Andrew Britton - The American

“I don’t know. She’s pretty quick. It depends on how lucky she is.”

“Luck is part of it,” Harper conceded. Then, after a few seconds: “Go to the marina. I’ll call ahead for you. Would you know him if you saw him?”

“Maybe… Yeah, I’d know him,” Ryan decided. He hesitated: “I think I’d know him.”

“He’ll know you,” Harper said. “So watch yourself.”

“I always do.”

The room was just about what he’d expected: comfortable, but not lavish, with a few tastefully framed prints on the walls. There was the obligatory television in a tall wooden credenza, twin beds, and a nightstand, along with a small desk that sat adjacent to the door. Upon entering the room nearly twelve hours earlier, he had moved straight to the window to check his line of sight. It was perfect. The van was about 200 meters away, facing toward him, and approximately 75 meters away from the intersection of 13th and Pennsylvania Avenue.

The worst moment had come the night before; he had been forced to circle the block three times before finding a suitable location. Fortunately, he didn’t think anyone had noticed. A considerable amount of pedestrian traffic had cropped up since daybreak, but not one of the passing people seemed too intently focused on the large commercial van that was parked at the curb. Since 12th Street had been closed to through traffic less than a half hour after his arrival, there were very few moving cars on this adjacent street, which made keeping an eye on the van easier than it otherwise might have been.

He had needed to rearrange a few things inside the room. The DO NOT DISTURB sign was hanging on the doorknob in the hall, a minor detail, but an important one. He had pulled the armchair out of the corner and maneuvered it in between the beds. Then he had grabbed the credenza from the narrow end and dragged it over to the space vacated by the armchair, turning it so it was at a right angle to the big picture window. The wooden chair had been taken out from underneath the desk, and placed next to the window in front of the credenza.

These minor efforts meant that he could watch the television and the vehicle at the same time. Vanderveen knew that MSNBC was scheduled to carry the president’s address live from the waterfront. With any luck, he would be able to verify the president’s approximate time of departure; he already knew from Shakib’s document that Brenneman was scheduled to return to the White House at 11:40 AM, but it didn’t hurt to double-check.

FOX News was already showing, on what appeared to be a continuous loop, coverage of the aftermath in Virginia. They had little footage and less information, settling instead on wild conjecture and a long shot of the smoking ruins provided by a low-flying helicopter with a shaky pilot at the stick.

Vanderveen did not know how the FBI had tracked him to that location, but he was not overly concerned. He was only hours away from achieving his goal, and there was no way they could stop him in time. Besides, he was pleased by the efficacy of his improvised device. If the anchor’s estimates were correct, he had managed to kill eight members of the Bureau’s vaunted Hostage Rescue Team. Hearing about it secondhand was somewhat less satisfying than watching the realtor bleed to death, but satisfying nonetheless.

He felt good, despite the fact that he was nearing the end of a long wait. The ringer on the cell phone was on, but the covered switch in the cab was in the OFF position, so there was no power going to the exposed circuitry. The phone he would use to trigger the device rested by his side, but if he was to call now, nothing would happen. He glanced at his watch, a cheap Timex, perfectly suited to his current persona. The digital display read 7:25 AM. At about eleven, he would go down to the van, ostensibly to pick up the notebook he’d deliberately placed on the passenger seat. With any luck, the president and a healthy number of his aides would be dead less than an hour from the time he flipped the switch.

He had done all he could. He leaned back in the chair and went back to watching the street below his window.

WASHINGTON, D.C.,ASHLAND

Driving east on Interstate 66, it didn’t take Kealey long to work his way into the city and toward the waterfront. In fact, the security check he endured on arrival took nearly half as long as the trip had, but it was still less than forty-five minutes after leaving Tyson’s Corner that he was granted access to the Gangplank Marina. From there, it took him another five minutes to locate the person he was looking for.

Ryan felt more than a little foolish as he chased Jodie Rivers through the throngs of reporters positioned behind the metal crowd-control barriers. As they moved, they were jostled by the photographers and cameramen who were jockeying to get a good shot of the president’s motorcade, which was due to arrive any minute. He needed to talk to her, but the woman seemed to be in perpetual motion.

He almost slammed into her when she stopped abruptly at the press gate. There were two men in dark suits and sunglasses checking IDs and the passes that had been specifically designed for the event and distributed the day before by the White House press office. Rivers turned her attention to the covering agent, leaving the other to continue his work.

“Did you get the photographs?” The man nodded. “Let me see them.”

The man, who was at least 7 inches taller than Rivers and twice as heavy, immediately reached inside his suit jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper.

“You guys have been keeping an eye out?” she asked.

“Yes ma’am. Everybody’s checked out on the list.”

Ryan thought the deference showed by the burly agent to the diminutive Jodie Rivers was vaguely amusing, but kept the thought to himself.

The advance team leader turned to show him the sheet. It contained a blown-up shot of Vanderveen’s driver’s license in the name of Timothy Nichols, as well as several other images, showing him with glasses, long hair, dark hair, and a beard, among other things.

“These are enhanced photographs,” she needlessly explained. “We took the original and made some minor alterations. It’s not much, but it makes my people look a little bit harder, helps to keep them on their toes.” Turning back to the agents: “Okay, good work, guys. Stay sharp.”

She handed the sheet back to the man and moved off with surprising speed, Ryan close on her tail. She suddenly seemed to remember that he was there, and turned her head to address him as they pushed through the crowd. “I already talked to Deputy Director Harper, Mr. Kealey, as well as Director Landrieu. You’re free to come and go in this area as you please… In fact, I’m happy to have you here. Every warm body helps. What do you need from me?”

He finally got an uninterrupted minute when they stopped to examine another checkpoint. “Actually, Agent Rivers, what I want to do is check the surrounding roads. You look like you have everything pretty much under control here, so I figure that the best place for me is where you’re short on manpower.”

“What are you looking for?”

“I don’t know. Something that catches my eye, I guess… I would just feel better if I was on the move.”

She was skeptical. “Sounds kind of pointless.”

“I know, but there’s not much else to do.”

That seemed to satisfy her. “So, again, what exactly do you need from me?”

He shrugged. “I’m carrying… Harper told you that?” She nodded, her eyes instinctively passing over his body. He was wearing a loose-fitting dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, untucked, over a pair of khakis. She didn’t see the pistol, but realized it was probably under the shirt at the small of his back. “I don’t want any problems from your people on the perimeter. Can you let them know that I’m coming?”