Дэвид Балдаччи - Hell's Corner

His phone buzzed again. He ignored it again. If his boss saw him on the phone when he was supposed to have eyes on possible threats it would not be a pleasant day for him. In fact it would probably be his last day on protection detail.

He eyed the president as he took his seat in the front row. The Mexican president sat down on his left. There were two chairs in between the leaders. Alex watched as Carmen Escalante was escorted down the aisle, her new braces making virtually no noise when they plunked against the soft earth. Alice Gross, dressed all in black with a veil covering her face, walked behind Escalante. Gross’s four children were sitting in the row immediately behind the U.S. president.

The two presidents rose as Escalante and Gross came down the row. Each man spoke a few words of condolence to the women and then everyone took their seats.

Alex said a small curse as his phone buzzed yet again. He could tell by the tone that this time an email had been posted to his account. He looked around, spotting each member of the protection detail. They were just like him. Impassive features, shades, ear buds, rigid, hands in front, staring, sweeping, trying to ferret out even the possibility of a threat before it could turn into something else, like a bullet or a bomb.

His phone buzzed again. He cursed again, a bit more audibly. He looked around. He could manage it, if he took his time. He edged his hand in his pants pocket, slid the phone slowly upward until just the screen appeared. He thumbed his email icon.

“Great,” he muttered when he saw two new ones, delivered less than a minute apart. Then he saw whom the messages were from.

Oliver Stone.

He glanced up, to make sure no one was watching him. He looked down again, pushed a couple of buttons. He edged the phone out a little more. He was able to see the screen. The messages popped up. They were each the same. By the time he finished reading one of them the blood had drained from his face and he felt queasy. His fingers hit two keys, o and k. He hit the send key and let the phone fall back in his pocket.

He took a long breath as his gaze slid back to the president, the man he was sworn to protect. He had taken an oath, just like all Secret Service agents, that he would sacrifice his life for this man. A bead of sweat appeared on his forehead and slid down his face.

If his friend was wrong? If he acted and it turned out to be a mistake? His career was probably over. Not because Alex had tried to protect the president. But because he had acted on the intelligence provided by a now disgraced field agent.

Yet sometimes, Alex concluded, you just had to trust your friends. And he did trust Oliver Stone, like he did no one else.

He spoke into his radio, relaying word for word what he had just learned, leaving out only the source. Then he added the warning that Stone had provided in his text. “It’s probable that it will be a remote detonation. Any sudden moves on our part and the bomb goes off. We need a distraction or some cover to do this. Otherwise we have no chance to pull this off.”

His supervisor’s voice came through his ear bud. “Ford, are you damn sure about this?”

Alex’s gut clenched as he replied, “Even if I were half sure, we can’t take a risk, sir, can we?”

He heard the man let out a long, tortured breath. He was no doubt doing what Alex had just done, namely contemplate what this might do to his career if it turned out to be wrong.

“God help us all, Ford.”

“Yes sir.”

One minute later the plan was sent across the secure line to every agent. Alex checked his watch. Sixty seconds. He did his best to look calm and professional. Whoever was behind this could easily see where all the agents were. Any hint of something wrong and the bomb could go off.

Since this had all been at Alex’s initiation he had been given the honor of performing the ultimate task. He steeled himself. A routine protection detail had just turned into something else — something all agents had to prepare for and hoped with all their hearts they would never have to face.

Alex counted down the seconds, his gaze moving across the rows of guests, but always flitting back to the president. At the thirty-second mark in the one-minute countdown he started to move. He made his way down the side of the seating areas, as though he were simply doing a perimeter patrol. To his left a pair of agents walked down the other aisle. The plan had been put together on the fly, of course, and they all had to hope it was good enough. Alex eyed the large crypt immediately behind the temporary stage set up for the ceremony. He took another quick breath, trying to keep the adrenaline from ruining his motor skills.

Twenty-second mark.

Alex picked up his pace. He was nearing the row where the president was sitting, but his eyes weren’t on the man. They were on someone else.

At the ten-second mark it happened.

With a yell, a woman who had been walking down the aisle to her seat clutched her chest and fell to the ground. A crush of people immediately surrounded her. The spot of her collapse had been carefully planned. She was in fact a Secret Service agent held in reserve who had been hustled into duty just so she could collapse on cue right next to the president’s row.

The crowd of people gathered around her allowed the inner core protection detail to build a wall around the president, which was normal procedure and would arouse no suspicion. They could do nothing if the bomber decided to detonate at this point, but they didn’t have much choice. There was one gap in this wall and Alex ducked through it by prearrangement. Several agents glanced at him, their jaws locked in both concentration and concern, but Alex’s focus was only on his target.

Carmen Escalante looked frightened. That was a bit reassuring to Alex. If she wasn’t the bomber they might all survive. If she was the bomber she would surely detonate in the next two seconds.

Carmen screamed as he ripped the braces from her arms, but her screams were drowned by the agents yelling out instructions to each other while securing the president and the crowd reacting to this latest development.

Like a rugby player exiting a scrum, Alex emerged from the wall of agents, the braces partly hidden under his jacket. He walked at first, and then when fairly clear of the president’s immediate area he broke into a run. He bulled his way past people in his path, cleared the stage area, pulled the braces from underneath his jacket, wound up and threw them as hard as he could. His target was the area behind the large crypt, which was the best shield they had.

Without looking behind him he knew his colleagues were carrying the president as fast as possible in the opposite direction, running over people if necessary.

Unfortunately, the braces never reached the area behind the crypt. The concussive force of the bomb detonating in midair was enough to collapse the stage. Smoke, dirt and flames hurtled outward from the bomb seat, engulfing the first few rows of seats, which by that time had been emptied. People screamed and ran as debris rained down.

The president was already in his limo and the motorcade had screeched off down the asphalt road out of the cemetery.

Mission accomplished. That life had not ended. Not today. Not on their watch.

Due to Alex’s heroic actions, no one in the crowd was killed, though many were seriously injured.

The agents converged on the man lying near the destroyed stage. Their focus shifted to the bloodied head, the piece of granite sticking into it.

“Ambulance over here, now!” one of them screamed.

Alex Ford had done his duty.

He had saved the life of the president of the United States.

At perhaps the cost of his own.