MY CELL PHONE starts ringing just as the First Lady’s horse trots closer, and I yell, “Somebody grab that damn horse and check it out!”
Brian Zahn is the closest agent, and he manages to get up to the horse, grab its bridle and reins without spooking it. “What am I looking for?”
Another ring from my phone. “Damn it, any blood, or signs of injury, or her freakin’ foot torn off and still in the stirrup!”
I answer before the next ring. “Grissom.”
“Hey, Sally,” comes the concerned male voice. “It’s Gil.”
I nod with satisfaction. Gil Foster, a trusted colleague of mine who works with the Secret Service’s Technical Security Division, and a man I had called earlier while we were just a few minutes away from the horse farm, siren off.
“Gil,” I say. “Tell me you have something.”
I make out a shaky sigh. “I can tell you that the First Lady’s cell phone was on and operating as of three hours ago, and based on the cell phone tower triangulation and the internal GPS transmitter, the phone was at the Westbrook Horse Farm, fifty meters to the east of the main stable.”
“Great,” I say. “That’s where I am right now. Anything else?”
“At eleven sixteen a.m., it went dark.”
“How did it go dark? Did the battery die?”
Gil says, “Even if the battery were to die, the GPS would continue to signal. It’s powered by a radioactive source, good for a year.”
“Then what happened?”
Gil says, “Something happened to the phone. It was damaged or destroyed.”
“Wait, I thought those suckers were pretty much indestructible.”
“They are,” he says. “But if someone really wants to do something…like take a blowtorch to it or put it through an industrial-strength shredder, or break it open and dunk it in the water, then—”
A thought comes to me. “Gil, okay, thanks, you’ve been great.”
“Sally,” he says quickly. “I’ve got to know…when you called me, you said this was an unannounced drill, right? A security drill to see if the First Lady can be found via her cell phone.”
“That’s right,” I say. “Just a training drill.”
“But…well”—and he utters a nervous laugh—“the way you’re talking, well, it seems like it’s the real deal. Not a drill.”
“Gil?”
“Yes, Sally?”
“Anybody asks, from your shift supervisor to a congressional committee someday, to the best of your knowledge, this was a goddamn drill.”
I switch off. “Pamela!”
She’s over by the horse, along with Brian and Tanya, the other agent. She looks up, and I say, “Show me that map again.”
Pamela joins me back at the SUV, and I say, “Nearest body of water to the trails. Right now.”
She doesn’t hesitate, traces a blue line on the map. “Here. Taccanock River. Cuts right through the property. Not much of a river…more like a wide stream.”
“Her horse…what’s his name?”
“Arapahoe.”
“The trail Arapahoe came down—”
She says, “Yeah, the trail heads up there, then runs parallel to the stream.”
“We’re going there, right now,” I say. “Her dead phone…one of the ways to disable it is to break it open and dunk it in water.”
“Like she fell off the horse.”
“We go. Now.”
I take control and make the arrangements, and to Scotty I say, “Stay here. Get Arapahoe back to the stable…but you’re our command post. And keep any press away, or curious kids, or anybody else.”
Scotty’s eyes narrow. He doesn’t like the assignment, but he’s a good agent and will do what he’s told. I hustle the detail into the near SUV, and Brian says, “We’re driving out on the trail?”
“We are.”
“The owners…they won’t like it.”
I climb into the rear. “They’ll get over it.”
And I notice something else before closing the SUV’s door.
All three of these agents from the First Lady’s detail have reddened eyes.
I know why.
They’ve been weeping over the fact that they’ve lost their protectee, the First Lady of the United States.
The trail is barely wide enough for the SUV to pass through without branches or well-trimmed brush scraping the windows or fenders. At points, other wide trails leave from the main one, and I say, “There are no signs. How do the riders know which trail to take?”
From the front Pamela says, “If you ride here, you know. It’s a given, like if you have to ask how much something costs, you can’t afford it…hey, Tanya, not so fast!”
True, because even with seat belts and harnesses fastened, we’re bouncing up and down, and something from earlier puzzles me, and I say, “Hey. What’s that you said before, about CANARY riding for medical reasons? What medical reasons?”
The SUV engine growls as we continue along the trail. Pamela shifts in her seat, looks back at me. “It’s…well, a secret, I guess. Back when the President was governor of Ohio, the First Lady, she had breast cancer. For whatever reason they kept it quiet back then…and still do.”
“How is she now?”
“Fine,” Brian speaks up next to me. “More than five years have passed…but horseback riding, it relaxes her, helps with her blood pressure…and other things.”
“What other things?”
Another moment of silence. The other agent in the detail, Tanya, works the steering wheel and keeps her eyes forward. “Because of the treatments she received, the ones that saved her life…she had early induced menopause.”
“Oh,” I say.
“That’s right,” Tanya says with disapproval. “Her husband delayed and delayed having kids until it was too late.”