Текст книги "Gideon's War / Hard Target"

Автор книги: Howard Gordon

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Текущая страница: 36 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

Gideon heard the shots in his earphones and leaped from the seat of the car. He handcuffed Millwood to the steering wheel and sprinted across the front lawn. By the time he got to the door, Tillman, Klotz, and the two girls were coming out.

“Where’s Verhoven?” Gideon asked.

“Dead,” said Tillman. “Lorene, too.”

“You okay? Klotz? The girls?”

“We’re fine, but we need to get to the Capitol.”

“After we call this in. We’ve got a witness. Klotz can verify everything we say.” The doctor was eyeing him silently, the two girls clutching his trousers.

“We can’t wait for the bureaucrats to wrap everything up. By the time they’re finished taking our statements, the president, vice president, and most of the government will be dead.”

“We can at least give them the information we have.”

“You’re still thinking like a negotiator, Gideon. That’ll take hours. And then what? You think they’ll believe us? You think Dahlgren will believe us? You think President Wade will believe us?” He spat out Wade’s name as if it were a poisoned cherry pit.

Gideon knew his brother was right. Even if they had the time, they would be working against Dahlgren’s natural antipathy and suspicion of their efforts. He wouldn’t listen, and he would do everything in his power to stop them. They didn’t have all the details of the attack, so there was only one thing for them to do.

Gideon turned to Klotz. “You need to give us time to get inside. Will you do that?”

Klotz pursed his lips, then nodded.

“Promise me, Doctor.”

“I promise.”

“The cops will be here before long. Tell them it was a home invasion and a private security guard fought them off. Tell them he went downtown to file a report.”

Klotz agreed. “Please,” he asked. “If you see my wife, tell her we’re okay.”

“I will.”

Tillman shook his hand, then he and Gideon walked down to the car. Millwood was sitting quietly inside.

“Oh, this is interesting,” said Tillman.

“Long story,” said Gi;I Q; said Gideon. He uncuffed the officer. “How do you feel about a little ride on the Metro?”

49

PRIEST RIVER, IDAHO

It was nearly five-fifteen when Nancy Clement saw the farmhouse in the distance. The bulldozer had been chugging steadily along the winding country road for two hours and she had not seen a house or a car the entire time, and still had no cell phone signal. The dozer’s tank was nearly empty.

But now she had hope that whoever lived in the farmhouse might help her get through to somebody in DC. The Caterpillar was going so slow, it almost seemed to be going backward.

“Hello!” she shouted. “Hello!”

But nobody answered. She realized she was still a long way away.

She wound around a curve and the house was lost in the trees. Then it appeared again, then it was lost again, then it appeared again.

“Hello!” she shouted again.

She saw movement now, a man out in the yard, doing something. She chugged closer and closer. Chopping wood. The guy was chopping wood.

As he heard the engine of the bulldozer, the man set down his axe and walked toward her in a leisurely fashion.

When she’d almost reached him, she pressed the decelerator pedal, then switched off the dozer’s engine so she could be heard.

“Taking the dozer out for a spin?” he said.

“Do you have a phone?”

“Lines are down.”

“What about Internet?” she said.

The man looked at her like she had asked him if he was a space alien.

“Internet?” she said. “Have you got Internet access?”

The man continued to look at her with a puzzled expression. She took in the axe, the tiny house with its peeling paint and sagging porch, the battered pickup truck, the cockeyed chicken coop, and she felt a wave of despair. Internet, hell, she’d be lucky if this guy even knew what a computer was.

“Internet?” she repeated feebly.

“Of course I’ve got Internet,” the man said, tossing his axe on a pile of split logs. “Who doesn’t have Internet?”

It turned out he was not a redneck farmer but an IT guy from Boise who had bought the farm as a vacation place and then moved there as a temporary cost-saving measure after losing his job the previous year. His name was Hank Adams. He was a big fan of The X-Files and other conspiracy-themed TV shows and books and movies. He didn’t have cable, but he had a big satellite dish that brought in all his favorite channels and the Internet. When she explained the nature of the fix she was in, he eventually came around and started to grow excited.

Soon she was sitting in front of a brand-new iMac with a m82222222222 T‡assive screen logging into the man’s Skype account. She typed in the number for the burner cell phone that Gideon had given her.

“Gideon?” she said, when he answered.

“I was wondering what the hell happened to you. Are you okay?”

“It’s going to be a gas attack,” she said breathlessly. “Hydrogen cyanide, I think. But I haven’t figured out the target.”

“It’s the State of the Union address,” Gideon said. “We’re on our way to the Capitol right now. Tillman and me.”

It took Nancy a moment to process this before she could respond. “A guy by the name of Dale Wilmot is behind this. He built a factory in Idaho to synthesize the stuff from some kind of root vegetable. It volatilizes at seventy degrees. They can smuggle the stuff into the Capitol in liquid form then spray it or spill it and it would vaporize.”

“Assuming the ambient air was above seventy.”

“Right.”

“It’s twenty-five degrees in Washington, DC, today.”

Nancy felt a stab of irritation at herself. How had she missed a thing like that? There was some piece of the pie that she was missing.

“They must have figured out some way to atomize it,” she said. “We need to call the Secret Service. We’ll meet them at the Rayburn building.”

“No. Dahlgren told them I’m nuts and you’re a rogue agent under suspension who’s fantasizing about some phantom attack on American soil. They’ll never listen to me, or you. We’re on our own. Here’s what we know. Verhoven and Lorene were holding hostage the family of a Secret Service agent named Shanelle Klotz. They told her she had to open a door or her family would be killed. She must be with them now. If we can find out where she’s posted at the State of the Union address, we’ll have a chance to stop them.”

“Give me a minute. There might be something I can do.”

“Hurry up. We’re on 66 right now. We’ll hit Washington in about ten minutes. If the Secret Service won’t do anything, we’ll have to get in there ourselves.”

“You’ll need my help.”

“I’ll call you back, okay? Just work on where Wilmot and Collier are.”

The phone clicked dead, leaving Nancy staring at the blue-and-white Skype logo.

“What about heating ducts?”

Nancy turned around. “What about them?”

Hank was hanging over her shoulder, looking at her expectantly. “I was listening in,” he said. “Let’s say hydrogen cyanide turns to a gas at seventy degrees. If you injected it into the firebox of the heating system, the air temp will be like one hundred degrees. It’ll stay hot all the way through the ducts and blow right out into all the rooms in the building. You’re guaranteed to deliver plenty of gas that way.”

Nancy squinted thoughtfully at the blank computer screen. “Yeah, but how would those two guys get into the Capitol at all? How could they get access to the heating system?”

Hank reached over her shoulder and tapped the keys. She couldn’t help noticing that he smelled like woodsmoke and aftershave. It wasn’t an unpleasant smell at all.

“You ever heard of Google?” Hank said with a wry smile.

On the screen the first entry on the list of entries pulled up by the search engine read:

PRESS RELEASE: National Heat & Air Conditioning, a subsidiary of Wilmot Industries, was this year awarded the contract to refurbish the aging HVAC system of one of America’s most famous buildings, the United States Capitol. The Capitol has been rebuilt several times since its inauguration on . . .”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” Nancy said.

Suddenly she understood why the buildings in Wilmot’s little manufacturing complex contained such massive heating and air-conditioning equipment . . . and why the room in which the workers lived had been so large. It was a test facility, probably an exact duplicate of the House chamber and the HVAC unit that served it. That’s why the place smelled of cyanide. They’d tested it on the workers, injecting the hydrogen cyanide into the heating system, and then watched the workers die.

It made her sick to her stomach.

Nancy had been suspended and her FBI computer privileges revoked. But any security system was only as good as the people who used it. Dahlgren had given her his password when he was on the road and needed her to follow up on certain things. She was sure he wouldn’t have thought about changing it.

She accessed the FBI Web site and intranet, then typed in the remote log-in sequence. When prompted, she entered Dahlgren’s name and password. It worked perfectly. Then she logged into VORTEX, the huge database that drew on vast quantities of data resources throughout the government and the private sector.

Within minutes she had a track on Special Agent Shanelle Klotz. Every single agent carried a GPS tracking device in his field radio. She superimposed a map of the Capitol on top of the GPS coordinates. Tiny glowing red dots indicated each of the agents. She tagged Agent Shanelle Klotz. One of the glowing dots turned from blue to red.

She zoomed in. Klotz appeared to be in the office of the speaker pro tempore of the House. Then something occurred to her. Maybe she was looking at the wrong floor. She switched to Basement 1. Now Special Agent Klotz was in the men’s bathroom.

Nancy tried Basement 2.

And there it was: She was in the HVAC Access Room.

“That’s it,” she whispered.

“Now you just have to get them inside,” Hank Adams said.

Her fingers flew over the keys. Ten minutes. She had ten minutes to come up with a plan.

50

WASHINGTON, DC

The president of the United States, Erik Wade, nodded to the head of his security detail, Supervising Agent Karl Utrecht. “Ready,” he said.

Utrecht nodded at his team. “Let’s go.”

The team barely needed instructions or commands. Every member had spent hundreds of hours in training, thousands of hours on the job, and was a veteran agent with at least a decade of experience in protecting high-value principals. They were a well-oiled machine.

As the president walked out of the Oval Office, his team moved around him—calling in whispered tones for elevators and cars and doors to be opened, checking hallways and windows for potential threats, cutting off angles, clearing hallways. The team acted so efficiently and seamlessly that President Wade was nearly unaware of their presence. Other than the twenty-three seconds it took for the elevator to descend to the first floor, he never had to break stride.

Doors simply opened, guards appeared and disappeared, and at the front door to the White House, his wife, Grace, joined him, slipping into place, like one of the Blue Angels sliding into formation at an air show.

It took one minute and forty-one seconds to get from the Oval Office to the door of the limo. The door to the armored Cadillac limousine opened, and the president entered. A second limo, the decoy, slid up behind it. The door opened and an agent of similar size and build to the president entered and sat down, and that door, too, closed.

With that, the motorcade took off down the curved driveway onto Pennsylvania Avenue, and the entire convoy was in motion.

At the precise moment when President Wade began his trip toward the Capitol, the sergeant at arms of the House was announcing the entry of the Honorable Christine Harris Minor, Supreme Court justice. The former attorney general of Missouri and an experienced politician, she paused to shake hands with every single member of Congress on the aisle leading to her seat.

The sergeant at arms whispered to his assistant, “How we doing?”

“Jesus Christ, if you put a talking dog on the aisle, that woman would have shaken its paw,” his assistant said. “We’re running four and a half minutes behind.”

“Get outside and hurry these windbags along. I don’t want the president out there sitting in the limousine picking his teeth, okay?”

“Madam Speaker!” the sergeant at arms called. “The chief justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, the Honorable Edison Lockhardt.”

Edison Lockhardt had not only been a distinguished legal scholar, but he had also been the governor of New Jersey and as such he refused to be one-upped by the most liberal member of the court. As a result, he made a point to take even more time and to extend his arm even deeper into the thicket of legislators, leaving no hand ungrasped.

The sergeant at arms scowled. If his luck held, the show was going to run a good fifteen minutes late. God, he hated politicians. Sometimes he wondered if he hadn’t gone into the wrong line of work.

“Madam Speaker!” he called. “The Honorable FranciCou qle Francis X. Dugan, Junior . . .”

51

WASHINGTON, DC

They dropped officer Millwood at the Foggy Bottom Metro station. He promised he wouldn’t turn them in, but even if he did, they would be at the Capitol before he could reach anyone. Getting inside, however, was a different matter.

“What now?” asked Tillman. “The mall’s going to be completely sealed, and those Secret Service guys don’t fool around.”

As if in answer to his question, Gideon’s newest burner began to ring. It was Nancy.

“What have you got for me?”

“Tunnels,” she said.

“Which tunnels?”

“I’ve hacked into the Secret Service computer,” she said. “You’ve got a pass waiting for you at the parking garage of the Russell Building. You both have clearance, but only for the perimeter. The Russell Building has a subway that goes to the Capitol. But there are two older tunnels. One is the old subway tunnel, which was replaced in the late 1960s with a bigger tunnel, and the other is a ventilation and mechanical tunnel that runs above it. Well, it’s more like a duct than a tunnel, really. You’ll kinda have to crawl.”

“If you can get us into the parking garage, why not into the Capitol?”

“It doesn’t work like that. All of the Capitol access is on a secure, nonnetworked computer that I can’t get into.”

“So, we’ll have to find a way to get past the final security checkpoints?”

“Yes,” said Nancy. “What I can tell you is Agent Klotz is in the HVAC Access Room, which is on the second subbasement level of the Capitol. I believe they will try to inject the cyanide in a liquid form into the heating system. The liquid will vaporize and spread through the building via the heating system, killing more or less everybody in the building. What I don’t understand is how they’re planning to get out.”

“They’re not,” Gideon said. “They’ll have to trigger it manually. All radio signals will be jammed.”

It was a sobering thought. People who planned their own deaths were the hardest to stop. A man willing to give his life for something he believed in didn’t offer much room for negotiation.

“Once you reach the Capitol, you won’t be able to contact me,” said Nancy. “I can get you to the Russell Building. But once you’re inside, you’ll be on your own.”

“Got it,” Gideon said.

“There’s one more thing you should know.” She hesitated, glancing at the TV that played C-SPAN behind her. “Your fiancée is inside.”

“Kate?” Gideon was stunned. “What the hell is she doing there?”

“inggggggggg t‡She’s with the secretary of the interior.”

He knew Kate had been working with Secretary Fitzgerald on the Deepwater commission, but he was momentarily stunned by the irony that she had accepted an invitation to attend the State of the Union address with him. That she was now at ground zero for the attack filled him with dread.

“Nancy, you have to get her out of there.”

“I don’t have any way to reach her.”

“Figure something out. You must know someone inside. Give her this number. Tell her to call me.”

“There is one agent I can trust . . .”

In her voice, Gideon heard her willingness to help and knew that their own relationship had reached a new level of understanding. Nancy had set aside whatever lingering resentment remained in order to achieve their common goal.

“Thank you, Nancy,” he said.

“Good luck.”

Gideon disconnected and explained to Tillman what Nancy had told him.

“You okay?” Tillman asked.

“Yeah. But if we can’t sneak or brazen our way through, we’re going to have to mount an assault on the Capitol—something so over the top that it would force them to evacuate the building . . . or at least recheck all their security precautions.”

“You’re talking about some kind of suicide attack.”

Gideon nodded. “Kate is in there. If I can’t stop Wilmot and get her out. I won’t have a choice. But you don’t have to come with me.”

“Are you kidding? Of course I’m coming with you. I’m your brother.”

“I know how the government treated you. You don’t owe those people a thing—especially not your life.”

“Gideon, the truth is I would come with you even if you weren’t my brother. I may not seem like much of a patriot anymore, but I still love this country, and I’m not going to let a pair of wackos kill a bunch of innocent people. But most of all, I’m not going to let them kill you or my future sister-in-law. Not if I can help it.”

Gideon regarded Tillman’s lined and tired face, so different from his own, and yet so familiar. “Thank you,” he said, brimming with gratitude.

“Now let’s go blow up some shit.”

Gideon snaked around the bombproof barriers at the Russell Building parking garage entrance. When they pulled into the lot, a Capitol police officer checked their IDs wordlessly, punching them into the computer that held the list of people who were cleared to park there that evening.

Gideon’s heart was pounding as the officer yawned and then stared at the screen. For all he knew the computer could be networked into whatever system listed them as wanted by the FBI.

But apparently the computer was just for parking clearances. The bored officer waved them through and went back to reading Teigthehe Washington Post.

The parking garage was nearly full.

“Just leave it here,” Tillman said once they’d wound down to the level of the tunnel connecting them to the Russell Building.

Gideon pulled up next to the elevators and climbed out of the car. He was still wearing his tactical gear.

According to Nancy, the entrance to the tunnel lay through a door near the elevator bank. Two heavily armed guards stood beside the door.

“Talk or shoot?” Tillman said.

“Talk,” Gideon said. “If we start shooting right off the bat, everybody goes on high alert and we’re screwed.”

“Agreed,” Tillman said.

“Follow my play.”

As soon as Gideon got within earshot of the guards, he began talking loudly into his cell phone. “Yes, ma’am, I realize that. I realize . . . Yes, ma’am. I’ll be there in less than three minutes, I promise.” He ignored the two guards and walked straight toward the door.

“Whoa whoa whoa!” one of the guards yelled. “Stop right there.”

Gideon waved irritably at the agent with the back of his hand, as though he were more concerned with whoever he was speaking to on the phone. But he stopped walking. “Yes, ma’am, I realize that. I’m already at the checkpoint in the Russell Building. If you could just . . . Right . . . right . . . right.”

“Who the hell are you?” The guard raised his P90 and was pointing it at Gideon. “Stop right there!”

Gideon rolled his eyes. “Just a moment, ma’am.” He put his hand over the phone. “Agents Dillard and Koons,” he said to the guard. “State Department Security. I’m talking to the secretary of state.”

“What?” the guard said incredulously.

“Some kind of SNAFU. The labor secretary’s security is being held up at the door, and I have to get in there and straighten out the credential situation.”

“Wait a minute, wait a minute, who are you?”

“Goddammit, I just told you! Are you deaf? Agents Dillard and Koons with the State Department.”

“Where’s your clearance? Where’s your pass?”

“Here, look, talk to Secretary Bonifacio, okay?”

Gideon extended his phone to the guard, and the man regarded it as if it were radioactive. Secretary Bonifacio had a notorious temper, and Gideon could see the guard debating whether he wanted to risk her wrath. Then he said, “Go ahead. You’ll have to surrender your weapons.”

“Sure,” Gideon said. “Of course. Mine is stowed in my vehicle already.” He lifted his coat to show an empty holster.

Tillman unholstered his pistol and laid it on the table by the door.

The two guards then checked them with a metal detector and waved them on. Gideon and Tillman walked through the door, into the concrete tunnel, and began walking toward the Russell Building a few hundred yards away.

“I’m impressed,” said Tillman. “You’re very convincing.”

“I’ve had a lot of practice,” said Gideon.

They hadn’t taken more than a few strides when one of the guards called, “Oh, gentlemen, I’ll need to see your IDs.”

Gideon and Tillman, of course, had only their real IDs, which would undoubtedly set off alarm bells.

“So much for talking,” said Tillman.

“I’ll take the one on the left,” Gideon whispered.

They turned and walked back toward the two guards. When they got within two yards of the men, they both put their shoulders down and charged forward, smashing the two guards into the concrete wall. Tillman and Gideon were both sizable, fit men. But so were the Secret Service guards. Having spent his life training in the fighting arts, Tillman was better prepared than Gideon for what came next.

Tillman planted the heel of his hand under the Secret Service man’s chin and slammed his helmet against the concrete wall. Even wearing a helmet the impact was enough to stun the man. Tillman then hit him with a short left hook to the jaw, and the man went down in a heap.

Meanwhile Gideon found himself grappling with a younger, stronger man. Within seconds, things were not going well. The Secret Service agent had recovered after being momentarily caught by surprise and was now wrestling Gideon to the ground.

Tillman grabbed him from behind, hooking both heels around his hips and slipping his arms around the guard’s head in what Brazilian jujitsu practitioners call a rear naked choke. It was the same move that police used to call a sleeper hold.

The guard attempted to scream for assistance. But his call for help amounted only to a spluttering, choking noise.

“Grab his arms!” Tillman hissed. “He’s probably got a panic button somewhere.”

Gideon immobilized the struggling officer’s arms just as his fingers clawed for a small red button on the radio unit clipped to his belt. Within seconds the officer’s entire body went limp, his brain succumbing to the sudden loss of blood.

“Get their clothes, IDs, and weapons,” Tillman whispered, pulling a pair of flex cuffs off the unconscious agent’s belt. “We have to move fast. He’ll regain consciousness very quickly.”

They undressed the guards and stashed them in the back of the car. Five minutes later they were crawling into the mouth of the ventilation duct above the old subway line.

Tillman crawled to the grate at the end of the tunnel and peered out. In front of him was the deserted platform of the older subway. There were no guards, no dogs, nothing. He pushed the iron grate out of the wall. It pivoted on rusty hinges with an ear-piercing shriek. On the opposite end of the platform a shadow moved across an open doorway.

“Hold olin>

The lights flickered on, bathing the entire room in bright fluorescence. A tall Secret Service agent entered, hand under his jacket on the butt of his gun. A second agent followed. The second agent shined a small but intense flashlight down the end of the platform to a larger tunnel.

“Clear,” the agent with the flashlight said.

“I heard something,” the tall agent with his hand on his pistol said. He signaled toward the tunnel. “Where does that lead?”

“To a ventilation shaft that connects to the bomb shelter.”

Tillman had heard there was a bomb shelter underneath the Capitol. But this was his first confirmation of that rumor.

“Think we should check? That area is a rat’s nest.”

The agent with the flashlight shook his head. “There’s a door at the end of the tunnel. It’s been welded shut.”

“Check it.”

The agent disappeared, came back after a few minutes. “Like I said, welded shut.”

“Well, goddammit, I heard something.”

“So you said.”

“What about that ventilation duct?” He nodded in Tillman’s direction as he flicked on his flashlight.

Tillman froze. He knew that if they shined the light at the grate, he’d be spotted. But if he tried to back away from the grate, they’d spot his movement.

“Hold on,” the agent with the flashlight said, cocking his head, as though hearing something in his earpiece. “POTUS will be arriving in four. We need to clear the corridor.”

The tall agent frowned and shook his head grudgingly. A bead of perspiration ran down Tillman’s face. Then the agent switched off his flashlight, turned, and both agents walked out of the room.

“Go,” Gideon whispered.

Tillman pushed the grate as slowly as possible. This time it only let out a soft, low groan.

The brothers climbed out from the ventilation tunnel.

“Where to?” Tillman said softly.

Gideon pointed at the tunnel the two agents had checked. “Let’s try to pop the welds on that door. If we can get into an elevator shaft or a mechanical tunnel we should be able to get down into Basement two.”

“Sounds good. We’re way past bluffing our way through at this point.”

They entered the tunnel. Tillman used the flashlight he’d lifted from the agent back in the Russell Building garage. When they reached the steel door, Gideon examined the three weld beads on the steel frame. All the welds were on the side of the door where the handle was. There was no welding on the side of the door where the hinges were located.

“Pull the hinge pins,” Gideon said.

“Just what I was thinking.”

Tillman pulled a folding knife off the belt he’d harvested from the agent. It was a good knife, a Benchmade automatic. The guy had good taste in knives.

“You take the top, I’ll take the bottom,” Tillman said, thumbing the button that triggered the blade to pop out with a satisfying click.

No further communication between the brothers was necessary. They knew exactly what to do. Tillman hunkered down and shoved the blade of his knife under the flange at the top of the hinge pin. Gideon stepped onto Tillman’s back and got to work on the top pin.

Within seconds they had the pins out. Unlike those on the ventilation grate, these hinges had been recently lubricated with a heavy lithium grease.

Gideon hopped down, pried out the third hinge pin, and inserted his knife into the crack. Tillman did the same.

“One,” Tillman said. “Two.”

“Three,” they said together. With a sharp twist of their knives, they were able to move the door about a quarter of an inch out of the frame.

“You brace, I’ll go deeper,” Gideon said.

Tillman applied steady pressure to the haft of his knife while Gideon drove his a little deeper into the crack.

“Go,” Gideon said.

He braced this time, while Tillman moved his blade deeper still.

“One. Two. Three.”

Another quarter of an inch. Now the welds were offering more resistance. So they were only able to move the door about an eighth of an inch.

They repeated the same process several times until finally the edge of the door cleared the frame. They stuck their knives in all the way, this time wrenching backward with all their strength. The welds popped and the door came free.

“Whatever happens,” Gideon whispered, “I’m glad we did this. And I’m proud to be your brother.”

“Don’t be such a girl,” Tillman said.

Gideon smiled and set the door against the wall. Tillman probed the other side with his flashlight. Beyond the door was a low tunnel made of crumbling red brick that looked like it might be 150 years old.

Gideon looked at his watch. He had eight minutes before the president began speaking. Eight minutes before he would either save Kate or die trying.

52

WASHINGTON, DC

At that moment Kate was enjoying the pomp and circumstance of the political pageant. Senators and representatives she had only seen from a distance or viewed on C-SPAN milled about her. Smart men and women in crisp suits shook hands or slapped each other on the back. Partisan differences were set aside as the anointed few hobnobbed and glad-handed, congratulating themselves and one anodeoooooooooosan dther for their exalted positions and good fortune.

She was surprised when she felt a rough hand on her shoulder and turned to see a Secret Service agent with a wired earpiece summoning her as if she’d been a bad girl in school.

“Please come with me, ma’am.”

Her first thought was that the Secret Service discovered she was just a low-level oil company executive who didn’t belong among the movers and shakers. That thought was quickly followed by a fear that something had happened to Gideon. But as the Secret Service agent led her through the throng of politicians and government officials, it occurred to her that Gideon didn’t even know she was at the Capitol, and there was no one here who would bother to tell her if he was injured or hurt.

By the entrance to the Russell Building, the agent handed her a device that looked like an old-fashioned transistor radio with a stubby rubber antenna. It wasn’t a radio, however; it was a secure VOIP wireless phone, operating on the NSA’s proprietary network, as the agent was pleased to inform her. He told her there was a telephone call for her.

She could not have been more surprised if Gideon himself had appeared before her. But she was even more surprised when the voice on the other end was not Gideon’s, but a woman’s.

“Kate Murphy?” the voice asked. It had the slightest trace of a southern accent, and Kate immediately knew it was Nancy Clement. She recalled that Gideon said she grew up in Tennessee, the daughter of a tobacco farmer. A girl of privilege who had gone on to work a low-paying job as an FBI agent, which, despite herself, Kate admired.

“Is it Gideon?” she asked. “Is everything okay?”

“Gideon is fine,” said Nancy. “But you’re in danger. You have to get out of the Capitol building right away.”