a small black medical bag marked with the presidential seal, which he had taken from Gleason’s office. I’m the White House doc now, Lee thought mordantly. The medical bag contained all of the tools he would need to perform Susie’s biopsy.

  The procedure might have to wait until after dinner. The savory aroma of a fresh-cooked meal hit Lee as soon as he set foot inside the cabin. He paused a moment, marveling at the transformation of a rustic lodge into a functioning hospital.

  Karen gave Josh a proper hug, and then, to Lee’s surprise, turned and hugged him, tight and long, the way he remembered.

  “I’m so sorry about Paul,” she whispered in his ear. “I’m so sorry.”

  Lee thanked her as they broke apart.

  “How is Tracy holding up?” Karen asked.

  “Horrible, as you can imagine,” said Lee, who was not faring much better. His guilt was oppressive. It was a constant companion that ate away at him like a disease.

  Valerie approached and she and Lee greeted each other with a quick embrace. She seemed visibly stressed. The bags under Valerie’s eyes had become pronounced, her short brown hair was no longer neatly brushed, and the tension inked into her pores had dulled her once-lustrous skin.

  Lee wondered if camp life had taken a heavy toll, or if Susie’s worsening health was the reason Valerie had aged a decade in days. He turned his attention to Susie, who was resting in bed, eyeing Josh with a sweet smile on her face.

  “How are you holding up?” Lee asked, coming to Susie’s bedside. It was good to see her again; good to know Karen and Valerie, Josh too, had done such an admirable job keeping her safe.

  “Hey there, Maestro, long time no see,” said Josh, joining Lee.

  Susie’s smile widened. “Hi Josh, Dr. Blackwood,” she said in a quiet voice. “Nice to see you again.”

  Lee patted Susie’s hand. “You too, kiddo.”

  “Been playing a lot?” asked Josh. “I miss your music. I think you’ve turned me into a classical junkie. I need my Bach fix.”

  “Worse things could happen,” said Susie. “But no, I haven’t been playing. I can’t really play anymore because—well, you know.”

  Josh squeezed Susie’s shoulder gently, which seemed to lift her spirits.

  “Your attacks—I’ve heard they’re getting worse, not better,” Lee said. “Hopefully we can fix that for you.”

  Lee spoke with confidence, but Susie did not seem convinced. She had good reason to be skeptical, he thought. He checked her vitals, while Josh headed to the cabin where they’d be spending the night. Everything regarding Susie seemed normal, including the lab results from the blood and urine tests Valerie performed daily.

  Everything was fine, and yet nothing was right.

  “I’m getting worse, aren’t I?” There was not a trace of doubt in Susie’s voice.

  “I guess I won’t sugarcoat it. You’re not getting better,” Lee said. “I’m thinking of calling it Genius disease, because it only seems to affect the most brilliant people at the TPI. I’m counting on the biopsy to tell us a lot more, because my other theories have yet to pan out.”

  “I’m hoping the same,” said Valerie.

  “I’m hoping for a glass of water,” Susie said.

  Lee chuckled softly. “That I can do,” he replied.

  As he walked to the kitchen, a piercing sound erupted, rattling his eardrums. Spinning in a circle, Lee searched for the source. Karen came bounding down the stairs, grabbing the rifle leaning against a bookshelf without breaking stride. She snatched stacks of magazines and a box of ammo.

  “What’s that damn noise?” Lee asked, covering his ears.

  “The perimeter alarm!” Karen shouted. “Did anybody follow you here?”

  “No,” Lee said.

  Karen sidled over to a cylindrical device and soon the noise came to a merciful end. She cried out, “Everyone get upstairs. Now!”

  She raced outside and Lee followed her.

  “I thought I said get upstairs,” she snapped at him.

  Lee ignored her. A flashlight beam jouncing in the dark appeared from the direction Josh had gone.

  “Josh, is that you?” Lee called out.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” he announced.

  “Get to the woods!” Karen yelled. “The perimeter alarm just went off.”

  Josh switched off his flashlight and vanished into nothingness. Moments later, he reappeared next to Karen and Lee. Karen removed a pistol from her holster and placed it in Josh’s hand.

  “Take this,” she said.

  * * *

  MAUSER BROUGHT the van to a stop on the side of a dirt road. He and Drew Easley got out at the same time. The GPS tracker said Lee’s car was parked close by. No need to announce their arrival with headlights and an engine. They followed the road for a time until lights appeared up ahead. Soon a two-story log cabin came into view, all lit up from the inside. Three people stood out front in the wash of the cabin’s glow, bathed partly in moonlight. Two of them were armed.

  Dropping to a crouch, Mauser raised his rifle and took aim. He motioned for Easley to do the same. Clearly, they’d come to the right place. As luck would have it, Lee had led them to a remote location with what seemed like nobody around for miles.

  * * *

  KAREN’S HEART beat so hard she thought it might snap a rib. Adrenaline flooded her as if a dam had let go.

  Focus. Let your training take over, she urged herself. It could be a deer. Perhaps bear. Could be nothing. Probably nothing.

  But instinct told her it was something. It was too coincidental for Lee to show up and moments later have the alarm get tripped. She took the flashlight from Josh and put the beam to the undercarriage of Lee’s car. She asked herself: how would she track someone here? Long, straight roads in the middle of nowhere made it difficult to follow someone discreetly. You’d have to keep your distance. She searched with the flashlight. Nothing. She was about to give up, but backtracked, focusing the beam on an object sticking out just enough to be out of place. It was black, square, and small. She plucked off a piece of metal and felt its weight in her hand. She shined her light on it. Recognition kicked in. She’d been trained in surveillance techniques. She knew the tricks of the trade.

  A scream rose in her throat.

  “Get down!” she yelled.

  Lee and Josh dropped to the ground on her command.

  A moment later, bright flashes cannoned from the gloom as metallic pings signaled bullets hitting their parked cars. The ground near Karen’s head erupted with a geyser of dirt and loose rocks. She ducked reflexively as a bullet whizzed close enough for her to hear it pass. Everyone scrambled to get behind those cars.

  Readying her weapon, Karen got on one knee and aimed at the next flash she saw. She fired. The recoil pushed the butt of her AK-47 sharply into her shoulder. The blast swallowed her hearing and left an unpleasant ringing in her head. She fired again. And again.

  Bullets answered her bullets, streaking in the dark, coming at them from all directions, it seemed. Josh returned fire with his handgun—her Glock. She heard the distinct sound of shattering glass behind her.

  The cabin! They were shooting at the cabin!

  Karen yelled one word that got Josh moving fast.

  “Susie!”

  Lee grabbed Josh’s arm with force. “No! You’ve got the gun. Stay here. I’ll get Susie.”

  * * *

  MAUSER SAW the guy�
�his guy, Lee Blackwood—crawling up the cabin stairs like Spiderman on the move. He had a good shot, took aim, but a sudden burst of gunfire from behind those parked cars forced him to take cover in the woods. Easley must have had the same idea about Lee, but gunfire kept him pinned to his position. The shooting continued back and forth. One volley dispensed, another volley returned. Conserving ammo became a concern. In addition to his fully loaded C96 pistol, Mauser had four AR-15 magazines stuffed in his pockets, each carrying twenty rounds. Four became three when he needed to reload. It was time to get strategic.

  “Easley, keep laying it down,” Mauser said. “I’m going to the cabin.”

  Bullets spit from Easley’s gun barrel with a rat-tat-tat. Being a man of few words, it was Easley’s way of saying yes.

  * * *

  FROM HIS knees, Lee pulled open the cabin door a crack, then slid inside on his belly. He went straight to Susie’s bed, but saw she wasn’t there. He called her name in a whispered voice.

  From upstairs came Valerie’s faint reply. “Lee, we’re here.”

  His thoughts were gummed with terror. The steady report of gunfire barked in the background. He bounded up the stairs without caution, a sudden burst of bravado spurring him on. The doors to the two upstairs bedrooms and the bathroom at the end of a narrow hallway were closed.

  “Valerie? Susie?”

  “Here.”

  Again it was Valerie’s muffled voice Lee heard.

  Opening a door to his right, Lee poked his head into the bedroom where he and Karen slept when they were married. The room was empty. Crouching, Lee lifted the dust cover and peered underneath the bed. Two sets of terrified eyes peered back. He coaxed Susie out first, before helping Valerie to her feet. Both women were pale, breathing shakily.

  “Come on,” he said, speaking briskly. “We’ll go out the back. Val, did you call nine-one-one?”

  Valerie shook her head. “I didn’t have my phone on me when we ran upstairs.”

  Lee had a phone on him, but would not waste precious time calling now. He’d wait until they got somewhere safe.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  The trio raced down the stairs in a line, holding hands as they descended. Lee took the lead, with Susie behind him and Valerie in the rear. They sprinted through the cabin, keeping their hands clasped tightly together. They went out the back door, a chain on the move, scampering along the narrow, twisting path to the lake.

  Moonlight guided their way as the steady bark of gunshots echoed in the night.

  CHAPTER 55

  Mauser adjusted his strategy. He would go after Lee and the girl, which meant getting to the cabin. Easley cloaked his approach with a steady barrage of gunfire. Bullets went flying and the stench of gunpowder soured the crisp night air. Easley would have ammo issues at some point soon, so Mauser scrambled with purpose through a dense copse of brush, then hurdled a fallen tree with ease, before pushing through a thicket of prickly pines.

  Emerging from the woods on his belly, Mauser crawled across the dirt road like a soldier going under razor wire. Two targets were off to his right, but he could not get off a good shot without stepping into open space. He’d let Easley handle them for now. After taking care of business, he could think about a sneak attack from behind.

  Mauser slithered to the cabin on his stomach. The building concealed him from those two shooters. He peered into a first-floor window, surprised to see a hospital bed in the center of a large room, along with an assortment of modern lab equipment. Craning his neck to get a better look, he saw something that put a smile on his face. Somebody had left the cabin’s rear door wide open.

  It was like a compass needle showing him where to go.

  * * *

  KAREN CROUCHED beside Josh, using Lee’s bullet-riddled Honda for cover. She focused on the task at hand—eliminate the threat in front of them. To do so, she blocked out all distractions, meaning Lee, Susie, and Valerie. It took great effort and tremendous concentration not to let her brain become overwhelmed.

  Popping up from behind the car, Karen sent a fresh burst of AK-47 gunfire at the last flash she saw. Teeth clenched, her jaw set tight, Karen felt her muscles relax after absorbing the intense recoil. A reply flash came a second later, followed by the whizzing sound of more bullets. Bangs and bullets, but only one flash now, Karen observed.

  A thought pulsed in the back of her mind. There had been two shooters. Had she or Josh gotten off a lucky shot? It was doubtful, meaning the second gunman could be anywhere—dead, injured, even readying a surprise attack.

  Karen knew what to do. They had to change positions. Their opponents gained advantage every second she and Josh remained in one spot. Sitting ducks were seldom the lucky ones. The best option was to move laterally toward the threat to change their position relative to the shooter.

  They could seek shelter in the woods, she thought. Make the shooter waste ammo attacking them through cover. Either way, this engagement had to end quickly. The longer it went on, the more likely it was she and Josh would end up injured or dead.

  She scanned the trees to their right, guessing they were twenty yards away, far enough from the cabin to be cloaked in darkness.

  Moonlight illuminated Josh’s face. He appeared calm, practiced at this, it seemed, as though he had slipped into a familiar second skin. It also seemed he had the same idea. Using hand signals, Josh pointed first to his face—Look at me—and next to the trees she’d been eyeing. That’s where I’m going, he was telling her. Fingers counted up one … two … three …

  When the count hit three, Josh sprang up and ran for those trees.

  Karen stood the moment Josh broke into his sprint. She fired a fusillade at the shooter, her focus splintering between her target and her son. She sank back down when the return fire came.

  Seconds later, a burst of gunfire erupted from the trees. Josh was providing cover. Hunched over, Karen zigzagged toward the tree line, careful to avoid ditches and loose rocks. Bullets slapped at the ground near her feet seconds before she took shelter among the pines. She worried her labored breathing might give her away.

  Josh pointed to a tall tree with low branches. “Are you a good shot, Mom?” he asked in a whisper.

  “I am,” Karen whispered back.

  “Good. Because I know what we’ve got to do.”

  * * *

  LEE GRIPPED Susie’s hand tightly as they made their way down the path to the lake. She squeezed back hard enough to make his knuckles ache, but the chain remained unbroken. An exposed root hidden in the dark caught Lee’s foot and when he stumbled, all stumbled, but nobody let go. The frantic dash continued at a reckless pace, all three panting like galloping horses. Tree branches clawed at Lee from the dark, leaving painful scratches across his face and arms.

  To his back, a rumble of gunshots rolled off into the distance. It took effort not to lose focus. Josh was back there, so was Karen, and despite his tremendous faith in their abilities, fear consumed him.

  Without warning, Lee’s right knee, the more bothersome of the two, buckled beneath him. Stumbling again, Lee managed to grab a tree branch and keep from falling. His overstressed lungs took in sips of air. Branches canopying overhead blocked most of the moonlight, but occasional glimpses lit the path like lanterns on a runway. They were getting closer to the lake. Good. There were cabins along the shoreline where they could take refuge. He could make a phone call from there, try to summon help.

  The shooting stopped and Lee felt panic rise up in him. Had Josh been shot? Karen? His thoughts shifted when he heard a chilling sound not far behind them. It was the crack of a fallen branch breaking underfoot. His chest tightened with a fresh band of terror.

  Someone else was on the path.

  Cloud cover cast everything in an impenetrable darkness. Another rolling boom sounded, this one much closer. Whoever was back there seemed to be gaining ground, shooting blindly in the dark, or maybe not blindly at all. The trees offered some cover and Lee was wonderin
g if they should take shelter there, when he felt a sudden, very strong tug on his arm. The force of the pull sent him backwards. Reflexively he pushed off the ground to get the chain moving in the right direction. They had to hurry.

  He could hear footsteps.

  As Lee leaned his body forward, another strong tug pulled him back again with such force he let go of Susie’s hand. He heard Susie make a muffled, anguished sound. Valerie cried out as well, but hers seemed to be a cry of panic. Moonlight returned, revealing Susie, down on the ground, her arms twitching incredibly fast. They moved up, down, and sideways in variable patterns. Lee bent to pick her up, but the twitching made it impossible to take hold of her. He tried again, managing this time to hoist her off the ground, but she skittered like a live fish in his arms and soon slipped from his grasp.

  Back on the ground, Susie grunted and moaned. It was like nothing he had ever seen. She had not lost consciousness, another indicator this was a seizure unlike any other.

  “I can’t stop it—I can’t stop!” she cried out frantically.

  Valerie sank to her knees and made shushing sounds, hoping to keep Susie quiet, but her arms jolted and jerked as though she were continuously awakening from a nightmare. Lee bent down to try and pick her up again when a lone figure, broad in the shoulders, materialized on the path behind them.

  He stepped into a wide swath of sudden moonlight. Even without his mustache, Lee would have recognized the repairman anywhere. The pistol in his hand was more like a miniaturized machine gun, an old-looking weapon.

  He aimed the gun at Lee, but hesitated as his gaze turned to Susie still twitching on the ground. He seemed baffled by her, maybe even intrigued, and for the briefest of moments, he was distracted.

  Lee saw murder in the man’s eyes and his mind went blank as his fear fell away. A single notion drove him: act or die. Springing forward like he was back on the high school football team, Lee stretched his arms out wide, his body leaning, fully airborne, almost horizontal to the ground. The repairman swiveled, aimed his pistol at Lee’s streaking frame, and fired.

  * * *

  JOSH POINTED to the nearby tree with low branches.