CHAPTER 41
Baxter Road
“Did you hear that?” Meg Fuller asked. I was driving all of us back to my place in Sconset, with Oliver sitting shotgun and Meg wedged between JP and Wolf in back. “It sounded like an explosion.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re right,” I replied. “But what could have blown up on or around this island? Gas tank, maybe?”
The oncoming headlights of a truck swerved briefly into our lane, then raced past us. My mind switched into reasoning mode as I continued to drive. I thought about that big Ford lawn-service truck I had almost hit—in almost the same location—on my way home with Rowan Anderson from our dinner date at the Rope Walk.
Either intuition or cynicism tripped an internal alarm. “Hold on—something’s fucked up.” I hit the brakes hard and stopped.
The five of us slipped right into tactical mode. Spontaneously,the doors flew open and we all climbed out of the vehicle, scanning the perimeter for security. Our guns were drawn. We all felt it: the innate warnings of danger that soldiers like us had experienced time and again in battle.
“Anybody see anything?” I asked.
“Negative,” said Wolf.
“All clear at six o’clock,” said Meg.
“Twelve o’clock, forty meters, Christmas-tree lights,” JP said clearly. He was pointing like a Labrador to a string of wires sitting on the road.
On examination, it appeared that these particular lights were in fact a type of IED: It used a simple open-circuit electrical system with a power source, in this case the modified string of Christmas-tree lights. If a vehicle ran over the seemingly harmless cluster of wires on the road, its weight would force the wires to touch, completing the electrical circuit and igniting the firing device inside the projectile.
End result: a flaming mass of molten lead hurtling through the air, instantaneously decimating whatever unarmored automobile stood in its path.
“Very nice, Nathan,” said Oliver. “I make it home from our little shit show in Iraq only to get blown up by an IED in Nan-fucking-tucket.” Serious as the situation was, he was grinning.
“You’re killing me, Smalls,” I replied without hesitation. “What do you think?”
“Don’t think we have much choice.” He nodded to the self-designated clearing team. “Go get ’em, boys.”
Wolf took one side of the road and JP the other, each scanning the area and watching for any sign of enemy triggermenwhile moving slowly and deliberately toward the string of lights. It was important that they identify the location of the projectile so it could be separated from the firing device.
I held my breath, a thin defense against the prospect of witnessing two of my best friends vaporized before my eyes.
CHAPTER 42
Senator Harrison HQ
Baxter Road, Nantucket
United States Secret Service Special Agent in Charge Rowan Anderson had just finished walking the perimeter of the senator’s de facto campaign headquarters. Now that she’d checked each of the sentinel’s security positions, she paused in the side yard to look at her watch. The illuminated dial showed 10 p.m.
She looked at the two agents posted in the front yard, standing about three feet apart in the darkness beyond the glow of the porch light. The men were obviously deep in conversation, likely catching up on the latest behind-the-scenes gossip. Doubtless they were talking about the news that had swept the Harrison detail: The senator’s young aide, Aimee Sullivan, would be joining the National Security Council.
“It’s all part of the job,” Agent Anderson muttered to herself, checking her watch again.
The periodic gusts of wind blowing from the North Atlantic masked the whisper of the sniper’s 7.62mm bullet. It hit the first special agent squarely between his right ear and eye, killing him instantly. He did not blink, he did not cry for help, he just crumpled to the ground. As the agent next to him spun on instinct to search the blackness for the threat, the sniper’s second shot tore through the second agent’s larynx and nearly severed his head.
Anderson saw it all unfold right before her eyes. She could sense the unknown, silent killer—or killers—racing toward her from the darkness. Whoever they were, she knew they were coming. She drew her weapon and began to run, adrenaline pumping through her body, her senses on overdrive. Had she not been running so fast she would have seen a third agent fall as swiftly as the others.
The surge of adrenaline impaired her motor skills. The doorknob wouldn’t turn in her sweaty hands. She had to get to Harrison. It was her job.
Anderson finally gained access and raced inside. She thought she heard footsteps on the porch but kept running up the stairs, her legs pumping as fast as she could force them to. She knew where he was. She had to get there first. It’s what she was paid to do.
The door to the bedroom was closed. Without missing a beat, she forcefully kicked it open. Her tactical training took over immediately, her actions all muscle memory. In one sweep of the room she saw two naked people on the bed. A woman on top, straddling the senator.
The agent, two steps inside the room, paused for a second in her attack posture, her pistol leveled at them, just as she had been taught at the training center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Thesenator—quite possibly the next President of the United States of America—was lying spread-eagle on the bed of a wealthy donor, one hand cuffed to the headboard while his dominatrix and future National Security Adviser administered as much sexual pain as he could withstand.
