“How do you know this?”
“It doesn’t really matter right now. What’s important is that these men are leaving the area nearest the President’s podium. I believe they were hired to provide close perimeter security. They’re leaving. What does that tell you?”
“I don’t know, sir. What are you implying?”
Bolden look away in frustration. “You tell me,” he said, too loudly. His calm was slipping away, fleeing as surely and quickly as the last sands in an hourglass. “What would make you want to get away from where the President of the United States is standing? Figure it out.”
The agent stared at him for a moment, then grabbed him by the lapel of his jacket and dragged him ten feet away. “You stay here. What’s your name?”
“Thomas Bolden.”
“All right then, Mr. Bolden. You will not move one step. Understood?”
Bolden nodded.
The agent spoke into his microphone, relaying to his superior everything that Bolden had just told him. “Mr. Fiske’s on his way.”
Barely two minutes passed before a blue Chevy Suburban screeched to a halt and a trim African American man leaped to the ground. “You Bolden?”
“Yes sir.”
“What’s this garbage you’re spouting about Scanlon leaving the area?”
“Are you the agent in charge?”
“Ellington Fiske. This is my show.”
“Have you asked the Scanlon guys why they’re all taking a hike?”
Fiske’s mouth tightened. “We haven’t been able to raise them.”
Just then, a tall, red-faced agent ran up to them. “Thomas Bolden is wanted by the NYPD for murder. He popped some guy on Wall Street yesterday.”
“His name was Sol Weiss,” said Bolden. “I didn’t kill him. It was an accident. Another man shot him, a security guard working for my firm, Harrington Weiss, but actually, I think he works for Scanlon, too. Look, I’m turning myself in to tell you guys this. You’ve got to listen to me. There is going to be an attempt on the President’s life. And I mean now! Would you get off your asses and do something?”
The red-faced agent grabbed Bolden and spun him around, throwing cuffs on his wrist. “You bet we’re going to do something, mister.”
“Hold it,” ordered Fiske. He stepped toward Bolden. “How do you know this?”
“I just know.” He held the Secret Service agent’s eyes. “Can you afford to find out if I’m lying?”
Fiske looked away, the muscles in his jaw working overtime. “Okay, Mr. Bolden. You’ve got two minutes to convince me. Larry, take off the cuffs. Bolden, get in the car. You’re coming with me.”
Thirty-one pounds of RDX lined the hollow interior walls of the Triton Industries-manufactured podium. RDX, or Research Department Explosive, was as deadly an explosive as was currently manufactured, and used primarily in the destruction of nuclear warheads. In fact, so tightly controlled was the material that its chemical signature was not among those regularly screened for by the United States Secret Service. It was manufactured by the Olney Corporation of Towson, Maryland. Two years earlier, Olney had been purchased by Jefferson Partners.
James Jacklin took a last look at Senator McCoy as she began to deliver her inauguration address, then rose from his seat and scooted to the outside aisle. All eyes were on the President as he walked up the stairs and crossed the Capitol esplanade. He’d been told it was necessary to be at least five hundred yards from the blast site. The RDX had an effective kill radius of two hundred feet. It was not so much the force of the blast that made RDX so effective, but the tremendous heat it generated. At the time of detonation, temperatures at the core of the bomb would exceed three thousand degrees. Everyone on the reviewing stand would be cooked as crisply as a Christmas goose.
Jacklin checked his watch. He had two minutes to distance himself from the bomb. In reality, he was already safe. The stairs behind the podium would deflect the blast upward and back toward the crowd of spectators. Still, he wanted to make sure.
He reached the steps leading to the Dirksen building when President McCoy broke off her speech in midsentence. A hushed roar passed through the crowd. A siren began to wail, then another, and soon, it sounded to him as if every police car in the city were heading toward the presidential reviewing stand. He looked at his watch again. It was too late.
The time was twenty minutes past twelve. Ellington Fiske kept his foot on the accelerator as he turned the corner of Constitution Avenue and Second Street. “Goddamm it, would somebody get me one of those motherfuckers from Scanlon on the horn!”
“Their receivers are jammed,” said Larry Kennedy, his number two. “Probably just a short, boss.”
“Like the one that knocked out the microphone on the podium,” said Fiske.
“Do we clear the area, sir?” asked Kennedy.
Fiske shot Bolden a damning glance. “Go on,” he said.
“And so, we got the information out of a Scanlon operative,” said Bolden. “It’s called Crown. They’re killing her because she won’t join the club.”
“Jacklin is?”
“Yes sir.”
“The billionaire? The guy who runs Jefferson Partners? You’re making it hard on me, Bolden. Very hard.”
The Suburban rocked to the left as it came around the back of the Capitol building. They passed through a cordon of police cars and emergency vehicles, Fiske bringing the car to a violent halt. “Get out.”
Bolden opened the door and climbed out of the car, wincing and grunting. Fiske eyed him warily. “What’s up with you?”
Bolden didn’t think there was any point in answering the question. “Has anything out of the ordinary taken place in the last day or two? Anything near the President? Special guests, some new equipment that was put into place in the last twenty-four hours, something that could make a very big bang?”
“Just a podium.” Fiske walked briskly across the esplanade. Ahead, nearly a dozen policemen blocked the way to the top of the reviewing stand. Looking west toward the Washington Monument, the Mall was a sea of humans. Everywhere, there were American flags. Lining the snow-covered fields, gracing the government buildings, waving from the hands of thousands of spectators. A shower of red, white, and blue.
“A podium,” said Bolden, working to keep up. “Where’d it come from?”
“Virginia,” said Fiske.
“From Triton Aerospace?”
Fiske stopped in his tracks. “How do you know that?”
“Triton’s owned by the same group that owns Scanlon. Jefferson Partners. It’s Jacklin’s company. I’d say you have a problem on your hands.”
Fiske raised a hand to his forehead and mumbled “Shit.” He looked at Kennedy. “Anyone raise Scanlon?”
“Negative, sir.”
Fiske looked down, a cloud of anguish passing over his face. As suddenly, it was gone. “We have a code red,” he barked into his lapel. “Clear Eagle. I repeat, Clear Eagle.” He looked at Bolden. “Mister, you had better not be wrong.”
Bolden followed Fiske through the line of policemen to the top of the stairs. President McCoy was surrounded by a flock of Secret Service agents, all but invisible inside a sea of navy blue and black. The tight knot moved quickly off the stage and began a pained march up the stairs. Fiske ran down to meet them, shouting, “Hurry!” The crowd watched, no one moving, a sentiment of anxious horror playing on their faces.
She’s safe, Bolden said to himself.
The light was tremendous, a blinding torrent of oranges and blacks brighter than a thousand suns. An unseen hammer struck his body, lifting him into the air. Bolden lay on his back. Folding chairs clattered to the ground. He looked to his right. A man’s leg, naked except for a sock and shoe, lay next to him. He sat up and waited for his vision to clear. There was something in his eyes. He wiped at his face and his hand came away streaked with blood. Kennedy was on his back nearby, his face blackened, a gash laying open his cheek. He muttered something, then scrambled to his feet and ran down the stairs.