“Axe Two Zero,” said the young man, who was maybe in his early twenties but had the hard, composed face of someone who had both seen and delivered violent death. He was having to speak loudly because the alarm was still ringing. “One of the new arrivals is on Level Four! What’s the story down there?”
No answer was returned.
“Greg? Where are you?”
Jefferson had lifted his hands and put them behind his head on their command. “Something got in,” he told them. His voice was weak and shaky. “That’s what they said. I don’t know what, but something got in.”
“We know there was a breach,” the soldier answered. Then, into the comm device again, “Greg? Come back, man! What’s going on?”
“There was a Gorgon down below,” Jefferson managed to say. “Level Three. Down below.”
“Greg, answer up!”
Jefferson saw another corridor beyond the two soldiers. He had just come out of the stairwell when these men had stepped in front of him with their weapons ready. Another set of stairs continued up along the stairwell to one or more higher levels.
The young soldier pressed another combination on the keypad. “Axe Two Zero,” he repeated. “Frisco, you copy?”
“The Gorgon,” Jefferson said. “He looks like a man. Something else got in, I don’t know what.” He had the feeling of hot blood pounding in his face and cold sweat making the rest of his body shiver, and he thought he was about to pass out, but he feared any movement because he thought these two would shoot him with no hesitation. He wavered on his feet, dark motes spinning before his eyes.
“Frisco, talk to me!”
“Can I get some water?” Jefferson asked. He dared to look behind himself at the stairwell, fearful that even though shot to pieces Vope was coming after him. “Please…I think I—”
“Shut him up,” the Marine told his companion, who stepped forward to spin Jefferson around and slam him against the wall. Then with a rifle barrel between his shoulder blades, Jefferson was frisked though this had already been done when he and the others had entered the garage. “Frisco,” said the Marine into his comm unit, “come back!”
“He’s not gonna answer,” the other Marine said. “Shit’s hit the fan down there.”
“What’s happening?” the voice of another man asked, loudly over the alarm. “Sergeant Akers, tell me!”
“I’m finding out the situation now, sir, but everything’s under control.”
He was a good liar, Jefferson thought. Sergeant Akers was probably scared shitless, but his voice conveyed firm authority. Jefferson turned his head to see who the new man was, though he already knew. He recognized that man’s voice, and there was only one reason this installation was here and guarded by both Secret Service agents and Marines.
The President of the United States stood in the corridor.
“Jason!” Jefferson said to President Beale. The one and only time he had seen this man in person had been many years ago, when Jefferson was known as Leon Kushman and was working in Arkansas as a volunteer for Bill Clinton. Jason Beale had been a young law student in Missouri, four years older than Jefferson, and both the self-confident and rather devil-may-care firebrands had found themselves at a party where they smoked weed and talked about Leon’s penchant for sneaking into porn theaters, which led to a rambling discussion of the attributes of several actresses in that profession.
“It’s me! Leon Kushman! Don’t you remember me?”
Jason Beale wore a dark blue suit, a white shirt, and a red-patterned tie with a knot so tight it looked near to strangulation. An American flag pin gleamed at his lapel. He was thin, the suit and the shirt a little too large for his shrunken frame. His mane of blonde hair had gone all gray and was thinning in front, but combed with careful precision and likely sprayed in place. He was still a handsome man, very photogenic, but there were circles as dark as bruises under the wary blue eyes. Deep lines cut across a high and noble forehead. His jaw sagged, and as Jefferson awaited an answer, a tic started at the corner of Beale’s left eye and made that entire side of his face twitch as if he’d taken a blow there, or as if he expected a blow to be delivered and he was already flinching from it.
“Leon Kushman!” Jefferson repeated. “The party at Ginger Wright’s condo, May of 1992!”
The First Lady, who was not Ginger Wright, was standing behind her man. Her name was Amanda, maiden name Gale, daughter of the president of an influential Missouri financial group and herself the founder of a public relations agency that had helped Jason Beale along to the Oval Office from the state senate. She was helping him now, it seemed, by holding onto him as if steadying him from a fall.
“Who is this man?” Beale asked his guards. There was something slow and mushy about his speech. The tic continued, getting stronger. “Why is he here?”
“Sir, please return to your quarters,” Akers said. “We have everything under control.”
“I demand to know. The alarm’s going off. Vance doesn’t answer when I call and neither does Bennett. I demand to know what the situation is.”
“Sir, please—”
“Sergeant, I go on television within the hour to speak to the American people. They deserve to know what the situation is.” He looked up at the ceiling, his face twitching badly on the left side. “That alarm. Can’t you stop it?”
“Yes sir,” Akers replied. Jefferson saw the young Marine glance at the First Lady and give an almost imperceptible nod. “If you’ll allow yourself to be taken back to your quarters, sir, we’ll get that alarm shut off and everything in order.”
“They’ll be coming to do my makeup soon,” Beale said.
“Jason!” Jefferson tried again. “I wrote you! I asked you to autograph a picture!” He realized what name he’d last used on the several requests he’d made for a personally autographed picture to impress potential High Rollers. “Jefferson Jericho! Don’t you remember?”
The President’s mouth opened and then closed again. An opaque film seemed to fall across his eyes.
“Let’s go back home, Mandy,” he told the First Lady, who was herself heavily lined and weary-looking though she’d been very beautiful, a sportswoman as well as a business brain, back in the day. Her long dark brown hair was streaked with gray, and her eyes, sunken down into a face that carried no expression, were the color of ashes. She led her husband away along the corridor toward a set of double doors at the far end.
“Axe Two Zero,” Akers said into his communicator. “God damn that alarm!” he told the other Marine, and then back into the comm device, “Keith, you there? Answer me, man!”
“Danny, copy that!” The voice sounded out of breath, and behind it was the noise of confusion as if people were rushing past the speaker and jostling him. “You secure?”
“Got an intruder up here, one of the new arrivals. He’s babbling about a Gorgon on Level Three. What’s the story?”
“We had a breach.”
“Copy that. What came in?”
“You’ll have to see it to believe it. I can hardly hear you, my ears are fucked up. We’ve got a shitmess down here. Doc’s on his way. We lost Jackson, and we’ve got five others in pretty bad shape.”
“Lost Jackson? How?”
“I can’t talk, Danny. My head’s killin’ me.”
“Copy that, but what am I supposed to do with this sonofabitch up here?”
“Hold him. We’re gonna do a sweep on all levels, we’ll get somebody there as soon as we can. Out.”
“There’s a dead man on Level Three,” Jefferson said. “One of the agents. The Gorgon killed him.”
“You sit down,” Akers told him. “Do everything real slowly. Put your back against that wall. Keep your hands behind your head. Cross your legs in front of you and sit still.”