CHAPTER

46

 

Ray Tolman trusted his daughter.

Meg had turned out surprisingly well, he often thought, despite his wife’s long illness, her bizarre death, and his own long absences when he was building a career with the Service.

When Meg was very small, they’d moved every year from one posting to another: from Philadelphia to Portland, Maine to Boston to St. Paul to San Francisco, back to Philadelphia, then on to Washington when he’d been assigned his first protective detail. It had been a hard way for a young girl to live, and being away as much as he was, Ray Tolman did not realize the extent of his wife’s bipolar disorder until it was too late.

He’d hospitalized her three times, and each time she came out with new medication, a good therapist, and a commitment to stay on the meds so she could control the disease instead of the other way around. But Janet could never seem to stay on the meds, and when she went off, she would swing from violent, screeching rages to periods where she wouldn’t get out of bed for a week at a time.

So Meg was left alone with her mother much of the time. But Ray Tolman always paid for the piano lessons. He’d seen her talent, knew it was something remarkable, but also knew she could never make a living at it. So he’d gently—at least he thought it was gently, but Meg seemed to think he’d hammered her over the head with it—steered her toward law enforcement. She had the analytical mind and the computer savvy that the new generation of cops needed. RIO was a disappointment—he’d actually hoped she might join the Service—but she seemed happy.

And he trusted her. How could he not?

He hung up the phone. His heart didn’t pound; he didn’t break into a sweat. Ray Tolman had been around far too long and experienced far too much to let anything faze him. He’d protected three presidents personally, and now worked in threat assessment, driving a desk.

Threats against the president of the United States were made on a daily basis, sometimes dozens in a single day. Ninety-five percent of them were nothing at all, pure fantasy. Another 4-plus percent were actually followed up with some investigation, and eventually determined not to be credible. Less than 1 percent were actually serious and became the subject of an ongoing investigation.

Ray Tolman thought he’d just glimpsed a bit of that 1 percent, and it had come from his own daughter. She hadn’t elaborated. She hadn’t talked about her evidence.

“Are you okay?” he had asked her. “Are you safe? At least tell me that.”

“For the moment,” Meg had said, and the words chilled him.

Meg Tolman did not overreact, did not see things that weren’t there. Sometimes she could draw conclusions from a small amount of data, and her father knew she had proved to have an uncanny knack for drawing the right conclusions.

He did not doubt her. He listened and made notes.

“Dad, don’t trust anyone. It could be someone you think you know well, someone you’ve served with. But they’re going after the president, and they’ll have someone inside who can get close to him.”

He asked her only one question: “In your best judgment, Meg—as a professional now, not as Ray Tolman’s daughter—is this a credible threat against the president?”

“Absolutely. Dad, there are only two people I trust on this, you and Rusty Hudson, and I can’t reach him.”

“Then I’ll get to work on it,” Ray Tolman told his daughter. “Take care. Be safe. Keep your eyes open.”

There was no I love you at the end of the phone call. They didn’t do that. It seemed trite, given the places they had both been. She just gave him the phone number where she was and hung up. The real expression of Ray Tolman’s love for his daughter came when he logged on to his computer and pulled up the complete list of personnel on President Harwell’s protective detail.

One by one, he started to read the confidential file on every single one of them. Tolman settled in. He turned his little desk radio to an oldies station, keeping the volume low. This was going to take some time.

*   *   *

The Judge was sweeping his floor, of all things, when Washington Four called. The Judge had sought to cleanse his mind of both Dallas Four’s failure and his overreaction to it, the fact that a history professor and a government researcher had eluded the Glory Warriors, and that Grant and Lee’s signatures—the final piece that would ensure their legitimacy at the head of the government—were still missing.

The Judge ran his hand across the round gold pin and answered the phone in his study.

“We know where they are,” Washington Four said.

“Yes?”

“Rural Arkansas, a remote area. The phone number is in the name of a man named Darrell Sharp.”

“Arkansas, you say? Then Memphis will be the closest base. I’ll have Memphis One take them. Send the location to Memphis Base. We’ll get them today. Good work.”

The Judge hung up the phone. He was satisfied that the Glory Warriors were back on track to catch Journey and Tolman and get the signatures, and Washington Three was moving into position to do the ultimate job. He opened his desk drawer and read through the first two pages of the document again. Just reading them left him a little breathless. Then he reached farther into the drawer and took out a clear plastic bag that contained more paper. The pages were thick, some smudged, creased by age and handling.

He read the old words again, a different handwriting than that of the pages from Oklahoma and Kentucky. Some of the words were disturbing to him, as they had been to earlier generations, but he possessed a deeper understanding of their meaning. He understood even more than his father had, or his grandfather, perhaps more even than the original Glory Warriors. The fact that he’d sent Washington Three on the final mission proved it. He understood more than any of them.

*   *   *

Washington One rarely drove. In his “official” life, he had a driver at his disposal, but he dared not use the driver when he was on Glory Warriors business. So he drove his Town Car himself, along Columbia Pike in Silver Spring, Maryland. He exited the highway at Industrial Parkway, turned on Tech Road, and drove through the Montgomery Industrial Park to the spot where the road dead-ended.

The low complex of buildings at the end of the road stood behind razor wire fencing. A single, simple sign of black letters on white wood announced MILLER EXPLORATION. It was another of the Glory Warriors’ front companies, part of the carefully screened corporate maze.

He passed through three security checkpoints—it was a testament to the operation that even he was required to pass scrutiny—and drove to the main headquarters building. He conferred with the base commander, and together they walked to the converted factories and warehouses where the troops were preparing for the operation to begin.

They were readying their equipment: M4 carbines for the assault, XM107 long-range rifles for the snipers, the H&K MK 23 assault pistols for closer work. Some of the Glory Warriors were simply ready for action—many had waited a long time. Others craved power. Others were bitter, angry that the corruption of the U.S. government had forced the action they were about to take. Some were motivated by history, by Lee and Grant’s vision. All were committed.

Washington One and the base commander walked past the last building to the helipads. The concrete clearing was ringed by trees and shielded from the highway and other commercial developments in the area. Half a dozen CH 53-E Sea Stallion choppers with no insignia sat parked on the pads. They were the same type the marines used for troop transportation and assault support.

“How long?” Washington One asked the commander.

“Loaded and in the air within two minutes of your signal, sir.”

“Shave that to ninety seconds. Once Harwell is dead, we have to use the immediate advantage of the chaos. The old government can’t have the chance to react.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ten minutes later, Washington One was back on Columbia Pike. He still needed to inspect the other staging areas and call all the regional commanders from Boston to San Diego, Miami to Seattle, then check in with the second wave of the Washington invasion, mobilizing in the Blue Ridge.

The nation belongs to us, he thought, as soon as the president is dead.