A hissing turned Rogers around, staring at the way they came. “What was that?”
“Elevator doors closing. Thing must be functional. I’d say company’s coming.”
“Great.”
Reeder figured they were about halfway to the command center when a sound from way, way behind them might have been the elevator doors opening. He picked up the pace and Rogers did, too.
Finally they reached the entrance to the command center, an off-white wall blocking the way, decorated with the presidential seal and another seal labeled JOINT STAFF SUPPORT CENTER, RAVEN ROCK MOUNTAIN COMPLEX, surrounding a raven perched on a cliff at night. In addition a bold sign said WARNING, RESTRICTED AREA. A pair of central metal doors had a guard booth next to it.
Empty.
“Another welcoming committee,” he said, “on the other side, you think?”
Rogers grunted a laugh. “Maybe we’re the millionth visitor, and they have something special for us.”
“Maybe those doors are locked and this is a dead end.”
“Don’t sound so hopeful,” she said.
He tried a door.
Unlocked.
And when they entered into a good-size alcove facing a glass wall with metal-and-glass twin doors, they found no one waiting. Only an eerie silence greeted them.
Pistol noses up, they edged into the brightly lit room, computer terminals and monitor screens lining the walls; off to the left, a massive screen with an overhead map of Camp David, lighted here and there in red, dominated a circular command area. As impressive as all this was, the tableau before them was even more.
Nine men in black suits stood facing them in a row that was just faintly semicircular. Each had a handgun aimed at their just-arrived guests — well, eight did. The center man had his handgun in the neck of President Harrison, who was on his knees, his face bloodied, his tailored charcoal suit rumpled.
“Guess I chose the wrong man to trust, Joe,” Harrison said with a weak, puffy smile. “Head of the detail — who’d have thought it?”
That earned the President a whack along the side of the head by his captor. Reeder fought back the anger and disgust at the sight, the very thought, of those privileged to protect the President betraying their oath.
The current head of the presidential detail was not anyone Reeder recognized from Secret Service days, no — too young, too new, for that. But he did recognize the man, having gone tooth and nail with the son of a bitch in an alley near the townhouse, the night this excuse for a man had dropped his flag-lapel camera. Now Reeder got a better look — short-clipped brown hair, relaxed, emotionless face... just another anonymous Secret Service agent...
... in the sway of the Alliance.
“Welcome,” the presidential detail head said through a slash of smile. “We’ve been waiting for you. Can’t have a political assassination until the assassins get here.”
“Heroes may not be braver than anyone else. They’re just braver five minutes longer.”
Twenty
Reeder — his AR-15 still at the ready, Rogers the same — said, “Why, are we here to kill the President? Or maybe the entire cabinet as well?”
Their smug host nodded toward the kneeling President. “Your target is Harrison here. The cabinet will be taken out by your Russian collaborators, of course.”
Almost casually, Reeder said, “Rocket launcher? Take the conference room out and everyone in it? What, Laurel Lodge?”
The leader chuckled, shook his head in admiration. “Well reasoned, Mr. Reeder. You were ahead of us for much of the way, you know. Have to hand you that. But at the end of the day, you and Agent Rogers and her people... you’ll all just be a rogue element in our government, intent on staging a failed historic coup. Of course, history will not record that you performed this task for the American Patriots Alliance, since of course that group does not, and never has, existed.”
Rogers, the AR-15 raised into shooting position, edged away from Reeder, putting a little distance between them — no need to help these traitors out by presenting a unified target.
“Ms. Rogers!” the detail head said, his smile like a skull’s. “Any further movement will initiate a firefight, and I don’t think any of us want that.”
Well, the nine-man firing squad facing them surely didn’t — the only reason she and Reeder hadn’t been cut down yet were the AR-15s in their grasps. Short of taking head shots themselves, they could take out every one of these sons of bitches before dying.
“Put down your weapons,” the leader said. “A general melee will surely take the President out early on. And I don’t think you want that.”
Harrison blurted, “I’m dead already, Joe!”
That got the kneeling prisoner another cuff alongside the head with the handgun.
Reeder took this in as casually as if someone were passing him the salt. But she knew he was roiling inside.
“I suppose,” the leader said, just a hint of tension in his voice, “I should be grateful to you for identifying yourselves as assassins making an incursion.”
“How did you track us?” Reeder asked. Still as casual as dinner-table conversation.
Tiny shrug. “We didn’t have to. Your actions stayed off our radar, and you certainly weren’t betrayed, except by your own character. You see, we knew you’d be coming, Mr. Reeder. Your vanity demanded it. Turns out the great People Reader isn’t tough to read at all.”
That got a wisp of smile out of Reeder, whose AR-15 remained leveled directly at the leader of the insurrection, or anyway this cell of it.
Rogers — with her weapon aimed to the leader’s left, figuring Reeder would handle everyone to the man’s right — said, “You can’t hope to get away with this. It’s madness.”
“If so,” the leader said cheerfully, the snout of his gun in the bloodied President’s neck, “there’s method in it. The story is already written and ready for the media, how traitors from within conspired with Russian agents in a vain attempt to wipe out the US government. You will be the chief villains of the piece, even as the nation salutes this weakling...” — he dug that snout deeper into Harrison’s flesh — “... that we’ll have turned into a hero, while the fallen cabinet will become martyrs as the nation says, ‘Thank God for Nicholas Blount, our new president.’”
“What,” Reeder said calmly over the rifle, “did they promise you and these other disgraces to the Service?”
That made the leader’s eyes narrow, his upper lip twitching. “We’re patriots, Mr. Reeder, one and all. We want a return to the roots and values of this great nation and its founders. Those of us in the Service are every day witness to the compromises and surrenders of political leaders with no moral compass.”
What complete utter, empty bullshit, Rogers thought.
“I’m guessing,” Reeder said placidly, “that you’re after the directorship of the Service. And I’m probably looking at the new White House presidential detail, which will really know its stuff having betrayed a president themselves.”
The faces above those pointing handguns no longer seemed so impassive — frowns, however subtle, could be discerned.
“Mr. Reeder,” the leader said, “you are no one to talk. After all, twenty million dollars from Ukraine sources have been deposited in a Swiss bank account in your name, and another ten million each into similar accounts for Ms. Rogers and her FBI team. You are traitors, headed for vilification today, and pages in history rivaling Benedict Arnold tomorrow... so spare us your judgmental condescension.”