The Threat

They’d found Garner Sebold’s car parked by the Tidal Basin. A presentation .45 lay on the passenger seat, and a bloody blossom bloomed against the driver-side window. The media had speculated endlessly. The fringe pushed their ever-more-bizarre theories on talk radio and the Web, aimed, as usual, at the administration. They said De Bari’s Mob contacts had planted the bomb, to rally the public behind an unpopular chief executive. They opined darkly that Sebold had been murdered, to pin the blame on a distinguished public servant. No, another said; De Bari had had him killed when it looked like they were closing in on Don Juan Nuñez, who worked for the first lady’s crime family.

Others whispered that the heart of the plot had been the army. Disgruntled senior officers. A small cabal, “a few bad apples”—but then it only took a few. Dan knew that Sergeant Ouderkirk, Major Upshaw, and others were in FBI custody. Ulrich Stahl, Knight, and two other Joint Staff generals had submitted their resignations. Geraldo B. Edwards had announced his retirement from politics. Medical reasons, his spokesman had said. He was too ill to handle the pace of the vice presidency, and wanted to spend more time with his family.

Yet others speculated on more obscure forces. The shadowy Islamic organization that had underwritten International Blessings. The cartel, whose technique — radio-detonated explosives aboard an aircraft — had clearly been borrowed from the Tejeiro assassination.

But in the end, the only wholly truthful thing anyone could say was that the investigation was in progress. Where it would finish, what its findings would be, and whether they’d be made public in his lifetime, Dan could not even guess.

He knew he didn’t understand all of what had just happened. Sometimes he suspected he didn’t understand any of what had happened, close to the crux of history though he’d been. Revenge, corruption, misguided patriotism, institutional loyalty — any and every motive might have been involved. If Sebold and other high officers had been the movers behind the plot, no doubt they’d thought themselves justified. But they’d needed a tool. A violent loner. A loose cannon.

Enter Dan Lenson.

He could not believe his own blindness. He’d been manipulated. Used. His distrust for authority, his impatience with procedure had made him the all too obvious choice. Move by move they’d advanced him across the board, toward the castled king. Programmed him, like some half-sentient weapon, to make his final mission credible to those who would peruse it for generations to come.

How many other assassins over the bloody course of history had been fashioned as he had? How many Booths and Brutuses, Montholons and Cordays, had struck at the behest of those who stayed in the shadows, to profit from the crimes they’d set in train?

He trembled when he thought how close he’d come to infamy. And how close even yet he was to condemnation. The questioning had been hard, and lasted for days. Even now, men still followed him. Whether for his protection, or his doom, he did not know.

* * *

When he raised his eyes a figure in a black coat barred his path. They looked at each other without speaking. Finally he nodded to her, and bent his head. They fell in together, her heels clicking on the bricks.

Beneath a shadowing oak they stood together, looking out over the sunlit downhill and the white city beyond. If he turned his head Dan saw two men some distance away. They wore ties and light topcoats. They stood before one of the headstones, not quite looking in their direction.

“Your friend called me,” Blair said. “From the Secret Service. McKoy.”

“Yeah. Barney.”

“After what he told me, I had to talk to you. To see how much of this was my fault.”

“None of it was your fault, Blair. It was all mine. My … stupid and unjustified suspicion. Of you. Of others. But it was also just very, very cleverly done.”

“You really thought I was … sleeping with the president. In Russia.”

“Somebody told me you were there. In the middle of the night. I saw the Secret Service outside his suite.”

“But you wouldn’t believe me when I told you it was work.”

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t. And I’m sorry.”

Who had called him that night in St. Petersburg to tell him he needed to check on his wife? He didn’t know. Maybe the investigation would reveal it. Most likely, he suspected, it would not. He was on leave now, stripped of official duties. He didn’t think he was going to get any medals for this tour. In fact, depending on how far up the conspiracy reached, he’d be lucky to stay alive.

He knew now his wondering about the next threat had not taken into account the most dangerous quarter of all.

The greatest menace to his country had never been terrorists, or assassins, or even hostile ideologies. It was those who worked not for the common good, but for their own power.

“So how are you doing now?”

He cleared his throat. “Well, it’s damned lonely. Out here in the cold.”

“Is the Navy going to take care of you?”