The black Lincoln that Davenport had sent waited at the end of the line of cars parked bumper to bumper at meters almost to the intersection. It had pulled over to the curb in the no-man’s-land between the legally parked cars and the traffic light. Red parking lights glowing at them through the darkness told Jess that the driver had, as instructed, kept the engine running.
“Oh, shit, there’s Prescott.” Ducking her head, Mrs. Cooper picked up the pace. She moved quickly between Jess and the buildings on her right, her shoulders hunched now as she sought to deflect the casual glances of passersby.
“Who’s Prescott?” Voice hushed, Jess cast a hunted look over her shoulder.
“One of my detail.”
“Secret Service?” Jess perked up. At least the responsibility for keeping this woman safe would no longer be hers alone. Yes, there he was, a tall, well-built man in a tailored dark suit talking to the doorman in front of the hotel. White shirt, dark tie. Short, neat, dark hair. Handsome, clean-shaven face. Lifting his hand to his mouth to say something into his fist. He might as well have been wearing a flashing neon sign.
Reinforcements at last. Thank God.
“What are you doing?” Mrs. Cooper grabbed her hand when Jess started to wave at Prescott to signal their location.
“You need protection and . . .”
“Protection?” Mrs. Cooper’s laugh was bitter. The hand holding Jess’s tightened until Jess’s fingers hurt. “They’re more like wardens.” Her eyes blazed into Jess’s. “Don’t you understand, you stupid little girl?
I’m a fucking prisoner.
” Her gaze shot past Jess’s shoulder.
“Get back in the car.”
By this time they had reached the Lincoln. Mrs. Cooper’s fierce command was hurled at the driver, a burly redhead in a black chauffeur’s uniform who was at that moment coming around the front of the car, presumably to open the door for his passengers.
As she spoke, Mrs. Cooper jerked open the rear passenger door and ducked inside. With one hand on the open door, Jess exchanged glances with the startled driver. He shrugged and obediently reversed directions. Her gaze slid toward the Secret Service agent, who was looking their way.
Jess hesitated. The First Lady was way more upset than a simple fight with her husband should dictate, and . . .
“Get in,”
Mrs. Cooper barked.
The driver was already sliding behind the wheel.
His eyes fixed on the Lincoln, now clearly suspecting that his principal was inside, the Secret Service agent turned, waved, and started to jog their way.
“Go. Now,”
Mrs. Cooper shrieked. Jess looked down just in time to watch as the First Lady’s hand slapped the back of the front seat hard.
There was no time. The driver put the car in gear. Heart thudding, Jess flung one more doubtful glance back at the man who was now racing toward them. Then, throwing herself into the backseat with the woman she’d been sent to collect, she slammed the door just as the Lincoln screeched away from the curb.
2
T
he crash scene was horrific. Smoke roiled in thick gray coils from the overturned car. Having blazed so hot that the tires had exploded and the pines in which the vehicle had come to rest had gone up like torches, the fire, courtesy of the multitude of orange-coated firefighters who were still wetting down the surrounding areas, was now out. Shortly after the crash, the flames had blazed so high that he had been able to see the bright red glow from ten miles out as he had raced to the scene. The smell on the wind—Secret Service Agent Mark Ryan didn’t want to think about that. It reminded him of charred meat.
Word was, three people had died in the overturned black Lincoln at the bottom of the ravine. Officially, the identities of the dead had not yet been confirmed, but unofficially he knew that one of them was Annette Cooper, the First Lady of the United States. Mark thought of the thousands of threats against the First Family that poured into the White House monthly, of the hairy foreign tours to hostile regions they’d shepherded the First Lady through, of the dozens of protesters waving signs and shouting slogans at nearly all her official engagements, at the constant threat of the lone nut job of whom they lived in fear because it was the hardest to prepare for, and thus defend against. He thought of the bomb-sniffing dogs and bulletproof limos and rooftop snipers and legions of police and military types and, yes, the best personal protection agency in the world, the U.S. Secret Service, deployed for the First Family’s protection everywhere they went.
There was no other security apparatus to equal it anywhere in the world.
And yet the First Lady of the United States had just died in a fiery car crash.
Already, at one-thirty-five a.m. Sunday, a little less than an hour after the crash, the news was starting to reverberate around the world. And all hell was breaking loose.
As the head of her security team, or, as he was officially known, special agent in charge of detail, he was responsible. The unthinkable had happened on his watch. The knowledge rode like a stone in his gut. His throat felt tight, like someone was gripping it hard. He was sweating buckets even though the temperature had dropped during these predawn hours to the mid-forties.
How the hell had it happened?
“Halt! This is a protected area. You’ll have to go back.”
One of the marines whose unit guarded the site belatedly became aware of Mark’s presence as he slid the few remaining feet to the bottom of the steep, brushy slope, and stepped forward to confront him. About a hundred feet beyond the marines, a circle of klieg lights had been set up to illuminate the crash site in a merciless white glow. To Mark’s left, at the edge of the flat area at the base of the slope, tall pines swaying in the wind blocked much of the star-studded sky. A rain-swollen creek rushed past, gleaming black through the thicket of tree trunks. It was dark and hazy where he came to an obedient stop just outside the reach of the bright blaze of the rescue lights, and the equally bright blaze of the TV crews setting up shop on the roadway and bridge above. Having already penetrated the first level of protection designed to keep reporters and camera crews and everyone else at bay, Mark had his ID in hand.
“Secret Service.” He flashed his gold shield and was allowed to pass. The final circle of protection, the FBI, swarmed near the car. Over the snap, crackle, and pop of the superheated metal, the hiss of the settling foam, and the
thump-thump-thump
of the helicopters circling overhead, he could hear them shouting at one another through their transmitters. Closer still, a forensics team in orange coveralls was already setting up shop. Clenching his jaw, he picked his way carefully through the knee-high brush, eyeing the flattened bushes and shorn-in-half trees that marked the car’s death roll from the highway forty feet above. Finally, his gaze settled on the smoking hulk of the car, which rested on its crushed roof.
Fury, disbelief, shock, all combined to send adrenaline surging through his system. Uselessly. Because it was too late. There was nothing he could do.
What was she doing outside the White House? What was she doing in that fucking car?
A stretcher was being carried up the slope toward one of the half-dozen ambulances that waited, silent but with strobe lights flashing, on the highway above. Mark didn’t know the identity of the body-bagged victim, but he knew who it wasn’t: Mrs. Cooper was already gone, having been taken away first in the medevac helicopter that had been rushed to the scene. He’d been en route when the word had come that she was dead, killed in the crash, her body so badly burned that she was almost unrecognizable. But he had continued on, driven by a fierce need to see the site of the impossible for himself.
What the hell had gone down here?
When he had left the White House at eleven p.m., just over two and a half hours earlier, the First Lady had only moments before excused herself from a dinner for the president of Chile. Pleading a headache, she stepped into the East Wing private quarters’ elevator that would whisk her up to the family residence. He had watched the doors close on the slim figure in the glamorous white evening gown, said a few words to Will Prescott, the agent on post in front of the elevator, and proceeded on down to the Secret Service White House command post in the basement. Once inside, he had spoken briefly with the agents covering the monitors streaming real-time, full-color views of all hallways and rooms except the most private areas of the residence. At the large electronic board that displayed color photos of every member of the White House Secret Service detail, he’d punched a button to transfer his name to the off-duty column. Then he’d glanced at the digitized protectee locator board that tracked each member of the First Family from room to room, and noticed that only Mrs. Cooper was in the residence, and she was in her bedroom.
Safe and secure for one more night. Or so he had thought.
Now she was dead.
What the hell had gone wrong?
“Who the—oh, it’s you.” The speaker was FBI Special Agent Ted Parks, whom Mark had known for the twelve years he’d been with the Secret Service and disliked for at least half that time. Of average height, wiry and bald as an egg at forty, making him four years Mark’s senior, Parks had his hands thrust deep in his trouser pockets as he surveyed the scene. His narrow face looked ghastly in the harsh glare of the rescue lights. Shock or grief, Mark supposed. Annette Cooper had been wildly popular—at least with those who didn’t know her personally. “This is un-fucking-believable.”
Mark didn’t even grunt in reply. He just kept on walking toward the car. The chemical smell of the foam they’d used to put out the flames was almost stronger than the burned smell. Almost.
“Hey, sorry about Prescott,” Parks called after him.
Prescott.
The name hit him like a blow to the stomach. It confirmed something he’d been told but still didn’t want to believe: Secret Service Agent Will Prescott, his subordinate and a good guy, had been in that car. Last time Mark had seen him, Prescott was settling in for a long, boring eight-hour shift in front of the elevator. The job was like that: endless hours of routine punctuated by the rare few minutes of excitement. God save them all from those few minutes.
Prescott and the First Lady in a car of unknown origin speeding away from the White House to an unknown destination. What the hell had happened while he’d been picking up his belated dinner at a Mc-Donald’s drive-thru and heading home through the Virginia countryside to the house he now shared solely and reluctantly with an emotionally needy cat?
The third victim was reported to be the driver. A professional chauffeur. He’d been IDed, but Mark couldn’t remember his name. All he knew at this moment was that whoever the guy was, he had no business driving Annette Cooper. She had official vehicles with highly trained drivers and full-bore protection to take her anywhere she needed to go. No way should she have been in that car.
“I’m sorry, sir. No one’s allowed past this point.” Another marine blocked his path. Just beyond him, an official barricade of sawhorses and police tape was being set up around the destroyed car. Now that the last of the bodies had been removed, emphasis was shifting to investigating the crash. He stopped, because there was nothing to be gained by going any nearer. He was already so close that he could feel the residual heat of the burned-out wreckage on his face. There was no brush here where the car had landed, and the dry thicket of last year’s grass beneath his feet was short. Short and crisp and black because it had been charred in the fire.
“Fucking press.” FBI agent Jim Smolski stopped at his elbow, taking a deep drag on a cigarette as he glanced up the slope. Following his gaze, Mark became aware of a TV crew still filming avidly as a contingent of marines herded them back to the narrow blacktop road, where a barricade manned by the Virginia State Police had been set up to contain them. At least half a dozen TV vans were on the scene, unmistakable because of their logos and antennas, and another one, rooftop antenna rotating wildly, arrived even as he watched. A growing throng of reporters crowded the barricade, jockeying for position and attention as they shouted questions down at rescuers.
“Was the First Lady killed instantly?” “Who else was in the car?” “Where was Annette going?” “Where’s David?” “Any idea what caused the accident?” “Who was driving?” “Is the President okay?”
Luckily, the questions weren’t directed at him. Mark shut the reporters’ voices out as he focused on more important matters. Debris was strewn along the path the tumbling car had taken, scattered among the mutilated greenery as if it had been shaken out of a giant salt shaker. A hubcap, bits of taillight, a shoe . . .
His eye was caught by something that glittered silver in the bright beam of the camera crew’s retreating light.
“Somebody’s going down big-time for this.” Smolski cut his eyes toward Mark. “I’m glad I’m not you guys.”
Mark’s gut tightened.
On my watch.
“I thought you quit smoking.” He turned away, the better to pinpoint the location of the silver thing as he spoke. It was lodged in a bush, an uncrushed bush three-quarters of the way up the slope that was about twenty feet to the right of the car’s path.
“I started up again.”
Mark grimaced. “After this, I might, too.”
Walking away from the perimeter that was now almost fully established around the smoking hulk of the car, Mark picked his way up the slope toward the flash of silver. More helicopters circled overhead now, search beams playing down over the wreckage like dueling Jedi light-sabers. Air swirled like a mini-tornado around him as a particularly aggressive chopper swooped in low. Glancing up, Mark saw the familiar NBC peacock logo on its door.
Goddamn vultures.
Without the TV crew’s light, the silver thing became almost impossible to see. Mark kept his eyes trained on the bush, which, he saw as he grew closer, was some sort of scrubby evergreen. There was a whole thicket of them, about waist high, with branches like hairy tentacles that swayed in the wind kicked up by the choppers. Up here, courtesy of the snapped-off trees, the scent of pine was strong, reminding him of the Christmas tree-shaped air freshener his now fifteen-year-old daughter Taylor had hung from the rearview mirror of his car when he’d still been a pack-a-day smoker.