First Family

by David Baldacci

  JANE COX had not entrusted the task of checking the post office box to her staff. It was too important. The dilemma was, as First Lady, it was nearly impossible to go anywhere without an enormous entourage. By law, the president and First Lady could not travel unaccompanied.

  She came downstairs from the First Family’s quarters. She had a rare two hours where she had nothing to do, so she’d informed her chief of staff that she wanted to go for a ride. She had done this every day since receiving the letter. She had put her foot down, though. No motorcade. One limo and one tail car. She had insisted on this.

  It wasn’t Cadillac One or what the Service referred to as “the Beast,” the ten-thousand-pound nearly nuclear-attack-proof ride that was reserved for the president or the First Couple when they traveled together by car. In truth, she hated riding in the Beast. The windows were phonebook thick and you couldn’t hear a single sound from outside. It felt suffocating, like you were underwater or on another planet.

  Three agents rode with her in the limo, six others in the tail SUV. The agents were not pleased with this arrangement, but they took some comfort from the fact that no one could know the First Lady was even inside the vehicle. Many limos left the White House at all hours, and the First Lady’s public schedule listed no trips today. Still, they kept a constant vigil as they tracked through the streets of D.C.

  At her instruction, the car stopped across the street from a nondescript Mail Boxes Etc. shop in the city’s southwest quadrant. From this vantage point Jane could see directly through the store window to the line of post office boxes against one wall. She wrapped a scarf around her head, put a hat on over this and tugged it down low. Sunglasses covered her eyes. She put up the collar of her overcoat.

  “Ma’am, please,” said her security detail chief. “We haven’t cleared the shop.”

  “You haven’t cleared the shop anytime since I started coming here,” she said imperturbably. “And exactly nothing has happened.”

  “But if something does, ma’am…” His voice trailed off, the strain in his eyes clear. If something did go wrong, his career was over. The rest of the detail looked just as anxious. None of them wanted to blow their careers up over this.

  “I told you before, I will accept all responsibility.”

  “But it could be a trap.”

  “I will accept all responsibility.”

  “But it’s our job to protect you.”

  “And it’s my job to make decisions about my family. You can watch from the car, but you are not to leave the vehicle for any reason.”

  “Ma’am, rest assured, I will leave this vehicle if I see you threatened in any way.”

  “Fine. I can live with that.”

  As soon as she left the car, the lead agent said, “Shit.” Under his breath he added another word that rhymed perfectly with “twitch.”

  All faces in the two cars, including four using high-powered optics, were glued to the glass watching the First Lady cross the street and enter the shop. Unknown to Jane Cox, there were three Secret Service agents already in the shop, all dressed casually and ostensibly customers, plus two more in the rear guarding that entry. The Service was well used to dealing with high-spirited, demanding, and independent-minded First Family members.

  Jane went directly to the mailbox, used her key to open it, and found nothing there. She was back in the car in under a minute.

  “Drive,” she said, as she sank back against the leather.

  “Ma’am,” said the detail leader. “Is there anything we can help you with here?”

  “No one can help me,” she said defiantly, but her voice broke slightly.

  The ride back to the White House was made in silence.

  The moment the First Lady had left the White House Aaron Betack had gone into action. Under the pretense of doing a routine bug sweep of the corridor where the First Lady’s office was situated, he entered her suite and asked the staff members there to step outside while the check was conducted.

  It only took him a minute to go into the First Lady’s inner office, pick the lock of her desk drawer, find the letter, make a copy of it, and return the original to the desk. He glanced at the contents of the paper before thrusting it in his suit pocket.

  It was the first time in his government career that he’d ever done anything like that. He had in fact just committed a criminal act for which he would pull several hard years in a federal prison if he were ever caught.

  Somehow, it seemed worth every minute of such a sentence.

  CHAPTER 55

  SEAN AND MICHELLE had spent most of the evening and much of the next day learning that collectively there were dozens of military facilities located in Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama with hundreds of thousands of military personnel assigned to them. Too many, in fact, for that to be of much use in their investigation. They were sitting in their office when Sean had an idea. He called Chuck Waters and left a message. A few minutes later the FBI agent called back.

  “The isotope exam you did on the hair sample?” Sean began.

  “What about it?”

  “Did it show anything else?”

  “Like what?”

  “I know that it can tell what your diet has been like for years, but can it also show any anomalies in that chain?”

  “Anomalies?”

  “Like a break in the chain, where it shows a different type of diet, at least for a period of time?”

  “Hold on.”

  Sean heard some paper rustling and a chair squeaking.

  “I don’t see anything like that,” Waters said.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary?”

  More paper rustled. “Well, I’m no scientist, but you know how we were discussing that the perp was probably rural because of the unprocessed meats and vegetables and the well water?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, there was elevated levels of salt, which makes sense if these folks are preserving stuff, right?”

  “Right. We already discussed that.”

  “Well, in addition to the elevated levels of that, there was higher than normal amounts of sodium.”

  “But, Chuck, sodium is salt. That would be from canning vegetables and curing meat. We covered that.”

  “Hey, Einstein, I know that. But they’ve developed new technologies that can let them distinguish between certain types of sodium found with the isotope exam. What the tests show is elevated levels of a specialized sodium product that is commercially produced but not readily available to the public.”

  “Would that be because they supply a certain government entity? Like the military? Like sodium in MREs?”

  “If you knew about the meals-ready-to-eat angle why are you wasting my time?” Waters said angrily.

  “I suspected. I didn’t know for certain until you just told me now. And since you obviously knew already, it would’ve been nice if you had volunteered the info before now.”

  “I’m running an investigation here, King, not a consulting service.”

  “There are commercially available MREs. For like the survivalists. You sure it’s not that sort of sodium?”

  “The sodium level in the military MREs are higher than the commercially available stuff. But so it was military, so what? That only narrows it down to millions of people.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “If the perps are military, can’t you run the hair sample for a DNA match through the Pentagon’s enlistment records? They require DNA samples from everybody now.”

  “I tried to, but their damn system crashed. Fighting two wars has apparently strapped their budget for computer maintenance. Won’t be back up for a couple weeks.”

  “Great.” Sean clicked off and looked at Michelle.

  “So where do MREs get us?” she said.

  “Now we know the odds are very high that the perp was military. It’s at least good to confirm that. But we still have the little issue of tracking him d
own. It doesn’t sound like we’ll be getting a DNA match anytime soon.”

  “He couldn’t still be in the military, could he?”

  “And went on some R and R to conduct a little kidnapping? And got back to base with his face all scratched up and a bullet bruise on his chest?”

  “So discharged?”

  “Presumably. Either honorably or dishonorably. But that still doesn’t help us. Because there are literally millions of former members of the military.”

  Michelle was staring at Sean’s chest.

  He looked down. “Coffee spill?” he said.

  “He was wearing body armor. Sure, you can leave the military with some government stuff, but body armor?”

  “You can get that on the street.”

  “Maybe, or you can just take it with you.”

  “Pretty tough to hide that when you’re discharged.”

  “What if you left without being discharged?”

  “AWOL?”

  “Cuts down on the millions we’d have to check. Know anybody who can look into that for us?” she asked.

  Sean picked up his phone. “Yeah, I do. A two-star I met when I was in the Service. I might be able to shake him down with an offer of Redskins tickets.”

  “You have Skins tickets?”

  “No, but for a worthy cause I can get them.”

  CHAPTER 56

  THIS IS HIGHLY IRREGULAR, Mr. Quarry,” said the physician on duty.

  “Not to me it’s not,” Quarry said back. “I’m here to get my daughter and take her home. Nothing more normal than that.”

  “But she’s on life support. She can’t breathe on her own.” The man said this as to a child.

  Quarry pulled out the papers. “I’ve been through this crap with the folks back in the office. I got full medical power of attorney and all that stuff. Basically I can take her anywhere I want to and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it, mister.”

  The doctor read over the documents Quarry handed him. “She’ll die if we take her off the machines.”

  “No she won’t. I got that all covered too.”

  “What do you mean, all covered?” the doctor said skeptically.

  “Every piece of equipment you got in her room keeping her breathing, I got too.”

  “How could that possibly be? It’s all very expensive. And complicated.”

  “Medical supply warehouse had a fire about a year ago. They had lots of stuff that wasn’t even damaged that they let go cheap because of health regulations. Ventilator with a trach tube. Vital signs monitor. Feeding tube. Oxygen tanks and a converter. IV meds dispenser unit. I checked it all out and it works just fine. In fact, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks the stuff works better than the shit you got here. It’s all pretty old. I should know, I been coming here many a year, and I don’t think you folks have changed any of it.”

  The doctor gave a forced chuckle. “Now really, Mr. Quarry.”

  Quarry cut him off. “Now you just get her all ready to go. I’ll get them to pull the ambulance up front.”

  “Ambulance?”

  “Yeah. What? You expect me to take her home in my pickup truck? Use your damn head, man. I hired me an ambulance, a special one with life support equipment. It’s waiting outside.” He snatched the papers back. “Now you just make sure she’s ready to go.” He walked off.

  “But how will you possibly take care of her?”

  Quarry wheeled back around. “I know the routine better than you do. I know how to feed her, medicate her, clean her, exercise her limbs, and turn her to keep the bedsores away, the whole shebang. You think I just come here and look at the damn floor? By the way, you ever read to her?”

  The man looked perplexed. “Read to her? No.”

  “Well I do. Have all these years. Probably the thing that really kept her alive.” He pointed at the doctor. “Just get her ready,’cause my little girl’s finally getting outta here.”

  Quarry signed a mountain of papers absolving the nursing home of any liability and, at last, Tippi left her prison while the sun was still shining. Quarry squinted against the glare and watched as they loaded his daughter into the back of the ambulance. He climbed in his old truck, gave the nursing home the finger, and led the ambulance down the road to Atlee.

  When they arrived home everything was ready. Carlos and Daryl helped the ambulance attendants carry in the gurney. Ruth Ann, tears running down her cheeks, and Gabriel, watched the procession. The adult daughter was returned to the same room she’d occupied as a young girl. Everything that had been in the room when she was young was now in it once more. Quarry and his wife had kept it all, ever since Tippi had headed out in life for what had turned out to be a too brief time. College, a stint at a marketing firm in Atlanta; and then sucking on a breathing tube at a nursing home when she was still in her twenties.

  His beautiful girl had come home, though.

  The ambulance left after a critical care nurse who had come along made certain that the equipment Quarry had was adequate and was connected up the right way. After that, Quarry closed the door behind all of them, sat next to Tippi, and took her hand in his.

  “You’re home, little girl. Daddy brought you home, Tippi.”

  He held up her hand and pointed with it to various items in the room.

  “There’s that blue ribbon you got for writing that poem. And over there’s your prom dress that your ma made for you. And you looked so beautiful in it, Tippi. Didn’t want to let you out of the house with that dress on. No sir. Didn’t want to let the boys see you like that. So pretty.” He pointed her hand at a photo on a small bookcase.

  The picture was of the entire family. Mom, Dad, and the three kids when they were still just children. Daryl wasn’t thickset yet, just cute with some baby fat. Suzie was in the middle with her usual defiant look. And then there was Tippi wearing a hat she’d made from a newspaper and a strip of leather, cocked sideways on her head, her golden hair draped around her shoulders. She had this wondrous smile on her face and this mischievous look in her eyes. Nothing much could make Quarry weep anymore. Yet every time he stared at that image of Tippi, with her life all ahead of her, in that funny hat, with those eyes burning to take the world head-on, not knowing, not even suspecting for one moment the despair, the devastating loss that they would all have to endure, the tears rose to the man’s eyes like chill bumps on a fall evening.

  He gently put her hand back down next to her side and rose to look out the window. His girl was home. And he would rejoice in that while he could. And then he would type his next letter.

  He turned back to Tippi, listening to the mechanical rise and fall of the machine that was keeping her lungs pumping, and her heart beating. Then he glanced over at the photo and managed, by closing and then reopening his eyes, to transfer the Tippi in the photo to the one in the bed. In this imaginary world, his daughter was merely resting. And at least in his mind, she would wake up, get up, hug her daddy, and get on with life.

  Quarry sank into a chair, closed his eyes again, and stayed in this other world for a little bit longer.

  CHAPTER 57

  MICHELLE’S PHONE RANG again. They had been waiting two days now to hear back from Sean’s Army buddy, but apparently getting records on AWOLs in three states was not an easy matter.

  “Who is it?” Sean asked as he leaned back in his desk chair.

  “Same number who called me before but I didn’t know who it was.”

  “Might as well answer it. We’re just sitting in neutral here anyway.”

  Michelle shrugged and punched the button. “Hello?”

  “Michelle Maxwell?”

  “Yes, who’s this?”

  “I’m Nancy Drummond. You left me a message about your mother. I was a