Pursuit

by ROBARDS, KAREN

  Harris Lowell, the White House chief of staff, stood in the aperture, one hand still on the knob, his expression changing to a glare as he realized who he was looking at. Stocky and florid-faced, with thinning ginger strands of hair arranged in a classic comb-over and bulging blue eyes, the fifty-four-year-old Lowell resembled nothing so much as a bulldog. A bad-tempered bulldog in a two-thousand-dollar pin-striped suit.

  “What the hell happened?”

  Mark shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “It’s your fucking job to know.”

  “Something got screwed up.”

  “Ya think?” Lowell made a sound that could have been a snort or a bitter laugh. Over Lowell’s shoulder, Mark could see that the command post was surprisingly full for just past two o’clock in the morning. Of course, the team that was supposed to be guarding the First Lady now had nowhere to be, so they obviously had assembled there. There were others, too, besides his people, some who were supposed to be working that shift, some who he could only assume had been brought in by the news. Some were standing, some were sprawled in chairs watching the monitors that streamed what was, for the time of night, a tremendous amount of activity going on in the halls and rooms they guarded. A few walked around, seemingly aimlessly. All were chalky-faced. All had the stunned looks of disaster victims. All were silent. And all had at least one eye on him and the confrontation taking shape in the doorway.

  “The President wants to see you. He wants to ask you some questions.” Lowell brushed past him. Mark caught the door before it could close, and held it open while he turned to look at Lowell.

  “I don’t have any answers for him right now.”

  “Your funeral.” Lowell seemed to realize the infelicitousness of his choice of words, because his expression changed. His cheeks quivered, and the bellicose glare lost a little of its brio. The reality of the First Lady’s death was just beginning to sink in for him, too.

  Funny how the world can change in an instant.

  “Give me a minute, would you?” Mark still felt like he could puke, and he’d had to pull over to pee by the side of the road twice on the ride in, but he was functioning. And he still had a job to do.

  “A minute.”

  Whether it was meant to be or not, Mark chose to take Lowell’s growl as assent. Stepping inside the brightly lit room with its windowless, steel-reinforced walls, gleaming silver banks of monitors, computers bristling with state-of-the-art technology, hanging tapestries that concealed safes holding enough hidden weaponry to fend off a small army, and rows of recharging radios, he shut the door firmly behind him. The scent of coffee from the machine in the corner was strong. It made the gorge rise in his throat.

  “Is it true about Prescott?”

  The question came from the back of the room. Mark looked at the speaker—Susan Wendell, an attractive, thirtysomething blonde who’d had kind of a thing for the single, good-looking Prescott—and nodded curtly. No good beating around the bush. Her face tightened. She swallowed once. Other than that, and a certain whiteness around her mouth, she betrayed no sign of emotion.

  Secret Service agents don’t cry.

  With a gesture, Mark gathered his people around him. Not counting himself, there were seven of them on-site: Wendell, Paul Fielding, Steve Matthews, Michael Varney, Spencer Hagan, Janelle Tandy, and Phil Janke. The first three, along with Prescott, had been on duty when he had signed out for the night. The others had apparently come in as word of the tragedy had spread.

  “Anybody know why FLOTUS and Prescott were in that car?” Mark’s voice was low. No point in airing dirty laundry in front of everybody in the room. There had been a screwup, and he wanted to know the details first. His own ass might be swinging in the wind about now, but he would do what he could to cover his team.

  Lowered eyes. A couple of head shakes. Tense expressions all around.

  “The first we knew that anything went wrong was when Prescott radioed in,” Wendell said. “He said he’d gone with Mrs. Cooper and Folly”—the Coopers’ spaniel—“to the Rose Garden, and Mrs. Cooper had gotten out of his sight and he couldn’t find her. He was panicking because she’d given him the slip, but it wasn’t like she’d been abducted or anything. She hadn’t been gone but a few minutes, and we didn’t want to make it into a big deal if it wasn’t, so we all rushed out and started looking for her. About the time we got the call about the”—her voice faltered—“the crash, we were in the process of setting up a massive search effort.” She winced. “Too late.”

  Mark’s shoulders tightened. There was a lot he wanted to say, but it was too early to start the blame game. Hell, ultimately the blame was his, anyway: These were his people. This was his job.

  “I want to know how this happened.” Mark’s voice was grim. “I want to know every single, solitary detail of what went down. Like, yesterday.” Glancing around, he jerked his head at Paul Fielding. Like all of them, thirty-nine-year-old Fielding was in excellent physical condition. But at six-two, with his chubby cheeks and mild blue eyes, his balding head and easygoing air, he always made Mark think of Buddha. A blond Buddha bobblehead in a Secret Service suit. At the moment, Fielding was sweating slightly although the room was cool. He knew the feeling; he also knew Fielding, considered him a friend as well as a colleague. More to the point, he trusted Fielding. He and Fielding had gone through the Academy together. Mark’s star had risen higher and faster, mainly because he put more into the job. His life, in fact.

  Fielding hadn’t made that mistake. He was still married to his first wife, and he had kids who loved him.

  “When I come back, I want to watch replays of the surveillance tapes from ten p.m. on,” he said to Fielding as the man moved to stand beside him. A sharp rap on the vaultlike door behind him made Mark grit his teeth: Lowell, impatient as always. “Not just Mrs. Cooper but everything. I want to see every single move anybody made in or around the residence. Anybody who entered. Anybody who left. Anybody who so much as sneezed in front of the elevator. And I want video from the Rose Garden. And from every exit out of the Eighteen Acres. Every one, you understand? I want to know when she left, I want to know how she left, I want to know who she was with, and I want to know why she was in that fucking car.”

  Fielding nodded. “You got it.”

  “You realize we’re going to take the heat for this, people. It’s imperative we get some answers fast.”

  Fielding nodded again, along with the rest of them. Mark knew they all understood the point he was making: Not only their asses but the Secret Service’s reputation was on the line.

  Whatever had occurred to put Mrs. Cooper in that crash, the bottom line was they had failed.

  Now that the knowledge had well and truly sunk in, it was starting to eat at him. He felt as jumpy as a frog leg in a frying pan.

  Failure is not an option.

  Another rap on the door, louder than before.

  Fucking Lowell.

  “I also want to know everything there is to know about Jessica Ford.” Her name had lodged in his memory, along with her bloodied face and small, crumpled form. If he hadn’t stumbled across her, would she have lain out there until she died?

  More to the point, who was she to Annette Cooper? And what was she doing in that damned car?

  Thanks to the press, the world would know the answers soon enough. He wanted to know first.

  “Isn’t she the survivor?” Wendell, always quicker than the rest, met his gaze with sharpened interest. Ever the professional, she was keeping any personal-level grief she felt at Prescott’s passing well hidden.

  “Survivor?” Mark frowned.

  “That’s what they’re saying on CNN. That there were four people in the First Lady’s car, and one survived.”

  Mark felt surprised, then felt stupid for feeling surprised. He’d seen the reporters on the scene for himself, seen the trucks and cameras circling the White House. Why hadn’t he realized that every tiny detail they could scratch up would be broa
dcast instantly around the world?

  “Jesus.” He’d known it, of course, but the reality was just now hitting home: The scope of this thing was going to be huge. Global. An international convulsion that would play out in the media for days, possibly weeks, maybe even months to come. And everybody in the world who was in the least bit interested was going to know every tiny dredged-up detail about Annette Cooper’s life and death—unless some things could be kept hidden. He hoped to God they could be kept hidden. “Yeah, she’s the survivor. And I want to know who the hell she is, and what the hell she was doing in that car. In about fifteen minutes, tops.”

  “I’m on it,” Wendell said.

  “Okay, everybody keep your mouths shut on this subject until further notice. No talking to anybody—and I mean anybody—outside this group.”

  With a nod of dismissal, he turned to open the door. Lowell was standing there, hand raised to knock again, glaring at him. Behind him, the long corridor was filling with people. More Secret Service agents coming in, heading for the room he was just exiting. Medical personnel bound for the in-house clinic. FBI agents. Housekeeping staff. Some military types. More than a few were openly weeping. Others were pale, grim. Most looked to be in the first disbelieving stages of shock.

  Hell, he was still in that stage himself. But he was being forced out of it fast. Survival mode was kicking in.

  “You got no room for error here, Ryan,” Lowell warned under his breath as they stepped across the hall to the elevator that would take them up to the family residence. “The President wants an explanation. Where the hell were you guys?”

  “I don’t know what happened yet. I will.”

  Lowell grunted. After that they rode up in silence. At its heart, the White House is a vast, impersonal office building with a small, ultra-luxurious hotel inside where the First Family lives. Now he was headed up to the equivalent of the presidential suite. Mark stared at his reflection in the shiny brass wall. For the first time he became aware that he was sweaty and dirty-looking, his jaw dark with stubble, still wearing the black suit he’d worn to work on Saturday—he’d taken off his jacket and tie when he’d gotten home, sat on the couch, clicked on the TV, and been in the middle of eating his Big Mac when he’d gotten the call about the accident, grabbed his jacket again, and headed out—with his white shirt stained and limp and no tie. Not exactly Secret Service regulation. Well, it couldn’t be helped, and under the circumstances he guessed it didn’t matter.

  Right now he had bigger problems than being on the wrong side of the Secret Service dress code.

  When the elevator opened, the hush was what he noticed first. It was thick and heavy, palpable as fog. The scent of fresh cut roses from a huge crystal bowl opposite the elevator made the whole place smell like a damned funeral parlor. He tried not to think about that as he followed Lowell into a small anteroom and through the double doors that led to the elegantly furnished foyer of the family residence. Price Ferris of the presidential Secret Service detail met them inside the foyer. They exchanged the briefest of greetings. Beyond Ferris, he could see that the Yellow Oval Room was already full of people. Some important—he spotted popular vice president Sears and his wife and the Secretary of State and his—and some not, like the First Nephew. They were milling around, drinks in hand, talking in near whispers that combined to roll out into the hallway like the steady hum of traffic. The somber mood was palpable from where he stood. Nodding at his fellow agents as he passed them—and getting the distinct feeling from the looks he received in return that he was about to get his balls nailed to the wall—Mark followed Ferris and Lowell down the long hall to the President’s bedroom.

  And tried to ignore the knots in his gut.

  Ferris knocked at the door. Another agent, Donald Petrowski, opened it. Mark followed Lowell into the room.

  David Cooper was sprawled on his back on the big mahogany four-poster in the bedroom that had served every president since Calvin Coolidge. He wasn’t a big man—maybe five-ten, one sixty-five—but, thanks to the workout room on the third floor, he was exceptionally fit for a fifty-eight-year-old. Mark knew from personal experience on Cooper’s security detail that his healthy tan owed more to some kind of spray than to the great outdoors, and his famous mane of silver hair got a little help from the dye bottle, but, hey, the guy had cameras trained on him twenty-four-seven, and in the dog-eat-dog political arena image was important. He and fifty-two-year-old Annette had made an attractive, photogenic, popular couple. With their now grown son and daughter, they had been the picture-perfect all-American family.

  Only those closest to them got to see behind the facade. Right about now, Mark found himself wishing he hadn’t ever gotten that close.

  “. . . at Bethesda?” It was the tail end of a question, uttered in a voice that was unmistakably that of the President of the United States.

  “That’s right.”

  The reply, Mark saw as he continued on into the room, came from the First Father, Wayne Cooper. The octogenarian Texas oilman stood near the fireplace with another man Mark didn’t recognize. Built like the President except for a slight paunch, his hair gone now except for a feathery white fringe, Wayne was a widower who adored his only son. He was also a billionaire, which, to Mark’s mind, explained a lot about how that son had made it to the White House. His other child was a thrice-married daughter, Elizabeth, who was pampered and protected but otherwise ignored. All Wayne’s hopes and dreams were bound up in his son.

  “I told you, I’m not taking any damned pill,” the President snapped.

  “But sir . . .”

  Except for his dinner jacket, David Cooper was still dressed up in the tux he’d worn to wine and dine the president of Chile. His shoes rested on the tufted gold bedspread of a bed that had not yet been turned down. John Downes, the President’s personal physician, leaned over him, his back to Mark. Leonard Cowan, his valet, hovered on the far side of the bed, a tray holding what appeared to be the President’s favored scotch and soda in his hands.

  “Here’s Ryan,” Lowell announced.

  The President sat up. All eyes focused on Mark. All conversation suspended. Taking a deep breath, he felt his jaw tighten and hoped to hell it was the only outward sign of tension they could see.

  “God in heaven, you want to tell us how this terrible thing happened?” Wayne Cooper’s booming voice was punctuated by an audible clink as he put his glass down on the marble mantel.

  “I can’t answer that yet, sir.”

  “Well, by damn . . .”

  “Dad, everyone, could you excuse us a minute, please?” His customary courtesy back in place despite the slight wobble that was barely detectable in his voice, David Cooper swung his legs over the side of the bed. His face was haggard, his skin pale, his eyes red. Meeting his gaze, Mark felt the knot in his gut twist tighter.

  The zinger was, David Cooper had loved his wife.

  My watch.

  “Davey . . .” Wayne protested. Anguish over his son’s obvious pain quivered in his voice.

  “Please,” the President said again. Wayne Cooper frowned, but he, like everyone else, slowly filed out. The click of the door closing behind them was loud as a gunshot to Mark’s ears.

  The President came to his feet. Their eyes met. It was all Mark could do not to flinch at the accusation he saw in the other man’s face.

  “I trusted you, Mark. You knew what was going on with her. You were supposed to watch her. You were supposed to keep her safe.”

  Making excuses wasn’t his style, so Mark didn’t. “I’m sorry, Mr. President.”

  Cooper took a hasty turn about the room. Watching him, Mark felt a burning inside his chest. He knew what it was like to love a woman who didn’t give a shit about you. It hurt like hell. Right at that moment, his sympathies were with David Cooper.

  The President stopped in front of him, ran his hands through his hair. “Just tell me this: Was she out there trying to score drugs?”

  The millio
n-dollar question.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.” Mark withdrew the artificial sweetener bottle from his pocket and held it out. “I went to the crash site. This was in her purse. Along with a roll of cash and some credit cards.”

  Since the First Lady almost never carried cash, the implication was plain: A drug rendezvous was a definite possibility. The credit cards—who the hell knew what was up with the credit cards? He hadn’t had time yet to even begin to think that through. Although as far as he knew, drug dealers still didn’t accept them.

  Sucking in his breath, the President took the bottle and stared down at it. “Damned pills.” Then he looked up at Mark. His eyes were dark with pain. “This can never get out. Her reputation . . .” His mouth shook, and then his face crumpled like a collapsing building. “Oh my God, my God, I can’t believe this has happened. I can’t believe she’s dead. Annette . . .”

  His voice spiraled into a ragged wail. Even as the door burst open and the room filled with people and he was nearly shoved back out into the hall, Mark could not escape the terrible sounds of the President’s keening. Again, he felt a stab of guilt.

  My watch.

  Lowell caught up to him as he headed for the elevator.

  “That woman.” Falling in beside him, Lowell glanced all around as if to make sure no one was close enough to overhear. “The woman who was in the car. The one who survived.”

  They were in the foyer now, walking fast past a group of new arrivals being shepherded into the Yellow Oval Room. Mark recognized a famous singer along with some friends of the First Family. Throat tightening, he wondered when the Coopers’ two adult children, Laurie Donaldson and Brad Cooper, would arrive.

  He really didn’t want to be here for that one.

  “What about her?” he asked.

  “What do you know about her?”

  “Nothing except her name. Yet.” The implication that he soon would know everything there was to know about Jessica Ford was understood by Lowell, who nodded.