As if in answer, Woods got hit in the chest, and fell back, his gun leaping out of his hand as if the thing had gone suddenly molten.
Reeder scrambled over to Woods, on his back, kicking like an upended turtle. Rogers scuttled over. Around them a terrible near-silence had descended. Sightseers who hadn’t run into the night were splayed on the ground or behind whatever minimal cover they could find. Others could be heard running, but that seemed far away.
Then another shot cracked the night as concrete dust kicked up less than a foot away. Was this the same son of a bitch who’d killed Tony Wooten right next to her at the Skygate Apartments?
Staying low, moving fast, she and Reeder dragged the detective around to the far side of the monument.
“One shooter, you think?” Rogers asked.
Reeder said, “Better be.”
Then they heard the sirens.
Rogers said, “Time to go?”
“Time to go,” he said.
She leaned over Woods. “How bad?”
“Hit the vest,” the detective said, wincing, hurting. “Kevlar’s never... never a bad accessory for... a night out with you two.”
“Can you stand, you think?” Rogers said. “We need to move.”
“What about the sniper?” Woods asked.
Reeder said, “Those sirens had to send him scurrying. But we can’t let your brothers-in-blue pick us up, either.”
The sirens were screaming. She and Reeder probably had a minute, maybe two. Maybe.
Rogers said, “We’ll help you up — we’ve got to go.”
Woods pawed at the air. “Get out of here, you two. I got this. I’ll... I’ll say you called to give yourself up to... to somebody neutral, and we came here to pick up another of your crew. Who somebody shot. Now. Get to the bottom of this shit. Here. Take my car.” He got his keys out and handed them over.
She gave him a quick nod of thanks and her eyes told him to take care. Then she and Reeder, his arm around her, were just another couple hustling away to safety.
On the way to Woods’s car, they stayed alert for a tail, hugging trees and bushes as much as possible. Not knowing where that sniper had gotten himself to made things tense.
At the Dodge, Reeder opened the driver’s door for her and she got behind the wheel.
“Where to?” she asked.
It wasn’t like there was anywhere they could go.
“I need some rest,” he said. “And so do you. We stay up much longer, our judgment will go to hell. But I don’t know if we dare go to a hotel or motel. And we can’t risk driving far, or for long, in this car. No matter what Woods cooks up to cover us and himself, somebody — maybe a lot of somebodies — will be looking for this vehicle.”
She started the engine.
“I know somewhere,” she said.
“There are plenty of recommendations on how to get out of trouble cheaply and fast. Most of them come down to this: Deny your responsibility.”
Seventeen
They stayed off the interstates, avoiding as much as possible traffic-cams and other security cameras. As Rogers drove, Reeder got Miggie on the burner.
“Everybody safe?” the computer expert asked.
“Patti and I are fine.”
Quickly he told Miguel what had happened at the Monument.
“Oh, hell,” Mig said hollowly. “First Jerry, now Trevor... God. What next?”
“We do our best not to join them. Your end?”
“Everybody’s okay. No sign of a tail. Should be at the cabin soon. Nichols is sleeping in back right now.”
“Both of you need to get some rest. Sleep in shifts, when you get to the cabin.”
“That’s what we planned. GPS says you’re on the move, too.”
“We are. Patti and I’ll find somewhere we can sleep before we drop. But tomorrow I want to make a visit, first thing.”
“Anywhere special?”
“Just the cabinet member left behind for this Camp David trip, now that Amanda Yellich is off the list.”
A pause filled itself with cell-phone crackle.
“Joe, I told you before how tight a lid the Secret Service keeps on that.”
“And you’re just the guy to pry it off.”
Another crackly pause.
“I’ll get back to you,” Miguel said, and clicked off.
Reeder slept for fifteen minutes and then the burner in his hand vibrated.
“Turns out the held-back cabinet member,” Mig said, “is a familiar name.”
“Secretary of Agriculture,” Reeder said. “Nicholas Blount.”
“Jesus! If you knew that, why—”
“I didn’t. Just an educated guess, based on Lawrence mentioning the Blount dynasty. If procedure hasn’t changed, Nicky will be at home or perhaps some summer or winter place.”
“His home,” Mig said. “Chevy Chase, 6900 block of Brennon Lane. Do I have to remind you a spate of agents from your alma mater will be on hand?”
“No, but see if you can define spate.”
Miggie tapped on his tablet.
Then: “Six — three two-person teams rotating over twenty-four hours.”
“After the attempted coup last year,” Reeder said, “I expected more. But then a contingent of agents would only attract unneeded attention. Hey. Is my pal Lawrence asleep?”
“No. Wide awake and pouting.”
“Enough dashboard light to see his face?”
“Sure.”
“Ask him if Wilson Blount is the Alliance chairman. And as you do, watch his face close — you’re going to read him for me.”
“Do my best... Lawrence! Reeder wants to know if Senator Blount is the chairman of the Alliance board.”
Reeder could make out Morris’s muffled, “Hell no.”
“Hear that?” Miggie asked.
“Yeah. Did his eyes go up and to the left?”
“His left or my left?”
“Yours.”
“Yup. For half a sec, I’d say.”
“Thank Lawrence for me... I’ll check back in the morning. That concealed gun cabinet in the cabin is—”
“I remember where it is.”
They clicked off.
Rogers, at the wheel, had gathered most of the conversation from Reeder’s end and what she could hear of Miggie’s.
She asked, “So Blount is the chairman? Based on some minimal eye movement on Morris’s part?”
He gave her half a smile. “Wouldn’t exactly hold up in court. But it makes sense. The Senator is who angled to get the qualifying age for the presidency lowered last year, and now we learn that his young son is the one cabinet member not at Camp David right now.”
“It’s thin,” she said, “but credible. So we talk to Nicky Blount? How do we get past your Secret Service buddies?”
The sky was already showing patches of pink light in the east.
“Working on it,” he said.
Then he fell asleep.
When he woke up, Rogers was pulling into the entry drive of an underground garage using a keycard. Reeder twisted and saw a street sign: WOODMONT AVENUE.
Once they were settled into a space away from cameras and potential passersby, Reeder asked, “Are we anywhere special?”
“Bethesda. The Landow Building. Offices and retail, and very little traffic this early on a Saturday.”
“And you have a keycard for a parking garage in Bethesda why?”
“Gabe Sloan and I — not long after we were first partnered up — stopped some domestic terrorists who wanted to blow this place up for jihad or something. The owners asked us how often our work brought us to Bethesda and we said fairly often, and...”