“Sorry, sir…no sign of infection…here.” He places a gauze pad over the site. “Hold this down.”
A moment later, I’m taped up and ready to go. I go straight to my bedroom, into the small bathroom inside it. I pull out an electric razor and shave off most of the red beard, then use a razor and shaving cream to finish the job. Then I shower, taking the moment to enjoy the pressure of the steaming water on my face, awkward as it may be with my left arm hanging outside the shower, protecting the gauze pad and tape, doing everything with one hand. Still. I needed a shower. I needed a shave. I feel better, and appearances still matter, at least for one more day.
I put on the clean clothes that Carolyn’s husband gave me. I’m still wearing my jeans and shoes, but he gave me a button-down shirt that fits okay, plus clean boxers and socks. I’ve just finished combing my hair when I get a text message from FBI Liz telling me that we need to talk.
“Alex!” I call out. He pops into the bedroom. “Where the hell are they?”
“I understand they’re close, sir.”
“But everything’s okay? I mean, after what we went through last night…”
“My understanding, sir, is that they are secure and on their way.”
“Double-check that, Alex.”
I dial my FBI director’s number.
“Yes, Liz. What is it?”
“Mr. President, news on Los Angeles,” she says. “They weren’t targeting the defense contractor.”
Chapter
50
I head to the basement, to a room on the east end, where the owner of this cabin, with the help of the CIA, was good enough to install a soundproof door and set up secure communications lines for my use when I visit. This communications room is several doors down from the war room, on the west side of the basement, where Augie, Devin, and Casey are set up.
I close the door and plug the secure line into my laptop and pull up the triumvirate of Carolyn Brock, Liz Greenfield, and Sam Haber of Homeland Security on a three-way split screen.
“Talk to me,” I say. “Hurry.”
“Sir, on the same block as the defense contractor’s plant was a private health laboratory that was in a partnership with the state of California and our CDC.”
“The Centers for Disease Control,” I say.
“Correct, sir. Within the CDC, we have a Laboratory Response Network. It—essentially, we have about two hundred laboratories around the country designed as first responders to biological and chemical terrorism.”
A cold wave passes through my chest.
“The largest member of the Laboratory Response Network in the greater Los Angeles area was next door to the defense contractor’s plant. It was decimated in the fire, sir.”
I close my eyes. “Are you telling me that the primary lab charged with responding to a bioterrorism attack in LA was just burned to the ground?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Holy shit.” I rub my temples.
“Yes, sir. That about sums it up.”
“And what, exactly, does that lab do? Or did it do?”
“It was the first to diagnose,” he says. “The first to treat. Diagnosis being the most critical aspect. Understanding what, exactly, our citizens have been exposed to is the first order of business for first responders. You can’t treat the patient if you don’t know what you’re treating.”
Nobody speaks for a moment.
“Are we looking at a biological attack on Los Angeles?” I ask.
“Well, sir, we’re making that assumption right now. We’re in touch with the local authorities.”
“Okay, Sam—do we have protocols in place to divert CDC operations around the country?”
“We’re doing it right now, sir. We’re mobilizing resources from other cities on the West Coast.”
A predictable response. What the terrorists would expect. Is this a head fake? Are they feinting toward LA so we’ll move everything on the West Coast there, then hit another spot like Seattle or San Francisco while our guard is down?
I throw up my hands. “Why do I feel like we’re chasing our goddamn tails here, people?”
“Because it always feels that way, sir,” says Sam. “It’s what we do. We play defense against invisible opponents. We try to smoke them out. We try to predict what they might do. We hope it never happens but try to be as ready as possible if it does.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? Because it doesn’t.”
“Sir, we’re on this. We’ll do everything we can.”
I run my fingers through my hair. “Get to it, Sam. Keep me updated.”
“Yes, sir.”
The screen adjusts to show just Carolyn and Liz as Sam signs off.
“Any more good news?” I ask. “A hurricane on the East Coast? Tornadoes? An oil spill? Is a goddamn volcano erupting somewhere?”
“One thing, sir,” says Liz. “About the gas explosion.”
“Something new?”
She cocks her head. “More like something old,” she says.
Liz fills me in. And I didn’t think I could feel any worse.
Ten minutes later, I open the thick door and leave the communications room as Alex approaches me. He nods to me.
“They just reached the security perimeter up the road,” says Alex. “The Israeli prime minister has arrived.”
Chapter
51
The delegation for the Israeli prime minister, Noya Baram, arrives as planned: one advance car that arrived earlier and now two armored SUVs, one carrying a security detail that will leave once she has safely arrived and the other carrying the prime minister herself.
Noya emerges from the SUV wearing sunglasses, a jacket, and slacks. She looks up at the sky for a moment, as if to confirm that it’s still there. It’s one of those days.
Noya is sixty-four, with gray dominating her shoulder-length hair and dark eyes that can be both fierce and engaging. She is one of the most fearless people I’ve ever known.
She called me the night I was elected president. She asked if she could call me Jonny, which nobody in my life had ever done. Surprised, off balance, giddy from the win, I said, “Sure you can!” She’s called me that ever since.
“Jonny,” she says to me now, removing her sunglasses and kissing both my cheeks. With her hands clasped over mine, a tight smile on her face, she says, “You look like someone who could use a friend right now.”
“I certainly could.”
“You know that Israel will never leave your side.”
“I do know that,” I say. “And my gratitude knows no bounds, Noya.”
“David has been helpful?”
“Very.”
I reached out to Noya when I discovered the leak in my national security team. I didn’t know whom I could trust and whom I couldn’t, so I was forced to outsource some of my reconnaissance work to the Mossad, dealing directly with David Guralnick, its director.
Noya and I have had disagreements over the two-state solution and settlements on the West Bank, but when it comes to the things that bring us together today, there is no daylight between our positions. A safe and stable United States means a safe and stable Israel. They have every reason to help us and no reason not to.
And they have the finest cybersecurity experts in the world. They play defense better than anybody. Two of them have arrived with Noya and will join Augie and my people.
“I am the first to arrive?”
“You are, Noya, you are. And I wouldn’t mind a word with you before the others get here. If I had time to give you a tour—”
“What—a tour?” She waves her hand. “It’s a cabin. I’ve seen cabins before.”
We walk past the cabin into the yard. She acknowledges the black tent.
We walk toward the woods, the trees thirty feet high, the wildflowers yellow and violet, following the stone path to the lake. Alex Trimble follows from behind, speaking into his radio.
I tell her everything she doesn’t already know, which isn’t very much.
“What we have heard about so far,” she says, “did not sound like plans for a biological attack in a major city.”
“I agree. But maybe the idea is to destroy our ability to respond, then introduce some biological pathogen. That would include destroying physical buildings and our technological infrastructure.”
“True, true,” she says.
“The gas pipeline explosion could be telling,” I say.