registered in Virginia less than a month ago. Plate number is… RND-1911. Ready for a
description?”
“Go.”
“Black hair and brown eyes. He might have a beard, but that’s not 100 percent. A little heavier
than Vanderveen, at about 200 pounds. We’re not sure how he’s doing that; padding, maybe.
Same height, of course. There’s nothing he could do there.”
“I’ll get it out to my observers.” Rivers was a little bit frantic now. “Sir, I have to move.”
“I know.” McCabe’s voice was tense over the line. “Get to it, Jodie.”
Ryan had been on the street for two-and-a-half hours. Nothing so far had grabbed his attention,
although he had to remind himself that Vanderveen wasn’t exactly going out of his way to
appear conspicuous.
There had been nothing planned out or expedient in his route; he had headed north from 7th
and Maine, scanning faces and checking vehicles along the way. There wasn’t much he could do
other than to look through the windows and drop down to visually inspect the undercarriages,
and his strange behavior had earned him some curious glances, as well as a few fearful ones.
He recognized the futility of his search, but there was one overriding fact that bothered him
more than anything else: there was no feasible way to detonate a bomb by command wire on a
crowded city street, and a timer wasn’t practical, either, even if Vanderveen had somehow
managed to get hold of the Secret Service’s list of scheduled movements.
In other words, the only realistic way for Vanderveen to succeed was by remote detonation,
which meant that he would be close by in an overwatch position. Kealey knew the man well
enough to know that he would detonate the device regardless of whether the president was in
target range; the public would believe it because of what they had seen him do to the
Kennedy-Warren on national television, but proof enough for Ryan was the raised scar that
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resided an inch to the right of his own sternum.
He stayed on 7th until the National Air and Space Museum appeared on his right, then crossed
the street onto the wide open space of the Mall. Heading northwest over the grass, with the
dome of the Capitol Building framed high at his back, he smiled at the excited noises coming
from a group of schoolchildren who were lined up at the glass doors to the Smithsonian. The
smile soon faded, though, as he was too tightly wound to share in their enthusiasm. For all he
knew, their bus might be passing Vanderveen’s position on its way back to their school…
He pushed the thought from his mind as he came up on 12th Street. It was better not to think
about it. When he heard his cell phone ringing, he was grateful for the distraction, but not for
long. “Ryan, it’s Harper.”
“John, listen—”
“No time, Ryan.”
He caught the urgency just as Rivers had done less than a minute earlier, and fell silent
immediately.
Harper continued: “Naomi turned out to be lucky, after all. Our man has a driver’s license and a
French passport in the name of Claude Bidault. The passport is real, but the actual owner
reported it lost six months earlier while on vacation in Crete. Got that?”
“Yeah. Keep going.”
“Susskind finally hooked up with this guy Thompson in Norfolk. Using the Nichols ID,
Vanderveen picked up 3,000 pounds’ worth of material at NIT exactly eight days ago. The
arrogant bastard walked right under our noses twice at the same port… Anyway, he has a
vehicle that we can’t account for. It’s a Ford Econoline van, white, maybe with a ladder rack on
top.”
Ryan was already running. Standing on 12th when the phone rang, he had taken two long looks
either way down the street, then decided to go north, for no particular reason he could think of.
Harper’s voice seemed to bounce at his ear as he dodged the heavy crowds of pedestrians, most
of whom were people leaving work for a quick lunch. Some of them shot him angry looks or
curses as he pushed through the throngs, and the whole time the deputy director’s words were
hitting him with the force of a sledgehammer: “…and Virginia tags, Ryan, RND-1911. HRT is
moving out in plainclothes, but they—”
“Tell them to stay north of the Mall.” His mind was moving in a blur, trying to recall a white
Ford van, but… No, he hadn’t seen one. He was sure of it. He said again, “North of the Mall,
John. That’s where he’s gotta be. What’s happening at the marina?”
“That whole area is locked down tight. They doubled up on the barriers, and the CAT team is
moving into place,” Harper said, referring to the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, a
highly secretive group that managed to keep a low profile, despite the fact that they
accompanied the president wherever he went. “They’ve been able to keep it pretty quiet so far.”
“That won’t last,” Ryan said, already breathing hard from the exertion of a full-blown sprint. He
was passing cars in a flash, and there was a white van right there… But no, it was a Chevy. He
didn’t break stride, racing past the parked vehicle as a number of pedestrians turned to gawk in
his wake. He was scanning faces, too, looking for anyone who might resemble the description
that Harper had just given him.
He made a quick decision. “Can’t walk and talk, John. Gotta go.”
“No, Ryan, WAIT—”
He cut the connection and jammed the phone into his pocket, slowing down for a second to feel
for the Beretta and get a long look both left and right down Constitution Avenue.
Nothing. He stayed straight on 12th, running hard.
Jeff Storey, the agent in charge of the president’s detail, was floored by the message that he had
just received. A terrorist, in the city with a van full of fucking explosives, and they wanted him to
sit tight? It was beyond belief…
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Storey had been a special agent in the Secret Service for nearly sixteen years, with the last four
spent on the president’s detail, and the last two of those four in charge of that detail. He looked
around nervously. Jesus Christ, the assistant director had said 3,000 pounds. The concrete
bollards would stop the van itself, but the kill radius for that kind of weight was at least… what?
He tried to remember. It had to be at least 1,500 feet, and from his position on the podium,
Storey could easily make out the medium-sized print on the barriers where 6th turned into
Maine. Sit tight, my ass, he thought. We’re sitting ducks.
Standing there on the podium, listening to the French ambassador lead up to the introduction of
President Chirac, thinking about how easy it would be for a van to come barrelling down that
street, Jeff Storey came to a decision. He was the one in charge of the president’s detail, not
Joshua fucking McCabe, and there was no way that he was going to see the president dead on his
watch. In sixteen years with the Secret Service he had never found the need to draw his weapon
on the job, but he did so now. He was standing on the podium with a group of diplomats and
aides, blending into the background with the others behind the three heads of state when he
convinced himself it was time to act. As the Sig 228 came up and out of his holster, the eyes of
the two agents standing next to him went wide, and there was no turning back.
The AIC lifted his sleeve to his mouth and said, in a calm but forceful tone, the words that
caused the world to come crashing down around him: “Storey to detail! Hurricane! I repeat,
Hurricane!”
Moving behind the press pool with two junior agents in tow, Jodie Rivers looked up in surprise
at the sudden movement on the podium. Her surprise quickly turned to horror, however, when
she saw that Storey had grabbed the president roughly, and was pulling him back as the other
agents surrounded the pair with their weapons out. The French president and his aides were
looking on with confusion clear in their faces, as was the Italian prime minister, when the DSS
agents assigned to each man came crashing onto the stage, following the lead of Storey and his
detail.
The reporters and photographers on the gangplank were in a frenzy at the scene, cameras
flashing everywhere as the people in the press pool tried to make sense of the situation. Their
screamed questions went unanswered as a line of agents formed to block the president’s
predetermined escape route, but the metal barriers came crashing down as the media let go of
the last shreds of decorum. The thin line of agents was quickly overrun by the huge crowd of
reporters and cameramen.
Rivers couldn’t believe what she was seeing. This was exactly why McCabe had ordered Storey
not to do anything rash. “What the hell is he DOING!” she screamed, before realizing that the
two junior agents standing next to her had even less of a clue than she did.
Back in the CT watch center, McCabe, Susskind, Landrieu, and Harper were also staring in
horrified disbelief at the scene that was playing out live on MSNBC.
McCabe was the first to lose it, his face flushing a very deep red. “This is exactly why I told him
to sit tight!” he shouted, unconsciously giving voice to the thoughts of Jodie Rivers. “We need
to cut that feed right now!”
Harper’s face was pale, and he was shaking his head. “It’s too late. If Vanderveen saw that, he
has nothing to lose by blowing it.”
“Fuck!” McCabe slammed a closed fist down onto the table in front of him. A moment of
clarity cut through the reactionary anger, and he suddenly realized that his career with the Service
was almost certainly over, not to mention the fact that a lot of people were probably about to
lose their lives. “FUCK!”
Ryan crossed the street when he reached the Pavilion at the Old Post Office, cutting under the
arches of the Ariel Rios Federal Building and breaking into a wide open space less than 100
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meters away from the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center. He ran north as 13th Street
loomed ahead, and then found himself facing the pink-gray granite expanse of Freedom Plaza.
He was breathing hard and there was a painful stitch in his side, but he kept his head up as his
eyes scoured the line of cars in front of the National Theatre.
There. He knew immediately that it was the right one, even though the vehicle didn’t have a
ladder rack and he couldn’t tell for sure if it was a Ford from the side. He knew because the van
was sitting low to the ground, much lower than it should have been. Whatever that vehicle was
carrying, it definitely wasn’t light.
Then he was running again, despite the fact that Vanderveen was probably just waiting for him
to get closer to the van before blowing it. Something inside Ryan’s head told him that he should
be feeling fear, that there was definite cause for it, but he couldn’t lock on to any single emotion.
He only knew that he had to get to that van as soon as possible.
Although he didn’t make a conscious effort to do so, his right hand went back to the holster and
came up with the pistol. It turned out to be a bad move; Vanderveen wasn’t anywhere in sight,
but there were a lot of people walking around, and a lot of people eating lunch on the benches
around the fountain. One woman saw the gun in his hand and began to scream, and then there
were a lot of screams…
Trooper 1st Class Jared Howson couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He was about 50 meters
east of the Ford on Pennsylvania when he saw a distant figure with what looked like a gun in his
hand, racing through a crowd of cowering pedestrians.
Howson just stared for about ten seconds before he remembered that he was a police officer,
and had a gun of his own. He pulled the standard-issue Glock 17 out of its holster and sprinted
back down the street toward the van, not once taking his eyes off the other man or the weapon
he was holding.
Although Jeff Storey had undeniably broken standing orders, he was still a Secret Service agent
with sixteen years of experience, and knew that, given the current situation, he would be a lot
better off on the water than he would on the streets. Still surrounded by the members of his
detail, he dragged President Brenneman, who was still too shocked to be angry, down the dock
as a number of agents peeled off to cover their movements.
The AIC grabbed a UHF radio from one of his men. It was already set to Channel 4, their
dedicated maritime link. “Storey to Coast Guard cutter Alder, Storey to Alder. I need
immediate escort for Boater at LZ number 3. Do you copy?”
Coming back a split second later: “Storey, this is Alder. Roger that, we’re two minutes out,
over.”
“Two fuckin’ minutes,” Storey mumbled. “Unbelievable.” He put in a second hurried call for
transport at the designated landing zone, which was on the southern tip of the East Potomac
Golf Club, as well as asking for additional helicopter support, never breaking stride as he pulled
the president toward a turbocharged motorboat manned by USSS personnel less than 50 feet
away. Behind them, the chaos continued to build as some of the reporters, finally realizing that
they might actually be in danger themselves, began to trample each other in their rush to get
away from the waterfront.
The DS agents for the French and Italian delegations, unaware of the specific threat, bundled
their respective principals into armor-plated limousines and screamed at the drivers to move.
The heavy vehicles pulled away from the curb at a surprising rate of speed, minus motorcycle
outriders, following Maine onto 12th Street, and then heading north toward Pennsylvania
Avenue and the safety of the White House.
Ryan was amazed when he reached the van and it was still intact. He didn’t know where
Vanderveen was, but knew the man was definitely somewhere in the area, and had to be
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watching him at that very moment. He arrived at a dead sprint, pulling up short and slamming
his left elbow into the glass on the passenger side.
A wave of pain shot up his arm, but the safety glass gave way immediately. Another three
judicious blows pushed the crumpled sheet of glass onto the passenger seat. He was reaching to
unlock the door from the inside when a voice yelled, “HOLD IT!”
He whipped his head around to see a young police officer pointing a heavy black pistol at his
chest. The adrenaline coursing through his body, Ryan’s mind took in the scene at the speed of
light: Metro PD uniform, two chevrons on the sleeve, young kid, scared eyes, and shaky hands
on the gun. It all combined to give him a very bad feeling.
