were three ten-person vans waiting with their engines running. The vans had black tinted windows and Griff assumed they were bulletproof, too.
“How many are coming with us?” Griff asked Stafford.
“Eight.”
“That’s a lot of vans for eight people.”
“Two are decoys. Let’s go. Move it.”
The side doors to one of the vans slid open and Griff and Angie were the first inside. One of the soldiers carelessly swung Griff one of the refrigerated cases containing the blood samples.
“Easy with that!” Griff admonished the man. “Unless you want to be responsible for finding out just how dangerous these bugs really are.”
The solider just grunted and continued loading gear into the van. There was heat in the van, but not enough to enable Griff and Angie to remove their camouflage field jackets. Angie slid in beside Griff and pressed her body against his. He took hold of her hand. She glanced at him curiously, but made no attempt to pull away.
“I heard Allaire mention something about a second team working in tandem,” she said. “Is that true?”
“We’re not exactly working in an atmosphere of mutual trust, as the guardians, here, will attest. There’s a Bio Level Four facility in Alaska someplace. Allaire has enlisted my assistant, Mel Forbush, to set up a data-sharing network between us. As long as they don’t slow me down, it won’t be an issue.”
“Thank you for asking them to send me with you.”
“I don’t trust Allaire to keep his word, and he doesn’t trust me not to bolt. You’re like the proctor.”
The last soldier stepped inside and the van door slammed shut. Stafford sat in the front passenger seat, his radio pressed to his lips.
“We’re moving,” Stafford said. “Launch the birds.”
He lifted a pair of high-powered night-vision binoculars to his face.
Griff felt suddenly edgy.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
Angie seemed to sense it too. Her grip on his hand tightened.
Stafford passed the binoculars back.
“What am I looking for?” Angie asked.
“The doctor’s decoy,” Stafford said.
“My what?”
“Griff, he’s right,” Angie said, as she fiddled with the focus. “There’s a man, thin, bearded. I can just make him out getting into a helicopter.”
“What are you talking about?”
The driver shifted the van into gear and the quick acceleration pushed Griff back into his seat. They were headed toward Canal Street. The two other vans split off and headed in opposite directions on C Street. Griff stiffened. He did not need binoculars to see the black silhouette of the chopper, rising above the treetops after takeoff.
“Stafford, what in the hell is going on?”
“President’s order,” Stafford said. “We use this protocol or something like it to protect him. Now it’s been instituted to protect you. When it comes to saving the country we don’t leave things to chance.”
Barely able to breathe, Griff kept his gaze locked on the helicopter as it grew smaller on the horizon. Suddenly, a trail of fire burst into view, seemingly from out of nowhere, and began to chase the climbing chopper.
“God, no!” Griff whispered. “No!!”
He screamed the word.
There was an explosion, and a patch of dark morning sky erupted into a bright ball of fire. The van shook from the force of the explosion. Griff watched through the window as fiery pieces from the helicopter fell to earth like meteorites.
CHAPTER 24
Griff stared at the contrails of black smoke streaking the spotlit sky.
Jim Allaire and his advisors had created a decoy of him, and now that man was dead.
“I want to speak to the president,” Griff demanded. “Now!”
Stafford did not bother to turn around, nor did he respond to the request.
Griff rose from his seat, pushed past Angie, and yanked open the van’s side door. They were traveling at forty miles per hour, along empty roads that police cars and motorcycles had cleared of traffic. Cold air swept into the cabin. Other armored vehicles had joined in their procession, including an ambulance and a USSS Electronic Countermeasures Suburban, which was following several car lengths behind.
“Sergeant?” the driver called out to Stafford.
“Keep driving,” Chad Stafford said, drawing his sidearm and turning in his seat.
“Griff, what are you doing?” Angie shouted.
Griff was clinging to the frame of the open door, barely able to fight the rush of air.
“Get the president on that radio, now!” he screamed.
He held on, his body partway outside the moving van. His long, tangled hair snapped about like an unfettered sail in high winds.
“Get back inside the van this instant. That’s an order!” Stafford commanded.
One of the soldiers scrambled over Angie and grabbed Griff by the collar. But the husky young man was lacking the leverage to pull him back inside.
“Get me the president on that radio, or I swear to you, I’ll jump.”
Stafford motioned the driver to slow.
“Don’t slow the van down!” Griff yelled out. “Don’t do anything but get me Allaire on that goddamn radio.”
“Okay, okay, pal,” Stafford said. “Just pull it together and come back inside. That was a tough one. None of us expected it. I’ll get you the president.”
Griff allowed Angie and two of the soldiers to haul him back to his seat. He was hyperventilating and shaking. The van pulled to the curb and stopped.
Stafford turned back until his face and Griff’s were inches apart. He had holstered his sidearm.
“The president considers you an enemy of the United States,” he said. “I have orders to kill you if you try to escape. Don’t give me the pleasure.”
Griff snatched the radio away. There was a brief silence followed by a burst of static.
“What is it, Rhodes?” James Allaire snapped.
“Nobody told me you were sending a double out like that.”
“Because that’s not your concern.”
“That man and … and the pilot just died because people thought it was me.”
“
“I can’t stand the killing. You set them up to die. You knew what was going to happen.”
“Correction. We
“I don’t believe this.”
“Now pull yourself together, Rhodes. You’re not the only one appalled by death. We all are. You have your job to do. We have ours. Do you want to come back here and watch seven hundred more people die?… Do you?”
“No.”
