Djamila thought of the Prophet Muhammad climbing the miraj, or ladder, that fateful night, until he reached the Farthest Mosque, the hallowed “seventh heaven.” It was the promised paradise and it would be so beautiful. Far better than anything here on earth.
She pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and the crippled van shot forward.
The shotgun and pistol roared together. The van’s windshield exploded inward.
The vehicle immediately weaved off the road onto the grass and hit a tree.
The van’s horn started blaring. The cops rushed over to it and cautiously opened the driver’s door. Djamila’s bloodied head was resting against the steering wheel, her eyes open but no longer seeing. As the officers stepped back, a piece of paper floated out of the van. One of them stooped and picked it up.
“What’s it say?” the other asked. “Suicide note?”
He looked at it, shrugged and handed it to his colleague. “I don’t read Chinese.”
It was actually Arabic. Djamila had written something down.
It was the date and exact time of her death.
CHAPTER
57
CARTER GRAY SAID NOTHING IN the chopper ride back to Washington. Hemingway didn’t attempt to break into the man’s thoughts; he had quite enough of his own.
They landed at NIC, and Gray climbed out of the chopper.
“Do you want to go home, sir?” Hemingway asked.
Gray looked at him incredulously. “The president is missing. I have work to do.”
He walked into NIC headquarters as the chopper lifted off again. Hemingway spoke into his headset to the pilot.
Tyler Reinke confirmed this command and they headed west.
Hemingway glanced down at the floor of the chopper. In the cargo hold a foot under him, President James Brennan was sleeping peacefully.
Within a few hours even the most remote parts of the world knew at least some of the details of what had happened in the small town of Brennan, Pennsylvania.
The Secret Service had immediately implemented its continuity of government plan, securing all persons in the chain of command down to the secretary of state. The vice president, Ben Hamilton, had assumed the duties of the chief executive in accordance with the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the first time it had been invoked in response to a kidnapped president.
And the newly installed acting president was not a happy man.
Hamilton had verbally eviscerated the director of the Secret Service. Next he’d summoned the heads of every intelligence agency to the White House and took them to task for having been so totally oblivious to an operation that had clearly taken enormous planning and manpower. It was well known that the VP had presidential aspirations. He obviously thought that, aside from the damage the kidnapping had caused the country, it was probably not beneficial to him to assume the top spot in this way.
Then he ordered Carter Gray to come to the Oval Office that night.
By all accounts, Gray handled the tirade thrown his way in stride. When Hamilton finished, Gray calmly asked him if he could now go about the business of finding the president and returning him safely. His new boss’s response, according to the sources who’d heard it through the very thick walls, was not printable in any newspaper.
At Kate’s invitation Adelphia and the Camel Club reconvened back at her carriage house on their return from Brennan. Adelphia still carried a horrified look. Kate gave her some water and a cold cloth, but the woman just sat there staring down at her hands and slowly shaking her head.
Kate said, “Alex is okay, but I haven’t been able to see him, only talk to him on the phone for a few minutes.”
“I’m sure he’s being debriefed,” Reuben replied. “He was right in the middle of it all. He might’ve seen something that could help.”
“What did we all see that might be useful?” Stone asked.
“A lot of shooting, people dying and cars on fire,” Caleb listed.
“And the president being carried away,” Milton added.
“But there was something wrong with him before that,” Caleb said. “I saw it on the big TV. He was clutching his chest.”
“Heart attack?” Reuben suggested.
“Possibly,” Stone said.
“Well, it was Arabs shooting,” Reuben added. “I grabbed one of their guns before the man got shot.”
“It was definitely a coordinated attack,” Stone commented. “Even with all the chaos, that was clear to see. Shooters and then men setting themselves on fire, and then more shooters. In structured bursts of directed fire.”
“At least the presidential limo was able to get away,” Kate added. “Even if the president ended up being kidnapped.”
“Yes, but the perpetrators probably intended that the limo escape,” Stone said. “After cutting it off from the rest of the motorcade.” He looked over at Milton, who was frantically typing away on his laptop. “Anything new, Milton?”
“Only that the president is confirmed missing, and there was a tremendous gun battle outside of Mercy Hospital in Brennan.”
“Mercy Hospital,” Stone said thoughtfully. “If the president was ill, they must’ve taken him to the hospital. That would have been standard procedure.”
“And they set fire to the ambulance,” Kate said.
“Also part of the plan,” Stone replied.
Caleb looked at all of them. “So what now?”
“We really need to talk to Alex. He needs to look at that film,” Kate said.
“I’m sure he’s pretty busy right now,” Reuben commented.
“I’ll go and see him as soon as he’s home,” Kate said. “I know he’ll want to help.”
Stone, however, didn’t look nearly as confident as she did.
At Secret Service headquarters the crisis room was abuzz. Although the FBI was officially handling the investigation, the Service was not about to back down on this case.
Alex Ford, his arm bandaged, his bruised ribs wrapped with tape and his lungs still feeling like they’d been charcoaled, had been debriefed for the tenth time and was, in turn, being caught up on recent developments.
“We’ve got the hospital security guard,” said the Secret Service’s director, Wayne Martin. “The two other men in the ambulance were killed after a gun battle, but we got the bastard.”
“And the president?” Alex asked anxiously.
Martin said, “No sign of him. We think he was transferred to another vehicle. A woman named Djamila Saelem may have been involved. She worked as a nanny for a couple named Franklin. She tied up Mrs. Franklin and took the kids. Later she released the kids but was killed by the responding officers when she tried to run them down.”
“What’s the connection to the president?” another agent asked.
“We think she used the kids to get through the roadblocks. A nanny with three screaming babies is not really high on the suspect list.”
“I’m still not getting it,” the same agent commented.
“When the officers inspected the van she was driving, a secret compartment was found in the rear. It was copper- and lead-lined with an outline of a man’s body roughly the size of the president’s cut into it, plus space for an oxygen tank that was later recovered. Mrs. Franklin said the nanny was highly upset when she was told that Mrs. Franklin had changed her plans and was going to the dedication event with her sons. That would’ve thrown a big monkey wrench in their plan, so Franklin had to be taken out.”