Running up the drive in the direction she knows is the location of the presidential residence at Camp David, she fixates on the single notion of saving Monroe’s life, whatever the cost. The bright quarter moon that illuminated the woods after dinner has set and the night is cloaked in the blackest of blacks. Despite her light jacket, she doesn’t notice an air temperature that nears freezing. Since leaving Bishop trussed up in her bathroom, she hasn’t seen another living soul anywhere in the installation. She feels like the last human alive in the world.
The driveway dips and then seems to be swallowed whole by the surrounding woods. Hayley worries she has lost her way. Is she running away from the place where she is needed, rather than toward it? Nothing would be worse than getting lost now. Peering into the darkness that looms before her, Hayley thinks she sees a figure approaching and quickly, within moments, hears accompanying footsteps. She stops and prepares herself for a fight, retrieving Bishop’s gun from her waistband and holding it down, against her right thigh.
The shadowy figure continues to approach, the occasional glow from cigarette end flashing in the darkness. Only when he is less than fifteen yards away does Hayley see that it is the Navy Mess chef, Leon Washington.
“You gonna shoot me with that thing?” he asks casually, gesturing toward the gun at her side.
“Leon,” is all she can manage to say in the moment. Her relief on seeing a friendly face is enormous.
“What’s wrong, girl? You don’t look so good.” He pauses, adding sardonically, “And then there’s the gun.”
“I need your help, Leon.”
“If it’s a midnight snack you’re looking for, I’m your man. But I’m thinking that’s not the thing.”
She is reluctant to involve the cook. But does she really have any other choice?
“They’re going to assassinate the president, Leon. Tonight.”
“What?! Who?!”
“I don’t know. Powerful people.”
“Are you crazy, girl? What have you been smoking?”
“Nothing. No. This is happening, Leon. Right now.”
Leon stares down at the ground and shakes his head, trying to process the information. “Can’t be … Just crazy.”
“We’ve got to do something. We’ve got to stop this.”
The cook’s head snaps back up, gaze locking on Hayley’s. “What’s a chef supposed to do about it?” He laughs at the absurdity of the notion. “Doesn’t the man have a whole Secret Service for that sorta business?”
“They’re all gone, Leon. No one’s here.”
The old cook begins to grasp that she’s serious. “Everybody? Where’d they all go?”
“I don’t know. Right now it doesn’t really make any difference. They’re just gone, which means it’s on us to stop something terrible from happening.” She pauses, letting the full weight of her words land on Leon before continuing. “Please, Leon. There’s no one else.”
Leon frowns, and it’s the first time she can recall seeing the chef as anything but affable and good-natured. He dislikes being put in this position. Hayley can’t possibly know the life Leon Washington has lived, the prejudice he has encountered his entire life, and the failure of politicians of every stripe to correct those injustices. Why risk his skin for theirs? But Hayley’s earnest sincerity stirs something within the old cook’s consciousness. It feels like a throwback to greater ideals, something that Leon knows to be patriotism. The cold nips at his cheeks. A breeze rustles dead leaves on skeletal tree limbs. What to do? There’s no denying it. The old man is scared.
* * *
SINATRA LEADS HIS team in a running crouch around the pool and closes the final distance between the woods and the dark Aspen Lodge in seconds. There’s no sign of the three Secret Service agents who normally man the command post outside the cabin. The operators hug the wall on either side of French doors leading out to the pool’s patio and wait for a signal from their team leader. The desolate call of a whip-poor-will drifts across the open ground surrounding the building. It’s 2:21 a.m. There have been no further communications from the CIA deputy director. Operation Damocles remains a go.
Sinatra hasn’t been able to raise Bishop on the two-way radio. The operative is overdue from his assignment to eliminate the intern. Obviously, there is a problem, but so far it does not seem to have impacted their primary mission. He cannot see how the operational plan could have been laid out any differently. Once the president is dead, they could not possibly remain on scene a minute longer. Perhaps including the intern as a target in tonight’s operation was a mistake, but Monroe’s death may send her off the rails. Going back over his decisions, Sinatra can’t see he had any choice. The intern’s presence in the isolated compound was too good an opportunity to pass up.
There’s little leeway with time. The supervising Secret Service agent, sympathetic to the cause, had handpicked the dozen similarly minded agents for duty this weekend, men and women who could be counted on to “disappear” at the right time. But that operational window, by necessity of short duration, was rapidly closing. If Sinatra doesn’t get the men going soon, it will be too late to execute the plan fully, and they’ll have to abort. If they abort, there will be no million dollars transferred to his numbered account at CIBC FirstCaribbean International Bank in the Cayman Islands. If the million dollars isn’t transferred, then he won’t have the means to purchase a new-built home to rival the one his ex-wife enjoys with her new husband. And, the Lord knows, that is an outcome Sinatra is unwilling to accept. He raises his right clenched fist, signaling his men to begin.
Within a minute, the five operators have donned their white containment suits and entered Aspen Lodge through the unlocked patio’s French doors. The residence appears unoccupied. Where Secret Service agents would normally be stationed if POTUS were on-site, there is only evidence of someone having been present a short time ago. The president’s security detail appears to have simply vanished, as if plucked from the face of the earth.
Sinatra checks his watch and silently gestures toward the end of the cozy presidential cottage, relatively unchanged since the Eisenhower years. Lawford hangs back to keep watch to the north side of the building, while Lewis crosses the living room to keep guard of the south side. Martin, Davis, and Sinatra continue deeper into the building, their paths through the darkened rooms illuminated by night-vision goggles. Stopping outside one of the closed bedroom doors, Martin crouches down and places his backpack on the floor. Withdrawing the components of the kill machine, he carefully assembles the insertion apparatus composed of boron-nitride nanotube syringe and glass reservoir.
Completing assemblage in less than ninety seconds, Martin looks to Sinatra and gives him the “OK” sign. The team leader grips the doorknob, pushing the door open. As he enters, the president’s sleeping form is visible under the comforter. The other operators enter into the room, moving directly toward Monroe.
The president rises halfway from the bed, his facial expression reflecting bewilderment and indignation. “What the hell?”
The operators are silent as Sinatra and Davis fall on the president with brutal efficiency. Assuming the missing Bishop’s task, Davis inserts the tip of the squeeze bottle into one of Monroe’s nostrils and blasts two bursts of GHB. Unlike Peter Hall, who was almost immediately rendered unconscious, Monroe struggles against Sinatra’s immobilizing hold for more than twenty seconds before succumbing. The team leader looks to Martin for explanation.