“But he’s alive?”
“Yes, he is.”
“May I go there?”
“Honestly, we don’t want you doing that. There have been numerous casualties. We’re trying to get everyone away from the District so we can lock it down and help those in need. Are you armed?”
“I have a Sig in my car.”
“Excellent.”
A blue-suited man ran up, early thirties, glasses, perspiring, as though he’d been in motion since the attacks began.
“This is Agent Stan Pence. Agent Pence, Ms. Lana Elkins,” the Secret Service woman said, then started walking away.
“Wait,” Lana called to her. “What about Agent Maray? He’s part of a security unit assigned to me full—”
“Not now. We can’t spare him. Agent Pence will accompany you home. Once you’re safely locked in your house, he’ll return to duty here. Thank you for your cooperation.”
Pence was on his radio when she looked back to him, signing off quickly.
“How many casualties?” she asked right away.
“I’m not permitted to disclose that information, Ms. Elkins. Where are you parked?”
She told him, talking as they moved out of the Russell Senate Building and down its stone steps. “Look, I’m not trying to pull rank on you, but my security clearance is probably higher than yours, Agent Pence. You can tell me, for God’s sake. Do I look like a terrorist? I was here to testify before the Select Committee on Intelligence.”
“Take it up with my commanding officer. Let’s keep moving.”
He gripped her arm and led her toward the parking structure on Massachusetts Avenue. Sirens screamed. The roads were chockablock with cars. To avoid the gridlock, ambulances and other emergency vehicles were rolling down sidewalks and across the Capitol’s wide expanses of neatly manicured grass. The cacophony was ear-splitting. The whole time Agent Pence kept them walking at a furious pace.
She wondered how the bomb- and rifle-toting terrorists had forged their way so close to the nation’s seat of power. Then again, several years earlier an unauthorized man had made it into the living quarters of the White House, and another guy landed a gyrocopter on the West Lawn of the Capitol.
“Can you tell me about the gunfire?”
The way Pence was looking around, with his handgun by his side, he appeared to be ready for more of it. “No, there’s an embargo on all info.”
“Can you tell me where?”
He shook his head. “Here we go.”
The garage was half a block away. Amid all the turmoil, Lana hadn’t noticed their progress.
Still holding her arm, Pence led her into the parking structure. “Now you take the lead,” he said.
He still held his semi-automatic close to his hip.
Lana pointed their way to her Prius. Pence took the passenger seat, his handgun in plain sight now.
She reached past him and grabbed her Sig Sauer from the glove box. The agent nodded in approval, but cautioned her to follow his commands on any action. “Don’t start shooting until I do.”
Presuming you’re still alive, she thought reflexively.
She tried to text Emma from her car.
“Service is spotty,” Penn said, shaking his head.
The agent gave her step-by-step directions, and in minutes they were speeding down the Washington Mall.
They passed hundreds of people. Most looked scared. Many were running. She hadn’t seen this much panic since the grid went down. Not even the nuclear bombing of Antarctica had produced so much transparent fear. But that explosion had taken place at a great distance, and the seas had risen over weeks. They were still rising, but even flooding of coastal communities lacked the immediate drama of suicide bombers and armed skirmishes in the District of Columbia.
They made it to Bethesda in good time, given the challenges. Lana had taken mental notes of the byways she hadn’t been aware of in the past. Don’s truck was gone.
Jojo greeted her at the door. He looked right past her to Agent Pence.
“He’s okay,” she said to Jojo.
The Malinois might not have agreed: he followed Pence into every room on the ground floor and then up the stairs to the second level.
“Your dog never let me out of his sight, but kept his distance,” Pence reported when he came back down to the living room, where Lana had just checked her phone and seen there was still no service. “He’s a good dog.”
She nodded. “I think so, too. I really like him.”
“Nobody’s gotten into your home. I’ve contacted Bethesda PD. They’re dispatching an officer in a marked car to sit in your driveway. Meantime, keep your weapon on hand at all times. I wish we could spare you one of our agents but we’re in crisis mode at the Capitol.”
Lana nodded.
“Are you okay?” Pence asked with finality.
“I’m fine. Thank you. How are you getting back?”
He pointed outside, where a full-size gray sedan waited on the street. Right then the Bethesda cruiser pulled up.
Before Pence was out the door, Lana checked her phone again. Nothing.
Minutes later, though, her phone beeped. She had service. “R u ok?” she texted Emma at once.
“Yes @ Suf. U?”
“Fine @ home”
“Thank Allah”
That gave Lana pause. “Do u want 2 stay with him?”
“Yes”
As if I had to ask. “ok”
She called Jeff Jensen, who answered on the first ring.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“Here at CF.”
“I thought everyone was ordered out.”
“I pulled rank. I don’t have to tell you that we’ve got intelligence stored here that no FBI agents are cleared to see.”
“Are they there?”
“Yeah, they’ve secured the perimeter.”
“I’ll be right down.”
“I think that’s smart.”
Lana stopped to draw a glass of tap water, downing it in gulps. Then she texted Don, unsurprised that he was parked near Sufyan’s house. She knew the jury was still out for him regarding Tahir. Lana told Don she was heading to CyberFortress, and that Em had just said she’d be staying put.
When Lana headed for the garage, she was shocked to see it wasn’t even noon yet. So much had happened.
Jojo tailed her. She looked at him. “Ready to work? Let’s go.”
She led him to her car. The Malinois jumped onto the passenger seat, looking exceptionally alert.
Lana was backing out of her driveway thirty seconds later. She told the officer in the cruiser she was leaving. When he objected, she flashed her federal government ID and said she wouldn’t return for at least an hour. She expected the drive to CyberFortress to take no more than fifteen minutes, even in the worst of traffic.
But more than cars and trucks were on the road.
Chapter 15
Steel Fist expected Colonel Williams and his cadre of killers to go after Lana Elkins with “extreme prejudice,” but he’d never anticipated this: live video of their murderous operation that Vinko could stream on his website for the voyeuristic pleasure of his most volatile subscribers.
He’d met the colonel in person more than a year ago when Vinko had attended a large gathering of neo-Nazis and right-wing militia members down in Boise. He’d never let on that he was Steel Fist, enjoying the fly-on-the-wall experience of hearing people speak glowingly about the mystery man behind his website. The only comment he’d made about his alter ego was to speculate aloud about whether Steel Fist was in attendance.
He’d been inspired enough by Colonel Williams’s call-to-arms, issued behind the conference’s closed doors, that he’d made a point of shaking his hand and finding ways to praise the ex-Army officer on the Steel Fist website without implicating the man in committing or abetting any crimes.