*
President Bennett tipped back his big-bowled sommelier’s glass and took a considered sip of Cha teau Lafite Rothschild. He liked big, boomy reds—deep-throated burgundies and earthy bordeaux.
He enjoyed the moment of glorious aloneness in the West Sitting Hall, elaborate chandelier dimmed, the famous half-moon window an elegant portal to the night sky.
He had a full day tomorrow. Morning briefing, fifty-five minutes of world-leader calls, physician check-in regarding A-fib and blood draw, eye and vision examination if time permitted, bipartisan delegation for a foreign-policy meeting, tailor measurements for a new rack of suits, speechwriter meeting in the Oval, lunch with senior advisers, drop-by of counsel’s office staff meeting, informal powwow with the secretary of state, a thrice-delayed photo with the NCAA Championship Wolverines, a Situation Room briefing, daily wrap-up with the chief of staff, and then maybe—in the brief window between when Europe went to sleep and before the East woke up—a swim in Jerry Ford’s pool.
The footsteps against the plush carpet were soft and soothing, but they portended bad news.
His assistant secretary moved toward him, lipsticked mouth trembling against her porcelain skin.
He set down his wineglass and stood.
*
The president assembled with a few staff members in the West Wing Situation Room, where he watched a live feed of the bunker where Doug Wetzel had been secured.
Wetzel stood alone, stark against the concrete walls, broad shoulders hunched. Though he’d run out of tears, he was keening hoarsely.
The emergency-response team had acted quickly to contain the problem. Keeping a safe standoff distance from Wetzel, they’d steered him away from any public sight lines, marching him across the North Lawn. He’d kept twenty paces ahead of them, arms held wide, a prisoner walking to his execution. Following their shouted commands, he’d locked himself in a bomb-shelter room in the rear of the bunker, two blast layers removed from the world.
Over the high-def feed, Bennett could hear the ERT leader’s voice through the door: Take off your jacket!
Wetzel squirmed out of the jacket, let it fall to the floor.
Arms wide! Raise your chin!
Wetzel complied, giving a good view of the files strapped to his body and the collar tight against his neck.
Bennett spoke into the starfish-shaped speakerphone unit. “Doug. Calm down. Catch your breath.”
Wetzel was hyperventilating, chest seizing, head jittering. “… trying.”
“What does Orphan X want?”
Wetzel said something, the words blurred over a sob.
Bennett stood and neared the large screen, confronting Wetzel’s life-size image. It was just like standing in the same room with him. “What?” Bennett said. “I can’t understand you.”
Wetzel jerked in a few breaths. “… wants you … to see this.”
As the explosion came through the speakers, Bennett jolted back from the screen, banging his hip against the table’s ledge.
His palm had come up to cover his mouth.
On-screen, singed bits of paper fluttered in the air.
It was hard to look at the mess on the floor but harder not to look at it.
The secretary was neither screaming nor crying, but the noises escaping her were an awful hybrid of both. To her credit, she’d kept her feet.
The other staffers were sunk into their chairs, pale, faces drawn. To a one, their blink rates had picked up—were it not for that, they would’ve looked like mannequins.
On the screen the bomb-shelter door swung inward, the team pouring in.
Bennett lowered his hand from his mouth. He noticed that he was still in a protective crouch and drew himself upright.
He gave a wave that was feebler than he would have liked, and someone cut the feed.
34
Mr. Patience
Evan arrived back in his room at the Watergate, locked the door behind him, and threw the swing-bar guard. Setting down his backpack, he tilted his face to the ceiling and exhaled.
His neck had knotted up, and his hands smelled of chlorine and high-proof vodka.
Removing his laptop from the backpack, he logged in to his e-mail, opened his Drafts folder, and typed: “Update?”
He started to walk away, hesitated, then returned and signed the unsent note.
“—Mr. Patience.”
That almost made him smile.
He passed through the wide door into the spa-like embrace of the marble bathroom, forgoing the freestanding bathtub for a punishingly hot shower. Setting both hands on the tile, he leaned into the powerful stream, letting the jets pound against his crown.
Wetzel had told Evan everything he knew, some of which Evan already knew himself. That Orphan A had been set on his trail. That A had recruited a death squad of down-and-dirty ringers headed up by two convicts, Ricky and Wade Collins. That once they killed Evan, they were going to track down and neutralize the remaining Orphans. That President Bennett was eliminating any trace of Evan’s 1997 mission. When pressed—and Evan had pressed Wetzel in a fashion that would have produced results—Wetzel had no specifics about why the mission was so menacing to Bennett.
Whatever the secret was, Bennett couldn’t even trust it to his own deputy chief of staff.
Evan turned off the shower, dressed, sat at the desk, and refreshed the screen.
Joey’s reply was waiting: “we’re in.”
A chill rippled across his back, his skin tightening. It wasn’t a thrill so much as a predatory focus, the whiff of prey in the wind.
Beneath her two-word reply were a series of links.
He clicked.
All of a sudden, he was looking at the inner workings of the Secret Service, prized data and classified intel, private squabbles and dirty laundry.
It took him ten minutes to orient within the private network, another ten to start identifying areas of interest.
First he ran through the travel logs. President Bennett’s schedule was in a state of upheaval; clearly there’d been a directive to move as many engagements and meetings around as close to scheduled dates as possible. The commitments were endless, more than Evan could review now, but he scanned them, searching for events that seemed difficult to reschedule.
Mid-September showed a promising fund-raiser in Los Angeles with the mayor and the senior state senator, mere miles from Evan’s penthouse. But two months was a long time to wait, and there was no guarantee that the reception wouldn’t be delayed or canceled.
Evan scrolled through other upcoming trips, assuming that catching the protection detail off their home turf would be easier. But the more he read, the more he realized that was not the case.
On domestic trips President Bennett was accompanied by more than three hundred civilian and military personnel, the ranks swelling to nearly a thousand for OCONUS forays. An advance team stacked with lead agents, transportation agents, countersurveillance agents, airport agents, event-site agents, tech-security agents, intel agents, and a military comms team locked down every transition point and venue ahead of time. The Secret Service flew all equipment and vehicles, including Cadillac One, on C-130 cargo planes to ensure they wouldn’t be tampered with. The gear was guarded around the clock, ready and waiting the moment Air Force One landed. At that point a working shift swung into effect as well, a whip directing a dozen agents and body men, backed by a counterassault team. Along the route safe houses were designated at regular intervals, spaced between hospitals and law-enforcement strongholds. At all times the president wore Level III flexible body armor made of synthetic fiber, fifteen hundred filaments per strand of yarn.
Evan had a backpack and a change of underwear.
If the president stayed in a hotel, the Secret Service booked the entire floor—and the floors above and below. Every room, every item in every room, and every square inch of carpet was swept and physically examined for surveillance devices, hidden explosives, and radioactivity. Multiple escape routes were charted. An elevator repairman remained on site to respond to irregularities. Every employee in the hotel received thorough vetting and background checks. Those with priors were given the day off; those without were ordered to wear color-coded pins. Food suppliers and delivery companies were checked in similar fashion. Secret Service agents stood posts in the kitchen, monitoring the chefs, sous-chefs, and waitstaff during all stages of food preparation. The agents waited until dishes were prepared and then selected plates at random for Bennett. Sporadically, the hotel kitchen was sidestepped entirely, a navy steward brought in to prepare the president’s dishes.