THE 13: STAND BOOK TWO (33 page)

Keene sat in the corner of the Oval Office while Jennings, Walker, and Sykes sat deep in conversation. He had left Boz at Sykes’s house and told Jennings he’d meet them there. Jennings was none too happy at Keene’s suggestion that they go ahead and let SECNAV move around like normal. But in the end, he, too, knew Keene was right. Now it was just a matter of telling the others. That’s why they were here now. Jennings was laying out how they would move from this point on. Keene was thinking about Megan when he heard his name.

“Jon, what do you think?”

“I’m sorry. What do I think about what?”

Jennings motioned for him to come join them. “I was saying, I don’t think it’s smart for President Walker to be out on the street confronting the media right now.”

Walker jumped in. “I told you already. I’ve spoken with Calvin. He agrees. This is what needs to be done. I need to get out there and start making some noise of my own. You said so yourself, Jon. Bob, here, is more than likely Sokolov’s target. Not me.”

Walker was putting him in a tough place. “Yes, sir. I do believe Sykes is the logical target. But Sokolov is an opportunist. If you make yourself a target, she could very well shift gears. I don’t think it’s smart for you to be just putting yourself out there.”

Walker stood up. “This is not up for discussion, gentlemen. The decision has been made. I will be leaving the White House this afternoon. I’ve already called the major networks and offered myself to them for interviews.”

Keene had a bad feeling about this. “At least let us send someone with you.”

Walker looked at him like he were an idiot. “I will have my detail with me at all times.”

Keene didn’t care. He knew a lot of great Secret Service agents. But they weren’t trained like he was. And there was only one of him. He couldn’t be two places at one time.

“And I’m sure they’re fine men,” Jennings jumped in. “But I’d feel better if one of my men were with you. What about Boz?”

Keene shot his boss a cross look. “Uh-uh. I need Boz in SECNAV’s house.”

Jennings gave him the same look back. “And I need to keep the president alive!”

“He’s right, Jon.” It was Sykes. “President Walker is the priority.”

Keene was fuming now. “Kevin, can I talk you for a second? Alone?”

Jennings stepped away with him outside the office. When the door closed behind them, Keene lit in. “You know as well as I do that Sokolov’s coming after SECNAV. Pulling Boz out of that house is a mistake. We need him in there. He’s the only one who can pass for Sykes inside that house. And she has to see him moving around in there.”

“Maybe so, but that still doesn’t change the fact that Walker’s going to be exposed. If I didn’t agree with you about Sykes, I would put
you
on Walker. But I
do
agree with you. So I’m allowing you to stay with him. But I’m not about to let the president go walking down Pennsylvania Avenue, out in the open, without someone I personally trust. End of discussion!” Jennings opened the door and walked back inside.

Keene was furious. Without Boz inside the house, the chances of protecting Sykes decreased significantly. He couldn’t be inside the house because he needed to be outside, monitoring the perimeter. If Sokolov somehow made it into the house without tripping the sensors, it would be too late by the time he got inside.

Regardless, he was going to need to figure something out. Jennings wasn’t going to budge. He knew that. He opened the door to the office and went back inside. When he did, he noticed that Jennings and Sykes were gathering their things to leave. Jennings was on the phone.

“That’s right. Fox News,” Jennings said into the phone. “Okay. Just get there as quickly as you can. The president has agreed not to leave for the next interview until you get there.” Jennings hung up.

“Boz?” Keene asked.

“Yes,” Jennings said. Then to Walker, “He’ll meet you at the station.”

Walker stepped in between them. “I’m still on your side here, Jon. But you know how stubborn your boss is.”

Jennings ignored the jab from the president. “Let’s go.”

“Where are we going?”

“My place. Remember, Sykes has been with me for the last three days. He needs to get his stuff if he’s going back to his house this evening.”

Keene didn’t say anything, but instead, violently jerked his jacket off the back of the chair it had been sitting on—making sure Jennings saw it. He turned and left the room.

B
efore coming to DC, Alex Smith had made some calls. She had been out of commission for four months and had no idea what she was walking into. She still had some contacts in town. They were able to catch her up to speed on how things were operating in the capital city. She found out, among other things, that Walker had moved Jennings’s and Sykes’s offices into the White House. With the potential of the peace status turning on a dime, and communications still sketchy, Walker wanted his top advisers within an arm’s reach.

Because of that, she and Farid sat parked on Seventeenth Street NW outside the White House perimeter. It was as close as they could get, what with the added security since the Chinese invasion. They had been here now for almost forty minutes and still hadn’t seen anything yet.

“What are we looking for again?” Farid asked.

Alex pointed across the street. “Since the invasion, everyone who works inside the White House enters and leaves the grounds through that exit.” Another bit of information she’d found out. “Secretaries, staffers, Sykes, Jennings, all of them.”

“So we’re waiting for Sykes to leave.”

She pulled the binoculars back up to look. “Yes.”

“And then we follow him home?”

“Yes.”

“Won’t he have security?”

“Maybe.”

“And then what?”

She lowered the binoculars again. “And then nothing. Remember, I told you, we need to just watch his routine for a day or so.” She pulled the binoculars back up. “Unless…an opportunity presents itself.”

She continued to look for another twenty minutes before she saw a line of cars appear at the guard shack. Two limos, bookended by two blacked-out SUVs.

Farid leaned across her to get a better look. “Is that—”

“The president. Yes,” she said. “And that means that Sykes will probably be along in just a few minutes.”

They had been listening to the news on the radio and had learned that Walker was scheduled to appear on at least three news stations this evening. And that meant that business at the White House was done for the day.

The president’s motorcade had barely left the guard station when another blacked-out SUV appeared at the guard station. Alex raised the glasses once more. A broad smile crossed her face at what she saw. She threw the binoculars into the backseat and put the car in D
RIVE
.

“Is that him?” Farid asked.

“Yes,” she said. “And he’s not alone.”

“Who?”

“Jennings.” She waited for the SUV to exit the guard station and pull out onto the street and get ahead of them. She was surprised, though, that even after a few seconds, no one else followed them.

“No security detail,” Farid observed.

She smiled and thought to herself,
Opportunity?

She waited for the SUV to go through the light and then pulled out behind them. She had been following marks for over a decade. She had pretty much mastered the art of tailing someone in a car. But the man driving the SUV in front of her
was
the master. If she didn’t do this perfectly, Jennings would spot her. And then she would have a problem. A hundred different scenarios ran through her mind of how Jennings would turn the tables on them, should she be careless and allow that to happen. None of which she wanted to deal with.

Fortunately, traffic was heavy. It was easy for her to stay back and unnoticed. But after about thirty minutes, she became curious. Unless Sykes and Jennings were neighbors, they weren’t headed to Sykes’s house. She had been this way before. With Marianne Levy. Marianne had driven her out here once to show her where Jennings lived—just in case she should ever need to pay him a visit. After that, she had studied the area and found at least three different routes to and from Jennings’s house.

Opportunity?

“Hang on,” she said to Farid. At the next light, she turned.

“What are you doing? I thought we were following them.”

“We are. But traffic is starting to lighten up. And I don’t think they’re headed to Sykes’s place.”

She explained how she’d been to Jennings’s place before. And that, if she was right, they could take a different route and get there about the same time. “And we won’t run the risk of Jennings spotting us,” she finished.

“What if you’re wrong?”

She felt a small tingle in her spine. “I’m not wrong.”

Thirty minutes later, she turned onto the street where Jennings lived. She drove at a decent speed—not too fast for anyone paying attention to notice, but not too slow, either. She just wanted to make a pass and see if Jennings was already there. She used her peripheral to look as they passed. No SUV.

Opportunity
.

Jennings, strangely enough, was apparently not too concerned with privacy. His house was an older ranch-style that sat back from the road on a corner lot, with a long drive that led up to a two-car garage. There was no fence. No protective line of trees. Nothing. The only thing separating his home from his neighbor’s was a small row of hedges that lined the left side of the front yard. The right side bordered the cross streets in front. If she parked down the street, on the cross street, she could see Jennings’s drive and still be several hundred yards away. She stopped at the next intersection and turned right, to make the block.

A few minutes later, she and Farid were parked fifty yards away, in a line of other parked cars along the street. And given the direction Jennings was headed when she departed from him, they should see him roll right up to the intersection up ahead and then turn left—away from them. From there, the driveway was another immediate left. She had the perfect view. She crouched down in the seat and waited.

Less than three minutes later, a blacked-out SUV rolled up to the stop sign and turned left. Then it turned again. Into Jennings’s drive. Alex watched as the car pulled up to the garage and stopped.

First Jennings got out of the driver’s side. She saw Sykes come around from the passenger side. Then the rear driver’s side door opened.

She felt her breath catch as she watched the third man—whom she hadn’t seen when they pulled out from the guard station—get out of the SUV. He stopped and looked around the area. She reached behind her and put her hand on the Glock—fully expecting to see the man come rushing toward them. After a couple of seconds, he began walking slowly, continuing to look around the surrounding area. Finally, he followed Jennings and Sykes into the house.

She felt that tingle in her spine begin to fade away.

Hello, Jon Keene
.

“What are you doing, Jon? Get in here.”

Keene took another look around the area. Something was off.

“Jon!”

He swept his gaze around again but couldn’t see anything suspicious. He walked up the drive and went inside.

“What are you doing out there?” Jennings asked.

“Nothing. Just looking around.”

“Well, get in here. Help Bob get his things from the guest room. I’ll fix some coffee.”

“Forget the coffee,” Sykes called from down the hall. “What’s for dinner?”

Jennings looked at Keene. “He thinks this is a restaurant and I’m some kind of chef or something. Three days I’ve been dealing with this.” Then, yelling back down the hall, “How ’bout I send you a bill for eating all my food, huh? What about that?”

Sykes came back into the room laughing. “Hey, it’s not my fault you’re a great cook.”

Jennings walked into the kitchen. “How ’bout it, Jon? You hungry?”

Keene really wanted nothing else but to get Sykes home. Sokolov was in DC. He could feel it. And he wanted to catch her. “I’m good. Thanks.”

“Well, I’m not,” Sykes said. “I could eat the south end of a northbound skunk. So what are we having?”

Jennings rolled his eyes. “I’ll see what I have.” Then, “Jon, turn Fox News on and see what’s going on with Walker.”

Keene found the remote for the TV and turned it on. The interview was already over, but the pundits were all seated around a big glass table debating it.

“…I don’t know, Jeff. Walker makes a pretty good argument. And who’s to say that God didn’t send this Prophet to warn us? I mean, I’m a man of faith. Surely it’s not out of the realm of possibility. I think Walker is right. Nolan is dangerous, stirring up a conflict between us and the Chinese right now. We have enough problems to worry about.”

“Listen, Chris, I’m not saying that you’re wrong. But Walker took an oath to protect this country at all costs. And he swore that oath on a Bible! Don’t you think that God would honor that?…”

A few others jumped in and gave their opinions. The whole scene was one step below a circus. Jennings came around the counter and told him to change it to CNN. Walker was going there right after Fox. Keene did and saw that it was the same thing. Except they were all weighing in on what Walker had said over at Fox, while talking about all the things the people at Fox failed to ask. The lead guy at the table seemed to satisfy them, though, when he said, “Well, in about twenty minutes, Butch will be sitting down with the president. You can bet he’s going to ask some hard questions.”