Дэвид Балдаччи - King and Maxwell

Michelle looked down at her phone. No bars, obviously.

Sometimes her service was spotty on land, much less underwater. But–

She opened the center console. There was a phone there.

She pulled it out. “This will test the manufacturer’s warranty,” she said.

The president undid his bowtie and unbuttoned his top button. “Getting a little close in here,” he said.

“I’m sure they’re assembling a rescue team as we speak, sir. Divers will be on the scene soon.”

Michelle had rowed all over the Potomac. She knew the river well. She knew it was very shallow for the most part. The mean depth of the nearby Chesapeake Bay was only twenty-one feet. The spot they were in right now wasn’t much deeper than that. But sitting in what was basically a tank with twenty-plus feet of water over them, a rescue attempt would be complicated.

She glanced at the doors. Eight inches of armor plating. They were not easy to open, even with hydraulic assistance. With tons of water pushing on them, they would be impossible to open without heavy machinery. And that would take time. And water would come in. She could see a scenario where water would fill the compartment as the door was slowly being forced open. They might drown with their rescuers barely inches away.

They might get equipment like you would see at a car junkyard with a magnetized end in an attempt to lift the car out. But would it work underwater? And would it be strong enough to lift an already super-heavy car out of twenty-plus feet of water?

The best bet might be to tie a cable to the front of the Beast and pull it to shore with equipment that remained on land.

But again, all of that would take time.

Although this was her first time riding in it, she knew that the Beast had a portable oxygen supply that would be deployed automatically in the event the air supply in the cabin was compromised. So they should have some time. Now she was grateful for the vehicle’s seal. She looked around. No water was coming in that she could see.

She looked at the phone again. She would try to contact– She drew a breath. She was startled to see it catch in her throat.

She looked at Cole. He seemed to have turned a shade paler. Now she focused on what he had said before.

Getting a little close in here.

“Sir, can you move to the rear-facing seat?”

She helped him undo his shoulder harness and aided him to the other side of the cabin. She popped the backseat down and crawled into the armored trunk. She saw the fire extinguishers and the blood supply canister. She crawled through and unhooked the trunk’s floor covering. There were the oxygen tanks. She examined them closely. They seemed to be full, but they didn’t seem to be deployed. She rapped on one of the tanks with her knuckles and then bent her ear to the pipes running into the cabin. She could hear no air flowing through them.

Most people would be panicking by now. But like pilots trying to save a plunging plane, Michelle had been especially trained for crisis situations. She was too busy trying to save the president and herself to start screaming.

There was no manual wheel on top of the oxygen cans that would allow her to open them herself. She cursed this obvious flaw in the plan. She took a shallow breath and felt herself becoming a little light-headed. It was maddening to think that ample oxygen was right here but they couldn’t get to it.

She kicked it with her foot in the hope that it might start flowing, but when she put her ear to the lines she heard nothing. How could the fail-safe have failed? It was like all engines on a plane stopping at the same time. It just didn’t happen.

Then she remembered Edgar’s text. Get out of the limo. There’s a problem with it.

Somehow, against all odds, the mighty Beast had been sabotaged.

She climbed back into the rear compartment.

The president looked at her. “The oxygen isn’t working, is it?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Did the driver have a medical emergency?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“Then how did this happen? Were we hit by something?”

“I think the Beast was… somehow taken over by a third party.”

“Taken over? How?”

“I’m not sure.” Michelle looked back at the phone, then snatched it up and dialed the number, praying that the Beast’s world-class communications system would live up to its billing.

“Hello?” The voice sounded panicked, desperate.

“Sean, it’s me.”

“Michelle, talk to me. Give me the status.”

She did so. Two agents dead. President okay. Oxygen not working.

“Grant took control of the Beast,” Sean said. “And he ran it off the bridge.”

“Edgar sent me a text while I was talking to you that there was a problem with the limo. What’s going on up there?”

“I just got on the scene. It’s barricaded off, as you can imagine. I managed to get hold of Littlefield, and he got me through to the bridge. I’m looking down at you right now. Dive boats are on their way, but they have to come up from the Anacostia. It’ll take a little bit of time but they’re trying to get them faster. They’ve got a police boat on the surface getting a radar fix on your location. They have choppers coming in with grappling hooks too.”

“The Beast weighs eight tons.”

“I know. They’ll need military transport choppers and even then I doubt they could do it. You’ve got tons of water over you.”

“Then it’s the divers we have to wait on,” she said, the hope in her voice fading. “But if they can attach a cable to the bumper and then winch us out from the riverbank–”

“Michelle, listen to me very carefully. You don’t have time for them to get you out. You have to get yourself and the president out.”

“Great, Sean, just tell me how,” she snapped.

“It’s a long shot, but it’s the only chance you’ve got. How much air do you think you have left?”

She glanced over at the pale Cole. “If we breathe shallow, a few minutes, max.”

“Okay, here’s what you have to do.”

ALAN GRANT HAD WATCHED IN uneasy fascination as the presidential limo crashed through Memorial Bridge’s side and plunged into the murky waters of the Potomac. He had clicked some more keys on his laptop disabling the car’s oxygen supply. He didn’t bother with the communications capability of the vehicle. He wanted them to talk to each other. He wanted them to hear the desperation. It wouldn’t do any good. It was too late. It would take thirty minutes to get a rescue operation together. By then the president and anyone else in that limo would be long dead, poisoned by the carbon monoxide released from their own mouths, with no fresh air to replenish it.

He closed his laptop and watched for another few seconds as utter chaos continued on the bridge and riverbanks. The media trucks were already converging. The public had clustered near the scene as closely as they could. Police and news choppers were in the air, for all the good that would do them.

The mighty Beast, killed by its own weight, along with the president inside it.

The FBI, DHS, Secret Service, Metro Police, military, and probably half a dozen other agencies were scrambling around trying to do something. All they were doing was absolutely nothing.

If it weren’t so pathetic, it might even be funny, he thought.

Grant put his car in gear and slowly drove off. He had tried to call his men again at the cabin and still had gotten no answer. That was very troublesome. His phone rang. He answered it. It was Trevor Jenkins. He had posted him at the radio station.

“Have they gotten everything out yet?”

Jenkins’s voice was strained. “No. And I don’t think they will.”