Mark of Evil (41 page)

The pilot yelled to them, “We’ve got to pull out quick. I’ve picked up six Alliance drone-bots on my screen flying this way and they’re armed with missiles.”

Ethan ripped Rivka’s flight suit open to see the blood-soaked area at her shoulder and arm where she had been hit. “We need to stop the bleeding!” he screamed. Rivka looked like she was losing consciousness.

As the chopper gained altitude and then began to wing its way toward Karbala, the copilot jumped down next to Ethan with a first-aid kit in his hands. “Okay, partner,” he shouted to Ethan. “You won ‘Hero of the day.’ Now strap yourself in, sit back, and leave the medic stuff to me.”

FIFTY-SIX

OLD TOWN ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

Sitting on an embroidered chair in Jessica Tulrude’s study in her brownstone mini mansion, Vice President Darrell Zandibar downed his second glass of straight Johnny Walker. Tulrude was still confident about the plan. Yes, England and Canada had bolted from the Alliance. But otherwise, the Alliance was holding. And once the United States turned, those two traitor nations would come back begging. But she did worry a bit about Zandibar. As he drank, he wore an anxious expression that looked as if it had been drawn onto him, like a kid who had been face painted at a carnival.

“So, Darrell,” Tulrude said in a deliberately soothing voice, “like I have been telling you all along, your job is simple. All you have to do is wait. And be ready.”

“I’m unclear . . . on the plan,” he said, sounding unsteady. He craned his neck back and forth.

“You don’t need to know the plan,” she said in a liquid tone. “Just that you will be the president of the United States. You want that, don’t you? I know you do.”

“The question is how? Hewbright has already beaten the impeachment trial in the Senate. He’s not the type for a sex scandal. And besides, he’s a widower. What could you possibly have on him?”

“Washington is always full of surprises,” she said with a little smile. Zandibar still looked unsettled. Tulrude put her glass down on the coffee table. “Look, Darrell, I am going to ask you a very important question. And you need to answer it like a man. Do you really want to know all the details of Hank Hewbright’s future? Because once you become privy to that there’s no unhearing it. Wouldn’t you rather retain a blissful state of deliberate avoidance? A plausible state of denial—even passing a polygraph test if necessary. Wouldn’t that be better?”

Darrell Zandibar tipped his glass up and sipped the last drop. Then he threw Jessica Tulrude the kind of look that said he really needed a third drink but thought it would reflect poorly if he had to ask. “I suppose you’re right,” he said.

“Of course I am,” she said, smiling. “Now let me freshen up your glass.” She stood, grabbed the crystal whiskey glass out of his hand, and sauntered over to the bar to fill it up once more.

THE WHITE HOUSE

Washington, D.C.

Secret Service Agent Decker had made it clear he wanted to be with Agent Ted Booth when the man met with President Hewbright. It was
something Booth had said in passing—something casual, seemingly irrelevant. But Decker had a paranoid side, and he’d decided to follow the new guy closely for a while, just to be sure. He’d even made arrangements to have someone else join them with the president, as an added precaution.

However, something had gone wrong. His third party was a no-show.

And then Decker had been unexpectedly called out to the outside portico on the report of a disturbance. As he stood there and surveyed the area, he saw nothing unusual. Confused, he asked the guards at the security booth if they had reported anything. They said no.

“Then why’d I get a code to come out here?”

“We just got a message from Ops Center that their system went down for a sec. Then booted back up. Must have been a computer glitch. You probably just got a random message code when it happened.”

A bad feeling began to sweep over Decker and he tapped his earpiece. He wanted to alert the Emergency Operations Center to prepare for a possible move of the president to the secure bunker of rooms below the basement of the White House. Just in case.

But . . . nothing. His wireless earpiece wasn’t working.

Sure, it could have been a malfunction. The encrypted radio channels for their earpieces were connected to the same system that had just gone down. But the paranoid part of his brain remembered something else—something that made him go cold. A security study done last month had indicated that, theoretically at least, someone inside the White House with his own password and enough cyber knowledge might be able hack into the communications system. They’d planned on doing something about it. But the Service had priorities that were higher on the “fix it” list. So it was never investigated further.

After all, it was just theoretical.

Decker spat out a few angry epithets, then turned and sprinted back toward the West Wing.
This better just be a systems glitch . . .

A White House security guard strolling nearby called to him. “Hey, it took awhile, but that FBI friend of yours finally got cleared through security—”

But Decker wasn’t stopping to chat.

Inside the White House, Agent Ted Booth, aka Vlad Malatov, and Agent Kevin Arnold waited side by side at the entrance to the Oval Office. As an added touch of authenticity, Malatov even had an old-fashioned ink pen in his top suit coat pocket. After all, he was supposed to be asking the president for his autograph today.

The agent on duty checked his e-pad for the orders. For that precise time of day, it read,
POTUS meets new SSA Ted Booth in OO.
President Hewbright insisted on conducting a short meet-and-greet with every new Secret Service agent. Today would be no exception.

The agent on duty reread the electronic orders again and then looked up at Agent Arnold. “Agent Decker is supposed to be here.”

Agent Arnold explained, “He was called out to the portico. A report of a disturbance.”

The door agent thought about it for half a second before he waved the two of them in and shut the door behind them.

Inside the Oval Office, the president was not in sight. But they could hear the water running in the sink in the private bathroom off the main room.

Malatov whispered, “You place the body behind the desk when I’m done. Then we both walk out.”

Agent Arnold appeared stunned.

“Don’t worry about the cameras in the room,” Malatov continued. “I’ve put them on a timed failure. Part of my hack into the Comm system. They’ll be out for the next seven minutes.”

Arnold flashed an expression of distress. “I was told that this was
only going to be an
intel
mission into POTUS operations,” he replied in a hoarse whisper.

“Negative. This is a hit. You have a problem with that?”

Agent Arnold didn’t respond. Not verbally. But a second later he gave his reply—he grabbed for the handgun under his coat. Malatov was faster and struck Arnold in the throat. As the agent gasped, Malatov grabbed him with his left hand, felt his chest where Arnold wasn’t wearing his Kevlar vest, and raised his right hand into the air. Knifing his fingers together, he swung them down like a mechanical pitching arm into the man’s stomach, piercing through his flesh and rupturing his stomach. Agent Arnold collapsed on the floor, bleeding profusely.

Malatov pulled out the SIG Sauer P229 pistol he had modified with a silencer just as President Hewbright strode into the room. Malatov dropped the gun to his side and out of sight.

Hewbright started to smile, but then noticed the fallen agent on the floor. “He’s hurt—”

“No, Mr. President. I believe he may already be dead. And you will be too unless you do what I tell you.” Malatov, who was standing over Agent Arnold, brandished the pistol and waved for Hewbright to step over in front of the famous Resolute Desk. Agent Arnold had changed the game plan, and now the kill shot would have to look like it had been fired from Arnold’s position in the room.

Malatov thought he knew everything about White House security precautions. But as President Hewbright nodded in compliance with the order and shuffled slowly sideways toward the desk, his hand brushed across the top of a library table where there sat a paperweight with the presidential seal on it. The paperweight fell to the floor.

Malatov instantly realized the fall was no accident. It might have sent an emergency signal down to the Secret Service headquarters, and farther below that down to the Emergency Operations Center. He had to act fast.

Malatov raised his pistol at Hewbright’s forehead, and before the president of the United States had a chance to react, he pulled the trigger. There was a muffled
zing
and Hewbright fell to the floor, bleeding from the fatal wound in his head.

Quickly Malatov tucked his gun away, then reached down and twice fired the weapon that was still clutched in Agent Arnold’s hand, making it look like a firing by Arnold. The shots hit the Resolute Desk.

Turning toward the door, Malatov burst out of the Oval Office and shouted to the agent on duty outside, “Agent Arnold shot the president! I disabled him. But there’s a coconspirator somewhere on this floor! I’m going to find him . . .”

As the other agent raced into the Oval Office, Malatov tore down the hall. But he was soon forced to an abrupt halt. Fifty feet in front of him Agent Decker stood in a firing position, with his pistol aimed at Malatov. He got off two shots, one of which zipped into Malatov’s left leg, before the Russian got his gun out and returned fire. He hit Agent Decker in the hip and the man went down.

But Malatov didn’t see what was approaching him from behind. Former FBI agent Ben Bolling, there for the meeting with the president at Agent Decker’s request, charged down the hall like a fullback. He tackled the brute from behind and took him to the floor, knocking the handgun out of his hand. It clattered to the ground.

Enraged, Malatov tossed Bolling off of him, grabbed his pistol, and fired at him point blank. There was only an empty click. He had already fired the only two bullets in the clip that had been issued to him.

Bolling didn’t have time to be thankful. Like a crazed bull, Malatov pinned him against the wall with his powerful left forearm and swung his right hand up in the air. Bolling knew what was coming; he grabbed frantically at the top pocket of Malatov’s suit coat as Malatov swung his
deadly hand toward Bolling’s chest. But when it connected, it hit with a sickening metallic clang. Malatov recoiled in pain.

Taking advantage of the assassin’s confusion, Bolling angled the sharp end of the ink pen he had snatched from the man’s suit pocket and thrust it into Malatov’s jugular vein. He watched as the Russian killer stumbled forward for a few feet, grabbing at the pen in his neck and at the jugular that was now surging blood. After a few more unsteady steps the assassin collapsed to the ground.

Bolling pounced on him and searched his limp body for other weapons but found none. By then the agent on duty was standing over them with his own gun drawn.

Vlad Malatov, with his last moments of consciousness, looked at the broken fingers of his right hand with a confused look of bewilderment. Bolling leaned into the assassin’s face. “I know your moves, creep. I thought it was you on that UEFM fight video.” Then he unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his homemade defense system—the uncomfortable seventeenth-century metal breastplate from his private armory collection that he had worn that day. It had caused him to be delayed in getting clearance through White House security.