SO ONCE AGAIN I’m running away from danger with a protectee at my side, like the hundreds of drills and training exercises I’ve participated in, except this one is no drill, and I’m running, panting, so scared that I’m going to lose it all in the next sixty seconds or so.
I wish I had taken a couple of agents along with me, so we could be running with a protective screen around CANARY, but it’s too late for regrets or recriminations. I just want to run and drag her down the driveway, get her into the relative safety of our Suburban, and then get the hell out of here. Get someplace safe. Like Pennsylvania or Delaware, anyplace miles away from here and the District of Columbia.
“Agent…please…not so fast…please…not so fast…”
Fast? I feel like we’re running in sloppy mud up to our knees, and I swerve around, looking for that military helicopter, knowing deep in my bones that it hadn’t been out here for a sightseeing trip.
But the helicopter has sped off.
Ordered off?
Or sent away because something else is coming in our direction?
I move as fast as I can dare, not wanting the First Lady to stumble and fall, wasting precious seconds in our fast exit. So many questions I want answered―from how did she end up here, to who had kidnapped her and severed her finger, and did she write that possible suicide note but—
Not enough time!
Not enough time!
I think of wasting five seconds or so, trying to raise Scotty again over my damn radio, but instead I push on, thinking that in those five seconds I’ll be that much closer to the armored Suburban and the four armed Secret Service agents within, and—
“Agent! Please!”
“Ma’am, I—”
Up ahead a small man emerges from the bush-covered slope, dressed in camo gear, carrying a long rifle with a telescopic sight, and the muscle memory from years of training kicks in.
“Gun!” I scream, and I whirl around, grabbing CANARY, protecting her with my body, enveloping her, just like the training, just like the training, just like—
The sound of the rifle shot and the hammer blow to my back happen in a brief second.
I fall into blackness.
Amelia, I think, poor, orphaned Amelia.