I’M CONSCIOUS AND my back is hurting like hell, and I hear the rattle of someone’s camo gear as he approaches, and when I think he’s close enough to take the shot, I roll over and quickly squeeze the trigger of my SIG Sauer three times, hitting the gunman right in the center chest, three times in the 10-ring mark at a shooting range, and he flips right onto his back, even though he’s probably wearing a vest.
I stand up and go over to him, pick up his rifle, toss it down the road, as the four agents come racing up, all of them with their service weapons out, all of them moving like sprinters, and I say “Clear!” and get back to CANARY.
She’s trembling, eyes wide.
“Ma’am, are you all right?” I ask. “Are you injured?”
The First Lady shakes her head, starts to get up. I lift her up with one arm and a weeping Pamela Smithson, her detail lead, helps her up on the other side.
“No, I’m fine, I’m fine…just had the wind knocked out of me…but Agent, that man, he shot you. Are you all right?”
“I think so,” I say. I look over and see Tanya, Scotty, and Brian examining the gunman, and I take off my scarf, and then my wool coat. I wince. I feel like there’s going to be one hell of a bruise back there by this time tomorrow morning, if I’m still alive.
Pamela looks with me as I examine my coat. There’s a tear in Amelia’s scarf, and another, smaller tear in my coat, and what appear to be fragments of some ceramic that is dissolving before my eyes.
Pamela whistles. “Boss, you should buy a lottery ticket when this day is done, ’cause you’re the luckiest woman alive. That looks like a round the air marshals use, to break up on impact. It broke up, all right, on that damn thick scarf and coat of yours.”
“Not lucky yet,” I say, putting my coat and scarf back on. The other three agents are still standing over the body of the gunman, and I say, “What do you got? Does he have any ID on him?”
Scotty calls back. “He’s a she, boss, and she’s still alive, though barely. Underneath all this camouflage, she had on a Kevlar vest.”
Tanya says, “Too goddamn bad, I say.”
Smithson is now talking to the First Lady, and I go over, look down at the gunman, a slight frame that is dark-skinned, in uniform, and I think—
I have no real evidence, but I’m certain Ben’s killer is on the ground before me, unconscious.
I have to take a deep breath, focus, and restrain myself, so I don’t put a fourth round in her head.
I say, “Any ID?”
“Nothing,” Tanya says.
“Any radio, or cell phone, or anything?”
Brian says, “Nothing, ma’am. Looks like she’s clean.”
Focus, I think, focus.
“Tanya, get back down to the road, get the Suburban up here right away.”
“You got it, Sally.”
She runs back down the driveway, and I reach around to my belt, tug out my handcuffs, toss them to Brian. “Secure the prisoner,” I say, “and tight.”
“On it,” he says.
There’s the roar of the Suburban as it comes bouncing up the trail, skids to a halt. Tanya jumps out from the driver’s side, leaving the engine running.
“Pamela! Get CANARY in the rear.”
She doesn’t answer, but she pushes and propels the First Lady into the Suburban and slams the door. A constricting feeling in my chest has just lightened up some. In the Suburban, she’s not perfectly safe, but she’s a hell of a lot safer than she was five minutes ago.
“What the hell is going on down there?” comes a voice, and Mr. Fuller is limping his way down the road, and Tanya and Scotty react as if he’s another threat, until I say, “Stand down, stand down. That’s CANARY’s father.”
No time for explanations, or questions, or anything else.
Now it makes sense. This remote cabin was the other place where a stressed First Lady could be happy and relaxed.
“Scotty and I are leaving with CANARY,” I say. “Pamela, you, Tanya, and Brian stay behind, guard the prisoner, start calling law enforcement, and make sure the prisoner gets to the hospital alive, got it? I don’t want any accidents between here and the hospital. That shooter is to stay alive, and I don’t care who you guys have to kill to make it happen.”
Like the good agent she is, Pamela nods in agreement. “What should we tell the locals when they get here?”
“Anything you like,” I say. “No one will believe you anyway. Scotty, let’s go.”
In a few seconds we’re in the Suburban. Scotty makes a sloppy U-turn, and we’re bouncing back down the dirt road. I look out the rear and see Mr. Fuller is trying to talk to Pamela, who’s on her cell phone, and Brian is kneeling right next to the shooter, securing the handcuffs, while Tanya stands, aiming her pistol down.
“Where to, boss?” Scotty says as we hit the pavement of East Dominion Road.
“No idea,” I say. “Just drive until I think of something.”