From beside me Rudy said, “It’s a genuine perspective check, isn’t it?”
“Hooah,” Top said softly.
“Major Courtland ” We turned to see a big man in a beautifully tailored lightweight charcoal suit come striding across the floor, hand out, a smile on his tanned face. I recognized him at once from Grace’s description. Linden Brierly, regional director of the Secret Service. We stepped up to meet him by the podium that had been erected between the display cases. It was a three-step affair heavy with red, white, and blue bunting and bristling with microphones, none of which were currently turned on. I’d checked.
Grace made introductions and offered her hand; Brierly gave it a firm single pump. “Sorry for borrowing the Secret Service as our cover, sir,” she said. “The President thought it would be best under the circumstances.”
Brierly didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, sure, I understand,” he said, though he probably didn’t like it. I wouldn’t if I were in his shoes; but he hadn’t gotten this far in his career by letting sour grapes show on his face. He looked around to confirm that there was no one else in the room except Brierly and Echo Team. “I’ve met your boss. Mr. Deacon.” He paused and his smile became a bit rueful. “Or is it Church? There seems to be some disagreement about that.”
“He prefers to be called Mr. Church.”
“Interesting man,” Brierly said. “I tried to run a background check on him and pretty much had my knuckles beaten with a ruler by the Commander in Chief.”
Grace returned his smile but said nothing, nor did Rudy. I practiced looking like a cigar-store Indian.
Brierly waited a second, then shrugged. “Okay, I get it. No problem, Major. So, tell me what I can do for you?”
Grace and I had agreed that she’d handle Brierly and I’d take Lee, so she dug right in. “Sir,” she said, “we’d like to discuss the candidates you suggested for transfer to the DMS.”
That dialed down the wattage of Brierly’s smile. “Why is that, Major?”
Instead of answering she asked, “What can you tell me about the men you chose to recommend?” She recited eleven names including Sergeant Michael Sanderson, who was one of Dietrich’s security men, and Second Lieutenant Oliver Brown. The others I hadn’t yet met.
I saw Brierly flick a glance across the room at Ollie and then return his gaze to Grace. “Can you be a bit more specific?”
“Just dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s,” she said with a smile.
“Uh-huh,” he said. “And for that you flash a presidential order?”
Grace said nothing.
Brierly sucked his teeth. “Okay,” he said, “you caught me.”
I stiffened, but then he upped the wattage on his smile. “A couple of my recommendations were entirely self-serving, I’ll admit it. Mike Sanderson is the son of an old friend of mine. Mike’s career seemed to stall in place after he left the army and joined the Service. We all thought he’d rise like a meteor but he didn’t make the cut to the presidential detail, and when you miss that step you tend to tread water. I promised his dad I’d look out for him and the DMS seemed like a chance for a fresh start.”
“And Lieutenant Brown?” Grace asked.
Brierly colored. “Well that’s a little more awkward, and I’m not sure if it’s something we should even be talking about.”
“Sir, we’re here on the orders of the President himself.”
Brierly sighed and stared at the empty air between Grace and me for a few seconds, the muscles in the sides of his jaw flexing as he thought it through. We let him. Finally he said, “Okay, but it’s on your head if this information gets out because I’ll damn sure know that it didn’t come from me except right here and right now.” He nodded to himself, the decision made. “Homeland and the Service have done a number of ultra-top secret operations since nine-eleven. Off-the-books stuff, if you follow me.”
“Of course, sir,” Grace said. I nodded. A lot of black ops stuff never makes it onto paper. Plausible deniability is easier without a paper trail.
“Ollie was never in Iraq. That, um, was a cover story. He’s been Delta Force for four years and has been used in over twenty operations. Extreme stuff. Missions that involved military intelligence, the Service, Homeland, and the CIA but more recently, until he was transferred to the DMS, Lieutenant Brown has officially been a Secret Service agent, but one that we’ve had out on loan to the Company.”
“We know he’s with the CIA,” I said. “Are you saying he’s more than just another one of their spooks?”
He grunted. “Captain, until I transferred him he was one of this government’s very best operators. Covert ops, infiltration, and special skills-he has the full package.” Brierly looked past me to where the young man was standing foursquare, staring hard in our direction. “And on top of all that, he’s the best assassin I’ve ever seen.”
Chapter Ninety-Eight
El Mujahid
“HOW DO I look?” the Fighter asked.
Ahmed turned in his seat and smiled broadly. “Perfect! Amirah herself would not recognize you!”
El Mujahid leaned over and looked at himself one last time in the Explorer’s rearview mirror. With blue contact lenses, an expert hair dye that gave him wavy red hair, skillfully crafted latex appliances, and makeup that gave him pale skin and a scattering of freckles the Fighter looked like a rawboned young Irishman. Saleem had even used special tape to change the shape and angle of El Mujahid’s nose, giving it a snubbed and uptilted look. Padding in his gums gave him more prominent cheekbones. Even he could not see the man he was beneath the makeup.
“The boy is a wizard,” the Fighter agreed.
“Now there’s one last thing to do before we go,” said Ahmed as he took a small case from the glove compartment, unzipped it and removed a prefilled syringe. The liquid was a luminous green-gold that sparkled in the sunlight. “Roll up your sleeve.”
El Mujahid did so and held out his arm. He didn’t even wince when Ahmed plunged the needle into his flesh and injected the entire contents into him.
“Amirah said that the antidote will be at its strongest in forty minutes,” Ahmed said, “and advises that you release the plague at that point. She said that you should be completely protected, but also said that once you activate the device you should get away as quickly as possible.” He drew a breath. “Besides, things will be getting very violent very quickly.”
El Mujahid looked at his wristwatch. “Then we had better move.”
Ahmed nodded and removed a second syringe from the case and injected himself. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt with toucans on it and gave himself the shot high on his shoulder where it wouldn’t be seen. He put the syringe case back in the glove compartment. He hung a lanyard around his neck to which was clipped a plastic ID holder. It read: PRESS.
“You have only two doses?” the Fighter asked. “What about your woman, Andrea?”
“She’s a woman.” Ahmed spread his hands in a man-of-the-world gesture. “We all make sacrifices.”
El Mujahid nodded. He had made his own sacrifices to the cause where women were concerned.
“There is no God but Allah,” Ahmed whispered.
“And Mohammad is His prophet,” agreed El Mujahid.
Ahmed put the car in gear and drove off.
Chapter Ninety-Nine
The Liberty Bell Center / Saturday, July 4; 11:26 A.M.
BRIERLY TOLD US that he stood behind his decision to send Ollie to us and that he’d stake his reputation on the fact that Ollie was every inch a “true American.” A phrase he used three times. “Look, I have an event to run. The First Lady will be here in a couple of minutes.”
