state of Alabama that don't belong to us. We're all alone out here. What could hurt me? What?'
'Sir, if I knew where the danger was, it would cease to be dangerous. It's the unknown that I'm concerned about.'
'Unknown!' snapped the president. 'Let me tell you about the known, then, Larry. If I turn around and fly back home and let my niece die when I could have saved her and the word gets out, I will lose this election, pure and simple. Do you understand that, my friend?'
Foster, Waters, and the other agents in the chopper all exchanged glances, obviously not quite believing what they had just heard.
'Okay,' Foster began slowly. 'You'll lose the election.'
'That didn't come out in quite the way the president intended,' Jane said quickly after noting the men's stunned looks even if her husband hadn't. 'The president is very upset about all this, as am I. He is terribly worried about our niece, as am I. But he has worked long and hard for this country. We do not intend to allow some criminal psychopath or terrorist cell to either harm our niece or change the history of this country by denying my husband a second term. My niece's life is of course paramount, but there is a lot at stake here. A lot, gentlemen. Let's not kid ourselves.'
'I'm sorry, Mrs. Cox,' said Foster, shaking his head. 'Even with all that I'm not going to let either of you go in that building.' He spoke into his headset to the pilot. 'Jim, let's prepare to go back-'
Foster did not finish what he was going to say because at that moment Dan Cox grabbed the pistol off the agent sitting next to him, smacked off the safety, and leveled the gun's muzzle against his own temple.
'Jesus Christ, sir,' cried out Foster.
Waters exclaimed, 'Mr. President, don't-'
'Shut up, just both of you shut the hell up!' roared Cox. 'Now, anyone attempts to stop us, Larry, you can escort my body back to D.C. and explain to everyone there how you tried to protect me by driving me insane enough to blow my own brains out!'
He motioned to Jane. 'Get out, Jane.' He looked back at Foster. 'I'm going in that building with my wife. We will be in there for no longer than a few minutes. And there will be no electronic surveillance or listening devices on that structure. The kidnapper was very clear on that. When we're done then we will leave, get on this chopper, and fly back. Then my niece will hopefully be released and every single one of you will forget that any of this happened. Am I clear!'
The men didn't speak; they just continued to stare at their president with a pistol against his head.
The silence was finally broken by Waters. 'Sir, if you insist on doing this, you have to do one thing.'
'I am giving the orders here, not the FBI!'
Waters glanced at Jane. 'It was something that Sean King told us, ma'am. Something he found out. You trust him, right?'
She slowly nodded.
'Then you have to do exactly what I'm about to tell you. Will you both do that?'
'If it means we can go in that building over there and get this done, yes!' said the president.
A few minutes later Jane, her long coat drawn around her, and the president climbed out of the chopper. When the HRT squad saw the president with a gun in hand they did something they ordinarily would never do. They froze.
'Mr. President?' said the squad leader with a quizzical look.
'Get out of my way!' yelled Cox. The squad leader, a veteran of two wars and countless gun battles with homicidal drug dealers and assorted nutcases wielding big guns with no regard for human life, nearly jumped a foot off the ground. With his path clear to the house, Cox took his wife's hand and they walked on. Reaching the small porch, they looked at each other once, and then stepped inside.
CHAPTER 82
THE FIRST COUPLE stood looking down at Tippi Quarry as the machine inflated her lungs, the oxygen seeped into her nose, and the monitor recorded the jumps of her heart and the status of her other vitals.
'Over thirteen years she's been like this,' said Jane. 'I had no idea.'
The president studied her. 'I don't remember her, honey, I swear I don't. She has a pretty face, though.'
When he said this she moved slightly away from him. He didn't seem to notice. 'Tippi Quarry?' he said inquiringly.
'Yes.'
'In Atlanta?'
'That's right. At the PR firm that helped handle your early Senate campaign launch. She was a volunteer there, fresh out of college.'
'How do you know all that?'
'I took the trouble to find out. I took the trouble to find out about all the ladies you seemed so interested in back then.'
'I know I put you through hell.' He looked back at Tippi. 'I don't remember having any contact with her at all.'
'That's no doubt why no one ever put the two of you together. But you did have contact with her. Something that even surprised me. I found you two together in our hotel room. She was screaming for you to get off her, but it was too late. You'd already finished. It took me hours to calm her down while you were lying in a corner passed out from too much gin and not enough tonic.'
'Why didn't the police come, then? Are you sure it wasn't consensual?'
'She didn't phone the police because I finally convinced her what a mess it would be if the incident became public. That it was only her word against yours, she was in our hotel room, and that I couldn't testify against my own husband. You were on your way to the Senate and possibly the presidency. She was a young woman with her whole future ahead of her. A future that could be ruined if something like this came out. If people thought she had instigated the sex. Tried to take advantage of your position. Tried to trap you somehow. I was very persuasive. I even told her that it was a disease you had. I painted a very sympathetic picture.'
'Thank you, Jane. You saved me. Again.'
She said coldly, 'I hated you back then. I hated you for what you did to her. And to me.'
'Like you said, it was a sickness. I've changed. I worked through it. You know that. It never happened again, did it?'
'It happened one more time.'
'But I didn't force myself on that woman. And after that, there was no more. I worked hard at it, Jane. I cleaned up my act.'
'Your act? Dan, this wasn't a case of leaving your underwear on the floor. You forced yourself on that poor woman.'
'But I never did it again. That's my point. I changed. I moved on.'
'Well, she sure as hell didn't have the chance to move on.'
The president suddenly thought of something. He looked wildly around the small room. 'You don't suppose there are any recording devices in here, do you?'
'I think the man has all he needs. Even without this poor woman.'
'What do you mean?'
'I mean Willa.'
'What about her?'
'She's your daughter. And he knows it.'
The president, his face pale, slowly turned to look at his wife. 'Willa is my daughter?'
'Don't be stupid, Dan. What, did you think that Diane Wright was just going to go away when she got pregnant?'
Cox put an arm against the wall to steady himself. 'Why the hell didn't you tell me this before?'
'What would you have done if I had?'
