She is sure his unexpected death will cause a lot of turmoil, distrust, and maybe even a grudge killing or two, but that isn’t her concern.
She is focused only on getting out of the Hay-Adams safely.
She picks up her small leather purse and goes into an adjoining bathroom about the size of her first apartment back in Cheyenne.
Forty-four minutes later, Marsha Gray is sipping a Diet Coke at a Subway six blocks east of the Hay-Adams. The same drink that she spent $1.99 for here at the fast-food place would probably have cost ten times as much back at the Hay-Adams, but having successfully slipped out, she’s in no hurry to get back, especially with the shitstorm of police, FBI, and EMTs that are descending there at this moment.
While in Carl’s enormous bathroom, she had quickly and efficiently gone to work. The green-tinted contact lenses were flushed down the toilet. Her black nylons stripped off, replaced by sheer thigh-highs. A few tugs of her specially designed cocktail dress eliminated the deep cleavage and lowered the hem about six inches. Two quick tugs on the high heels of her shoes turned them into flats. The auburn-colored wig was taken off and placed at a key point under her now-modest dress, along with the heels, making her look like she was a few months in the family way. A pair of black-rimmed glasses with clear lenses went from her small purse to her face. And with that out of the way, she had slipped out of Carl’s room, taken the elevator back down to the lobby, and walked out past Carl’s three bodyguards, none of them even glancing in her direction.
Now she sips on her Diet Coke, checks the time, wonders how long she’ll have to wait before getting another job.
Her iPhone starts ringing. She examines the screen and smiles.
Not long at all.
CHAPTER 15
BEFORE I KNOW it, I’m back in the darkened and—despite the police scanners chattering along—reasonably quiet confines of Room W-17. My heart is pounding hard enough to make me think that I’ve just finished another road race. That thought draws me to the photo on my desk, and my sweet Amelia, and what Parker Hoyt has threatened. I check the status board and the screens and even the television feeds, each of them repeating the same footage again and again, of the Man upstairs and his mistress. Or lover. Or girlfriend.
I sit down, look at the photos of my girl once more, and my fingers briefly trace the wooden sign she’s made for me.
I take a deep breath. So many years of hard work, late nights, and travel to get to this point, the pinnacle of one’s career within the Secret Service. And the first woman to ever head the Presidential Protective Division.
And just as much hard work and dedication to achieve the other part of me, mother to one young lady named Amelia Grissom Miller, who’s got her whole life and future ahead of her.
My fingers drop away.
I don’t move.
Parker Hoyt is right.
I’m wasting time.
“Scotty!” I call out.
“Boss,” he replies, hunched over a keyboard, punching in some report or update with his strong fingers, attacking each letter on the keyboard like it’s an enemy that deserves to be struck hard. “I tried CANARY’s detail and couldn’t reach them. I tell you, our radio system has to be upgraded before—”
“Never mind that for now,” I say. “Sign out a sterile Suburban. You and I are going for a ride.”
He picks up a phone. “You got it. Where are we going?”
I grab my work bag, black wool overcoat, and bright-red scarf, and say, “Disaster … or in this case, a horse farm in Virginia. Come along.”
A fully loaded and fully undercover black Chevy Suburban from Secret Service headquarters on H Street is delivered to the White House, and I let Scotty take the driver’s seat as we slowly move around the long, curving driveway of the south side of the White House. He punches in the address of the Virginia horse farm to the Suburban’s GPS, and after I buckle up, he says, “What’s up? Unannounced inspection tour of the First Lady’s detail?”
I settle in, my bag on the floor between my feet. “You could say that.”
We’re waved out of the security gatehouse and are on 15th Street, Northwest, heading south to Constitution Avenue, past the Treasury Library and other faux-Roman-looking government structures along the four-lane road. It’s a crisp autumn day but the sidewalks are packed with people, either tourists looking agape at all the historical buildings or locals—the lobbyists, bureaucrats, and a few elected officials—talking on their cell phones, moving rapidly through the meandering crowds, all believing that they, and only they, are the vital ones in government.
And scattered among that smaller group is an even smaller handful, my fellow agents, dressed to blend in, acting like tourists or bureaucrats, save for one thing: their ever-moving eyes, the eyes of a hunter, looking for those who would harm the Man.
“Boss?”
“Yeah, Scotty,” I say, breaking my eyes away from the crowded sidewalks. We are now past the buildings, and to my right is the greenery of the Ellipse (I brought Amelia here last December for the lighting of the National Christmas Tree, dressed for the cold, me holding her shoulders, mine wrapped in my early Christmas gift from her), and before us, the Washington Monument is now coming into view.
“What’s really going on?” he says. “This isn’t an inspection tour, is it? I can tell. You’re too tensed up.”
The government types out there like to talk about turf battles, but Scotty’s been in the real-deal turf battles, fought with M4s and AK-47s, car bombs and air strikes. He’s lived this long with all of his body parts intact because of his strength, smarts, and especially because of his ability to sniff out things that don’t make sense.
“No, it isn’t,” I say.
“What’s up, then?”
Traffic slows down and I grab hold of my seat belt, tighten my grip, and say, “The First Lady can’t be located.”
Scotty, bless him, is a pro. “Status board says she’s at that horse farm, in Campton. And her detail hasn’t reported anything wrong.”
“That’s because they’ve been ordered to keep their mouths shut.”
“By who?”
“The First Lady’s husband, that’s who,” I say. “And he and his chief of staff have ordered me to go find her … and do it quietly, and quickly, without waves or headlines.”
“But …”
“There’s a scandal on the TV right now, Scotty, a month before the election. News breaking about a missing First Lady … it’d sink the Man in a heartbeat. There’s too much at stake here. This White House isn’t going to let that happen … and let that California nutjob become the next President. You hear what that governor said about the Chinese buildup in the Pacific? That we shouldn’t worry about their bases because climate change will eventually sink all of their islands, and we should be able to cut the DoD budget by half because of that.”
We slow down in the thick traffic as we get closer to Constitution Avenue.
“Well, shit,” Scotty says.
“That’s right.”
I think for a moment, and say with a bit of reflection, “You know why I joined the Secret Service?”
“Not for the pay or benefits.”