At Any Cost (22 page)

The impact was loud and rough, the SUVs crunching metal on metal. The Secret Service follow-up passed them to protect the Porsche and its precious cargo as the primary and the gray SUVs spun to the left. Travis, however, had seen the commotion and moved to the shoulder of the road—the absolute wrong thing to do.

Slaney saw the second gray SUV right behind the Porsche and moved to cut him off, but the windshield suddenly exploded in a fresh hail of gunfire.

The primary smashed hard against the retainer wall. In the driver's seat, Rowland was slumped over the steering wheel. Tom's training compelled him to ignore Rowland, fling open the door, and run toward Fallon. Cars had stopped on the freeway; wreckage and glass lay on the street. As he ran, a man with an automatic weapon was firing at him and he felt that particular coldness along the neck that was death drumming his fingers, waiting. Tom was underarmed with just his Sig Sauer. He fired off several rounds, striking the man, but another shooter had appeared. Tom saw him with sudden clarity, as if he would have to retell the events in court one day, and he wanted to get the details exactly right. He lined up the man's head with the sight of his weapon and pulled the trigger. The bullet entered cleanly between the eyes, and he dropped.

But still the hail of bullets came. None of his guys were firing. Slaney? Rowland? Kevin White? He was alone, barely covered behind a van that had come to a stunned stop, and the only sound of gunfire was coming from the bad guys.

He saw Fallon's blonde hair and realized she was struggling in the man's arms. Bullets flew at him seemingly in a wall of projectiles. He could not get a clear shot of the kidnappers, so he tried to shoot the shooters.

A bullet grazed his shoulder, momentarily shocking and paralyzing him, and he dropped his weapon. Falling on the ground, he reclaimed his weapon as a bullet whizzed over him, where his head had been seconds ago. Keeping a very low, fast profile, he ran toward the SUVs. He changed the magazine, but it was too late.

He grabbed his radio and began barking orders, trying to tell the dispatcher what happened. He saw a figure in the Porsche and he ran toward it.

Flinging open the door, he saw that Travis was dead, or very close to being dead. In the dim light of the overhead cockpit light, Tom saw a trail of blood leaking from Travis's slack lips. “Hang in there, buddy,” Tom rasped. “I'm trying to get you some help.”

Behind him, somebody moaned. Tom spun and saw Slaney walking toward him. His white shirt was saturated with blood. His skin was diaphanous and gray. Shocky.

“Sit down,” Tom ordered.

“They got her?”

“Yeah,” Tom replied. He lifted up Slaney's shirt and saw a clean red hole ripped about two inches above his navel. Tom applied pressure. “Talk to me,” he said.

“I feel bad,” Slaney said. The light snow fell onto Slaney's face, but his eyes didn't instinctively squint.

“Keep talking. You're doing fine. Just stay with me, Slaney.”

Through the pounding of his heart and the scream in his head, he heard sirens wailing in the distance.

“Israel and its ally, the United States, have done irreparable harm to their image as peaceful nations,” said a Russian spokesperson. “Under no circumstance will any person look upon the USA as a benevolent force in the world again. The unprovoked missile attack by Israel on the city of Moscow has killed hundreds of people. Soon Israel and the USA will know the full force of Russian might. This cowardly attack will be answered.”

A serious charge. Missiles launched from Siberia could strike D.C. within twenty minutes; hearing the threat spoken extemporaneously ratcheted the tensions on both sides. The Russians surely understood that if they attacked the American homeland, the retaliation would be devastating.

Without any warning at all, scud missiles had been launched from Tel Aviv, striking Moscow during morning rush hour. Within minutes, the Israelis declared they had no knowledge of any missile launches. “We have no cause to start a war with Russia,” one diplomat said, though he reluctantly admitted that the missiles had indeed been deployed. They were launched without the approval or knowledge from anyone inside the Israeli government, the diplomat assured the reporters and other diplomats around the globe.

Their denials were viewed as a ploy to offset a Russian counterattack, but Claudia Wells believed them. Israel was not known for being an aggressor, particularly toward Russia, a vast and well-armed country capable of flicking Israel off the map with a single well-aimed missile.

The mood in the Situation Room was grim. The conference included President Ballard, intelligence chiefs, the secretary of defense, secretary of state, and President-elect Hughes's own cadre of advisers, including Richard Mullinax and his superior, the director of the National Security Agency. The inauguration was three days away, so anything that happened now would affect both administrations. Ballard believed it was imperative to craft a strategy with the incoming administration for handling the Russian threat, but it was becoming clear they had very different ideas about how to proceed: Ballard desperately desired to leave with a generally positive legacy intact. Hughes wanted to begin his presidency with a very decisive statement.

“If Israel is attacked, we must come to the aid of our ally,” said Hughes. “There can be no equivocation about this.”

“It would be foolish to attack Russia with US bombs, particularly since Israel is denying responsibility for the attack,” replied Ballard. “If Israel needs defense, she can look to other European nations. The USA should not become entangled. We don't want another Iraq on our hands.”

Claudia thought of the two dead Russians who had been feeding the USA information. She idly wondered if Russia had somehow created that situation for show, if the two informants were still alive and well. Or perhaps alive and being tortured in Lubyanka. No, some American spy deep in Moscow would have been able to verify that if there was any possibility. They were dead.

“I have no doubt that Israel will use nuclear weapons if Russia makes any gesture toward a counterattack,” said the current National Security Adviser.

The opinions circled the table, but Claudia remained silent, pondering the circumstances of the last week. With a sudden turn and click, she saw the answer.

“I think someone is trying to draw the USA into war,” Claudia said, realizing the words sounded absolutely reasonable as she spoke. The table went silent. Serious faces peered back at her, questions but no real doubt in their eyes.

“The two assets murdered in Moscow were victims of a mole somewhere. They were helping the USA and were killed when their identities were discovered. Is it possible they had information that could have prevented the missiles from striking Moscow? And now Israel has launched missiles at Russia without any provocation at all. But maybe it wasn't actually Israel. Maybe it was meant to look like Israel. Our systems have been deeply penetrated at high levels.” A most dangerous penetration, Claudia mused, not bothering to become entangled in the question of how extensive it was or who was behind it. It was enough to know that the problem existed.

A sudden knock on the door was indistinguishable from it opening. The conference looked up, shocked that they'd be disturbed at such a critical moment; one simply did not open the Situation Room door without having been expressly invited to do so.

Blake Henley looked over the table, his face white with shock. “Sir,” he blurted, “the director of the Secret Service is here to see you. He says it is urgent.”

Both Ballard and Hughes began to ask what it was about.

“Sir, Mr. Hughes, Fallon has been kidnapped.”

As the lone survivor of the ambush, Tom Bishop felt overwhelming guilt as he replayed the events in his head over and over again. Fractals of images flashed at him, and other endings supplanted the true, fatal ending. He could have told Rowland to speed up. Or to slow down, to make the other SUVs slow down so the follow-up could have climbed the shoulder and flanked the Porsche.

His training had been good but inadequate. The Secret Service was notoriously underarmed. On the morning of September 11, as agents were ordering tourists to leave the White House gates, the director had ordered that agents carry only their issued Sig Sauers; they were not to be photographed with the bigger MP5 submachine guns. This, as the United States was under direct and immediate attack. Since that morning, agents were instructed to carry the minimum firepower—their pistols. So when the worst happened, when for the first time in Secret Service history, a protectee was kidnapped, and on American soil to boot, the agents responsible for her safety simply did not have the firepower to respond adequately.

Not only could they not save Fallon, they could not save themselves. Responsibility for the largest loss of life in Secret Service history rested firmly on Tom's shoulders.

If only he'd had more bullets, more power … If only … Tom shook away the thoughts. Useless little fantasies. He had one task as a Secret Service agent and he had failed. He had not kept Fallon Hughes safe. She had relied on him and he let her down. And now she was who-knew-where, at the hands of well-armed terrorists.

Images of Beth came roaring back, interfering with the perception of the present and the past. Desperately he tried to blot it out, but the comparison remained. He clenched his jaw so tight he heard it crack. He raged against his own failure. An internal black tide of self-hatred roiled through him, toxic and cloying. He couldn't save Bethany. And now he couldn't save Fallon. He was grotesquely offended by his own incompetence. Several people—other Secret Service agents, some of the FBI who were investigating in unison—told him that he was brave. They said he didn't have a chance against the firepower of the terrorists. He heard the words but didn't hear them—they seemed to be muffled, delivered from the bottom of the ocean.

It was like when the Secret Service had commended him for his bravery on September 11. He had wanted to laugh out loud. Bravery? He wasn't brave. He saved those people because he had no choice; he was a federal agent and they were dying. Anyone would have done the same. The one person he wanted to save more than any other languished in the top of the tower with the promise that help would never arrive. When the building pancaked, his life crumbled and sank with that building.

His fragile, nascent sense of the possibility that life could go on had been erased when they took Fallon.

Bravery? He wanted to laugh in their faces.

He had recited his version of events dozens of times in the last hour. He'd spoken with Metro Police sketch artists, though he knew that was a futile effort. The shooters would not be recognized by concerned citizens calling a crime tips hotline. He had spoken to his supervisor and director of the Secret Service, rehashing the details until they became rote words.

But had had not expected to speak to President-elect Preston Hughes. Tom had been on his detail during the long campaign to become president. Tom was the number two man on the team and he felt that he had gotten to know Preston Hughes pretty well; he was essentially a good man who wanted to bring some sanity to Washington, D.C.

Tom felt ashamed being in his presence.

He had acted unethically. He had become personally involved with Fallon against his own better judgment; he had not treated his job with the earnestness it deserved. All he wanted was a chance to make it right by finding Fallon and bringing her safely home.

“Tell me what happened,” Hughes said.

Tom repeated the same facts he'd been uttering all night, and in the retelling he noticed his voice was arid, professionally distant, as if these things were happening to someone else. Someone else was being spattered with Rowland's blood. Someone else held Slaney's gaping wound, the warm slick red bubbling between his fingers. Someone else walked over the shattered glass and metal strewn over the George Washington Parkway, looking around at the dead agents who had been his coworkers, and the empty passenger seat of the Porsche where Fallon should have been. It had been smeared in blood, and he was eager to know if it was her blood. And eager not to know because he could bear affirmation that it was.

Internally, he felt like something essential was being hurt—his honor or his very goodness.

When he was finished, the president-elect nodded, as if he were satisfied with that answer.

The silence protracted out, making the point that his words were inadequate.

“Sir,” Tom said finally. “I need something from you.”

“Something from me?” Hughes's eyes squinted in disbelief. Deep, raw helplessness scrawled itself over his features. A possible war with Russia he could handle—it only involved death. But his daughter at the hands of terrorists? What could a president do that a father couldn't? Nothing. He was utterly powerless.

“Sir, I think I know who did this. I need you to make sure the Secret Service doesn't put me on administrative leave.” After a pause, he added, “Please, sir.”

Something in his voice or his earnestness sharpened Hughes's attention. “What do you know?”

“Fallon was involved in … I don't know what. I was investigating. I don't know much right now, but if you give me until inauguration day, and you give me access to the resources I need, I promise I will bring Fallon back, safe and alive.” He wasn't sure where the words were coming from. He only knew that he couldn't live without her. He had to get her back because it was the right thing to do and because he loved her.

“You can't promise that,” Hughes said bitterly.

“I can promise I will get further than anyone else would. Sir, I have… personal reasons for believing so strongly.”

The president-elect studied his face, and took in a little breath, as if he understood the subtext of Tom's statement. His gaze bore into him, as if willing Tom's confidence in his ability to be well placed.

Hughes already looked worn. Tom remembered after making love with Fallon, she told him that her father was disappointed in her. He didn't look disappointed now. He looked devastated, shattered into a million pieces. But when he heard Tom's words, he grasped at the hope that Tom was offering. Reluctantly, Preston Hughes nodded. “You have three days.”

Tom entered Secret Service headquarters and proceeded directly downstairs to the evidence room. A technician brought out the weapon that had been recovered from George Washington Parkway, among the shattered glass and jagged plastic that resulted from the assault. The gun was enclosed in a plastic envelope; it would be sent to the FBI for further processing. He had been eager to get a good look at it before it got swallowed in the jurisdictional skirmishes between the Secret Service and FBI.

On a day that was full of shocks, this was another.

It was a K6-92 Borz submachine gun. Originally made by Armenians, it had been modified for Chechens and used in their war with Russia. An ugly, bulky thing, it was extremely deadly.

Not too many of them either, certainly not much demand in the US with the sexier Kalashnikovs the MP5s easily available—and cheaper too. That might mean that the weapons were smuggled in for personal use, as opposed to purchased illegally in the USA.

Looking at the weapon that killed his coworkers made stars bulge in his mind. Fury and grief welled up, shivering at the breaking point, and he forced himself to take a breath. He busied his hands by taking several pictures with his BlackBerry.

Secret Service received intelligence briefs weekly, and he tried to remember last time he'd heard of a Chechen threat in the USA. There was a warning that al Qaeda was attempting to recruit “Western-looking” Muslims for missions in the US, but some instinct honed from years of intelligence work told him that this wasn't al Qaeda. It wasn't spectacular enough—a small mission, two cars, no more than three men. Taking the soon-to-be First Daughter, who until today did not warrant a full security detail, seemed small for their usual scale. They liked to go after huge targets. Though, of course, they'd decapitated Daniel Pearl and he wasn't a big shot in the US media or government. Lastly, it seemed like a crime of opportunity.

Tom's unspoken best guess was that this was a sleeper cell of terrorists of the Chechen flavor, who had been inside the US for a while, looking like Americans, acting like Americans, and generally being Americans. Waiting for an opportunity to present itself.

It was urgent he interview the one person he'd been avoiding—the one person who possessed crucial information. If he did not get it, he had not the slightest doubt that the interviewee would be joining one terrorist and Tom's coworkers in death.

The government Sebring shuddered at eighty miles per hour, and he slowed to accommodate traffic. He remembered telling Fallon that traffic from Maryland to D.C. was heavy even in midday just two weeks ago. Had it been longer than that? It seemed like years ago. The only thing that felt completely real was this moment, with its nervous tension and mounting fury.

I-395 was jammed. He hit the steering wheel, detesting the space to think. Adrenaline was still pumping and he fidgeted with the heater and the radio. Finally he got on the shoulder and hit the gas.

Turning off the freeway, he saw the large black cube that was the National Security Agency. It was one of the fortresses around D.C., a government building protected with many layers of security. He had no official pass to get beyond the gates—no search warrant. Oh well. He would burn that bridge when he came to it.

Tom drove into the parking lot, remembering when he had escorted the vice president here a year ago. But at the time he didn't have to park his own car. The parking lot, like the lot at the Pentagon, was vast. He chose a spot at random and walked toward the doors.

A bank of turnstiles impeded him. A Marine guard came out and Tom presented his cred book. The Marine looked at it. “Is someone expecting you?”

“It's an unofficial visit,” Tom replied smoothly.

The Marine handed back his passport and waved him through.

He rode in the elevator to the third floor and asked a secretary if he might speak to Deputy Director Richard Mullinax.

She picked up the phone to dial and Tom walked past her to the door and opened it.

Mullinax was meeting with two people, one in a military uniform. “Sirs, you will need to reschedule,” Tom said.

Both looked to Mullinax, confused at the impudence of this man. Tom pulled out his creds. “Secret Service. Would you like me to question you in front of them?”

Mullinax was young, Tom realized. Too young and immature for the job he had. He looked genuinely alarmed by Tom's sudden appearance in his office. He attempted to disguise the fear with benign indifference, and failed. “Obviously this is important,” he said lamely. “Gentlemen, let's reconvene later.”

After a moment of confused stares, and packing up their documents, they left, and Tom shut the door behind them.

“Who was Antoine Campbell?” Tom demanded.

“Who are you, barging in here like this? Do you know who I am? Do you have a warrant?”

“Do I need one?” It was a bluff, and it worked. He could see Mullinax mentally back down.

“I don't know what you want,” he said weakly. A posturing little man.

“What's the map of the keys?”

“I have no idea.”

“You're lying.”

The door opened and two Marines built like refrigerators entered. “Sir, you need to come with us.”

“I'm going to find out what you're doing,” Tom said. He jerked his arm back from one of the Marines who had gripped it. He saw cold fear glint in Mullinax's eyes. Pure terror, like the hand of death was already squeezing his throat. That was all the validation Tom needed.

Escorted out of the building, Tom sat in the car for a moment, thinking. It was late in the evening. Since Mullinax was scared and jumpy, Tom guessed he would be leaving very soon. He was too spooked to stay in one place long.

His suspicion was proved correct when he saw Mullinax walk out the door and head toward a glossy black Mercedes. Tom drove out before him, watching in the rearview mirror as Mullinax pulled out of his space and headed for the gates. Tom turned left, toward the freeway. Mullinax followed. Once on I-395, Tom slowed down and let Mullinax pass. He was careful, staying several cars back and one lane over.

Mullinax drove eight miles over the speed limit, heading toward D.C. As Tom tailed him, he allowed his mind to unspool.

For the first time since the ambush, Tom let himself really think about Fallon and know explicitly what she was going through. The images tortured him. It was like Bethany all over again. His eyes overfilled with unshed tears and he angrily wiped them away.

He loved her. Despite his best efforts at keeping some distance, he'd fallen hopelessly in love with her. In fact, he had been in love with her since that first moment in Paxos when he saw her at the harbor. It was sunset and thousands of sailboat masts had been thrown into stark relief. And Fallon had simply been watching the water, the sailboats. It was one of the most beautiful images he'd ever seen.

He fought so hard to stay loyal to the idea of Bethany. He wanted to be the man Bethany believed him to be. He had somehow got in this crazy cycle of loving Fallon, feeling guilty, and cutting Fallon off, rather than simply doing the hard work to try and make peace with Bethany's death. It seemed like such a silly waste of time now. He would always love Bethany. But he also knew that he had behaved in a way that Bethany would have hated.