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“Sir, please unlock the door, it’s imperative that I speak with you privately,” replied Travis in a more even tone.

“I’ll bet,” said the Senator under his breath, before shouting again. “Agent Travis, will you please just give me a minute! I’m in a locked office with one of your agents and you’re guarding the door. I’m perfectly safe at the moment.”

“That’s the problem, Sir. I’m not sure that you are.”

Senator Baker’s head spun from the door to Clark, his eyes wide with horror. The realization that he had been suckered in by believing the beautiful woman couldn’t be the baddy. The door began to give as the Secret Service agents crashed into it.

Agent Clark had already drawn her weapon and had leveled it at the Senator as he turned to face her.

“Oh fuck!” he said as she pulled the trigger.

The Vice President of the United States was in mid swing when the Secret Service Agent’s phone rudely broke his concentration. On the 17th hole and a stroke behind the Chairman of the GOP to whom he had never lost, the VP was furious at the interruption. Phones were as unacceptable on the golf course as women were which, thanks to the Burning Tree Country Club, was never going to happen. Fines had been imposed but the ultra rich members paid them with pleasure. Even the removal of a liquor license had failed and despite their dry club house, the members of the club still enjoyed their male-only haven.

“What the hell are you doing with your phone on?!” shouted the VP to the senior agent in his protective duty.

Tom Sullivan had served the VP for five of his seven years in office as VP and, of course, he knew better than to have his phone with him. “It’s not mine, Sir,” he answered, hiding his irritation. “It’s your hotline phone. It must be an emergency,” he replied calmly and handed the phone to the VP.

In seven years, the only person to have called that number was the President and even then, only once, three years earlier, after the bomb had exploded in Texas.

“Andrew Russell,” answered the VP.

“I’ve got some bad news.”

“Who is this?”

“Director Johnson, CIA.”

“Ah, Allan, what’s up?”

“Can you talk?”

The VP walked away from the small group that had crowded around.

“OK, I can now.”

“We missed him.”

The VP dropped the jovial tone. “Missed who?” he asked menacingly.

“Definitely one and maybe the other.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I don’t want to use names on this line.”

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous, this is the phone I’d be told the president is dead on, of course you can give me names.”

“We missed the brother.”

“Missed?”

“We think he took out our men. We’ve not been able to get in contact with them.”

“Maybe they’re just out of cell coverage,” suggested the VP nervously.

“I don’t think so. They definitely missed him.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Sam phoned the Secret Service.”

“What?!”

“Well, he didn’t give his name but just after my guys were supposed to have taken him out, a death threat was issued by Yuri Andriev against Senator Baker.”

The VP almost dropped the phone. He had never agreed with the plan, it had disaster written all over it but he had been overruled.

“Jesus!...And the Senator?”

“That’s the other thing, he’s gone missing.”

“My office. Twenty minutes!” the VP threw the cell phone angrily at Agent Sullivan. “We’re leaving! NOW!”

As the door crashed open, Agent Clark fired her Sig Sauer P226. Senator Baker dived to the ground as the bullet ripped through the air, towards him. The bullet didn’t deviate from its trajectory and hit its target dead center. The Senator’s dive was in vain. The bullet striking Agent Travis’s outstretched gun as was always intended.

“Nobody move a muscle!” screamed Agent Clark over Travis’ cries of pain.

The two officers behind Travis stopped in their tracks. Clark had them cold. Neither cared to take her on, particularly when her gun was already drawn and theirs remained in their holsters.

“Travis, step aside,” she demanded, before motioning to the other officers. “You two, take your weapons out, butt first, and drop them. Then move over there.”

“What the hell are you doing Clark?” managed Travis through gritted teeth, the pain in his hand intense.

“Protecting the Senator, Travis.”

“By shooting me?” he shouted.

“Don’t be such a pussy, I shot your gun.”

She turned to the other officers who were dropping their guns. “Now move over there. Senator, would you mind picking up the guns, please.”

“Clark, have you gone insane? We’re on your side!” argued Travis, moving over to stand next to the other agents.

“Not according to the Senator,” replied Clark.

Travis turned towards the Senator questioningly.

“Don’t come the innocent with me, Son,” said Senator Baker angrily as he bent over to retrieve the guns.

“I haven’t got the faintest idea what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You were sent here to kill me,” replied the Senator.

The two officers, on hearing the Senator’s revelation, pounced. The first dived towards the Senator and the two guns.

Clark didn’t miss a beat. She drilled the diving officer through his outstretched hand, rendering it useless. The second officer paused, caught in two minds, but his hand was played. They knew he was there for duties unbecoming of an officer of the US Capitol Police Force. With Travis and the diving officer clutching their hands in agony, Clark was struggling to cover all three. She glanced at the Senator who had managed to evade the diving officer but he offered her no more suggestion than a half-hearted shrug. With her eyes averted, the second officer made his move, launching himself towards Clark.

Clark, however, was not where she was because of stupidity. She had sensed the officer was going to make his move. Her glance towards the Senator was her ‘come on’. As soon as the officer had flinched, the bullet was already heading towards his kneecap.

With Travis and the two officers writhing around in agony, Clark grabbed the Senator’s elbow and rushed him out of the room. Her first duty was to protect the Senator. Her second and more pressing duty was to find out exactly what the hell was going on.

A number of nervous faces greeted the entry of an obviously upset VP. As the door slammed shut behind him, he took his seat at the head of the table. Present in the room were a number of presidential appointees, all loyal to the sitting President, but even more loyal to his likely successor, his Rottweiler and surrogate son, Andrew Russell. The VP looked at the attendees with contempt.

“Well?” he asked.

Each of the three attendees sat silently.

“Don’t just look at one another, somebody tell me how they’re going to sort out this fucking mess???!!!!” screamed Russell, slamming the table for effect.

Between the four attendees, they commanded pretty much every member of law enforcement and the military in the country but not one dared return Russell’s glare for fear he picked on them. Russell had, since the day he entered the Vice Presidents office, seven years earlier, rewritten the rule book for Vice Presidents. He was the President’s right hand man and more akin to a Chief of Staff than the normal media friendly political running mate. The President was a thinker, a grand plan dreamer, while Russell was a doer. Many had tried, during the first term, to gain the ear of the President and circumvent Russell; none had survived in politics to tell the tale. The second term had sealed Russell’s power and was, as the election neared, marginalizing the lame duck President for the likely succession of Russell.

Up until just a few months earlier, everything had been running to plan. He had been the natural choice for the republican nominee in the presidential race. That was until Charles Baker had been thrown into the ring. His liberal views were winning over many of the Republicans as they fought a closely contested fight for the Republican nomination. Russell had reached out and offered Baker the VP ticket but Baker had refused, saying ‘thanks but I’m going to give the big ticket a go.’ In the heartland, Russell was fine but on the coasts, Baker was trouncing him. It was close and for Russell, close was too close. Baker needed to be gone. Plans were in play that Baker would never allow to continue. Too much was at stake. The very future of America and her allies required Russell to be in power.

“Jesus, will one of you useless fucks tell me what happened?”

“We’re still trying to piece things together. As for Sam, we have no idea. Our men have gone off the radar. We have a satellite fly-past on Sam’s property in the next few minutes and hopefully that will give us something,” responded Johnson nervously. Turning to face Jim Gates, the Secretary of Homeland Security, he continued. “As for the Chairman, it seems a couple of Secret Service agents appeared and got to him before our operatives could.”

With over 200,000 staff dedicated to the protection of US citizens within the US, Homeland Security was the second most powerful department within the US Government after Defense and had within its remit the United States Secret Service.

“It seems you’re losing your touch, Jimmy boy,” added Johnson, delighted to push the blame for at least one cock-up elsewhere.

“Our operatives have confirmed they were set upon by a secret service agent who had, believe it or not, already fired upon her colleague.”

Russell turned to Gates. “Well?”

“Marx at the Service is surrounded by old guard,” responded Gates shrugging his shoulders. “If he gets a threat against a potential presidential candidate, he’d have to act. What can I say other than if we’d dealt with the brother, everything would have worked perfectly. That’s the problem,” he added, pushing the blame firmly back into Johnson’s court.

“Anyway, none of this solves the problem in hand. What are we going to do?” asked Russell.

“Gentlemen,” Henry Preston’s voice boomed across the room. The Director of National Intelligence was an imposing figure with an even more imposing voice. Glasses vibrated as his bass note tones resonated through the room. As he scrolled through his Blackberry, he continued. “Before we came into the room, I instructed each of the sixteen agencies within my control to leave no stone unturned in their search for Charles Baker. The cover story is that he has been taken against his will and is being held hostage, by a team of international assassins. Any sighting is to be reported to Homeland Security and will be dealt with at the highest level. That is, by us. A news blackout has been imposed, so you won’t hear anything. We’ve suggested Al Qaeda to ensure no reporter interferes. The Patriot Act is a truly wonderful thing. I have asked each department for half-hour updates.”

With every law enforcement and intelligence agency within the US reporting into him, Preston commanded a staggering force.

“It seems the fly-past has occurred and a detailed scan has been carried out on Sam Baker’s property. It’s not good gentlemen. In fact, far worse than any of us could have imagined.” Preston paused as he scrolled through the rest of the information on his Blackberry.

“Preston?” urged Russell.

“Sorry, a lot of techno gobbledygook, basically through various scans, X-ray, infra red etc... they’ve been able to locate a grave with three bodies and in the remnants of a charred cabin, three other remains.”

“Six remains. We only sent four guys,” interrupted Johnson.

“Hmm, this is where it gets a bit messy. In the cabin, two of the remains are adults but the third was an infant and from the comparisons, it looks as though it was just a baby.”

The room went silent as all four computed the information. Taking out a trained operative or even an innocent adult was one thing but a baby was not something even these four would take lightly.

“Oh and a dog,” added Preston. “They found the remains of a dog.”

“And they’re definitely all dead?” asked Gates, a distinct tremble in his voice giving away his feelings.

“I’m afraid so. The satellite can detect a heartbeat and all seven bodies are definitely deceased.”

“So it would appear we’ve killed his partner, wife or whatever, his child and his dog. And to his credit, he has already dealt with the imbeciles we sent to deal with him and him alone.” Russell’s voice rose with every word. He turned to Johnson.

“We agreed to take out the brother because you said it would solve a bigger problem in the long term.”

Johnson opened his mouth to interrupt Russell but a deadly look from Russell made it clear that would not be a good move.

“So far, going after the brother has resulted in two innocent deaths and the failure of the assassination of Charles Baker. It has been a total and complete disaster. Explain to me again why I listened to you?”