Max Collins - Executive Order

Nicky pressed on: “Who better to kill the President and Vice President and every cabinet member above me in the line of succession? Who better than the very people assigned to guard them?”

“Some tainted people might be in the Secret Service,” Reeder admitted, “but surely not in the presidential detail. That’s the elite of the elite — the men and women willing to put their lives on the line. To take a bullet.”

“Like you did. For a president you disliked.”

“Hated!”

Nicky shook a forefinger at him. “And if you shared the Alliance’s beliefs, who would have been better placed than you to dispatch a bullet rather than take one? Someone like that, maybe several, who knows how many, are ‘guarding’ President Harrison right now.”

“Come forward with what you know about the Alliance,” Reeder said. “Right now! We’ll arrange for every media outlet to carry it, and that would nip in the bud any goddamn Camp David coup.”

“No,” Nicky said.

“... No?”

“We’re talking about my father, and my suspicions. I know things, but I don’t know of any plan to do a damn thing at Camp David or anywhere else.”

“Plausible deniability,” Reeder said.

“It goes beyond that, because all I have are those suspicions. Guesses. And a man can’t testify to those, not that I would. All I can do is point you in the right direction and hope to hell I’m either wrong... or that you can stop this insanity. By the way, I don’t even want to be president, puppet or otherwise.”

The two men were staring at each other when Parker stepped in from outside.

“That’s ten minutes,” the agent said. “Time to go, Peep.”

“Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people.”

Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States of America. Served 1901–1909.

By the time Reeder finally emerged from the Cape Cod, Patti Rogers — tucked behind the beech, Glock in hand — had just endured the longest fifteen minutes of her life...

... Reeder talking to his old Secret Service buddy before giving up his weapons and cell and going inside, the SS agent smoking on the little landing until going in himself, and finally Reeder coming out with Parker, shaking the man’s hand, retrieving guns, baton, and phone, then trotting across the yard to her while Parker watched. If Reeder’s old pal drew his sidearm with the apparent intention of shooting, Rogers would have shot the man, federal agent or not. Maybe the guy would be wearing a vest. But maybe not.

Then they were moving through the connecting backyards again, hugging the trees, and they didn’t talk until they were in the Buick with her back behind the wheel.

“Well?” she asked.

“First, drive. Parker’s giving us an hour and we better start using it.”

She started the car. “Anywhere special?”

“Not here.”

They were out of Blount’s immediate neighborhood before Reeder said, “Gaithersburg. Know where it is?”

“Yes,” she said.

That was a suburb of about sixty thousand, northwest of DC.

“What’s in Gaithersburg?” she asked.

“Nothing, I hope. No Alliance troops or FBI, either.”

“Why Gaithersburg of all places?”

“Why not? Avoid the Capital Beltway. Fisk’ll be having traffic-cams scanned.”

“You think?”

“Sorry.”

As she got her bearings and headed northwest, he filled her in on his conversation with the young Secretary of Agriculture.

“Well,” she said, “suspicions confirmed, but how much good does it do us otherwise, if Nicky won’t come forward?”

“It’s his father,” Reeder said. “Took balls to go as far as he did.”

She couldn’t argue with that.

He set his cell to speaker, then placed a call that was answered on the third ring.

After hearing Hardesy’s “Yeah,” Reeder asked him, “Where are you two?”

“Reston, at my college roommate’s place. He’s out of town and that’s fine with me.”

So they were safe in Virginia. There were worse places to be.

“Can you get your hands on some firepower?”

“... Could be I can call in a favor. What might we need?”

“Anything with some punch that isn’t a handgun but can be used on the move. Controllable. Nothing producing random gunfire, like a machine gun.”

A long pause, then: “See what I can do. What then?”

“There’s an Applebee’s on Frederick Road in Gaithersburg.”

“We’ll find it. I assume we leave the weaponry in the car.”

That had some sarcasm in it, but Reeder’s response did not: “Not your handguns. How long you need?”

“Travel time, getting to my source... let’s say three hours.”

“Try to shorten it,” Reeder said.

“Give it a try,” Hardesy said, and they clicked off.

Eyebrows up, Rogers asked, “Firepower? No machine guns?”

“You don’t want the President taken down by friendly fire, do you?”

She stared at him so long and so hard he had to tell her to get her eyes back on the road.

“Please tell me,” she said, “that you’re not talking about storming Camp David.”

“I’m open to other suggestions.”

“Good God, Joe! Isn’t that a little over the top?”

“So is Nicky Blount’s father leading a coup to overthrow the government and leave his bouncing baby boy as the only one standing. Nicky turns out to have more going for him than I would ever have guessed, but I still don’t want him to be the next president.”

She was shaking her head, the concept rattling around in her skull like something broken. “And we don’t trust the presidential protection detail why ?”

“It’s likely at least some of them are Alliance.”

He seemed so goddamn calm! But her heart was racing. She didn’t realize how heavy her foot was on the gas till he advised her to slow down and engage the cruise control, which she hadn’t because of the serpentine way she was traveling.

Finally she said, “Do I have to tell you that place is a military installation? A fortress not only protected by the Secret Service, but staffed with Navy and Marines? You know that, and yet you’re still contemplating, what, shooting our way in?”

“Someone has to protect the President. With the Secret Service infiltrated, who else is there but us?”

She drove numbly for a minute or maybe an hour.

Finally he said, “There’s one other way. We can drive up to the checkpoint and I can ask to be put through to Harrison. But how likely is that request to go directly through? Someone on the inside who’s compromised would have us taken care of. And anyway, we’re basically the FBI’s entire Most Wanted List right now.”

“Jesus. If there were only some way to warn the President.”

Reeder was so quiet and blank, she could read him.

“Joe?”

“... I have a direct line to the President right now. A cell phone he gave me.”

“What?”

“But alerting him at this point doesn’t make sense, not until we have an actual plan of action. Telling him that people around him aren’t to be trusted could backfire. It’s not like he’s trained in kinesics.”

She gaped at him. “You have a phone that’s in the President’s pocket? And we’re not using it?”

“Not yet. The less time he has to think about it, the less chance he’ll give himself away.”

“I don’t know, Joe...”

“This has to be my call.”

She smirked at him without humor. “I remember. It’s not a democracy.”

“Not even close.”