“Yes, Jim?”
“There’s been an incident, sir. The FBI, conducting a takedown at Bull Run in Idaho. Four fatalities, Mr. President. A man, his wife, and two children.”
“They shot children?” A chill swept through him. The worst scenario possible — dead children, shot by federal agents.
But looking at his Chief of Staff’s face, he knew he was wrong. Knew he was wrong and that the truth would be even worse.
“No, sir. The tear-gas canisters — there was a fire, sir. The woman and the children were hiding in the basement and were trapped. They — it will take some time to identify the bodies, but we’re pretty certain who they are. There’s not much left.”
A groan escaped his lips involuntarily. Children, burning. “How old?”
“Eight and four.”
The President slumped back in his chair. The sheer insanity and tragedy of it overwhelmed him. Children, dead in a fire. A fire caused by his agents.
“There’s more, sir,” his Chief of Staff continued doggedly. “The agents weren’t in the house long, just long enough to seize his computer and a few other items before the fire broke out. But from what they’ve been able to determine so far, sir, he wasn’t the man they were looking for.”
“What!” The President slammed his hands down on his desk, now outraged. “We killed children and it’s not even the right man?”
The Chief of Staff stood silent. One of his roles in the Administration was to absorb any initial flack, calming the President down so that he could decide what his public move would be. He knew that none of what would follow was directed at him.
“Get Bratton over here,” the President shouted. “I want to see that son of a bitch standing tall in front of my desk within the next ten minutes. Ten minutes, do you hear? Ten minutes or I’ll have his head!”
“Ten minutes, sir.” The Chief of Staff left and closed the door quietly behind him.
He would give it five minutes, he decided, before he went back into the Oval Office. A few moments for the President to collect his thoughts and decide what his next move would be. Bratton was still on his way back from Idaho, but the President wouldn’t want to hear that. Best to wait until he calmed down just a bit.
In the Oval Office, the President buried his face in his hands. He had three children of his own, and the thought of anything happening to them, particularly such an inconceivable horror, was simply beyond contemplation. And it had happened because of something his people did — no, he couldn’t face it. Not right this second.
Eventually he would. He had not survived the last four years, nor would he survive the coming term, by succumbing to raw emotion, no matter how painful. The simple fact was that when he made decisions, people died. Sometimes the enemy, sometimes his own troops.
And now his own civilian citizens.
Terrorism had to be stopped. With all the resources this nation had, there was no excuse for not being able to execute a mission without such tragic results. Something had gone badly wrong, and he intended to find out what it was. He pulled open the upper-right drawer and looked at the slip of paper again. The letters TX stared back at him, and for some reason that led him to think of a certain retired Naval officer — an admiral at that — who had a reputation for being able to get things done: Tombstone Magruder, on the pointy end of the spear in so many conflicts overseas. Now that he was a civilian, how would he feel about operating inside his own country?
But why the Magruders? Why any civilians at all? He didn’t know why it seemed so important that they be involved, but he had long since learned to trust such strong intuitions.
Four minutes had elapsed since he had sent his Chief of Staff out of the office, and he was beginning to calm himself, dividing the problem into the compartments inside his mind that he could examine at will. He stretched, stood, and walked to the door. He opened it and called out, “Jim?”
The Chief of Staff was standing nearby, and immediately came over. The President felt an entirely inappropriate flash of amusement. Am I so predictable?
“Sir, Mr. Bratton is on his way back from Idaho right now. It will be a few more hours until he lands.”
The President said, “Track down the two Magruders, wherever they are. Work it out so that the Magruders are here before Bratton. Any questions?”
“No, Mr. President.”
“Sir, Senator Hamlin is calling,” one of the secretaries said, directing her announcement at the Chief of Staff. In addition to screening the staff from his boss’s raw emotions, the Chief of Staff also served to screen the President from those who felt they had a claim on his time.
The President groaned. “The last thing I need.” Ben Hamlin, the Senior Senator from Idaho, had been one of the President’s most vocal opponents during the election.
“I’ll take it,” the Chief of Staff said, heading for his own office.
“No,” the President said wearily. “I’ll have to talk to him sooner or later. Better sooner, so he doesn’t have a chance to go spouting off that I’m stonewalling him.”
The Chief of Staff hesitated. “Are you sure, Mr. President? Perhaps we should take a few minutes to work out a statement.”
The President shook his head. “No. I know what I’m going to say to him. It’s his state, Jim. He’s got a right to talk to me right now.”
The President went back into his office and stared at the phone for a moment before touching the flashing number-one button and picking up the receiver. “Hello, Senator. What can I do for you?”
The flat mountain tones were clearly audible, and sometimes the President suspected that the Senator intentionally deepened his accent. “I’m calling about this outrage, Mr. President. I just heard the most horrendous story from my staff, and I—”
“Come over and see me, Senator,” the President said quietly. “Off the record — no announcements. No photo opportunities, no noise. Just get over here so we can figure out what happened. I’ll give you full access to everything we know.”
There was a moment of silence on the line; then the Senator said, “All right. I’ll be there, sir. And I hope you have better answers than the ones I’m getting right now.”
The phone went dead. The president felt a flash of rage. So he thinks he can just hang up on me, does he? For a moment, he was tempted to let the Senator cool his heels in the outer office once he arrived to show him where the power was around the White House. He dismissed the thought as quickly as it occurred to him.
His Chief of Staff came back and said, “Sir, I found the Magruders at their office. They’re on their way over right now.”
“Stall them,” the President said. He smiled a brief, wintry smile, aware of the incongruity of demanding that they dance attendance on him and then putting them in a holding pattern. But this was the White House — what was considered common courtesy in other parts of Washington was not an issue. They would understand. “Apologize to the Magruders for me and stash them somewhere that Hamlin won’t see them. Once I pour some oil on the water, I’ll let them ignite it.”
Pamela Drake was suffering from a severe case of jet lag. As a result, when the call came in, she was still at home, staring bleakly at her second cup of coffee and seriously contemplating calling in sick. It was an option, sure. Most of the reporters did it routinely the day after they returned from an assignment halfway around the world. But Pamela had built a reputation around being the toughest of them all, and had never taken advantage of that. Maybe it was time to start.
The call came in on her cell phone, on the number she gave out only to certain people. It was the one she answered before all others, the ring at which she broke off whatever she was doing in order to take the call.