After a moment’s pause, he brings their meeting to order with a simple announcement. “Confirmation came in an hour ago. Positive identification was made. He’s gone.”
“Assessment?” one of the conspirators asks.
“This man was a significant piece. We have other assets inside, of course, but purely intelligence-gathering players. Nonoperational. Our action team is formulating a revised plan, should it come to that.”
“What details do we have about his death? What do we know right now?” another conspirator demands.
“The police have only begun their investigation, but they believe a second person was in the vehicle and that a struggle occurred inside the vehicle prior to it going over the bridge.” The Bearded Man pauses, troubled more than the others might guess by the following piece of information. “The operative’s combat knife has not yet been recovered.”
“How do we know he was even carrying his knife?” asks a third conspirator.
“The empty sheath was strapped to the man’s ankle,” he replies dryly.
“What about his cover?” the first conspirator asks with concern.
The Bearded Man pauses, barely hiding his impatience. “Scott Billings wasn’t undercover.”
“He actually was Secret Service?!”
They’ve covered these general aspects of the operation many times before, but the Bearded Man explains again, this time more tolerantly. “We have allies at every level of every agency in the federal government, and beyond,” he assures them.
“Except for this mysterious ‘second person’ in the car apparently,” Senator Cox reminds them, speaking up for the first time. It’s clear his voice carries weight among the men gathered around the table.
“We’re pursuing that inquiry independent of the police investigation, collecting incidental surveillance cams and eye witnesses. If and when this individual makes himself known, we’ll be there to control the situation.”
The senator nods in approval. “The president is golfing on a day Russia’s Northern Fleet has moved its flagship Kirov-class battle cruiser twenty miles off the coast of Estonia. Time is clearly of essence,” he adds, speaking gravely.
“Is playing golf after Labor Day now a treasonable offense, Senator?” a fourth conspirator asks.
“Is sitting at this table?” the first conspirator interjects before Cox can speak.
The senator clears his throat, an unsubtle signal to the others. If there is a leader of this cabal, it is Taylor Cox. “Argue all you want, but there is no question the country is in grave danger.” He speaks by rote, as if giving a speech. “That’s why we’ve assembled this group, is it not?”
The others voice their unanimous agreement. The Bearded Man gestures for order.
“Peter Hall was Monroe’s fixer. No one else in the West Wing even knows how to make the toilets work on Capitol Hill. Hall was Monroe’s guy. Now Hall is dead. Without him, he’s just an icon with a noble profile. God willing, the need for additional measures has been alleviated. Time now to just watch and wait.”
Throughout the meeting, the phone or electronic device belonging to each man has intermittently vibrated or alerted a new message. That these notifications have been unanimously ignored is testament to the meeting’s importance. But then, all of a sudden, the devices of everyone at the table begin to simultaneously signal incoming calls, emails, or text messages. This barrage is too much to disregard, and within moments everyone at the table, including the Bearded Man, is peering into their respective electronic device.
* * *
WALKING PAST THE Secret Service agents stationed on West Executive Avenue, Asher and Hayley detect an emergency, all-hands-on-deck vibe as they approach the ground-floor entrance of the West Wing. Asher reacts warily. “All of this excitement isn’t because a Secret Service agent dumped his BMW into the Potomac, is it?”
“I don’t think so,” Hayley surmises. They both retrieve their smartphones to see what’s going on.
Entering the building, Hayley and Asher encounter a frenzied atmosphere. Staffers move up and down the corridor at a half jog, unmindful of anyone in their path. Asher and Hayley pause inside the doorway, avoiding the trampling herds. Karen Rey, her expression drawn tight with anxiety, strides past and pulls a double take on seeing her young staff members taking cover in the doorway. She pauses briefly to have a word with them.
“POTUS due in fifteen minutes! I need you up in Operations, now!” Rey starts to move off again, no time for discussion.
“What about the Japan trip?” Asher asks after her.
“Canceled,” the senior aide informs them. Their blank expressions inform Rey they haven’t heard the news. “Cyberattack on Estonia. Banks. Government. Infrastructure. All down.”
Asher and Hayley try to process the revelation. It doesn’t happen fast enough for Karen Rey.
“Get to your desks and stay the hell out of the way!” Rey turns and hurries up the corridor.
Hayley follows Asher to the stairs. The scene on the first floor is no less frantic. They take refuge in the windowless White House Operations support office, just off the Outer Oval Office. Asher immediately picks up the television remote and turns on CNN. The news channel carries a live feed of Marine One landing on the South Lawn, the white edifice of the Washington Monument in the background. Monroe immediately disembarks, greeted by a saluting Marine in dress uniform, and heads across the still-green grass, grim faced, toward the executive mansion.
“Never fails to freak me out, watching this business on TV when it’s all going down just on the other side of that door,” Asher observes.
Hayley doesn’t respond but instead withdraws Scott’s tablet from a tote bag.
Asher has taken note of this action. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
“We’re running out of time. I’m not sure, but the threat against the president may have just increased dramatically.” Hayley can see she has failed to convince Asher, so she adds, “We need to know if POTUS is a potential target.”
Asher gestures at the tablet as if it’s a two-headed venomous snake. “Turn that thing on and you’re no longer the X factor. Go live and you’re real-time and highly GPS-able.”
“Is there a more secure and controlled location on the planet than the West Wing of the White House?”
“I saw those guys, Hayley,” he says emphatically. “That was a hit team!”
“So you learned at Harvard what a ‘hit team’ looks like?”
“I’ve seen every Jason Bourne movie in existence. I can even tell them apart.”
“That puts you ahead of all CIA case officers combined,” she jokes, standing up and heading toward the door, tablet in hand.
“I’m serious, Hayley. Don’t power up that machine.”
“The ground floor is one, big fat Wi-Fi dead zone. There’s zero cell coverage in CoS Support office.”
“Intermittently a dead zone!” Asher corrects her.
In actuality, Hayley’s plan is to try the Room That Is Not To Be Mentioned (RTINTBM), next to the Situation Room and on the same level as CoS. Impervious to wireless eavesdropping and swept twice a day for listening devices, the RTINTBM is a kind of secure phone booth, designed specifically for personal communications. Included in the security packet of everyone who receives West Wing credentials is a sworn oath never to disclose the existence of the Room That Is Not To Be Mentioned. Hayley isn’t even certain what exactly is inside the room. Is there a table and chair, at least?