Collusion

by Newt Gingrich

  “Go get help!” Garrett ordered.

  Afraid to avert his eyes, the officer backed down the stairs watching the gun barrel.

  The roof exit opened at the base of the giant Capitol dome. To protect the building’s roof from damage, the door led to a raised platform with guardrails. That platform led to a four-foot-wide walkway that extended out to the Capitol’s western front. This walkway also was elevated above the roof. It ended at a flagpole aligned with the center of the dome.

  Terrance Collins was standing next to the flagpole with his left arm wrapped around the chest of a woman. A box cutter was in his right hand, its blade pressed against her neck. Garrett assumed she was an employee of the Architect of the Capitol Office, which was responsible for raising and lowering flags—more than three hundred per day on three poles atop the roof—a tradition that dated back to 1937, when a constituent asked his congressman for a souvenir flag that had flown above the Capitol.

  “Give me the gun!” Collins shouted. The two men were about thirty feet from each other.

  Garrett slowly stepped toward him.

  The woman—in her midforties, straight brown hair, about five foot four and chubby—was crying. Collins tightened his arm around her chest and pressed the blade against her cheek.

  “You got kids?” Collins asked his hostage. His mouth close to her ear. “Tell him you got kids.”

  The hostage tried to speak, but Collins was now squeezing her so tightly that she was having trouble breathing.

  “No one needs to get hurt,” Garrett said. “You want the gun—I’ll give you the gun. I’ll let you go. I don’t care. Eventually, you’ll be caught—or maybe you won’t.”

  Garrett’s willingness to cooperate seemed to confuse Collins.

  “You’re not in charge here,” Collins shouted.

  “You’re right. You have the box cutter. But think about this. It was Makayla who released the gas, not you. D.C. doesn’t have a death penalty.”

  “You think I’m stupid? The feds can execute me. Now, give me the gun and get off the walkway. Climb down onto the roof and lay down.”

  “No problem but the gun might go flying off the walkway if I slide it from here. Let me walk a few feet closer. You can tell me when to stop.” Garrett turned the gun sideways in his hand. “First, I’m going to switch on the safety so it doesn’t accidentally fire when I slide it. The safety switch is just above the grip.”

  Garrett started stepping forward. When he was about fifteen feet away, Collins yelled, “Stop! You’re close enough! Slide it to me now!”

  “Okay, calm down. I’m no hero,” Garrett said. He bent down, placed the Glock on the walkway, and shoved it with his hand much like a shuffleboard disc. It stopped about two feet in front of Collins.

  Still crouched, Garrett looked upward at the hostage’s face. Her eyes rolled back. Without realizing it, Collins was choking her. Her legs went out from under her, catching him off guard. Collins shoved her sideways and reached down to grab the Glock.

  Garrett bolted upward from his crouched position like a runner shooting from starting blocks. If Collins had lifted and fired the gun the moment he first grabbed it, he couldn’t have missed Garrett. But he’d heard Garrett talking about a safety switch, and he fumbled with the handgun trying to find it.

  The Glock model 22’s safety was not on the side of the pistol. It was part of its trigger. By the time Collins realized he’d been misled, Garrett was within inches of hitting him. Collins fired the half-raised handgun.

  The round pierced Garrett’s right leg at a downward angle, splintering his tibia. But his momentum kept him flying forward. His shoulder slammed into Collins’s chest, knocking the Senate staffer upward off his feet.

  While guardrails edged the elevated walkway, no barriers encircled the flagpole. It was a three-foot drop from the flagpole platform to the slanted Capitol roof.

  Collins tumbled backward and struck the parapet beneath him. He hit the barrier that ringed the western front of the majestic building with the back of his thighs. Waving his arms wildly, Collins continued falling backward over the building’s edge.

  Garrett watched Collins disappear from the rooftop. Despite the intense pain in his leg, he forced himself to crawl forward and fell clumsily headfirst from the flagpole platform onto the roof. Determined, he continued and pulled himself up on the parapet so that he could spy over it. Collins’s body was splayed on the Capitol’s marble landing in the same spot where recent presidents had been sworn into office.

  Collins was dead.

  Forty-One

  “We’re dealing with an unfamiliar toxin,” Dr. Sandra Peabody, a nationally renowned poison expert at George Washington University Hospital, said.

  Valerie Mayberry had been rushed to an emergency isolation unit at the hospital located six blocks from the White House. FBI director Archibald Davidson and Sally North were being briefed in a private waiting room about her tenuous condition.

  “We’re dealing with some weaponized organophosphate derivative,” Dr. Peabody explained. “The same chemical structure backbone as other organophosphate pesticides used in agriculture, only modified to make it more deadly. Ms. Mayberry absorbed it through her skin.”

  “Skin contact is how Kim Jong Nam, half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, was murdered,” Director Davidson volunteered.

  “Yes, I helped advise his medical team. His attackers smeared his face with poison,” Dr. Peabody replied. “Until now, we thought Novichok was the deadliest of nerve agents, but this new variation appears to be even more lethal, although it works much the same way. It binds itself to a receptor site in the brain where it disrupts cholinesterase, a type of enzyme needed for proper functioning of the nervous system. I’ve given Ms. Mayberry oxime; it’s a nitrogen-containing chemical compound that we use as an antidote. It’s designed to clean the binding site so the cholinesterase is liberated and can begin working again.”

  “Then she’ll recover?” North asked in a hopeful voice.

  “I really can’t say at this point.,” Dr. Peabody replied sadly. “This new variant appears to have been engineered to prevent our antidote from working. That’s part of what makes it different from what we have seen before. As in all poisoning cases, the first step is immediate symptom management. And that is the protocol that we are attempting here.”

  Continuing, she said, “People poisoned with these types of nerve toxins essentially die because of secretions—vomiting, diarrhea, and urinary incontinence occurring all at once—and since Ms. Mayberry has been here, we’ve seen secretions begin. Luckily, we’ve reacted quickly. To stop them, we have given her high doses of atropine, a medicine derived from the belladonna plant, sometimes called ‘deadly nightshade.’ It works in two ways. It dries out secretions and increases the heart rate, which slows after exposure to a nerve agent. It buys us time to see if the oxime antidote will work.”

  “How long before you will know if the antidote is doing its job?” Davidson asked.

  “This patient had a blood vessel in her nose break,” Peabody said, ignoring his question. “That’s uncommon in nerve agent poisonings such as this. We expect to see runny eyes, drooling, rapid breathing, diarrhea, confusion, nausea, but even with extreme exposure to poisons such as sarin—which has been one of the most widely used chemical weapons in recent times, especially in Syria—we have not seen bleeding noses. Whoever is responsible for creating this poison has added a new molecule.”

  “Is there a tipping point?” Davidson asked, slightly modifying his initial question.

  “I know you want me to predict the outcome of our protocol. Tell you when she will get better or if our protocol is working. All I can tell you is we are doing everything possible and the next twenty-eight hours are critical. If she survives during this window, her chances of recovery are much greater. But even then, there is a high chance of permanent damage. She could be paralyzed, unable to speak, lose her memory.”

  The doctor shifted
her eyes from Davidson to North. “If you want to help and you are religious, I’d suggest you begin praying.”

  “One of my people will be staying here twenty-four/seven,” Davidson said. “Please keep him informed so he can relay messages to us.”

  “I’ve been told that her parents are flying in from Greenwich with their own specialist to assist you,” North said. “I’ll be dispatching my people to the airport to bring them here.”

  “Always willing to consult,” Dr. Peabody replied. “The more minds, the better. Now, I need to get back to my patient.”

  After she was gone, North said, “I’d like to speak to Valerie’s parents when they arrive. We need to tell them about her bravery.”

  “Yes, I should speak to them, too,” Davidson said. “Now, what about Brett Garrett?

  “The nurses said he’s in surgery,” North replied.

  “Sally,” Davidson said quietly, “this has the agency’s fingerprints all over it, and Director Harris has not been forthcoming about any of it. There will be dozens of investigations. When I got here, there were already reporters outside the hospital shouting questions. You need to find out what happened and assess the impact on the bureau. Do you have any idea what Agent Mayberry has been doing since she was detailed to Harris?”

  “No, sir. I planned to debrief her this morning.”

  A knock. One of the director’s aides. “Senator Stone is down the hall speaking to Dr. Peabody,” he said. “The senator is asking where you are.”

  “Less said, the better,” Davidson whispered to North, “until we get this sorted out.”

  Senator Stone joined them. “According to Dr. Peabody, the next twenty-eight hours are critical,” he said. “I’m sorry. Please know I will be praying for her.”

  “Thank you,” Davidson and North replied in unison.

  Stone let out a loud sigh. “I’ve been told it was a staff member of mine who brought the poison into the Senate.”

  “Our people are already investigating,” Davidson replied. “But, yes, that appears true.”

  “Terrance Collins. I don’t understand. He never said or did a damn thing that hinted he was capable of this.”

  “We’ll know more after Brett Garrett gets out of surgery,” North said, “and we speak to him.”

  “Brett Garrett,” Senator Stone repeated. “He and I seemed destined to encounter each other. I was told he was the one who chased Collins onto the roof.” He shook his head. “For the life of me, I can’t understand why a member of my office family would do something so horrific. I trusted him. I believed he was a good man and he tried to murder me and everyone else in the chamber.”

  “He would have succeeded except for Agent Mayberry and Garrett,” Davidson said. “They’re heroes.”

  “I know that!” Stone exclaimed. “What I don’t know is how they came to be in the Senate this morning—and why they didn’t warn anyone before then.”

  “Senator,” Davidson said, “we’re not sure. Perhaps Director Harris can answer those questions.”

  “Harris. He’s up to his eyeballs in this disaster,” the senator said bitterly. “It has his stench.” The senator shook his head, pressed his lips together.

  “What’s our world coming to?” he continued. “An attack on the Senate floor. I just don’t know anymore.”

  North thought she saw tears forming in the senator’s eyes. He looked sad. Weary. Very much like a tired old man, not a proud Lord of the Senate.

  “Please keep me informed about Agent Mayberry,” he said softly, excusing himself.

  * * *

  As he left the private waiting room and walked toward the nurses’ station and elevators, Senator Stone sought to regain his composure. He still had to face reporters waiting outside. They’d expect a statement. He was not yet ready. He asked the duty nurse where Brett Garrett was undergoing surgery.

  The male nurse checked his computer and said, “I’ll call you an escort, Senator. This building can be confusing.” Looking up from his seat, the nurse noticed Senator Stone’s sweat-covered face. “Sir, are you feeling okay?” he asked, rising from his chair. “Let me check your vitals.”

  “No, no, that will not be necessary,” Stone replied. “Just get me that escort.”

  Garrett was still in surgery when Stone entered a private waiting room on a different hospital floor. “I’ll get the chief surgeon to brief you as soon as the surgical team is finished,” the escort said.

  Pale green walls. Darker green carpet. Senator Stone noticed another man waiting. The stranger stood, approached him, but not with an outstretched hand.

  “Why are you here?” Thomas Jefferson Kim demanded.

  “And who are you?” Senator Stone replied. “A reporter?”

  “I’m Brett Garrett’s closest friend, and I’ve got something to tell you, Senator, that needs to be said.”

  His aggressive tone surprised Senator Stone.

  “I fought side by side with Garrett,” Kim said defensively. “I was critically wounded. He literally carried me out of a firefight. If it weren’t for him, I wouldn’t be here.”

  Stone started to interrupt, but Kim ignored him and kept talking.

  “Some young people enlist because they want a way out of their hometowns, are looking for adventure, to travel, or want to learn a trade. Brett Garrett told me once why he joined, and it wasn’t for any of those reasons. He made up his mind the day two commercial jets crashed into the twin towers. The day he watched Americans leaping to their deaths. He joined because he loves this country. He felt it was his duty. Laugh if you want. Call it blind patriotism. Call it naïve. But the America that he believes in and is willing to die for is not defined by ethnicity, heritage, or even birthright. His America is an ideal. That’s what makes us different, isn’t it? Freedom. Democracy. Equality. Our ideals? Those are not empty words to him and whenever his fellow Americans take their freedoms for granted, disparage America, disrespect its flag, anger wells inside him. That’s because he genuinely believes we are living in that ‘shining city upon a hill.’ A city that has been bought with the blood of the thousands before him in that long gray line—the fallen on the Western Front, Omaha Beach, Imo Jima, the Yalu River, Khe Sanh, Khafji, and the Helmand Province.

  “There’s no ambiguity in him. He sees only white knights and black knights. Even after you stripped away his honor on national television, even after Director Harris lied about him and what happened in Cameroon, even after the Navy imprisoned him and dishonorably discharged him, Garrett’s devotion to his country never waned because he believes America is not you or a bunch of Supreme Court judges or even the president. It is an ideal, and that’s bigger than any of you. Blame him for your son’s death if you want. Continue to hate him. But what happened today shows you who he is, and he’s a hell of a better man than you or me.”

  Kim turned and marched back to his seat.

  Senator Stone looked at Kim for several moments before leaving. As he rode the hospital’s elevator to the lobby, his mind flashed back. Two years earlier. Hart Senate Office Building. Director Harris was testifying. Cameroon. Blaming Garrett. Refusing to take any responsibility for the deaths. His son. In his mind, Senator Stone saw himself leaning forward in his seat. His voice rising. His temper flaring. He was scolding Director Harris.

  “Are you telling this committee that you are not responsible for the actions of the people under your command? What sort of leader makes such a statement?”

  The opening elevator doors snapped him back to reality. He walked slowly across the hospital lobby and through the glass doors to where security guards had corralled reporters and television crews. Questions were shouted. Nearly indistinguishable.

  “Senator Stone! Senator Stone! Senator Stone!”

  “Did your aide take gas into the Senate?”

  “Why did Terrance Collins do it?”

  “Was he trying to kill you or every senator?”

  “Where’d he get it?

  Senato
r Stone raised his hand to quiet them.

  “I’m prepared to make a brief statement,” he said. “I’ll not be answering any questions.”

  He took a deep breath and felt tears welling in his eyes as he looked out at the camera lenses. Outstretched microphones. A sea of faces.

  “After serving our great nation for forty-plus years,” he said, “I’ve decided to retire.”

  Forty-Two

  Russian president Vyachesian Kalugin entered the hash marks, skating at full speed directly toward the net, the puck dancing on the edge of his stick. The score was tied, which is what Kalugin preferred in the final moments of his weekly ice hockey matches—and what his rivals and teammates always delivered. Just as they made certain he would have the puck for a game-deciding shot.

  The goalie wavered. Only seconds remaining. Would Kalugin shoot, pass, or drive around the net? Two opponents rushed him, but Kalugin glided through them.

  He transferred his weight to his front skate nearest the puck and pulled back his stick. Firing.

  His shot veered to the net’s right. A sure miss. The goalie lunged at it. The puck smacked his leg pads. Deflected into the net.

  A loud horn blast.

  Kalugin raised his hands triumphantly at the victory as his teammates mobbed him celebrating.

  He skated to the defeated goalie.

  “I would have missed,” Kalugin shouted, “if you’d been in the correct position.”

  “Bad luck for me,” the goalie replied, “good luck for you.”

  “There was no luck,” Kalugin declared. “I beat you.” He turned his skates, so he was now standing next to the goalie in front of the net. “This is where you should have positioned your skates to protect the net,” he said, demonstrating for all of the players. “Your mistake was jumping toward the puck instead of leaving it alone.”