Screams, shouting, jubilation. Brett had never heard a crowd respond like this to any politician. “And,” the president of the United States continued, “we will not stop there. We will build, as I promised we would. As of this morning, I have signed an executive order authorizing the Work Freedom Program. We have much rebuilding to do, and every American will play a part in that rebuilding!”
The roar redoubled.
Mahmoud, Brett noticed, had edged toward the stairs on the stage.
“We must build,” said Prescott, “because America always strives for the highest apex. We dream big, and those dreams become reality. Look around you: they destroyed one of our bridges, but we have built thousands upon thousands of monuments to human ingenuity together. Only together!”
Brett glanced behind him—he could see a large man in a baseball cap, his head down, approaching his position from behind. An agent, no doubt. Brett began moving forward again. He was no more than seventy feet from the stage. Mahmoud had left the stage now, and seemed to be moving away from the dais.
Prescott gestured toward the skyline. “And we will build even higher. We won’t just build monuments, though, to materialism. We will rebuild ourselves. Better than we were before. More charitable. More giving. We will ask more from all Americans, and they will respond, because Americans always respond.”
Brett was so focused on Mahmoud that he bumped into a smaller woman in front of him—pretty, close-cropped hair, in her early fifties. “Pardon me,” he mumbled.
Then he saw her hand in her purse.
He’d seen that arm angle before. He knew what a person looked like before they pulled a gun from concealment. He could feel the threat before he even knew he felt it.
He responded instinctually. “Gun!” he shouted, grabbing at her hand. Before she could respond, he’d wrested control of it from her, but she managed to pull the trigger, firing uselessly into the air.
The crowd around them panicked, moving a thousand directions at once, women falling to the ground, men trampled. On the stage, Secret Service agents jumped onto Prescott to protect him, then hustled him off the stage as sirens began to wail and screaming broke out en masse.
Brett realized he was holding the gun a split second before he felt a large man jump on his back, slam him to the ground. The man put his knee to the back of Brett’s head, driving it into the pavement. “Dammit, you idiots,” he gasped, “it’s not me you’re after.”
He glanced up at the face of the Secret Service agent on his back.
A thick burn scar marked his face near his ear.
Then everything went black.
Ellen had watched the proceedings aboard Air Force One. She watched the flustered anchors on the major news networks try to get a bead on the story, giving out unverified information, then retracting it. She knew Brett had no cell phone, so she had no one to call—instead, she waited.
It took nearly an hour for the presidential motorcade to come steaming onto the airfield at LaGuardia. The Secret Service rushed out of their vehicles, ran to the side of the presidential limousine, and created a phalanx around the president. Ellen watched as they brought Mark Prescott, his head covered, up the stairs to the Boeing VC-25. By the time they released him at the top of the stairs, he was cursing a blue streak, shouting. “Dammit, I want some answers! How could you let something like this happen? We had security, didn’t we? And now I look like I’m cutting and running from the site of a terrorist attack?”
He spotted Ellen and ran over to her, his face red with anger. “Your goddamn husband…”
“My goddamn husband was saving your life,” she said slowly.
Prescott laughed harshly. “Bullshit. He had a gun on him. He fired it. I want to know why.”
“That’s not his gun.”
“How the hell would you know? You haven’t seen your husband for months.”
“I know my husband.”
Prescott sneered. “Here’s what I think. I think your husband showed up at that event because he’s got a fixation with the imam. I think he’s so suspicious of the imam that he actually thought the imam was going to try some sort of attack on the event. And he came to break it up.” Prescott was working himself into a full rage, spittle flecking his upper lip. “I tried to reason with him. I tried to reason with you. But enough. I’ll find whatever charges I need to find to press against him.”
“Mr. President,” she said, “you need to calm down.”
“Calm down?! Have you seen these pictures? You said I was weak. You said it. Now, don’t I look weak? Like I can’t stand up to threat with the entire goddamn American military at my back?” He stormed past her. Tommy Bradley shrugged at her apologetically. As he followed the president, she grabbed his coat.
“Mr. Bradley, where are they holding Brett? He’s got to know this is crazy, right?”
Bradley looked at her, shrugged. “I don’t know anything,” he said. Then he followed his boss.
She sat, stunned. From her vantage point aboard Air Force One, through the windows of the airport, she could see guests filtering through security. Security, of course, was heavy—every person and their baggage moving through a metal detector and an X-ray machine, bomb-sniffing dogs all around. She’d gone through the same routine herself before being allowed onto Air Force One.
Except for a man she didn’t recognize at first, who emerged with his bodyguard from the presidential motorcade. The bodyguard carried a large duffel bag. Next to them stood a Secret Service agent; he carried a burn scar near his ear.
Secret Service quickly approached, but the agent drew them aside. After a brief conversation, they parted to let the men through.
Ellen put her head in her hands. She had no plan for Washington, DC—she and Brett hadn’t had time to come up with a strategy. But she knew she would have to turn the president down. And she knew that the consequences could mean legal action, maybe even military action, against the Republic of Texas, against her, and against Bubba Davis.
When she looked back to the front of the cabin, she saw the two men from the motorcade entering. She didn’t recognize the first. She felt a flash of recognition as she saw the second: Omari. As his colleague stuffed the duffel bag he’d been carrying in the overhead compartment, all she could see was Hassan’s body, facedown in the bathtub. What was so important about that tape? He knew Brett had seen it already—he knew Brett was tracking down the other man on the tape, clearly.
The safety announcements came over the loudspeaker. She buckled herself in, watching Omari and his man sit two rows ahead of her. Omari bowed his head, mumbling to himself. She couldn’t catch the words—they were in Arabic, and she didn’t speak the language anyway. The plane began to move.
The plane took off smoothly, flying to the northeast, then beginning to turn. Through her window, she could see the city fading behind her, leaving her husband behind, presumably in some cold cell somewhere. Air Force One continued to make a 180-degree turn, flying over the city. They’d gained altitude now, on the ascent as they moved south toward Washington, DC.
Then, oddly, the plane began to drop. The buildings of Manhattan grew nearer beneath the plane as Ellen watched curiously through the window. The voice of the pilot poured through the speakers: “Ladies and gentlemen, don’t be concerned. The president has requested that we descend to a lower level over the city of New York in order to take publicity photos.”
Publicity photos? Today? Ellen thought as the plane descended. As if the pilot were reading her mind, he continued: “The president wants to let Americans know he will not be cowed by any violent attempt against him. Thanks, and please ensure your seat belts are fastened.”