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How many agents loved their president the way I loved mine?
No one. No man could ever love another like I love Brennan.
“We need to get the vehicle in our lab, process it all the way down to the frame to be sure, but we’re pretty confident—”
“Ahn, I already know. The president burned to death.”
Images flash across my mind, film negatives that melt in flames. Did Brennan try to escape? Did he call my name? Did he hope I’d rescue him? Did he die knowing I’d failed him?
She shakes her head. “The human body is highly resilient to fire. Even when a body is cremated, bone remnants still need to be ground down, and that’s after three hours of sustained heat. In a fire like this, there’s always something left behind. You can see for yourself: there are remains in the front of the vehicle.”
“But the fire was worse in the passenger compartment—”
“I don’t think it was hot enough for complete obliteration.”
“What are you saying?” Sheridan’s voice quakes.
“We haven’t found any evidence of human remains anywhere other than the front passenger seat and outside the driver’s door,” Ahn says carefully. “I don’t think anyone was in the rear of the SUV when the fire destroyed the vehicle.”
Ahn’s measured tone, her steady, precise manner. She’s not reaching for fairy tales, not trying to create false hope. The world tilts, the sky slides sideways, and the ground comes up fast at my face, until I brace myself against the still-searing frame of the SUV.
Evidence markers stick out at odd angles, yellow placards with black numbers that swim in my vision.I reach out with everything in me, as if my love could pull Brennan’s life out of this destruction and re-form him into flesh and blood, paint his smile back onto his face and reignite the light in his eyes. If he were in front of me, even in pieces, I’d know—damn it, I would. A love like we had doesn’t just burn away.
I feel nothing.
“If President Walker wasn’t in the SUV,” Sheridan asks, “then where is he? Was this a murder or an abduction?”
No one says a word.
“Who else knows?” I finally ask Ahn.
“Only my team.”
I count them up quickly. Seven people, plus her. “Keep it that way. Tell no one.”
She nods. She gets what this means and what will happen next.
My radio chirps to life. “SAC Theriot, come in.”
“Go for Theriot.”
“Sir, the director needs you at the White House. Now.”
Fuck. Dawn is still an hour away, but the early morning news channels are surely playing the fire on loop, along with our blitz across DC and the Secret Service lockdown at Rock Creek Park. The media will demand answers, but we have nothing to give them.
Less than nothing, in fact.
We have to keep a lid on this. Brennan was targeted, clearly, and the reason is buried somewhere in that CIA briefing. Until we know more, nothing can get out. We need every advantage, every angle.
Because if Brennan is out there somewhere, his life will depend on how we respond and what we do next.
And I must bring him home.
“Roger,” I reply as I climb up the muddy embankment. Red and blue lights turn the park into a macabre carnival. The road is still choked with fire engines and Secret Service vehicles. “Has the vice president been brought to the White House?”
“He arrived an hour ago, sir. He and the director want to speak to you, ASAP.”
“I’m on the way. ETA…” I can’t begin to figure out how to extricate myself from this parking lot. “As soon as I get out of here. I’m at the scene.”
