He had no reason to believe anything was amiss. He’d received no alerts from the farm. But Bill Jensen must be aware by now that something was wrong, and had probably put three and three together.
As if on cue, Maddux’s cell phone pinged. He grabbed it, scanned the SOS message, tossed the device back on the seat, swung the truck left into the farm’s driveway, and jammed the accelerator to the floor. He’d made it in the nick of time.
CHAPTER 16
“Mr. President?”
Dorn glanced away from the darkness outside the Oval Office. He’d been staring into it sadly for the last five minutes. “Yes, Stewart.”
“Sir, it’s after midnight.” Baxter was leaning into the office from the corridor through the open door. He hadn’t bothered knocking. After all, he was the chief of staff. There was no need for him to be bound by rules others had to obey. At this point he made most of the rules when it came to dealing with the president, and in many instances knew more about what was going on than the president. In fact, Dorn would be lost without him. No, the president wasn’t going to say anything about violating protocol. He’d better not, anyway. “Why are you still awake? You need to get to bed.”
“You sound like my mother, God rest her soul.”
“Nevertheless.”
The president shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t want to keep the First Lady up. I’d just toss and turn.”
“You need your rest, sir. With all due respect, the First Lady can rest anytime she wants to. Maybe it’s her duty to stay awake with you and keep you company once in a while if you need that.” Baxter hesitated. “She wasn’t shot in the chest a few weeks ago, either.”
Dorn shook his head at Baxter’s audacity. “Come in, Stewart.” He motioned at the chair in front of the desk. “Sit down. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I could actually use your company right now.”
As Baxter walked across the eagle, he glanced at the pretty, young African American nurse who was sitting in a chair beside the president’s temporary bed, reading a magazine. She looked up and smiled sincerely, but he didn’t acknowledge her. He didn’t have the bandwidth to get to know everyone in Washington, DC.
“What’s bothering you, sir?” Baxter asked as he eased into the chair.
“What do you think is bothering me, Stewart? Christ.”
“Of course, but what part of it is bothering you so much that you can’t sleep? Which,” Baxter continued quietly after he’d leaned slightly forward so the nurse couldn’t hear him, “I feel it’s my duty to inform you, could ultimately affect your judgment very negatively. And therefore negatively affect the lives of three hundred and sixty million people in the United States of America. Not to mention another six-point-four billion people outside this country.”
Dorn gave Baxter a prickly grimace. “It’s been nearly a day and a half, Stewart, and we have no leads. Law-enforcement departments around the country have gotten thousands of tips about suspicious people in hotels, motels, apartments, houses, schools, and malls, but none of those tips have led to anything, much less arrests. We don’t know who’s committing the attacks, we don’t know who’s behind the attacks, and we don’t know what they want.”
“Begging your pardon, sir, but we know exactly what they want. In the short run, they want to disrupt our way of life. In the long run, they want to destroy it.”
“The point is, Stewart, Americans are terrified to leave their homes. People are dying, our economy is grinding to a halt, and I can’t seem to do a damn thing about it.”
“Patience, sir.”
“Patience?” the president asked incredulously. “Are you serious?”
“We’re doing everything we can, Mr. President,” Baxter said confidently. “Everyone’s involved at the federal level who should be involved, and they’re all completely focused. The FBI, Homeland Security, CIA domestic assets, and the DNI are all putting everything they possibly can into this crisis. My staff and I are making absolutely certain of that on a minute-by-minute basis. My staffers are constantly in touch with those people.”
“It’s not getting us anywhere.”
“It hasn’t even been thirty-six hours, sir. We will find the people who are responsible for these crimes quickly and bring them to justice. I promise.”
“You do? Really?”
“Yes.”
“Quickly?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, now I feel better.”
“Sir, I—”
“‘Quickly’ would have been today, Stewart.”
“You can’t expect miracles, Mr. President.”
“Why not?” Dorn snapped. “The taxpayers spend over a trillion dollars a year on defense and homeland security at the federal level, and who knows how much more on local law enforcement. Damn it, I have to expect miracles.” He was seething. “The American public demands that I expect miracles in this situation. And they should.”
“Easy, sir.” The strain had to be incredible, and Dorn was just letting off steam. That’s all this was. “We’re doing everything in our power. No one can second-guess you.”
Dorn slammed his open palm down on the desk so it banged loudly and the nurse jumped. “I don’t care about being second-guessed,” he said. “I don’t care about perceptions or using this situation to our advantage politically or blaming the Republicans for it somehow. I just want arrests. I want this to stop.”
“I’m doing everything I can for you, sir.”
Dorn shut his eyes tightly. “I know you are, Stewart,” he agreed softly. He moaned and ran his fingers through his dark hair. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to come down on you so hard.”
“It’s all right. I know it wasn’t personal. I know you’re feeling it.”
The president shook his head forlornly. “Those bastards shot elementary school children today, Stewart, six- and seven-year-old defenseless children.”
“It doesn’t get any worse than that, sir.”
“And we didn’t catch the bastards.”
“No we didn’t.”
“There was an armed guard on duty.”
“Those kinds of guards aren’t equipped to take on what hit that elementary school today. That man had no chance.”
“Children were mowed down at that school by submachine guns.”
Baxter nodded. “I know,” he agreed quietly. “It’s…well, it’s just awful.”
“And do you know what the worst part of it is?”
“Well, I—”
“They didn’t shoot themselves when it was over because they felt so horrible for what they’d done. This wasn’t some kind of onetime, wild-rage event uncorked by years of bullying or mental illness or a fight with a spouse. This was a cold-blooded, calculated attack by assassins who right now are probably picking their next target, which might be a home, a store, even a church or a synagogue.”
“I hear you, sir.”
Dorn glanced at his laptop, which sat on his desk. It was still open to the page he’d been studying before he turned around in his wheelchair to stare out into the darkness out of despair. “Do you remember the DC Snipers, Stewart?”
“Of course. That happened in 2002. I believe it was in October of that year, specifically. I remember it very well. I was down on K Street doing the lobbying thing. It was my last year doing that.” Baxter prided himself on his steel-trap memory. He worked at it, too. In what little spare time he could find, he finished crossword and Sudoku puzzles with a passion because a neurosurgeon friend had told him the brain was like a muscle in a way and puzzle workouts were very good for the memory area. “And if I’m not mistaken, you were a junior congressman from Vermont who was excessively worried about global warming, the spotted owl, and rain forests in Brazil.”