“You all have to understand,” Reeder said, “that if the explosion happens, we will likely be too close to it to survive. Patti, make sure Wade and Bohannon are informed of that. Miggie, you need to stay here and monitor what we’re doing, and feed us anything we might need to know. Use your personal tablet only.”
Miggie nodded.
Rogers said, “Any questions?”
No questions.
They were well armed, Kevlar-vested, earbud and wrist mic — equipped, and on their way in under ten minutes, riding in a single vehicle, no siren. Within another ten minutes, they had parked and dispersed to their stations.
Reeder wore a parka — the Burberry would have stood out — and the stocking cap was less for cold protection than to keep the assassin from recognizing that famous head of white hair. Breath visible, he walked between cars parked along the twisty drive on the edge of the Capitol grounds, checking his watch.
In ten minutes, the address would begin.
If the government lay in ruin — with Reeder and his colleagues and even Amy paying for a madman’s vision — the irony would be how beautiful this winter night was, stars like holes punched in the sky letting in bright light from behind its dark-blue curtain, the moon a fat enough sliver for Huck Finn to sit on it and cast his line.
This kind of crisp cold evening did not scare off tourists, and plenty were strolling by, taking pictures, his own mental camera checking every face. Pedestrian traffic was a constant around the great building — people wanting to see it, feel the aura of the place — but tonight, despite the weather, more tourists were on tap than usual. Even if they couldn’t be in there, visitors from around America liked to think that just inside that grand structure, the President of the United States would be delivering the State of the Union.
Telling them it was strong.
In Reeder’s ear, Nichols said, “You’d think there wouldn’t be so many people out in this cold.”
Hardesy said, “Makes it harder.”
“Keep looking,” Rogers said, then the radios went silent.
These were good people. Rogers had done well; he was proud of her. Not one of them betrayed the pressure of knowing that if they failed on their desperate mission, none would get much closer to tomorrow.
In complete Secret Service mode now, Reeder studied each passerby, looking for the wrong gesture at the wrong moment, the hand that went into a pocket at the wrong second, the eyes in an otherwise expressionless face that revealed tension or occasionally cold hatred. Such threats he noted easily, almost unconsciously.
Striding north on First Street NE, Reeder kept his feet moving but also his eyes. Across the street, the Library of Congress’s Jefferson Building looked particularly majestic to him, unaware of the looming threat to its seeming permanence. A few people passed in front, none fitting the blond’s build, all in danger and Reeder dared not risk a warning. This part of the block was not the likeliest spot for the bomber to be, but their little group must cover all the bases.
Seconds ticked by.
Minutes.
A small ball of anxiety in his belly represented the full-blown fear he had learned so long ago to keep back. He managed his breathing, forced time to slow down. He saw a man with light-colored hair wearing a plaid jacket and earflap hat, moving on the other side of the street in Rogers’s direction. Reeder, resisting the urge to run after the guy, was about to key his mic to warn her when the guy hailed a passing taxi, got in, rode off into the night. Plaid-jacket, at least, would see tomorrow. Maybe the cabbie, too.
Or had it been the blond?
Had the merc made Reeder? Impossible. No, the man’s back had been to him. Let it go.
Heading back south, Reeder strode toward Independence Avenue, the ball of anxiety burning. Down this way was a prime spot for the bomber, the kind of place Reeder himself would pick in the blond’s shoes: good vantage point and just a block’s walk to a metro station where, after making that fateful phone call, a bad guy could stroll away in easy view of flaming rubble, the smell of what he’d done scorching his nostrils, and disappear forever.
With how much money? Reeder wondered.
However big the fortune, the per-death payoff would be meager.
Reeder had assigned this station to himself, knowing it was prime, hoping he’d guessed right. This was the most likely quadrant for the bomber to be in, and it gave him the best chance of saving all those lives.
Of saving Amy’s life.
The cold helped him keep the tears from his eyes and retain his focus. Wade’s car passed him, slow but not conspicuously so; but Reeder gave no sign of notice. Everyone looking, no one finding, radios painfully silent.
At the corner, he turned east, crossing First Street SE. He considered walking a block to Second, on the off chance the blond might be up that way. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a puff of breath from the recessed doorway of the Cannon House Office Building to the south, as if someone had tucked in there for a smoke.
Or was that smoke? Could be a tiny cloud of condensation, almost immediately disappearing.
That could be him.
Or a janitor who really was smoking, and was just between puffs.
Reeder walked farther east, out of sight of the Cannon House doorway. It had to be him. The clock insisted. Using the Madison Building as cover, Reeder trotted back west toward the corner of First Street SE and Independence Avenue. No tourists at the moment, not here.
At the corner, he peeked around the building and saw, halfway down the block, another puff of breath from the recessed doorway. Reeder checked his watch, the speech under way, not much time left...
No telling how long the bomber would let the President talk before ending so many lives and making — and destroying — so much history with the tap of a fingertip on SEND.
No leeway for fancy plans now.
Reeder, SIG Sauer in hand at his side, stepped out around the corner and walked diagonally across the street, stopping on the sidewalk in front of the Cannon House door where he had seen the puff of breath. Someone was tucked in there, all right.
The blond, bareheaded, cheeks red, face flecked with tiny scars, hands in the pockets of his thermal jacket, stepped out of the shadows. The bastard did something terrible: he grinned.
“I was beginning to think you weren’t coming,” he said.
Reeder said nothing.
The blond, looking at the pistol trained on him, withdrew his hand from his jacket pocket. So that Reeder could see the cell phone detonator.
“Let’s not get overly excited, Joe. Okay I call you Joe? I feel like we know each other now. We’ve been through a lot together, haven’t we?” He gestured casually with the phone-in-hand.
“You want to talk?”
“Why not? We understand each other, don’t we? Who knows, maybe you can reason with me.”
Reeder shot him in the head.
“Not interested,” he said, but the blond didn’t hear him.
Reeder plucked the cell phone from dead fingers as the assassin crumpled empty-eyed toward the cement, scarlet trickling from the black hole in his forehead to drip down over his nose. A crimson mist sparkled in the air like dying fireworks.
Rogers’s voice came on the comms system, distant in his ringing ears. “That was a shot! Everyone report.”
Reeder said, “Clear. Blond is down and dead. I have the cell phone. Tell Fisk to get the bomb squad over to the Capitol.”
“You’re okay?” Rogers asked, out of breath, on the run.
“Sure,” he said.
Rogers found him sitting on the sidewalk, back to the wall, ten or so feet from the fallen assassin. He was crying. She went down and checked on the dead man, came back quickly.