by David DeLee
What he didn’t know at the time was she’d already sold the President on it.
Frustrated by a system slow and clogged with red-tape, Grayson wanted to create a small team of specially-trained, highly-skilled operatives to conduct unique, sensitive missions outside the normal preview of either Homeland Security or the Department of Defense.
“Black ops,” Bannon had said when she approached him with the idea, asking him to lead it.
“Secret, but not black ops,” she said defensively. “A small, efficient, and qualified team able to respond to and investigate specific, targeted threats to the homeland. Threats that can’t be effectively handled by standard operating means or a normal military response.”
“Sounds a lot like black ops to me,” Bannon said, wanting no part of it.
“No,” she insisted. “I’m talking about a single unit that’s small enough and nimble enough to get the job done. One that might actually be able to make a real difference in this scary world of ours.”
The Secretary was nothing if not persuasive. She continued her pitch, laying out her plan, convincingly and with so much passion, Bannon couldn’t say no. After a fair amount of negotiating, including Bannon’s demands that he be allowed to choose his own people without interference or influence, that any and all Homeland Security and DoD and other assets as deemed necessary by him, be made immediately available to him without question, and finally, he wanted a direct reporting line to her and no one else.
She readily agreed to his terms.
Then, operating from a position of strength, Bannon pressed for one more demand. He’d do it only if he and his team, whose core members were Skyjack McMurphy and Tarakesh Sardana, operated on an on-call, as-needed basis. He’d had enough of sitting around ports and on board ships twiddling his thumbs with nothing to do, waiting to be called into action. He’d spent too much downtime playing cards, doing make-work jobs, or training—not for the purpose of staying sharp, which he believed in, but to fill up the monotonous hours—between assignments when command had nothing better for them to do.
She agreed, and over the last few years, they’d run quiet, special ops for Grayson, and by extension the President. Some of them pretty wild and hairy stuff. Bannon worried Grayson’s silence now meant whatever was next would be their biggest undertaking yet or the program was being disbanded. Decommissioned as his beloved DOG unit had been. He was wrong on both counts.
“No. No assignment.” Blunt, as always, she said, “The President’s asked me to be his running mate in the upcoming re-election.”
“Huh.” Bannon had to admit he hadn’t seen that coming. He guessed it had been a shock to Grayson, too. “What’d you say?”
“He just sprang it on me on the flight here. I told him I needed to think about it.”
“Okay,” Bannon said. Not sure what she expected him to say.
They began their stroll back down the beach.
Bannon liked and respected Grayson. She’d serviced a strong twenty-year military career in the Army. She’d served in and commanded combat theaters, which he respected. But, more importantly, she was one of those rare politicians who spoke her mind and not the party line. She had friends and enemies in equal measure on both sides of the aisle and enough political clout to get stuff done without compromising her position or her principles. Grayson was considered one of the five most powerful people in Washington, man or woman, and thus the world. But most importantly of all, he considered her a friend.
“Why?” he asked, breaking the silence between them and tripping over his own tongue to hastily add, “Not that you wouldn’t be great. You would. I meant what about Wright?”
“He’s dropping him from the ticket.”
“Huh,” Bannon said again, taking it all in as they walked on.
“I don’t know much about politics,” Bannon said, breaking the silence again. “Check that. I don’t know a damn thing about politics and I try to avoid it like the plague, but I thought Kingsley needed Wright to shore up his support from the right.”
“He did for the first election. This time he feels like he can run on his record.” She added with a wry smile, “They don’t like each other.”
“That’s no secret.” But it wasn’t the full story and Bannon knew it. “Kingsley will never get the support he needs running on a strict centralist platform.”
“Who says you don’t know anything about politics?”
“You lay down with dogs…”
“Ouch.”
“Present company excluded.” Before he put his foot in his mouth again, Bannon said, “Kingsley thinks you can give him the same support Wright commanded.”
Grayson nodded. “Enough to put him over the finish line against a weak opponent anyway. Yes.”
They had walked a bit further when Bannon asked, “Makes you feel used, doesn’t it? Like a pawn.”
“That’s not what bothers me,” she said. “My entire career’s been based on one guiding principle. To serve my country. The Army. The Senate. Now, this. You do what’s asked of you.”
“You don’t have to. There are lots of ways one can do their patriotic duty. If you turn him down, do you get to remain where you are?”
She shrugged. “I serve at the pleasure of the President.”
“Is he ordering you to be his running mate?”
Her no lacked conviction.
“Then I guess the question is,” Bannon said. “What do you want to do?”
“Serve my country. In the best way I can.”
“Then determine what that way is. You get to decide that, Liz, not Kingsley. Not anyone else.” He stopped her. In the back of his mind, the question of his team and their future lingered. What happens to them if she’s not Secretary of Homeland Security anymore? “You’re not here to just seek my counsel, are you?”
“Yes, I am. What you think, more than most people in my life, is important to me, Brice. And I know, you’ll give it to me straight.” She smiled. “Whether I like it or not.”
“I can’t tell you what you should do, Liz. Only you can do that.”
“You’re right. And yes, there is another reason I’m here,” she admitted. “Do you have plans for the next day or two?”
“Nothing pressing really. Why?”
“The President’s asked me to join him on a campaign stop. I’d like you to join us.”
“Stumping on a campaign trail? Shaking hands and kissing babies?” Bannon asked. “Thanks, but no thanks.”
“It’s at Tiamat Bluff,” Grayson said.
“The city under the sea,” he said. Surprised, even as his face light up. “When do we leave?”
CHAPTER SIX
The next morning, in a small two-bedroom brick house on a pretty, tree-lined residential street in Falls Church, Virginia, a Washington, D.C. suburb, behind a split rail fence with two cars in the driveway, the remnants of that night’s snow still on the half-acre front lawn, Kate Holloway spread peanut butter and jelly on two slices of white bread. She slapped the sandwiches together and licked peanut butter off her thumb before cutting each sandwich; one diagonally and the other one straight across. She wrapped them in wax paper and shoved them into brown paper sandwich bags; one marked Kacey, the other Karley, in black marker pen.
In the family room across the from the kitchen, the TV mounted over the fireplace was on tuned to CNN, but with the sound muted.
Kate Holloway called out, “Girls!” She dropped a small bag of potato chips in each bag. “Get a move on! The bus will be here any minute.”
In response, came the thundering sound of feet racing down the stairs. A second later, twin tornados in the form of blond, nine-year-old girls raced through the kitchen. Backpacks were grabbed from the kitchen chairs. The sack lunches were snatched off the counter. Pleated school uniform skirts swirled under blue uniform jackets and starched white blouses.
“Bye, Mom,” Karley shouted.
“Thanks, Mom,” Kacey called out before their father pu
mped their brakes.
“Hold it right there, you two.” His authoritative voice filled the hallway. Roger Holloway stood in the archway, adjusting his tie and blocking their paths. “Give your mother a proper hug and kiss goodbye.”
Kate came out from around the kitchen island with a smile on her face. She bent down and hugged and kissed each of her little blonde munchkins. “I’m going to be gone for a few days, so be good for your father.”
“We will,” they said in chorus, enduring the hugs and squirming to escape.
“And more importantly,” Kate said. “You two keep him out of trouble, too.” She pointed at Roger. “He’s the one we need to keep in line.”
The girls giggled.
“You’re funny, mommy,” Kacey said.
“Have a good trip,” Karley shouted, darting around her father and running down the hallway. “Hurry, Kacey. I see the bus. Come on.”
“Hurry, girls,” Kate called out as Kacey charged after her older sister by seventeen minutes.
In his business suit with a mug in his hand, Roger leaned in and kissed Kate’s cheek, handing her his empty coffee cup. “I’ll make sure they don’t miss it. Then I’ve got to run. I managed to arrange an early morning meeting with Senator Strickland’s staff to talk about that new Virginia highway and bridge improvement act we’ve been pushing.”
Roger Holloway was an attorney with a lobbyist firm that advocated for cost-effective and more efficient legislation in areas of infrastructure and transportation projects.
“Bye. Have a great day,” Kate called out as he was already halfway out of the house.
“Thanks. Give my regards to POTUS,” he joked before the door closed.
Kate busied cleaning up the kitchen and with a second cup of coffee in hand went upstairs to change.
With her long blond hair gathered in a high, tight bun and wearing a dark business suit with slacks, a white shirt, and a tailored jacket, Kate opened the top drawer of her bedside table. She took out a holstered Sig Sauer P229 loaded with .357 Sig cartridges. They were designed to duplicate the performance of a 125-grain .357 Magnum load. She hooked it onto her belt then took out the black leather case that contained her gold Secret Service badge identifying her as a special agent. Finally, she took out a small lapel pin. She pinned it to her jacket’s lapel. The pin identified her as an agent to other Secret Service agents—if the severe hairstyle, dark suit, and dark Ray-Ban sunglasses, almost as much of a piece of equipment as her gun or her badge—didn’t.
She was always reminded of that scene in Men in Black when Will Smith first slips on his sunglasses. Like his Agent J character, she said with playful, narcissistic pride to her reflection. “I make this look good.”
Then quickly cautioned herself. “Don’t get too cocky.”
But she couldn’t help herself. At the moment everything in her life was perfect. The girls were wonderful. After a brief rough patch a few years back with Roger, things between them were great, and in some ways, better than ever before. She couldn’t even complain about her job. A year ago, she achieved the promotion she’s always dreamed of: becoming the first female Secret Service agent in history to lead the President’s personal protection detail.
Everything was perfect.
With a smile still on her lips, she went back downstairs.
She put the cup in the sink, grabbed her small wheeled suitcase standing by the door and scooped her keys from a pewter bowl on an antique stand by the door. Kate ignored the bracing cold. Not properly dressed for it, the car’s heater would warm her back up quickly enough. Of greater concern was the thin layer of snow across the sidewalk. The last thing she needed was to slip and break an arm on the ice.
With her suitcase in the back seat of her silver Lexus, she slipped in behind the wheel. She backed out of the driveway and drove toward the end of the block without noticing the black sedan parked at the other end of the street. If she had, she’d have realized it wasn’t a neighbor’s car and how out of place it was.
But she was distracted, late.
On the drive to Ronald Reagan Airport, Kate Holloway’s thoughts were about the mission ahead.
A court trial requiring her testimony the day before had forced her to miss flying out with President Kingsley the day before. As the head of POTUS’s close protection detail, she regretted not being with the President on Air Force One. Though she’d flown on the plane hundreds of times already, the experience never grew old. Still, the chartered flight arranged for her and several others destined for Boston’s Logan Airport wasn’t exactly traveling in coach.
As for the day’s activities in Boston, Kate’s advanced team had been on site for the past two weeks making arrangements and vetting personnel and locations for both POTUS’ fundraising dinner the night before—which had gone off without a hitch—and a breakfast rally that morning.
All rather routine.
It also helped that Kate had the utmost confidence in Special Agent Franklin Gregg. A veteran agent as well as a very competent number two to act in her steed until she could join up with them later in the day. Just in time to supervise the President’s visit to Tiamat Bluff, the so-called city under the sea.
She was to meet up with POTUS and the rest of her detail in a few hours at Logan airport. By then Kingsley would be done with his breakfast rally and Marine One would be standing by to fly them all out to a Coast Guard ship. A Legend-class cutter: the USCGC George R. Putnam.
She’d never been on a cutter before. She smiled, looking forward to the experience.
CHAPTER SEVEN
At the same time, Special Agent Kate Holloway was driving herself to Ronald Reagan Airport, Brice Bannon stood at the pier behind the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority with two cups of hot coffee in his hands. The overnight temperatures had dropped into the single digits. With the pre-dawn temps only now climbing up to something close to freezing. A fresh blanket of snow had fallen, turning the Boston sidewalks and streets white again.
Thankful for his NorthEnd parka, Bannon sipped his coffee, still hearing McMurphy’s why do you get to go and not us ringing in his ears. Grayson’s black town car rounded the corner and pulled slowly to the curb. Right on time.
Secret Service Agent Wheeler stepped out of the car, wearing his dark sunglasses even though the overhead sky was a washed-out white overcast. He looked around, gave Bannon an almost indiscernible nod, then opened the back door.
Grayson climbed out of the back seat. Her steel gray hair was once again pulled back and tight in a severe, military-style knot. “That’ll be all, Tom. Give Marion my best.”
“I will, ma’am. The missus is sure to appreciate the unexpected time off.”
“Enjoy it,” she said with a smile.
She joined Bannon. “Good morning, Brice.”
He handed her the spare cup of coffee he held. The town car drove away. They watched as the brake lights flared and Tom Wheeler made the left turn at the next block.
“No bodyguard for this little excursion?” Bannon asked.
“The President will have enough Secret Service protection for both of us.” She sipped her coffee, clutching it with both gloved hands. “Besides, Tom trusts you to keep me safe.”
They strolled down the pier to a docked U.S. Coast Guard Defender-class port security boat. An aluminum-hulled vessel it had a red rigid foam-filled collar with white lettering and an M240 machine gun mounted on the bow. A Coast Guard workhouse used for port security, search and rescue, and other law enforcement duties, the small boat was both quick and nimble. It had a single, midship wheelhouse and was powered by twin 225hp outboard engines capable of a cruising speed of thirty-five knots with a max. speed of forty-six knots. Regulations required the boat to operate with a minimum two-person crew, but the boat had the carrying capacity to accommodate up to ten people.
A seaman named Stevens according to his name tag, dressed in the Coast Guard’s standard solid dark blue ODU and a foul weather parka stood at attention on
the dock. He wore a baseball-style cap embroidered in gold lettering with US Coast Guard. He saluted as they approached.
Grayson returned the salute.
“Morning, ma’am.” He offered her his hand as she stepped through the cut out in the gunwale to board the boat. “It’ll only be a short trip out to the Putnam. Inside the wheelhouse would be the most comfortable place for you. Get you out of the cold, ma’am.”
“Thank you, Seaman Stevens.”
Stevens expertly pulled away from the dock and spun the boat in a tight circle, piloting them out to the heart of Boston Harbor. Ten minutes later, they pulled up alongside the majestic white hull—with its wide red and narrow white and blue racing stripe and Coast Guard shield on it—of the USCGC George R. Putnam.
They boarded from the stern and were welcomed aboard by Robert Tolliver, the ship’s captain.
Bannon knew Bob Tolliver well. They’d worked together over the last couple of years as part of Bannon’s normal reserve Coast Guard duties. A good man whom Bannon liked very much.
Tolliver shook his hand warmly. “I didn’t know you were joining us, Commander.”
“A last-minute invite by the Madam Secretary, Captain,” Bannon said. “With no official standing, so for this trip, it’s just Brice.”
“Either way, glad to have you with us.” He turned to Grayson. “We’re ready to get underway whenever you are, ma’am.”
“No time like the present, Captain,” Grayson said. “But if I may impose. Could Commander Bannon and I join you in the pilothouse for the trip out of the Harbor?” She brushed a wind-blown lock of gray hair from her face, tossed about by a strong sea breeze. “I’d prefer that to being below deck.”
“Of course, ma’am,” Tolliver said “No imposition at all. Right this way.”
He led them to the midship superstructure and up to the pilothouse. The room was large and comfortable. The forward section was taken up by the bridge and bridge crew who manned five forward-facing workstations. Hot air pumped through the vents, chasing away the winter chill and dampness that even the hot coffee failed to do. Grayson crossed over to the panoramic view of the Harbor. The Boston skyline in full view on the port side.
