Gideon's War/Hard Target (54 page)

57

WASHINGTON, DC

Gideon kicked open the unlocked door of the Access Room with the heel of his shoe. It burst open. He and Tillman rushed in, looking for targets.

But there were none.

On the floor lay two people, a man and a woman, both wearing the bland dark suits of Secret Service agents.

“Dead,” Gideon said, checking the pulse of the man.

The other agent was sprawled out, a small trickle of blood running down the side of her face. Tillman recognized her as Shanelle Klotz, the agent from the family photos in the house out in Virginia.

“Is she dead, too?” Gideon asked.

As if in answer to his question, the agent groaned.

“No,” Tillman said, his voice scratchy and raw.

“Where the hell did he go?” Gideon said. “There’s no one here.”

Shanelle Klotz sat up and put a hand to her head. “I know you,” she said unsteadily.

“Gideon Davis,” said Gideon.

“The FBI is looking for you.”

Gideon didn’t respond, all too aware of Dahlgren’s trumped-up charges. “The guy who was here? Where did he go?”

It was only then he heard the WHUMMPPHH sound inside the big HVAC unit of the gas jets cycling on. Shanelle pointed silently across the room, and Gideon saw she was indicating an access panel or trapdoor built into the face of the unit. Gideon realized Wilmot must have crawled into the ducts, where he was controlling the HVAC remotely by shortwave.

“Stay right there!”

Gideon whirled. The agent wad GGGGGGGGGG T‡s pointing a thin little auto pistol right at his head, the sort of pistol that people carried as backup. She must have hidden it on her body somewhere but been unable to get to it before now.

“Listen,” said Gideon, “he’s already turned on the gas. We have maybe sixty seconds before the cyanide kicks in.”

“Cyanide?”

“He’s going to atomize it and release it into the entire chamber.”

“Oh my God.” She pointed to the tank tied in to the condensation lines. “There’s enough in there to kill everybody in the chamber.”

“We have to move,” said Gideon. “You have to trust me.”

“They have my kids.”

Gideon shook his head. “Your kids are fine. Tillman saved them.”

The agent stared at them, eyes wide, not sure what to think.

“It’s a long story,” Gideon said. “But now we’ve got to go.”

Shanelle Klotz continued to point the pistol at Gideon’s face for several more seconds. Finally she lowered it.

“Go,” she said.

58

WASHINGTON, DC

Gideon began the climb up the dark shaft. In the distance he could hear shouts of alarm and caution.

The ducts thrummed with the vibration of the gas jets warming up. He knew that as soon as the air reached the proper temperature, the fans would kick in, blowing hot air laced with cyanide through the metal conduits and into the chamber. He and Tillman would be its first victims. Their only chance was to find Wilmot before that happened and shut down the system.

Gideon moved up the shaft as fast as he could. Tillman followed. The ducts were about three feet wide and four feet tall with indents for their toes every ten inches. They climbed like hunchbacks. After about fifteen feet, several lines branched off horizontally. Gideon tried to make out the footfalls of someone else in front of them, but the sound of screaming and of the HVAC system made it impossible. It crossed his mind for the briefest of moments that if he simply did nothing for the next fifteen or twenty seconds, he could close the chapter of a humiliating part of his life in a spectacular way. Given how President Wade had treated Tillman and him, it would be a righteous if perverse form of justice.

But it was only a brief thought. Gideon knew that what was about to happen was madness. This lunatic Wilmot was trying to pull down a temple that had stood for more than two hundred years. True, it was flawed, but there was never going to be a perfect human institution. At least not until people became perfect. But America’s was still the best system of government in the brief history of man.

He felt Tillman beside him. “You go this way,” he whispered. “I’ll go that way.” Gideon agreed.

Tillman crawled into the duct. Then he pausedhissssssssss d‡ and turned. “You see the bastard, don’t hesitate even for a second,” he whispered. “Just kill him.”

Then he turned back and began to crawl.

59

WASHINGTON, DC

Dale Wilmot almost had to laugh. The security team had directed everyone to stay inside the chamber, which was exactly as he expected, and exactly the wrong thing to do.

Down on the floor of the House, the panicked herd was beginning to calm down, but people were still trying to get out of the exits, and Secret Service agents were swarming the president.

“Stay calm!” he heard. “Stay calm! You’re safe inside!”

But they weren’t, and only Wilmot knew it. Now that the moment had finally arrived, he couldn’t help but want to prolong it. He felt as though his entire soul was cracking open, spreading out, becoming one with some great historical force. Had Lincoln felt this way at Gettysburg? Had the signers felt that way when they scrawled their names on the Declaration of Independence or the Constitution?

A vision of his son’s face—not his ruined face, but the beautiful face he’d taken with him to Afghanistan—hovered briefly in his mind. Everything he had done, he had done for Evan, and someday, he was certain, his son would understand its importance. It was a great thing, a monumental thing, and history would judge him accordingly.

With the switch clenched in one hand, he raised his arms in triumph. In the darkness, the metal glinted like the flash of a silver bullet in the onrushing night.

60

WASHINGTON, DC

Gideon shinnied around the corner and saw the big man with his hands outstretched inside the rectangular cordon, one hand on the switch that would kill everyone in the room. Gideon’s only chance was to grab that switch out of his hands and override the HVAC system before the fans kicked in.

He settled his front sight on the big man’s right hip and fired. There was no way to draw a bead on his head. He was just going to have to shoot him to pieces.

Dale Wilmot bellowed when the first shot hit him in the leg. Then he pushed forward with his good leg, his big hand still wrapped around the remote switch.

Gideon shot him again, this time in the lower back.

Wilmot grunted but didn’t stop pushing forward. He still had the switch in his hand. If Gideon couldn’t stop him, or get to the switch in the next thirty seconds, it would be too late for everyone.

He fired again.

Wilmot seemed unfazed by the terrible punishment he was taking. He crawled into the darkness, a shadowy figure in the gloom of the ventilation system. The shouting in the House chamber below had changed in intensity as the crowd heard the shooting and realized something was happening below tsheeeeeeeeee t‡hem.

“America!” Wilmot shouted out. “It’s your day of reckoning!” His words reverberated along the metal walls.

Then the back of his head exploded, and he slumped to the floor of the duct.

Gideon turned around just as his brother leapt past him. Tillman scampered ahead and grabbed the switch from the dead man’s hand. He flipped the button, and with a SWOOSH the gas jets shut off and all was silent.

“Nice shot, brother,” said Gideon.

“Looked like you needed a little help.”

“He was going down. I had him.”

“I just want it on record that I made the kill shot. I’m totally the guy who saved the day.”

“One more shot, he was down.”

“I’m just saying. I made the shot. The president thanks you, but I made the shot. Story of my life.”

“I didn’t have the angle.”

“Yeah, whatever. I’m just saying.”

They burst out laughing as they climbed back toward the hatch on the heating unit.

“I also want to put it on record that you’re never going to make it as a college professor,” Tillman said.

“Why do you say that?” Gideon said.

“I saw your face. You love this shit. You love it way too much.”

Gideon sighed. Tillman could barely make out his teeth gleaming in the dim light, a broad smile breaking out on his face. “Yeah, you may be right.”

They were still laughing as twenty armed men threw them to the floor and cuffed them. It took Kate, with the help of Shanelle Klotz, a good thirty minutes to get them free. But Gideon didn’t mind; he was happy to sit peacefully with his brother by his side while someone else did the negotiating.

61

PRIEST RIVER, IDAHO

Nancy Clement sat on Hank Adams’s couch and watched the television as President Erik Wade climbed back onto the podium and said, “My fellow Americans, we have all been witness today to an extraordinary event, an attempt to destroy the legally authorized and popularly mandated government of the United States of America. That attempt failed. Even if every soul in this room had died, it would still have failed. For all its flaws, our republic can’t be destroyed by killing a handful of people. It’s too strong, too resilient, too masterfully designed. We—all of us in this room—are simply instruments of the popular will. As much importance as we like to ascribe ourselves, the truth is, we’re all replaceable.”

The president scanned the crowd. Although it had thinned markedly, there were still hundreds of legislators who remained, ready to hear the entirety of Erik Wade’s speech.

“That said,” the president continued, “the Constitution mandates that I address this body with a report on the state of the union. And I have no intention of letting these would-be terrorists deflect me from fulfilling my duty.”

This brought on a round of applause that threatened to go on for five minutes.

Hank Adams looked at Nancy and said, “Can I offer you a drink?”

Nancy looked up at Hank and smiled. She realized that there was something about him that she found intensely attractive. A little geeky, maybe. But then, she was a geek herself, wasn’t she?

Erik Wade took a long deep breath and said, “So . . . before I was interrupted, I was making a point about American energy independence . . .”

“You know what?” Nancy said, putting her injured leg up on the couch. “Maybe you could turn that off while you’re at it. I think I’ve had enough State of the Union for a lifetime.”

EPILOGUE

WASHINGTON, DC

Gideon Davis and his wife, Kate Murphy Davis, stood in the Oval Office and watched while President Erik Wade pinned the Presidential Medal of Freedom—America’s highest civilian honor—on the chest of Tillman Davis. Beside them were Nancy Clement and her boyfriend, Hank Adams, and Evan Wilmot and his nurse, Margie Clete. The six of them were beaming.

President Wade walked back to his desk and said, “Usually I just sign these things and hand the pen to the guy who’s getting the award and then I get them the hell out of my office as quick as I can. But today I have two documents to sign. I’m not going to read all this verbiage for the Medal of Freedom. You know what you did, Mr. Davis. But I do want to read this other thing.”

He picked up a piece of heavy bond paper and read:

“Whereas Tillman Davis was convicted of several offenses related to the so-called Obelisk Incident, which occurred during his employment as a contractor for the Central Intelligence Agency;

“Whereas Tillman Davis was stripped of his rank and benefits as a serviceman in the United States military;

“Whereas Tillman Davis has given long and distinguished service to the United States of America;

“Whereas Tillman Davis has recently performed a unique act of courage and fortitude on behalf of the people of the United States;

“Therefore I pardon Tillman Davis of all Federal convictions and furthermore, by Executive Order, do restore to him his rank of Master Sergeant, United States Army (Retired) and to his pension and privileges thereto.”

Erik Wade signed the paper, then walked to Tillman and shook his hand a second time. “You’re a good soldier, Sergeant Davis,” he said. “I’m sorry. I only hope this does a little to make up for what this government took from you.”

“Thank you, Mr. President,” Tillman said, looking straight ahead as tear0;WWWWWWWWWWWvicem