I Minus 72 (32 page)

As planned, his car was the first to arrive.
The next was the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, followed by the
Chief Justice. He watched them as they exited their cars and moved
to the front of the bleachers. There were already several
dignitaries in the bleachers, maybe a hundred or so, but they had
parked somewhere else. The Vice President’s car arrived next and
the four occupants moved to the front row of the bleachers. The
President and President-elect arrived at exactly 11:55. They were
each in a Presidential Limo which was completely armored,
supposedly even protected from below. Fortunately, other cabinet
member’s cars were just regular cars without protective shielding.
Nothing more than tinted glass. The DNI’s included.

Vladimir figured that might change after
today. He’d been hanging around the parked cars talking with the
other five drivers for a while, then, just as the Presidential limo
arrived, he said he needed a smoke and started walking away from
the others. As he lit a cigarette, a Marlborough, a great American
cigarette, no one paid him the least attention. All eyes were on
the President as he approached the podium. Vladimir was standing,
smoking his cigarette about twenty yards away. He started walking
towards the capitol building at the same time President-elect Ted
Mason stepped towards the podium.

In the meantime, Grant and Sam arrived at
the bleachers at 10:30 and were watching everyone who approached
within fifty yards. They especially watched everyone who was on,
immediately in front of and immediately behind the bleachers. That
included the drivers. He wasn’t particularly worried about the
drivers. They’d all been through metal detectors and the body
scanners, and they all checked out.

Sam, always a stickler for details, knew
there were six cars authorized behind the bleachers and that number
jibed. However, when she looked at the cluster of drivers, there
were only five.

“Grant,” she whispered into her microphone,
“There’s a driver missing!”

Grant immediately looked and saw she was
right. He swung around and looked in the area adjacent to the
bleachers, trying to pick out anyone in the dark uniform all the
drivers wore. He scanned the area for a few seconds and about sixty
yards towards the capital building saw what looked like one of the
drivers walking swiftly away from the ceremony.

The Chief Justice held out his hand, on
which was a bible.

Grant started running towards the rapidly
walking driver. At the speed with which the driver was walking,
Grant figured he could make up the time in about ten or eleven
seconds.

“I, Theodore Roosevelt Mason, do solemnly
swear,” the Chief Justice started.

“I, Theodore Roosevelt Mason, do solemnly
swear,” the President-elect repeated.

Grant was closing the
distance, but now he was worried about being detected. If this
driver was the assassin, he could trigger a remote device any time.
That had to be it. It was too late for him to be looking for a
rifle or something else. It had to be explosives, but where? They
had looked everywhere. It was obviously not a suicide bomb—the guy
was walking
away
from the bleachers. Where the hell was it?

“. . . that I will faithfully execute,” the
Chief Justice continued.

“. . . that I will faithfully execute,” the
President-elect said.

Sam was following Grant, struggling to keep
up. She knew she wasn’t going to be able to catch up with him, but
she had to keep going. He might need her.

Grant was getting closer, but he wasn’t
closing the gap as quickly as he’d like. Fortunately, the guy
wasn’t looking backwards. He was probably trying not to look
suspicious by looking around. There were a lot of people all over
the place. Grant knew that if he sounded an alarm, all hell would
break loose and the people currently just sitting, listening to the
ceremony would start moving around and he would lose his quarry. It
had to be Vladimir. It just had to be.

“. . . the Office of President of the United
States,” said the Chief Justice.

“. . . the Office of President of the United
States,” repeated the President-elect.

He was within twenty feet now and closing
fast. Just a few more seconds to go. If he could just catch him
before he set off the explosives . . . .

“
. . . and will, to the
best of my ability,” continued the Chief Justice.

“
. . . and will, to the
best of my ability,” followed the President-elect.

As he was running, Grant had another
thought. What if the explosives were on a timer? What if he caught
this guy only to have the explosives go off and kill everybody?
Shit! Why do there have to be so many options?

“
. . . preserve, protect
and defend . . .”

“
. . . preserve, protect
and defend . . .”

Vladimir was walking fast and thinking, with
one more phrase, the President will complete the oath, and as soon
as he says the last word, I will trigger the bomb. It will be
perfect. He removed the triggering device from his pocket. It had a
flip-top covering the actual plunger and to avoid accidently
setting off the explosion, he left it in place. He would flip it up
the last second before pushing the plunger with his thumb.

At that moment, Grant leaped out and tackled
the uniformed driver from behind. He was bigger than Grant had
thought and much more muscled. Although surprised at the blow from
behind, Vladimir recovered quickly. They wrestled on the ground for
a few seconds, until the man touched and then pulled Grant’s new
compact .45 out of his shoulder holster and held it under Grant’s
chin. Without a word they stopped wrestling. The man stood up. As
Vladimir pulled back the hammer and started to apply pressure to
the trigger, Grant heard two sharp reports in rapid succession.
Looking up at the man he knew only as Vladimir, Grant saw that he
had a surprised look on his face. He also saw a red stain begin to
spread on the front of the guy’s white shirt. The man, without
changing expression, fell forward, landing partially on Grant.

Grant looked around and saw two people
standing with guns drawn—Sam and just behind her to the right,
Garcia. Not a double tap, then. Two individual shots. Somewhere off
in the distance Grant heard,

“
. . . the constitution
of the United States.”

“
. . . the constitution
of the United States.”

And he knew the President was safe.

I Plus 1

When they found the trigger clasped in the
assassin’s left hand it was clear that there were explosives
somewhere close by, so they searched everything around the
bleachers. The Secret Service eventually discovered the explosives
in the gasoline tank of the DNI’s car, but only after entirely
dismantling all six automobiles parked behind the bleachers. It was
the weight of the gas tank after it was drained that finally led
them to find the explosives. It was an ingenious system which, had
it not been for Grant and Sam, would have worked.

The shots that Garcia and Sam had fired were
accurate and powerful. Garcia’s jacketed hollow-point .40 caliber
slug passed directly through Vladimir’s skull and broke into
pieces, scrambling his brain. Death was instantaneous and Vladimir
was frozen the instant it hit. He never got a chance to flip open
the latch covering the triggering button on top of the transmitter
he was holding. An instant later and he would have successfully
wiped out the entire present and future leadership of the most
powerful nation in the world.

Grant finished up his time in Washington,
saying goodbye to everyone. The last person he talked to was Sam.
They were standing just outside his office in the Pentagon.

“Well, Grant, you got your man,” Sam said
smiling.

“We
got our man,” Grant replied, emphasizing the ‘we’.

“Too bad you didn’t get to question him, but
I really didn’t have a choice. I had to shoot. Apparently Garcia
felt the same way.”

Grant put his hand on Sam’s shoulder and
said, “I know you didn’t. Don’t worry about it; you did everything
right. I don’t know if he would have talked anyway. He was a pro,
so we probably wouldn’t have learned anything from him. We just
have to hope he was acting alone and wasn’t part of a larger
network. Otherwise, they might try again. I had a chance to explain
this to the new President, so at least he and his Secret Service
detail are aware of the possibility.”

Sam asked, “What’s next for you, Grant?”

“Well, I’ve finished my debriefing and have
been released from active duty, so I guess I’ll go home,” Grant
said, his hand still on her shoulder.

“Grant, I want to tell you how great this
has been. I’ve never had a scarier or more wonderful time in my
life,” she smiled at him.

Looking deeply into her eyes he said, “I’m
going to miss you.”

“I’m going to miss you terribly,” she
replied. “But, I still have some time on my enlistment, so I have
to stick around here. Don’t know what they’ll have me do, but I’m
sure they’ll think of something. They told me I’ll be staying with
DIA.”

“I’ll call you, soon.” He paused and then
added, “You can call me, too, you know.”

Looking up at him she smiled wistfully. “I
know. And I will. Probably more often than you’d like. But it will
really take some getting used to.”

“What will?” Grant asked.

“Not being close to you,” Sam replied.

Grant stepped forward and took her into his
arms. She laid her head on his chest. After a moment he lifted her
face to his and kissed her for a long, long time.

***

At the same time Grant was saying goodbye to
Sam, Garcia was walking upstairs to a meeting with the Director of
the CIA. He was shown into the inner office by the Director’s
assistant.

“Hi, Marty. Thanks for coming in. Have a
seat,” the Director said, motioning to the chair across his
desk.

“No problem, sir. What’s up?” Garcia replied
as he sat down and crossed his legs.

The Director leaned forward and said
quietly, “Just wanted to talk with you briefly to wrap up the
mission you just completed. Have you told anyone about my
instructions to you?”

“No, sir. At your request I’ve not spoken to
anyone about it . . . and I won’t. I don’t know why this guy had to
die, but if you tell me he had to, then that’s good enough.”

“Good. Thanks for keeping this confidential.
In the interest of national security, I can’t tell you the
reasoning behind the kill instructions nor why this must remain
secret forever. You’ll just have to trust me on this one. You did a
great job, by the way, and as of now you are one grade higher and
will take on some new responsibilities. Nora will brief you on them
within the week.”

“Nora still doesn’t know about your
instructions to me?” Garcia asked.

“No. You and I are the only ones who know
and, as I said, it has to stay that way . . . forever.”

“You got it, sir.” Garcia replied.

“Okay, Marty, thanks. I’ll talk to you more
after you assume your new role.”

“Thanks for the promotion,” Garcia said,
rising to his feet.

“You earned it. See you.”

After Garcia left his office, the Director
leaned back in his comfortable leather chair and wondered if he
could really trust him to keep quiet. People, including many in his
own agency, would start asking too many questions if they
discovered that he had given Garcia instructions to kill the
assassin before he could be questioned. He could arrange for Garcia
to be taken out, but he might want to use him again. Garcia was
clever and could be very helpful in his new role as special
assistant to the DDI. With that thought, the highest ranking
Russian mole in US history turned back to the paperwork on his
desk.

Garcia, meanwhile, sat at his own desk and mentally
reviewed all the conversations he’d had with the Director about
this. He’d keep it confidential, but he couldn’t help wondering
why. It just seemed, from a CIA perspective, that it would have
been more useful to take Vladimir alive and find out why he was
intent on killing the President. There may be other people
involved. We still don’t know if Russia was backing him, he
thought. Oh, well, the Director must have his reasons. He was
really pleased with the promotion, though. Special assistant to the
DDI, even though it was Nora, was a big deal. He sighed and leaned
forward over his desk. The paperwork had really piled up while he
was on this mission and he might as well start wading through
it.

I Plus 20

West Texas

Damn, it was cold. Late January in western
Texas was even colder than November. They said December was the
coldest month, but having spent this past December in Eastern
Europe and then in Washington, Grant couldn’t verify that this
winter. The stove, as usual, had died out by 3:00 a.m. and Grant
could see his breath in the air.

At six, Grant had dragged his naked ass out
of bed, grabbed a coffee cup, filled it up with yesterday’s coffee
that he heated for one minute in the mike, and then walked outside.
Now he was standing, covered in chill bumps but still naked,
sipping his hot, but stale coffee and going over the same thoughts
he’d had a hundred times before. Why was he such a loner? Damn, he
sure missed Sam. They talked frequently on the phone, but, well, it
just wasn’t the same as talking in person. It sure would be good to
see her again, though he wasn’t sure when that might happen. Maybe
he’d have to go back to Washington.

Whup
,
whup
,
whup
,
whup
—a
helicopter lifted up over the bluff, backlit by the sun, and landed
in his back yard. With the sun behind it, he couldn’t immediately
identify it and, although he didn’t know who they were or why they
were here, he was worried it wouldn’t be good news.