The First Lady Read online

  From her coat she takes out an earpiece and slips it in, and her fingers maneuver over the iPhone at her side. She puts the iPhone down on a nearby rock so she can whisper into it without being overheard, then slides a few fingers over the screen.

  The phone rings only once. “Hoyt.”

  “You know who this is,” she says.

  “What do you have?”

  She whispers, “What I have looks like a reunion of a Homeland Security training class.”

  Hoyt swears. “How many?”

  “Scores,” she whispers again, “with more arriving every minute. They’re setting up a search, both sides of the river, sweeping downstream and upstream. We also have three Black Hawk helicopters overhead, and about a half-dozen Humvees. All that’s missing now is a keg.”

  Another foul obscenity. “Where’s Agent Grissom?”

  “About twenty meters away, running the show. I can see her from here.”

  “Have they … found anything else yet? Besides that piece of paper and the piece of jewelry?”

  “Nope,” she says. “And it’s going to get dark soon. What do you want?”

  A pause. “Grissom is key. She’s the one. Follow her, no matter where she goes.”

  “All right,” Marsha says. “What kind of cover story have you got? Eventually somebody’s gonna wonder why Homeland Security and Secret Service are going up and down the river.”

  “The story is that they’re assisting the Virginia State Police and the Virginia Conservation Police in looking for a lost canoeist.”

  “Good cover story,” Marsha says. “Do either of those agencies know that yet?”

  “They will.”

  She shifts again, keeping an eye on Grissom, the lead agent. For some reason—even at this distance—the woman is bugging her. She reminds Marsha of the various female Marine officers she had met in her career, the bulk of them being bossy, kiss-ass broads who’d do anything and betray anybody to advance their career. The way Grissom is pacing around, talking, ordering, and looking … well, she’s fitting the pattern.

  Marsha focuses the crosshairs of her sniper’s scope on the base of Grissom’s neck. “Hoyt?”

  “Make it snappy,” he says. “I’m expecting a bunch of congressional staffers who need cheering up.”

  “I could do it now,” she says. “One shot, one kill. Drop Grissom and really throw things into confusion. What do you think?”

  “Hell, no!” Parker snaps back, his voice loud and sharp in the sole earpiece. “For now, just observe. All right? And if there’s any hint that the First Lady has been found, you contact me, right away.”

  “You don’t have to yell,” Marsha says. “Ever.”

  He hangs up without another word.

  Marsha tracks the agent again, the bossy broad with the black wool coat and lumpy red scarf, strolling up and down, talking sometimes to that handsome Homeland Security guy, and other times to the three Secret Service agents.

  More engines. She looks to the left, where there are Humvees and the original Suburban parked. Trucks arrive with trailers, the trailers carrying large portable light systems.

  Looks like it’s going to be a long night. Marsha doesn’t mind. She has passed long nights in places where starving dogs roamed after dark, with open sewers sliding through broken neighborhoods, the horizon lit up by the explosions of IEDs.

  Spending the night here would be a nice change of pace.

  But now Marsha sees that Grissom looks to be leaving. She gets into the Suburban with another agent and the taillights flicker on, and seeing that, she starts breaking down her rifle, opening up her rucksack.

  On the move.

  Part of the job.

  Still … part of her was always thinking about that classic dorm-room poster, showing two vultures sitting on a tree branch, one saying to the other, “Patience my ass. I wanna kill something.”

  Words to live by.

  Her gear packed, she’s ready to move into the darkness.

  But one more thing.

  Her earpiece is still in, and with a few swipes of her fingers on her iPhone, a recording from earlier pops up:

  Her: “Just to be clear … just her or do what’s necessary?”

  Him: “Pretend you’re out in the field, no way to contact anybody else. Do what has to be done.”

  Marsha removes the earpiece, puts the iPhone away, thinking she hasn’t gotten this far and made so much money by ever trusting men.

  Parker Hoyt has a few minutes to spare before the first of the congressional staffers arrives, and he stares at his special phone on his desk. This is going longer and darker than he had anticipated. The First Lady … all right, he figured she’d be one angry wife, that was to be expected.

  But this?

  Disappeared?

  And what he has learned from Agent Grissom … some sort of note and the woman’s panic button, untriggered.

  Not good.

  So what now?

  He wants this settled, nailed down, completed … so he can focus on what’s really important—getting that talented man in the office next door reelected.

  Parker picks up the phone, dials the second number, the one he hadn’t wanted to touch earlier.

  But that was then.

  No more time.

  The phone rings.

  Rings.

  Rings.

  It’s answered, and from the ambient noise, Parker knows the person on the other end is outside.

  “Yes?” comes the quick, impatient reply.

  “It’s Hoyt,” he says.

  “Can’t talk.”

  “I know you’re busy … but …”

  “Make it quick.”

  Parker says, “I need to know exactly what Grissom is doing, what she’s thinking, what she’s planning, second by second.”

  “She’s planning right now to go home to her kid.”

  “But—”

  The voice says, “I know our deal. I know what you’ve promised. But don’t ever call me again. I’ll be the one making the contact.”

  The phone is disconnected.

  Parker hangs up on his end, leans back in his chair. It’s now dark, the lights of DC visible.

  That call … just checking on his insurance policy.

  Someone connected out there, working for him.

  Highly illegal, highly unethical, and in the end—considering how much he’s been paid—highly effective.

  And that’s all he cares about.

  CHAPTER 28

  PAMELA SMITHSON QUICKLY and efficiently gets me back home, to an apartment complex in Springfield, Virginia, which is closer than going back to the White House, where my personal vehicle is located. I use my cell phone to arrange a Secret Service driver to pick me up overnight if need be.

  Pamela pulls into the parking lot and leaves the engine running. I say, “You call me the second you find anything.”

  “You know it,” she says.

  “If it weren’t for my daughter, I’d still be at the river.”

  “We know that, and Sally, no offense, I want to get back there as soon as possible …”

  I put my hand on the door handle. “Okay. Pamela, where is she?”

  Pamela looks rattled, which is what I’m going for. Good.

  “Sally, I—”

  “Back at the farm, just before we started the search, Tanya said something about the farm being one of the two places where she feels most comfortable.”

  No reply.

  “So where’s the second place?”

  “I … I don’t know. None of us know.”

  I go on. “I also asked you that besides being tossed by the horse, did you think she had run off. Or was hiding. You just said no and instantly changed the subject.”

  Still no reply.

  “Who is he?” I ask.

  She turns and looks around the parking lot. “Pamela! Who is he?”

  Pamela’s face is still turned away from me. “I don’t know.”

&nb
sp; “How long has she been with him?”

  “I … not sure. A few months at least. I’ve heard her talking to him. Three or four times. They communicate only by phone, best I can tell.”

  “Hers?”

  Pamela says, “No, a burner phone.”

  “How in hell did the First Lady of the United States get a burner phone?”

  She turns to me, and under the lights from the parking lot, I see her eyes filling up. “How do you think? She makes a request to a staffer, the staffer makes a request to a low-level staffer, and passes it on to an intern. The intern pays cash for a debit card, buys the phone anonymously, sets up a fake Gmail account to activate it, and then it’s handed back up to the First Lady. Nearly impossible to trace.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Pamela …”

  She wipes at one eye, then the other. “It’s … a man. That’s all I know. I’ve overheard her talking to him a few times over the past months … and once … I heard her say, ‘I love you so much.’”

  I take a breath, feel like punching her in the face. “Pamela, your career went down in flames this morning when you and the others lost your protectee. Now … in the next fifteen seconds, however you answer me will determine whether you’re allowed to quietly resign or whether you’re going to appear in court as a defendant.”

  She just nods. I say, “Do you have any idea, lead, or hint of who this man is and where he can be found?”

  “No.”

  “The other shifts?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve … sounded them out over the past couple of months. Nothing serious, just testing to see if they’ve noticed anything. Not a thing.”

  “All right, then,” I say.

  I start to open the door, and Pamela says, “I need to tell you one more thing.”

  I think of my eleven-year-old girl, up in our apartment alone. We had moved here nearly a year ago, when I found out my husband and her father had been taking interns to our condo during his lunch break, and I refused to live in that place for one second more than I had to. This place is pricey, in poor shape, and in a lousy neighborhood, but I had no other choice.

  “Make it quick.”

  “Back in May, we were having a going-away party for one of the night shift agents on her detail,” Pamela says. “We had rented a room over a bar in Georgetown, but the First Lady … when she found out about the party, she knew that her three on-duty agents would miss it. So with no announcement, nothing made public, she showed up. A surprise. Took time out of her own schedule so her three on-duty agents wouldn’t miss the party, and she laughed, danced, and knocked back a couple of glasses of wine with the crew. That’s who she is … the best protectee I’ve ever worked for, and Sally, if I had the slimmest lead on who this guy might be, I’d be out there now. You’ve got to believe me.”

  I open the door. “I do believe you. Just hope you can convince a judge or a congressional committee if the time ever comes.”

  From a parked Honda Odyssey minivan on the street, Marsha Gray watches the lead agent depart the Suburban in an apartment complex parking lot. She has night-vision gear at her side but decides not to use it. She loves minivans because they’re so anonymous and blend in so well, and having a night scope up to her face definitely won’t make her blend in.

  The Suburban has been here for about ten minutes, so she’s sure there’s been some chitchat going on inside between the two agents, but what? Marsha wishes she wasn’t by herself, working alone, because she’d have that Suburban bugged and wired so she would know for sure what they were talking about.

  Grissom walks across the parking lot, and Marsha sees shadows emerge from between two parked cars.

  Things are about to get interesting.

  I’m walking to the apartment complex and something flickers ahead of me, and I quickly realize that I’m seeing shadows from two people behind me.

  I turn and there’s two youngsters walking quickly in my direction. They have on baseball hats, and the hoods of their jackets are pulled up over them, making it hard to tell what they look like, which is probably the plan.

  They keep on walking toward me, fast and deliberate.

  I say, “Help you fellas?”

  The one on the right says, “Hey, yeah, my bud here, I think he hurt his left knee. You know where the closest walk-in clinic be?”

  “No, I don’t,” I say. “But he’s not limping.”

  “Appearances can be deceiving, sweetie,” the other one says. “Maybe I’m just faking it, who knows. Maybe we just needed a reason to come talk to you and then take your money.”

  I take a step back, swivel a bit, reach under my coat, remove my collapsible baton, pop it open, and swing it hard across the knees of the guy on the left. He yelps, and the pain drops him on the pavement, arms splayed out. His standing buddy is frozen.

  I say, “Now he’s not faking it.”

  I walk backward a bit, until I’m sure the threat is gone. Then I turn and go to the front door, punch in the access code, make my way through the smelly foyer, and trot upstairs to the third floor. At my apartment I unlock the door, which I had strengthened and the cheap lock upgraded when we moved in. I call out “Honey, I’m here!,” which is my everyday code word so Amelia knows it’s mom coming in and not some creep.

  Inside, there’s a small living room, a kitchen to the right, and a hallway leading to a bathroom and two bedrooms, one for me and one for Amelia.

  The place smells of burnt food.

  In the kitchen, Amelia turns, smiling at me. She’s wearing a white apron smeared to mid-thigh with tomato sauce. A pot of pasta is close to boiling over on the stove, there are open cans on the counter, and the sink is piled high with dirty dishes. The small wooden table is set with clean ones, and she says, “Mom! I made us dinner!”

  I drop my purse and bag in a near chair, and I just nod, taking off the scarf she made for me and then my black wool coat. I should hang them up in the closet, but I’m so very tired, and I toss them on the couch instead.

  “Honey … you didn’t have to. We could have gotten takeout from Chang’s.”

  There’s sizzling noises as the pasta pot fully boils over. Amelia squeals and goes back to the burner, turns it down, and she says, “Mom … we had takeout from Chang’s last week. Twice. I wanted to make dinner tonight. Besides …”

  “What?”

  She picks up a ladle, stirs tomato sauce in another pot. The sauce splatters on her apron and the floor.

  “Besides, Mom, I’m not dumb. I know we need to save money.”

  What to say to something like that?

  I can’t.

  “I’ll be right back,” I say, and walk down the hallway, slip into my bedroom. I switch on a light and take off my jacket, use a key to open a top drawer, and deposit my baton, radio, SIG Sauer, handcuffs, and pepper spray into the padded interior.

  The last thing I put in is my service book that contains my Secret Service badge.

  Imprinted in bold letters on the dark leather are these words:

  DUTY AND HONOR.

  I close the drawer.

  The words are mocking me.

  CHAPTER 29

  THE SPAGHETTI IS chewy and could have been boiled for another two minutes, and the pasta sauce has tiny flakes of burnt material floating throughout—from where it stuck to the bottom of the pan—and there’s homemade garlic bread (toasted bread with melted butter and garlic powder shaken over it) that’s stone-cold, but as I eat, I give my daughter a big smile and say, “Honey, it’s delicious. Thanks so much. You did a great job and I appreciate it.”

  She gives me an ear-to-ear smile that lightens my spirit and makes me feel the best I’ve felt since this rotten day began so many long hours ago. As we eat Amelia goes on about her school day, about two friends named Stacy and Amy who are now fighting over a boy, a math test that went well, and how upset our neighbor Todd Pence was when he had to leave early.

 
Amelia says, twirling a piece of spaghetti on her fork, “Do you think I’m still gonna need to have Todd come by?”

  I think of the two kids I had dispatched earlier. “For just a while, hon, until we can move into a better place.”

  Her sweet face brightens up. “Are we moving back in with Daddy? In our old home?”

  My sweet, airy feeling is gone, brought back to earth by the ongoing disaster that’s my divorce from her father. “Amelia … please. We’ve talked about this, haven’t we? We both love you, very much. But … things aren’t right between the two of us. It has nothing to do with you. You will always be our special girl, our daughter. But … we … I’m not getting back together with your dad.”

  Amelia lowers her head, doesn’t speak for a while, even while we’re washing the dishes. There’s an unexpected knock on the door.

  Amelia turns, dishcloth in hand. “Mom?”

  “Hold on,” I say, and I go back to the bedroom, retrieve my SIG Sauer, and head to the door, which has a thick security chain across the top.

  I call out, “Who’s there?”

  Another knock.

  Well?

  My hand lowers to the doorknob, pistol hidden behind my hip.

  Marsha Gray watches people go in and out of the apartment building, still impressed at how quickly Grissom dispatched the two punks who had approached her.

  Tough broad.

  Need to remember that.

  She yawns.

  How long before she could leave?

  Until the lights up there are all out.

  Still … she wishes she had more info, more intelligence about what Grissom is doing. Marsha hates relying on a man for her livelihood, especially Parker Hoyt. He’s given her calls about Grissom’s movements, but she refuses to completely trust him.

  Something has to be done, and soon, about getting better information.

  I unlock the door and step to one side and—

  A familiar, smiling, cautious face is looking at me.

  “Hi, Sally, can I come in?”

  Amelia runs from the kitchen. “Daddy!”

  I close the door, undo the chain, and let him in. Ben Miller, my straying husband, walks in, his smile wider, his black hair trimmed well, wearing gray slacks and a black turtleneck. A brief flicker of my old love and affection slides through me, and I instantly kill it, remembering all the lies, the betrayals. He gives Amelia a big hug, and there’s a jolt of jealousy in seeing how joyfully she returns the hug to her father.