The unhappy sounds gradually changed to general murmurs of consent. All the same, Naomi was surprised when Landrieu hurried to agree. “That sounds reasonable enough to me. Let’s hold off on the roadblocks. It would take a huge effort to mobilize that kind of force at this time in the morning anyway. Emily, I suggest that you start looking for a judge to wake up. When will you be ready to go?”
Deputy Director Susskind took a quick look at her watch. “Most of my people are already in place. Once we get the warrant, say . . . 5 AM.”
“Excellent.” Landrieu pulled back the cuff of his shirt and looked at his own watch. “That’s three hours from now. Send me an update when you hit the ground in Virginia. There’s no point in waking up the president at this hour. Let’s wait and see if we have something useful to tell him. Whoever’s not on the move will meet back here at 7:00 AM.
“President Chirac and Prime Minister Berlusconi arrived yesterday, ladies and gentlemen. The boating excursion is scheduled for 9:00 AM. That gives us six hours to catch a man who has eluded us for more than seven years. I suggest you get to work.”
Five minutes later the room was almost empty. Ryan was one of the last to leave, and he looked around for a minute before he saw Naomi moving down a distant hallway. She was almost running, and he had to move fast to catch up.
“Hey, where are you—” He caught the look on her face. “What’s wrong?”
“What do you mean, ‘What’s wrong?’ You know exactly what’s wrong.”
“No, I don’t.” She was still moving fast, and he was genuinely confused. “Naomi, you give me way too much credit. For the record, I’m actually pretty dumb, and I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
She didn’t smile. “You shouldn’t have pulled that little stunt in there, Ryan. I didn’t need you to do that, okay? It was embarrassing.
I can fight my own battles.”
“I know that . . . Naomi, stop for a second.” When she unexpectedly complied, he had to backtrack a couple of steps to face her.
“Where are you going, anyway?”
“I have a seat on the next helicopter to Richmond.”
That came as a surprise. “With who?”
“Superintendent Plesse and the deputy director.”
“Which deputy director?”
“Susskind.”
Ryan lifted an eyebrow. “And Harper approved that?”
“It was his suggestion.” Naomi crossed her arms and stared at him defiantly. Her cheeks were still flushed, and her glossy black hair spilled in riotous waves down around her face and over her shoulders.
Ryan thought she had never looked better.
“I’m going, too.”
She shook her head slowly. “Harper specifically said you were to stay here.”
“I don’t give a shit what Harper said.”
Her expression softened slightly, as did her tone of voice. “Ryan, we don’t know for sure that he’s still there, and we need to have both ends covered. You don’t need me to tell you that.”
He hesitated, knowing that she was right. When she started to walk away again, he caught her arm. “Listen, I’m sorry about what I said in there. I should have kept my mouth shut. It’s just that Landrieu’s such an asshole . . .”
“That’s all right. I think so, too.”
There was a brief moment of silence as they looked at each other.
Impulsively, Ryan leaned down to kiss her cheek. “Be careful, Naomi.”
“I’ll be okay,” she said. “After all, you won’t be there to shoot me this time.” She turned away before he could think of a clever response and resumed her rapid pace to the stairwell. When she stepped out into the icy wind and walked toward the waiting helicopter a few minutes later, she was wearing a wide smile, and despite the cold, she felt warm all over.
Chapter 32
RICHMOND, VIRGINIA • HANOVER COUNTY
A s soon as the Bell 206 LongRanger touched down at VSP
Administrative Headquarters, its three passengers disembarked and moved gratefully toward the stairwell and the warmth of the building. It was bitterly cold outside, and made worse by the frigid gusts of wind that whipped over the roof and penetrated their clothing. From a conversation she had overheard earlier in the day, Naomi knew the worsening weather to be the first gentle touches of a winter storm that had started off the coast of Florida three days earlier and had been working its way north ever since.
As she followed the two senior officials through the spotless halls, she reflected that they would all be saved a lot of trouble if the storm picked up enough to force a cancellation of the president’s trip on the Sequoia. At the same time, she knew that they would never get off the hook that easily. President Brenneman seemed just as intent on fulfilling the demands of his schedule as Vanderveen was on cutting them short.
Deputy Director Susskind enjoyed the warmth of the building only for as long as it took her to ride the elevator down to the bottom floor. She had used the time in the helicopter to scream through several conversations over a static-filled line, and arrangements had been made for a car to take her directly to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, where Judge Lucy Klein was already pouring her second cup of coffee and wondering what she could possibly have done to deserve such mistreatment at the hands of the government she had faithfully served for more than eighteen years.
While Susskind pleaded her case before the judge, Naomi would accompany Superintendent Plesse out to the staging area, where they were set to meet up with the SAC for the Bureau’s Richmond Office. She followed Plesse through the big glass doors of the Administrative Center less than ten minutes after Susskind’s departure, walking quickly toward the Lincoln Town Car that waited alongside the curb. Soon they were heading east on the Midlothian Turnpike, crossing darkened streets and following the gentle curves of the James River less than a mile to the north.
At 3:40 in the morning, the roads were virtually empty, and so it wasn’t long before they reached I-95. The driver eased down on the accelerator when they took the entrance ramp, and soon they were pushing toward Hanover County as fast as the car could carry them.
They were in blackout condition at the staging area, which meant there were only a few light sticks, also known as chemical, or ‘chem’
lights, scattered around the perimeter. The staging area wasn’t much more than a cluster of Bureau vehicles arranged in a vague circle, like a wagon train defending itself against marauding Indians. The side road was marked by a rusty gate that someone had thought to pull back and chain to a tree, thereby making it easier for vehicles to get in and out of the clearing in a hurry.
Naomi was hit by an icy gust of wind as soon as she stepped out of the Town Car. She blindly chased after Plesse in the dark, passing small groups of huddled agents as he hurried up to an idling Suburban and rapped on the window. When it came down he asked for the SAC, and was rewarded with a vague wave toward the largest vehicle in the clearing, a black Chevy conversion van. Ten seconds later he was pounding on the back door with a gloved fist.
There were two people already sitting in the overheated interior, which was lit up with communications gear. Naomi could clearly make out the two monitors displaying feeds from the infrared cameras on the perimeter.
Brett Harrison, the SAC, was a fair-haired, All-American type with big shoulders and clear blue eyes. Naomi was wary of him right off the bat, especially when she noticed that one of his front teeth was chipped. Football injury, she thought, and frowned. For some reason that she had never been able to figure out, she harbored a mild animosity toward jocks, especially middle-aged jocks who had never gotten over the fact that they weren’t in college anymore.