King and Maxwell (Sean King & Michelle Maxwell 6)

“Edgar sent me a text while I was talking to you that there was a problem with the limo. What’s going on up there?”

“I just got on the scene. It’s barricaded off, as you can imagine. I

managed to get hold of Littlefield, and he got me through to the bridge. I’m looking down at you right now. Dive boats are on their way, but they have to come up from the Anacostia. It’ll take a little bit of time but they’re trying to get them faster. They’ve got a police boat on the surface getting a radar fix on your location. They have choppers coming in with grappling hooks too.”

“The Beast weighs eight tons.”

“I know. They’ll need military transport choppers and even then I doubt they could do it. You’ve got tons of water over you.”

“Then it’s the divers we have to wait on,” she said, the hope in her voice fading. “But if they can attach a cable to the bumper and then winch us out from the riverbank—”

“Michelle, listen to me very carefully. You don’t have time for them to get you out. You have to get yourself and the president out.”

“Great, Sean, just tell me how,” she snapped.

“It’s a long shot, but it’s the only chance you’ve got. How much air do you think you have left?”

She glanced over at the pale Cole. “If we breathe shallow, a few minutes, max.”

“Okay, here’s what you have to do.”

CHAPTER

79

ALAN GRANT HAD WATCHED IN uneasy fascination as the presidential limo crashed through Memorial Bridge’s side and plunged into the murky waters of the Potomac. He had clicked some more keys on his laptop disabling the car’s oxygen supply. He didn’t bother with the communications capability of the vehicle. He wanted them to talk to each other. He wanted them to hear the desperation. It wouldn’t do any good. It was too late. It would take thirty minutes to get a rescue operation together. By then the president and anyone else in that limo would be long dead, poisoned by the carbon monoxide released from their own mouths, with no fresh air to replenish it.

He closed his laptop and watched for another few seconds as utter chaos continued on the bridge and riverbanks. The media trucks were already converging. The public had clustered near the scene as closely as they could. Police and news choppers were in the air, for all the good that would do them.

The mighty Beast, killed by its own weight, along with the president inside it.

The FBI, DHS, Secret Service, Metro Police, military, and probably half a dozen other agencies were scrambling around trying to do something. All they were doing was absolutely nothing.

If it weren’t so pathetic, it might even be funny, he thought.

Grant put his car in gear and slowly drove off. He had tried to call his men again at the cabin and still had gotten no answer. That was very troublesome. His phone rang. He answered it. It was Trevor Jenkins. He had posted him at the radio station.

“Have they gotten everything out yet?”

Jenkins’s voice was strained. “No. And I don’t think they will.”

“Why?” snapped Grant.

“Because a convoy of SUVs is flying up the road. I think it’s HRT.”

“Get yourself out of there, now, Trevor,” yelled Grant.

He put the phone down, his panic rising.

His discreet exit from the scene was now gone. They had cracked his nut.

But he had gotten his man. He had obtained his goal.

The president was dead. His father was avenged. It had only taken twenty-five years and a son’s nearly lifelong obsession to get it done. But now it was done.

Finally.

Michelle had gotten the president into the front seat with her after sliding the bodies of the two dead agents onto the floorboard. She had made him take off his lightweight body armor. In the water, that would be a death sentence.