The Shooters (Presidential Agent 4)

Alexandria, Virginia 2325 1 September 2005 The first impression Castillo had of the new property was that it was a typical Alexandria redbrick two-story home. The exception being, perhaps, the size of its lot; the front lawn was at least one hundred yards from West Boulevard Drive.

But his first impression changed as the Yukon rolled up the driveway.

Castillo saw that the rise in the lawn concealed both a circular drive in front of the house and a large area in front of the basement garage on the right. There was another Yukon XL parked there, and a Buick sedan, but there was still room enough for the three Yukons in the convoy to park easily.

The Yukon's probably Montvale's. He's too exalted to drive a lowly Buick, particularly since a Yukon with a Secret Service driver from the White House pool is the status symbol in Washington.

And if it is his, he's waiting for me in the living room, in the largest chair, finally having succeeded in summoning me to the throne room.

As the first Yukon reached the house, the triple garage doors opened one by one. The Secret Service driver of Castillo's Yukon drove inside the garage and the other two followed suit. The doors began to close.

The garage ran all the way under the house. There was room for three more Yukons. And some other vehicles. The walls were lined with shelves, and on them were old cans of paint, coils of water hose, and other things that people stored in garages.

Well, Miller told me that the kids of the people who owned this place had removed the valuable stuff.

Paint cans and water hoses don't count as valuable stuff.

There were two familiar faces standing at the foot of an extraordinarily wide basement-to-house stairway. One of them, a large, red-haired Irishman, was Secret Service Supervisory Special Agent Thomas McGuire, who had joined the Office of Organizational Analysis at its beginning. The other was Mrs. Agnes Forbison, a gray-haired, getting-just-a-little-chubby lady in her late forties who had been one of then-Secretary of Homeland Security Matt Hall's executive assistants and who also had joined OOA at its beginning. Her title now was OOA's deputy chief for administration.

Well, the Buick is probably Agnes's and the Yukon Tom's.

So where is the ambassador?

Castillo got out of the Yukon and walked to them.

He and McGuire shook hands. Agnes kissed his cheek.

"Montvale?" Castillo asked.

"I expect he'll be here shortly," Agnes said, and then, "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!"

Max and Madchen had been freed from one of the other Yukons and made right for them.

"This is Max and his lady friend, Madchen," Castillo explained.

Agnes squatted and rubbed Max's ears.

"Pretty puppy," she said.

Madchen shouldered Max out of the way.

"And you, too, sweetheart!" Agnes added, now rubbing Madchen's ears.

Tom McGuire eyed both animals warily.

"Montvale's meeting us here," Castillo said.

"You didn't think he would be waiting for you, did you, Chief?" Agnes said, looking up at him, and then added, "We bought everything we could think of. Except, of course, dog food."

"If you bought a rib roast, that'd do," Castillo said.

Agnes stood up.

"You want a look around before the ambassador gets here?" she asked.

"Please," Castillo said. "How many beds do we have?"

"How many do you need?"