47

WASHINGTON, D.C.

For President Amanda Hamilton, Memorial Day was not going to be easy. For the first time since the ceremony for the fallen SEALs, she would be back at Arlington. It was tradition for the president to speak there in honor of America’s fallen soldiers, and for obvious reasons, she couldn’t miss it.

But the optics, as Philip Kilpatrick liked to say, would be awful. The White House had invited each of the families of the fallen SEALs, including Kristen Anderson, but each had respectfully declined to attend. Adding insult to injury, they had decided instead to go to a local service at the Virginia Beach oceanfront, and organizers of that event had secured Admiral Paul Towers, former commanding officer of JSOC, as their keynote. There was no telling what the man would say.

The news shows would juxtapose her speech against his, and she would be hit with questions all day about the pending lawsuit. It was, Amanda knew, going to be a long day.

If she could just get through it, things were looking up for the rest of the week. Israel’s prime minister would be in the nation’s capital for two days, speaking to a joint session of Congress and meeting with the president. The symbolism would not be lost on the American public. The last time Israel’s prime minister had visited the United States, he had done so at the request of the Republicans in the House of Representatives and had avoided meeting the president altogether.

Amanda Hamilton’s recent hard line against Iran had helped raise U.S.–Israeli relations to a new level. And later this week, she would be able to bask in the warm glow of a grateful ally thanking her in front of a joint session of Congress.

But first she had to get through today. Her speech was prepared, her words chosen carefully. Now she needed time to think and burn off some of the nervous energy.

The Secret Service hated it when she did this, but once a month or so, weather permitting, she liked to head down to the Potomac Boat Club, dust off her one-person shell, and go for a row. Agents went ahead of her and behind her in small motorboats, giving the president space while they watched the banks. Early in her administration, they had tried to talk her out of it altogether. But she could be stubborn, and the water did something for her that she couldn’t describe, something not just physiological but nearly spiritual. There was something about gliding across the surface of the Potomac, heart pumping and muscles aching from the strain of her relentless pace, that somehow opened her thinking and allowed her mind to focus. It was on the water that she gained perspective and courage, returning to the dock both exhausted and renewed for the challenges before her.

She carried her own shell to the water and slid into it, chilled by the brisk air not yet warmed by the rising sun. She started slow—stretching, gliding, getting a feel for the water. But soon, like a kid set free at recess, she was rowing at full strength, her muscles instinctively recalling every precise movement that had made her stroke so smooth and powerful twenty years earlier. She reached forward with her long arms, sliding her seat, catching the water at just the right angle, and then exploded with her legs and torso as the seat rolled back on its track before she feathered the oars and repeated the process. Her pace climbed to forty strokes a minute. Reach, grab, slide, feather, and repeat. Stroke after stroke, the boat surging forward, the oars slicing into the water and skimming back across the surface for the next stroke. Her breathing and heart rate accelerated. She was a competitor, and competitors could never row just for fun. She leaned into it and picked up the pace, feeling the fatigue set in earlier than she thought it should. You’re forty-six, she told herself, not sixty.

Her shoulders started burning first, then her thighs and hamstrings, and soon her arms felt like rubber. Her form began to break, and she told herself to sit up straighter.

On the west bank, hidden in the bushes out of sight of the agents in the boats and the helicopter flying overhead, sat Najir Mohammed. The president was out of range right now, but she was rowing toward him. He had been waiting a year for this moment, and he took deep breaths to calm himself, eyeing her through the long-range scope, his finger trembling slightly on the trigger. He wore a suicide vest so that he could kill as many of the infidels as possible when they tried to apprehend him afterward. It was Memorial Day, and what could be more heroic than to become a martyr for the cause of the Prophet in a holy war on Memorial Day?

“Allahu Akbar,” he whispered. “Allahu Akbar.”