AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER 7
A MOMENT LATER STONE WAS WATCHING the prior night’s video feed from Lafayette Park. They had slowed down the frame speed so that Stone could view every detail closely and unhurriedly. As the gunfire commenced, Stone watched as people
started running in all directions. Perimeter security took defensive positions and looked for the source of the shots. The jogger started to run in the feeble way of a man unaccustomed to exercise. His strides were really short, increasingly weakened hops. His path carried him through the yellow tape and a few moments later he fell or he might’ve jumped into the hole where the big maple was being planted.
Now Stone could make sense of what he had seen, namely the man seemingly vanishing into thin air. It was like a foxhole, thought Stone. To get away from the bullets.
Then the explosion happened. Stone saw himself lifted off his feet and slammed into the ganger. They both went down. The tooth in his head. He rubbed the spot.
A second later, the cameras went to static. The concussive force of the blast must have jammed the signal somehow. The wall became blank again.
Weaver said, “Observations?”
“Run it again,” Stone requested.
He watched the feed twice more.
Stone thought about what he’d just seen. The jogger had tumbled into the open hole around the maple and the explosion had happened seconds later.
“So what was the source of the detonation? The jogger?”
“Not sure yet. It may have been something in that hole.”
Stone looked skeptical. “In the hole? No gas lines under the park?”
“None.”
“Then you know what you’re suggesting? A bomb planted in Lafayette Park?”
Weaver’s expression grew even darker. “The implications of that are downright paralyzing, but we can’t discount the possibility.”
“So you’re saying maybe the guy jumped into the hole to avoid the bullets and gets blown up instead by a bomb previously placed there?”
“If so, it’s really bad luck for him. He gets away from the bullets and still dies.”
“Who’s on the scene?”
“ATF and the FBI as we speak.”
Stone could understand that. The ATF handled all investigations involving explosives until it was determined that the act was one of international terrorism. Then the FBI would take over. However, Stone assumed a bomb going off across from the White House would be classified de facto as a foreign terrorist act. That meant the Bureau would take the lead. It probably already had.
Stone asked, “Okay, let’s pass over the explosion for now. Do we know the source of the shots? On the video they appeared to be coming from the northern end of the park. From the direction of H Street or perhaps past that.”
“That’s the prelim conclusion at least, yeah.”
“So running north-south. There were no muzzle flashes on the video,” Stone pointed out. “That must mean they were hidden from the camera’s eyes.”
“Behind trees,” offered Weaver. “Lot of them at the northern end of the park. But the surveillance cameras are positioned mainly for ground-level observation. So in any event they might not have picked up the flashes if the shooters were really high up.”
“Well, the shots had to come from elevated angles,” Stone opined.
“How do you figure?” asked Riley in a way that made Stone believe the man already knew the answer but was simply testing him. Stone decided to play along, for now.
“If they were fired from behind the trees at street level they most likely would have carried past the park and across Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House.”
“How do you know they didn’t?”
“Because you would have already told me if they had or I would have heard about more casualties. There are a lot of people on the White House side. Vehicles lining Pennsylvania Avenue. Sentries doing perimeter patrols. It’s inconceivable that someone would not have been hit. So high ground to low. Fits with my observations. From what I could see, the slugs were all plowing into the dirt. And if they passed through tree canopies first, they had to be fired from at or above that line. And a lot of those trees are pretty tall with thick canopies.” Stone added, “Anyone on the northern end of the park see anything helpful?”
“There was security. Park Police, couple of uniformed Secret Service agents, bomb-sniffing canine. They’re still being debriefed, but preliminarily they didn’t have much on the source.”
Stone nodded. “And why wasn’t the park cleared last night?”
Weaver’s expression showed his displeasure with this query. “I really just want your observations from watching that video.”
“I like to have a fuller understanding of what’s going on before I extend myself.”
Weaver’s gaze lowered to a file on his desk. “John Carr?”
Stone remained silent, staring at the digital image of the man on the wall.
“John Carr,” Weaver said again. “Your file is so classified even I still haven’t seen all of it.”
“Sometimes even a government can be refreshingly discreet,” noted Stone. “But we were talking about the origins of the shots and the park security, or rather lack thereof.”
“Origin of the shots is still being investigated. The park security is really Secret Service jurisdiction and I haven’t received a briefing from them.”
“Of course you have,” countered Stone.
Weaver looked intrigued. “What makes you say that?”
“Security of the president trumps all other things, which gives the Secret Service interagency heft it might not otherwise have. What looked to be automatic gunfire and an explosion happened right across from the White House over fifteen hours ago. You provide the president with his daily national security briefing at seven every morning. If you haven’t talked to the Secret Service yet, then you couldn’t have briefed the president on the matter this morning. And if you didn’t brief the president this morning about an attack that happened in his front yard, you would no longer be employed as NIC director.”
A twitch at Weaver’s right eye showed that this conversation was not going according to plan. The two men leaning against the wall moved uneasily.
Weaver said, “The Service said that there were thoughts of clearing the park, but plans changed. Since the PM was going directly to Blair, they felt the park would not be a valid threat point. In sum, they thought they had it covered. Does that answer your question?”
“Yes, but it prompts another one.”
Weaver waited expectantly.
“Exactly what plans changed?”
In response Stone received a long Marine stare. “Just give me the rest of your observations if you have any.”
Stone looked at the man, reading the intent behind the blunt words. He could play this any number of ways. Sometimes you pushed, sometimes you didn’t.
He said, “Too many people in the park doing things they shouldn’t have been doing at that hour.”
Weaver settled back in his comfy chair. “Go on.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time in Lafayette. Eleven o’clock at night usually the only people there are security. Last night there were four people who shouldn’t have been there. The ganger, the guy in the suit, the lady on the bench and the jogger.”
“They all could have been there legitimately,” Weaver pointed out. “It was a warm evening. And it is a park.”
Stone shook his head. “Lafayette Park is not a preferred destination to sit or kill time at night. And the Service doesn’t like people lingering there. They’ll tell you the same thing.”
“They actually have already,” volunteered Weaver. “So what are you thinking?”
“Ganger had a gun. I could easily see it without the benefit of optics, so the countersnipers should have already seen it and relayed that to ground forces. Guy should have been nailed as soon as he set foot into the red zone. But he wasn’t.”
Weaver nodded. “Okay, keep going.”
“Lady was dressed nicely. Maybe an office dweller. She had a bag. But sitting on a bench at that hour makes no sense. She talks on her phone, then gets up about the time the motorcade pulls in. Fortuitous for her since she missed the gunfire.”
