“Sorry.” Reeder shrugged over the aimed AR-15. “I should be thanking you, anyway.”
“Thanking us?”
“For identifying yourselves as the cell operating within Camp David. Or are there more of you?”
The skull smile again. “There are patriots everywhere, Mr. Reeder.”
“I must have skipped civics class the day it was explained how killing the cabinet, the President, and Vice President, was patriotic.”
Another tiny shrug. “What could be more patriotic than the revolutionary rebirth of America? In twenty-four hours, the public will be mourning the loss of their leaders, rallying around their new president, and readying to retaliate against the Russians for what will become known as the Camp David Attack.”
“Which began,” reminded Reeder, “with the murders of four CIA agents in Azbekistan. Who set that in motion, by the way?”
Slight head shake. “Not a name you’d recognize, Mr. Reeder. A CIA official, fairly high up as you’d imagine, who is since deceased. Heart failure. Tragic.”
Reeder grinned over the weapon, still trained on the leader. “Hear that, fellas? That’s how the Alliance treats its loyal followers. If I were you, and had bought this bill of goods, I’d be reconsidering. If the President will grant me the privilege, I will offer full amnesty to any of you who put down their weapons, or come over to our side. Mr. President?”
“Done,” he said.
Their leader was frowning, irritation finally cutting through. “That’s enough, Mr. Reeder. We’re all quite prepared to die for what we believe in.”
“What was that again? To further empower a cabal of corrupt industrialists who are loyal to no one or nothing but their own self-interests? They aren’t left, they aren’t right, they’re just wrong.”
The man’s eyes and nostrils flared. “If that’s your choice, Mr. Reeder, then it’s time this Mexican standoff, if you’ll forgive the political incorrectness, comes to an end... no matter the cost.”
Rifle ever steady, Reeder said, “You’ll go first, friend. But before you do... and your men give their lives out of a misguided sense of patriotism... you should know that when your rocket launcher takes out that conference room in the Laurel Lodge, it will be as empty as Senator Wilson Blount’s sense of morality.”
The frown was almost a scowl now. “Don’t bother with lies. They’re all gathered around their big table with no sense of what’s coming. It will almost be merciful.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I directed the President earlier to move the cabinet members to the location known by code name Cactus — as head of the Secret Service presidential detail, you’ll know what that is...”
“Don’t bother bluffing.”
“I thought you said I was easy to read? I don’t bluff. Patti, just so you know, ‘Cactus’ is the nuclear bunker here at Camp David. And the cabinet has been instructed to stay put within, till the President himself gives them the word.”
The cell phone in her pocket vibrated and she and Reeder in a microsecond confirmed that his phone too had vibrated and, as agreed, they dropped. On the floor now, in sniper position, Reeder took out the detail leader with a burst of shots that turned the man’s head to bloody mush, while the President hit the deck, staying under the exchange of gunfire.
Taking Reeder’s act as permission, Rogers began to take one head shot after another, while behind them Wade and Hardesy came on the run, firing their own AR-15s from the hip, like Audie Murphy charging a tank. The thunder of the semiautomatic weapons fire bounced off the high walls and swallowed the smaller, occasional pops of the handgun fire from the lineup of agents, as orange tracers made a deadly light show. One of the agents managed to hit Hardesy in the chest, and he stumbled, went down on one knee but was firing again, almost immediately.
The air filled with red mist as men in oh so proper suits flew back onto the cement with their skulls cracked open and seeping, their eyes — those that had not been shot out of their heads — staring up at nothing.
The carnage was terrible and complete.
The echo of gunfire faded to a silence broken only by the ringing of the survivors’ ears. Thirty seconds had been all it took. The same was true at the O.K. Corral.
Only Hardesy had been hit, and he was hobbling along with a grin and an assist from Wade, basically only winded from the blow to his vest. Reeder abandoned his weapon to run to the President. There was blood all over Harrison’s back.
“Mr. President!” Reeder shouted, and knelt by the leader of the free world...
... who pushed himself up with one hand, like he was doing a show-off push-up, and half-smiled at Reeder.
“I guess that’s another president you saved,” he said. “You’d do anything for a Medal of Freedom, wouldn’t you?”
Rogers was right there, too, still carrying the AR-15 in both hands. “Is he all right?”
“Fine,” Reeder said, helping Harrison to his feet. “It’s not his blood.”
Hardesy leaned against a wall while Wade went around checking what proved to be corpses.
“Poor misguided bastards,” Wade said.
The coppery smell of blood mingled with the stench of bodies evacuating themselves at death. Victory had been complete, but the victors were all sick to their stomachs.
“Was that a bluff, Joe?” she asked him. “About the cabinet being sequestered in the bunker?”
“I said I didn’t bluff,” he said. “No, that was part of the plan all along. They’re quite safe. No offense, Patti, but no one needed that knowledge but me... Lucas, Wade! Guard the entrance. There may be more of these insurgent pricks around.”
The President moved with incredible confidence, dignity, and fluidity to the control desk where he sounded an alarm, and then got on the hotline phone and ordered up Marines to come to Raven Rock.
Reeder went to him and said, “We need to stay alert, sir — those Marines you summoned could include Alliance infiltrators.”
The President’s puffy smile had melancholy in it. “My guess is that, considering the way things have gone, any traitors will fade back into the woodwork and behave themselves, for now at least. When we get back to DC, I’ll be starting an investigation into every agency of government. Some will call it a witch hunt, I’m sure... but this time we have actual witches, don’t we?”
“We do. And the head warlock is Senator Wilson Blount.”
Harrison sighed. “That’s my impression, as well. But do we have any proof that links him to this attempted coup? He’s a powerful man, Joe, with powerful friends.”
“And at least one very powerful enemy, sir. Yourself. As you know, I never did come up with the name of the man who betrayed our four agents. If our late friend over there can be believed, that person is already dead, and we should be able to determine his identity. But I’d like your blessing, your mandate, to go after Blount as best I can.”
“Done.”
Reeder glanced around at the now bustling chamber. “And I believe, until we have done the most thorough security and background checks possible on the Secret Service here at Camp David, you should allow Agent Rogers, her two agents, and myself to serve as an ad hoc presidential detail.”
“Also done.”
“We can’t leave here, by helicopter anyway, until the threat of a rocket launcher is dealt with. Can you put together a team of Marines that you trust, to comb the surrounding woods — inside and outside of the compound — to deal with that threat?”
The President’s half-smile was self-deprecating. “I didn’t do so well choosing a Secret Service agent to count on.”