AllFreeNovel
Share Us
* * *
“I thought you were the traitor.”Vice President Marshall looks me dead in the eye across his desk. “When Director Liu told me what President Walker’s briefing was supposed to be about, I thought you were the traitor. That’s why I was boxing you in. I was certain it was you.”
“I could never betray him.”
“I know that now.” Marshall gives me a tiny smile.
We’re in his office in the White House. The grandfather clock in the corner echoes.
I want to claw through the walls and disappear.
This is my first time back in the West Wing since everything happened. Everywhere I turn, I run into memories of Henry. I’m walking around with my hand on my weapon like I’m about to draw, expecting danger around every corner.
We’ve buttoned up the White House. Only essential personnel are allowed. The hallways are empty, but I hear plenty of ghosts.
“I knew there was something unusual about your relationship with President Walker. I knew you were closer than a president and a detail lead should be. I kept an eye on you both for months.”
My tongue slides over the front of my teeth.
“I wondered if your dedication to him masked an ulterior motive. Maybe you were playing him. Maybe you were abusing your position.” He sighs and looks down, past his steepled fingers. Regret washes over his features. “I had the right idea,” he says slowly, “but the wrong person.”
The Secret Service and the FBI have torn Henry’s life apart. They analyzed every line of code in both his and Clint’s PlayStations. LoneGunman, Henry’s alternate account, and TruthWarrior14, Clint’s online persona. Henry had circled Clint like a predator, playing on his vulnerable, conspiracy-laden mind.
Three years ago, Henry was assigned to a special task force on radicalization to better understand the steps someone took before they made the decision to attack the president or the United States government.
It wasn’t supposed to be a training manual.
Reading their chat logs broke my heart. Henry convinced Clint the intelligence Clint saw with his own eyes couldn’t be trusted. That Brennan himself was the traitor and was framing someone in his administration. And at the same time Henry was telling me to go to Brennan and take a chance on everything I wanted, he was promising Clint that he’d have a real target to shoot once he was good enough at the range. For months, they calmly discussed murdering Brennan.
The plan Henry sold to Clint was that they’d run Brennan off the road and then kidnap him, hold a kangaroo court, and execute him for treason. Henry even promised Clint he could pull the trigger.
All of it was a lie. Clint was a tool, the first smoke screen Henry laid down for us, the first of the many ways he covered his tracks. In reality, Quinten was lying in wait in Rock Creek Park, ready to spirit Brennan away with Henry.
My idea to cross-check Sheridan’s service record with Quinten’s was the right approach, but like everyone else, I was looking at the wrong man. When the FBI compared Henry’s and Quinten’s records, they found an overlap: eighteen months in Afghanistan, serving on a Joint Command staff. They’d had ample time to get to know one another. Years have passed since then, long enough that no one knew they’d once been friends.
Last I heard, the FBI was still putting together the echoes of their conversations. They communicated online while playing video games and through the private PlayStation Network. They’d deleted their direct messages before the attack, leaving behind only the chat log that implicated Sheridan.
Who reached out first? Did Henry go to Quinten with his slowly boiling rage? Or did Quinten do to Henry what Henry did to Clint?
We might never know.
“About Agent Sheridan,” Marshall says.
I’ve been waiting for this reckoning. This is the last piece of the puzzle from that day.
What Henry did to Clint was awful, but what he did to Sheridan is unspeakable. I don’t know if there was anything real about Henry’s friendship with Sheridan. Everything down to the tiniest detail was wreathed in manipulation.
Henry was the reason Sheridan was at Clint’s gun range. He sent Sheridan there and told him the way to really impress me was to get good as hell with his weapon, and that that range would let him shoot as many rounds as he wanted, no questions asked.
“Don’t hold Sheridan’s cooperation with me against him,” Marshall continues. “He refused to spy on you when I first ordered him to, and it wasn’t until I threatened to have you arrested that he agreed.”
I frown.
“Agent Sheridan was with me when Stephen approached me with concerns about you and President Walker.”
Stephen Payne, the White House photographer. My hands curl around the wooden arms of my chair.
“Sheridan was within earshot when Stephen described what he’d seen. Stephen told me about certain photos he’d taken that, he felt, indicated a possible inappropriate relationship. The next day, when he came to me in a rage and said his memory card had been stolen, it wasn’t hard to put two and two together. Not with the loyalty your people have for you.”
