Tango Four, GSS Tango Four.”
The cool and professional woman replies, “GSS Tango Four, go.”
“GSS Tango Four, mission aborted. Repeat … mission aborted. Coming home.”
His faceless contact is not impressed. “GSS Tango Four, return to target area. Complete your mission.”
God, what a beautiful morning. “Sorry, darlin’, ain’t gonna happen.”
“Those are your orders!”
“Ma’am, I’m no longer in the employ of Uncle Sam. I’m under contract to you-know-who, and I’ve just ended my contract.”
She continues to sputter, and he switches the radio to another frequency.
Women.
He checks the fuel gauges, sees he has a number of hours of flying time available to him, but knowing how pissy Global Strategic Solutions can be, he better put this bird on the ground before his former employer sends up a couple of other birds to take him down. Unofficially, he’d die with a missile up the exhaust port or a close-in strafing with a thirty-caliber chain gun, but officially, he would die in a training accident, and that would be that.
Paul steers his Kiowa northwest. Up there outside of Rockville, Maryland, is a strip belonging to one of Global Strategic Solutions’ competitors, Tyson International Services.
He wonders if they’re hiring.
Only one way to find out.
CHAPTER 74
SO ONCE AGAIN I’m running away from danger with a protectee at my side, like the hundreds of drills and training exercises I’ve participated in, except this one is no drill, and I’m running, panting, so scared that I’m going to lose it all in the next sixty seconds or so.
I wish I had taken a couple of agents along with me, so we could be running with a protective screen around CANARY, but it’s too late for regrets or recriminations. I just want to run and drag her down the driveway, get her into the relative safety of our Suburban, and then get the hell out of here. Get someplace safe. Like Pennsylvania or Delaware, anyplace miles away from here and the District of Columbia.
“Agent … please … not so fast … please … not so fast …” Fast? I feel like we’re running in sloppy mud up to our knees, and I swerve around, looking for that military helicopter, knowing deep in my bones that it hadn’t been out here for a sightseeing trip.
But the helicopter has sped off.
Ordered off?
Or sent away because something else is coming in our direction?
I move as fast as I can dare, not wanting the First Lady to stumble and fall, wasting precious seconds in our fast exit. So many questions I want answered—from how did she end up here, to who had kidnapped her and severed her finger, and did she write that possible suicide note but—
Not enough time!
Not enough time!
I think of wasting five seconds or so, trying to raise Scotty again over my damn radio, but instead I push on, thinking that in those five seconds I’ll be that much closer to the armored Suburban and the four armed Secret Service agents within, and—
“Agent! Please!”
“Ma’am, I—”
Up ahead a small man emerges from the bush-covered slope, dressed in camo gear, carrying a long rifle with a telescopic sight, and the muscle memory from years of training kicks in.
“Gun!” I scream, and I whirl around, grabbing CANARY, protecting her with my body, enveloping her, just like the training, just like the training, just like—
The sound of the rifle shot and the hammer blow to my back happen in a brief second.
I fall into blackness.
Amelia, I think, poor, orphaned Amelia.
CHAPTER 75
MARSHA GRAY RAISES her scoped Remington, nodding with satisfaction. Dead center to the back, and the bonus is that she isn’t using a standard .308 cartridge, but rather what’s known as a frangible round, something designed to break up easily upon striking, like the cartridges the air marshals use, so any gunfire in an airliner won’t puncture the hull and cause a sudden depressurization.
Plus, this round is carrying the same type of poison that she used the other day against that poor kid Carl, back at the Hay-Adams Hotel. Any forensics testing will show that this overworked and pressured government employee had died from sudden heart failure.
She works the bolt of the rifle, ejecting the spent cartridge, and then grabs the brass and runs up the dirt road, her battle-rattle gear jostling along, not wanting to leave any evidence behind. Marsha knows she only has a handful of seconds before those Secret Service clowns back there figure something is amiss after hearing a rifle shot blast through the morning air.
Marsha gets closer. The dead agent is