'There,' Battat said, pointing. Odette moved closer. She looked out.
'Do you see him?' Battat asked.
'In the white shirt, blue jeans, carrying a black backpack.'
'I see him,' Odette replied.
'That's the man I saw in the room,' Battat said. So that's the Harpooner, she thought. The monster cut an unimposing figure as he walked unhurriedly from the hotel. But his easygoing manner only made him seem even more noxious. People might be dying in the fire he set to cover his escape. Yet he did not care. Odette wished she could shoot him from here.
'He's probably going to keep moving slowly so he won't attract attention,' Battat told her. He gave the gun back to her. He was panting, having trouble standing.
'You've got enough time to catch up to him and take him out.'
'What about you?'
'I'd only slow you down,' he said. She hesitated. An hour ago, she had not wanted him to be part of this. Now she felt as if she was deserting him.
'You're wasting time,' Battat said. He gave her a gentle push and started toward the door.
'Just go. I'll get to the stairwell and make my way back to the embassy.
I'll see if I can do anything from there.'
'All right,' she said, then turned and hurried toward the door.
'He'll be armed!' Battat yelled after her.
'Don't hesitate!' She acknowledged with a wave as she left the room. The hallway was filling with smoke. The few guests who had been in their rooms were filing into the hallway to see what was happening. Housekeeping staff and security personnel were beginning to arrive. They were helping everyone toward the stairwell. Odette told one of the security men that someone needed help in 312. Then she rushed ahead to the stairwell. In less than a minute, she was in the street. The parking lot was on the other side of the building. She ran toward it. The Harpooner was gone.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 3:13 a.m.
Paul Hood returned to the Cabinet Room and shut the door. He took a calming breath. The room smelled of coffee. He was glad. It covered the stink of treason. Then he took out his Palm Pilot, looked up a number, and went to the phone to enter it. This was not something that Hood wanted to do. It was something he had to do. It was the only way he could think of to prevent what was effectively shaping up as a coup d'etat. The phone was answered right after the second ring.
'Hello?' said the voice on the other end.
'Megan, it's Paul Hood.'
'Paul, where are you?' asked the First Lady.
'I've been worried--'
'I'm in the Cabinet Room,' he said.
'Megan, listen. Fenwick is definitely involved in a conspiracy of some kind. My feeling is that he. Gable, and whoever else is in this have been trying to gaslight the president.'
'Why would anyone want to make my husband think he's lost his mind?' she asked.
'Because they've also set in motion a confrontation with Iran and Russia in the Caspian Sea,' Hood told her.
'If they can convince the president or the public that he's not equipped to handle the showdown, he'll have to resign. Then the new president will either escalate the war or, more likely, he'll end it. That will win him points with the people and with Iran. Maybe then we'll all divide up the oil wells that used to belong to Azerbaijan.'
'Paul, that's monstrous,' Megan said.
'Is the vice president involved with this?'
'Possibly,' Hood said.
'And they expect to get away with it?'
'Megan, they are very close to getting away with it,' Hood informed her.
'The Caspian situation is revving up, and they've moved the strategy sessions from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. I don't have security clearance to go down there.'
'I'll phone Michael on the private number and ask him to see you,' Megan told him.
'That won't be enough,' Hood said.
'I need you to do something else.' Megan asked him what that was. Hood told her.
'I'll do it,' she said when he was finished.
'Give me five minutes.' Hood thanked her and hung up. What Hood had proposed was a potentially dangerous tactic for him and for the First Lady. And under the best of circumstances, it was not going to be pleasant. But it was necessary. Hood looked around the room. This was not like rescuing his daughter. That had been instinctive. He had to act if she were to survive. There had been no choice. This was different. Hood tried to imagine the decisions that had been made in this room over the centuries. Decisions about war, about depressions, about human rights, about foreign policy. Every one of them had affected history in some way, large or small. But more important than that, whether they were right or wrong, all of them had required a commitment. Someone had to
