Selena gripped his arm. The clock by the bed read 3:07 A.M..
"Nick, you were shouting. You had a nightmare again."
He'd told Selena about the Afghanistan dream. He hadn't said much about the other dreams. They'd started when he was twelve. They didn't come often. He never knew until later what they meant. They were never about anything good and were always about something that hadn't happened yet. Those dreams had a strange intensity, a luminous quality.
Like the dream he'd just had.
It was a psychic ability inherited from his Irish ancestors. His Grandmother had told him it was called the "sight". She'd filled his head with dark mutterings and warnings about it. Nick assumed it came from the same place that made his ear itch and burn when everything was about to go bad.
"Christ," he said. He rubbed his face.
"Afghanistan again?"
"No." She waited.
Nick was silent. The image of his hands trying to hold in her blood stuck in his mind.
"You can't keep doing this," she said.
"Doing what?"
"Trying to get a handle on these dreams on your own. You need to see someone."
"I don't want someone poking around in my head. I'll handle it."
"You are one stubborn man." She wanted to shake him. Instead she said, "Let's go back to bed."
"We're already in bed. I don't think I can get back to sleep."
"I didn't say anything about sleeping. Don't be so damned literal."
Later, he slept.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
President James Rice stood in the wings of the Lakeside Building at Chicago's Convention Center. He listened with half an ear to his VP setting up the crowd of delegates and party faithful. Secret Service agents were stationed back stage. More circulated out front.
Rice was about to accept his party's nomination for a second term. 50,000,000 viewers would be watching. The polls showed him trailing his opponent by seven percentage points. Behind the scenes the atmosphere was tense, his campaign split into opposing factions over strategy.
Everyone wondered what Rice would say. About the endless problems in Afghanistan and the Middle East, the rising tensions with Iran and Russia and China. About jobs and an economy in trouble. The media was sharpening its knives.
It didn't matter that Rice had kept the country out of a new world war and survived a highly publicized assassination attempt a year before. The public's attitude was always "what have you done for me lately?" Kennedy's famous words about what you could do for your country had long been forgotten.
His opponent had no qualms about distorting Rice's record. Senator Richard Carino twisted facts to suit, throwing skewed numbers out like confetti in carefully rehearsed sound bites. He brayed about the enormous deficit and the wars, but posed no sensible alternatives and took no responsibility for the current state of affairs. AEON had spent hundreds of millions of dollars to oust Rice from the Presidency. His re-election bid was in trouble.
The space out front was filled to capacity. Kevin Hogan, Rice's Chief of Staff, stood at Rice's side. Hogan was the picture of a Washington political pro. He looked like what he was, a savvy, shrewd advisor with the unmistakable air that went with proximity to power. He was making an effort to keep calm. A lot was riding on the speech tonight.
"One minute, Mister President."
"How's the makeup?"
"Good, Sir. No one's going to think of Nixon."
Rice smiled. "I hope not."
Hogan gave a weak laugh. In the first Kennedy-Nixon televised debate, Richard Nixon had come across on the black and white screen as a man who needed a shave, a man who couldn't be trusted. It was a bad day for the country, the day television became a major player in shaping American politics.
Onstage, the Vice-President was finishing up. With a broad gesture he turned toward the wings.
"Fellow Americans, I give you the President of the United States."
"Showtime, Mister President." Hogan gave Rice an encouraging smile. "Give 'em hell, sir."
On cue, the sounds of "Hail to the Chief" filled the hall. Rice strode onto the stage, looking out at the crowd, waving his hand. Blinded by the lights, he stumbled on an electrical cord carelessly laid across the stage.
Rice heard the first shot and felt the wind as the bullet passed by the back of his head. Chaos erupted on the convention floor. In an instant, Rice was smothered under a swarm of Secret Service agents. He heard a second shot and felt it strike the man lying on top of him. The agent cried out. Blood sprayed out over the stage.
There was a volley of answering shots from his detail. An automatic weapon opened up somewhere overhead. For a moment, he was back in Vietnam. Bullets juddered into the living shield piled on top of him. The rounds ripped through the carpet, shattered the podium where he would have been speaking. The shooter was somewhere above in the darkness behind the lights.
He felt the shock as a bullet struck his arm, then pain. There was another fierce volley of shots from his detail. Suddenly the shooting stopped. Strong arms pulled bodies from him, lifted Rice and ran with him off stage.
Kevin Hogan lay on the floor in a spreading pool of blood. Proximity to power had its price.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Michael Healy feared no one. The closest he came to fear was nervousness. He was nervous now. He'd screwed up. The last three assignments from Foxworth had turned out badly. It didn't matter that he wasn't the one on the scene who had failed. He was responsible.
"Rice is still alive." Foxworth looked at him. "Lucky for you, the man you picked is dead. So are the people you sent after Harker's team. What have you got to say about it?"
"No excuses for Harker's people, sir. Bad luck with Rice. He tripped just as our man fired. It was certain, except for that."
"Not our man, Healy. Your man."
"Yes, sir."
"Tell me why I should not terminate your position."
He has no idea how fast I can kill him, Healy thought.
"No excuses, sir," he said again.
Foxworth swiveled, looked out the windows. He turned back.
"Don't make any more mistakes."
"Yes, sir." Healy relaxed, just a fraction.
"What is your assessment of the damage from the Brighton Beach incident?"
"It shouldn't be a problem. The men killed were low level security, former FSB provided by Ogorov. The police and papers think it's a gang war. I don't see it coming back to us. There is one possible issue."
Foxworth waited.
"A computer is missing. One of Harker's men must have taken it. It has messages on it that could lead back to Prague."
"Can they be read?"
"No. They're coded. But the point of origin can be traced."
"If Harker figures that out, she'll send someone to Prague."
"It's what I'd do."
Foxworth considered for a moment. "We have to cover it. Send a team to Prague. Watch for Harker's people to show up. If they do, eliminate them."
"Yes, sir."
"That's all."
After Healy left, Foxworth looked out his windows at the London cityscape and considered the problem of Harker. He hoped she sent someone to Prague. Sooner or later, he'd find a way to eliminate her and her group of troublemakers once and for all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
"The shooter had an M4A1 with an ACOG sight," Elizabeth said, "the latest version. The one our snipers like."
"Christ," Nick said. "How does someone get hold of that?"
"Tracked to Fort Bragg. The Army arrested a Quartermaster Sergeant who works in the armory. They're talking to him as we speak."