by Chris Hauty
Within a minute, the five operators have donned their white containment suits and entered Aspen Lodge through the unlocked patio’s French doors. The residence appears unoccupied. Where Secret Service agents would normally be stationed if POTUS were on-site, there is only evidence of someone having been present a short time ago. The president’s security detail appears to have simply vanished, as if plucked from the face of the earth.
Sinatra checks his watch and silently gestures toward the end of the cozy presidential cottage, relatively unchanged since the Eisenhower years. Lawford hangs back to keep watch to the north side of the building, while Lewis crosses the living room to keep guard of the south side. Martin, Davis, and Sinatra continue deeper into the building, their paths through the darkened rooms illuminated by night-vision goggles. Stopping outside one of the closed bedroom doors, Martin crouches down and places his backpack on the floor. Withdrawing the components of the kill machine, he carefully assembles the insertion apparatus composed of boron-nitride nanotube syringe and glass reservoir.
Completing assemblage in less than ninety seconds, Martin looks to Sinatra and gives him the “OK” sign. The team leader grips the doorknob, pushing the door open. As he enters, the president’s sleeping form is visible under the comforter. The other operators enter into the room, moving directly toward Monroe.
The president rises halfway from the bed, his facial expression reflecting bewilderment and indignation. “What the hell?”
The operators are silent as Sinatra and Davis fall on the president with brutal efficiency. Assuming the missing Bishop’s task, Davis inserts the tip of the squeeze bottle into one of Monroe’s nostrils and blasts two bursts of GHB. Unlike Peter Hall, who was almost immediately rendered unconscious, Monroe struggles against Sinatra’s immobilizing hold for more than twenty seconds before succumbing. The team leader looks to Martin for explanation.
“Seventy-percent dilution. Undetectable within two hours postmortem.”
Sinatra nods and checks his watch again. “Six minutes.” He tilts his head to speak into the two-way radio mic. “Six minutes.”
Lawford, standing on the pool patio just outside the French doors, keeps watch to the north side of the Lodge. “Roger that. North side clear.”
Lewis, standing on the front porch, maintains surveillance of the south side. “Six minutes. South side clear.”
In the president’s bedroom, Martin makes final preparations to the insertion apparatus. “Six minutes is cutting it close.”
Sinatra isn’t opening the matter for discussion. “We’re gone when they all return. That’s the agreement.”
Martin nods, laying out the insertion apparatus on the bed next to the unconscious Monroe. While Sinatra and Davis watch, he inserts the thin nanotube into the president’s jugular vein and begins to feed it down the major artery. Davis, surprisingly squeamish for a trained killer, looks away. He hates this part.
On the pool terrace, Lawford sees a figure emerge from the gloom of the surrounding woods. Leon Washington approaches Aspen Lodge from across the broad, open lawn. Lawford pulls his shoulder-mounted mic close to mouth. “North side. I’ve got eyes on unidentified black male approaching. One-two-five yards.”
“One male?” Sinatra asks via his radio.
“From what I can see,” Lawford responds, looking in all directions through his night-vision goggles.
Sinatra steps back from the bed and turns his head to the mic attached to his left shoulder. “Lewis?”
The operator on the front porch scans the surrounding area through night-vision goggles. “South side clear.”
“Back up north side. Move!” Sinatra orders.
Meanwhile, Martin has finished inserting the feeder tube. He glances to Sinatra, who nods his go-ahead. With the aid of a Keplerian Loupe, the operator threads the micro-thin wire into the nanotube in Monroe’s jugular vein and starts to feed it through the length of the insertion conduit, into the right atrium of the president’s heart.
Lewis has joined Lawford on the terrace, where they both watch Leon Washington, who has stopped approximately seventy-five yards from Aspen Lodge and simply stands motionless there.
“What’s with this fucking guy? Did he not get the memo?” Lawford wonders aloud.
Lewis shakes his head, uncertain. “Fucking shit show.”
Lawford halfway raises his suppressed HK MP7 submachine gun. “Smoke him?”
Lewis shrugs. Into his radio: “Unidentified male has stopped seven-zero yards from location. Advise.”
Sinatra observes Martin’s final efforts to place the conducting wire into the president’s heart. Into his mic: “If he comes any closer, take him out. We’ll evac south and loop around through the woods.” He checks his watch. “Bishop?”
“Negative,” Lewis responds.
The rest of the house is quiet and deserted. Light spills out of the president’s bedroom, cast by the bed-stand lamp Sinatra had snapped on to facilitate Martin’s work. The two operators on the pool terrace are visible through the French doors, gazing out over the north lawn, as Hayley enters silently through the front door on the south side of the residence. Relying only on the density of shadow to guide her inside the gloomy living room, she gets her bearings.
Inside the bedroom, Martin attaches the free end of the wire to the battery-powered device on the bed. Monroe moans, in a drugged stupor. The operator looks to Sinatra for a signal to proceed. The team leader nods. Martin reaches for the switch.
“Stop!” Hayley’s voice comes from behind them. Martin, Davis, and Sinatra all look in unison and see the intern standing in the open doorway, gun held at arm’s length.
“You wouldn’t be holding Bishop’s gun on us if Bishop had done his job,” Sinatra observes to Hayley, cool as a Zen master.
She ignores Sinatra, addressing Martin. “Put that thing down and move away from the bed.”
Martin does no such thing. Doesn’t take his eyes off her.
Sinatra wishes he could have a cigarette but can’t afford to contaminate the kill site. “One of the first women to make it through basic infantry training,” he tells Davis, gesturing at Hayley. To her, he adds, “I imagine you’re pretty good with a gun.”
“Sharpshooter badge. Forty for forty.”
“Forty for forty? Now that is impressive.” He pauses, chewing on his thumbnail in lieu of a smoke. “Are you prepared to die for your president, Ms. Chill?”
She points the gun at Martin. “Put it down.”
“He won’t respond to your command, only mine,” Sinatra explains to her. Then he looks to Martin. “Finish it.”
Martin puts hand to switch. Hayley tilts the gun barrel up a fraction and fires, bullet striking the wall just above the operator’s head. Martin freezes, looking to Sinatra for guidance.
In his earpiece, Sinatra hears from Lawford outside. “What the hell’s going on in there?!”
Sinatra is thinking of the best course of action. He tilts his mouth toward the mic. “Your unidentified male still stopped short of location?”
“Affirm that,” comes Lawford’s response.
Sinatra does not miss the flicker of anxiety that crosses Hayley’s face with the mention of an outside intruder. He understands immediately the significance and tilts his mouth to mic again. “Take him out if you don’t hear from me in the next thirty seconds.” A beatific smile creases his face as he looks to Hayley again. “Your friend for your president, Hayley? Is that a deal you’re willing to make?” Hayley stares at Sinatra, her powder blue eyes revealing nothing.
On the terrace, Lawford checks his watch. Sinatra’s deadline passes without word from him. The operative raises his weapon to take aim at Leon but then lowers it again. “Fuck” is what he says as he watches the woods light up with the beams of multiple flashlights, then erupt with two dozen men and women wearing dark blue windbreakers and carrying semiautomatic weapons.
9
HAYLEY CHILL
Sinatra hears Lawford’s m
uttered obscenity over the radio but hasn’t a clue what prompted it. Did his kill shot miss its mark? Did Lewis shoot first, stealing his kill? Did the unidentified male flee or hit the deck for cover? Whatever is happening on the Lodge’s north lawn isn’t his immediate problem right now. The advantage inside Monroe’s bedroom still lies with him. The intern has no idea his men have encountered a problem outside. She has unwisely revealed her connection to the unidentified male on the lawn and her concern for him can be exploited.
He gestures toward the unconscious president. “This vain and arrogant man is worth saving in exchange for your friend’s life?”
For most people, this might be an unbearable dilemma without clear choice. But for Hayley, there really is no other option. The president’s life must be saved above all other considerations, including her own preservation. Such is her hard wiring. She takes even more emphatic aim on Martin’s head. “Step away from the president,” she orders the operative with a tone leaving no question about her conviction.
Sinatra shakes his head. “Sorry about your friend.” He pulls the mic closer to his mouth. “Smoke him.”
The order given, Sinatra gives the intern a look brimming with admonishment and a blessedly guilt-free conscience. A flicker of regret crosses Hayley’s face as she imagines the death of her new friend. But Sinatra hasn’t heard back from his operative with confirmation of a kill. He tilts his chin down toward the radio mic.
“Lawford?” He gets nothing back. Hayley, not privy to the radio’s network, reads the look of concern on the team leader’s face and experiences the first glimmers of hope.
“FBI! Inside the house, drop your weapons and exit with your hands in the air!” The voice, amplified by a megaphone not far outside Aspen Lodge takes root in Hayley’s consciousness. The play of flashlights across the lawn visible through the bedroom windows confirms the voice wasn’t just inside her head.
Sinatra hears and sees the same evidence of the FBI’s arrival on the scene and reacts by quick-drawing the Sig Sauer from its chest-mounted holster, pivoting toward the president. Hayley doesn’t hesitate in the slightest, shifting her aim from Martin to Sinatra and firing, the bullet entering Sinatra’s head just above his left ear and exploding out the right with unquestionable result. As the team leader drops where he stands, Hayley coolly turns her aim back on Martin, whose right hand remains poised above the machine’s switch.
“Raise those hands,” she orders with a voice that quavers ever so slightly.
Martin obediently lifts his hands over his head as bulletproof-vest-wearing FBI agents flood into the room with weapons raised, followed a moment later by Agent Helen Udall. With one look at the unconscious president, nanotube inserted into his neck, Udall lifts a radio to her mouth.
“Get a medical team immediately!” The whoop and roar of an incoming helicopter engulfs the room as FBI agents force Martin facedown on the floor and clear space for an arriving medical team to administer to President Monroe. Udall looks to Hayley, who has placed her weapon on the floor and retreated to the far side of the bedroom. The FBI agent approaches the intern.
“Are you okay?” Udall asks her, taking note of Hayley’s blood-smeared right palm.
Hayley has never killed anyone before. The shock of taking Sinatra’s life is only beginning to reverberate. She glances at her hands and sees a tremor there, surprising her. But infantry sucks it up. Infantry shows no pain. Processing it all is for back home, after the mission is done. “I’m fine, ma’am.” She has a more pressing concern than her own well-being. “The Navy Mess chef is outside …”
“He’s fine. Not a scratch.” Hayley is relieved. Udall puts the pieces together. “He worked with you by creating a diversion?”
Hayley nods. “He was very brave, ma’am.”
Udall concurs with a caveat. “If you’re calling that brave, what do we call what you just did?”
“My duty.” Hayley isn’t boasting, just stating a fact.
The FBI agent has encountered many selfless public servants in her career in law enforcement but can’t recall one who possessed Hayley’s otherworldly dedication. It’s unnerving, and Udall takes a beat to distill her own accomplishments so as not to waver in the intern’s presence. What is this vibe the young woman gives off? Udall looks back toward the unconscious president, the object of the military medical team’s frenzied attention, to avoid Hayley’s gaze.
“Ma’am, if you don’t mind my asking, how did you know to come? This morning …” Hayley lets the sentence trail off. No need to remind the FBI agent of her refusal to heed a clear alarm.
“Asher Danes,” Udall responds simply.
Hayley ponders Udall’s response, reading into it all that wasn’t spoken. Recalling that Asher had met Udall when the FBI agent had come to the White House after Hall’s murder, it takes Hayley less than ten seconds to intuit what it all might mean. For the first time, she is caught off guard.
“Asher was part of the conspiracy,” she says, mostly to herself.
Udall nods. “You seem to inspire unusual degrees of courage in people, Ms. Chill. Mr. Danes’s involvement was limited to his association with CIA Deputy Director Odom. Talking to me has put him in potentially serious legal jeopardy. No doubt, though, Asher’s cooperation today will be taken into account if charges are brought.”
Hayley is saddened by the revelation about Asher and even more upset for not having considered the possibility of his complicity before now. She wonders if she’ll ever speak with Asher again so that he might explain why he chose to help Odom’s cabal. She recalls when they first met, in the White House Operations office, and his words to her then. Our hero arrives.
Not particularly a connoisseur of irony, Hayley shoves the words into a small box and files them away in her memory, having no use for them.
* * *
VIRGIN ATLANTIC FLIGHT 4690 departed from Washington Dulles International Airport three minutes after its scheduled departure of six a.m. Sunday morning. Seated in the first-class cabin, Senator Taylor Cox breathes a measured sigh of relief as the wheels lift off the tarmac. For obvious reasons, his travel plans were made in haste. Like all the other conspirators, he had not slept a wink the night before, waiting for news from James Odom. The first inkling of disastrous failure came when Cox heard from another conspirator with contacts in the bureau. That very early warning gave several members of what will come to be dubbed the Shady Side Cabal some wiggle room to make their hasty getaways.
Taylor Cox has survived countless Senate battles and election challenges. He is a warhorse who doesn’t bolt at the first exploding shell or a superficial wound. But the inevitable exposure of his involvement in a presidential assassination attempt is a legal conflagration he has neither the desire nor the stamina to endure. The only option he saw available to him was the ignoble reality of spending the rest of his life as a fugitive from justice. Within thirty minutes of learning of the operation’s collapse, Cox had packed a bag and was in a black car headed to Dulles.
Landing around eight a.m. at JFK, his plan is to connect with an Emirates flight to Dubai. The US doesn’t have an extradition treaty with UAE, and the senator has many powerful friends, including the emir of Umm al-Qaiwain, Sheikh Saud bin Rashid al-Mu’alla. Cox is confident he will avoid prosecution if he can set foot in the Emirates. Like many of his senatorial colleagues, he has long maintained a numbered bank account in Switzerland, courtesy of friends in private industries and allied governments. With more than six million dollars in reserve, financially he ought to be fine.
His flight lands at JFK without incident, and Cox takes a tram to the Emirates airline terminal. A few passersby recognize the senator and greet him enthusiastically. As he strides down the gleaming concourse, Cox ruminates on the end of this sort of public adulation and awe. In the UAE, he will be just another pale, rich Westerner living in quiet anonymity. So be it. Such a fate certainly is better than if he had chosen to remain in Washington. The thought of even one night in jai
l is enough to make Cox sick to his stomach. Death would be better than incarceration.
The senator only has his one carry-on bag. Gripping it in his right hand, he hurries toward his gate. The Dubai flight is scheduled to depart in less than thirty-five minutes. Though he has seen at least a dozen airport security agents, members of the TSA, and uniformed armed National Guard soldiers in the two terminals, none have given Cox even a second glance. It would seem he has lucked out, with the FBI failing to roll up the major conspirators in the first hours since the failed assassination.
When Cox comes within two hundred feet of his gate, at the farthest end of the terminal, he sees several FBI agents, wearing their tacky windbreakers, standing around the gate’s counter. Panicking, Cox stops and reverses direction.
The shouts from farther up the concourse are immediate and emphatic. “Senator Cox! Stop!”
Looking over his shoulder as he runs, the sixty-three-year-old senator sees the FBI agents giving chase. They are young and athletic, while he is old and not. Engaged in a footrace he cannot possibly win, Cox looks right and left for other avenues of escape. The federal agents in pursuit continue to shout for the senator to stop. People in the concourse stop and stare at the old, white-haired man in the luxurious Burberry double-breasted cashmere coat staggering in one direction and then another, his face racked with dread, thwarted in his escape.
The seven FBI agents approach at a dead run. They are less than forty feet away when Cox almost collides into a Port Authority police officer just emerging from the men’s restroom. As the policeman begins to apologize to the clearly disoriented man, and before the FBI agents have again shouted for the senator to halt, Cox grabs the officer’s gun from his holster and turns it on the FBI agents.
