The Innocent

Chapter





92


ROBIE WAS HALFWAY to D.C. when he finally reached Blue Man. In terse sentences he told him about his latest deductions.

Blue Man’s response was equally terse. He would meet Robie at the White House with backup. And he would alert the appropriate parties.

Twenty minutes later Robie slid his car to a stop at the curb, jumped out, and ran.

He was on Pennsylvania Avenue heading to the front gates of the White House. He looked at his watch. Nearly eleven. He imagined the party would be winding down by now. And if the attempt hadn’t occurred yet, it would have to shortly.

He spied Blue Man and a group of men huddled outside the White House front gates. Robie could see that it was a mixture of FBI, Secret Service, and DHS. He saw no uniformed Secret Service around. He assumed it had been determined that they couldn’t know how far the conspiracy had gone, so it was best to leave the uniforms out of this.

Robie ran up to them. “Do they know where Van Beuren is?” he asked.

Blue Man said, “He’s on duty. We’ve spoken to the Secret Service agents inside. They’re hunting for him now. The problem is, we don’t want to show that we’re suspicious of anything. Van Beuren may not be the only asset they have in there.”

One man in a suit stared over at Robie. He was about six-three with graying hair and a face that seemed to have a worry line for every national crisis he had endured. Robie recognized him as the director of the Secret Service. Robie recalled that the man’s father had been a veteran agent with Reagan when he had been shot. It was said that the current director had become an agent at the urging of his old man. And he had sworn that no president would ever die on his watch.

The director said, “You’re the one who called this in?”

“I am,” said Robie.

“I sure as hell hope you’re right. Because if you’re not…”

“If I’m wrong, nothing bad happens. If I’m right…”

The director looked at Blue Man.

“We’ll move in through the visitors’ entrance. We’ll attract less notice that way. Hopefully, they’ll snag Van Beuren before we even get in the place.”

“And the president?” asked Robie.

“Ordinarily with any threat like this we would have already moved him either to his personal quarters or to the bunker underneath the White House. But if Van Beuren is involved he’ll know that’s our protocol and may have set an ambush somehow. So we decided to sequester the president in an atypical place, the Family Dining Room, along with the crown prince, some of the president’s staff, and some select VIPs who we know are not threats. No uniforms are part of the security detail. All suits. Van Beuren can’t get near him. We did it subtly. Now we just have to find Van Beuren.” He said again, “But I sure as hell hope you’re wrong about this.”

“The fact that you haven’t been able to locate Van Beuren yet tells me that I’m right,” replied Robie.

They raced to the visitors’ entrance and moved quickly through the security checkpoint there. All uniformed Secret Service had been pulled off interior guard duty and massed in a hallway. They had not been told why. Each of them had been questioned. None of them knew where Van Beuren was. He had been assigned to a security perimeter on the lower level, near the library.

He wasn’t there.

All rooms on the lower level had been checked.

Robie and the others ran down the hall and up the stairs to the main level of the White House. As they were fast-walking down the Cross Hall toward the State Dining Room, which adjoined the Family Dining Room, one of the agents with them received a message through his earwig.

“They found Van Beuren,” he said.

“Where?” the Secret Service director asked immediately.

“A storage room in the West Wing.”

They changed direction and quickly reached the West Wing. There they were directed to the room where Van Beuren had been found.

The door was thrown open by the lead agent. Inside they saw Van Beuren. He was on the floor, unconscious and trussed up. A patch of shiny blood was mixed in with his hair.

One of the agents knelt down next to him and felt for a pulse. “He’s alive, but somebody hit him hard.”

Blue Man said, “I don’t understand this. Why knock out and tie up your assassin?”

Robie was the first to spot it. “His gun is missing.”

All eyes went to the man’s holster. The nine-millimeter that should have been there wasn’t.

Robie said, “He wasn’t the assassin. They just needed his weapon. That way they didn’t have to try and sneak one past security. He just walked in with it. Part of the plan.”

And then Robie remembered the last part of the overheard conversation from the plane hangar in Morocco.

Access to weapons.

Not a westerner.

Decades in the making.

Willing to die.

He said, “The shooter has his gun. They have to be in with the president and the crown prince.”

The director paled. “You mean part of his staff? Or one of the guests?”

Robie didn’t answer. He was already sprinting down the hall.