Evan lay flat on his back, staring up at the unbroken D.C. sky. To his right, a barred metal overhang shaded the extended open terrace cupping the southern edge of the Newseum’s top floor. Six stories below that, eight lanes of Pennsylvania Avenue swept by, stretching less than a mile to Capitol Hill. Flanking the traffic, leafy crowns of trees swayed in a faint wind, green wads of cotton. This precise thoroughfare was the site of countless processions, parades, and—especially under Bennett’s administration—protests.
To Evan’s left, the backpack rested on the rooftop. Five hours earlier he’d skated up the sidewalk to the museum, slinging the Santa Cruz Slasher board through the backpack’s carry straps before entering so it would shield the bulky cargo. Disguised in a youthful hoodie and mirrored surfer shades, Evan sported a pair of high-top Vans to complete the look.
He remained still, only tilting his head slightly now and then to check the sight lines. Next door the Canadian embassy rose, the red maple leaf fluttering at high mast. Under the Vienna Convention, its premises were immune from requisition by the host country, which meant the Secret Service couldn’t station countersnipers on its roof. This offered Evan a key swath of hidden visibility.
Across the way in the opposite direction, the Federal Trade Commission Building forged into view like the prow of a steamship, its rounded face fanged with limestone colonnades. Peeking over its shoulder, the Washington Monument’s arrow tip caught the midday glare.
The motorcade’s route was not the straight line between the White House and Capitol Hill that lay before Evan. The twisting course they’d mapped out, designed to thwart malignant planning, lay well beyond his range. The two contingency routes carried the motorcade even farther afield from his location.
That was what Candy was for.
To herd the prey.
He rolled his head toward Pennsylvania Ave. A plastic grocery bag snared on a telephone line above the wide street wobbled in the faint breeze.
From far in the distance, the sound of chopping rotors reached him.
Candy’s voice came through his earpiece. “It’s go time.”
Staying flat on the roof, Evan reached beside him, unzipped the backpack, and removed the weapon.
* * *
President Bennett ducked into the first of the three limousines, the helicopters low enough to blow his hair out of place. His body man, a Secret Service agent, and Eva Wong were waiting in the rear compartment. He settled into the leather, noting the sparkle of sweat at Wong’s temple.
“Nervous?” he asked.
She shook her head too rapidly, a cunicular tic.
He laid a presidential hand on her knee. “It’ll be fine.”
The agent’s body was tense, his jacket flapped open to grant him quicker access to his SIG P229.
As the three matching limos eased out of the protective shield of trees to join the convoy, Bennett took a moment to smooth down his hair. He found himself breathing a bit more deeply than usual.
All at once the driver tapped the brakes, causing them to lurch in their seats.
Wong cried out, and the agent drew his weapon.
Bennett found himself gripping his seat belt. He gave a laugh that sounded a touch strained even to his own ears and let go. The dummy vehicles behind had halted as well.
A rap came on the agent’s window, followed by a fall of blond hair as Agent Templeton leaned over.
The window eased down.
“Come on,” she said to the agent, gesturing for him to climb out. “I’m taking the ride myself.”
The agent hesitated.
Naomi said, “Get out.”
He obeyed.
She took his place, sitting heavily, the plush leather seat giving out a sigh of air.
Bennett said, “You sure you want to join me here on the bull’s-eye?”
She kept her seat belt unbuckled, her eyes pegged to the window. “Like you said. If I can’t get you seventeen blocks safely, we both deserve to die.”
She rapped the divider, and they pulled out and away from the White House.
* * *
Courier bag slung over one shoulder, Candy McClure sliced through the pedestrians behind the blockades, unnoticed by the motorcade cops guarding the intersections. She held an iPhone live-streaming from a camera she’d hidden in Lafayette Square on the right foot of the statue of the French general himself. The tiny lens was angled on the northeast gate of the White House, through which Evan’s intel had indicated that the presidential motorcade would exit.
And indeed that’s where the three limousines appeared now, sandwiched in the middle of a host of G-rides, the footage crisp and seamless. The limos halted at the gate, waiting to insert themselves into the stream of the bigger convoy.
Holding the phone tightly, she watched the tires as Evan had instructed.
The back vehicles ground their wheels against the gravel before accelerating, but the lead limo turned them gradually as it eased forward.
The target had been identified.
Threading closer to the sawhorses, she smiled. Misreading her, one of the motorcade cops tipped his head to her, a tough-guy flirt. She let her smile widen.
Drifting past the curved marquee of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, she took a position on the corner that gave her a clear view up E Street. Swiping the live feed off her iPhone, she called up her telephone favorites.
In place of names, the entries were simply numbered 1 through 10 .
A hush of excitement rippled through the crowd, and she looked up as the presidential motorcade swung into view, a cavalry charge of G-rides and SUVs. She waited as the river of dark steel snaked through the turn, the presidential limos finally appearing. Each flew miniature flags on either side of the hood, Old Glory and the Presidential Standard. Three helos tracked the limos overhead, spread like hawks.
The front SUV of the motorcade had reached her corner now, whipping past the sawhorses, Cadillac One still a quarter mile back. Candy wet her lips, her focus narrowing to the vehicles blurring across the 9th Street intersection a full block away.
Her finger hovered over the first telephone number.
She waited.
Pairs of vehicles shot through the target intersection, as fast as shuffled cards—SUVs, G-rides, another set of SUVs.
She didn’t move, didn’t breathe.
And then Cadillac One’s grand grille appeared, the limo hurtling forward. The rear tires had just cleared the crosswalk when she thumbed the first telephone number.
The manhole cover in the intersection exploded, blasting twenty feet into the sky, severing Cadillac One from the vehicles behind it.
There was an instantaneous eruption of activity.
Four sets of G-rides screeched to the sides, forming a chevron, Cadillac One and its protective SUVs accelerating through them. The dummy limos split north and south, all three limos peeling apart, putting distance between themselves, their respective choppers shadowing them overhead. The motorcade cops scrambled, parting the crowd, shoving sawhorses aside to open up escape routes.
Candy focused only on Cadillac One.
As it raced toward her, readying to bank into a turn around her corner, she thumbed phone number 3 , blowing the manhole cover right behind her, forcing what remained of the convoy to veer back on course and continue along E Street. The Park Police helicopter tilted abruptly to dodge the flying disk, which missed the left skid by no more than a foot.
For good measure she tapped 4 and 5 next, blowing manhole covers to the north of the upcoming intersections so Cadillac One wouldn’t deviate from its course. She sprinted along the sidewalk, keeping it in sight.
Rather than drop low into the building corridor again, the helo swooped to a greater height, providing better overwatch. Sirens blared. Some of the agents lunged out of their vehicles, weapons drawn, shouting into radios—AOP! We have an AOP! Attack on Protectee in progress! Repeat: in progress.
Candy fixed her attention only on the presidential limo. As it neared 6th Street, a quick dial of phone number 8 blasted another cast-iron saucer skyward, steering the limo south. The EOD’s protective measure of spot-welding the manhole covers only added to the explosive force from the charges Candy had placed beneath them last night.
Courier bag bouncing on her hip, she ran after the convoy as it swept out of sight ahead. Onlookers screamed, stampeding up the sidewalks, providing her some cover. But she was running against the current, with purpose, which made her conspicuous. Sure enough the flirtatious motorcycle cop picked her up, his helmet swiveling in her direction.
He revved the bike and accelerated at her hard, steering between G-rides and up onto the sidewalk. She got off calls to 9 and 10 , initiating the Indiana Avenue charges on either side of 6th, funneling the convoy ahead so it would pass behind the Newseum. She couldn’t see the explosions—she hadn’t reached the corner yet—but she heard the eruptions even over the commotion of the crowd.
As Orphan X’s forward observer, she had to get to the intersection to establish visual on Cadillac One and call the shot. If she couldn’t, all their meticulously laid groundwork would be wasted.
The motorcycle cop closed in, a chirp of his brakes shifting his weight forward on the bike. As he drew alongside her, she flipped the phone into his front wheel.
It hit the spokes with a buzz-saw whine, disintegrating into a thousand glittering pieces. The hitch was enough to rip the cop up over the handlebars, an airborne somersault that landed him in a five-foot skid up the sidewalk, his bulletproof vest giving off a fingernails-on-chalkboard screech.
Her contribution to the accident went unnoticed, leaving her free to whip between fleeing onlookers and bolt around the turn in time to catch sight of Cadillac One speeding away. Edging out to the brink of the curb, she thrust her hand into the courier bag, gripped the speed gun, and aimed its nose out through the mesh opening at the trunk of the quickly receding limo.
Red numbers glowed up at her: 53 MPH.
That put the target vehicle smack in the middle of the highest range Orphan X had calculated on the speed chart.
Which meant the visual for the green-light call would be when the limo passed the second old-fashioned streetlamp on the east side of the street.
All she had to do was wait.
She activated her earpiece. “They’re in the chute. Wait for my signal.”
X answered, “Copy that.”
Three SUVs careened around the corner, causing her to jerk back from the curb so they wouldn’t take off her kneecaps. They accelerated to catch up to Cadillac One and assume a rear guard.
Unfortunately, they also cut off her vantage of the target.
She had no choice now but to step out into the cleared center of the street, putting her in the wide, suspicious open.
* * *
Cloaked in official emergency-response-team garb, Service creds dangling in full view from lanyards, Orphan A and the Collins brood had been able to move in the wide open, strolling in front of the sawhorses, their FN P90s at low ready. Overzealous agents had checked their credentials twice, but the documents were—if fake—authentic government-issue.
Irate over Ricky’s death, Wade was running on a high simmer, breathing so hard his nostrils quivered. Holt didn’t know if he’d kicked something extra into his bloodstream—a shot of epinephrine, a hit of PCP, the blood of a Spanish bull.
Holt had positioned his team in the dense network of streets north of Pennsylvania Ave because that was the corridor he would have chosen were he plotting the assassination. They’d started in a wolf pack, then spread out gradually, Holt going solo but splitting the remaining Collinses into teams of two. He directed them over the radio, maintaining close contact.
When he’d heard the explosions, he was in position near the Grand Army of the Republic Memorial, a triangular granite shaft with bronze reliefs depicting Union soldiers holding stately poses. Ideally located at the intersection of 7th, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, the circular plaza gave him clear sight lines through a good swath of Penn Quarter.
His first reaction was to not react. He’d hopped up onto a bus bench, widening his focus, reading the river. Looking two blocks north, he’d caught the convoy as it blasted along E Street. Moments later two more charges detonated up Indiana Avenue.
Now he understood.
X was guiding Bennett into a kill zone.
Holt looked overhead now, using the helicopter to chart the location of the lead limo beneath it. It was vectoring south hard toward Pennsylvania Avenue.
At last he moved, sprinting a half block south and spilling onto the wide thoroughfare a block from where Cadillac One would intercept it. He looked wildly up the street, searching for something, anything, that could pass for a sniper’s wind indicator.
There it was.
A plastic grocery bag stuck artfully on a telephone line over the dead center of the street by the Newseum, high enough to catch the sight line of a roof shooter. The bag fluttered in a low breeze.
Already he was sprinting for the nearest building, activating the radio. “He’s set up for a shot somewhere near Sixth and Pennsylvania. Get here now .”
Slinging his submachine gun, he plowed into the Federal Trade Commission Building, flashing his badge at the security guard—“Emergency! Emergency!” —and smashing through the door into the stairwell. Pounding up three at a time, he headed for the roof, shouting, “Do you copy?”
At last Wade’s voice came back. “I got eyes on a woman standing in the middle of the intersection at E and Sixth. I think she’s spotting for him.” The connection crackled and then came clear once more. “Me and my boy gonna take the bitch now.”