Just a sniper rifle atop a tripod there in full view of the open window along President Bennett’s route.
“Someone contact that new special agent in charge over at Protective Intelligence and Assessment,” the lead agent said. “Templeton’s kid.” He tore free the Velcro straps of his ballistic vest to let through a little breeze, his mouth setting in a firm line of displeasure. “Someone’s been planning for a long time.”
4
What’s It Gonna Be?
Evan moved swiftly along E Street a few blocks from the commotion. The closure had backed up traffic through the surrounding streets, though the presidential convoy had already made its retreat, doubling back and darting away before the public was let in on the ostensible threat. Evan had wanted to leave a message for Bennett, yes, but he also wanted to note the driver’s procedures for altering the route in the event of an emergency.
Commuters were laying on their horns, a symphony of displeasure. Cops jogged by at intervals, spreading through the area. This section of D.C., a sniper round’s distance from the White House, had as many CCTV cameras as a London street corner, so Evan kept his head lowered, his face hidden by the brim of the baseball cap.
The Secret Service’s Forensic Services Division had cutting-edge software that would review all footage in the area. Not wanting his movements to be pieced together after the fact, Evan paused directly beneath a cluster of cameras on a streetlight, stripped off his Windbreaker so it fell casually into the gutter behind him, and heeled it back through a storm drain. He let the Nikon camera swing low at his side before delivering it to the same fate.
He waited for the crowd to swell and wash him up the sidewalk. A trash bin waited ahead at the edge of a crosswalk in the blind spot beneath another streetlight. He gave a swift scan for cops, found none close enough to take note of him. Quickening his pace, he removed his Nationals baseball hat, palmed the cotton rolls out of his mouth, and trashed them together. From his back pocket, he pulled out a worn Baltimore Orioles cap and tugged it on before stepping back into the sight lines of the CCTV cameras overhead.
In his peripheral vision, he noticed a face holding on him for a beat too long. He risked a glance across the heads of the pedestrians crossing the street with him and grabbed an instant of direct eye contact with a square-jawed woman in a sweatshirt.
She turned away hastily, raising a cell phone to her face.
A band of pale skin showed on her finger; she’d removed her wedding ring to avoid its snagging on a trigger guard. In an instant he read her build and bearing—a plainclothes officer scouting for suspicious behavior.
Like, say, a man switching baseball hats in the middle of an intersection.
Careless.
And lazy.
Evan berated himself with the Second Commandment: How you do anything is how you do everything.
He could see the woman’s mouth moving against the phone. Up the block, two uniformed cops keyed to their radios.
He kept walking.
The woman followed him.
The cops split up, taking opposite sides of the street, fording the current of passersby, heading in his direction.
Three tails were manageable. No one needed to get hurt.
People spilled out of bars and restaurants. A guy was handing out flyers for the Spy Museum. A frazzled father had gotten the wheel of his baby stroller stuck in a sewer grate. Chaos was helpful.
Evan cut around the corner just as another pair of uniformed officers spilled out of an alley ahead, blocking his best route to freedom. An older cop with a ready-for-retirement bulge at his belt line and a muscle-bound kid who couldn’t have been a year out of the academy.
Twenty yards apart the officers and Evan stared at each other.
Evan nodded at them.
And then stepped off the sidewalk and into a bustling café .
The pair of officers would reverse and cover the rear as the other three flooded into the front.
Evan had ten seconds, maybe twelve.
Given his training, that was a lifetime.
*
Evan threaded through the packed tables, requisitioning a mammoth latte mug from the service counter. In the back of the café , a brief hall led to a gender-neutral bathroom and a rear door with an inset pane of frosted glass. To the side of the hall, a small table remained bare, having just been wiped down.
Heading for the open seat, he plucked an ice-water jug from a busboy’s hands and sloshed it across the tile floor in front of the table. As he swung into the chair, he reached between the couple dining beside him and snatched their salt shaker.
The wife aimed a do-something stare at her husband, who managed a feeble, “Dude, what the hell?”
Evan didn’t answer. He was down to five seconds.
He unscrewed the top of the shaker and poured its contents into his fist. Then he tilted back in his chair so his shoulders touched the rear wall, tasted the matcha green tea latte, and waited.
On the surface of the latte, a swan was rendered in steamed milk, its tail smeared to peacock proportions by Evan’s sip. Over at the service counter, an artichoke and sun-dried-tomato panini sizzled on the press, releasing delightful aromas. Evan watched the front door.
At the behest of a harried manager, a waitress approached, clutching a menu to her chest in withholding fashion. She looked down at the wet floor and then up at Evan, uncertain where to start. “Sir, I’m sorry. You can’t just sit here. We have to seat you.”
He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills.
“We’re not a nightclub. We’re, like, a café . We don’t take bribes .”
He kept his eyes on the front door. With his foot he pushed the table away from him another six inches, getting it into position. “It’s not a bribe,” he said.
“No?” She regarded the proffered bills. “What’s it for, then?”
“The damage,” he said.
The plainclothes officer and two cops shoved through the front door of the café , spotting Evan immediately.
Evan sensed the waitress’s head swivel from him to the officers and back to him. There was a slight, mouth-ajar delay as she processed his meaning. Then the hundreds lifted from his hand and she scurried back to the manager.
The energy in the café shifted as the officers advanced through the tables. One of the men unsnapped the thumb strap on his holster, and a kid screamed, and then there was yelling and jostling as the place cleared out.
The cops crept forward, hands hovering over their holsters in case Sergio Leone decided to bust in with a crew and start filming.
Evan sipped the matcha tea once more. It wasn’t half bad. He wondered at the kind of life that called for a steamed-milk waterfowl decorating one’s hot beverage.
The officers stopped ten feet from his table and spread out. But not enough.
The café suddenly felt quite silent.
“Why are you chasing me?” Evan asked.
“Why are you running?” the plainclothes officer said.
“Because you’re chasing me.”
“We had an incident a few blocks away,” she said.
“An incident.”
“That’s right. And then I saw you switching your hat.”
The two uniformed cops unholstered their Glocks. They didn’t aim at Evan, not yet, keeping the muzzles pointed at the floor. An ice cube crunched under one of their boots.
Evan looked at the three cops facing him down. “So that’s why you’re all here? Because I changed hats?”
“Why would you do a thing like that?” the woman said.
“The Nationals need some heart-of-the-order bats,” he said. “I decided the Orioles are a stronger bet for the postseason.”
“And you decided this in the middle of E and Eleventh?”
He liked her.
“I did,” he said. “And while I know that civil liberties have been under assault by the current administration, I would think you could overlook an epiphany regarding the national pastime.”
The amusement went out of her eyes. “Why don’t we stop fucking around?” she said.
Evan took another sip of the tea. Hot, not scalding. “I’d like that.”
“I’m gonna tell you what’s gonna happen next,” she said.
“No,” Evan said. “I’m gonna tell you what’s gonna happen next.”
He was still tilted back in his chair, casual as could be, but beneath the table he pressed his foot to its base. The uniformed cops were holding their Glocks too stiffly, seams of white showing at their knuckles. The muzzles were now aimed halfway between the tips of their boots and Evan’s table.
“You’re gonna let me walk out of here,” Evan said.
One of the male cops laughed, and the female officer blinked twice. “Or?” she said.