They rolled through Orinda and Lafayette, heading towards a smudge of neon on the horizon. Viddy called on the scrambled radio with an update and it wasn't reassuring. Huntley was still missing. So were Nastya and Marshall. The police had found Douglas wandering along a pier three blocks from the hotel, suffering from contusions, smoke inhalation and what the medics were calling dissociative amnesia. The FBI was still searching the garage, Viddy said, but the snipers had vanished without a trace.
"What's happening there?" Paxton asked him.
"Conwell's in IU. They just brought him in."
"Who's handling the interrogation?"
"I don't know," Viddy said. "No one is talking."
After he signed off, Paxton turned on the car radio and they listened to the newscasts, most of them recaps from earlier that night. President Buzard had checked into Bethesda: a "routine examination," according to the White House. The President was in "perfect health" following the attempted assassination, but as a matter of procedure, he'd transfered executive power to the vice-president under the 25th Amendment for the duration of his stay.
"Perfect health," Drake said. "Right."
The amendment was never invoked unless the President was going to be incapacitated for some reason—going under anesthetics during surgery, for instance. According to the press release, Buzard had asked the country to remain calm and pray for the victims at the Waverly Hotel. Piety from Buzard. That was a laugh. The Administration was refusing to comment on Homeland's response to the hijacking, saying they wanted to wait until all the facts were known.
"Let the games begin," Paxton muttered, clenching the wheel.
Viddy called back a few minutes later.
"Adder was asking about you," he said, his voice low and tense. "Just now. They had an interagency briefing, but there's no word on what they decided. He wanted to know where you were and what happened at the garage."
"What else did he want?" Paxton glanced at Drake.
"He didn't say," Viddy went on. "I told him you were in transit with Drake and Hahn and he got very agitated. When he left, he was shouting at someone on his phone and I think he left the building." He hesitated. "I'll try to find out what happened in the briefing and I've got something you need to see, but we shouldn't talk about it now. I'm holding it back from Adder until you give the word."
"All right," Paxton said. "Just be careful."
*
Drake tried to rest during the thirty-minute drive, but he was running on adrenaline, his nerves shocked and raw, flashbacks crawling through his head like Day-Glo spiders every time he closed his eyes. They reached Walnut Creek at four-thirty a.m. and headed for WESTCOM with their toxic prisoner. Gena was wide awake now. Jumpy. Looking around.
"How're you feeling?" Drake asked her.
"What the hell do you care?"
"Do you remember anything from the hotel?"
"Monkeys and lizards." She shifted awkwardly, her hands still cuffed behind her back. "What happens now?"
"I don't know." Paxton glanced at her in the rearview. "Headquarters knows we're bringing you in and they'll take over as soon as we get there. I passed your demands up the ladder and they've got the final call." He hesitated. "We'll know more when we get back."
"You're going to turn me over to those bastards?"
"We're a regional station. Washington's running the show."
"I won't deal with anyone but you and Drake." Her voice was steady, precise. If the shooting had rattled her, she didn't show it. "Chertok's alive. You let him get away. If you want the rest of the canisters, you've got less than four hours to get your act together and it's going to take at least an hour to get there. You're going to need air transport and you can't take him down with a bunch of rental cops and glorified baggage screeners. You need me, Paxton. I'm the only one who knows where he's going."
"Save your breath." Paxton didn't take his eyes off the road. "I can't make a deal on my own authority. Not on something like this."
"Screw your authority," she said. "You turn me over, I'm dead."
Paxton glanced at Drake, his face clouded. Neither of them said anything, but they knew what was coming. Adder was going to take her into custody the minute they arrived and they'd lose all control of the operation. Drake braced himself for the arrest, the revelations, the internal investigation that was sure to follow. Their arrival was going to be a circus. The media would probably be there, a mob of blowdried network drones waiting outside the gate with their remote units, shouting stupid questions in a glare of floodlights. Knowing Adder, he'd take charge himself, parade Gena past the cameras, then stage a press conference in the parking lot. She was about to be more famous than Madonna.
*
"Where is everybody?" Paxton muttered, pulling up to the gate.
Drake shifted uneasily, scanning the guard station, the watchtowers, the lights of the complex. No one was waiting for them. No FBI. No media. No Homeland marshals. Their reception was routine, no sign of interest at all. The guards weren't expecting them and they didn't blink when they saw Gena sitting in the back of the car. No one asked about Nastya or the others and they didn't seem to know they were missing. Security was tight, but it wasn't anything unusual considering the situation and nothing happened when the sentries ran their IDs. It didn't make sense. Headquarters should have been all over them the minute they got there.
"Where's Adder?" Paxton asked one of the guards while they were waiting to pass the check. A helicopter was winding up at the heliport in the distance, a big Sikorsky transport, its beacons flashing in a circle of arc lights.
"I don't know, sir." The sentry, a WESTCOM employee, leaned down to the window, his face in shadow. "Washington's been coming and going all night. They're not telling us anything." He glanced at the main building. "It's a mess in there, sir. Nobody knows what's going on."
"Is Adder still in charge?"
The guard shrugged nervously. "The Deputy Secretary's here."
"Thomas? When'd she show up?"
"A couple hours ago. You want me to call ahead?"
Paxton hesitated. "No," he said. "We'll track them down."
He glanced at Drake, his eyes worried. It was obvious what he was thinking. Gena was a hot witness, maybe an accomplice, but her story contradicted the official version of events. Maybe headquarters didn't want to question her.
"What's the chopper?" Drake asked.
"Don't know," the guard said. "It just got here."
Paxton put the van in drive and headed for the inner gate. WESTCOM was lit up like a maximum-security prison, windshields glistening in the crowded parking lot, men with dogs walking the perimeter. Gena didn't have any identification, but the sentry let her through under Paxton's authority. Two guards armed with AR-15s rolled back the crash barrier, then opened the gate, and the CCTV cameras watched them drive across the lot and park in front of the control center, where another guard took charge of Paxton's vehicle without giving them a second look.
Drake was wide awake now.
"What the hell is this?" he asked Paxton, taking Gena's arm as they walked towards the main entrance. Her face was hard, lips set, but her eyes were nervous, taking in the guards, the cameras, the ugly steel doors.
Paxton frowned. "They must be waiting in Reception."
But nothing happened when they checked in. The foyer and hall leading into the center were crawling with feds, strangers in suits who watched them discretely as they passed another ID check and retinal scan, routine security for a lockdown. Everything was routine. Too routine. Paxton registered Gena as a CI from the hotel and they knew something was wrong when no one asked any questions. Her prints didn't trigger an alarm. She wasn't in the computer at all.
"I don't like this," Paxton said under his breath after they passed the metal detectors and found themselves in the crowded hallway running past the cube farm in the middle of the building.
"Easy now." He turned to Gena, keeping his voice down. "I'm going to stash you in my office until we can find out what's going on. You'll be safe there for the time being."
"What's wrong?" she asked tensely, watching the suits go by in the hall. People were checking them out, scanning her handcuffs, Drake's ragged clothes, but no one approached them.
"No reception committee," Paxton said. "You weren't flagged in the system or we'd never have made it past the checkpoints."
"So what? What's it mean?"
"Adder never told them," Drake said.
"Why would he hold it back?"
"Who's Adder?" Gena asked.
"Headquarters liaison."
"The one who stalled at the hotel?"
Drake nodded. "The same."
She stared at him, then turned to Paxton.
"Get me out of here," she said, her face pale.
"We can't do anything until we find out what happened." Paxton glanced over his shoulder, watched a suit walk by, checked the hall in the other direction. "We can't take any chances after what happened at the garage." He turned to Drake. "Meet me in Viddy's office in ten minutes. Don't talk to anyone if you can help it."
He led Gena down a side corridor to avoid the main areas and Drake headed for Analysis, trying to blend into the crowd. It was obvious that WESTCOM had been marginalized, displaced by headquarters. Most of the suits around him were Washington types. Outsiders. No telling what they were doing. His bruises and torn clothes drew some looks and he could feel their eyes scanning his security badge, trying to figure out who he worked for, but no one asked any questions. The center was locked down tight. Compartmentalized. Maximum threat level. A siege mentality had settled over the facility, a fog of suspicion, hostility and secrecy—the claustrophobia of the National Security State trying to cover its ass. Working his way through the complex, he could feel the paranoia closing around him like an octopus, threatening to cut off his breath.