The cook personally delivers her grilled cheese and split pea soup. “You just had to try one for yourself, didn’t ya?”
“Leon, I’ve been wanting to get my hands on one of these bad boys since I first laid eyes on it.”
“Well, dig in, girl. Don’t mind me.” He sits down across the table from her, dish towel thrown over his shoulder, the workday more or less done. “How you been?”
Dipping the corner of the sandwich into the steaming bowl of soup and savoring each bite, Hayley beams at Leon with primal gratitude. “Amazing.”
“Your life or that sandwich?”
“Definitely sandwich,” she assures Leon. “Only sandwich.”
“Bad, huh?”
“Not what I expected exactly.”
“Care to share? I’m told I’m a pretty good listener. Comes with having six kids and twice that many grandkids.”
“Wish I could, believe me. It’s complicated. Think I just need to keep it to myself for now.”
“Okay. I can understand that. Know that you’ve got at least one friend in the joint, ya hear?”
Hayley’s heart fairly bursts. “I really appreciate you saying that, Leon. I do.”
“It’s more than talk. Leon Washington is an old man you can count on in a jam, that’s right.”
Hayley smiles her thanks. She feels like she could almost cry. The battling welterweight champ of the entire Sixth Army has been brought to her knees by the gentle kindness of a sixty-two-year-old cook with yellowy eyes. With a life in which her elders have always disappointed her, in one way or another, Leon Washington has connected with Hayley and come through when she needs emotional support most. She has no words.
He pats her hand with his own, scarred by a thousand knife cuts and kitchen burns. “You hang in there, girl. God loves perseverance, because it sure ain’t easy.”
She walks back to Linden Cabin with spirits more buoyant than she had felt in weeks. Whereas her friendship with Asher was somewhat coerced, bowing to the sheer dint of Hayley’s will, these five minutes of fellowship she’s had with the cook nourish her to a profound degree. Actual human beings do inhabit this corrupted world. It had been too easy to forget that fact with her stay in Washington and in the hothouse of the West Wing. The shrouded woods that line the gravel path back to her little cabin seem like something out of a benevolent fairy tale. Night song of a female eastern whip-poor-will ricochets off the surrounding poplar and ash trees. A quarter moon shimmers in the black sky, casting shards of light on her trail home. God loves perseverance, indeed.
* * *
IT’S TIME. UNDER minimal lighting inside the musty barn, Sinatra watches as his team finishes preparations, almost ready to move out. Four of his men are dressed in black leggings, boots, and pullovers, skin-tight outfits that remind the team leader, a slight grin coming to his face, of murderous mimes. Three of the men—Lewis, Martin, and Lawford—have strapped large tactical duffel shoulder bags to their backs. Two others—Bishop and Davis—shoulder smaller backpacks. Only Bishop wears street clothes. Sinatra, dressed in tactical black clothing, carries a Sig Sauer P320 RX with optics in a chest-mount holster crisscrossing his upper torso Mexican bandito–style. If required, the weapon is readily accessible in what shouldn’t be a high-action operation. Better to be prepared, however, for any contingency. Sinatra has survived countless combat missions thanks to exactly this kind of redundancy. The team leader checks his watch for the third time in the last ninety seconds. “Everyone ready? Quick-check your buddy.”
They obediently scan the man next to them, up and down, front and back. Something as mundane as a loosely tied shoelace could upend an operation. They are silent and serious. There’s no horseplay or pre-mission banter. No one can ignore the sobering momentousness of this particular operation. Each man gives Sinatra the “OK” sign.
“Let’s move.” He leads them out a door in the rear of the barn and into the night. They cross the backyard of the farmhouse, uncut grass grown thigh-high, and enter the forest beyond, one man at a time swallowed up by the deep shadows of the great Maryland woodland. Approximately forty-four minutes later, they emerge again from the forest’s edge, facing west and the outer boundary of the naval installation named after President Eisenhower’s grandson. The nearly hundred motion-detecting sensors the team had passed in their hike through the woods approaching the presidential retreat had all been deactivated sixty minutes earlier. A little-used maintenance-access gate in the high-security fence in the middle of the woods had been conveniently left unlocked. Where the operators emerge from the trees had been carefully selected, beyond the sight line of a sentry position manned by four Marine guards on this eastern edge of the compound. Only open ground lies between the hit team and the first collection of structures on the property.
The men crouch on one knee and look forward, each wearing night-vision goggles that give them the appearance of cartoon aliens. They wait for the command from Sinatra to move forward. A low mumbling can be heard from behind them, and initially none of the men can make out the words. But soon the chant becomes clear and shockingly familiar.
“The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death.” Sinatra pauses in his slow and methodical recitation, waiting for his men to join him. Of course, none of them are willing to do so. “Amen,” he adds almost bitterly.
The men say nothing. If Sinatra’s prayer helps them achieve their mission goals, all the better. Even still, however, any mention of “the hour of our death” strikes them as pretty poor form. Sinatra stands up to a low crouch from a kneeling position and gestures ahead. “Let’s do this.”
* * *
SHE SITS AT the small wooden table by a window, rendered a black mirror by the dark night outside, scanning news reports on her computer, when she hears a knock at the door. Hayley is on guard when she stands and crosses the two-dozen feet from table to door. “Yes?” she calls through the door.
“Secret Service, Ms. Chill,” comes the muffled reply. “It’s Agent Christie.”
Hayley pauses to consider her options. The operative clearly knows she’s inside the cabin. Refusing to open the door will betray her knowledge of the man’s true intentions. Her best hope is the element of surprise, gained by the fact that the operative doesn’t know what she knows. Hayley opens the door halfway, revealing Bishop in his casual sportswear and Patagonia down jacket outside. She says nothing, waiting for the agent to speak.
“We’re just doing an area check on all the cabins.” He looks over her shoulder, into her little cottage. “Everything seems status quo here,” he announces with a friendly grin.
“Yes, sir. Thank you. I’m fine.”
“Mind if I come in for a sec. Frozen half-solid out here.”
Hayley hesitates.
“Just a few minutes, I promise.”
She reluctantly opens the door wider for Bishop to enter. He slaps his gloved hands together and hugs himself, making an elaborate show of warming up. She makes no offer of anything, simply waiting for him to leave but on her guard, every muscle attuned to defending herself from attack.