Radclyffe - Price of Honor

“All right,” Tom said, pulling everyone’s attention to him. “Here’s the itinerary to date.”

A few dry chuckles sounded through the room. Everyone knew they’d be making adjustments on the fly once the trip was under way. Suboptimal but normal for this president. Tom laid out the stops, venues, and timetables planned for the eight-day, two-thousand-mile trip.

“The route follows Amtrak’s Southwest Chief commercial line from Chicago to Flagstaff. The tracks will be cleared for us forty-eight hours in advance of our next stop.” He put up a map and clicked on the red flags marking cities along the route and the distances from the train stations. “Twelve planned stops along the way in Illinois, Iowa, Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, and New Mexico.”

Tom handed the remote to Evyn Daniels. “Here’s where we stand with the advance.”

Evyn brought up a schematic of a train on the screen. “This is Thunderbolt. Twenty-five cars.”

“Jesus,” one of the agents muttered. “That’s a long parade.”

No one commented on the obvious. It was a very big, slow-moving target.

“We couldn’t get it down any smaller.”

“Maybe we could cut out the press cars,” another agent suggested with a hopeful note.

“Ah,” Evyn said lightly, “for this trip the president might consider them more important than us.”

“His campaign manager sure will,” someone shot back.

“Okay,” Evyn said, serious again, “here’s the present order of the cars.”

She reviewed the lineup of the cars, from the president’s working and private cars down through the USSS sleeping cars, press cars, dining, staff, cook cars, and special divisions: canine / EDU; CAT / ERT counterattack teams; fire rescue; communications; transport. She flicked the laser pointer. “Our command car is here and the medical car here.”

Wes Masters, the first doctor and head of the White House Medical Unit, frowned. “That’s too far from the president’s cars. And we need our base car moved too. Can you get us closer?”

Evyn glanced at Tom, who nodded. “Talk to me after—we’ll see what we can arrange.”

Wes nodded at her partner. “Good enough.”

“As noted,” Evyn said, “Eagle’s itinerary is not firm. Egret has appearances at every stop too. Simultaneous event coverage. Per usual, count on going OTR at any time.”

The lead agent handling vehicle movement and driver assignments said, “We’ll need to factor in time to refuel the backup limo and SUVs while the Beast is deployed on these off-the-record trips.”

“You’ll be refueling while the train is stationary. We won’t be carrying much in the way of fuel.”

“We’ll have to pull off-shift agents for that,” he grumbled.

“Can’t be helped.”

Cam listened as Evyn worked through the rest of the advance—where safe houses were located along the train route, which hospitals would be used for emergency evacuation, where the local law enforcement and field office agents would meet the motorcades when the president left the train for his scheduled appearances, the motorcades’ primary and secondary routes. Out of habit, Cam searched for holes in the planning, not really expecting to find any. She didn’t. Evyn Daniels was a superior agent and destined to be a boss before long.

“Anything else?” Evyn said.

Phil Virtucci from the canine division said, “Every time Eagle leaves Thunderbolt, we’ll have multiple primary sites to surveil—Thunderbolt, the motorcade, his destination. Lot of ground for the dogs to cover in a short amount of time.”

“One team will stay with the train and the other accompany POTUS in the motorcade,” Evyn said. “Locals will be working the public sites.”

Virtucci grunted. Canine teams were only as good as their handlers, and while most local teams were excellent, many communities were just phasing in the new divisions.

Stark said, “What about Egret’s appearances? We’ll need dogs then too.”

Evyn nodded. “We’ll be using locals for that too.”

Paula frowned but nodded. “All right.”

“Aerial surveillance?” someone asked.

The aerial security boss outlined timing and extent of the no-fly zones along Thunderbolt’s route and over the presidential appearance locations, the satellite image coverage, and ground-to-air defenses.

“We’ll also be employing local evac birds in case of a medical emergency,” Wes Masters said. “We can handle anything in the medical car until evac arrives. A full team will travel with both Eagle and Egret.”

Turner reviewed the shift assignments again, advising the teams they’d be sharing sleeping quarters when off-shift. That brought a few grumbles from the agents, who preferred assigned sleeping quarters.

“Can’t be helped, if we want to keep this train at some reasonable length,” Turner said, sympathetic but unbending. “Any other questions?”

No one had any. The trip was an unusual one. Some of the agents had never been detailed to a train trip before, but in the end, the various moving parts were all the same. The difficulty with evac routes was a challenge, but they’d have local agencies and their own agents from regional field offices backing them up along the way for the entire trip.

As the agents began to move away from the table, Stark turned to Cam. “His itinerary is a matter of public record. There’s no way to vary the route once we get started.”

“That’s the problem with rail travel,” Cam agreed. “You’ve got one route and not much you can do about it. But should we run into any difficulty, we’ll evac by motorcade or air, so we’ve got alternative routes that won’t be public knowledge.”

Stark grimaced. “Still leaves us out in the open in the middle of nowhere. Some stretches there’s nothing around for a couple hundred miles.”

“That’s why we tried to talk him out of the train idea. But…” Cam shrugged.

“Yeah.” Stark straightened. “Well. That’s what we get paid for.”

Cam rose and they walked out into the hall together. “How’s Renée?”

“She likes the counterterrorism unit,” Stark said of her FBI agent partner. “Anything that keeps her in the action keeps her happy.”

“I get that,” Cam muttered.

“Anything new on the other investigation?” Stark asked quietly.

Stark was one of the few people Cam trusted completely, and because she was responsible for Blair’s safety and Blair was a logical secondary target, Stark was read in on everything that posed a security risk to the president. “Making a little progress, but nothing substantial yet.”

Stark looked around to be sure no one was nearby. “Do you have the same feeling I do? That something else is coming?”

“Yes,” Cam said quietly. Stark had good instincts and she wasn’t surprised Stark felt it too. The gnawing unease that portended trouble.

“And I guess there’s no way Egret would stay—”

“Not a one,” Cam said.

“Okay then,” Stark said firmly. “Game on.”

Cam nodded. “Game on.”

*

Dusty waited with the other agent handlers for the boss to show up and begin their briefing. Atlas was in the kennel. She’d pick him up and take him home after dinner. Dinner with Vivian Elliott. Part of her didn’t really believe any of it was real. She had to stop herself from checking her phone to see if Viv’s number was still there. She glanced at her watch instead. Getting late. Maybe she should call Viv and tell her things were running long. Maybe Vivian would change her mind. Maybe she’d decide she’d gotten all the information she needed for her article. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

“Hey, Nash, how did the interview go today?” Willy Chu, a small, energetic agent with a crop of black hair perpetually in his eyes, dropped into a chair beside her.