Guess we did need all that practice with Gus-Gus and Ninja-Noid.
Zander gave the door a gentle push. The guard, curious but cautious, climbed the porch steps. He used the muzzle of his rifle to nudge it open. He must have suspected we were nearby, because then he slammed the door against the wall and charged inside.
He thought we were weaponless—and that was his mistake.
I came at him from beneath his hands, my sticks crossed like scissors, slicing upward. As the muzzle of his gun jerked up, Zander dealt two blows to the guy’s solar plexus, knocking the wind from him. I swung around and, with the butt of my stick, clipped him on the jaw, sending him senseless to the floor. Zander caught the gun as it dropped from the guard’s hands. We dragged him inside.
“Get his radio, Jay.”
I did. We heard another guard whispering over the radio, “SitRep, Jones.”
When Jones didn’t answer, the same voice said, “We have a situation. Close in on the house.”
I won’t bore you with the blow-by-blow, except to say that simulations are one thing and reality—with bullets flying—is another. I’d already been shot once, and I didn’t relish a second go-round. On the other hand, when faced with multiple adversaries, that’s when training and muscle memory kick in: You do exactly what you’ve been trained to do.
After five minutes of hard fighting, we’d laid out the remaining three guards. We were dirty and sweaty, and I was shaking from the roar of adrenaline coursing through my body.
“Good work, cupcake.”
“You, too, studly.”
Jayda Cruz, we have accessed the Internet through one of the guards’ cellphones and have received a report from the President’s nanobug array.
My jaw dropped. “We bugged the President?”
“Uh, I may have sent an array to him,” Zander confessed.
Perhaps you should focus on the report, Jayda Cruz.
“Right. What’s going on, Nano?”
The President’s array tells us that the Vice President used a botulinum-based bio-chemical compound to poison the President. The Vice President and the President are alone, and the nanobugs report that the President requires urgent medical intervention.
“Nano, where are they? Where is the President?”
Camp David, Jayda Cruz.
“What can you do from this distance?”
We can hack Axel Kennedy’s earwig, Jayda Cruz.
“Do it! Tell him the President has been poisoned!”
Done, Jayda Cruz.
“What can the President’s array do to help him before medical assistance arrives?”
The nanomites did not instantly answer—but seconds later, they said, We have done what we can with the array’s limited abilities, Jayda Cruz. Unfortunately, the majority of the toxin was inhaled and only a small amount was ingested. We could do more if we were closer.
They paused, then added, And we must do more, Jayda Cruz. Medical attention will not be enough to save the President.
“Zander, we need to get to the President or he’ll die.”
“Yeah, I heard.” Zander patted down one of the unconscious guards and grabbed his cellphone. “Nano, get Mal on the line.”
Moments later, we’d connected with Mal.
“Listen, Mal, the President’s been poisoned. He’s at Camp David, and he’s not going to make it unless we get to him, and fast.”
Mal was incredulous. “You know the President?”
“Long story, but he needs our help.”
“What in the world can you two do for him that the doctors can’t?”
“Uh, you already know we’re not exactly standard issue, right? Trust me, we can help him. The question is, can you send a chopper for us, so we get to him in time?”
“Are you out of your minds? You think you can just land an unauthorized chopper at Camp David?”
“The President will likely be evacuated to a hospital by the time we’re in the air. We’ll tell Axel Kennedy we’re coming. He’ll clear the way.”
“Whoever that is.”
“Kennedy’s the lead agent on the President’s protective detail.”
I could almost hear Mal’s back straightening. He covered the phone and shouted some orders we couldn’t make out.
“Right, then. We’re spooling up now. Send me your coordinates.”
Chapter 38
DELANCEY GLANCED AT his watch. “I suppose we’ve waited long enough.” He began to push himself out of the comforting sofa cushions.
“Aaaaa . . .” Jackson’s eyes pleaded with Delancey.
“I’m sorry. If I believed in an afterlife, I would wish you well, Mr. President. As I do not, I will simply say, ‘Goodbye.’”
Jackson felt something rising from his stomach. The sensation was strange and foreign—as though it did not belong to him—but within seconds, he knew he was going to be sick.
The expulsion was so violent that, although he was unable to move his body himself, the impetus pitched him forward, and he emptied the contents of his stomach onto the coffee table. He continued to retch and purge, each ejection beyond his control.
Delancey sneered with disgust. “Must I dose you again?”
He removed the inhaler from his pocket. “I was unable to shake it earlier, in the heat of the moment. Perhaps the compound was not properly mixed.”
He shook the inhaler with vigor. “It will be this time.”
ACROSS THE COMPOUND in the camp office, Axel Kennedy jumped straight out of his chair.
“Sir?” The Navy master chief who was briefing him stepped back and, out of inbred caution, slid a hand to his holstered sidearm and checked around them for a threat.
“Shh!” Kennedy frowned and cupped his hand over his ear to listen . . . to the unfamiliar and tinny voice speaking through his earwig.
Axel Kennedy, the Vice President has poisoned President Jackson. He requires immediate antitoxin for a weaponized botulinum substance. We have induced vomiting to purge the President’s stomach and throat, but most of the toxin was inhaled rather than ingested.
“What the—”
The message repeated as if it were a recording on a loop.
Kennedy shouted into his comm link, “Medical! Send medical to Aspen Lodge—and fire up Marine One for Stonewall emergency evac!” He jerked his finger at the master chief. “You. Get the camp commander and prepare your Navy squids to take the Vice President into custody for attempted assassination. Go! Now!”
The master chief grabbed his radio. Kennedy ran from the camp office, picking up agents from the President and Vice President’s detail as he sprinted up the hill to Aspen Lodge. Two of the agents who joined the rush toward Aspen Lodge were Callister and Mitchell.
Kennedy put his hand on his sidearm and vowed, I will shoot you both without hesitation if you even zig the wrong way.
He was first through the door of Aspen Lodge. President Jackson was sprawled facedown across the coffee table. Delancey held something near Jackson’s face.
“Stop!” Kennedy roared.
Delancey jerked upright when the doors flew open. His hearing may not have been as sharp as it once had been, but his wits were.
“I . . . The President! He vomited and collapsed—he needs help!” Keeping his left side toward the door, he slid something into his right pocket.
Kennedy pointed his gun at Delancey. “Move away from him, Delancey.”
Delancey’s face was a perfect mask of shock and worry. “What? Please. Help the President.”
“Secure the Vice President,” Kennedy ordered two of his own agents.
Callister and Mitchell moved forward.
“Not you two—stand down.”
“He’s our protectee,” Callister objected.
“Not anymore.” He shifted his aim to cover Callister and Mitchell. “Over there. Now.”
The master chief and a squad of ten sailors charged into the lodge, followed by the onsite medical team and the camp commander. The emerg
ency technicians laid the President on his back on the floor and went to work on him.
“I have it on good authority that the President inhaled a botulinum toxin,” Kennedy told the techs.
He then motioned toward Callister and Mitchell. “Master Chief, disarm those two agents and take them into custody. I want cuffs on them—” He turned to the VP. “—and I want two sailors on this traitor. Hold his arms securely; do not allow him to move his hands. However, do not search him yet.”
Callister and Mitchell’s mouths turned down in anger, but they did not resist. Three sailors relieved the agents of their service weapons and put them in handcuffs. The Vice President, on the other hand, launched a perfect fit of indignation and tried to shake off the sailors who took hold of his arms, forcing his hands behind him.
“Release me! I am the Vice President of the United States!”
“Careful,” Kennedy ordered. “I believe he put the toxin in the right pocket of his trousers—you don’t want to come into contact with it.”
The sailors hardened their jaws and tightened their grip on Delancey’s arms. The old man panted in red-faced fury.
“The rest of you—” Kennedy indicated those present. “No one leaves this room until the President does.” Then he called out, “I need an evidence bag!”
An agent offered him one. Kennedy made no move to take it.
“Those of you who can spare me your attention? Eyes on me. And sir?” He motioned for the camp commander to join him.
When he had the notice of everyone other than the medical team, Kennedy said, “All of you are witnesses. Please note that we have taken the Vice President into custody, but we have not searched him.
“You, Agent Randolph.” Kennedy gestured to the agent with the evidence bag. “Search the Vice President. Make sure you wear gloves. Master Chief? I would like you to observe the process.”
Kennedy then deferred to the O-5 in command of the camp. “Commander?”
“Master Chief!”
“Aye, sir?”
“Eyes on.”
“Aye-aye, sir.”
Kennedy motioned to another agent. “I want video evidence of the process. When you are finished, give your phone to the Commander. Chain of custody.”
Randolph, the Secret Service agent with the evidence bag, grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the medical team. With the master chief watching closely and an agent shooting video, Randolph patted down the VP. He stopped when he reached the right pocket of the man’s slacks.
“Here, sir.” His splayed fingers outlined the bulge in Delancey’s pocket. The other agent photographed the find.
Kennedy gave the agent a nod. “Bring it out. Show it, photograph it, then double bag it. It is evidence of treason. Commander? Will you take charge of the prisoners and the crime scene?”
“Consider it done, Agent Kennedy.”
“Make a hole!” an emergency responder shouted. The EMTs had the President on a gurney and were anxious to wheel him out.
Kennedy had one more thing to say. “This is now an ongoing investigation of the gravest order. I need a complete communications blackout so as not to alert other possible participants in the plot. Commander, can you accommodate that?”
“I can.” He commanded the room. “Lips tight, people. If you speak, text, email, or so much as wink at anyone outside this room? You will face court martial. If you look cross-eyed at any member of the press corps? You will face court martial. Have I made myself clear?”
“Aye-aye, sir!”
Kennedy raced after the gurney. The whine of Marine One’s engines, some four hundred feet away, rumbled in the mountain air. The unscheduled departure of the President alone would alert the press corps to an emergency of some kind.
Initially, Delancey’s accomplices would believe the Vice President had succeeded. Kennedy figured they had a few hours tops before Delancey’s cronies figured out that the assassination had failed—if. If the President survived.
When the President had been loaded onto the helicopter, Kennedy squeezed aboard.
“Go, go, go!”
They were in the air when his earwig again emitted that tinny, eerie voice.
Agent Kennedy, pick up the call.
Kennedy glanced at his phone’s black screen—just before it lit up with an incoming call from a number he did not recognize. He lifted the phone to his ear.
“Agent Kennedy?”
He knew the voice, but he didn’t say her name aloud. “Yes.”
“The nanomites tell us that the President will not survive without their help. Our ride is here, and we’ll be in the air shortly. Where can we meet you?”
Kennedy grimaced. “Are you sure the nanomites can help him?”
“They are the best shot we have at saving him.”
“I need your tail number.”
She repeated it to him, and he committed it to memory.
“Walter Reed,” he murmured. “I’ll have agents on the helipad to wave you in but . . . I will be with the President, and I don’t know how I can get you to him.”
“Leave that to us.”
MALWARE’S CHOPPER SET down in front of the farmhouse, and Mal, Gamble, McFly, and Logan jumped out. McFly and Logan were to help Gamble deliver the four unconscious guards into FBI custody.
Mal, Zander, and I were in the air minutes later, speeding toward Walter Reed.
Twenty minutes had elapsed between our call to Mal and when he and the helo arrived. During that time, the nanomites had downloaded the entirety of the President’s array for us to review. Most revealing was the Vice President’s lengthy monologue as the President, unable to move and slowly dying, was forced to listen.
We now had the identity of our cold-blooded mystery woman—Winnie Delancey. I was furious that she’d been right there, in front of our eyes the entire time, and we hadn’t seen her. We certainly hadn’t suspected venerable, old Senator Delancey. Even as gun shy as President Jackson had been after being betrayed by Vice President Harmon, Simon Delancey, with his kind manners and sage advice, had managed to worm his way into Jackson’s trust and confidence—guided by his wife’s whispers in the background.
Winnie Delancey: aka Pham Quang Bi`nh, according to her husband’s revelations. A Viet Cong interrogator and spy, a treasonous double agent—the brains behind General Cushing, Vice President Harmon, the moles in the Secret Service, NSA Deputy Director Danforth, and the death of the President’s friend, Wayne Overman.
“A monster,” I breathed. “A monster who must face justice.”
We couldn’t do anything ourselves about Winnie Delancey, not with the President’s life in jeopardy. We had to get the nanomites to him.
“Send the array’s audio to Agent Kennedy’s phone, Nano. Tell him it is evidence of Simon and Winnie Delancey’s treason. Make sure he understands that Winnie Delancey is the architect of the collusion. Someone needs to go after her before she books it.”
Mal looked us over. “Gotta say, John-Boy, you two look like poop.”
“Yeah. In the last eighteen hours we got Darius and Macy’s babies back, beat off four armed guards, alerted the Secret Service to an assassination attempt on the President, and—oh, yeah—almost died in the process. In the totality of things, looking like poop isn’t too bad—but thanks for cleaning up your language for us,” Zander snarked.
“Good work, both of you,” Mal admitted. “And the President’s condition?”
“Don’t know yet,” I whispered.
O God, please help our President. If the nanomites can do it, please get us to him in time. And Lord? Please be with Maddie Jackson right now.
While we flew, Zander, Mal, and I talked strategy—not that much was needed.
“It’s simple, really. One of us, either Zander or I, must make it to the President’s side.” I thought for a moment. “Hey, Mal? On another note, we kind of need a favor.”
He snorted “Another one?”
“Yeah, it’s kind of important. You know th
at farmhouse where you picked us up?”
“Uh-huh. Why do I think I’m not going to like this?”
Zander chimed in, “Probably ’cause you won’t.”
“At least you two are never boring. What do you need, Ripley?”
“Uh, we need that place, in particular the basement, to go ‘boom.’”
“You want me to demo the place.”
“Itty bitty pieces, please.”
Mal shook his head, but he pulled his phone and dialed.
Jayda Cruz?
“Yes, Nano?”
We have a question.
“Okay.”
We had many discussions concerning the nanobug arrays prior to assigning them to their surveillance targets. You were insistent that, when we uncovered the conspiracy against the President, we were to destroy the nanobug arrays.
“Uh-huh.”
Do you require continued surveillance on the two Secret Service agents now in custody? We have downloaded the entirety of their take.
“Um, which two agents are in custody?”
Axel Kennedy had Agents Callister and Mitchell arrested at Camp David.
“Did he? Cool! That’s great news. But why were you asking about the arrays?”
If the arrays are no longer needed, we wish to abort them, Jayda Cruz.
I glanced at Zander, who was listening in. He shrugged. I shrugged.
“I suppose it’s all right.”
Very good, Jayda Cruz.
Mal’s pilot was in radio contact with the hospital; Kennedy had cleared us to land—but not necessarily to a warm welcome. As we came in, we saw Marine One on the ground on Walter Reed’s helo pad, waiting for a President who might never ride in it again.
We were told to put down on the grass, away from Marine One. When our chopper flared to touch down, the commotion on the ground picked up and, as the pilot switched off our engines, armed Secret Service surrounded the chopper.
Mal, Zander, and I had our simple strategy ready. Mal threw open the helo door and, lifting his hands over his head per the Secret Service’s command, climbed out first. Next came Zander and the pilot, who did the same. The pilot looked around, confused that I wasn’t lined up on the grass with the others.
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