WASHINGTON, D.C. • ASHLAND
Driving east on Interstate 66, it didn’t take Kealey long to work his way into the city and toward the waterfront. In fact, the security check he endured on arrival took nearly half as long as the trip had, but it was still less than forty-five minutes after leaving Tyson’s Corner that he was granted access to the Gangplank Marina. From there, it took him another five minutes to locate the person he was looking for.
Ryan felt more than a little foolish as he chased Jodie Rivers through the throngs of reporters positioned behind the metal crowd-control barriers. As they moved, they were jostled by the photographers and cameramen who were jockeying to get a good shot of the president’s motorcade, which was due to arrive any minute. He needed to talk to her, but the woman seemed to be in perpetual motion.
He almost slammed into her when she stopped abruptly at the press gate. There were two men in dark suits and sunglasses checking IDs and the passes that had been specifically designed for the event and distributed the day before by the White House press office. Rivers turned her attention to the covering agent, leaving the other to continue his work.
“Did you get the photographs?” The man nodded. “Let me see them.”
The man, who was at least 7 inches taller than Rivers and twice as heavy, immediately reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.
“You guys have been keeping an eye out?” she asked.
“Yes ma’am. Everybody’s checked out on the list.”
Ryan thought the deference showed by the burly agent to the diminutive Jodie Rivers was vaguely amusing, but kept the thought to himself.
The advance team leader turned to show him the sheet. It contained a blown-up shot of Vanderveen’s driver’s license in the name of Timothy Nichols, as well as several other images, showing him with glasses, long hair, dark hair, and a beard, among other things.
“These are enhanced photographs,” she needlessly explained.
“We took the original and made some minor alterations. It’s not much, but it makes my people look a little bit harder, helps to keep them on their toes.” Turning back to the agents: “Okay, good work, guys. Stay sharp.”
She handed the sheet back to the man and moved off with surprising speed, Ryan close on her tail. She suddenly seemed to remember that he was there, and turned her head to address him as they pushed through the crowd. “I already talked to Deputy Director Harper, Mr. Kealey, as well as Director Landrieu. You’re free to come and go in this area as you please . . . In fact, I’m happy to have you here. Every warm body helps. What do you need from me?”
He finally got an uninterrupted minute when they stopped to examine another checkpoint. “Actually, Agent Rivers, what I want to do is check the surrounding roads. You look like you have everything pretty much under control here, so I figure that the best place for me is where you’re short on manpower.”
“What are you looking for?”
“I don’t know. Something that catches my eye, I guess . . . I would just feel better if I was on the move.”
She was skeptical. “Sounds kind of pointless.”
“I know, but there’s not much else to do.”
That seemed to satisfy her. “So, again, what exactly do you need from me?”
He shrugged. “I’m carrying . . . Harper told you that?” She nodded, her eyes instinctively passing over his body. He was wearing a loose-fitting dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, untucked, over a pair of khakis. She didn’t see the pistol, but realized it was probably under the shirt at the small of his back. “I don’t want any problems from your people on the perimeter. Can you let them know that I’m coming?”
She frowned, then said, “I can tell my people, but we’re having a hell of a time with communications. The boys from Metro are pulling a lot of the vehicle checks, and they’re using UHF radios. It’s been giving us problems all day, but I’ll see what I can do. How are you for ID?”
It was Ryan’s turn to frown. “Harper couldn’t get me anything.
You know, technically speaking, I’m retired from the Agency, and Landrieu had some problems with that. He wasn’t backing down.”
Wincing, she said, “That could be a problem.”
“I know.” He hesitated. “If you can just get word to your top guy out there, then I can probably start looking around without causing any distractions.”
She thought about that, began to nod when her earpiece sparked to life. She listened intently as Ryan looked on.
Rivers glanced up at him. “The president is about to arrive.”
Over her shoulder Ryan could already see the long procession of vehicles sweeping around the corner onto Maine Avenue. The lights on top of the Secret Service Suburbans were flashing, though the sirens remained silent. The sight of the motorcade’s approach caused a storm of activity in the press pool, as cameramen and photographers hustled for position in the overcrowded area. The distant roar of the demonstrators started to pick up as well, despite the fact that their view of the motorcade was all but obscured.
Ryan saw that Rivers looked nervous. She caught his attention and tried a weak smile. “That press area is giving me fits. It’s a lot bigger than I wanted, but McCabe had to give in to the pressure . . . The networks went crazy when he sent over our first set of requirements.
We got to a third draft before they stopped threatening to sue. The first amendment is a terrible thing, at least from my point of view.”
He nodded his sympathy. “The AIC for Brenneman’s detail is here now,” he pointed out. “That should take some of the weight off you.”
“You’d think so.” She sighed, then turned her attention back to what he had been saying. “Okay, as far as my people are concerned, everything north of Ben Banneker Park is pretty much relegated to the rooftop countersniper teams. That’s a strange combination in and of itself; we’ve got Metro PD, Capitol Hill PD, and my own shoot-ers up there, as well as a few Bureau people thrown in for good measure . . . All the same, comms are pretty good, with the exception of the Metro guys. I’ll try to let them know you’re coming, but I can’t make any guarantees. I don’t know what happened there; it was just one of the small things that we overlooked, and I’m pissed off about it.”
She looked pissed off, Ryan thought, and she looked pretty good, too. He couldn’t help but think it; her cheeks were flushed with anger, but it worked for her. If he didn’t know better, he might have pegged her as a fresh-faced grad student, the enthusiasm making her seem a few years younger than her age. Because he did know better, he felt a little bit sorry for her; the Secret Service was an environment thoroughly dominated by alpha males, and someone who looked like Jodie Rivers would have had to work twice as hard to be taken seriously. He was sure that her current position had not come easily.
He let the thought go and tried to think of what else to ask her, but she was way ahead of him. “Do you need a vehicle?”
“No, I have one.” Harper was going to be stuck at Tyson’s Corner for the rest of the day, and had given Ryan the use of his forest green
’98 Explorer. “They’re still taking 12th back to the White House, right?”
She glanced at him, hesitated, then nodded. If Landrieu said he was cleared . . . “That’s right, for the most part. Since 12th Street is closed for construction between Pennsylvania and H, we have to turn onto 13th. We’re scheduled to head back around 11:40. Some of that depends on the weather. We’re supposed to be getting hit pretty hard this afternoon.”
“I heard it might pass us,” Ryan said, looking up as if to confirm the rumor.
“Yeah, well . . .” she shrugged as the president emerged from the vehicle and flashed a broad grin at the press pool, which immediately responded with a number of clamorous questions. “We’ll see.”
Despite the fact that he had not slept in almost twenty-eight hours, Vanderveen could feel the energy coursing through his body.
It was hard to remain seated in the chair, and the mind-numbing scenery offered by the hotel window did little to alleviate his bore-dom.
He had been surprised and gratified by the extent of MSNBC’s coverage of the event. The cameras had transmitted a live broadcast of the president’s motorcade nearly twenty minutes earlier. A quick count had yielded thirty-six vehicles, which was something of a relief, as it told him that Shakib’s document had probably not been compromised. Of course, if it had, 12th Street would almost certainly not have been closed down, but it was reassuring to see that the Secret Service felt secure in its preparations.
It had never been his intention to attack the motorcade before the meeting took place. It was afterward, when they had already professed their profound commitment to one another, that the sudden death of the American president would do the most damage to the fragile coalition. And he was so very close . . .
He checked his watch: 9:31 AM. He smiled to himself. It was hard to believe it had all come down to these moments. Staring out the window, he marveled at the changes that would soon be taking place. The buildings at the intersection would suffer the most. Soon they would be faceless rooms, no longer marked by rough stone walls and sparkling windows, but by tangled steel and crumbling concrete, and the shattered bodies of those unfortunate people who resided within.
He was so lost in the images of fire and destruction that he didn’t immediately notice the solitary figure moving up the street. His eyes opened a little bit wider, and he stood up and put his nose to the window to get a better look. When his suspicion was confirmed, his breath hissed out between his teeth and fogged the glass. You should have been paying attention, he thought, but it wasn’t a problem; he still had time.
Vanderveen looked around quickly, thinking about what he would need. The decision came quickly; he pulled on his heavy jacket, and grabbed his key card and passport. Reaching for his temporary visa, but then thinking, No, better not to try too hard. Then he was moving fast toward the door.
Ryan had enough confidence in Jodie Rivers to believe that she would make the calls she had promised. He was tired of hanging around, so after a brief conversation with the same agents he had seen manning the press entrance, he passed through the metal detector with minimal fuss and headed back toward Harper’s Explorer.
It was parked on 7th Street facing north, but when he got in and looked through the windshield, he was suddenly struck by indecision.
The street in front of him was crowded with vehicles, and the same was true on the other side of the road. He could see police officers walking up and down the rows, calling in license plate numbers and performing quick visual checks. There would be just as many cars on the streets running into 12th, and it seemed like at least half the vehicles were some type of SUV, which was exactly what he was looking for.
He slapped his hands on the steering wheel in frustration and got out of the truck. The streets were crowded with commuters at this time of the morning, and there was little he could do from a slow-moving vehicle. It would be better to walk.
He started up 7th—the time-worn Beretta firmly secured in a drop holster at the small of his back—nodding a greeting to the Metro cops that he passed on the street. He was shivering in the cold air, then remembered that he had left his jacket back in Harper’s vehicle. He debated for a second, then looked again at the long rows of vehicles. The sight gave him a sense of the enormity of his task, after which the decision came easily enough, and he walked quickly back to the Explorer.
After all, if he was going to be unproductive, he would at least be comfortable in the meantime. Soon he was coming back up the street, warmer in the leather jacket that still bore the tears and scuff marks from the Kennedy-Warren, and ready to begin what was sure to be a long and pointless search.
Jared Howson didn’t have the benefit of a jacket over his uniform, and had been cold ever since his shift had started nearly two hours earlier. He would have welcomed the relative, and certainly heated, comfort of the 1st District Station on 4th, but knew it could have been worse. After all, he only had this one street to worry about, and it wasn’t hard work. Simply look at the car, call in the license plate, do a quick visual scan, and move on to the next one. That was all the information he’d been given, but Howson had been on the force long enough to realize that the extra security had something to do with the presidential boating trip and the terrorist attacks that had rocked the city less than a month earlier. He had been as outraged as any American over what had taken place, and even more so than most because he was a guardian of law in this particular city, and those bastards thought they could come here and blow up innocent people . . .
Just thinking about it always got to him, and he had to shake off the rising anger as he finished with a blue Toyota and moved on to the next vehicle. It was a large commercial van, and exactly the kind of thing he had been told to look for. A Ford Econoline, he could see, with Virginia plates and a dented exterior that had seen more than its fair share of fender benders. He was about to call in the tag number when he realized that the passenger door was open, and a man was retrieving something from inside the van.
“Excuse me, sir. Sir . . . ?”
The man looked up, a notebook in his hand, wearing a big, friendly smile beneath the heavy beard. “Yes?”
Howson caught the accent right off the bat. “Is this your vehicle?”
“Yes, it is mine.”
Howson studied him carefully. In his pocket he had the same sheet of paper that had been distributed to the Secret Service agents at the marina, and he had taken the time to look at it back in the station. This man didn’t really resemble any of the superimposed photographs, although the general shape of the face was about right . . .
But that was true for at least 30 percent of the population, and the hair was all wrong. On top of that, the subject’s eyes were reportedly a vivid shade of green, and Howson was staring into flat brown eyes the color of oak. Not to mention the fact that the man was clearly French.
Still, just to be safe: “Do you have some identification, sir?”
The man hurried to comply, pulling his passport out of his heavy coat. “Of course, of course. Right here, monsieur.”
Howson accepted the burgundy booklet and peered at the cover: Communauté Européenne, and beneath that, République Française.
Inside, all the requisite information for one Claude Bidault and what appeared to be a U.S. entry stamp, although he wasn’t exactly sure what that was supposed to look like. Howson had never left the country, nor had he ever suffered from a burning desire to do so.
Satisfied, he handed the passport back to the man, who didn’t seem at all bothered by the officer’s inquiries.
“What is all this . . . activity? This is not usual, yes?”
“Actually, sir, your president is in town to meet with ours. I’m surprised you haven’t heard about it.”
“Ah . . .” The man beamed as though suddenly recalling that little fact, but the light of epiphany never reached his eyes. “That is correct. A big meeting, n’est-ce pas?”
The young police officer had to smile in response. “Yes, that’s right.” He moved closer to the van, taking the time to look through the back windows. Electrical equipment. A lot of it. “You’re an electrician, sir?”
The man nodded enthusiastically. “Oui. I am with the big project on M Street. There is a new restaurant they are building there. Work is not so easy to find in Paris, you know. So I come here to work, and send the money back to my sister. She looks after my little ones.”
“Your wife?”
Howson watched a look of pain cross the man’s grizzled features.
“She . . . How do you say? Passed away? When giving birth to my girl, my little Mirabelle. Four years ago next week.”
“Oh.” Howson could have kicked himself. Better to shut your mouth now, a little voice told him, before you do any more damage.
“Well, sir, thanks for your time. You have a good afternoon, okay?”
The smile reappeared. “Merci, monsieur. Et vous aussi.”
The police officer watched as the man closed the passenger-side door, then walked back toward the stairs leading up to the hotel’s main entrance. Howson hadn’t seen him emerge in the first place, but now he looked up at the building’s facade and frowned. The Marriott in this part of town was at least 180 dollars a night. Why would a construction company, even for a major project, pay that kind of money to put up an independent contractor? It didn’t make any sense, and the thought lingered on the edge of his mind as he resumed his task.
The concern remained, though it was soon overshadowed by what seemed like a distant memory of a heated building and a full pot of hot coffee. The convergence of these two trains of thought left little room for anything else, and Howson failed to realize that he had not called in the plates on the Frenchman’s Econoline van.
She had never bothered asking Harrison for one of his agents, instead settling for the use of one of the vehicles in the staging area. As a result, Naomi Kharmai, midlevel analyst in the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, had no more authority in northern Virginia than that of a private citizen.
She was in the restroom of a gas station directly opposite Milbery Realty. Looking in the mirror, she saw a woman who might have just emerged from a car wreck, except that she would have looked much better had that been the case. Her borrowed blue cargo pants were torn and dirty from lying in the field for hours on end, and the pullover was noticeably singed in several places. Her hair was matted and dirty, and the clothes she wore were thoroughly damp with melted snow. Her nose was totally stuffed up because she had a cold coming on, but she guessed that she probably didn’t smell that great either.
Worst of all were her eyes. They reflected what she had recently seen, made her look scared when she needed to be confident and assertive, at least for the next few hours. Then she would be free to have her breakdown, which she was actually beginning to look forward to. After several minutes of scrubbing and adjusting, she emerged from the restroom looking just marginally better. She purchased two large cups of coffee from the attendant and tried to avoid his curious gaze.
She left the car where it was and crossed the street, simultaneously glancing at her watch. It was almost 11:30, much later than she would have liked for this conversation to occur, but tracking down Lindsay Hargrove had proven to be an incredibly time-consuming task. Naomi had finally managed to get hold of Hargrove’s sister in Clarksburg, West Virginia, where Lindsay had apparently been staying for the week. She was now heading back to Virginia, and unfortunately didn’t carry a cell phone. The sister had informed Naomi, however, that Lindsay fully intended to stop by the office on her way home.
And that was why she was here. The woman she wanted to talk to was a long shot for additional information, but better than nothing at all. Hargrove, whose name had been on the Missing Persons Report faxed to the TTIC, had seemed like a better bet than the realtor’s husband, who wouldn’t have had any reason to meet his wife’s clients. Hargrove, on the other hand, had been working for Nicole Milbery for the past four years. Naomi was guessing that the woman might know more than she thought she did, despite the fact that she had already talked to the sheriff ’s office. At this point, all Naomi could do was hope that they might have been asking the wrong questions.
Once she was outside the office, she didn’t have to wait long before a white Nissan Altima pulled into one of the empty spaces in front of the building, and an elderly woman hopped out with surprising agility. Hargrove’s smile quickly faded to concern when she saw the state of the woman standing before her. “My God,” she said, with genuine alarm. “What happened to you, hon?”
Kharmai studied her as she unlocked the door and they moved inside. Hargrove was a plump woman in her late sixties, with a pleasant demeanor and healthy skin that belied her age. Naomi liked her immediately, and saw no reason to lie. “My name is Naomi Kharmai, Mrs. Hargrove. I was on Chamberlayne Road this morning.”
The older woman’s eyes went wide as she took a seat and offered one to her visitor. Hargrove gratefully accepted a cup of coffee and didn’t question who Naomi was, or how she knew her name. “That raid that was all over television? You were there?”
Naomi nodded. “Unfortunately.”
“It was the only thing on the news . . . Are they any closer to finding Nicole?” she asked hopefully.
Naomi didn’t have the heart to tell her that Milbery’s body had already been found in a shallow grave on the property, along with a red Ford Escape that had been driven deep into the undergrowth and strategically covered with mud and fallen tree limbs. That piece of information had yet to make its way into the local news, and it wouldn’t help matters to share it now. “They haven’t found anything yet, Mrs.
Hargrove, but they’re still looking.”
The older woman’s faded blue eyes began to mist over. “She’s such a good girl . . . I hope she’s okay. I just don’t understand it.
Usually, I’m pretty good at reading people, but that man really fooled me, I don’t mind telling you. He must be the devil himself.”
“The one who leased the property?” Naomi asked. Hargrove nodded in agreement, but Naomi was confused. “Wait . . . How did you know that’s why I’m here?”
“My son-in-law is a state trooper,” Hargrove explained. There was a touch of pride in her eyes. “I asked him to keep me up-to-date, so he called me when your department asked for additional information.”
Naomi frowned inwardly at the VSP’s lack of discretion, but told herself to let it go for the moment. “Could you tell me exactly what happened, Mrs. Hargrove?”
The older woman shifted her weight in the seat and nodded enthusiastically. “We were pretty slow on the day he came in. Nicole whisked him right into her office. She didn’t say anything specific, but I saw that look in her eye . . . You know that woozy look a young woman gets when she sees a diamond necklace or a pair of shoes she really wants?”
Naomi couldn’t help but smile at the analogy. “I’ve probably had it myself, more than once,” she offered.
Hargrove shot her a knowing smile in turn. “I’m sure you have, hon. Anyway, that was the look that Nicole had. I knew what she was thinking, too, and her a married woman . . . Well, that’s another story.”
“And this man went directly into her office? He didn’t say anything to you at all?”
“Oh, no,” Hargrove said, taking a small sip of her coffee. “He was very nice and all, charming too, but he only said hello to me. I think he was just as interested in Nicole as she was in him.”
“How long did he stay?”
“Not long at all. They were in there for . . . maybe ten minutes.
Then they came out and drove off in Nicole’s SUV.”
“Together?”
“Yep.” The older woman smiled at the scandal of it.
“How did he arrive in the first place?” Naomi asked. “You have some big windows in the front here. You didn’t see him pull up?”
Hargrove was already shaking her head. “No, I didn’t see anything at all. I already told that to the police.”
“Are you sure, Mrs. Hargrove? This is really important.”
“I’m completely sure. Besides, he told me he didn’t have a vehicle.”
Naomi looked up, suddenly interested. “I thought you said he didn’t talk to you.”
The older woman frowned. “Well, not coming in, he didn’t . . .”
Naomi tried to be patient. “And?”
“Well, on the way out he mentioned that he didn’t have a vehicle, but was in the market for one. So I asked him what he was looking for, and he said that he wanted a van.”
“And what did you tell him?” Kharmai felt something stir in her chest, recognized it as excitement.
Hargrove looked embarrassed. “Well, you see, I have a brother who lives down by Rivers Bend. He quit workin’ recently, so I knew he needed some extra money. And even though he’s pretty worthless, he’s still my brother, so I gave the man Walter’s number.”
“Walter’s your brother?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And he has a van?”
“Yep. It’s a big one, too. He used it on all his jobs. He was an electrician for twenty years. Not a very good one, mind you.”
Naomi was confused about something. “Why didn’t you tell the police all of this?”
The older woman shrugged. She was a little nervous, trying to figure out if she was in trouble or not. “Well, I didn’t see how it would help them find Nicole, for one thing.”
Naomi had to admit that she had a point there. Up until about twelve hours ago, this had been a routine missing persons investigation, and there had been no reason to suspect one of Milbery’s clients. “And the other reason?”
“He said that it wasn’t what he was looking for. He didn’t want a big, commercial van . . . too much on gas, he said. He just wanted something to run around to distributors in Richmond. I guess he was some type of salesman, but I’m not really sure.”
She thought about that for a second. “How often do you talk to your brother?”
Lindsay Hargrove shrugged her shoulders once again. “Not all that often. Like I said, he’s kind of no-good. I don’t get nothin’ outta talkin’ to him. In fact, it usually ends up costin’ me something.”
“Did you ever find out if he sold the van?”
A third shrug. “I called him that day to tell him about it, but he didn’t say ‘Thanks for tryin’ or anything like that, so I’ve been givin’
him the cold shoulder ever since. Why?”
“No reason. What kind of van does your brother have, Mrs.
Hargrove? Specifically, I mean.”
“I can’t be sure, hon, but I think it’s a Ford. A white Ford, and really big.”
“What about the outside? Anything unusual about it . . . ?”
“No, not really. It might have a ladder rack. Apart from that, it’s just a plain-old white panel van, maybe a little dinged up. Walter isn’t a very good driver.”
Naomi got to her feet, sweeping a lock of dirty black hair behind her ear and trying hard not to show her excitement. “That’s great, Mrs. Hargrove. You’ve been very helpful. Do you think I could use your phone?”
“Sure, hon. Anything you need.” She hesitated. “Um, Walter’s not in trouble, is he?”
Naomi looked up and said, with complete sincerity, “Trouble? No, not at all. In fact, his information could be vital to national security.”
“National security? Walter?” Lindsay Hargrove thought about that, appraising the disheveled state of her visitor once again. She lifted an eyebrow. “Huh.”
When the call came in to the TTIC, Jonathan Harper had to stop her twice before she slowed down enough to give him a coherent account of the conversation.
When Kharmai was finished, he said, “But you don’t know if the van was actually sold or not?”
“No, but the story he told her doesn’t sound right to me, sir.
Maybe he was just trying to keep her out of the loop, you know? One less witness he’d have to worry about.”
Harper heard the excitement in her voice, and had to admit that it sounded promising. He looked at his watch. “Jesus, Naomi, they’re wrapping up the speeches right now.”
She was almost frantic. “Sir, you have to stall them, or at least have them take a different route. He kept coming the whole time, despite every effort on our part to stop him. He knows something, or he would have backed off. He has to know something.”
“You might be right about that.” He was thinking back to Kealey’s warning about the missing laptops at the State and Justice departments, a warning that they had both quickly dismissed at the time. If Vanderveen had managed to get his hands on something like that, he would have certainly known how to put it to good use. And the Secret Service still hadn’t released their report on the matter. “I’m sending this all the way up, Naomi. I hope to God this isn’t a false alarm.”
She had never been more sure of anything in her life, but knew that he wasn’t questioning her judgment. It was just that he had to ask it. “He’s there,” she said emphatically. “He’s pushed it too far to stop now. He’s there and he’s waiting.”
A brief hesitation. “Okay. I gotta run. See if you can pin down Hargrove’s brother, find out for sure what he did with the van. And listen . . . good work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“. . . And so, I am pleased to join President Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi in announcing a gradual downsizing of European oil interests in the Republic of Iran over the next three years, beginning with an immediate decrease in production by 200,000 barrels per day in the South Pars gas fields, and culminating with the complete withdrawal of survey and exploration teams in the region by 2008. Production will also be reduced in the Dorood, Salman, and Abuzar oil fields which, combined, account for more than 70 percent of Iran’s offshore output.
“The United States has made no secret of the fact that it has maintained sanctions against Iran since 1979. These measures have been strengthened over the years, most notably with the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act of 1996. While it is our wholehearted desire to see these sanctions lifted and the full restoration of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and the Republic of Iran, there should be no doubt that we are willing to stay the course if the Iranian government persists in its attempts to acquire tools of mass destruction.”
President Brenneman paused, then held up his hand to quell the sudden surge of voices from the crowd of reporters standing before him. “I’d like to take this opportunity to personally thank President Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi for accepting my invitation, and for working as hard as they have to make this goal a reality. The agreement that has been brokered here today is the direct result of their commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its intended purpose: to render the threat of nuclear war a thing of the past, and to make the world a safer place for future generations. Now I’d like to step aside and let them tell you more about the specific implementations that are scheduled to occur . . .”
As she surveyed the scene, Jodie Rivers shook her head and thought, This is insane. Despite the fact that the guest list had been kept to a minimum and carefully screened, the area bordering the waterfront was packed by more than 200 people, each and every one of whom, in her eyes, was a potential threat.
The three heads of state were standing on an elevated podium perhaps 50 feet wide and 20 feet deep. President Brenneman was moving aside to give the French ambassador room as he stepped up to introduce President Chirac. Although there were large numbers of Diplomatic Security and Secret Service agents both on and around the podium, Rivers was well aware that this was a huge security risk.
As a result, her eyes never left the stage, even when she flipped open her ringing cell phone and lifted it to her ear. She definitely didn’t appreciate the interruption.
“Agent Rivers? This is Director Landrieu.”
She recognized the urgency in his voice immediately, and felt suddenly cold. “Yes, sir.”
“Let me start by saying this is a four-way line. You’re talking to Deputy Directors McCabe and Susskind as well. Listen carefully. We have some information that puts Vanderveen in the city with an Improvised Explosive Device. I can’t give you better than 90 percent on that, but it was enough to put the wheels in motion, and I don’t need to tell you who the target is.”
Dear God, she thought. Her worst nightmare was coming true, and she had to force herself to pay attention.
“. . . Rivers? Are you still with me?”
“Yes, sir. Go ahead.”
“You’re looking for a white Ford van, commercial type, probably an Econoline. We don’t have a plate number or a name for you yet, but we’re only a couple of minutes away, so keep your line open.”
“What about the—”
“Jodie.” It was a new voice, and one she recognized immediately.
“AIC Storey has already been alerted. We’re gonna keep the question-and-answer session with the press pool going as long as we can without arousing any suspicion, okay? We finally got through to the people in Norfolk . . . Under the name of Timothy Nichols, Vanderveen took possession of forty crates at a total weight of just over 3,000 pounds less than two weeks ago.”
Her eyes went wide at the numbers. “Jesus, the city is packed—”
When he cut back in, McCabe’s voice had the clear ring of authority. “Listen to me, Jodie: Your only concern is for the president, okay?
You have that waterfront locked down, I’ve seen it myself. There’s nothing Vanderveen can do to you there unless he’s suicidal, and the general consensus, the hope, is that he isn’t. Normally we’d move the president as fast and far as possible, but that’s not going to work in this case. So we’ll keep him at the marina for now; Storey knows what to do, just follow his lead. As soon as I get off here, I’m headed to your location.”
Yet another voice, coming fast before she could respond: “Agent Rivers, this is Emily Susskind. HRT is already up and running. They’re fanning out around the area, and some are in plainclothes, okay? You need to get that to your observers as soon as possible. I don’t want my people getting shot by mistake.”
She was nodding to herself as the instructions came fast over the phone. “Got it.”
Then, from Deputy Director Susskind: “Hold on.” Over the sounds of the crowd around her, Rivers heard static and voices raised in excitement. It seemed like minutes later when McCabe came on and said, “Got a name, Jodie. Claude Bidault, French national. The vehicle was registered in Virginia less than a month ago. Plate number is . . . RND-1911. Ready for a description?”
“Go.”
“Black hair and brown eyes. He might have a beard, but that’s not 100 percent. A little heavier than Vanderveen, at about 200 pounds.
We’re not sure how he’s doing that; padding, maybe. Same height, of course. There’s nothing he could do there.”
“I’ll get it out to my observers.” Rivers was a little bit frantic now.
“Sir, I have to move.”
“I know.” McCabe’s voice was tense over the line. “Get to it, Jodie.”
Ryan had been on the street for two-and-a-half hours. Nothing so far had grabbed his attention, although he had to remind himself that Vanderveen wasn’t exactly going out of his way to appear con-spicuous.
There had been nothing planned out or expedient in his route; he had headed north from 7th and Maine, scanning faces and checking vehicles along the way. There wasn’t much he could do other than to look through the windows and drop down to visually inspect the undercarriages, and his strange behavior had earned him some curious glances, as well as a few fearful ones.
He recognized the futility of his search, but there was one overriding fact that bothered him more than anything else: there was no feasible way to detonate a bomb by command wire on a crowded city street, and a timer wasn’t practical, either, even if Vanderveen had somehow managed to get hold of the Secret Service’s list of scheduled movements.
In other words, the only realistic way for Vanderveen to succeed was by remote detonation, which meant that he would be close by in an overwatch position. Kealey knew the man well enough to know that he would detonate the device regardless of whether the president was in target range; the public would believe it because of what they had seen him do to the Kennedy-Warren on national television, but proof enough for Ryan was the raised scar that resided an inch to the right of his own sternum.
He stayed on 7th until the National Air and Space Museum appeared on his right, then crossed the street onto the wide open space of the Mall. Heading northwest over the grass, with the dome of the Capitol Building framed high at his back, he smiled at the excited noises coming from a group of schoolchildren who were lined up at the glass doors to the Smithsonian. The smile soon faded, though, as he was too tightly wound to share in their enthusiasm.
For all he knew, their bus might be passing Vanderveen’s position on its way back to their school . . .
He pushed the thought from his mind as he came up on 12th Street. It was better not to think about it. When he heard his cell phone ringing, he was grateful for the distraction, but not for long.
“Ryan, it’s Harper.”
“John, listen—”
“No time, Ryan.”
He caught the urgency just as Rivers had done less than a minute earlier, and fell silent immediately.
Harper continued: “Naomi turned out to be lucky, after all. Our man has a driver’s license and a French passport in the name of Claude Bidault. The passport is real, but the actual owner reported it lost six months earlier while on vacation in Crete. Got that?”
“Yeah. Keep going.”
“Susskind finally hooked up with this guy Thompson in Norfolk.
Using the Nichols ID, Vanderveen picked up 3,000 pounds’ worth of material at NIT exactly eight days ago. The arrogant bastard walked right under our noses twice at the same port . . . Anyway, he has a vehicle that we can’t account for. It’s a Ford Econoline van, white, maybe with a ladder rack on top.”
Ryan was already running. Standing on 12th when the phone rang, he had taken two long looks either way down the street, then decided to go north, for no particular reason he could think of.
Harper’s voice seemed to bounce at his ear as he dodged the heavy crowds of pedestrians, most of whom were people leaving work for a quick lunch. Some of them shot him angry looks or curses as he pushed through the throngs, and the whole time the deputy director’s words were hitting him with the force of a sledgehammer:
“. . . and Virginia tags, Ryan, RND-1911. HRT is moving out in plainclothes, but they—”
“Tell them to stay north of the Mall.” His mind was moving in a blur, trying to recall a white Ford van, but . . . No, he hadn’t seen one.
He was sure of it. He said again, “North of the Mall, John. That’s where he’s gotta be. What’s happening at the marina?”
“That whole area is locked down tight. They doubled up on the barriers, and the CAT team is moving into place,” Harper said, referring to the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, a highly secretive group that managed to keep a low profile, despite the fact that they accompanied the president wherever he went. “They’ve been able to keep it pretty quiet so far.”
“That won’t last,” Ryan said, already breathing hard from the exertion of a full-blown sprint. He was passing cars in a flash, and there was a white van right there . . . But no, it was a Chevy. He didn’t break stride, racing past the parked vehicle as a number of pedestrians turned to gawk in his wake. He was scanning faces, too, looking for anyone who might resemble the description that Harper had just given him.
He made a quick decision. “Can’t walk and talk, John. Gotta go.”
“No, Ryan, WAIT—”
He cut the connection and jammed the phone into his pocket, slowing down for a second to feel for the Beretta and get a long look both left and right down Constitution Avenue.
Nothing. He stayed straight on 12th, running hard.
Jeff Storey, the agent in charge of the president’s detail, was floored by the message that he had just received. A terrorist, in the city with a van full of fucking explosives, and they wanted him to sit tight? It was beyond belief . . .
Storey had been a special agent in the Secret Service for nearly sixteen years, with the last four spent on the president’s detail, and the last two of those four in charge of that detail. He looked around nervously. Jesus Christ, the assistant director had said 3,000 pounds.
The concrete bollards would stop the van itself, but the kill radius for that kind of weight was at least . . . what? He tried to remember. It had to be at least 1,500 feet, and from his position on the podium, Storey could easily make out the medium-sized print on the barriers where 6th turned into Maine. Sit tight, my ass, he thought. We’re sitting ducks.
Standing there on the podium, listening to the French ambassador lead up to the introduction of President Chirac, thinking about how easy it would be for a van to come barrelling down that street, Jeff Storey came to a decision. He was the one in charge of the president’s detail, not Joshua fucking McCabe, and there was no way that he was going to see the president dead on his watch. In sixteen years with the Secret Service he had never found the need to draw his weapon on the job, but he did so now. He was standing on the podium with a group of diplomats and aides, blending into the background with the others behind the three heads of state when he convinced himself it was time to act. As the Sig 228 came up and out of his holster, the eyes of the two agents standing next to him went wide, and there was no turning back.
The AIC lifted his sleeve to his mouth and said, in a calm but forceful tone, the words that caused the world to come crashing down around him: “Storey to detail! Hurricane! I repeat, Hurricane! ”
Moving behind the press pool with two junior agents in tow, Jodie Rivers looked up in surprise at the sudden movement on the podium. Her surprise quickly turned to horror, however, when she saw that Storey had grabbed the president roughly, and was pulling him back as the other agents surrounded the pair with their weapons out. The French president and his aides were looking on with confusion clear in their faces, as was the Italian prime minister, when the DSS agents assigned to each man came crashing onto the stage, following the lead of Storey and his detail.
The reporters and photographers on the gangplank were in a frenzy at the scene, cameras flashing everywhere as the people in the press pool tried to make sense of the situation. Their screamed questions went unanswered as a line of agents formed to block the president’s predetermined escape route, but the metal barriers came crashing down as the media let go of the last shreds of decorum. The thin line of agents was quickly overrun by the huge crowd of reporters and cameramen.
Rivers couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This was exactly why McCabe had ordered Storey not to do anything rash. “What the hell is he DOING!” she screamed, before realizing that the two junior agents standing next to her had even less of a clue than she did.
Back in the CT watch center, McCabe, Susskind, Landrieu, and Harper were also staring in horrified disbelief at the scene that was playing out live on MSNBC.
McCabe was the first to lose it, his face flushing a very deep red.
“This is exactly why I told him to sit tight!” he shouted, unconsciously giving voice to the thoughts of Jodie Rivers. “We need to cut that feed right now!”
Harper’s face was pale, and he was shaking his head. “It’s too late.
If Vanderveen saw that, he has nothing to lose by blowing it.”
“Fuck!” McCabe slammed a closed fist down onto the table in front of him. A moment of clarity cut through the reactionary anger, and he suddenly realized that his career with the Service was almost certainly over, not to mention the fact that a lot of people were probably about to lose their lives. “FUCK!”
Ryan crossed the street when he reached the Pavilion at the Old Post Office, cutting under the arches of the Ariel Rios Federal Building and breaking into a wide open space less than 100 meters away from the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center. He ran north as 13th Street loomed ahead, and then found himself facing the pink-gray granite expanse of Freedom Plaza. He was breathing hard and there was a painful stitch in his side, but he kept his head up as his eyes scoured the line of cars in front of the National Theatre.
There. He knew immediately that it was the right one, even though the vehicle didn’t have a ladder rack and he couldn’t tell for sure if it was a Ford from the side. He knew because the van was sitting low to the ground, much lower than it should have been.
Whatever that vehicle was carrying, it definitely wasn’t light.
Then he was running again, despite the fact that Vanderveen was probably just waiting for him to get closer to the van before blowing it. Something inside Ryan’s head told him that he should be feeling fear, that there was definite cause for it, but he couldn’t lock on to any single emotion. He only knew that he had to get to that van as soon as possible.
Although he didn’t make a conscious effort to do so, his right hand went back to the holster and came up with the pistol. It turned out to be a bad move; Vanderveen wasn’t anywhere in sight, but there were a lot of people walking around, and a lot of people eating lunch on the benches around the fountain. One woman saw the gun in his hand and began to scream, and then there were a lot of screams . . .
Trooper 1st Class Jared Howson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was about 50 meters east of the Ford on Pennsylvania when he saw a distant figure with what looked like a gun in his hand, racing through a crowd of cowering pedestrians.
Howson just stared for about ten seconds before he remembered that he was a police officer, and had a gun of his own. He pulled the standard-issue Glock 17 out of its holster and sprinted back down the street toward the van, not once taking his eyes off the other man or the weapon he was holding.
Although Jeff Storey had undeniably broken standing orders, he was still a Secret Service agent with sixteen years of experience, and knew that, given the current situation, he would be a lot better off on the water than he would on the streets. Still surrounded by the members of his detail, he dragged President Brenneman, who was still too shocked to be angry, down the dock as a number of agents peeled off to cover their movements.
The AIC grabbed a UHF radio from one of his men. It was already set to Channel 4, their dedicated maritime link. “Storey to Coast Guard cutter Alder, Storey to Alder. I need immediate escort for Boater at LZ number 3. Do you copy?”
Coming back a split second later: “Storey, this is Alder. Roger that, we’re two minutes out, over.”
“Two fuckin’ minutes,” Storey mumbled. “Unbelievable.” He put in a second hurried call for transport at the designated landing zone, which was on the southern tip of the East Potomac Golf Club, as well as asking for additional helicopter support, never breaking stride as he pulled the president toward a turbocharged motorboat manned by USSS personnel less than 50 feet away. Behind them, the chaos continued to build as some of the reporters, finally realizing that they might actually be in danger themselves, began to trample each other in their rush to get away from the waterfront.
The DS agents for the French and Italian delegations, unaware of the specific threat, bundled their respective principals into armor-plated limousines and screamed at the drivers to move. The heavy vehicles pulled away from the curb at a surprising rate of speed, minus motorcycle outriders, following Maine onto 12th Street, and then heading north toward Pennsylvania Avenue and the safety of the White House.
Ryan was amazed when he reached the van and it was still intact.
He didn’t know where Vanderveen was, but knew the man was definitely somewhere in the area, and had to be watching him at that very moment. He arrived at a dead sprint, pulling up short and slamming his left elbow into the glass on the passenger side.
A wave of pain shot up his arm, but the safety glass gave way immediately. Another three judicious blows pushed the crumpled sheet of glass onto the passenger seat. He was reaching to unlock the door from the inside when a voice yelled, “HOLD IT!”
He whipped his head around to see a young police officer pointing a heavy black pistol at his chest. The adrenaline coursing through his body, Ryan’s mind took in the scene at the speed of light: Metro PD uniform, two chevrons on the sleeve, young kid, scared eyes, and shaky hands on the gun. It all combined to give him a very bad feeling.
“DROP THE GUN!” the officer screamed.
“I’m a Federal officer,” Ryan snarled. “I have to get into this vehicle right—”
“SHUT UP! DROP IT!”
“Ah, fuck. Fuck!” Ryan could see he wasn’t going to win, and he was out of time. “Okay, I’m dropping it. Don’t shoot me, for Christ’s sake.” His right hand left the gun on top of the shattered pane of glass, and slowly, ever so slowly, he pulled his hands out of the interior and held them out by his sides. “Listen to me—”
The policeman was coming down a little bit now. “Keep your hands where I can see them! Turn around and—”
“Shut up! You listen to me. I’m a Federal officer. The person who owns this van is the same man who killed Senator Levy and blew up the Kennedy-Warren.” Ryan watched a look of disbelief spread over the young man’s face. “There is a bomb in this vehicle. I’m stepping back . . . Take the gun off the passenger seat and let me get in there, okay? I need to get in there.”
“I saw him . . .”
Ryan latched on to it, talking fast: “Black hair, brown eyes? About my height, heavy?” The officer nodded, the confusion spreading to his eyes. “He’s a terrorist, and there is a bomb in this van. Take the gun, man. Take the fucking gun.”
More wavering. Without taking his gaze or his weapon off the man standing before him, Jared Howson reached in through the door frame and lifted the Beretta off the seat.
Will Vanderveen was absorbed by the live footage on MSNBC. He had known, or felt, rather, that something was wrong when the conference was still going on ten minutes after it was scheduled to end.
Although it didn’t seem like much to get excited about, Vanderveen knew that every second of the president’s schedule was accounted for by the agents comprising his protective detail, and the unusual length of the Q&A session following the return of the Sequoia was definitely out of the ordinary. Then, in that shocking moment when the president had been grabbed from behind by one of his agents and dragged away from the podium, his single violent expletive could have been clearly heard by the guests in the next room. His anger had been made worse by the fact that the agents were taking the president farther down the dock, which meant he was moving away from 12th Street.
Still, he hadn’t given up hope. He was still watching intently, trying to see if the DS agents who arrived on the podium a split second later were pulling their principals back toward the motorcade. It was hard to see, because the cameraman had removed the camera from its stable platform, and judging from the jerky image, was having a hard time holding it steady in the crowd. Vanderveen knew that with all the people currently spread out over the marina, the Service would never be able to land a helicopter. So it was either the cars or a boat, and he felt a little bit better when it appeared that the agents were moving the French and Italian leaders back toward the cars. His earlier reconnaissance of the waterfront had served him well, and he might still be able to salvage some of his plan.
It was only then that he realized, with a sudden feeling of dread, that he had missed the whole point. Why had they pulled the president off the podium in the first place? He felt a tingle of fear as he stood up and turned to look out the window. What he saw turned the fear to shock in an instant.
It couldn’t be, he thought, but try as he might, there was no denying it: the person standing on Pennsylvania north of the plaza, held at gunpoint by the same police officer Vanderveen had talked to earlier, was none other than Ryan Kealey.
He nearly smiled at the scene. There was something almost comforting about the sight of his former commanding officer—it was like seeing a living link to the past. There was something vaguely amusing about it, too; after all, it wasn’t every day that a former Delta operator was caught out by a rookie cop, and that kid in particular didn’t look as if he belonged anywhere near a loaded firearm. Ryan must be getting sloppy.
Then the smile faded as he realized that they probably weren’t alone. The Bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team might already be surrounding the hotel, and they wouldn’t be interested in merely arresting a man who had killed eight of their own.
The decision came in a heartbeat: it was time to cut his losses. He had flipped the switch in the cab two hours earlier, right before his conversation with the police officer. Everything was ready. Vanderveen picked up his .40 caliber USP and jammed it into the waistband of his jeans, then pulled on his long, heavy coat to conceal the bulge. In his pocket was the cell phone, which he withdrew as soon as he stepped into the hall.
He briefly wondered how much of the blast he would feel in the shelter of the hotel, then decided that he didn’t care. He couldn’t wait for the motorcade, but for all the failure of the day, there was one small feeling of triumph: Ryan Kealey would not live to see the end of it.
Walking down the hall toward the elevators, Vanderveen flipped open the cell phone and pushed and held the number 1.
They were making some progress, but the young officer still had his 9mm trained on Kealey’s chest. “You come running down here with no ID, waving a gun, and now you say there’s a bomb in this van? I . . . look, I can’t let you in there.”
Ryan couldn’t understand why they weren’t already dead. Was this the wrong vehicle? Had he made a mistake? “I’m getting into this van,” he said. It wasn’t a request, and he began to move cautiously back to the passenger-side door. “Shoot me if you have to, but I’m getting in.”
The gun wavered, then finally dropped. “Shit! I’m not gonna shoot you.” Howson slipped Ryan’s weapon into his holster, lowering his own to his side. Then, a second later: “What do I do?”
Ryan opened the door from the inside, flinching when he realized that he hadn’t checked for a trip wire. “You talked to the guy?”
The officer nodded and pointed to his right. “Yeah, I think he went in there.”
Ryan glanced toward the dark gray facade of the JW Marriott hotel. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and handed it over while simultaneously turning his attention back to the van. “Speed dial 3, then ask for Rivers.” He was glad he had stored her number.
“Tell her where to come . . . Don’t go into that building.”
Ryan was in the cab a few seconds later, head down and busy as the police officer raced toward the hotel. In his right hand Howson carried the standard-issue 9mm Glock. In his left hand he held nothing, as he had already slipped the cell phone into his pocket and promptly forgotten about it.
Vanderveen stopped dead in the hall, staring in disbelief at the message on the cell phone’s display: Network Unavailable. What the fuck did that mean? He cursed low, under his breath, and didn’t notice when a passing woman shot him a disapproving glare.
He hoped it wasn’t the hotel. For all of his planning, he had not anticipated this possibility. If it was something to do with the building materials, he’d have to get outside before he could get a signal.
That was thirty seconds in the elevator, forty seconds through the makeshift hall leading to The Shops at National Place, and another twenty seconds through the stores themselves to F Street. He knew because he had already timed it. Ninety seconds total—more than enough time for any number of unpleasant things to occur. Plenty of time for Ryan to get into the hotel, and more than enough time for the HRT to set up a hasty perimeter.
Maybe it wouldn’t come to that. He pushed and held the button a second time, willing his creation to do its work.
Ryan was in the van for less than five seconds when he found what didn’t fit. His hand was sweeping between the seats when it banged into a boxy metal object. Shifting his weight over the seat to stare down at it, he couldn’t see what practical purpose it might have served. It looked like a cover of some kind, but when he tried to lift it, it didn’t budge. Then he pulled on the other end and it came right up. He flinched, waiting for the inevitable blast. When nothing happened, he looked down and saw a single switch.
He flipped it without hesitation. Leaning back in the seat, breathing hard from fear and the long sprint, his mind raced to figure out what had just transpired.
Two seconds later, sounding distant through the thin steel partition, Ryan heard the unmistakable high-pitched tone as a cell phone began to ring somewhere in the cargo area.
After another few seconds had passed, he looked in the rearview mirror to see a procession of black limousines turn from 12th onto Pennsylvania at breakneck speed, only to make another sharp turn onto 13th a split second later.
Jared Howson burst into the lobby with his gun up, oblivious to the wide-eyed stares and screams that accompanied his entrance.
A security guard was standing just inside the door, but didn’t move to interfere with the policeman or the gun in his hand.
Howson turned right toward the concierge, scrambling to recall the name he had seen on the passport.
“Bidault! Claude Bidault! What’s his room number?” No one responded. They just stared at him with their hands held high. “WHAT’S
THE ROOM NUMBER?”
One of the men finally grabbed a keyboard, his hands shaking.
“Bidault?” Howson nodded impatiently. “Room 545,” the concierge said. “Elevators are that way.”
But Howson was already gone, the Glock 9mm down low in a two-handed grip. He moved fast toward the elevators, then caught a flash of a dark green oilskin jacket and stopped instinctively, trying hard to remember. He had seen that jacket somewhere before . . .
He sprinted past the atrium toward the escalators.
Kealey moved into the hotel with less fanfare, but everyone knew why he was there. A few fingers pointed him past guest registration on the main lobby level.
Indecision for a moment. He didn’t have a weapon, but Vanderveen was running and would soon be gone. Hold or follow? A glimpse of a Metro PD uniform at the top of the escalator made the decision for him.
He moved in that direction, only to find his path was blocked by a large security guard. The man had a radio up and was speaking into it urgently. He turned his attention to Kealey: “Stop right there, sir! I said stop!”
Ryan slowed to a fast walk, his hands up in front of his chest, palms out in a conciliatory gesture. “I have a reservation here. I’m sorry for the trouble, I’m just late meeting someone . . .”
He hit the security guard hard in the solar plexus, then lifted his knee into the man’s face. The guard fell back, tumbling into a coffee cart and sending several steaming urns crashing to the floor.
Ryan was aware of swarming blue uniforms in his peripheral vision as he sprinted up the escalator. He was passing covered glass doors when he heard a popping noise up ahead, and then what sounded like two more shots carrying over the cries of terrified onlookers.
He picked up the pace as the screams intensified in volume.
Howson knew he was moving too fast, but he was young and his adrenaline was through the roof. More importantly, there was an open area up ahead, and he’d definitely caught another flash of the oilskin jacket.
The whole way, from the van to the lobby, the lobby to the escalator, the escalator to here—all forty-five seconds of it—all he could think about was the story it would make. He couldn’t wait to tell it on the old man’s porch . . . There was no little voice, nothing inside telling him to slow it down, otherwise there wouldn’t be any story, and he was running hard. He saw light spilling from left to right at the end of the hall, heard the sound of a bustling crowd, and kept pushing forward. Past a steel-shuttered elevator pit, past a plastic Dumpster filled with trash, and then into the basement level before realizing his mistake, because the lure of the light had prevented him from turning right.
It came without warning. There was no explosion of sound, no tunnel of light, and no pain. All he felt was a grazing sensation at the back of his head, and then darkness.
Ryan was about twenty steps and seven seconds behind. He saw the prone figure of the police officer as soon as he entered the construction area, and tried not to look at the gaping exit wound in the young man’s face, or the spray of blood and tissue on the tile in front of him as he reached down and snatched up Howson’s Glock.
Ryan sensed that Vanderveen was not waiting to get the drop on him, and he needed to move fast now if he wanted to catch up. He turned into the open area recklessly, the 9mm down low in the same two-handed grip that Howson had adopted less than two minutes earlier. Twenty feet in front of him, Ryan saw people running in his direction out of Filene’s Basement, the only store on the lowest level. He bounded up the stairs, passing black bins of cashmere and racks of discounted Prada, forcing his way through the frantic crowd, knowing full well that this might be his last chance at getting close enough to put the man down for good.
Vanderveen was about fifteen seconds ahead of Kealey when he passed through the glass doors leading out onto F Street, moving quickly but casually. His posture was relaxed, and calm enough so that none of the passersby immediately noticed what was dangling from his right hand.
The few extra seconds gave him the time he needed to scan the street for police cars or the unmarked Suburbans that were favored by so many of the government’s more notorious agencies. He wasn’t thinking about what had gone wrong; there would be plenty of time for that later. At the moment, his only goal was to get out of the city as fast as possible.
He stepped into the road, crossing the first lane before a west-bound Camry with a dented hood screeched to a halt a few feet to his right. As the shocked and relieved driver furiously leaned on his horn, Vanderveen walked around the side of the vehicle.
The man had been smoking while he drove, and the window was rolled halfway down, despite the cold. He started to say something smart as the person he had nearly hit approached his door, but never got it out. Vanderveen smoothly lifted the .40 with his right hand and jammed it into the driver’s ear, pulling the trigger once.
Ignoring the screams of nearby pedestrians, Vanderveen pulled open the door and yanked hard on the driver’s body, which tumbled lifelessly out into the road.
Then he was in the car and moving away, not bothering to fully close the door until he had already upshifted twice. Looking up to the rearview mirror, he saw the glass doors of the National Place building swing open as a figure emerged at a dead sprint.
Kealey burst out onto F Street in time to see the red Camry pulling away in a squeal of tires. He had the Glock up in a heartbeat, banging away two shots at the retreating vehicle, going for the tires but catching the bumper instead.
Then it howled around the corner onto 14th, disappearing from view. Kealey swore under his breath, saw the body on the street and moved to pull someone out of their vehicle. Seconds later, a pair of black Suburbans with light racks flashing on top came flying up behind him on 13th Street, slamming forward to a halt at the intersection. Then there were men streaming out of the vehicles with their MP5s locked onto his head, screaming, “FBI! Drop the gun!
Drop the gun right now! ”
Kealey turned and shouted back, for what seemed like the tenth time in as many minutes, “I’m a Federal officer! Susskind knows me, for Christ’s sake! The guy you’re looking for just turned that corner—” He almost pointed before he realized he still had the gun in his hand. “In a red Camry. I got the plate—”
“Put the gun on the ground! Do it!”
The people approaching him didn’t look all that accommodating.
He had his left hand on the door handle of a silver Mercedes, the middle-aged woman behind the wheel staring up at him in fear and shock. Ryan took his hand away and lifted his arms at the elbows, the grip of the gun pinched between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Swearing again, he set the weapon on the pavement and stepped back as the agents swarmed in around him.
It was over, and Vanderveen was gone.