It was the neckties that got to him.
Small price to pay for proximity to the throne, but still, Doug Wetzel would have given his left nut to wear baggy jeans and a ratty Guster T-shirt from his college days.
Driving home from 1600 Penn, he loosened the knot at his throat and nudged the air-conditioning up another notch. This afternoon’s strategic planning meeting had been unending, the president demanding that the army hold joint military exercises with India near the Chinese border as a response to Sino-Pakistan drills planned for next week. The Joint Chiefs were split and the debate at a low boil, but the president was decisive as always, issuing directives without breaking a sweat or elevating his voice.
When the president spoke, five hundred combined years of experience shut up, leaned in, and took orders.
Police cordons were still in effect, shutting down several blocks east of 14th, so Wetzel shot north up Connecticut and then cut off onto side streets to dodge traffic.
D.C. at night had a particular savage gleam, red taillights piercing through gloom, dingy alleys bookending martini-lounge hustle-bustle. And yet another realm hovered above in an angelic glow, the eye called to uplit white marble monuments, to rounded domes and thrusting peaks, to glowing penthouses floating above streets as dark as puddles. Everything that rose seemed to be mirrored in descent, the reflecting pool and the cool Potomac like portals to an underworld.
Wetzel had read somewhere that Hollywood directors liked to hose down streets to make the asphalt sparkle on film. Washington was like that naturally, a black-ice kind of town—lose focus and you’d slip and break your neck.
Earlier Naomi Templeton had briefed him on the day’s events. She’d hinted around a dead drop at his building, but he didn’t take the bait. He’d endured a stream of direct questions from her as well before shutting her down to get back to the business of governing.
He wasn’t going home now, that much was certain, not after Orphan X had shown up in his lobby. He’d texted Orphan A from the disposable phone, requesting a meet in a dive bar in Tenleytown, a safe distance from the heated center of the city. After he powwowed with Orphan A, he’d return to the White House and sleep soundly in a guest room inside the fortress.
He passed an abandoned auto shop now, its windows boarded up. On the plywood someone had spray-painted I VOTED FOR BENNETT, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY DEMAGOGUE!
At a red light, Wetzel dialed the disposable phone for the third time in the past ten minutes. This time it rang.
A gruff voice answered, “A.”
“Did you get my text? Where the fuck have you been?”
Orphan A said, “Preparing.”
“We’ve had an incident,” Wetzel told him.
“I saw the news.”
“You think he followed you to my place? You think he’s onto you?”
“‘Onto me’ doesn’t happen. But I’m getting onto him. I called your hook at the DoD, had him run some scenarios for me. That correlative software shit you types are always on about.”
The light changed, and Wetzel accelerated off the line. “Please elaborate.”
“You came to me because I think like him,” Orphan A said. “So. If it was me, I’d set up safely outside the White House surveillance apparatus but close enough to be within striking distance. I’m thinking three to ten klicks out. Short-term condo rental or hotel, Metro and freeway access within a block. If a condo, it’ll have an attached parking garage. If a hotel, he checked in with a rental car. I told your man to put the data in the genie lamp and tell me what comes out.”
“Fine. In the meantime I need to see you.”
“Boy, aren’t you paying attention? You’re not safe to be in the world.”
Wetzel tried to swallow, but his throat gave only a dry click. He eyed the rearview, taking in the empty streets. Steam floated up from a sewer grate, wisps unfurling like tentacles. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If I was Orphan X, I wouldn’t be watching the president. I’d be watching you .”
Sweat ran down the side of Wetzel’s neck. He loosened his tie a bit more, unbuttoned his shirt’s top button.
He wasn’t sure what happened next, but he heard a screech of tires—his own—and his face smacked the top of the steering wheel. He pushed himself off, feeling a warm trickle ford his upper lip. He smelled iron and burned brake pads.
The phone had wound up somewhere on the dashboard. His briefcase had flown from the passenger seat and landed on the floor mat.
He gave the brake an exploratory tap, but it was still depressed.
Then his windshield wipers went on, scraping dryly across the glass.
He reached for the door, but it stayed locked.
At once the Tesla reversed, so fast that he had to brace against the steering wheel with his forearms, eliciting a baleful honk.
The Tesla spun around, smacking his head against the driver’s-side window, the wheel spinning of its own accord. Driving itself, the car eased through a laid-open chain-link gate and coasted into the shadows in the far reaches of the dilapidated auto shop.
It stopped, shifting itself into park.
Dots clouding his vision, Wetzel white-knuckled the steering wheel, his hands quivering. He tried to shift gears, but the car wouldn’t obey.
His thoughts roiled, a paranoid flurry. Someone had hacked his car?
The familiar hum made him start, a waft of night-cool breeze blowing across his face. His window had rolled down. He turned to look out and spotted a dark figure in the shadows no more than five feet away, sitting on the side steps that led to the old auto shop’s office. The man was lit faintly by the glow of a laptop resting on the uneven wooden plank beside him. He removed his hands from the keys as if relinquishing a joystick.
The sweat seemed to freeze on Wetzel’s face.
The figure rose.
Wetzel scrunched his eyes shut, a long-buried childish impulse. He heard the crunch of a footstep and then another.
He opened his eyes. The man was standing right there, the top of the window frame cutting him off above the chin.
A hand came at Wetzel’s face, grabbed the lanyard around his neck, and tore the flash drive free. Next the disposable phone was plucked from the dashboard, the call presumably still active.
Wetzel watched the phone rise out of sight to the man’s face.
The voice carried back to him. “Orphan A,” it said. “Wetzel first. Then everyone else who’s helping you. Then you. Then him .”
Wetzel strangled a sob in his throat.
He heard the reply, tinny through the disposable phone. “Not if I kill you first.”
The phone dropped to the ground. A heel crushed it into the asphalt.
The man leaned down, at last bringing his face into view.
“Hello, Doug,” Orphan X said. “You and I need to have a talk.”