He looked at the skateboard, his brain taking a microsecond to dismiss the idea of riding it as idiotic. Then he was sprinting unevenly toward the door past the cops he’d felled. Rounds bit the floor behind him.
Using the hanging displays as cover, he ran for the entrance. As he neared, the door boomed inward, the frame filled with a big man in an ERT jacket, squaring to raise an FN P90.
The world went to slow motion except for Evan’s brain, which made the tactical assessment in real time.
Even if he struck the man with a rubber round, the guy would be able to get off a blast from the submachine gun. Evan’s only chance would be to kill the man, and he was unwilling to kill a Secret Service agent.
His momentum carried him forward, bringing him closer to the muzzle.
He thought of the promise he’d made Trevon to protect him and his sister.
The promise he’d have to break.
52
Decades-Long Fuse
As Evan bore down on the ERT agent, the man’s submachine gun reached horizontal.
Evan focused on the eyes of the man he was about to let kill him.
Recognized them.
The set of the features, the stubble, the pronounced ridges of the nose.
Evan had seen this face before when he’d pulled files after Doug Wetzel had alerted him to Ricky and Wade Collins.
A cousin.
The pounding of Evan’s footsteps and the whine of ricochets at his heels revved back from slow motion into normal time. He snapped the gas gun up and shot a rubber bullet through the impostor’s eye.
The big man spun violently, one hand tailing up. He fell, his boot pinning the door open. Evan hurdled him, stumbling onto the sidewalk.
Outside, MPD was scrambling to set a perimeter. Evan flew into the mix. If they shot at him, they’d kill one another with crossfire. The primary risk would come from the countersnipers on the opposing rooftops.
Dodging a crisscross of stunned officers, Evan flung the gas gun aside and grabbed his RoamZone from his pocket. He heard the first whine of a sniper bullet pass his ear. Another round chipped the sidewalk in front of him, spraying grit across his shins.
A deep engine rumble added its voice to the commotion, matched with a vibration of dread inside his own chest. Across the huge street, an SUV screeched to a halt, doors blowing open, CAT members flying out wielding SR-16s. Between them and the countersnipers, Evan had to keep his time on the street to a dead minimum.
He thumbed the first saved number, and a manhole cover blew in the center of Pennsylvania Avenue.
The diversion would buy him two seconds, maybe three, before the countersnipers would reset and pepper his torso.
Across eight cleared traffic lanes, the CAT members reeled back from the manhole explosion, weapons flung skyward. Before they could regroup, Evan sprinted into the middle of the street, directly toward them.
A quarter block away, he saw Orphan A burst out of the Federal Trade Commission Building and wheel to a stop, gaping up the street.
They locked eyes—a split-second connection—as Evan slid across the final three feet of asphalt and dropped through the hole into the sewer.
As he fell, he managed to claw onto the top rung, his body racked punishingly against the steel bars beneath. In the circle of daylight above, bullets rent the air. He fell down onto the ledge below, where another load-out bag awaited him.
The hot reek and dank concrete reminded him of another sewer in another country, the mission that had set this decades-long fuse burning.
He stripped in seconds, kicking his clothes off into the stream of muck to kill any trace DNA.
Naked save for his boxer briefs, he ripped open the bag.
Inside, a hazmat diving suit.
He squirmed into the specialized dry suit, the double-layer vulcanized rubber bunching infuriatingly at his ankles and waist. Yelled commands came from above; the agents would have to approach the open manhole tactically, which would buy him a few more precious seconds.
He raked the zipper up over his chest and then across his back, the second skin clinging to his flesh, sealing at every joint, a perfect insulation. He tugged on the positive-pressure helmet, the special intake valve wheezing into effect, preventing hostile contaminants from entering his lungs.
He noted a shadow above and looked up through the hole in the street to Orphan A. The glare on his face was homicidal.
Another memory flash jolted Evan back beneath the street of that gray foreign city. How young he’d been, patriotic blood flowing through his veins. He’d still thought he could remain above it, pristine and righteous.
He’d thought he could stay clean.
Orphan A reared back, whipping the submachine gun around to aim down into the sewer.
Still looking up at him, Evan stepped off the ledge and vanished into the black murk.
53
Antianxiety
Cadillac One screeched back through the White House gates, a shell of its former self. Windows shattered, rear tires running flat, the Presidential Standard flag snapped off the hood.
Conveyed between the half dozen battered SUVs representing the remaining convoy, it sped to a secure area, slamming down a ramp to a blastproofed emergency bunker, its undercarriage throwing up sparks.
It skidded to a halt.
Hosts of agents, emergency medical personnel, and the White House physician waited with held breath.
The limo was still.
Steam rose from the hood. Air hissed from a punctured tire. Radio chatter filled the bunker, overlapping waves of commands from the crisis center at Secret Service HQ.
And then the rear door creaked open, releasing a spill of bullet-resistant glass, revealing Naomi lying across Bennett’s inert form. She’d piled on top of him as the charge initiated.
She peeled herself off him now.
Bennett coughed, the sound driving everyone into motion.
“Mr. President, we need to get you—”
“—cut off his shirt and let’s find a—”
“Goddamn it, everyone off me.” Bennett’s face poked up, his glasses shattered, crooked on his face. They fell free, trampled underfoot as he shoved himself clear of the limo and the throng of personnel. “I’m fine .”
Behind him Eva Wong and the body man exited, hands pressed to their heads. They were steered immediately to rolling gurneys.
Bennett’s chest heaved. His watch face was cracked. The skin beneath his right eye twitched. He rubbed his face, coughed some more, holding out a hand to keep the others at bay.
Naomi raked her fingers through her hair, freeing bits of glass. “You need to let the physician check you, Mr. President.”
“I need to find out what the hell just happened.”
“It looks like a mortar round of some sort—”
“You allowed a mortar round to drop on my goddamned limousine?” His voice, ordinarily so calm, shook with rage. “You’re lucky I’m still alive.”
A flush crept up Naomi’s throat, invading her cheeks. “Yes, I am, Mr. President. But right now you really need medical attention. You need to let the physician—”
Again paramedics attempted to move in but Bennett swung an arm to hold them off, a drunk wielding a broken bottle. “What kind of charge did he use?” he said, dangerously close to shouting. “What did Orphan X use?”
Naomi stepped forward, allowing cover for the paramedics to position the gurney closer. “Forensic Services will be here any—”
“A bigger charge would’ve gotten it done,” Bennett said. An uncharacteristic wildness touched his eyes—desperation or maybe even fear. “It would’ve killed me for sure. Why didn’t he use a bigger charge?”
“Maybe he wasn’t trying to kill you,” she said. “Maybe he was trying to ring your bell.”
Bennett straightened up, clutching his lower back. “It’ll take a lot more than that.”
Everyone stiffened at once, staring at him.
“What?” he said. “What?”
He felt warmth trickle from his ear, reached up. His finger pad came away glossy with his own blood.
Naomi said, “The physician, Mr. President.”
Bennett rubbed the blood between his thumb and forefinger, watched it spread across the pads. He felt his mouth settle into a scowl, though he hadn’t told it to.
He sat on the gurney.
*
Naomi perched at the edge of an overstuffed chair in the West Sitting Hall, the red leather cool through her pants. Bennett reclined on the chesterfield sofa across from her, tie missing, collar still spotted with blood.
The room was soothing with its peach walls and antique wooden tables, its ferns and bowls of carnations. The framed double doors that opened onto the hall and staircase were closed, squaring the room. A number of staffers and medical personnel orbited the space or conferred in hushed tones in the far-flung seating areas. Eva Wong sat alone over by the fireplace, at the ready for a snap of the president’s fingers. After being diagnosed with minor tinnitus and released from care, she’d scurried right back to the president’s side.
This was an all-hands-on-deck moment.
Though there remained more questions than answers, Naomi had downloaded Bennett on the preliminary report from the Forensic Division, and given his reaction, she couldn’t blame the others in the room for maintaining a healthy standoff distance.