The Second Shooter (18 page)

The flashbang hit the gravel five feet from the Suburban, bounced, then skidded into the rear tire and stopped. Two feet from the pool of gasoline.

"Shit," Jake said.

"Wait," Favreau said. "It still might—"

The flashbang detonated like a giant firecracker, with a sonic boom and a flash of light and sparks. Sparks that struck the puddle of gasoline.

BOOM!

The Suburban's gas tank exploded with a huge whump and a gout of flame that seemed to suck all the oxygen from the air.

The force of the blast launched the rear end of the vehicle several feet off the ground, and when it crashed back down both rear tires popped like a pair of birthday balloons. The tactical man who had tried skeet-shooting the stun grenade out of the air was blown back twenty feet and landed on his ass, but he sprang up quickly and started running around in a circle when he realized his pants were on fire. His buddy clobbered him with a great open-field tackle and beat the flames out with his bare hands.

With their attackers' attention diverted, Jake realized that if there were ever going to be even the slimmest chance to escape, this was it. He glanced into the motorhome's cab and saw a key in the ignition. He turned to Gordon. "Does this thing run?"

"Damn right it runs."

"Then I suggest you crank it up."

"And go where?" Gordon said.

"Anywhere but here."

Gordon scrambled across the cabin and slid low into the driver's seat. He pumped the gas pedal several times, then twisted the key. The starter turned slowly, as if the battery were on its last legs, but after several slow revolutions the engine caught and coughed to life. "I'm hooked up," Gordon shouted over his shoulder. "Water, sewer, electricity."

"Just go!" Jake yelled.

Gordon jammed the gearshift down into drive and punched the accelerator. The motorhome lurched forward a couple of feet then stopped. "We're caught on the lines," Gordon said.

"Floor it," Jake said.

Gordon mashed the pedal, putting all of his weight on it. The old engine shuddered like a vacuum cleaner.

"Harder," Favreau shouted.

"She's giving us all she's got," Gordon said.

Then something outside snapped and the motorhome plowed ahead. Gordon spun the wheel and swung onto the gravel driveway. The hard turn slammed the cabin door shut, but since the knob had been blown off, the door bounced back open again.

"Help me," Favreau said. He was dragging the man whose head he had bashed with the steel pot toward the door.

Jake grabbed hold of the man's vest and helped Favreau drag him to the door. The motorhome was picking up speed. "We can't just throw him out."

"He tried to kill us," Favreau said.

"Jake is right," Stacy said as she stepped up beside them.

Favreau looked back and forth between them. "What do you suggest we do with him then?"

The motorhome slewed through another hard turn that almost knocked everyone off their feet as Gordon steered the big beast out of the trailer park's driveway and onto the highway.

"Stop for just a second," Jake yelled at Gordon.

Gordon kept his eyes on the road. "Why?"

Favreau shrugged, then shouted up to Gordon, "So we can dump out some trash."

Gordon glanced back at them, but he was already slowing down. The motorhome hadn't quite stopped when Favreau and Jake rolled the still-unconscious man out the door.

"Go!" Jake, Favreau, and Stacy all shouted at once.

The motorhome rumbled down the highway.

Sixty seconds later they passed a line of sheriff's cars racing in the opposite direction, lights flashing and sirens screaming. Jake watched through the back window as the sheriff's cars skidded into the trailer park.

"Where are we going?" Gordon called out.

"Dallas," Favreau said.

"Dallas?" Jake and Stacy repeated in unison.

Favreau nodded. "That's where they're going to kill the president."

Richard Finch, the president's deputy chief of staff, was eating lunch with three colleagues: Mark Hogan, the assistant deputy chief of staff; Adam Wright, the president's special assistant for legislative affairs, and Clay Gibson, the deputy national security advisor. They were at Poppy's Diner, two blocks from the White House, which made Poppy's a popular place for White House staffers looking to escape the inane talk and bad food of the staff cafeteria inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Poppy specialized in soul food that was as delicious as it was bad for you.

Finch felt a gentle tap on his shoulder. He turned around and found Poppy's granddaughter, Louanne, who was also the hostess, standing behind him. "Excuse me, Mr. Finch," the girl said, "but you have a phone call."

Louanne was a pretty black girl of no more than twenty years. Finch had been eating at Poppy's since Noah Omar moved into the White House five years ago, back when Finch had been a mere assistant to the deputy communications director. Since then he'd seen Louanne grow up a lot, and he had had quite a few lascivious fantasies about her.

Brown sugar dreams aside, Finch was stunned to get a phone call at Poppy's. He pulled his iPhone from the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pressed the home button to make sure the thing was working. The screen lit up, the battery still had half a charge, and there were no missed calls. So why would anyone call him at Poppy's?

"Phone's behind the counter," Louanne said, pointing to an old 1970s push-button phone hanging on the wall. The drooping cord was six feet long and probably stretched out another four feet.

Finch got up and followed Louanne, watching her ass slide back and forth under her flowered dress as she wove her way between the crowded tables toward the counter. The handset was lying on the countertop. Finch picked it up. "Hello," he said, "this is Richard Finch."

"I know who it is," the man on the other end of the line said with a cultured Southern drawl. "I called you, remember?"

Finch turned his face toward the back wall and answered in a nervous whisper. "Jesus, what are you doing calling me here? And how did you even know I was here?"

"Relax, Richard, you sound like an old lady clutching her purse to her shriveled-up tits so nobody can steal her cat food money. You think anyone's listening to Poppy's landline? And if they were, don't you think I would know about it?"

Probably true, Finch thought. But clearly the man was enjoying demonstrating his omniscience. "What do you want?"

"What do you think I want?" the man said. "I want to know if you've talked to him."

Finch glanced at his table. Two of his lunch companions, Mark Hogan and Adam Wright, were scarfing down today's special, chicken-fried steak and mash potatoes, but Clay Gibson, the deputy national security advisor, was looking right at him. Finch gave him a wave and shrugged, then turned back toward the wall. Gibson was a clever son-of-a-bitch. Maybe he could read lips. "I'm having lunch with Clay Gibson," Finch whispered into the mouthpiece. "He's going to ask why I got a call on the restaurant's phone instead of my cell."

The caller laughed. "That pretty boy got his job because his daddy owns two dozen TV stations and a newspaper chain and donated three million dollars to the president's first campaign. He knows as much about national security as I do about bobsledding, and I'm from Alabama."

Finch took a deep breath, knowing he needed to get off the phone but also knowing he couldn't do that until he answered the man's question. "I did talk to him."

"And?"

"He said no."

"No, just like that?"

"Pretty much."

"Did he give a reason?"

"The same one he gave when you asked him," Finch said. "He made a promise to the American people when he ran for re-election to get our troops out of Afghanistan during his second term, and he intends to fulfill that promise."

"Well, that does it then," the man said. "We move forward."

Finch glanced around at his tablemates. They were all eating. "I'm not sure...that's the only option."

"Don't go soft on me now, Dick," the man said in a tone grown suddenly harsh. "You've known this was a possibility since the beginning. We have presented several cogent arguments against pulling out next year and have given the man ample opportunity to change his mind. Yet he remains obstinate, and that obstinacy has backed us into a corner. At this point, we don't have a choice."

Finch didn't say anything.

"I know you've been there a long time," the man said, his voice softer now, his drawl more soothing. "And in some ways you've probably grown attached to the man. It's called the Stockholm Syndrome. But never forget that you work for us. We put you there so that we could have a conduit into the inner circle."

"I know that," Finch said.

"So I'm choosing to interpret your transitory hesitation as a simple surge of human compassion, like Gandhi or Mother Teresa might have had given similar circumstances, and not a vacillation in your commitment to do what needs to be done. Is that correct?"

Finch took a deep breath. "Yes."

"Good."

Then the line clicked as the caller hung up.

Finch begged off the rest of lunch by saying he had to get back to the office to take care of something before he flew with the president to Dallas. As predicted, Clay Gibson asked about the strange call on the restaurant's phone. Finch said it was his secretary, who for some reason couldn't get through to him on his cell. Sometimes the circuits just got overloaded.

He walked back to the White House alone. The man who had called him had been right. Stockholm Syndrome or not, Richard Finch felt more a part of the White House team than he had ever felt a part of anything in his life, and sometimes he went days without even thinking about how he got there. Then when he remembered he felt like a shit, like a...spy. Which was kind of funny when he thought about it. Because that was exactly what he was. A spy for his own government.

The CIA had recruited him midway through his last semester at Georgetown Law. His grades were good, but not good enough for any of the top-tier firms, not even the lower top tier. After all, half of the class had to be in the lower half of the class, right? And once you were below that line of demarcation, it really didn't matter how high up in the lower half you were.

So he had said yes to his Agency handler, and soon after he landed a good job at a very respectable firm, one that rarely hired new associates. He had no idea why the CIA wanted him to work there, and they never asked him for inside information concerning the firm. So he worked hard and did his job. His hundred thousand dollars in student loans disappeared, and every month he got a nice check from his financial advisor, even though he had no investments.

Then a young senator from Chicago named Noah Omar decided to run for president. The law firm Finch worked for was selected as the campaign's chief counsel, and Finch was assigned to the campaign as the firm's point man. He got close to the candidate. Every once in a while his Agency handler asked him to send some campaign documents over. Finch did.

When Noah Omar won the election, Finch went with him to the White House, not as a lawyer on loan from his respectable law firm, but as an administration staffer. No one at the firm seemed surprised to see him go.

For the last five years, Finch had climbed the White House hierarchy, starting as an assistant to the deputy communications director, then moving through two more posts before being promoted to his current position as deputy White House chief of staff; and during all that time, he had funneled a steady stream of classified White House information-from copies of internal documents, to minutes of private presidential meetings, to reports on informal conversations he had with the president and other senior members-to his CIA handler, Allan Chessman, who, like Finch, had climbed the ladder at his own organization and was now deputy director of the Agency's National Clandestine Service.

Secretly, Finch hated Chessman, hated him for the power the man had over him, but there was no question he would do whatever Chessman wanted him to do. Because as Chessman had told him several times, no matter what happened to the president, Finch would leave the administration with a bright future. Unless for some reason, at a crucial moment, perhaps because of some misguided sense of loyalty to the man he had served for five years, Finch did not do everything that was expected of him; then he could be certain that his position as a mole inside the White House would be revealed, but instead of spying for another entity of the US government, the record would be tweaked just enough to make it appear that Finch, although perhaps the victim of a false-flag recruitment, had in fact being spying for a hostile foreign government, the Russians or the Chinese, and he would spend the rest of his life in Colorado's ADX Florence federal supermax prison.

Several sheriff's patrol cars came roaring down the horseshoe-shaped driveway, their tires spinning and sliding in the gravel and kicking up a cloud of dust. Max Garcia tossed his pistol into the burning wreck of the Chevrolet Suburban and raised his hands above his head. He turned to Blackstone, whose face was registering mostly shock as he stared at his dead operator. The one with the burns was still screaming.

"I suggest you lose the pistol unless you want these rednecks to shoot you," Garcia said.

As the sheriff's cars skidded to a stop, Blackstone flung his Beretta into the flames and raised his hands.

"If it makes you feel any better," Garcia said. "I made the same mistake you did."

Blackstone turned to look at him. "What mistake was that?"

"I underestimated him."

***

Jake stared at Favreau as the motorhome barreled down the highway. In the cab, Gordon McCay wrestled with the steering wheel to keep the ungainly aluminum box between the ditches. The cabin door banged open and closed with every shift of the Winnebago's center of gravity.

"I'm not going to arrest you," Jake told the Frenchman. "I'm going to have you committed."

"Who's going to kill the president?" Stacy asked.