The Running Mate (A Jack Houston St. Clair Thriller)

by Andrew Delaplaine

  Even now, only local police were responding. There wasn’t even a SWAT Team coming over the bridge onto St. Clair Island, just fire trucks, ambulances, cops. He estimated that he had an hour before the island was truly secure, an hour before enough of the really expert operatives arrived who would know how to properly lock down the target area.

  An hour to find Dumaine and kill him.

  He ducked below the top of the seawall to the dock below as one of the Coast Guard patrol boats—it looked like a 25-foot USCG TPSB, an open deck port security boat with a gun mounted in the bow—swept the area where he was hiding with a spotlight. The guardsmen saw nothing and the boat moved on.

  Shahzad peered above the seawall again, just in time to see President St. Clair and his son and a few others—he recognized the son’s girlfriend, Francesca Santopietro—walking across the 16th green where a few of his men lay dead. He saw that they were all carrying weapons—good weapons, too—even Francesca. The President himself carried a P90.

  Now Shahzad understood why they had encountered such stiff defensive fire as they approached the trees. The President had been over at his son’s house—for whatever reason—and the son must have had a mini-arsenal with which to arm the people with him at a moment’s notice.

  Now he remembered! The son, this Jack Houston St. Clair—he’d been a SEAL. The weapons came from the son, who had them in his house.

  And here came Dumaine out of the trees, accompanied by his Body Man, Harcourt, and a fat, older man Shahzad did not recognize. Both Harcourt and the fat man carried automatic weapons. Dumaine carried nothing.

  In the space of a minute or so, Dumaine would pass closest to Shahzad’s hiding place on his way back to Flagler Hall and the enveloping safety of a large security force that Shahzad knew would not make the same mistakes twice. This would be his one and only chance. Merely raise himself above the protective seawall about six inches, level his H&P MP5 and fire steadily. He’d be able to cut Dumaine in half if he just kept his finger on the trigger long enough. He’d also get the Body Man and the older man, but he didn’t care about them. He wanted Dumaine.

  Another ten seconds and Dumaine was his.

  Suddenly, movement to his right!

  Shahzad didn’t jerk his head. He just moved his eyes, ever so slowly. Yes, there was someone inching in his direction in a low-crawl, on his belly, little by little. A military man by the way he moved. He’d crawl forward, then stop, then move again, then stop.

  Shahzad only had two choices. He either fired first at Dumaine while he had a chance, or he fired at the man crawling toward him. The man crawling toward him obviously had a weapon. Dumaine did not.

  Still, if he swiveled fast, sprayed the man coming at him with a rapid burst, then immediately swung back without taking his finger off the trigger, he could possibly take out the man coming toward him and strike Dumaine before Dumaine even had a chance to react.

  But he would have to be lucky, hoping that the military man did not get off any rounds that might get Shahzad, disabling him to the point that he couldn’t swing back to get Dumaine and accomplish his mission.

  A chance. A big one.

  Shahzad made his decision.

  On three.

  One, two—

  Pivot!

  He pressed the trigger as he turned, not even waiting for his body to be facing the military man, spraying bullets at the man on his belly.

  * * *

  But Jack, hoping to get to the same cover as the commando he was stalking, had rolled over twice on his stomach just as the man turned toward him firing away, and so did not get hit, rolling over the seawall and down to the dock below just in time. But as Jack rolled over, he let out a mini-burst of fire, just as a covering tactic.

  He wasn’t sure if he’d hit the guy or not, because the fire continued as Jack rolled over the wall and out of sight.

  When Jack looked up above the seawall, he saw Dumaine, Harcourt and Verges all on the ground. He wasn’t sure if they’d been hit or not.

  Just then, he heard a splash, collected himself and moved cautiously down to the part of the dock—three boats away—where the commando had been waiting to strike.

  He whipped on his night-vision goggles, scanned the area between two yachts where he figured the commando had entered the water, but saw nothing.

  * * *

  Below the surface, as he sank deeper, Shahzad thought: It’s never a piece of cake.

  * * *

  CHAPTER 101

  Two days later, the weather had finally cleared in Washington for the Inauguration of President Dumaine.

  He took the oath of office from the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, his twin daughters holding the family Bible, standing in for their absent mother.

  Dumaine then turned to face the huge crowd below to deliver his Inaugural Address.

  “My journey to the White House has challenged every fiber of my being. My losses have been beyond description… But let me assure you, my fellow Americans, my resolve remains strong, it is steady, it is certain. This great nation is on the threshold of a momentous leap forward. I pledge to all Americans, that we are embarked on this great journey and with vision and courage, together we will reach a magnificent destination.”

  When applause erupted, Dumaine took the opportunity to glance over his shoulder and smile at President St. Clair. Jack, sitting next to his father, noticed that Dumaine’s eyes shifted to the row behind him and his dad. He turned around and looked into a face smiling back at the new President.

  Tim Harcourt.

  Jack thought, It’s going to be a long four years.

  * * *

  Epilogue

  Two nights earlier, as he sank beneath the 50-foot yacht, aptly named Born Again, Shahzad whipped out a mini-rebreather and put it in his mouth so he could breath underwater for about five minutes.

  He cursed himself. After pivoting to get the military man creeping up on him and then whipping back to nail Dumaine, he’d lost his footing on the dock soaked by the rough waters of the Bay, and simply slipped off the dock into the water.

  Before he sank too far, he swam around the yacht to take cover on the side facing the Bay so he could not be seen from the dock and ditched most of his gear, retaining just his knapsack.

  All the boats and all the personnel had converged on Flagler Hall, so there were no guards at all covering the seawall along which Shahzad kept up a steady breaststroke. When he reached the abandoned CRRCs, he hoisted himself over the gunwale and into one of them, pausing for a few minutes to catch his breath.

  The slip had occurred so suddenly, he’d never had a chance to look over to the 16th green to see if he got Dumaine or not.

  Nothing he could do about it now—except try to survive and get out of this place. He was now on the farthest east side of the island while all the action was happening on the west side. He was safe for maybe a half hour, but no more. There would be dozens of boats heading toward St. Clair Island this very minute. He had to hurry.

  He got the Zodiac powered up, and with the silent engines was able to maneuver north under the narrow bridge connecting St. Clair Island to Miami Beach, hugging the seawall, shrouded in shadows, unobserved by the minimal number of gate guards on the bridge who were taken up with clearing the narrow roadway for the dozens of emergency and police vehicles pouring nonstop onto the island.

  As soon as he cleared the bridge, he piloted the Zodiac to the Miami Beach side where he left it at the dock of one of those houses whose owners were not in town. The shutters were tightly closed on all the windows and doors. He clambered up onto the dock and hid in the cabana by the pool. Inside, he turned on a light and stripped out of his commando outfit. From his waterproof backpack, he took a sealed bag that contained a lightweight pair of pants and a loud Hawaiian style shirt. He quickly changed and took off by foot for Bay Harbor Islands, just over another bridge a few blocks away.

  There were hundreds of people now lining the docks looking over to St.
Clair Island. Thousands of blue police lights flashed. Shahzad worked his way through the crowd, expressing the same shock and wonder as all the other onlookers, until he got to the safety of his penthouse apartment.

  He left the lights out when he came through the front door and went out to the terrace to have a look at his handiwork.

  The Secret Service bungalows were burned to the ground, with just wisps of smoke rising from the ruins as firefighters hosed them down. Dozens of bodies of Secret Service agents mowed down as they escaped from the burning houses, littered the grounds. (A few of his own men were among them.) He could smell the charred remnants of the houses as well as the burned out Sikorsky, half of which had landed on the 18th green with the other half hitting the water just this side of the seawall.

  Shahzad went back into the apartment, to the kitchen, where he got a bottle of Corona and popped it open. He went back out to the terrace and watched as the Americans swarmed over the island and especially Flagler Hall.

  He wondered how many his men had killed in the rooms between the two suites that were supposed to be occupied by Dumaine and St. Clair. He himself hadn’t gone into any of them. But he remembered the muffled sounds of weapons shooting point blank into the heads of those who’d only been wounded when his men burst into each room.

  Had they killed Dumaine’s two daughters? The twins? He hoped so.

  Had he killed Dumaine? He didn’t know. He’d slipped into the water so fast that he never got a chance to turn his head to confirm the kill.

  No matter. It would be in the papers tomorrow.

  * * *

  In the morning, Shahzad called Annie Schwartz and told him he loved his apartment so much, he wanted to buy it, or, if this particular unit was not available, then something similar in the same building. He was lucky, she said, as there were three units for sale in his building, even though they weren’t penthouses.

  That didn’t matter to him, he told her. Yes, what happened on St. Clair Island last night was terrible. Horrendous. Yes, it was inconceivable that foreigners could swoop in and try to kill their President, even if he was a Republican, she insisted.

  He knew how busy she must be, but would it be possible for her to drop by his apartment later this morning to show him the other units? Of course, she’d be delighted. If she came over within the hour, would that be too soon? That would be perfect, he said.

  * * *

  When Shahzad let Annie Schwartz in, she was rattling on about the events of the previous night in a stream-of-consciousness monologue that ceased only when she turned around and saw Shahzad pointing a gun at her.

  “What’s that?” she asked, as if she were genuinely curious.

  Shahzad could not suppress an amused smile.

  “This is a Beretta 21-A Bobcat, Annie.”

  “You’re not interested in the apartment?”

  He had to admire the woman. She was all business. But so was he.

  “I don’t need an apartment, Annie. I need a car.”

  “But—” she protested before Shahzad shot her once in the heart. After she crumpled to the white tile floor, he went over and gave her a round in the head.

  He dug into her purse for her keys, found them and also took some breath mints he found.

  He collected what he needed from the apartment and went down to locate her royal blue Caddie sedan. He remembered the car when Annie had driven him around to look at apartments earlier in the operation.

  Looking around and seeing no one paying him any attention, he slid into Annie’s car and drove over to I-95.

  Heading north, he drove to Palm Beach International Airport, booked the next available flight coach class to Atlanta and boarded his flight. In Atlanta, he switched to first-class for the flight to New York, where he bought another first-class ticket, this time to Madrid.

  By the time he got home to Tehran, he still had one of Annie’s breath mints left.

  Black Kitty Cottage

  South Beach

  20 October 2011

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