48
Amanda Hamilton had been going for nearly twenty-five minutes and still wanted to do some sprints on the way back. She began slowly turning the boat around, catching her breath, giving her tired muscles a break.
“Haven’t lost a stroke, Madam President,” one of the agents in the trail boat called out.
“You get paid to protect me, Caleb,” she called back. “No bonuses for lying to make me feel better.”
For the most part, she had a great relationship with these men. Like the Pope, she preferred being among the people, and that made their job harder. But she wasn’t a diva, or at least that’s what they told her, and she knew most of them by their first names.
These early-morning rows were the things they hated most. They had to keep the event off the official schedule, of course. And they had agents crawling the banks on both sides of the river and others in boats, looking for anything suspicious. It took a lot of manpower, so she didn’t do this often.
Yet occasionally she still insisted on this one indulgence. Clinton went jogging on public streets three times a week and always had a dozen or so agents in tow. Bush was a runner too. Obama played on public golf courses. And Hamilton had her rowing.
Najir Mohammed prayed the president would change her mind and come a little closer. Instead, she started turning. Her strong back, which had been squarely within his sights when she was rowing, was now replaced by a sideways moving target. She might be slightly out of range, but it wasn’t going to get any better. When she completed her turn and the trail boat motored slowly past the line of fire, he sighted the crosshairs on her heart. Always go for the body mass—even if he was slightly off, the bullet would still find flesh. And if Allah wanted her to be dead, she would be dead.
Either way, today he would die a martyr. There was no turning back.
The president started her countdown timer and caught a long stroke. The first few would be powerful and deep, churning the water and lifting her boat to glide on the surface. Then she would settle into a hard pace, clipping off two-minute sprints as fast as she could go, feeling the burn.
It was on her third stroke that she heard something hit the water behind her, a few feet from the end of the boat. The agents must have seen it as well because they pivoted in their seats, guns drawn. Another stroke and something hit the stern of her Kevlar hull, the cracking noise startling her, the bullet slicing through the boat.
“Over there!” somebody yelled.
“Get down, Madam President!”
She dropped the oars and rolled out of her boat, the cold water sucking her breath away. She dove under, her mind reeling, her breath short. She tried to go deeper, thinking that if she stayed beneath the surface long enough, it would give the agents time to react. Someone was trying to kill her! How many assassins were out there? She was running out of breath. She would surface, quickly take stock, and figure out the next move.
As she broke through, one of the agents dove into the water next to her. He grabbed her by the arm—“Keep your head down!”
The two boats protected her—one on each side, positioning themselves between the president and the riverbanks. The agents in one of the boats grabbed her and pulled her in, pushing her down on the deck of the boat.
“I’m sorry, Madam President,” one of them said. “There’s an active shooter.”
The pilot gunned the engine as the boat whirled in the water and headed back toward the boathouse. Lying flat on her stomach, Amanda could hear the radio traffic. They were calling in backup. Block the roads. Search the riverbanks. Alert the aircraft.
She said a prayer of thanks. There would be no more morning rows on the Potomac—she knew that much. And this would be a Memorial Day that she would never forget.
VIRGINIA BEACH, VIRGINIA
Paige was getting ready for the Virginia Beach service when she received the text from Kristen.
Paige turned on the TV. The anchors were breathless. The president had been rowing on the Potomac when a lone gunman had tried to kill her. That man was now dead, killed by a Secret Service sharpshooter from a nearby bridge. The would-be assassin had been wearing a suicide vest. The president was not hurt.
Paige thought about the upcoming service at Neptune’s Park on the boardwalk. Things were getting crazy in this country. The families of twenty slain SEALs would be in attendance, and the former commander of JSOC was speaking. She hoped the organizers had a handle on the security risks.
She was genuinely relieved that the president was not hurt. It was moments like this that brought the country together. Despite the lawsuit, Paige wanted to believe the president would not have intentionally sent Patrick and his team into Yemen knowing they would be killed.
She remembered how moved she had been by the president’s kindness just a few short months ago when she met with every family at the White House. Her speech at Arlington Cemetery had brought Paige to tears. She still couldn’t bring herself to believe that it was all a fraud.
Philip Kilpatrick and John Marcano were a different story. As far as Paige was concerned, they were obviously lying and needed to be held accountable. But the president? Paige had her differences with the woman, but she thanked God that Amanda Hamilton was still alive.