The President's Daughter Read online

  The door closes.

  She steps back.

  I sit down on a plain black leather couch.

  “David,” I quickly say. “What’s wrong? What do you know?”

  This room was built before I moved in, and it’s designed to keep me and Mel—and Sam, if she’s here—protected in case of any external threat. There’s a self-contained air system, food, stored water, and a tiny bathroom, and about the only thing that could breach this little cube inside my garage is a tactical nuclear weapon being dropped on the roof. There are couches that fold out into beds and a small dining area, with a refrigerator and a stove, and it’s about as cheerful as a prison cell.

  “David!” I call out again.

  There’s a communications console set up at the other side of the room, with CCTV screens monitoring various parts of my property. From one screen I see the end of our dirt access road. The omnipresent New Hampshire State Police cruiser has shifted position to block the entrance, and two state police troopers are kneeling behind the cruiser, automatic weapons in hand.

  Agent Nicole Washington is seated at the console, earphone and mic on her head, and Agent Stahl is standing behind her, speaking quietly but firmly.

  “Contact the field offices in Burlington, Concord, and Boston,” he says. “We need more bodies here, stat. Then get on the secure line to DC. We need to alert them, and we need the FBI to—”

  I yell out, “Agent Stahl, what the hell is going on?”

  He quickly turns to me, and he no longer looks like the happy subordinate from earlier, after his defeat in our canoe race.

  His face is hard-set, full of fury and concern, and it’s the look of a man with a mission, a man in charge, despite having a former president sitting before him.

  His words come out, each one hitting me like a hammer blow to the gut.

  Stahl says, “I’m sorry to tell you this, Mr. President. Your information about the threats was correct. Mel has been kidnapped.”

  Chapter

  29

  Lake Marie, New Hampshire

  Secret Service agent David Stahl is originally from Bakersfield, California, and after serving in the Marines—three tours in Afghanistan—he joined the Secret Service, and over the past ten years he’s worked his way up to the Presidential Protection Detail.

  But despite all the training, all the simulations, all the practice drills, he feels as though the entire weight of the Secret Service and Homeland Security is on his shoulders as he reacts to the evolving situation and makes decisions that he knows years from now will be examined, critiqued, and second-guessed.

  So the hell what? he thinks.

  This is what he signed up for.

  And job one at this very moment is to keep Harbor in place before the ex-SEAL operator in front of him grabs a weapon and breaks out of here to hunt for his daughter on his own.

  Keating’s body is tense and coiled, a warrior who needs to strike out, and strike out now.

  David knows the feeling well.

  Keating says, “Tell me what you know.”

  “Sir, I’ll make it quick, and please…we’ve got work to do to locate your daughter and protect you as well.”

  Keating’s face colors. “Don’t insult me. I know that. Go.”

  Stahl says, “Personnel from Fish and Game and the Grafton County Sheriff’s Department were en route to Mount Rollins. They just didn’t get there in time. Your daughter’s knapsack was found at the Huntsmen trailhead. The body of her friend, Tim Kenyon, was found nearby. Shot in the head. No ransom note as of yet.”

  The former president nods, face pale. David says, “The New Hampshire State Police were the first responders at the murder scene. They’ve transmitted a BOLO for a black Cadillac Escalade that was seen speeding away from the trail. Roadblocks are being set up and we’re asking for airborne units from the Vermont State Police and the New Hampshire State Police to begin an airborne search. We’re—”

  Keating holds up a hand. “I’m keeping you from your job. Get to it…but is there anything else I should know right now?”

  “No, Mr. President,” Stahl says.

  And to himself, as he turns back to Agent Nicole Washington and the procedures that need to be followed and the notifications that must be made, he admits that he’s just lied to Matthew Keating.

  Because Mel’s kidnapping is Agent Stahl’s fault.

  And not just because of this morning’s warning.

  Two months earlier, he is in his small upstairs office in the renovated barn on the Keating property when his desk phone rings. He picks it up—“Stahl”—and Agent Washington is on the other end.

  “David, I’ve got Director Murray on the line,” she says. “Are you in or out?”

  He rubs at his tired eyes. He’s been working on the staffing schedule for the next three months, and as always, he’s shorthanded, he’s always shorthanded, having to ask the detail here to work mandatory overtime, which is a quick way to burn out good agents and send them to the private sector. He’s the special agent in charge of the detail, and he should have a deputy special agent to take some of the burden, but that position’s been unfilled for months.

  “I wish I was out,” he says. “Put her on.”

  Faith Murray is the deputy assistant director in charge of the Presidential Protection Detail, and she gets right to the point. “Stahl, what the hell are you doing up there in New Hampshire?”

  He slowly sits up straighter in his chair. “My job,” he says. “What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that you’re violating both policy and procedure by providing security to Mel Keating,” she snaps. “You know how much trouble you’re in?”

  Stahl says, “We’re not providing protection to Mel Keating.”

  “That’s not what I’ve heard,” she says. “Stop the bullshit. What are you doing?”

  He rubs at his eyes again, looks out the small window. There’s music and laughter and a volleyball net, as Mel Keating is having a cookout with a few friends, Dartmouth students. Right now, Stahl wishes he was their age, worrying only about upcoming lectures and not getting a ball spiked in your face.

  There’s also a dull ache inside of him from missing his wife, Hannah, who these past five years has been dead from leukemia, leaving him a solitary widower with no time for or interest in reentering the dating pool.

  “Field training,” he says. “I don’t want the detail here to get stale. So we do exercises where we’re surveilling and following individuals. It made sense to have them follow Mel Keating.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “And her father?”

  Again, “No, ma’am.”

  “Then knock it off,” Murray says. “There are approved training modules. Follow them. And Mel Keating is old enough that she doesn’t need protection.”

  “Ma’am, I—”

  “What is it?”

  He grits his teeth for a moment. “Her father is a former president, and a former SEAL operator. It makes sense that he has a number of enemies out there. Lots of enemies.”

  “You protect him, and that’s it.”

  “It’s not enough!”

  “I say it is,” she says. “I’m late for a session with the secretary of Homeland Security. Anything else? Make it quick.”

  He wants to say no, it’s not enough, damn it. And if you had worked more in the field, out in the rain and the snow, working long shifts and being alert all the time, you would know. Instead of going to training seminars and retreats and schools, being promoted the bureaucratic way instead of coming from the field, you would know deep in your bones how exposed and vulnerable Mel Keating is.

  Hell, he thinks, even this compound is vulnerable. At the homes of other former presidents, operations centers are always at an off-site building so the entire protection detail isn’t a single target in one place. But the Barnes Administration and its congressional supporters have hacked and slashed the Secret Servi
ce budget—some DC commentators said it was revenge for President Keating’s decision to contest his vice president’s election challenge—and the lack of agents and resources here has been the result.

  “Not at the moment, Director,” he says, and she hangs up on him.

  Stahl is looking at the CCTV screens and says, “Get Towler and Wrenn back out on the water. Nobody gets within a hundred yards of the place lakeside. Got it?”

  “On it,” Washington says as she starts quietly speaking into the microphone, and as they’ve done before in training simulations and drills, the two of them work in sync, keeping focused on the job and nothing else.

  Protect Harbor at all costs.

  Even though right now he feels as though he’s failed the president and his kidnapped daughter.

  Chapter

  30

  Lake Marie, New Hampshire

  Inside the safe room, a soft murmur begins as the expensive and classified HVAC system kicks in, pumping fresh air into the space and filtering any biowarfare pathogens that might have been released on the property.

  Stahl shakes his head.

  Stop whining. Do your job.

  “Roll back the outer perimeter,” Stahl says. “Set them up at the secondary defensive line.”

  Phones are ringing, static-filled radio messages are frantically crackling through small speakers. Agent Chin is behind a thick Kevlar and metal mobile barricade, gently lining up spare magazines on the floor for her automatic rifle, a gas mask nearby in case there’s an attempt to break through the door.

  Mel Keating has been kidnapped. Is that a one-off or the start of something else? Do the terrorists want Stahl to try to evac Harbor now, before reinforcements are in place? Take him out by an RPG or an ambush squad when Keating’s on the move?

  Or is there an assault team now moving through the woods, heavily armed and with penetrative explosives, to lay siege to the safe house?

  Washington says, “The state police SWAT team is responding, going to the preapproved staging location.”

  Stahl nods. If Keating was still serving as president, Stahl would have a shitload more resources at his fingertips. Armored vehicles, limousines, helicopter and aircraft within driving distance, and the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, which could take on and win a firefight against any standard army squad in the world.

  Washington says, “We’ve got three agents inbound from Burlington, four from Concord, and eight from Boston.”

  Stahl says, “Who’s in the house?”

  “Emma Curtis.”

  Our sacrificial lamb, Stahl thinks. The bulk of the agents are either here in the safe room or have been pulled back from the Keating property to set up a more defined and local defensive perimeter. But an agent has to be on duty at the main house to receive and brief those agents and other law enforcement officers as they arrive to beef up the compound’s defenses, because no one is getting in and out of the safe room until it’s time for Harbor to evacuate.

  Which isn’t happening anytime soon.

  But it also means that in the wood-framed and undefended house, if an attack comes, Curtis is on her own.

  Washington says, “Vermont State Police is offering their SWAT team.”

  “Tell them thanks and reach out to Concord.”

  Another quick second, and Washington says, “Secretary Charles is on the line.”

  Secretary of Homeland Security Paul Charles, Stahl thinks. Used to run the Florida Highway Patrol before the new president picked him to run Homeland Security, which has had oversight authority over the Secret Service ever since 9/11.

  And he’s utterly useless.

  “Tell him we’re busy,” Stahl says.

  He glances around the room.

  Nobody is saying a word.

  Everyone is focused on their area of responsibility, sliding into their preplanned and pretrained positions.

  Keating is sitting on the couch, jaw set, staring right and hard at Stahl.

  Stahl has to look away.

  Washington says, “David, we’ve caught a break from the FBI.”

  “Nice change of pace,” Stahl says. “What is it?”

  “Eight members of their Hostage Rescue Team are doing training at Hanscom Air Force Base in Massachusetts,” she says. “They can be in the air in five minutes.”

  Stahl says, “We’ll take them.”

  A low voice that he can barely recognize comes from behind him.

  “David.”

  He turns and Keating is standing up.

  “Two points,” he says. “What’s the status of my wife?”

  “Professor Keating is still at the archaeological site in Hitchcock, with about a half dozen grad students and volunteers.”

  “Has her protection arrived yet?” Keating asks.

  “Maine State Police should be there by now,” Stahl says. “There’s a National Guard armory within two miles of where she is. That’s where they’ll take her.”

  Keating nods. “All right.”

  Stahl is desperate to get back to the task at hand, check the status of the perimeter defense, see if he can get two more agents on watercraft out on the lake, work up a plan to eventually get Harbor out of here and someplace larger and easier to defend.

  Stahl says, “Sir, what’s the other point?”

  “Did I hear right and there’s an HRT team coming here? By helicopter?”

  “Yes, sir. They’ll be here in under an hour.”

  Keating nods, and Stahl sees the look in the man’s face change, from that of a protectee to one now in charge.

  “Good,” he says. “Once they arrive, we’re getting on that Black Hawk and getting the hell out of here.”

  Chapter

  31

  Hitchcock, Maine

  It’s late morning in the small fishing village of Hitchcock, Maine, and Boston University professor and former First Lady Samantha Keating is on her sore and aching knees, looking down at what is slowly—oh, so slowly!—being uncovered by two of her grad students from a meter down in the dirt.

  She’s sweaty, her hands are encrusted with dirt, there are blisters developing along both thumbs, her clothes smell, and she’s in her own form of paradise. In so many campaign seasons past, she got trapped at some political event in an ill-fitting gown, eating tough chicken and cold potatoes, attempting small talk with some unctuous man or woman running for office.

  But not now, not here.

  This is where she belongs, this is where she thrives. Not in that damn plastic and artificial arena of politics but here on the ground, in the dirt, slowly uncovering stories and secrets from the past.

  A young grad student, Cameron Dane, is gingerly sweeping away more of the fine soil with a camel hair brush when she says, “Professor, do you see this? Do you?”

  An open tent has been constructed over this part of the dig, protecting the uncovered soil and artifacts from the strong Maine sun, but Samantha can easily see what’s coming into view: curved red tiles, made by humans, and from Europe.

  “Yes,” she says, her voice rising in excitement. “Yes, I do!”

  Paul Juarez, another grad student, says in awe, “Professor, that’s Basque. No doubt about it.”

  Samantha’s smile widens. “Nice to know a gamble sometimes pays off, right?”

  The students laugh as more of the red tile is revealed.

  Jackpot, she thinks.

  Despite all the poorly written and distributed books in grade school and high school that talked about the early French and English explorers and settlers to these shores, the real history is more complex and puzzling. Up in Newfoundland and along other provinces in Canada, there are archaeological sites that show that Basque fishermen from the 1400s—long before Columbus stumbled his way into the Caribbean—were fishing the astounding wealth of cod and whales that clustered around these shores.

  There were always suggestions and theories that the Basque could have gone farther south, here to Maine, and if any evidence we
re discovered, it would forever change the history of New England.

  Such history has never been found.

  Until today.

  “Careful there, Paul,” Samantha gently says to Juarez. “These tiles haven’t seen the light of day for more than six hundred years. Another six or so minutes won’t make a difference.”

  The Atlantic Ocean’s waves hitting the rough rocks and boulders provide the predominant sounds here at the site in Hitchcock until the noise of a racing engine reaches her ears.

  Big deal. Right now she doesn’t care about the twenty-first century and its technology and squabbles, and God, she certainly doesn’t care to think about all those wasted hours and days and weeks being First Lady and pretending to care.

  This is her time, her place, and she imagines what it must have been like to have been one of the Basque fishermen back in the 1400s, sailing here and finding the rich schools of fish, unbelievable wealth far from their traditional fishing grounds in France and Spain. Not coming here to conquer or make an empire—no, just coming here to work the waters.

  One of the site’s volunteers, an older gent named Picard wearing jeans and a gray sweatshirt, runs up to the tent. “Professor Keating, there are two men over there looking for you!”

  She says, “Tell them to go away. I’m busy.”

  Samantha continues to stare at the emerging tiles. To find a Basque fishing station here, in Maine…the headlines that would produce, the papers she could write, maybe even a book-length history. Two years ago, People magazine profiled her as she started fieldwork here, and since then the news media has left her alone.

  But to have them pay attention, to this, now…

  The volunteer is insistent. “Professor Keating, they’re—”

  Samantha holds up a hand. “They can wait. Or go away. Their choice. Paul, you’re doing good work there.”

  In the distance and coming from the small dirt parking lot, she sees two men running toward this tent, running past the two other, smaller tents, the three screen sifters where dirt is checked for artifacts, heading right at her, both wearing dark gray suits with white shirts and neckties, and she slowly stands up.