First Daughter (3 page)

"Time is running out, sir." As he often did, laboring against the monolithic born-again tide of the Secretary of State and the National Security Advisor, Paull was trying to get the president to focus on reality-based decisions. "So far, E-Two has remained completely invisible, and as for the visible First American Secular Revivalists and other like-minded organizations who aren't radical—"

"Not radical?" The president was irate. "
All
those hell-bent bastards are radical. Goddamnit, Dennis, I won't countenance a bunch of homegrown terrorists. Find a way to wipe 'em out, find it pronto."

The president, hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat, stared up at the ceiling. Paull knew that look only too well. He'd seen it an increasing number of times over the past year as, one by one, members of
the president's inner council had left the Administration, as the enemy took over Congress, as opposition mounted to the president's aggressive foreign policy. No matter. The president stood fast. There were times when Paull forgot how long ago the president had sunk into a bunker mentality, circling what wagons were left, refusing to listen to any form of change. And why should he? He was convinced that the success of his legacy depended on his unwavering belief that he was carrying out the will of God. "I'm like a rock, pounded by the sea," he'd often say. "Yet steadfast, immovable." In these latter days, he'd taken to calling himself the Lonely Guardian.

"To think that it's almost Christmas." The president made a noise in the back of his throat. "Time, Dennis. Time betrays us all, remember that."

The president gripped the back of the sofa as if it were the neck of his worst enemy. "I've spent eight years doing my level best to pull America out of the pit of immorality into which the previous Administration had sunk it. I've spent eight years protecting America from the most heinous threat it's every faced, and if that meant exercising the power of this hallowed office, if it meant turning the country around so that it would know its roots, know itself, see itself as the righteous Christian nation it is, then so be it." His eyes were filled with righteous pain. "But what do I get for my hard labor, Dennis? Do I get the thanks of a nation? Do I get accolades in the press? I do not. I get protests, I get excoriated in the liberal press, I get blasphemous videos on YouTube. Does no one understand the lengths I've gone to to protect this nation? Does no one understand the importance of my legacy as president?" He rubbed the end of his nose. "But they will, Dennis. Mark my words, I will be redeemed by history." He regarded his companion. "I've made sure that we've become Fortress America, Dennis, a stalwart redoubt against the fundamentalist Islamic terrorists. But now we have to contend with traitors from within. I
won't have it, I tell you!" By way of punctuation, the president added his no-nonsense nod.

"Now let's pray." He got down on his knees and the Secretary followed suit while their cadre of bodyguards turned their backs. The two men bowed their heads, clasped their hands against their striped rep ties. Sunlight glittered off the president's polyurethane hair.
My hair's gone white, my beard is shot with gray. I feel the weight of the world crushing me,
Paull thought.
The expectation of greatness, the dread of making a mistake, of missing a vital piece of intel, of being one step late to the dance of death. Jesus, if he only knew. We've all aged a century since we came into power
,
all except him. He looks younger now than when he took office
.

"Lord, we humbly beg thee to come to our aid in our hour of need, so that we can continue your work and hold back the turning of the tide that threatens to overrun all that we've labored so hard for these past eight years."

A moment of silence ensued as the two men regained their feet. Before they took their leave of the guesthouse, the president touched his secretary's sleeve, said in a low but distinct voice, "Dennis, when on January twentieth of next year I step aside, I want to know that everything is in place for us to retain our grip on Congress and on the media."

Paull was about to respond when the sound of a helicopter sliced into the pellucid morning like a knife, exposing in him a sense of foreboding. And with that his cell phone rang.

It had to be important; his office knew whom he was with. He connected, listened to the voice of one of his chief lieutenants, his stomach spewing out acid in pulsarlike bursts. At length, he handed the phone to the president.

The president waved it away, clearly annoyed at having been interrupted. "Good Lord, just give me the gist, Dennis, like you always do."

This is why he hasn't aged,
Paull thought. "I think you'd better hear this yourself."

The president's voice was querulous. "Why?"

"Sir, it's about Alli Carson."

The president reached for the phone.

A
RE YOU
all right? Can you move?"

Jack McClure heard the voice, but he could see nothing. He tried to move, but between the seat belt and the airbag, he was held firmly in place.

"I've called nine-one-one," the familiar voice said. "There'll be an ambulance here soon."

Jack could smell hot metal, and the sickly sweet scent of fresh blood and gore.

"Bennett?"

"Yeah, it's me." Captain Rodney Bennett was his boss in the Falls Church, Virginia, ATF Group I, specializing in Arson and Explosives.

"I can't see."

"There's blood all over your face," Bennett said softly.

Jack lifted his right arm, which seemed to move okay. Using the cuff of his bomber jacket, he wiped his face clean. More blood trickled down his forehead into his eyes. Probing with his fingertips, he discovered a laceration at his hairline, put one hand over it. Then looked to the right. Part of the guardrail, ripped open by the impact of the crash,
had twisted through the windshield, shearing off the passenger's-side headrest, which it would have done to Jack's head if he'd crashed a foot to the right.

Wind blew into the Escalade, drying the sweat on Jack's scalp to a salt crust. The rain had stopped. Clouds swirled high above, dirtying the white sky.

"Jack, what the hell happened?"

Disoriented, hearing the sounds of approaching sirens, his mind was cast back to other sirens, other flashing lights.

Another car crash.

S
EVEN MONTHS
ago he'd been in the office, a phone to his ear, coordinating a raid on a high-end cigarette smuggler, the end of a six-month sting operation for which Jack had been the front. He would have liked to be in the field, on the front line, but he was all too aware of his limitations, he knew Bennett placed him where he was invaluable, and that made all the difference to him. Bennett was one of the only people in his life who knew what Jack was and accepted it.

Jack, with a satellite map on the computer screen in front of him, barked out new locations to the team leaders. His cell phone buzzed; he ignored it. The buzzing stopped, then almost immediately, started again. While bellowing orders, redirecting one of the field units, he risked a glance at his cell. It was Emma.

The field units were redeploying in an attempt to take the high ground. He had a special talent for seeing the larger picture, for examining a situation in three dimensions—the more complex, the better, so far as he was concerned. His tactical expertise was unmatched.

The cell buzzed for a third time. Damnit, what mess had his daughter gotten herself into this time? Work phone pressed sweatily to one ear, he answered his cell.

"Dad, I've got a real problem, I've got to talk to you—"

"Honey," he said, "I'm in the middle of a crisis. I haven't got time for this now."

"But, Dad, I need your help. There's no one else—"

A harsh voice crackled in his other ear. "We're taking fire from the high ground!"

"Hold on," he said to his daughter. Then into the landline, "Get down and keep down." He manipulated the map on the screen. Lots of writing wriggled by like shining fish vanishing into an undersea cave. If he took the time, he could read the words, but . . . "Okay, take three men, move six meters to your left. You'll have cover from the stand of trees."

"Dad, Dad? . . ."

Jack, heart beating fast, said, "I'm here, Emma, but I don't have—"

"Dad, I'm leaving here." By here, she meant Langley Field College, where she was a sophomore.

"Honey, I'm happy to talk, but just not now."

Then the shit really hit the fan. "We're on top of 'em, Jack!" he heard in his other ear.

"Get the second team moving now!" Jack shouted. "You'll have them in a crossfire."

"I'm going to drive over to you."

Jack could hear the sudden crackle of automatic fire. His annoyance flared. "Emma, I have no time for your adolescent games."

"This isn't a game, Dad! This can't wait. I'm coming—"

"Jesus, Emma, didn't you hear me? Not now." And he hung up.

The cell buzzed again, but he'd already returned to the fray.

The raid was successful. In the hectic aftermath, Jack forgot all about the call from Emma. But that didn't last. Seventeen minutes later, Jack got another call. At high velocity, top light flashing blue and white, he sped to the scene of the accident, Saigon Road, off an isolated stretch of the Georgetown Pike at Dranesville District Park. The area—thickly treed, sparsely inhabited—had been cordoned off with yellow tape, a squad of uniforms was buzzing around a pair of state
police detectives, and four burly EMTs were trekking back and forth between the crash site and the two ambulances, red lights flashing on their long white roofs.

Jack got out of the car and, for a moment, could do nothing, not even think. His brain seemed frozen. At the same time, his legs felt as if they would no longer support him. There was a large elm tree to which the car seemed attached. Tire marks, a laminate of rubber burned into the road behind the car, wove a crazy zigzag into the tree. Jack flashed on Emma's call. He'd been too immersed in the raid to register how distraught she was. Is that why she had lost control of the car? Had she plowed into the tree before she could regain control?

One of the uniforms approached him, hand outstretched to stop him. "What the hell happened?" Jack shouted into his face as if the crash were his fault.

The uniform barked something that Jack didn't hear. Mechanically, Jack showed his ID, and the uniform backed off.

When Jack saw the rear of the car—oddly pristine compared with the rest of it—he felt a chill pass through him. He recognized the tags on the vehicle—a blue '99 Toyota Camry. It was Emma's car, all doubt now erased.

"Will someone tell me what the hell happened?" he shouted again.

All during the drive he'd been telling himself that it had to be a mistake, that it wasn't Emma's car that had careened off the road at speed, ending in a head-on with a tree, that the dead girl driving it wasn't his daughter.

That was a fool's notion, a desperate attempt to alter reality. He saw her the moment he arrived at the crash site. Emma had been thrown from the car. He squatted beside her on hard ground blackened by oil and blood. His daughter's blood. Bending over, he cradled her head as he had on the day she was born.
My god, it's true
, he thought. It wasn't a nightmare from which he'd awake shaken but relieved. This was real; this was his doomed life. Why had she called him? What had she wanted? Where
was she going in such a panic? He'd never know now. Her life, brief and bitter, came rushing at him like a locomotive, and she struck him full-on—a healthy pink baby he rocked to sleep, a toddler he helped navigate the obstacles in the living room, a little girl he regarded with a certain amount of awe as she climbed the playground jungle gym or whooshed down the slide, the beauty of her dark, liquid turned-up eyes as she waved to him on her way into first grade. Now came the wrecking ball that demolished them both in one cruel swing.

She was gone. In an instant. In a heartbeat. Like a cloud or the wind. After she broke away from his orbit, what had he ever done to take an interest in her, to show her that he loved her? Worst of all, where was he when she'd needed him the most? Where was she now? He wasn't a religious man, he held no illusions about heaven and angels, but it was inconceivable that she had vanished into nothingness. He was overcome by the horror that his time with her hadn't even begun. Wishful thinking, that's all his thoughts amounted to, because he had no beliefs, there was nothing to hold on to here but the battered head of his only child, his baby, his little girl.

Where had he been when she had been pushed out from between her mother's legs? Making sure a shipment of XM 8 lightweight assault rifles, stolen from Fort McNair, didn't fall into the hands of the Colombian drug-runners who very badly needed them. In the wrong place, just like today.

It was immensely difficult to keep looking at her, to absorb every burn, laceration, contusion, but he couldn't bear to turn away, because he was afraid that he would forget her. He was afraid that once this moment was over, she would be like a life only dreamed.

T
HREE CROWS
rose from the empty field of grass that was being obliterated by the erection of four McMansions. The crows, wing feathers iridescent, circled once and were gone. Maybe they knew where Emma was now.

"I don't want to go to the hospital," Jack said.

"Fortunately, you don't get a say in this," Bennett said.

Jack turned his head as two EMTs lifted the gurney he was on into the ambulance. Inside, one of them sat on a bench and monitored his pulse. She was small, compact, dark, Latina. Eyes the color of coffee unadulterated by milk. She smiled at him, showed even white teeth. Bennett sat beside her.

J
ACK'S MIND
seemed to drift, as if the jolt he'd received in the crash had dislodged him from the present. He saw himself standing in National Memorial Park over the freshly dug hole in the ground into which Emma's mahogany casket would be lowered as soon as Father Larrigan ceased his interminable droning. Sharon was standing beside him, but apart. There might have been a continent between them. For
her, he didn't exist, or rather, he existed in a world full of horror and death she could no longer inhabit. They'd yelled and screamed at each other, dishes had been hurled, a lamp that caused a flurry of flame that Jack quickly stamped out. No matter. The fight went on as if no bell had rung, until they came to blows, which was what they wanted or, at least, needed. Then all was still, save for Sharon's quiet sobbing.