The First Lady - James Patterson Page 0,76
center opening onto a porch, and next to the door is a carefully stacked pyramid of firewood. There are two light-brown wicker chairs, and one of them is occupied by a man.
He’s in his late sixties or early seventies, thick white hair, wearing a plain blue Oxford button-down shirt, khaki slacks, and polished brown loafers. He may be old, but his face is set and his brown eyes are staring right at me.
Across his lap is a shotgun. I can’t tell the manufacturer at this distance, but it looks clean and well maintained.
“Good morning,” I call out to him.
He nods, says nothing.
I get closer.
“This is a very pretty area of Virginia,” I say. “Nice and remote, out of the way, with no noisy neighbors. Even has a river out in the rear of this house.”
The man doesn’t even nod. By now I’m looking at his hands. They are loosely clasped over the shotgun. I hate to think of it, but if his hands start moving, I’m going to have to react.
I won’t like it, but I’ll do it.
“How are you today, sir?”
Finally, his head looks to me. “Who are you?”
I say, “Sally Grissom, special agent in charge of the Presidential Protective Division.”
The expression on his face doesn’t change. “What do you want?”
I can’t believe I’m saying the words that I’m saying, but I go ahead.
“Mr. Fuller,” I say. “I need to see your daughter, Grace.”
CHAPTER 65
OUTSIDE A REMOTE contractor hangar at Andrews Air Force Base, Paul Moody is seated in the pilot’s seat of a heavily modified OH-58H Kiowa helicopter, going through his preflight checklist, ready for his sudden and important morning mission. For years he has flown in the service of his country for the US Army, flying helicopters similar to this one in Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and on two very classified occasions, in northern Iran.
It’s a clear day, and the checklist is going smoothly. For the past sixteen months, he’s been flying for Global Strategic Solutions and has loved every minute of it. He gets to fly in-country, for one, which means no matter where he lands, there will always be clean water and good toilets. He knows that doesn’t sound like much, but after years of flying in those barren moonscapes on the other side of the globe, where a hole in the ground is considered a toilet and the water is always warm and heavily chlorinated, it’s sheer luxury to close out a mission and still be in the States.
Not to mention the dating opportunities with women who don’t have husbands or brothers around to cut your head off if you try to hold their hand.
Most of the missions he’s done for the corporation have been providing air security for VIPs coming for a visit in the States— more often than not, classified visits, where, if noticed, a certain VIP would have been arrested by the FBI on war crimes charges. And twice he has gone “weapons hot” in supporting a law-enforcement mission—he never asked too many questions— which ended up with tractor trailer trucks on remote highways in the West being shot up at night and crashing into remote ravines.
Still, some days, he missed flying those missions overseas, a lot of time flying solo, providing close-in air support for guys on the ground who needed help, and needed help fast. His job was to put him and his bird between the enemy and the good guys, and one thing he learned early on was that if he wasn’t getting shot at, he wasn’t doing his job.
The engine is now running smoothly and he toggles his radio. After getting clearance for takeoff, and with his left hand on the collective lever and his right on the cyclic stick, he slowly takes off and makes course to Walton. There’s a farmhouse in that town that is hiding an ISIS cell, and Paul is about to pay them a very quick and violent visit.
He changes the radio frequency, contacts the support office for his company’s internal operations division.
“This is GSS Tango Four,” he announces. “Outbound.” Somewhere in Crystal City, a woman’s voice replies via his earphones. “Copy that, Tango Four.”
He’s quickly gaining altitude in the clear blue sky. The sides of his helicopter are flanked by two weapons pylons, each carrying a classified modification of the AGM-114 Hellfire. These particular missiles are made of a specially compressed cellulose material and exotic false-positive explosive compounds, meaning that when they reduce the farmhouse to rubble, forensics investigators will find traces