The Threat

Upshaw set the case down on the chair. Keeping her back to him — no doubt out of habit — she dialed in the combination. The lid unsnapped. She moved so he could see, and took out the battery set. He handed over the fresh ones, and heard a click as one seated in the transceiver.

She held out the clipboard with the custody form. He ran his eye over the open case. Spare magazine. Backup charged battery. The radio, its top visible and the stub of its antenna, folded but still capable of receiving the alert signal. The red plastic spine of the SIOP manual, the black spines of the others.

He took the pen and scribbled his initials. “I relieve you,” he said, and saluted. It might look silly to a civilian, but all the aides did it. Then she was tapping off down the corridor. When he took her chair the seat was still warm.

* * *

As ever, the detail was first to appear, the agents rolling out ahead of the oncoming Presence like altar boys before a monstrance. The press secretary, then the secretary of defense’s Taftesque bulk nearly plugging the hallway. Ringalls, looking shrunken between the overweight SecDef and the none-too-small De Bari. But then they halted. The president’s voice was peremptory, cutting. “Don’t give me that bullshit, Charlie. Just make it happen.”

Dan was getting to his feet, ready to follow, when he saw Ouderkirk, the shaven-headed sergeant from the counterdrug office, beckoning from the Roosevelt Room. He pointed to his chest: Me? The staffer nodded. Dan went to the door. The sergeant gestured again, urgently.

He crossed the corridor. Ouderkirk muttered, “You on duty right now?”

“Yeah. I am. What do you want?”

“We need you to come by 303 once you get off.”

“Counterdrug? Why? What’s the problem?”

“No problem. Just that we need you to sign the debrief forms. You went over to the East Wing so fast we never got you signed out.”

Dan said he’d be off in six hours and would come by then. Ouderkirk nodded and turned away.

The president was still outside the Oval Office, talking loudly to Ringalls, Weatherfield, and now his other old Nevada buddies too, Gino Varghese and Happy Harry Hedley. De Bari sounded angry. Looking to his left, Dan noticed a man in a gray suit heading down the corridor away from him. The corner of a large file box he was carrying was just visible. But he couldn’t quite tell who it was, and the man didn’t look back, so Dan went back into the secretary’s office.

Then they were coming toward him, the same way he’d first seen De Bari, months before, flanked by the agents of the protective detail. He was still chewing out his cronies as he came. Weatherfield looked sick. The president’s gaze slid past Dan as if he were greased. By now, so did the Secret Service’s. Only Barney McKoy nodded. Dan hefted the satchel and fell in at the rear.

He was fastening the security strap when three hands rose simultaneously to three left ears. McKoy said, gaze darting down the corridor as his hand slid inside his jacket, “Anarchy. Anarchy!”

Dan went taut too. “Anarchy” meant an assassination attempt was under way. The detail contracted like the spiny shell of some primitive animal around the man they protected. Whose voice rose, demanding to know what was going on.

McKoy: “The control room says someone just called the switchboard, Mr. President.”

“You get crank calls all the time,” De Bari shouted. “What’s the big goddamn deal all of a sudden?”

“This didn’t sound like a crank, Mr. President. He had a strong foreign accent. He said truck bomb. Now. Headed for the West Executive gate.”

De Bari’s tone changed. He asked where his wife was. McKoy, brow furrowed, was listening to his radio. He made a hand signal to his team. To De Bari he said, “We’re going to evacuate you both, sir. Then everyone one else on the Eighteen. This way. Through the Residence.”

“Why not just out the—”

“If it’s coming in West Executive, sir, we need to get you as far away as we can.”

All this time they’d been hiking along. Now the retinue broke into a not-quite-in-step trot along the corridors. Dan kept up. The case jolted his arm. It seemed heavier than usual. Probably just because he was trying to run with it. But the unsecured pistol was working its way out from under his belt. He grabbed it just as it started down his pants leg, and wedged it under his belt, rather than his waistband. They hurried down a flight of stairs, then turned into the mansion.

“A truck bomb?” De Bari wheezed. “Can’t you stop it at the gate?”

“They go right through gates, Mr. President. And if it’s a truck bomb, it’ll be big.”

A group of donors, or maybe just better-dressed-than-usual tourists, were having their pictures taken in front of the Library fireplace. They gasped at De Bari’s sudden appearance. Cameras came up as the president, ever the campaigner, waved and grinned without breaking stride. McKoy made a hand signal to the docent. A moment later she was herding the tourists out, disregarding their protests that they’d not yet seen the whole White House.