THE 13: STAND BOOK TWO (27 page)

“Absolutely not!” Walker said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Suddenly, someone began shouting over the noise from the people. Walker turned his attention away from Keene. The man was standing on the steps, among the reporters, and was, somehow, getting the attention of the people. A few seconds later, he had successfully quieted the ruckus. The man turned and began walking up the stairs toward the platform.

Keene began to feel a sense of uneasiness as the president continued to plow through his speech. Walker was only five minutes into it, and already he had generated laughter, panic—at the mention of the Prophet—and cheers in support of God’s decree to spare the nation.

He had spoken with Boz briefly on the ride there. Boz told him he didn’t know exactly how it was going to play out, but that the president and President Grant had spent the better part of last night crafting this speech. And it centered around proposing a constitutional amendment—one in which the United States would declare itself a Christian nation. And though Keene hadn’t seen a copy of the speech, he knew that Walker had just let the cat out of the bag.

He kept his body positioned forward, scanning the crowd for possible threats. So far, he hadn’t seen anything that caused his internal alarm to go off, but there was just a general sense of uneasiness. And he couldn’t put his finger on it. And then his gaze fell to the middle of the crowd of reporters.

It made no sense. Why would Governor Nolan be standing in the middle of a crowd of reporters, and not on the platform with members of Congress? A current of tension began to undergird the crowd. He brought his attention back to the speech.

“…And that means that there are many policies currently in place that will need to be abolished.”

The crowd erupted. He began to see skirmishes breaking out, as the people seemed to be taking sides. Pushing and shoving. People were yelling at one another. He looked to the side and noticed that even the members of Congress were beginning to argue among themselves. He looked to Walker, who had locked eyes with him. This needed to stop now. He moved from his position to where Walker was standing.

“Mr. President, I think we might need to take you out of here.”

Walker looked at him defiantly. “Absolutely not! I’m not going anywhere.”

He was about to insist—by way of grabbing the man and dragging him out, if necessary, when someone on the steps below began to shout above the crowd. Surprisingly, the crowd began to quiet and give him their attention. Before Keene could even look, he knew who it was. Now he had a pretty good idea why the man had situated himself among the reporters. He finally turned to see Governor Joe Nolan holding his hands up and commanding the crowd.

“Ladies and gentlemen…please…please…calm down for a moment. If you’ll give me a chance, perhaps I can help bring some clarity to this mess.”

When the crowd finally settled, Nolan turned and started up the stairs toward the platform. As Keene moved to put himself between the governor and the president, he noticed that Boz and three Secret Service agents had already moved to intercept. When Nolan got within five feet, Boz put his hand out on the governor’s chest to stop him.

“Excuse me,” Nolan said and tried to move Boz’s arm to the side. But Boz didn’t budge. Keene winked at his friend and gave him a smile. Boz still had it.

“My name is Governor Nolan,” he yelled over his shoulder for the crowd to hear. “From the great state of North Carolina.”

A small pocket of applause and cheers came from the crowd.

“We know who you are, Governor,” Keene said. “What do you want?”

The governor ignored Keene. Instead, he looked to Walker with his arms held out. Walker nodded to Boz. Boz removed his hand and allowed the governor to continue up the steps.

“What can I do for you, Governor?” Walker asked.

Keene didn’t like where this was headed. He leaned into the president’s ear. “Sir, I don’t think this is the time or the place for this. Please, let us take you out of here. If you’d like, we can bring Nolan along. You two can talk in private.”

Walker kept his attention forward, on the approaching statesman. “Thank you, Mr. Keene. But I think we’ll be fine here.” Then to Nolan, “What’s this about, Joe?”

Keene did not like this at all. He looked to Boz, whose face said he shared Keene’s concern. Boz came around behind the president and Nolan to Keene. Keene leaned in to whisper to him. “If this gets out of hand, I’m yanking him out of here.” He pointed to Walker.

“Roger that. I’ll be right behind you.”

Nolan stepped over to the side so that he was sharing the podium now with Walker and turned into the bank of microphones. “Mr. President. As I walked up here, you asked me what can you do for me. Well, sir, I will tell you. You can start acting like a president and protect the people of this country.”

A
lex Smith woke to find herself in the bed of her hotel. Alone. The drapes were open, so she could see that the sun was beginning to set. But she had no idea what time it was. What was more, she had no idea what day it was, or how long she’d been there in the bed. Her shoulder and her leg were throbbing. She looked down to see the bandages covering her arm and leg.

The trip to Hayes’s house was a complete disaster. Everything went wrong. She should’ve taken more precaution. Pemberton had just told her that Hayes had been visited by those agents; she should’ve suspected they’d be back. She just didn’t figure on them coming back that night. Yet another careless mistake.

Taking out the guard at the gate was child’s play. The kid barely even looked up at her when she got out of the car and approached the window. He had his nose stuck in some comic book. She didn’t even wait for him to get the little window all the way open before she stuck the nose of the PK380 in and placed two rounds in his forehead.

From there, she had simply knocked on the door. Hayes seemed startled to see her but let her in without question. Once inside, she merely showed him the weapon and led him upstairs to his bedroom. She made him sit on the edge of the bed, where she asked him a series of questions. Hayes swore that he had not talked to anyone, especially the agents who had visited him. He pleaded for his life, crying like a child. She actually believed him, which made the fact that she was about to kill him all the more pathetic. She raised the weapon and pointed it at his head. That’s when she heard the creaking of the floorboard behind her. She turned her head just in time to see a man pointing a Glock 9mm at her. Without even a second’s pause, she whirled around and started firing.

She knew she had hit the man with her first shot, but she couldn’t be sure about the second. He dove to the side, back out into the hall, just as she pulled the trigger. She turned back around and shot the judge—who had lunged for his
Judge
revolver on the bedside table—then ran out into the hall to finish off the agent.

As soon as she got into the hall, she saw the man on his knees, trying to get back on his feet. She took two steps toward him and kicked him just as he started to stand. She fired again as he crashed into the banister. Another shot landed directly in his upper chest as the banister shattered and carried him over the edge. She was about to shoot again when she heard a woman scream. Then a hailstorm of bullets came at her from below. She dropped to the floor of the catwalk and peeked her head through the opening where the banister used to be. She saw the woman, who had rushed over to her partner. Rage filled her as she recognized Megan Taylor, the FBI agent that had left her to die on the side of the road in Dubai. She stretched her arm out over the opening in the railing and emptied her magazine. She picked her head up just in time to see Taylor running into the kitchen.

It was only a matter of seconds before she had Taylor pinned behind the kitchen island. Then she had decided to toy with her. She was going to enjoy every last second of killing her. Taylor finally sprung from behind the island. But she was ready for it. As soon as Taylor showed herself, she pointed the PK380 and began to fire. Taylor only made it four feet before she fell to the floor. Alex smiled as she walked toward her, taunting her—telling her how she was going to be the one walking out of here this time.

Suddenly, everything changed. Taylor’s partner had managed to get to his feet and hit her from behind. She watched as her PK380 flew from her hand across the tile floor in front of her. She tried to get to it, but Taylor’s partner had fired off a bunch of rounds at her. She didn’t even remember how many. What she did remember was the hot, searing pain that had ripped through her thigh and her left shoulder blade, as Taylor’s partner hit pay dirt with two of his rounds. In that moment, she only had one choice. Get out. She saw the door that led outside from behind the little eat-in kitchen table. She sprang to her feet and darted outside. She’d made it to the car, half expecting Taylor’s partner to come rushing outside, firing after her. But it never happened.

By this time, she was getting dizzy. She knew she was losing blood. She had to get help. She did the only thing she could think of. She thumbed through her little black book, which held all the numbers of people she had for emergency contacts. She stopped at the first gas station she came to, and used the pay phone to call the number of someone who gave her the name and number of someone she could contact in Raleigh. After that, she called the restaurant where Farid was supposed to meet her and got him on the phone. When he picked up, she breathed a sigh of relief. “Farid, I’ve had an accident.” She gave him the number of the contact in Raleigh, told him to get supplies and meet her back at the room.

She made it back to the hotel and somehow sneaked her way past the front desk. She got to the elevator and hit the button for the fourteenth floor. She felt like she was going to pass out at any second. When she got to the room, she collapsed on the couch. Fortunately, Farid showed up only a few minutes later. He barreled through the door carrying a brown paper sack and ran to her where she lay on the couch. He ripped the hem of her cocktail dress and tore the sleeve on her right side to expose her thigh and shoulder, and then immediately went to work.

“This isn’t bad,” he said. “You’ll be fine. But it’s going to hurt when I take the bullets out.”

“Just do it. I can handle it.”

He pulled his belt from his trousers and gave it to her. “Here. Bite down on this.”

He took a bottle of alcohol from the brown paper sack, undid the cap, and poured it over her thigh and shoulder. Next he took a small scalpel and held it in his hand like a pen. He used his fingers to spread the skin around her shoulder and then stuck the knife inside the wound. The pain shot through her arm and down her side. She felt nauseous for a moment, and then her eyes began to flutter. She remembered taking a breath. And then she had blacked out.

As she looked around the room now, she noticed that Farid’s jacket was hanging on the chair of the little table by the door. She remembered thinking that she had made a mistake. That being with Farid was stupid—that it was going to cost her. That she was going to have to get rid of him. But he had saved her life. Twice now. And sitting here thinking about him…mistake or not, she decided she liked having him around.

The door to the room opened and Farid walked in. He had a smile on his face as he saw her sitting up in the bed. “How are you feeling?”

“Better. Thank you.”

He leaned down and kissed her. “You gave me quite a scare last night.”

Okay, so there was one question answered. She had been out for almost a whole day. She gave him a flirtatious grin. “Am I going to die, Doc?”

He winked back. “Not from this. The bullet in your shoulder wasn’t deep. It’ll be sore for a couple days, but it’ll be fine. The one on your side was just a graze. It took a chunk of skin and muscle, but never got inside to do any damage. You’ll probably feel like you have a cracked rib, but again, nothing serious. We probably need to stay here another day or so to let you rest.” Then, “What happened?”

She recounted everything that happened from the time he left her in the cab until he found her back at the hotel. When she finished, he sat there staring at her.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing. Just that this is the second time that woman has caused you harm. I would like to see her dead.”

She laughed a short laugh, which sent a pain down her side. “Yeah, well, don’t worry. As soon as we get out of here, I’m going to grant your wish.”

N
olan felt his blood surge as he turned toward the bank of microphones. “Well, sir, you can start acting like a president and protect the people of this country.”

The crowd exploded. Those who had seemed to support President Walker were now cheering for Nolan. He held his hands up to quiet them.

“Ladies and gentlemen, for those of you who might not know who I am, my name is Joseph Nolan and I’m governor of the great state of North Carolina. I came here on behalf of my state and on behalf of the other twelve states that we now call this country.” He turned to face Walker.