LYNDON WATCHED KADANCE CAREFULLY.
“Nothing,” she said.
“I can tell something is wrong.”
She looked him dead in the eye. “Nothing’s wrong. I’m working out our best strategy.” She laid her head back and stared out the windshield.
Lyndon didn’t keep pushing. Something was wrong with Kadance, but he knew there was no way to get her to talk to him. He had little to no influence over her, nothing like she had over him, and every time he thought about it, he felt like a little part of him chipped off and fell away. He feared the rest of his life would be like this. She would leave and forget about him, and he would keep thinking about her. Little parts of him would chip off every day, until there was nothing left.
He took a slow, quiet breath and looked out the side window.
Now was not the time to think about this. He had the rest of his life for that. Right now, he needed to focus on their plan. And hope whatever was wrong with Kadance didn’t interfere with it.
ONCE THE SUN started to rise, Lyndon left to get something for them to eat. When he got back with croissants and orange juice, she was in the back seat loading her sniper rifle.
He waited for her to be done and set the gun down before handing her juice.
“Thank you.” She sipped the juice.
“Everything ready?”
She nodded.
He handed her a bag with a couple of small croissants. She took one out of the bag and looked at it for a second before taking a bite.
“Have you never had a croissant before?” he asked.
“No.” She took another bite.
He almost asked why not. It was a rather popular food to have never had one, but then he remembered where she’d lived for ten years and what her life had been like before and after her service. There were probably a lot of things she’d never experienced.
Though she didn’t say anything, he could tell she liked it. This small thing made him feel just a little better—he wanted to bring happiness into her life, no matter how small and insignificant.
They had a little while to wait, and they spent it in silence. Other than Mac meowing for his breakfast.
Finally, it was time to leave. Lyndon walked off with his black generic backpack emptied except for the package they’d put together yesterday, and Kadance drove off with her sniper rifle in the back seat. She’d put it into what looked like a baseball bat case, though it was longer than a baseball bat. The case was a little worn and had a couple of White Sox and Cubs stickers on it.
At the Capitol building, Lyndon headed toward the service entrance they’d noticed yesterday. There were some renovations going on, and they’d seen the workers using this entrance. The workers had to go through a metal detector, but their bags weren’t x-rayed. Tools were already onsite, so their bags were surely just lunch and maybe a fresh shirt.
While he went through security, he was careful to speak as little as possible, specifically so he wouldn’t have to try to lie. He was sure no one else could detect lies as well as Kadance could, but he wasn’t taking any chances.
After security, he followed another couple of workers down the hall, but when another hall branched off, he slipped down it. He followed the map of the building in his mind until he came to a tour group, and he assimilated into the back of the group.
A middle-aged woman looked at him. He smiled at her, and she turned back to the tour guide.
Once in the National Statuary Hall, he meandered toward the east side of the huge room. He looked up at the massive domed ceiling and then focused on the statues surrounding the perimeter of the room along with marble Corinthian columns.
The tour guide prattled on, and Lyndon watched for his opportunity.
When all backs were turned, he slipped through a doorway and turned right down a hall. Then he turned right again.
“Excuse me.”
Lyndon turned to see a security guard headed toward him. Lyndon mentally reviewed the tips Kadance had given him.
The guard stopped in front of him. “Are you lost, sir?” His words were polite, but his expression and tone were hard.
Lyndon made his expression even more flustered. “I am. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to go where I’m not supposed to. I have a pass to visit the House of Representatives.” He handed the guard the pass Kadance had lifted for him from a tourist yesterday.
The guard inspected the pass, and then he stared at Lyndon for several seconds. Lyndon kept the flustered expression and fidgeted. Kadance had said this would help mask his lies.
The guard handed the pass back to Lyndon and led him down the hall.
Once inside the Hall of the House of Representatives, Lyndon breathed a little more easily. Of course, he couldn’t walk around as he pleased, even though he had a pass and the House wasn’t in session, but Lyndon managed to “forget” his backpack. The placement had to be precise. Thankfully, his sense of spatial reasoning was almost as good as Kadance’s.
A short while later, he walked out of the building. He kept his pace casual but put as much distance as he could between him and the Capitol building. He’d see soon enough if the plan worked.
IT TOOK SOME DOING, but Kadance managed to make it through the building and up to the roof. At the corner of the roof, she could just see down the street to the side of the House wing of the Capitol building.
Careful to remain out of sight, she set up her McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle and took out the second phone they’d bought yesterday.
Then she waited.
It was only a short while later that a text came through. “Done.”
She put the rifle into place on the edge of the coping cap on the parapet wall, looked through the scope, and counted windows on the side of the Capitol building. There were no windows in the House chamber. Lyndon had offered to get the package into position in one of the perimeter rooms that did have windows, but Kadance felt it was important for this to happen in the House chamber itself. It made her job harder, but not impossible.
Lyndon had found detailed specifications for the building online, and they’d studied them together, along with specifications for the building she was on now. She’d calculated the exact angle and the exact distance. She lined up her shot on the window, the precise number of inches from the window frame. The blinds were open, so she could see no one was there, no one in harm’s way. She could see through the doorway to the hall and the double doors opposite. She could just see the glass inlay in the doors but not the delicate mullions between the diamond-shaped glass panes. She couldn’t quite see the package. The dark color of his backpack surely blended with the dark seats and the shadows in this area of the room. But she trusted it was there, in the exact spot they’d discussed. Though she’d never trusted anyone else to put her target in place for her, she didn’t feel on edge, didn’t question.
She calculated the effect of the current wind speed.
She calmed her breathing.
She wiped everything from her mind except the calculations. Just the numbers and the angles.
This was the part she liked best. The quiet and calm. Everything lined up exactly right.
She slowly squeezed the trigger.
The rifle fired, and she pulled back from the edge of the building.
She moved quickly but meticulously. Police would start swarming the buildings in the area, but they wouldn’t come to this one, at least not yet. They wouldn’t guess someone could make that shot from here. She had to use tracer ammunition in order to ignite the package, but she used a dim tracer round, which wasn’t nearly as likely to have been seen on a bright day like this.
She left no evidence she’d been there, and a few minutes later she was in her car, her rifle on the back seat floor and Mac curled up on the passenger seat.
Sirens blared.
She drove in the opposite direction.
Keep driving, some part of her said. Leaving now would be easier, rather than having to face Lyndon before she left. But there were no guarantees this would work, and if it didn’t, he wouldn’t stop. She sighed. She couldn’t leave until she was sure he was safe.
When she pulled up to the park they’d discussed, he was sitting on a bench. He walked over and took the seat next to her.
She stayed parked. “Did it hit the news yet?”
“Social media.” He held up his phone to show her a video. Apparently, someone had caught it on tape and posted it, maybe a tourist.
Fireworks filled the House chamber with flashes of colored light and bangs.
“You sound surprised.” He tucked the phone back in his pocket.
“I wasn’t totally sure it would, not so well, anyway.” She put the car in gear.
“I knew you’d make the shot.” He put on his seat belt.
“Now, just to wait and see if it has the desired effect.” She pulled out of her parking space.
“Lunch?” he asked.
She wasn’t in the mood to eat, but she didn’t tell him no. He’d ask again what was wrong with her. She was tired of lying to him.
She drove out of the center of the city and found a little fast-food place.
She sat at a table near the door, with Mac on the chair next to her, and Lyndon went up and ordered. When he came over with a tray of food, they picked at it and continued to refresh news websites on their phones. It hit the news pretty quickly, and then they waited for news of plans for the State of the Union. Kadance started feeling antsy. The State of the Union was the next evening—they needed to find out what the plan was as soon as possible. If the Speaker of the House didn’t move or cancel it, they needed to take even more drastic action, and that would take some time to set up.
They continued to sit at the fast-food place and watch their phones, and Kadance thought.
Finally, a couple of hours later, it was announced that the State of the Union would be held as planned.
Lyndon sighed and ran his hands through his hair.
Kadance stood. “I have a plan. Wait here while I make a call.”
“What’re you—”
“Trust me, okay?”
He stayed put and watched her walk out the door. At the front of the building, she stayed by the windows so he could see her and wouldn’t think she was leaving. She didn’t have the same kind of memory as Lyndon, but she still remembered this number.
A familiar male voice answered. “Hello?”
He paused. “I’m listening.”
“I need snipers. Several.”
“For what?”
“How quickly can you get on a plane?”
“Depends.”
“I’ll give you what you want. With restrictions. If you help me with a job. But you have to guarantee you’ll stick to my rules on this.”
“And what exactly are the rules? And why would I want to follow them?”
She explained her plan, and he agreed.
She ended the call and motioned for Lyndon to come outside. He left the tray and came outside, Mac in tow. Then he followed her to the car.
“I need you to trust me,” she said.
“I do trust you.”
“You might not anymore once I explain what I’ve set up.”
He waited.
“There’s only one way to handle this now. We have to take drastic measures.”
“What’ve you planned?”
“She’ll send the man in dressed as a fire system technician most likely.”
“I agree.”
“But we don’t know from which direction he’ll approach. Plus, we have to handle the attacks on the designated survivors.”
“What’ve you planned?”
“We need to take him out before he makes it into the building. Once he’s inside, we don’t have any chance of staying ahead of him or getting around security. We need to watch the outside, every possible entry point. We need snipers.”
His jaw clenched. “You called in your family.”