“Imagine. And all you did was cancel her honeymoon.”
“There were extenuating circumstances. President Blake personally requested that I be here when he visited my home state.”
“But that didn’t satisfy Christina?”
“You know how…forceful she can be. Plus, she’s wanted to see France all her life.” He paused. “Plus, the man is a Republican.”
Mike smirked. “Which I guess explains why she’s not standing beside you playing the loyal wife.”
Ben shuffled his feet. “Well, someone had to stay in the gallery with my mother.”
“Senator Kincaid?”
Ben felt a light tap on his shoulder. The man standing behind him was young, perhaps early thirties, sandy- haired. He was wearing a midnight-blue suit, thin tie, and sunglasses, which Ben knew meant he must be one of the dozens of Secret Service agents stationed around the Oklahoma City National Memorial. “Yes?”
“I’m Agent Max Zimmer. I’m here to escort you to the reception position, where the cameras and crowd can see the president emerge from Cadillac One”-he smiled-“from a safe distance.”
But of course. It wasn’t as if the president had asked him here because of his deep personal affection. After that business over the nomination of Justice Roush to the Supreme Court, it was a miracle the man would speak to Ben at all. What he wanted was to be seen at an important Oklahoma event with a newly minted senator with unaccountably high approval ratings.
Ben heard what sounded like the buzz of a bumblebee coming from Zimmer’s coat sleeve. The agent casually raised the sleeve to his mouth, listened for a moment, then spoke into it. “Understood. Samson in five.” He looked up. “Come along, Senator. Time for you and your guest to move.”
Ben and Mike followed the agent to the street just behind the Oklahoma City National Memorial, erected on the site of the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the office complex that was blown to bits by Timothy McVeigh’s fertilizer bomb on this very date, several years before. It was a catastrophic event no Oklahoman would ever forget. Memorial services were held here on this date annually, and this year, the sitting president was in attendance to offer his condolences and help the healing.
And, Ben supposed, the fact that Oklahoma was a borderline red/blue state whose electoral votes were currently uncertain had nothing to do with it.
It was a magnificent memorial, the largest of its kind in the United States, designed to honor the fallen, the survivors, the rescuers, and everyone else whose life had been indelibly changed by the tragedy. Enormous twin bronze gates framed the 3.3-acre expanse within. Because the explosion occurred at 9:02 a.m., the eastern gate was engraved with the time 9:01-the last minute of peace-and the western gate was engraved with 9:03-the first moment of the ensuing horror. A reflecting pool stretched across the center of the memorial between the two gates, a thin layer of water over polished black marble. On one side of the pool was the Field of Empty Chairs: 168 chairs of bronze, glass, and stone, one for each of the people who died in the explosion.
As they walked, Ben saw a face he recognized.
“Brad Tidwell. My senatorial comrade.” Ben held out his hand. “Good to see you.”
The tall, lanky man in the blue suit took Ben’s hand cordially. “Kincaid, you are the worst liar I have ever met.”
Ben’s face colored.
“Seriously. Worst liar in the history of humanity. Which explains why you’ll never make it in politics.”
“Or,” Mike grumbled, “explains why his approval rating is so much higher than yours.”
Tidwell responded with a thin smile that, were Ben in a less charitable mood, he might have called a sneer. “Senator Kincaid has never had the pleasure of conducting an actual campaign. Believe me, if he ever does, his numbers will drop.”
Tidwell was a two-term senator based in Oklahoma City. After Senator Todd Glancy resigned, he had become the state’s senior senator, with Ben as his very junior partner. Since they represented different parties, they had spent much of the past few months canceling out each other’s votes.
“Since you’re a newbie, I wanted to make sure we were clear on protocol: when the president approaches us, I shake his hand first.”
Ben caught Mike rolling his eyes.
“Maybe I’m crazy,” Ben said, “but shouldn’t we let the president decide who he wants to greet first?”
“And he will. He knows how the game is played. You’re the one I’m worried about. No grandstand plays for the cameras and the folks back home. Don’t lunge for the man’s hand.”
“If he were stupid enough to lunge for the president’s hand,” Mike noted, “he would probably be tackled by a dozen Secret Service agents.”
“Another good point. See, Kincaid-I’m just looking out for your best interests. Brother senators should be friends.”
Riiiight, Ben thought. And with a friend like you…
They stopped walking as Agent Zimmer approached with another similarly garbed older man. “Senator Kincaid, this is Agent Gatwick, my immediate superior. Everything in place, Tom?”
“Right on schedule.”
“Snipers?”
“In place.”
“Agents?”
“As planned. Domino Bravo.”
“Excellent.” Zimmer turned toward the north end of the street. “Here he comes.”
Ben followed his gaze and saw a large black sedan followed by what appeared to be an endless stream of black sedans flanked by motorcycle cops. “How many cars are in the presidential motorcade?”
“Twenty-two.”
Ben’s eyes bulged. “Are you joking? Who’s in all of those cars?”
“Secret Service in several. Homeland Security in a few. Local police. Press vans. One car carrying the president’s doctor and several refrigerated pints of the president’s blood. Various important dignitaries, not important enough for a personal meet-and-greet like you, but important enough to walk to the dais in the president’s wake. A counterassault team, to deal with potential attacks. The ‘bomb sweep’-that’s the first police car. It has the unpleasant and dangerous job of clearing the way for the motorcade. Another eight or so vehicles- the ‘secure package’-will split off from the motorcade and take the president somewhere safe in the event of an emergency.”
Ben continued to stare. “Is that the president’s car?”
“Nah. The Beast will be packed somewhere in the middle.”
“The Beast?”
Agent Gatwick nodded. “That’s what we call the president’s car. Cadillac One.”
“Why ‘The Beast’?”
“Because it’s a monster. A real leviathan. A Caddy DTS stretch sedan with satellite GPS and communication equipment. He could call an astronaut on the moon from that car. Carries its own air supply in case someone gasses the outside air. Totally bulletproof-the body is constructed of antiballistic steel paneling and the windows are made from inch-thick polycarbonate glass. In the event of a puncture, the tires can heal themselves.”
“It’s the Batmobile.”
“Basically, yeah. Without the tail fins.”
“What’s a car like that cost?”
“Last I heard, about twelve million.”
Ben whistled.
“And for all that-it gets lousy gas mileage.” Behind the sunglasses, Ben sensed a twinkle in Zimmer’s eye. “But it has a hell of a sound system.”
Far above the motorcade, in a grandstand recon office temporarily constructed on the roof of the adjoining Oklahoma City Memorial Museum, three sets of eyes were trained on the activities below.
“So she made it in time,” the oldest of the three, an extremely tall black man, commented.
“Just barely,” said the other man in the group. “But from what I hear, they had a little snuggle on Air Force One.”
