The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,65

handful of bumbling Secret Service agents.”

My heart is pounding so hard with anger that I can feel it in my neck. “You slimy son of a bitch—two days ago we weren’t bumbling. Two days ago you and the President ordered me to investigate the First Lady’s disappearance, and you made it quite explicit what we were to do.”

He leans back in his chair, hands folded quietly over his belly. “I don’t quite understand what you’re saying, Agent Grissom.”

The hot fear that’s been coursing through me has been dizzyingly replaced with cold horror. “Don’t even say that, Mr. Hoyt.”

He shrugs. “I seem to recall a brief meeting in the Oval Office two days ago, when you expressed concern about the First Lady’s whereabouts. I also recall you saying that you knew where she was, that it would all turn out fine, and that was that.”

“You ordered me to look for her! You ordered me to do it quietly and without public attention!”

He says with a cool, smooth voice, “Do you have any of that in writing, Agent Grissom? A memo? An email? A little handwritten note from the President on a slip of paper?”

I clench my fists. “You can’t get away with this. You won’t.”

“Let’s recap,” he says. “The past several years haven’t been good for the Secret Service, now, have they? Drunken agents. Prostitution scandals. The White House being shot up and no one noticing for a couple of days. Now we have an incompetent trio of agents who’ve lost track of the most important woman in the United States. A trio who’ve been supervised by a flighty, emotional woman who’s going through a bitter divorce … and whose husband has just been murdered.”

I’m biting the inside of my cheek, trying to keep my self-control, and Mr. Hoyt says, “And that’s the narrative, Agent Grissom. Reporters don’t do news stories anymore. They report on details that reinforce the narrative. And which narrative are they going to believe? The President’s or yours?”

It’s so quiet and empty in this large office that I feel like I’ve entered into some kind of tomb or mausoleum.

“The President’s narrative might not work,” I point out. “He’s had a few rough days lately.”

“And so have you, Agent Grissom. Do you really want the extra attention you and your daughter would receive by going public?”

Bastard, I think, cold, cold bastard.

I say, “Are you going to pay the ransom?”

“Up to the FBI and the President.”

“And the televised apology?”

“Up to me … and the President.”

With that chilly phrase, I know there’s no way that Parker Hoyt is going to allow the President to grovel like that on national television.

Which means the First Lady is a dead woman.

And …

From Parker Hoyt’s calm gaze, I have a sharp blow of understanding.

A dead First Lady is an outcome that Parker Hoyt is hoping for, to take away from the “Ambush in Atlanta,” weeks before the election.

He says, “I have a lot of work to do, Agent Grissom. So please show yourself out.”

I’ve been dismissed. With Ben’s death and burial, and with this meeting, and seeing the severed finger of the First Lady, it feels like I’m slowly being filled with hydrogen, about to float away, one spark away from total destruction.

I get up.

I can’t think, can’t plan, can only move.

Can only listen.

He calls out, “Agent Grissom, a suggestion? Cash in your life insurance policy or your retirement savings and hire the best lawyer you can find. You’re going to need it.”

I get to the door, open it, and then a thought comes to me.

I turn and say, “Mr. Hoyt? A suggestion. Get the best Kevlar protective vest you can afford and start wearing it. You’re going to need it.”

Then I leave.

CHAPTER 53

GRACE FULLER TUCKER, former First Lady of Ohio, daughter of a prominent family from the Midwest and current First Lady of the United States, is resting on her side on a creaky bed with a thin mattress inside an old, rural building, her left hand throbbing from the pain of her severed pinky.

She doesn’t dare move.

Not at all.

She takes a deep breath, feels tears trickling down her cheeks. She’s cold, hungry, and thirsty. She’s still wearing her riding gear from two days ago—black stretch jodhpurs with stirrups, tan turtleneck sweater, and short black cotton jacket. Her boots have been stripped off and her helmet tossed aside.

Grace looks at her thick-bandaged left hand, again feeling the horror of seeing her arm stretched out, fastened so she couldn’t move, hearing the clink-clink of