Designated Survivor (14 page)

The front passenger was out and moving towards the Mercedes and began firing with an M-4 assault rifle. Bullets were hitting the door in front of Avery then the shooter turned right as he heard a pistol firing to his side. Levi was running down behind the row of parked cars to Avery’s left. Avery leaned out with his Sig Sauer pistol and put a round into the neck of the shooter and watched the body fall.

“Two down,” Avery said.

“I see movement in the back seat,” Chip watched through the scope on his sniper rifle.

Men got out either side of the Suburban in full tactical gear and body armor, rifles raised, and began firing as soon as they were clear of their doors. One man turned to track Levi and the other moved towards the Mercedes. Avery could hear Levi firing at the shooters but every time he tried to get out from behind the door to take a shot, another burst of bullets struck the car.

“Chip, can you see him? Can you get a shot off?” Avery said. He turned and looked into the car and saw Chip’s chest and head slumped over the rifle. Glass from the shattered windshield covered him.

“Dammit!” Avery stood up and jumped from behind the door and began running at the man shooting at him. His Sig aimed and unloading as he ran. The man tried to point his rifle at Avery, but his body was being thrown backwards by the force of the .45 caliber bullets striking him square in the Kevlar vest he was wearing. Bulletproof vests keep the shots from going through but don’t do anything to absorb the blunt force of a large caliber round as it slams into you. As Avery got closer, the shooter fell backwards onto the ground. Avery ran up and kicked the M-4 away from the man and pointed his pistol into the balaclava covered face.

The other shooter saw what was happening and turned away from looking for Levi and aimed at Avery. Before he could get a round off, Levi stood from behind a pickup, aimed and fired. It took only a fraction of a second for the Federal .45 caliber 230-grain ammunition to travel from Levi’s weapon into the side of the man’s head. The hollow point round left a large hole on the other side of his skull before the man hit the ground.

Levi heard a car engine and turned his pistol toward it to see the red Cadillac speeding up the road then turn and slide to a stop. Avery still stood over the final gunman, his pistol aimed at the man’s face.

Holden and Levi came up on either side and began to put zip ties on the man’s hands.

“Put it down now, Avery,” Grace said. “We have him.”

“He killed Chip,” Avery said.

Grace looked over at the Mercedes Benz then at the row of houses. He saw at least three people filming them with cellphones out their windows.

“Not like this, Avery,” Grace reached out and put his hand around the still warm barrel of the Sig Sauer and held it until Avery opened his hand. Grace turned to step away and Avery brought his right leg back and kicked the man in the groin.

“Feel better?” Grace said.

“No,” Avery said.

Grace pulled out his phone and dialed then waited for an answer then spoke, “We need clean up.”

CHAPTER 22

Ben Murray stared at his computer screen, avoiding looking over at Grace. “The diplomat plates were stolen.”

Grace sat in a chair in the far corner of workroom at their building in Buzzard Point. He was leaned back as far as the chair could go, tossing a football into the air, each time it flying up in a spiral then stalling and coming back down to this chest. He hadn’t said anything in nearly half an hour.

“A friend at the State department just confirmed, and the burner phone went dark just as the shooting began,” Ben said.

“It was all a set up to draw us out,” Grace said, his voice barely audible over the hum of the fans from the large computers Ben had set up around his desk. “And it worked,” he threw the football again then caught it. “What about the Range Rover?”

“Range Rover has had that body style for a few years. Twenty-four white vehicles of that model are registered in the District, another 40 or so in Maryland and Virginia,” Ben said. “I’ll check for reports of any that have been stolen, but don’t know where it’ll get us.”

“Thanks,” Grace said.

“What now?” Ben said.

“We keep looking,” Grace said.

“What about Chip?” Ben said.

Grace leaned forward to look over at Ben then leaned back in the chair and threw the ball into the air. “Chip’s dead. We keep working.”

“Just like that?” Ben said.

“Yeah, just like that,” Grace said. “It isn’t that we didn’t like him. We did. We were all friends with him. He was the best damn weapons person I’ve ever known. But you don’t take time to grieve when enemies are out there. We’re not running a damn daycare here, people get hurt and people die.”

Grace’s cellphone rang. He answered.

“What the hell happened?” Arrington said.

“We were targeted,” Grace said. “Won’t happen again.”

“Well, thanks to your shootout, everyone here knows you aren’t sitting around doing nothing,” Arrington said. “If you show your faces in public again, it had better be to arrest or kill the people responsible for this.”

The line went dead.

“Doesn’t sound like that went well,” Ben said.

“It didn’t,” Grace said.

The door opened at the far end of the room and Holden walked in. He looked over at Grace then turned and went to Ben’s desk. “Here’s the ten cards and photos.” He handed Ben the white cards with all of the fingerprints of the men from the ambush, including the one they’d apprehended.

“Thanks, Holden,” Ben said.

Holden glanced back over at Grace then began walking to the door.

“How’s everyone downstairs?” Grace said.

The tall man stopped short of the door and looked at the floor then finally over at his boss. “Shitty,” Holden turned and left.

Grace looked back at Ben. “Run the prints. Tell me you have something, anything, else for me.”

“Well, actually, I do,” Ben said.

“Show me,” Grace threw the football into the wall and watched it bounce off the red brick and slam into an unused table then walked over to Ben.

Ben moved some windows on his screen and pulled up a website. “Cunningham Construction, same as the work shirts you found in the officer’s apartments. I looked into contracts for work on the Capitol and they came up.”

“What kind of work were they doing?” Grace said.

“Running wires to increase the network capacity,” Ben said.

“So they’d have needed to tear into walls,” Grace said.

“Likely,” Ben said. “People usually don’t want the network wires running along the wall and floor.”

“What do we know about Cunningham?” Grace reached and pulled a rolling chair over and sat down on it backwards, leaning forward onto the back of the chair.

“They’re based out of Linthicum, Maryland. Smaller company, maybe 15 employees,” Ben said. “They mainly use individual subcontractors under their own project managers. They got their clearance for secure government work less than a year ago.”

“Less than a year and they got a contract on the Capitol building?” Grace said. “That seems pretty lucky.”

“Maybe they have some good connections,” Ben said.

CHAPTER 23

Netty drove the van while Avery slept in back and Grace sat in the passenger seat, his eyes pointed out the side window not looking at anything. It had been 18 months since he’d lost a member of his team and before that it had been two years. It was the nature of the work. The inherent danger that draws people to it, but that could also be their ending.

“Didn’t want the rest of the team?” Netty said.

“Hmm?” Grace said. “Oh, no. I don’t think we needed everyone for this. I just want to get a look around.”

The van left the toll way and merged onto the beltway headed north. She took the off ramp for the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and slipped into the left lane and matched speed with other traffic. Forty minutes later they exited into Linthicum Heights and made a few turns and caught one red light before pulling up at the edge of the parking lot to a business park.

Grace turned to look at Netty in her green combat pants and flannel shirt left out to cover her sidearm. In the back Avery wore a white tank top.

“Netty, you’re with me,” Grace said. “Avery, get up front and keep eyes out.” Even in a seemingly safe environment it was standard practice to have someone keep watch. Being stuck inside an unknown building and having shooters come in after you is never a position you want to be in.

Grace and Netty left the van and walked across the parking lot to the front door of the offices of Cunningham Construction.

“What do you think we’ll find here?” Netty said.

“I don’t know,” Grace said. “Sometimes staring at a computer screen doesn’t work as well as knocking on doors. Just keep your eyes open for anything.”

He opened the door and let her in first. A middle-aged female receptionist sat at a desk in the corner of the front room, a small television was on showing the ongoing news from the National Mall.

“How can I help y’all?” she said. Grace could see her trying to size them up. He hadn’t tried to cover the Glock on his side. He pulled out a folded leather case and flipped it open to show a badge.

“We’re with Homeland Security,” Grace said. “We just like to have a look around.”

The woman’s head tilted as she took in the information and tried to process it.

“Why would you need to look around here, sweetie?” she said.

“We’re checking out all the companies that had access to the United States Capitol over the last six months,” Grace said. “Just routine based on, well, based on recent events.”

The woman glanced at the television then back to Grace.

“Oh, it’s horrible, isn’t it?” she said. “My son is in the Army. Thank God he’s at Fort Bragg and wasn’t . . .. All those families of the boys killed this morning, I just can’t imagine…”

“Me either,” Grace said.

“Just let me know if you need anything. I’m Mattie,” she said. “Nobody’s really in today, due to the explosion. We’re a Christian company, you know. The owner thought people should be with their families.”

“What about you?” Grace said.

“My son is my only family I have left and he’s in North Carolina,” she said. “I figured someone might as well be here to answer the phones.”

“Well, we’re glad you’re here,” Grace said.

“Sure enough, sweetie,” she said. “You two have a look around and let me know if you need anything. Nothing to hide here.”

Grace nodded then glanced at Netty and they worked their way through the hallway. The first door on the right was a small conference room with nothing but the wooden table and a huge whiteboard on the wall that had been wiped clean. The next room was a small office and he motioned for Netty to check it as he kept moving.

“There’s coffee made if you two want any,” the receptionist’s voice came down the hallway. “Just help yourselves.”

“Thanks,” Grace said. He passed the open door to the break room on the left and smelled the coffee and was almost tempted to stop for some but kept moving. The next door was closed and he turned the handle but the door didn’t move.

He looked left towards the front room. “Mattie, this door on the left is locked. Can I get in here?”

Her head poked around the corner to see where he was.

“Oh, sweetie, that one sticks a little. Just put your shoulder into it a bit,” Mattie said.

He turned the handle again and leaned into the door and with a pop it swung open and he stepped in. It was a larger office with a big mahogany desk facing him, papers neatly stacked on top. The walls were covered with photographs in mismatched frames on wood paneling. Grace went to the desk and flipped through the papers and glanced in the drawers. Everything was too well organized to be hiding something. He sat down in the leather chair and leaned back as he scanned the office. He could hear Netty opening and closing file drawers across the hall.

On the desk was a color photograph of the owner of the office he was in, standing next to a tall woman in a red dress, red hair flowing down over her neck. In front of them were six children. He turned and looked at the photos on the wall then stood and began inspecting each one.

There were the standard snapshots of ribbons being cut and hands being shaken. A few were from company picnics and celebrations. He saw Mattie the receptionist dancing at what looked to be a wedding. The next frame to the right held a black and white image of a group of men. It was a grainy enlargement from a film negative and printed along with a newspaper article. Looking down the wall at more than 30 framed images, he stepped back to his left.

He pulled his phone out and tapped the icon to activate the camera, rotated it sideways and squared it up to fill the screen with the first photograph and pressed the button. He continued along the wall, capturing each framed photograph. Back at the desk he did the same with several of the contracts and documents stacked in the center of the blotter.

Back in the hallway he saw Netty come out of the other office and followed her to the front.

“Mattie, thanks for your time,” Grace said. “As I said, just routine.”

“Anytime, sweetie,” Mattie said. “If you need to talk to Mason just let me know.” She gave Grace a business card. “I’ll get you an appointment whenever you need.”

“Thanks,” Grace and Netty left and walked back to the van.

“Find anything?” Avery said.

“Just this,” Netty handed Grace a folder that had been tucked inside her shirt. “A copy of the contract for the work on the Capitol, including the names of all the subcontractors used.”

“Well done,” Grace said. “You know, for a woman.”

CHAPTER 24

The grey Suburban picked up Arash Abbasi walking down Jones Mill Road, the green duffel over his shoulder, three blocks from where the white Range Rover was left on a side street. In the affluent neighborhood it would be days before anyone noticed the luxury vehicle didn’t belong there. After two miles of driving, the Suburban was abandoned in a parking garage in Bethesda, a block from the metro station where the four men rode the escalator underground. They used paper tickets to enter the station, which would be discarded when they reached the other end.