Max Collins - Executive Order

Then he told her that everybody but Ivanek and Nichols had checked in, and gave her the number of Miggie’s new phone.

In the parking garage, Rogers said, “I’m not worried about Ivanek — half the time he doesn’t answer when he knows it’s you.”

“No argument,” Reeder said. “But I’d feel better if we checked on Nichols.”

“No argument,” Rogers echoed.

Anne Nichols lived in a two-bedroom flat in a high-rise on Connecticut Avenue NW, a good neighborhood strewn with apartment houses, south of Melvin C. Hazen Park. The tan-brick building was on the corner, two burning-bush trees guarding either side of the front walk.

At the entrance, up a few steps, Reeder called Miggie and asked, “Any luck reaching Anne?”

“Nope.”

“Can you give me the security code to her building?”

“Give me a second.”

Keystrokes clicked through the phone, then Miggie gave Reeder the requested numbers.

“Thanks,” Reeder said. “You’ll hear from us soon.”

Reeder ended the call.

He and Rogers moved through the outer lobby, passing the wall of mailboxes and a potted plant that did not really bring the Great Outdoors inside.

Next to the security door, a keypad was waiting for Reeder to punch in the code. The door buzzed open.

The interior lobby, unpopulated at this hour, had a little more space than the outer one, accommodating two potted plants, a couple of overstuffed chairs, and one elevator.

Soon they were on Nichols’ floor, moving down the corridor, guns drawn. Reeder kept behind Rogers as she moved down the otherwise empty hall toward the last door on the right.

Not surprisingly, Nichols’ door was locked. Rogers knocked and got no response. She tried again — nothing. They traded a look, and Reeder whispered, “You do the honors,” and she nodded and withdrew a small pouch of lock picks from a pocket.

They were inside in well under a minute. The living room was dark, and Reeder hit the lights — the place was as stylish as Nichols herself, ultramodern, blacks and browns and whites. Nothing looked disturbed. They traded rooms and yells of “Clear!”

No Nichols.

No sign of her.

Reeder had fought the thought that they might find her dead in here, and that she wasn’t, well, that was a relief, at least.

Rogers just behind him, Reeder turned on the overhead light in the galley kitchen, and they both saw it at once — a sheet of copy-size paper on top of the stove.

One oversized computer-printed word, red ink — COLLATERAL.

Reeder shook his head. “Jesus.”

Rogers got her cell out, called Miggie, and reported what they’d found.

She told him, “Have Bohannon stop by Ivanek’s. If Trevor’s not home, have Jerry stake out the place.”

“You got it.”

“And pull Wade in. Give him the Batcave directions. We need reinforcements.”

“Sounding like it.”

“Meantime, while we’re headed back to you, round up the security video from Anne’s building. Can you do that?”

“I can do that,” Miggie said, and clicked off.

Reeder was leaning against a counter. He said to her, “Did you see one thing out of place? Any damn thing at all?”

“No.”

“Whoever took her got her by surprise. Got the drop on her.”

“Joe, they could have taken her any time after Hardesy delivered her that burner phone. No one’s heard from her since.”

He sighed deep. “Let’s hope Bohannon gets to Ivanek in time.”

He glanced at the one-word note, finding one small scrap of solace.

At least COLLATERALwasn’t followed by DAMAGE.

“How far you can go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without?”

Lawrence Morris sat at the long narrow table in the expansive private dining room of the Federalist Club on F Street. He had been here a few times, to deliver messages, but had never been admitted past the front vestibule. Tonight, he perched among the chosen, ready to deliver his report when the chairman called upon him.

The chamber, with its rich oak paneling and dark heavy furnishings, seemed a throwback to a day when industrialists openly ruled the nation from behind closed doors. The same was true for the formal table settings with their bone china, impossibly white dinnerware with intricate hand-painted cherry blossoms. Baccarat crystal water glasses, Reed & Barton sterling silverware, hand-embroidered table linen, the outlay fairly dazzled Morris. He knew, for example, that these napkins ran over $150 each, which meant that for tonight’s dinner with the six-body board, plus the chairman, plus Morris himself, brought the napkin cost alone to $1,200. Toss in the fine tablecloth, and linens, and it tallied more than the price of his first car. (Working as he did in the Government Accountability Office, knowing what things cost was Morris’s specialty.)

The male staff wore tuxedos, the females old-fashioned maid-uniform livery. Whenever staff entered the room, all conversation stopped, and — other than giving orders or responding to questions from waiters — the board members remained silent until they were alone again.

With dessert done, and coffee served, the liveried army retreated to the kitchen. The chairman waited a full minute, then tapped his knife against his water glass, just once.

Every eye went to Senator Wilson Blount, his sharp light blue eyes peering from above the low-riding tortoiseshell glasses, his silvery blond hair barbershop perfect despite the late hour. Even before that single tap of metal on glass, all here were already under his sway. The chairman of the American Patriots Alliance led the way of this joint effort to restore the United States from “ the sniveling weakling it had become, ” as Blount himself sometimes explained it, “ to its rightful place as the world’s preeminent superpower. ”

“We all know why we’re here, gentlemen,” Blount said in his lilting Tennessee accent.

The six board members nodded as one.

Their attire varied in style but not in monetary value — Morris was out of his depth as to the exact price of their wardrobe (tailored suits rarely came up at the GAO). And admittedly he felt somewhat self-conscious in his own Men’s Wearhouse number. But actually, Blount’s off-the-rack brown suit, which fit his contrived folksy persona, may have cost even less.

Morris recognized two of the board, powerful men with national reputations who occasionally made it into the media — a major hotelier from New Jersey, and a trucking magnate from Wisconsin. The other four Morris drew a blank on, though that was hardly surprising. Anonymity was something the Alliance board cultivated.

They were all low-profile players now, with the one exception — an individual who had unwisely sought the political limelight — conveniently deceased. When the man had refused to step back in line with the Alliance’s plans for the greater good, Senator Blount and the board simply distanced themselves from him. No further action was taken, since the natural course of events had resolved the situation.

The chairman swung his eyes toward Morris and so did everyone else. “Your report, sir, if you please.”

Morris cleared his throat and stood, nodding to one and all, allowing a tiny polite smile to flicker. Blount had personally given Morris his task and, other than the Senator himself, no one in the room would have the slightest idea of his identity, foot soldier that he was.

Which was fine with Morris. He believed in the American Patriots Alliance’s motto: Serve Country, Not Self. Someday that would be on currency. What he and all of the loyalists enacted was part of their overall mission to restore the greatness that President Harrison had so recklessly squandered.