Victoria Donahue-Carr was two-thirds into her morning swim when she sensed the vibration of footsteps along the tile. The indoor pool had been installed in the west terrace in 1933 by Roosevelt so he could exercise his polio-riddled muscles. With its arched ceiling, decadent rows of elevated half-moon windows, and scenic murals of Caribbean sailboats commissioned by JFK, it had an Old World grandeur that helped motivate her morning workouts. Disused since Tricky Dick had drained it to make room for press briefings, it had languished until she’d restored it to its former glory.
One of the many updates to the White House that had required a woman’s touch.
She finished breaststroking to the wall, pulled herself up, and snapped off her goggles. She hated to be disturbed here; it always meant bad news.
Her dread intensified when she saw the woman waiting patiently at the end, arms crossed.
Special Agent in Charge Naomi Templeton, the closest thing to a personal liaison Victoria had in the Secret Service.
Templeton wore an ill-fitting suit, her large shoulders barely constrained by the fabric. Her blond hair was cut bluntly as always, a strip-mall haircut that seemed to complement her tough, handsome features. She was one of those women, Victoria had always thought, who was one makeover away from being a jaw-dropper.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Madam President.”
“No,” Victoria said. “You’re not.”
“I suppose I’m not. It is about him.”
“I see.”
“Remember when I briefed you about that massacre at the cartel estate in Guaridón? The one that bore his fingerprints?”
“You mean the one that violated the terms of his pardon?”
“The very one. We’ve turned up our surveillance efforts. I got an alert from NSA forty-five minutes ago. Facial recognition was scrambled—he seems to have some kind of sartorial camouflage that disguises the nodal points—”
“Did you say sartorial camouflage?”
“I’m afraid I did. As I said, we don’t have a clear facial image, but we hit the cherries on biometric gait recognition for someone entering the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center yesterday.”
“Medical Center? Is he ill?”
“We’re unsure what he was there for. We are looking into patient records, hitting the obvious complications.”
“Hmm.” Victoria leaned back, let the water ripple around her, hoping she would find it soothing. “How sure are you?”
“Ninety-seven point one-four-three percent.”
That was a very Naomi Templeton answer.
“So it’s back on, then,” Victoria said. “The hunt for X.”
Naomi gave a curt nod.
“Very well, then,” Victoria said. “Take him down.”
She sank back into the water. Stayed under until the watery shape of Naomi Templeton receded. The president kicked off the wall and continued her workout.
Somehow it felt less relaxing than before.