beleaguered agency most certainly knew better than to let one of their own fool with American politics.
It made no sense at all that someone in the CIA would try to assassinate the incoming President, especially since his policies were bound to be more friendly to the intelligence community than the last administration’s. This DiscoDuck had to be a rogue operator within the CIA.
Not that it mattered right now. What mattered at this very moment was saving Gabe from whatever DiscoDuck had just orchestrated over the Internet.
She went back to the Q-group chat room and scrolled through the discussion over the last few minutes while she’d been occupied tracking down DiscoDuck.
He said a pickup game of soccer was going to be played up on the hill overlooking the lake. She translated in her head, Capitol Hill. Overlooking the Reflecting Pool.
She read on. He said they were meeting at around six-thirty to warm up and would start playing for real around 7 p.m. Those times didn’t take a rocket scientist to decipher and figure out what he was talking about.
This guy knew every last detail of when and where Gabe was going to be inaugurated tonight! How could that be? Gabe said the whole thing was a huge secret. So who’d leaked it? And how had DiscoDuck gotten his hands on the information? He had to be highly placed within the CIA, just like Oracle had forecast, to know what he did. And if that was true, it meant he was smart, powerful, and had frightening resources at his disposal.
She shoved down the panic threatening to choke her. She had to figure out who this guy was! Who all knew about tonight?
Gabe, obviously. His security detail. The Chief Justice of the Supreme Court who’d swear him in. Key members of Congress and various government agencies-enter Disco-Duck. The local police. The FBI. No doubt, members of the media had been notified so they could get cameras and crews into place to cover the inauguration. Technical support types at the networks who’d break into the evening programming with the live feed.
Crud. The list of people in the know was too big to help her narrow down DiscoDuck’s identity at all.
She looked at her watch. It was after six now. These turkeys were going to meet at 6:30 p.m. to warm up. As in getting into position to kill Gabe. Some warm-up.
She shut down her computer and headed for her bedroom, or more to the point, for the safe in her bedroom that held her sidearm. Grimly, she donned a leather shoulder holster and threw her black leather duster on over it. She dialed the combination for the small safe in her closet and pulled out her rarely used pistol, a sturdy 9 mm Beretta she’d owned for years. It might not have the most firepower in the world, but its clip held fourteen rounds and a fifteenth in the firing chamber, and it never jammed. She grabbed both her spare clips of ammunition, threw them in her pocket and headed for the door.
Time to go to an inauguration.
7:00 P.M.
T he Capitol was brightly lit when she pulled up a block north of it-as close as the police barricades would let her go-and parked her car. The glowing Rotunda thrust up into the night sky, a proud symbol of America in the crystalline chill of the evening. Stars glittered above and her breath hung in the air in thick clouds. She glimpsed the shadow of a pair of military choppers circling overhead just before she heard their distinctive thwocking. She’d bet there were fighter jets higher up, out of earshot, providing cover for this particular piece of real estate, too.
Ten-to-one at least one of the choppers up there was using high-resolution cameras to watch everyone and everything moving on the ground down here. From the height they were currently circling at, those cameras would be able to see ants scuttling along, if it weren’t too cold for such creatures tonight.
Ducking her head and shoulders back inside her car, she doffed her shoulder holster and emptied her pockets of ammo clips. She tucked the pistol under the front seat, out of sight. No way was she getting that baby inside the Capitol building. She could see the ground security from here, armed policemen with roving attack dogs pacing the steps in front of the Capitol.
The line waiting to get inside was blessedly short and she was only half-frozen when she stepped inside the majestic edifice. She checked her watch. Six-fifty. She had ten minutes to figure out what DiscoDuck and his cronies were up to and stop them.
She scanned the setup. A small stage had been erected on the east side of the spacious Rotunda, and rows of chairs for about a hundred people laid out in front of it. A podium stood on the stage, no doubt bulletproof, and a pair of clear, glass teleprompter panels stood on narrow poles to each side of it. A number of people were already seated in the chairs, many of whom she recognized as prominent politicians.
She scanned the exits. Every one of them was heavily covered with layers of armed guards either blocking it or carefully screening each person who entered. She looked up. The various balconies that ringed the Rotunda were also occupied by a mishmash of uniformed guards and plainclothes, men in suits. She recognized a couple of the men as Secret Service agents from the warehouse this afternoon.
Where in the heck was DiscoDuck’s threat supposed to come from? She didn’t see any way anyone was getting in from the outside to kill Gabe. She noticed a movement from the direction of the Senate chambers. A group of silent men in conservative suits stepped into the Rotunda and fanned out. More Secret Service. She recognized several of the men in this contingent from the bunker.
She had to give Owen Haas credit. He’d done a great job locking down this site and securing it against any potential threat. He’d anticipated everything she could think of and more.
So how was it DiscoDuck thought he or his people could get access to Gabe?
She ticked off all the usual sources of threats. Sniper. Bomber. Close-range shooter. Attack from above. Attack from a bystander. Haas and his team were positioned to stop every last one.
She looked at her watch again-6:53 p.m. The crowd was being asked to take its seats. She hung back at the margin of the small crowd, still searching warily.
She was overreacting. Haas had this thing under control. Everything was going to be perfectly fine. She should just sit down and enjoy watching Gabe become President. A Secret Service agent herded her, last in line, toward one of the rear seats. The guy’s eyes moved constantly, checking outward from the subtle cordon they’d formed around the stage.
Reluctantly, she took her seat, at the end of the last row. A group of dignitaries filed out on stage and took their places. A burst of light exploded, and she started horribly, almost diving for the floor out of sheer reflex. The television cameras had just gone on. Sheesh, she was a mess.
Several news anchors scattered around the room began to speak into microphones. In the otherwise silent space, their words swirled and echoed around her, disconnected from the people uttering them.
“In just a few moments, President-elect Monihan will be sworn in as President of the United States…After a day of terror in our nation’s capital, the wheels of democracy will finally turn, and a new president will be sworn in… We’re standing by for the delayed inauguration of Gabriel Monihan, which will go ahead in spite of a day of death in Washington…”
There was a rustle as everyone stood up, and she followed suit belatedly. Over the heads of the rows of dignitaries in front of her, she glimpsed Gabe and an elderly man in a long black robe stepping into the doorway behind the stage. Almost time. In a matter of minutes, Gabe would be President, and her theories would be proven-thankfully-to be unfounded. And then she and Gabe could each get on with their lives. She was going to miss him. In the short time she’d known him, he’d made a huge impression on her. In fact, she suspected he’d left a mark on her life that would never go away. This experience had shown her it was possible to curb the rebel in her, to channel it in a positive and useful way to help her fellow man instead of fighting against the system all the time.
Owen Haas, standing beside Gabe, put a finger to his ear. Undoubtedly getting a last all-clear report from his men before he let his charge step out into the lights, alone and unprotected.
She glanced over her shoulder at the other agents in the loose ring of men converging around the stage. They, too, scanned the edges of the room. So well honed a team were they that they barely looked at one another as they moved as one through the echoing chamber.
She frowned.
The Secret Service agents weren’t looking at each other.
