Knight put on a fake smile as he swiped his White House Visitor ID badge. He said hello to the uniformed Secret Service officer at the entry point, a young redhead named Miller.
“You got a detail coming in?” the officer asked, reviewing his clipboard. The beautiful thing about being with CIA protective division was that people rarely questioned specifics, assuming most everything Knight did was above their clearance level.
“No,” Knight said. “It’s just me.” He tapped the breast pocket of his suit jacket. “I’m trying to link up with Harper on Stovepipe’s detail.” He used the Secret Service code name for the VP — a nod to the fact that McKeon was tall and gaunt and often compared to Abraham Lincoln. “I lost a pair of Nationals tickets on a bet.” He leaned in, confiding a secret. “Presidents Club seats.”
“No shit? Behind home plate?” Miller’s eyes lit up. He grinned and held out his hand, fingers fluttering. “I’m afraid you’ll have to go ahead and leave those with me.”
“Yeah, right,” McKnight said. “I’d better give them to him myself so they don’t… get lost.”
A group of staffers came through the door in a herd behind him and Miller waved Knight through with a shake of his head. “Suit yourself. He’s been over at Crown since 0700.” The officer used the Secret Service code name for the executive offices in the White House.
Knight cut through the wide, polished halls of the OEOB, catching a muggy blast of morning air as he popped out on the other side. He stopped for a moment at the top of the broad steps leading down to the second set of security gates that would take him onto the White House campus. The thought occurred to him that once inside, he’d likely never see the sun again. Shoving such notions aside, he walked on. If he quit now, nothing would matter anymore. He wouldn’t matter.
Knight kept up the smile, tapping his chest and repeating the story about the Nationals tickets at the outer gate and again at the West Wing entrance. He’d often accompanied Director Ross to meetings in the White House. He was on a first-name basis with most of the staff and they were accustomed to seeing him around.
He could hear Vice President McKeon’s voice coming from around the corner, hypnotic and creepy even while he was yelling at someone. The uniformed Secret Service officer at the security screening station rolled his eyes and handed back Knight’s credentials. “Welcome to my world,” he said.
The National Security Advisor’s office was to his immediate right — and the VP’s office was just beyond it on the same side.
“Harper?” Knight asked, nodded to the doorway at his right.
“He was getting his ass chewed by the Chief of Staff the last time I saw him.”
That made sense. In most administrations, the Chief of Staff was a powerful figure, running interference and dictating most of the President’s schedule. But since Drake had assumed the presidency, McKeon had made certain he was the only one dictating anything to do with the President. The Chief of Staff, frustrated at being emasculated in his job, would strike out at anyone who couldn’t do anything about it — like security.
Knight repeated the story about the tickets. “I just need to put these in his hand.”
“Suit yourself,” the officer said, and waved him through.
Visitors were required to be on a list, even with a pass, but security personnel were like postmen in their invisibility. It was accepted that they would lurk in halls and linger outside doors where important meetings took place. They were armed window dressing that was barely noticed and tolerated as a necessary evil until the shit hit the fan.
The best dignitary protection consisted of a series of concentric rings, like the layers of an onion — but there was little that could be done when the inside layer of the onion wanted to do the killing. Knight’s plan was simple. He would walk straight up to the Vice President and empty his pistol into the man’s chest.
Knight strode through the West Wing lobby with a purpose, locked on like a guided missile now that he was so close to his target. He followed McKeon’s slightly nasal voice down the carpeted hall toward the Chief of Staff ’s office. Harper stepped out just as he passed the VP’s secretary’s office and nearly ran into him.
“Guys up front radioed to say you had some tickets for me?”
Knight put out his hand in what turned out to be an overly exuberant greeting, heart in his throat. He could plainly hear the Vice President talking just steps away around the corner in the Chief of Staff’s office. He had to move now or risk losing the perfect moment — a moment that might never present itself again.
“Washington Nationals, buddy.” He kept his voice at a whisper, the way protective agents become accustomed to speaking after years of working in the halls of government elite. “You won, I lost, so I’m here to pay up.”
“What’s this all about, Adam?” Harper gave him a quizzical look. “You could have just dropped them by my apartment.”
Knight could feel the other agent’s eyes boring into him, sizing him up as a possible threat. He had about half a second before he’d be asked to leave — politely at first, and then forcibly booted out the door. It was what he would have done had the roles been reversed.
“Well, I was in the area,” Knight said, taking the tickets out of his jacket pocket and letting them fall to the ground.
All Harper had to do was look down. He did, watching the fluttering paper long enough to allow Knight to slip by him unimpeded.
Knight heard Harper’s startled shout behind him as he shouldered his way past and rounded the corner through the door to the Chief of Staff ’s office, pistol already in his hand. Harper might shoot him in the back at any moment, but by then it would be too late.
Vice President Lee McKeon came into view an instant later, towering over the Chief of Staff’s desk, pounding on a stack of files with the flat of his hand. He was less than fifteen feet away. It would be an easy shot.
Knight caught a flash of something out of place as he brought the gun to bear. It was dark and fast and moved obliquely along the inside wall — directly toward him. He stepped sideways to avoid this new threat, keeping his focus on McKeon. Before he could pull the trigger — or even take a breath — an Asian woman threw herself in front of him and loosed a chilling scream as if he’d already shot her.
Chapter 9
A dusty Land Rover sat parked in the shadows of the three-story brick wall outside the back entrance to Deuben’s clinic. Thibodaux put a hand flat on the hood and raised the brow of his good eye. “Still warm,” he whispered. “Your friend’s got company all right.”
A flurry of German curses, flung on the pointed voice of Gabrielle Deuben, poured through a crack in the second-story window above them.
“I don’t know what she’s saying,” the big Cajun said, “but she don’t sound like the happy sort of woman.”
A muffled grunt followed, like someone being hit in the belly.
Quinn put a shoulder to the door. Locked. He stepped aside, making way for Thibodaux. Booting a door himself when the big Cajun was around was akin to using a teaspoon to dig a ditch. He could do it, but why?
“Now you can huff and puff,” Quinn said.
It had been nearly two years, but Quinn still had a clear picture of the interior layout. Doors to the clinic and the small kitchen Deuben used as her personal office ran off the end of a short hallway. Just inside and to the right, blue cotton curtains covered the entrance to a set of timber stairs, roughhewn and nearly as steep as a ladder. They were ancient and creaky, a passive burglar alarm, but that mattered little since Thibodaux had put his boot to the back door with great effect, splintering the jamb with a loud crack in the process. Rather than creeping up, Quinn and Thibodaux bounded up the steps, hoping to reach the top before Grigor and his men had time to formulate a strategy.