Triggers

There were security people guarding the entrance to the basement gallery anyway, but Cheung took off, running on the hard marble floor and down the wide outside steps. He passed between the two signs that flanked the entrance. The white one on his right said, “Warning: Firearms Prohibited,” and showed a silhouette of a pistol with a barred red circle over it. The brown one on his left said, “Quiet” and “Respect Please.”

Cheung hurried down the steps past the seating area that had been erected for the presidential party, rounded a corner, and headed down again to the narrow entrance to the lower level. He had looked through the gallery just yesterday, as part of the preparations for the president’s speech. It had been his first time in it—like most Washington residents, he tended to visit the sites only when he had company from out of town, and there were so many things to see on the Mall, he’d never bothered with this little museum before.

The exhibit hall, opened in 1994 and occupying just 560 square feet, had been partially paid for by school kids collecting pennies. Since the back of the penny had depicted the Lincoln Memorial then, it had been called the “Pennies Make a Monumental Difference Campaign.” Cheung had read the Lincoln quotes carved into black marble slabs, including one that had startled him: “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.”

He tore past the exhibits, heading to the little elevator lobby in the back. Of course, by the time he got there, the elevator had completed its descent. Three other men—two uniformed DC cops and another Secret Service agent—were already there, with guns aimed at the elevator door. But there was no sign of anyone else, and the brass door was closed; whoever was inside must have a key for the elevator’s control panel, which would explain how he’d started it after it had been locked off on the upper level.

“Anybody try pushing the button?” Cheung asked. There was just one button, since the elevator could only go up from here.

“I did,” said one of the uniforms. “Nothing happened.”

Cheung pushed the button himself. The door remained shut. “He’s definitely got a key, then,” he said.

“And he’s armed,” noted the other Secret Service agent.

Cheung judged the brass door sufficiently sturdy that the would-be assassin probably couldn’t shoot through it. He rapped his knuckles loudly against one of the metal panels. “Secret Service!” he shouted. “Come out with your hands up!”

Chapter 4

“Everyone, attention please! We need to evacuate the White House and the surrounding buildings immediately. Do not assemble at your fire-muster stations; just keep going. Get as far from the building as you can. Exit right now in an orderly fashion. Don’t stop to take anything; just get out. Move!”

“Are we sure he’s in there?” Agent Manny Cheung asked.

“There were guards at the outside door the whole time,” replied the other Secret Service man, “and we’ve looked in the exhibit space and the restrooms. He’s got to still be in the elevator.”

Cheung spoke into his sleeve. “Cheung to Jenks: make sure the elevator shaft is guarded at the top, in case he tries to ride up again.”

“Copy,” said a voice.

“Sir,” said one of the DC cops, “this is bullshit. There are three of us, and dozens more if we need them. Look at that door.” Cheung did so. It was an old-fashioned elevator, and the door consisted of two parts—but they didn’t separate in the middle. Rather, the left part tucked behind the right part as the door opened, and both parts slipped into a pocket on the right side of the elevator shaft. “If we pull on the right-hand part in the middle, there, the left-hand part will draw away from the wall.”

Cheung wondered at the wisdom of talking just outside the elevator; although the heavy door probably muffled the sound, whoever was inside could doubtless hear some of what they were saying. Nonetheless, the plan made sense. He nodded at the officer, who was the biggest of the three of them, easily six-five and 280 pounds. The man grabbed the right-hand panel by its edge, near the centerline of the door, and put his back into it, pulling it aside so that it slid with a grinding sound into the pocket hidden behind the beige wall. Cheung, the other Secret Service agent, and the other cop, had their guns trained on the left side, which was now showing a crack, then a sliver, then a strip of light from within. The big cop grunted and pulled again, hard, and the door opened to eighteen inches—but no gunfire hailed from the interior.

Another yank, and the right-hand leaf was now all the way into its pocket, leaving the entire left-half of the elevator’s width open now, and—

And there was no one inside.