Christina McCall pulled at her long strawberry blond locks so hard, she feared she might pull them out by the roots. “Where is he?”
Jones looked at her sympathetically. “Where do you think.” It was a statement, not a question.
“I’m about to go nuts, mon ami. ” She was wearing a red body stocking with a fur collar, a short red skirt with a scalloped hem, black and white striped tights, and boots-which for her was a fairly conservative look. Her hair was pulled forward in Bettie Page bangs. “I’ve been dealing with calls from constituents, demands for action, expressions of sympathy, all very difficult and demanding, and all of it directed toward the only surviving senator from the great state of Oklahoma. Except-guess what? I’m not the senator!”
Jones laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to quiet her. “I’m sure he’ll turn up soon. You know how the Boss gets sometimes.”
“I certainly do. And pardonnez-moi, but that’s no excuse.” She slumped into the nearest available chair and stared out the window. Her normally chipper, freckled face was drawn and haggard. The crow’s-feet around her eyes were more pronounced than their sparkling blue color. “Did I mention that I’m supposed to be on my honeymoon?”
Jones felt a tug at his heart. Even his normally acerbic exterior was melting. “You didn’t have to.”
“I’m supposed to be sipping French wine in a Parisian cafe, having a tete-a-tete with my grande passion. Not dealing with the worst security crisis on American soil since 9/11.” Her shoulders sagged. “I’m tired of talking on the phone.”
Jones sat beside her and placed his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take your calls.”
“And I’m tired of trying to explain why Senator Kincaid isn’t in his office.”
“I’ll make up a story.”
“And I’m sexually frustrated.”
Jones removed his hand. “That you’re going to have to handle on your own.” Christina’s head drooped even lower. “Did I mention that I was tired?”
“I’m pretty sure you did.”
“I can’t do this by myself. I mean, I appreciate your help, Jones. You’re the best aide-de-camp in the building, as far as I’m concerned. But it’s too impossible. Loving is still off with that Trudy woman, right?”
Jones coughed into his hand. “Loving is still with, um, Trudy, yes.”
“And Ben hasn’t been in the office since the attack. He has to take control of this situation. He has to decide if he’s going to run for reelection. He has-” Her voice choked. “He has to take me on my honeymoon, damn it.”
“I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
Jones squeezed her hand, then returned to his station where his phone was ringing off the hook, while Christina continued to stare blankly at the office around her. She had put a lot of effort into improving the decor here during the past few months. Even though the name on the door and the desk read BENJAMIN J. KINCAID, she knew she couldn’t leave the interior decoration to him. The office would end up resembling a monk’s cell: two chairs and a dead plant. At best, it would be a reproduction of his office back in Tulsa, and that was not a work space that deserved the opportunity to reproduce. So despite the budgetary restrictions that accompanied working for an unelected senator with no war chest and a law practice that had not practiced for months, she tried to improve the joint. On weekends, she frequented flea markets-there were dozens of them in the Washington, D.C., area-looking for salvageable furniture and knickknacks. She nurtured plants at her apartment until she thought they were strong enough to survive Ben’s negative botanic energy. Christina even replaced some of the fixtures, which apparently hadn’t had any attention since before the first World War. Her efforts had turned a sterile government office into a cozy workplace.
Today it seemed colder than a tomb.
She knew the specifications of the building all too well; she heard a tour guide leading a group of citizens down the corridor or around the rotunda almost every day. She knew this capitol building covered 153,112 square feet, which worked out to about three and a half acres. Somehow, though, it managed to have a floor area of more than fourteen acres. And 435 rooms, 554 doors, 679 windows.
Didn’t matter. It was still a tomb. The first lady was dead, along with eight Secret Service agents and four civilians, one a little girl of three. Two U.S. senators. And Mike…
She closed her eyes tight. She couldn’t allow herself to wallow in the misery that had blanketed the country. Someone had to keep this office together.
But who was going to keep her together?
“We just got a memo,” Jones said, back at his desk by the front door. “Want to hear the latest?”
“You tell me, Jones. Do I?”
He made it succinct. “DEFCON Three.”
There it was. Just as she had feared. The Strategic Air Command and the associated military alerts had been ratcheted up another notch. Christina knew that had happened only three times since the DEFCON system had been devised: first during the Cuban Missile Crisis, then after 9/11, and now.
The attack on the president, the slaying of the first lady, not to mention so many Secret Service agents and civilians, had sent shock waves rippling through the nation. Homeland Security had issued its first-ever Red Alert. The Dow Jones had gone into a free fall; airports shut down; most retail businesses had closed and remained closed. There was no point in being open. Few people were leaving their homes if it was not absolutely necessary. Even if it wasn’t entirely rational-there was no sign that anyone other than the president had been or would be targeted-the horrific incident had left such an imprint on the country that most people just felt more secure staying home.
The upward spiral in hate crimes against Americans of Middle Eastern descent-or in some cases, dark-skinned souls some redneck thought were Middle Eastern-was equally frightening. All across the country, people were lashing out, venting their fear in the form of violence. International tensions were at a fever pitch; the hostility between the United States and the Arab world never seemed so ominous. Many foreign leaders had spoken out, demanding reprisals, asking for the president to make a public statement.
So far, the president had remained silent.
The entire United States intelligence community was making a concerted effort to work together and discover who was behind the heinous attack. The FBI, CIA, NSA, and Homeland Security were acting as one, sharing information on a daily basis at Pentagon and White House rendezvous, wiretapping and spying and making the most of their international allies. Diplomatic inquiries were being made wherever possible, though no one had much hope that they would be useful, because no one really believed the attack had been orchestrated as a formally sanctioned act of a foreign power. The military top brass were engaged in major saber rattling. The Pentagon was requesting permission to employ new high-tech weapons and eavesdropping equipment. On CNN, analysts were saying that it wasn’t a question of whether America would go to war-only when. Public support was clearly there; so in all likelihood the politicians would accommodate once the identities of the perpetrators were known. Pundits predicted that the U.S. military readiness standard could go all the way to DEFCON 1 inside of a week, depending on the temperament and inclination of the president.
And still the president remained silent. He had not been seen or heard publicly since the tragedy occurred. At a time when the nation needed leadership most, he was providing least. While the nation worried about its future-the president grieved for his wife.
No one knew what would happen next-least of all Christina. But she knew some action would be taken soon.
And that worried her.
She remembered the White House study back in 2006 that revealed that the war in Iraq had actually increased global terrorism rather than squelching it, due to the wave of reprisals that followed with ever-increasing gusto and fervor.
After a tragedy of this magnitude-what might happen next?
Near the front of the office, Christina heard someone clearing his throat.
With no small degree of regret, she opened her eyes.
“Jimmy?” She rose as she was approached by James Claire, the Senate Information officer who had been assigned to this wing of the Russell Building. “More news?”
“Or the lack thereof,” he said, adjusting his collar. He was new in this position, and Christina knew he was not altogether comfortable with it yet. Only last week he had been the lowest ranked clerk in Senator Dawkins’s office. After the tragedy of three days before, he had been recruited by the Information Office to help fill the huge surge in demand for news about the tragedy. “At any rate, I’ve been instructed to provide updates to all my offices twice a day now, so here I am. Is Senator Kincaid around?”
“Uh, no. He’s still…sick. But I’ll pass along any information you have.”
“I know. It’s just that I’ve been told to speak directly to the senators.”
“Jimmy.” Christina placed her hand on his shoulder reassuringly. There were not many people who worked in this building who were younger than she, but happily, he was one of them. “You’re talking to the senator’s chief of staff, not to mention his wife. Isn’t that good enough?”
He smiled a lopsided, somewhat goofy twenty-something smile. “I suppose.”
Christina guided him to the nearest chair in the lobby. She did not mince words. “Have they caught the bastards who did this?”
Jimmy sighed. “That’s always the first question. No, they haven’t caught anyone.”
“Do they know who’s behind it?”
“Several groups have taken credit-more than a dozen, in fact. It’s hard to know who to believe.”
“Surely it must be terrorists. Maybe al-Qaeda?”
“We don’t think so. The intelligence community is investigating several other satellite Middle Eastern groups, especially one called Saifullah.”
“I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
“Who has? The name is a religious reference, naturally. Means ‘sword of God’ in Arabic.”
“And the Feds think they were behind the attack?”
“They sent the President’s Office an e-mail that provided a lot of details about the attack. It’s possible they’re just good guesses, but the intelligence community is taking their claim seriously. And they’ve made a list of demands.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, everything you would expect. Complete withdrawal of U.S. and UN troops from the Middle East, including Iraq and Afghanistan. Shutting down all U.S. military bases in the region, including those in Saudi Arabia. Turning over all oil operations, including pipelines, to native businesses. Promising not to invade sovereign nations unless we’re attacked first or demonstrably threatened. Allocating funds to needy Middle Eastern nations matching those provided to Egypt and Israel. Publicly declaring that Islam is a great and sacred religion.”
“Pretty standard stuff.”
“Exactly.”
“Every Middle Eastern terror cell known to man has been making the same demands for decades. Do they ask for anything specific? Release of a prisoner, maybe?”
“No. We’re not aware that we have any members of Saifullah in captivity. But frankly, we barely knew anything about the group.”
“That seems incredible.”
“Bear in mind, we didn’t know that much about al-Qaeda while their members were buying box cutters and taking flying lessons in Florida. Took 9/11 to put them in the public consciousness.”
“So maybe that was the real point of the attack. To put themselves on the geopolitical map? To make them players?”
“It’s not impossible.”
Christina laid her head back against the sofa cushion. “High school kids want attention-they spray-paint a bathroom wall. Terrorists want attention-they kill the first lady.”
“The first lady was collateral damage. But still-” Jimmy lowered his head. “Yeah. Same mentality.”
“Surely the Feds have found some useful forensic evidence,” Christina said. In the past, she had worked with Ben on any number of cases where eyewitness testimony proved dubious, but carefully analyzed forensic evidence solved the case.
“Not that I’ve heard.”
“Computer facial recognition? DNA? Eyewitness? Fingerprints?”
“Not so far.”
“The combined force of the entire United States intelligence community has come up with nothing?”
“As of my last briefing.”
“Not even a weapon?”
“After he took out Nest One, he used their weapon.”
“He?”
Jimmy stopped, as if he had reached a piece of information so horrible, he could barely transmit it.
“What? What is it?”
He took a deep breath. “I know the press is talking as if there must have been a fleet of assassins. Dozens of them. But the sad fact is-both the FBI and Homeland Security agree it’s entirely possible there was only one.”
“What?”
“Granted, there must have been more people involved in the operation. They obviously employed sophisticated military reconnaissance of the staging area, not to mention advanced planning and intelligence gathering. Capturing Director Marshall just in time to extract the information they needed-but not so early we would become suspicious and alter our plans. Simultaneously killing Senator Hammond to delay the recognition that Marshall was MIA. But as far as actual assassins-there’s just no evidence of more than one shooter. And given the totally clean getaway, one seems more likely than twenty.”
“How is that possible?”
Jimmy’s eyes lowered. “What I’m about to say next…is not for public consumption. It’s only speculation. Homeland Security doesn’t want to hear it on Meet the Press. ”
“Get to the point. How could one person find, much less take out, the sniper nest?”
“You might as well ask how he got a bomb under Cadillac One. How could he have so much information about the president’s plans? How was he able to so brilliantly penetrate the Secret Service defense formation?” Jimmy sighed again. “Even assuming they were able to extract information from Director Marshall, there’s only one possible answer to all those questions.”
Christina looked at him levelly. “They had someone on the inside.”
“You said it, not me. But…”
“But it’s the only possible explanation.”
Jimmy drew himself up. “Christina, you know how many cases of Secret Service traitors there have been in the history of the Service? None. You know how many FBI agents have gone rogue? Exactly the same number. It just doesn’t happen.”
“Until it does,” Christina said quietly. “Until someone gets so fed up with our foreign policy, they can’t stand it anymore. Or someone gets to them, or gets to their family. Forces them to do something they would normally never do.”
Jimmy looked back at her solemnly. “Our intelligence forces are investigating all those possibilities. And there’s one other you haven’t considered yet.”
That caught Christina’s attention. She was relatively sure she had considered every possibility, even some that a conspiracy buff like their investigator Loving would find preposterous. “What would that be?”
“Remember, the ricin that poisoned Senator Hammond was delivered via a letter he received here in the Senate. In this very office building. We’re recommending that no one touch any mail without wearing gloves. Perhaps even a face mask.”
“I assume the Capitol Police have instituted some increased security measures in the mailroom.”
“That’s just the thing, Chris. They’ve been doing that for years.”
“How did that tainted letter get into Senator Hammond’s inbox if it didn’t go through the mailroom?” Her eyes widened suddenly as the answer came to her, as she realized where Jimmy had been steering her. “Someone hand-delivered it.”
Jimmy nodded solemnly. “Exactly. Not an outsider. Not a Middle Eastern demagogue. One of us.”
Christina escorted Jimmy to the door.
“Chris, much as I enjoy talking to you…I think my bosses would be happier if I could tell them I was giving my reports personally to Senator Kincaid. No offense, but-”
“None taken.” She thought for a moment. “When will you be around next?”
“Tomorrow morning, I assume.”
She nodded. “I’ll have him here.”
“That would be good. No one has seen him since the attack. But I kept telling them-she’s married to him, for Pete’s sake. She must know where he is. He probably checks in with her constantly.”
Christina chose not to mention that she hadn’t seen him since the attack, either.
“I’ll make sure he’s here for your briefing, Jimmy.”
“Great. So…you do know where he is?”
Christina tried to put on a brave face. “Yeah. I have a pretty good idea.”