Covert Warriors (Presidential Agent 7)

He pointed to where Herb and Bob were standing, looking through a window beside the revolving door onto the sidewalk. Kate and Delores moved beside them. After a moment, Kate tapped Herb on the shoulder, and he politely let her move in front of him so that she could get a better look.

There was a taxi stand on Connecticut Avenue with four cabs lined up in it. A uniformed policeman gestured impatiently for them to move. When they had done so, a Yukon with red and blue lights flashing behind its grille pulled up, not into the space just vacated, but into the lane—the street—just outside it.

Then another Yukon with flashing lights pulled into what had been the taxi lane, followed by two limousines, which also had flashing red and blue lights behind their grilles.

What had been the taxi lane was now filled.

Next came another limousine, this one a stretch limousine without flashing lights. It pulled into the space reserved for vehicles discharging or picking up passengers.

A burly man spoke into his lapel, and then opened the rear door of the limousine. A moment later, a line of men came through the revolving door and quickly entered the limousine.

“There’s ten of them,” Delores announced. “I counted them.”

“I wonder who they are,” Bob mused aloud.

The burly man closed the door and the stretch limousine pulled away from the curb.

What happened next occurred so quickly that no one but Delores could keep up with it. Limousines and Yukons kept pulling up to the curb, and then backing out of it—or going forward onto Connecticut Avenue and then backing up as passengers—some of them women and some of them carrying submachine guns—got into the various vehicles, and then sometimes out of them.

“You know what that looks like, Herb?” Bob said. “That automated package-distribution machine FedEx showed us in Kansas City. Except this is for people.”

“You know, Bob, it does,” Herb said thoughtfully.

He then gestured with his hands, miming FedEx’s automated system, which had apparently impressed him with its ability to move a lot of things in different directions at the same time.

The Vice President came through one of the revolving doors and was hustled into one of the limousines with the flashing lights, and then the secretary of State came through the revolving door and was hustled into hers.

There was a wail of sirens and then it was suddenly all over. All the vehicles were gone, and so were all the Secret Service people.

“I will be damned,” Herb said. “That was something!”

“And you didn’t want to stay here,” Delores said. “You said it was too expensive.”

[THREE]

The President’s Study

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

1430 15 April 2007

“When the Vice President’s car reached where we were standing, Mr. President, just outside the main gate,” Secret Service Special Agent Mark Douglas reported, “it stopped and the rear window went down. Vice President Montvale said, ‘The four limousines are with me.’ So I let them pass.”

“Did you see who was in them?” President Clendennen asked.

“Yes, Mr. President. To double-check, so to speak, I stopped each one and opened the door and had a look.”

“And?” the President asked impatiently.

“There were eight men, mostly Caucasian—mostly Latinos, I judged—and some Afro-Americans, in each of the first two limousines. The third one had Mr. Danton—the reporter from The Washington Times-Post—and Mr. Parker in it. Just them. The last limo was empty.”

“And then what happened?”

“The convoy moved directly to the grave site, to the road near it. And everybody got out.”