The trooper shakes his head. “Sorry, I’m going to need to write you up. Those chains should be properly secured, and from what I can see, they’re not.”

  Sylvester sighs. The traffic ahead is moving. Time is really starting to get tight. He smiles. “I understand, sir,” he says, and he slides his hand underneath the copy of USA Today, picks up his Ruger .357 revolver, and shoots the trooper in the face.

  The trooper grunts, falls back in a cloudy mist of blood and bone. Sylvester puts the truck in drive and manages to get past the scene before other drivers notice what happened.

  Next to him, Casey rubs his left ear and says, “You know what?”

  “What?” Sylvester asks, picking up speed. Probably some motorist back there saw their license plate, but it doesn’t matter. By the time word gets out about the shooting, they’ll be at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue backing this tow truck over the sidewalk with guys waiting nearby to secure the truck’s chains to the fence.

  “Traffic’s still a bitch,” Casey says. “Think we’ll keep to the schedule?”

  Sylvester says, “You got your checkpoint pass?”

  Casey pats the leather dispatch case between them. “Right here, along with yours.”

  “Then don’t worry.”

  After they travel a few miles, Casey says, “When I was a senior in high school, my history class went to DC for a White House tour. I was home sick that day. Always regretted missing it.”

  Sylvester says, “Today your high-school dream comes true.”

  Chapter

  118

  In early August 1957, Leo Hoegh, head of the Federal Civil Defense Administration, expressed his concerns to President Dwight Eisenhower regarding the previous month’s four-day national civil defense drill, Operation Alert.

  This drill simulated an attack on the United States by the Soviet Union, and one key aspect of the exercise was the evacuation of the president from the White House by helicopter. However, in a classified after-action report, the feasibility of using a helicopter to evacuate the president was questioned, since helicopters assigned to the White House might not be able to complete their mission due to sabotage, bad weather, or engine malfunction.

  So a secret working group consisting of the Secret Service, the U.S. Army, and the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police came up with a classified plan to remove the president from the White House by vehicle. This plan—named Operation Wrangler, a reference to the president’s fondness for novels about the American West—called for the Metro Police to block key intersections in the District of Columbia and allow only official vehicles to enter and leave the White House grounds. The drivers of these civilian and military vehicles were to carry a pass allowing them to go through police blockades. Operation Wrangler would be activated by a phone call from the head of the Federal Civil Defense Administration—or his or her designee—to the DC Metro Police chief. An exchange of code phrases would set the plan in motion.

  Operation Wrangler was tested only twice, both times via tabletop exercises, but it remained in effect over the years as the Federal Civil Defense Administration became the Office of Civil and Defense Mobilization, then the Office of Civil Defense; eventually, the division’s responsibilities were taken over by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which, in March 2003, became part of the Department of Homeland Security.

  Chapter

  119

  I’ve been in more tight situations than I can recall, but I’m sure I’ll never forget this one. As we get closer to the headquarters of Global Security Services, Deacon drives like a woman possessed, passing cars slowing in traffic, blowing through red lights, and, once, driving partway up a sidewalk.

  I hold on to the dashboard and say, “Remember that promise to you I made back in Afghanistan?”

  More horns blaring, more brakes screeching. “Which one?”

  “The one about a date in a place with clean water, clean sheets, electricity, and room service?” I reflexively close my eyes for a second. “Hard to keep that promise if I get killed.”

  She screeches the blue Mercedes sedan through an exit leading to 234th Street South and says, “Calm down, John. I was at the top of my defensive-driving courses at the Farm.”

  “Maybe so, but…”

  Deacon slows the Mercedes to the thirty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit and says, “Closer to the target, there’re more surveillance cameras and observation platforms. Lots of contractors and government agencies—they see a speeding car approaching, they’ll kick up their security.”

  She turns left onto a tree-lined avenue called Defensive Way. Clustered around the oval-shaped and carefully planned parking areas are several cookie-cutter office buildings, all about fifteen or twenty stories high.

  Deacon parks us in a space marked VISITOR in front of a building that has a large sign on its perfect lawn that reads GLOBAL SECURITY SERVICES. It’s written in blue and white script that’s bisected by a swooping red line.

  I get out and look around. Deacon says, “What, thinking you’ve been here before?”

  “Not hardly,” I say. “Back when I was a rookie on the Metro Police, they had a program where you rotated from precinct to precinct. I was patrolling with some old vet along K Street and he pointed to all the shiny office buildings and said, ‘Man, there’s more criminals per square inch up there than in any other place in DC, and we’re out here busting brothers for dime bags.’”

  Deacon says, “If you move along, you’ll be coming face to face with a real criminal, someone worse than anyone on K Street.”

  “Looking forward to it,” I say.

  We go through a wide entrance of double glass doors, each bearing the GSS logo. Up ahead is a curved desk-like counter with three women sitting behind it, all wearing headsets and talking to visitors. Deacon goes to the oldest woman in the trio and says, “Cassie, you still playing video games on company time?”

  Cassie grins. “I won’t tell. What brings you here today, girl?”

  Deacon puts her hands on the counter, leans over. “I need to see my asshole ex-hubby, but I don’t want him to know I’m here yet. Can you give my friend and me a temporary pass?”

  Cassie’s grin slips away. “Shit, Liz, you tossed him out on his ass two years ago. Why in hell do you need to see him now?”

  “Because I just found out the shithead was concealing assets during the divorce proceedings, and my large friend here”—she shrugs in my direction—“is about to serve his flabby white ass the paperwork for another hearing.”

  Cassie shakes her head, starts typing. “The more I hang out with my dog, Cooper, the less I like men.” She prints out two square VISITOR stickers with a bar code and the ever-present company logo. Deacon and I put them on and move through the bustling lobby to a bank of four elevators. Security officers in light blue shirts and dark blue trousers are at various checkpoints, and we go to the one that says VISITORS ONLY.

  A bored guard uses a hand scanner on our badges and passes us through. We enter an empty elevator, and Deacon pushes the button for the tenth floor.

  “Nice to know you still have friends in high places,” I say.

  She looks at the flickering lights. “Friends, contacts, acquaintances—they all count when you need them.”

  A sudden chime breaks through the silence. My burner phone. I pull it out, and the words of Bree’s text hit me hard: John, where are you? We need you. Willow needs you. Please contact us ASAP. It’s been too long.

  I put the phone away. “Everything all right?” Deacon asks.

  In a tight voice I say, “No, everything is not all right. Stay focused.”

  Chapter

  120

  When the elevator stops, Deacon leads the way to a reception area, smaller than the lobby, then to a closed wooden door with GERROLD MASON on it in shiny brass letters, and a woman gets up from a desk and calls, “Ma’am, sir, you can’t go—”

  We don’t hear the rest because Deacon opens the door and we step in.

  The office is large, luxurious, with two leather couches facing each other across a coffee table with copies of today’s newspapers—New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal—next to a spread of magazines ranging from Fortune to Aviation Week and Space Technology to Defense Weekly.

  There are bookshelves on which sit models of aircraft and drones—I wonder which model represents the one that destroyed Mir Kas—and on the walls are photos and paintings. Retired army general Gerrold Mason is sitting behind his desk in a fine gray suit that probably cost twice as much as my SUV’s monthly gasoline bill. He’s just as I remember him from Tajikistan except his face is fleshier.

  He smiles and starts tapping on his keyboard, his eyes on the computer screen. “Good to see you, Lizzie,” he says.

  “You were always a lousy liar, Gerry.”

  We get closer to his desk and I say, “Stop typing. Now.”

  He smiles more and continues typing. “If I don’t, what are you going to do, shoot me?”

  I take out my Glock and point it at him.

  He keeps his hands on the keyboard; his eyes stay on the screen. “Lizzie, you’re not going to have me shot, are you? After all we’ve been through?”

  With a sigh she says, “No, I’m not, Gerry. You’re right. I’ll tell him not to do it.” She pauses for the briefest of moments. “But he won’t listen. Get your fucking hands off the keyboard.”

  Mason does just that and finally looks up from the screen. “What the hell is going on here?”

  She smiles, motions to me, and we both sit in the deep brown leather chairs in front of his wide and large desk.

  “That, my former dear,” she says, “is what you’re going to tell us.”

  Chapter

  121

  One of the closest hotels to the White House is the famed Hay-Adams, located at 1 Lafayette Square. From the balcony of his sixth-floor suite, Maynard has a clear and unobstructed view of the White House. This is the second time he’s stepped out onto the balcony to look down at the White House with a pair of 7x50 binoculars; he’s also carrying the latest edition of Field Guide to the Birds of North America for the benefit of the watchers out there.

  His phone rings, and the familiar computer-disguised voice says one word: “Proceed.”

  And he responds with one word: “Acknowledged.”

  He wonders for a moment if he’ll ever find out her true identity.

  He leaves the balcony and goes back into the suite, thinking about the scores of watchers at the White House and the surrounding buildings who don’t know that they themselves are being watched and who also don’t know that at the appointed hour, their observation posts will be destroyed by pre-planted C-4 charges or they will get .50-caliber rounds through their heads.

  In his suite, he listens in satisfaction to the sound of keyboards, the static-filled transmissions, and the low voices of his upper team, ready for this day of days. He looks them over. They’re dressed in the uniforms of various services—U.S. Park Police, the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the DC Metro Police.

  One thing the movies and TV never get right is what it’s like being in the middle of an ops center. The actors on-screen are always yelling, shouting, cursing, running around in a frenzy. Which is all bullshit. The people on a good team like this one keep their heads down and mouths shut as they look over the continuing deployment of—

  “Sir? You need to see this.”

  Maynard goes to the workstation belonging to a woman—is her name Taunton?—who worked for the Capitol Police for thirty years before being forced to retire over a bogus charge concerning the alleged assault of a tourist.

  She taps her large screen. “Message just came in via one of your older e-mail addresses.”

  He looks at it:

  MAYNARD, I’M IN MY OFFICE WITH MY BITCH CIA EX-WIFE AND JOHN SAMPSON. THEY KNOW THINGS. GET HERE QUICK. I’LL STALL AS BEST I CAN. MASON.

  He says, “Shit!” He glances around the room, then yells, “Smith, Lopez, McCoole, grab your go bags! You’re with me! Now!”

  Maynard ducks into his office, grabs his own go bag, steps out, and says to Maria Tucker, a former Marine gunnery sergeant, “Maria, you’re in charge until I get back.”

  She doesn’t even look up from her workstation. “Understood, sir,” she says.

  He and his three men, all of them carrying black duffel bags in their hands, go and wait for the elevator to arrive. When its doors open, two older women take their time walking out. One of them says, “You boys look like you’re headed to the gym.”

  Maynard says, “Yeah, we’re heading for one hell of a workout.” They enter the elevator, and McCoole punches the button for the lobby.

  Chapter

  122

  I’m sitting across from Deacon’s former husband, and he’s smiling as he says, “You can put that pistol away.”

  “I can but I won’t,” I tell him. “Hands where I can see them. Flat on your desk.”

  Mason smirks but does as he’s told. “What, you think I have a panic button to press? Or, even better, that I’m one of those James Bond villains with a gun tube under my desk, ready to shoot you in the balls?”

  Deacon says, “Wouldn’t work, Gerry. They’re brass. Now, we have evidence that two years ago, a Kestrel unmanned drone that was under development at Global Security Services destroyed the village of Mir Kas.”

  “Mir what?” he asks.

  “Mir Kas,” she says. “In Afghanistan.”

  “And what kind of evidence do you have?”

  Deacon recites the circuit board’s serial number, then says, “How’s that for evidence?

  Mason is smiling like he’s at a poker table in Las Vegas holding four aces. “Sounds like it’s a combination code for a safe, maybe the one where you keep your warmth and sexuality.”

  “No, it’s the serial number of a computer routing board built by Texas Instruments and installed in one of your company’s Kestrel drones. It was part of an airborne unit that destroyed the village and machine-gunned everyone who tried to escape.”

  He says, “That’s just your supposition, Lizzie. Thought you learned more at Langley.”

  “What I have learned,” she snaps, “is that almost everyone who was on the cross-border mission I led is now dead. The only exceptions are one veteran on the run and Detective Sampson. I’ve also learned that what happened in Mir Kas is directly linked to the terrorist attacks that started last April. Gerry, what’s the connection?”

  He’s still smiling the smile of someone who’s holding all the cards, but I’m not looking at his face as he says, “Lizzie, honest, I have no idea what you’re talking about. Maybe most of the people in your squad are dead because of your poor leadership skills. Again, I don’t know anything about the Kestrel drone or that village that may or may not have been destroyed.”

  My pistol is still pointed right at his head. I say, “Elizabeth, he’s lying.”

  She says, “I know that, but how do you know that?”

  “Years of detective work,” I say. “Your former spouse may think he’s being cool as ice, but he’s exhibiting all the tells that indicate he’s lying. He won’t look directly at you or me. His hands are fidgeting. If you were to touch them, they’d be moist.”

  “Ugh,” she says. “Don’t even suggest that.”

  “Plus he’s stalling, Elizabeth. I’m sure he blasted out an e-mail telling his coconspirators to come rescue him. We don’t have much time.” I’m waiting for Deacon to give me a suggestion, a tip, something that will help me get around her ex-husband’s obstinacy, but what she says next surprises me so much, I wonder if she’s suddenly lost her mind.

  Deacon stands and says, “All right, Gerry. Guess you’re not going to talk to us. John? Holster your weapon. We’re leaving.”

  I say, “Elizabeth—”

  Her voice is cold. “Now. We’re wasting time. Holster and leave.”

  She heads to the door. Confused, I follow her. As we walk out, I hear Mason laughing.

  Chapter

  123

  We leave Mason’s office, and Deacon gives the door a good slam, then she holds my wrist and says, “Give me a minute, John.”

  “Better make it a quick minute,” I say. “I’m sure help is on the way for him.”

  “I know,” she says. “Which means we’re going back in to do what has to be done. Are you with me?”

  “One hundred percent,” I say. “But we’ve got to break him fast, Elizabeth.”

  She says, “I know. That’s why we’re not in there with him, so we can talk.”

  “Tell me how we do it, then,” I say. “If we had the time, we could drag him to the nearest men’s room, tie him up, and start waterboarding him. But we don’t have time.”

  The staffers out in the small lobby are looking at us, but no one seems to be on the phone.

  She says, “Break his fingers?”

  “He’s ex-military,” I say. “He might just grit his way through that, knowing he’s going to be rescued. Wound him? Cut him?”

  She runs a hand through her hair, shakes her head. “He can be a tough fat bastard when he wants to be. I don’t know if pain or the threat of pain will do it.”

  So pain is off the table. Fear?

  “Elizabeth, you’ve read Nineteen Eighty-Four, right?”

  “Stupid question. Yes.”

  “What’s waiting for your husband in room one-oh-one?”

  At first she doesn’t seem to understand, but then her eyes widen and she smiles. “That’s a good one, John. Can we do it?”

  “No other choice,” I say. “What’s waiting for him?”

  She tells me and I grunt with surprise. “Really?”