The Paris Protection (31 page)

“What happened?” he said, flipping his flashlight back on. “Your shots?”

“Yeah,” David answered, coming around the bend and into the light, gun down in ready position. “Two men. They were making their way down the tunnel.”

John moved forward and saw two bodies on the floor of the tunnel. Their guns had been removed, and it looked as if David had been rifling their pockets for anything else of tactical use. He was holding the men’s headlamps.

“Just these two,” John muttered. “They must have split up their men to scour the branching tunnels. It’s a good strategy. Down here, even one gunshot may as well be a signal flare to the others.”

“I couldn’t do it quietly,” David said. “Not two of them.”

“I know,” John said. “But the others will be here soon.”

“Do we fight them here?” David asked.

“No. Back closer to the president. We need to buy as much time and space as possible, and we’ll be stronger if we’re all together.”

“We’ll be trapped back there.”

“We’re trapped no matter what,” John said. The words had a bitter taste.

Then he squeezed David’s shoulder. “Son, we have nowhere else to go. But no matter what happens, we won’t let these bastards get to the president. I don’t care how bad it gets.”

David nodded. Picking up the two submachine guns from the dead attackers, he crossed the slings over his head so the weapons would rest comfortably against his back.

Turning from the bodies, John motioned for David to follow as he ran back down the tunnel toward the president. Soon the enemy would find them, but his team was better armed now, and they had the favorable terrain of curved rock walls to hide behind.

63

MAXIMILIAN HADN’T MADE IT FAR down the side tunnel when his light caught the cluster of men stopped at the bodies of Tomas and Asghar. A jolt of concern shot through him to see how easily the president’s protectors had killed two of his most skilled fighters.

“The president must be very close,” he said to the dozen soldiers crammed in front of him. More were rushing up from behind.

“Two shots and two bodies,” he continued. “They didn’t even get off a shot. They were taken out by surprise. At least one of her men must have waited in ambush. It means they don’t think they can outrun us.” He looked down at Tomas’s body, coiled unnaturally after falling against the rock wall of the ancient quarry, his face pushed up against the hard limestone.

“They’ve trapped themselves,” he mused. “And I think they know it.”

“Then let’s keep going and kill them,” said a young soldier next to him.

Maximilian looked at the kid, whose name was Abdali. In those eager eyes, he saw the same passion for simple victory that he himself had felt long ago. It was a time in his youth when he had fought for Israel, before all his struggles and sacrifices had driven him to the edge of madness after Rabin’s assassination. That madness had led him to revenge against the fanatic nationalists who had ultimately turned Israel against him, labeling him a criminal and forcing him to flee the country he had once loved. But that love had died with his past life, replaced by the hatred he now carried for the country that had turned its back to him. They were not his people anymore, but the world would see only the simple labels of his past without understanding the complexity of his journey. After the president was killed and they discovered the false evidence linked to Israel—which was planted in their starting warehouse and tied to the young man who had martyred himself in the hotel room fire earlier this night—Americans would be enraged, and their diplomatic ties with Israel would be severely damaged, if not ruptured beyond repair. The Middle East would become even more unstable, and the world would be without any strong support from Western powers to mobilize in the region. Hannibal had not invaded Italy to destroy the Roman army and sack the great city. He had known that Rome was too powerful to be conquered thus. Through all his maneuvering and battling across Italy, Hannibal’s true goal had always been to weaken and break the alliances that Rome had made—usually by duress—with the various tribes scattered across the Mediterranean peninsula of antiquity. And so, too, would Maximilian use the American president’s assassination, and the false evidence against Israel, to help break up the Western world’s many alliances with the Middle East and northern Africa. And then his leader, Dominik Kalmár, could further advance their organization’s initiatives against Western governments.

His mind returned to the young soldier’s face in front of him. Abdali had a few scruffy hairs growing on his chin and cheeks, as if he was trying desperately to become a man like all the bearded warriors on their team.

“We must proceed carefully,” Maximilian said. “They could be waiting in ambush to kill more of us.”

“But if we don’t hurry, they might escape.”

Maximilian smiled at Abdali. None of his other men would have spoken to him like this, but this inexperienced kid was more fired up from the chase than the others.

“Yes, but I can’t risk so many lives only to discover we’ve all been led into a trap. I could send one man as a scout, though, and the rest could follow a little ways behind him. Only the bravest of the brave could take on such a task.”

“I could do it,” Abdali offered. “I’m fast and quiet. They will not ambush me.”

Maximilian glanced at the other dark, bearded faces arrayed in the wide beam of his headlamp.

“Let him go,” suggested a man with a patchwork of scars near his left eye.

A few others grunted in approval.

Maximilian looked back at the youth and nodded. “You are brave. A true warrior—like I was at your age.”

The kid grinned.

“Remember,” Maximilian continued, “I think they are trapped. Move fast. And make sure you fire your weapon when you encounter them. Do not let them take you by surprise. We will be right behind you, and we must know exactly when you reach them, so we can be ready. Now, go!”

Abdali turned and sprinted down the passageway.

Maximilian admired the kid’s loyalty, but this was the same youthful fervor that got so many young men killed in battles throughout history. It was the same type of loyalty that he had held for his motherland for so long before his country’s government had made him a criminal and an outcast—a betrayal that Israel was soon to regret.

The kid would die, he was sure of it. But it was a life he was willing to sacrifice to discover how far in front of them the president’s men were hiding. He couldn’t risk sending a large force into an ambush, as Caius Flaminius had foolishly done against Hannibal at Lake Trasimene. But he could tactically send one brave youth to his death. And to do so, he had been more than willing to use the same wiles, manipulating loyalty for his own ends—the same trick that had been used so successfully on him during his own vulnerable, idealistic youth.

But as his men began jogging carefully behind the kid, it occurred to Maximilian that he may have miscalculated. Abdali was much faster than he had imagined—perhaps from his eagerness to prove himself as a soldier. The courage of youth knew no bounds. And in just twenty seconds, the faded rim of light from the kid’s headlamp had vanished into the dark, serpentine tunnel.

There was danger if Abdali should reach the president too far ahead of the main force, for it would damage the timing of his men’s attack.

Yelling for his men to move faster, he cursed himself for neglecting to caution the boy not to get too far ahead of the group. It was the one thing that might give the Americans enough warning of his movement—a mistake that Hannibal would never have made. It was the one thing that could ruin his tactical surprise.

Desperate to maintain the element of surprise, he raced as fast as he could without stumbling. The president’s death would set geopolitical events in motion and show all bullying nationalists what happened to people when their government placed its own interests above the basic needs of the rest of humanity.

His vision was only moments away from realization. One death to change the world, succeeding where even Hannibal had failed. He ran so hard that his light jounced this way and that, giving the illusion of shaking tunnel walls, as if he were at the epicenter of a great earthquake that would soon rattle the globe.

64

FEARING THAT REBECCA MIGHT SHOOT them, John made sure to announce himself loudly as he and David rounded the last turn before the small chamber in the cul-de-sac. And he was glad he did, because the first thing he saw in his light beam after rounding the last bend was Rebecca’s gun muzzle, aimed at his forehead. She was in front of the president, who was tucked into a ball against the solid limestone bed at the end of the tunnel.

“David?” she yelled.

“Right here,” he said. “I brought you something.” He tossed her one of the attackers’ headlamps.

“What’s happening?” the president asked.

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” John said, “We’re trapped. Two men came down the tunnel. David took them out, but more will come. We’re out of options. David and I will take position just outside this chamber to hold them off as long as we can. Rebecca will stay here to protect you if they break through us.”

“How many?” she asked.

“Dozens.”

“There are no other options?” the president asked. “We can’t fight through them?”

“The tunnel’s too long, ma’am. We’re cut off. Back here, we at least have some protection from the bends in the passage to form a defense.”

“We don’t have long,” David said.

“Can you hold them back?” the president asked.

John wanted to lie to her. He wanted to tell her that they would prevail, that their training alone was enough to make up for how outnumbered and outgunned they were. He wanted to tell her that he would protect her, just as every detail had protected every president since that tragic day in late November 1963. But he knew that in this dark hour, he should tell her the truth.

“Can you hold them back?” the president repeated.

“No, ma’am,” he said, saddened by his admission of the truth. “Not with their numbers and weapons, not in a place like this. Eventually, they’ll break through.”

Neither David nor Rebecca said a word. They seemed to have already sensed what John had just described. It was the president who seemed surprised. Her unwavering faith in the Secret Service shone in her eyes as she looked back at John with the determination of an executive officer trying to exert control amid chaos.

“You have my faith to the end, John,” she said. “You and Rebecca and David.”

“Thank you, Madam President. We’ll do everything we can to protect you.”

Turning from her, he looked at David. “Take position over there,” he said, nodding toward the right side of the chamber entrance. To Rebecca, he said, “Take her to the back wall on the left side. It should provide some cover if David and I can’t hold the entrance. You’ll be the last line of defense.”

Rebecca nodded, then moved the president toward the back. 

David stood behind jutting outcrop, just out of sight of the tunnel, submachine gun barrel all but hidden from the entrance. John stepped to the far side of the entrance and knelt.

“David?” he hissed.

“Yeah.”

“Shoot at anything with a light. Any sound in the darkness. Don’t hesitate.”

“Roger that.”

“Rebecca, get her covered,” he said over his shoulder.

“She’s covered.”

He took a few deep breaths, trying to think of anything else they might do to increase their odds. But at this point, their options were limited. They were backed into a corner with the enemy approaching, and all they could do now was face their attackers and rely on training and luck and prayer to protect the president.

“Okay, everyone,” he said. “We’re going to have to fight them in the dark. So lights out.”

The lights blinked out, and they waited.

65

REBECCA KNELT BESIDE THE TREMBLING president, worried that her charge was slipping into a state of shock. For nearly two hours now, ever since the Crash POTUS alert, they had been on the run and in constant peril—not something a chief of state was trained for. Anyone in the president’s situation would be terrified of dying, of letting down her country, of never again seeing her loved ones.

Rebecca turned on her new headlamp to give the president something to focus on in the darkness and to help her, if she could, by looking into her eyes and saying a few calming words. To tell her that the three of them would somehow find a way to hold back these killers, that the US military and the remaining Secret Service units would soon discover that she wasn’t in the fire, and would begin a thorough sweep of the tunnels. That even though they hadn’t been able to see it, help was on the way.

“Turn the light off,” John said.

“Just for a second,” Rebecca replied. “The president’s not doing well.” She slid her light toward the president. “Ma’am, it’s going to be okay. Just breathe slowly. We have the better position for a defensive hold. And David can shoot the wings off a fly in the dark just by the sound of its buzzing. We train for things like this all the time.”

“Things like this?”

“Yes, ma’am. We’ve even got our own French tunnel system below our facilities in Beltsville, just for this type of drill.”

“You’re not supposed to lie to the president,” Clarke said. But the weak joke seemed to help bring her back to a less shaken state of mind.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, ma’am, but we lie to you all the time. That’s also part of our training.”

The president smiled. “I always suspected it,” she said, coughing. “It’s the ‘Secret’ in ‘Secret Service’ that tipped me off.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“We’re not getting out of here, are we?”

“We’re in a bit of a spot, ma’am. But we’ll do everything we can to protect you.”

“Need to give me a gun again?” the president asked.

Rebecca smiled somberly. “No, ma’am, you’ve done your shooting for the day. Now it’s up to us to protect you from these bastards.”