The ride up the center of the marble obelisk took a full sixty seconds. The transparent elevator allowed for a mine-shaft effect, burrowing past carved blocks donated by various states and nations.
It was early on a Tuesday, so the number of tourists was thin. Evan stood in the back of the lift. He wore a roomy button-up shirt, nylon cargo pants, and a floppy sunhat. The Steiner binoculars, a favorite of bird-watchers and sightseers, dangled around his neck. He wore a fucking fanny pack, which he’d stuffed with sunscreen and maps so the security guards at the base would have something to paw through.
The doors parted on the Washington Monument’s observation deck five hundred feet above the ground, and he shuffled out after the others into the narrow hall encircling the elevator shaft. Observation windows, two per cardinal direction, gave postcard views of the iconic scenery.
Across the National Mall, the morning sun bronzed the dome of the Capitol Building. Evan circled to the north window, which provided a crystal-clear vantage onto the White House, the Ellipse, and, just beyond, the streamer of 16th Street rising up, up, and away.
He posted up with his binoculars and waited. The president was scheduled to meet the Israeli prime minister at the National Gallery of Art for the ribbon-cutting of an exhibit featuring Nazi-looted art. Evan was tempted to attend, but at this stage of his operational planning he had to keep his distance. After yesterday’s events the Secret Service would be deploying even more electronic surveillance to feed in real time to the Joint Operations Center on the ninth floor of HQ, where facial-recognition software would be applied.
Given that, strolling in wearing Groucho Marx glasses seemed ill-advised.
Evan faded back to let a few other tourists take a turn with their faces to the window. But even from the rear, he kept his binoculars raised.
Sure enough, at ten past the hour he saw movement across the White House’s South Lawn. A number of motorcycle units peeled out first, fanning wide and posting themselves at intersections, a heightened security measure. Evan watched them position themselves, the observation deck giving him an ideal perspective to take in the grid of the city.
Finally the motorcade pulled into view, the three limos in a row crawling like beetles.
This time the convoy took a new route, cupping the edge of the White House lawn before cutting west to 17th Street NW.
A roundabout way to get to the Smithsonian. The Service was varying routine now, striving for unpredictability.
That was good.
Orphan X’s message had been received loud and clear.
Evan adjusted the focus of his tactical binoculars, watching the tires of the three limousines, waiting for the telltale smooth rotation.
There it was.
President Bennett was in the rear limo.
The people in front of Evan rambled off, and he pressed forward, alone for the moment. As he leaned against the frame with an elbow and zoomed in on Cadillac One, he heard a distinctive ringtone sound from one of his pockets.
With its hardened rubber case and Gorilla glass, the RoamZone was a durable piece of gear. It was also impossible to trace. Each incoming or outgoing call was broken into digital packets and shot through the Internet, pinging through a network of encrypted virtual private network tunnels around the world before establishing the connection. Evan kept a filter on as well to screen out background noise that might provide clues to his location.
The phone number—1-855-2-NOWHERE—was established for the pro bono clients he helped as the Nowhere Man, people in desperate need, grasping for a last lifeline before they went under for good.
Evan always answered the phone the same way: Do you need my help?
But as he eyed the caller ID screen now, he felt his pulse quicken in the side of his neck.
It was blank.
A few others—a very few—also had this phone number.
He thumbed the icon to answer, held the RoamZone to his face, said nothing.
A voice came through. “Orphan X.”
Evan said, “Mr. President.”
“I received the message you left for me in Apartment 705. Given that you announced your intentions rather than simply trying to take a shot, I assumed you wanted to establish contact with me.”
Evan said, “Affirmative.”
“You want to negotiate.”
Evan said, “Affirmative.”
He tracked the convoy as it cut across Constitution Avenue NW, passing horizontally before him.
The measurement stadia of the binoculars marked off the precise distance, .5-mil hash marks graduating to .1-mil hash marks toward the edges. Evan didn’t need to measure now. But later, when he had to account for windage, minutes of angle, and the exterior trajectory of the projectile, it would become necessary.
“I can give you an unconditional presidential pardon,” Bennett said. “For this current … situation. And for everything you’ve done before. I know you’re highly trained. If you have a continuing interest in making use of that training, I could offer you a position not unlike the one you used to occupy. Except at the head of the table this time. Or you could walk away with full immunity and start a real life. An ordinary life.”
Evan thought of Mia, the single mother who lived downstairs from him back in Los Angeles. The scent of jasmine on her skin and how the light caught in her curly hair. The loving disarray of the condo she shared with her nine-year-old son.
As he imagined everything that Bennett was ostensibly offering, a smirk touched his lips. Isn’t it pretty to think so?
Bennett let the silence speak for a moment, and then he said, “But permit me to be clear: This is your last chance and final offer.”
“Oh,” Evan said. “You misunderstood me. I established contact to give you a final offer.”
A cough of laugh, transmitted from blocks away and routed through four continents, reached Evan on a slight delay.
“Yeah?” Bennett said. “What’s that?”
“Step away now, resign the office, and I won’t kill you.”
This time there was no laugh.
“You’re joking, right?” Bennett said. “Do you have any idea of the power I’ve got at my disposal?”
“I do,” Evan said. “You’ve used it to kill so many of us already. And you’re going after the rest. To make it as though we never existed.”
Bennett had been clear: He wanted them all dead. Former operators like Evan who had left the Program—who’d retired or fled or simply been used up and spit out. Who were overcome with PTSD and regret, pain and longing. They had known nothing but the inside of a foster home and the Program, but they’d gotten free somehow and fought their way back to a normal life. They were now wives or fathers or lost souls putting themselves together in a homeless shelter, a fragment at a time. As soon as Bennett finished with Evan, he’d resume hunting them.
The convoy detoured once again, heading north on 14th Street before zigzagging back toward the Mall—serpentine progress to keep out of the executioner’s scope.
“Let’s say this fanciful theory of yours is correct,” Bennett said. “How about what you’ve done? Your life’s work? Is that so different?”
It wasn’t. And it was. Either way it was not a conversation Evan was interested in having with Bennett.
“The ends justify the means,” Bennett said. “That’s how you were trained, why you exist as what you are. If you’re really good at it, do you know where you wind up?” The slightest crackle signaled his lips parting in a smile. “The Oval Office.”
A family came up to claim a spot at the window, and Evan withdrew to the rear wall. Still he tracked the president’s limo, threading its way to its destination.
“When it happens,” Evan said, “it’ll be over before you have any idea it’s started. This is your last chance. If I hang up this phone, you will die.”
Bennett’s laugh sounded like the jangle of silver.
Evan’s hand tightened around the Steiner binoculars. Cadillac One hooked around 4th, coasted up Madison Drive to the National Gallery. Agents lined the steps from the limo to the museum entrance.
Evan said, “I’ve killed generals. I’ve killed foreign ministers. I’ve killed captains of industry.”
The voice came back, calm as ever. “But you’ve never killed the president of the United States.”
For a split second, Evan saw the man himself bob into view, just the back of his head and the top of a bespoke suit jacket framing his shoulders. One arm was raised, a phone pressed to his ear.
Evan said, “Not yet,” and he severed the connection.