“A bigger charge would’ve gotten it done,” Bennett said. An uncharacteristic wildness touched his eyes — desperation or maybe even fear. “It would’ve killed me for sure. Why didn’t he use a bigger charge?”
“Maybe he wasn’t trying to kill you,” she said. “Maybe he was trying to ring your bell.”
Bennett straightened up, clutching his lower back. “It’ll take a lot more than that.”
Everyone stiffened at once, staring at him.
“What?” he said. “What?”
He felt warmth trickle from his ear, reached up. His finger pad came away glossy with his own blood.
Naomi said, “The physician, Mr. President.”
Bennett rubbed the blood between his thumb and forefinger, watched it spread across the pads. He felt his mouth settle into a scowl, though he hadn’t told it to.
He sat on the gurney.
Naomi perched at the edge of an overstuffed chair in the West Sitting Hall, the red leather cool through her pants. Bennett reclined on the chesterfield sofa across from her, tie missing, collar still spotted with blood.
The room was soothing with its peach walls and antique wooden tables, its ferns and bowls of carnations. The framed double doors that opened onto the hall and staircase were closed, squaring the room. A number of staffers and medical personnel orbited the space or conferred in hushed tones in the far-flung seating areas. Eva Wong sat alone over by the fireplace, at the ready for a snap of the president’s fingers. After being diagnosed with minor tinnitus and released from care, she’d scurried right back to the president’s side.
This was an all-hands-on-deck moment.
Though there remained more questions than answers, Naomi had downloaded Bennett on the preliminary report from the Forensic Division, and given his reaction, she couldn’t blame the others in the room for maintaining a healthy standoff distance.
“A squash head?” Bennett said. “Why’s he using outdated weapons tech?”
“The hypothesis we’re working with is that he wanted to shatter the ballistic windows to clear the way.”
“For what?”
“A shot at you. But the protective convoy did its job, got you away safely.”
An aide entered with a silver tray holding a fresh shirt and a replacement pair of eyeglasses. Bennett tore off his tie and changed his shirt in full view of everyone. Propriety had been washed aside by the exigencies of the situation.
“A job well done, is that what you’re telling me?” He polished the lenses carefully before donning the new glasses. “Convenient how that hypothesis lets the Service off the hook.”
“If you’ll forgive me for saying so, Mr. President, I’m not feeling particularly off the hook at the moment.”
“Okay,” Bennett said. “So he wanted to break the glass to get at me. The rear compartment of Cadillac One is a closed container, which means he had to pull off a balancing act between concussing it enough to shatter the windows — which he’d know is impossible, by the way — and producing too much overpressure, which would kill everyone inside. Hence the question: Why not just do the latter and kill everyone inside?”
“I have a feeling…”
“What?”
“I have a feeling that he didn’t want to kill the rest of us.”
Bennett’s eyes crinkled at the edges with amusement. “You think Orphan X cares about collateral damage?”
“He was cornered by cops in that café two weeks ago—”
“I recall.”
“Well,” she said, “a man who throws matcha tea and salt when confronted with armed police officers doesn’t sound like someone who doesn’t care about collateral damage. A man who uses rubber bullets to effect his escape doesn’t sound like someone who doesn’t care about killing innocents.”
“According to Director Gonzalez, Orphan X killed two Secret Service agents today.”
“About that…” Naomi shot a glance at the iconic lunette window, realized her breath was held. She took the plunge. “We’ve discovered that the two emergency-response-team members who were killed were actually impostor agents.”
Bennett stared at her with incredulity. “You allowed outsiders to penetrate the Secret Service? Along my motorcade route?”
Though chagrined to the bone, she found herself wondering whether Bennett was feigning his reaction. “Agent Demme remembers clearing them during the advance sweep.” She nodded to Demme, who was waiting nervously across the room, doing his best to pretend he hadn’t heard his name spoken. “He double-checked their creds, said they checked out in the databases. But now any record of them is gone.”
“You’re telling me you’ve got moles in your agency, Templeton?”
“I’m worried we have moles outside the Service, people with clearance high enough to alter top-secret databases. Someone authorized inside State, NSA, DoD.”
Bennett’s gaze was steady, but in her peripheral vision Naomi saw Wong’s face swivel to him. Naomi had no idea what that was about, but she felt paranoia squirm to life in her belly, the sense that there were vast mechanisms at work beneath the surface so well cloaked that she’d never comprehend them.
She focused on the job at hand, which was itself big enough to drown in. “It seems these impostors were targeting Orphan X, and he targeted them — and only them — right back.”
“No,” Bennett said. “No, no, no. Nothing with X is a direct line. Not the men he killed, not his reason for shattering the limousine. It’s all part of a more complex strategy. We’re missing something. What are we missing?” He ran his thumb back and forth across his fingertips repetitively.
Bennett’s shift in affect was upsetting. Naomi was accustomed to seeing him completely in control, never a tremor in his voice or a sheen of sweat across his brow. Now he looked disheveled in his rumpled clothes.
“Perhaps you’re right,” she said, hoping a conciliatory tone might take his agitation down a notch. “Perhaps he miscalculated the charge.”
“The man penetrated an impenetrable security zone, sent a mortar round a half block in moderate wind conditions toward a target moving fifty-five miles per hour and hit the nail on the head.” Bennett clenched his hands together. “That doesn’t sound like someone who miscalculates.”
“No,” she said.
“So we need to figure out what the hell he’s up to. You’re not thinking hard enough.”
Before Naomi could respond, the physician approached, orange bottle in hand. “Mr. President, after the strain of the day, I think it’s imperative that you take a low dose of Buspar—”
Bennett said, “I don’t need an antianxiety. I never take that crap, Frank. You know this. Don’t want to get in the habit.”
The physician kept his voice calm and steady. “It’s not every day that you’re nearly assassinated.”
Bennett tensed, his stare locked on the bottle. “Where was this prescription filled?”
“The usual pharmacy.”
Bennett knocked the bottle out of the physician’s hands, sending it tumbling across the carpet. The doctor drew upright, taken aback.
“Nothing is usual anymore,” Bennett said. “Have those pills been tested?”
The physician said, “I assure you—”
Bennett’s glare found Naomi. “Have them tested. This is a perfect ploy, see? The attack gets my heart rate up, after which my doc will likely recommend I take a med. Pills can be contaminated. That’s how he thinks. Every single thing is strategic.” He got up, snatched the bottle off the carpet, and held it before Naomi’s face. “I would have thought that after what you just witnessed, you might understand what we’re up against.”
She gestured Demme over and handed him the bottle. “Can you get Tech Security in here, please?”