“Where’s Buchanan?” Simms asked, looking about the room as paramedics rushed Jennifer Pearce from the room on a stretcher, one of them calling ahead to George Washington University Hospital and clearing an emergency OR.
“He went running out right after Allenby shot himself,” a shaken Keith Thompson said. He was sitting in one of the chairs, aghast that he had just seen a person die. It was a first for him, and he didn’t like it.
“Christ, he’s heading for Richmond,” Rothery said. “He’s going after Bruce Andrews.”
“You want to get some men out to Andrews’s house?” Simms asked.
Rothery thought about it for a minute. “The less commotion we cause right now, the better. We’ve got a containable situation at this point. Allenby killed himself and Dr. Pearce took an accidental bullet. We can put a decent spin on it. But if we start involving our resources in Richmond in this, it’s out of our hands. Let’s keep a lid on it. Christ, if the general public finds out one of the task force leaders was involved in creating the crisis, the shit’s going to hit the fan like you won’t believe.”
“What about Buchanan?” Simms asked. “He’s out there and he knows what’s going on.”
“We’ll worry about Buchanan when we catch him. We might be able to convince him that keeping this thing quiet is in the best interest of the country. If we can’t, we’ll have to deal with it.”
“And Dr. Pearce?” Simms asked.
Rothery shook his head. “She won’t make the hospital. Probably dead already. It’s Buchanan we have to work on.”
“What if he beats us to Bruce Andrews?”
Rothery shook his head again. “Not a chance. I’ll call down to the airport and get the Gulfstream ready. By the time he drives down or catches a commercial flight, we’ll be at Andrews’s house.”
“Maybe it’s best that we just give the press exactly what happened in here,” Simms said. “That would be the easiest way of dealing with this mess.”
Rothery was thoughtful. Then he said, “I’m not sure, Craig. Maybe we’ll have to. But for right now let’s see if we can contain it. Okay?”
“Not a problem.” Instinctively, they both knew that the lid was going to come off, but it was first nature in their business to try to minimize the damage.
Rothery stood in the middle of the room and stared at Allenby’s body. Then he turned to Tony Warner and Craig Simms and asked, “Where is Jim’s gun?”