The Jefferson Key (Cotton Malone 7)

He rushed down the hall and opened the exit door, listened, then motioned for Voccio to follow. He lead the way down the black stairway, using the metal railing as his guide, keeping Voccio close behind him.

He halted just before they found the ground.

“How far to your car?” he whispered.

Wyatt heard deep, ragged breaths, but Voccio did not answer him.

“Doctor, to get us out of here I need your help.”

“Not far… just outside the rear exit door. To the right… when we get to the bottom and the lobby.”

He eased down the remaining few risers. His hand found the exit door and he eased it open.

The lobby loomed still.

He motioned for them to crouch low and head right.

They cleared the doorway.

And shooting started.

MALONE HAD WATCHED FROM THE STAIRWAY DOOR AS THE TWO gunmen negotiated the doglegged hallway and turned about fifty feet away. He noticed an ambient glow from one of the office doorways. Odd, considering the power was gone.

He hustled ahead and glanced inside.

Three computer screens glowed. A nameplate on the door read VOCCIO. The man he’d come to see.

He started to search the office, but a cacophony of gunfire erupted below.

CASSIOPEIA FELT THE NEED TO DEFEND DANNY DANIELS. WHY, she wasn’t sure, but this woman seemed unapologetic in her harsh judgments.

“What Danny has,” Kaiser said, “is guilt, not grief. Once, about a year before Mary died, his smoking caused a small fire at the house. That one only destroyed a chair. Pauline begged him to stop, or smoke outside, or something-anything but what he was doing. For a while, he did. Then he did what Danny always does. Whatever he wants. That fire should have never happened, and he knows that.”

She decided to come to the point of her visit. “When did you and the First Lady first speak of the New York trip?”

“You don’t want to hear my opinions anymore?”

“I want you to answer my question.”

“To see if my answer and Pauline’s match?”

“Something like that. But since you two have already communicated, that shouldn’t be a problem.”

Kaiser shook her head. “Look, missy, Pauline and I talk every day, sometimes more than once. We discuss everything. She told me about Danny’s New York visit about two months ago. She was home alone in the White House. People haven’t really noticed, but she’s doing less and less in the way of appearances. I was here.”

Which was exactly what she already knew. The First Lady had also made clear that she never used a mobile or cordless phone when talking to Kaiser. Always a landline. So she asked, and was told the same was true on this end.

“The text earlier was a first for us,” Kaiser said. “Did I pass the test?”

She stood. “I have to check for listening devices.”

“That’s why I’m up at this hour. Do what you have to do.”

She removed from her pocket an EM detector provided by the Secret Service. She doubted the house itself was wired. That would require every square inch being within range of a listening device. So she decided to start with the phones themselves.

“Where are the outside electrical, cable, and phone boxes?”

Kaiser stayed seated. “On the side of the garage. Behind the hedge. The floodlights are already on for you. I’m here to please.”

She left the house and followed the brick-paved drive around to the side. They hadn’t even approached the most uncomfortable questions, but they would have to be asked either by her, or by people whom neither one of these two women wanted to talk to. She told herself to be patient. There was a lot of history here, most of it bad.

She located the junction boxes where utility service tied to the house. She eased her way down the side of the building, between damp chest-high hedges, and activated the EM detector. Not a one hundred percent accurate device, but good enough to sniff out any electromagnetic emissions that might warrant closer inspection.

She pointed the unit at the metal boxes.

Nothing.

Wires ran from the telephone connector up through the soffit, into the house, feeding each of the inside jacks. She’d need to check them individually, since what she was looking for could well be concealed within the phones themselves.

“Find anything?” a voice asked.

Startled, she lost her grip on the detector and it dropped to the ground.

She turned.

Kaiser watched from the corner of the building, beyond where the hedge ended. “Didn’t mean to frighten you.”

She didn’t believe a word of that.

The detector began to pulsate, its green indicator light shifting to red, blinking at an ever-increasing rate. If she hadn’t muted its audio, a beep would now be disturbing the night. She bent down and pointed the unit in several directions, finally determining that down was correct. She dug through the wet soil, her fingers scraping something hard. Clearing away the mud she discovered a small plastic box, about eight centimeters square, the underground telephone wire running through it from one end to the other.

The detector continued to alert.

A bad situation had just became worse.

Kaiser’s phones had been tapped.

THIRTY-TWO

WYATT DOVE TO THE TILED FLOOR AND MADE SURE VOCCIO was low alongside of him.

Bullets banged off the walls.

He couldn’t tell how many shooters they faced. The lobby remained in darkness, only a peripheral glow from the parking lot offering any assistance. Two wide chairs blocked them from the source of the gunfire, about fifty feet away.

He pulled Voccio closer to him.

“Stay down,” he whispered.

The glass doors he sought, the ones Voccio had said led to the rear parking lot, were twenty feet away at the end of a short alcove. He was determined to get them both out of here. His heart pounded with a familiar alarm, the silence around him broken only by Voccio’s nervous breathing. He laid a reassuring hand on the other man’s arm and shook his head, signaling for him to remain calm. If he could hear each breath, so could their attackers.

He was curious about Malone. How had his adversary fared? He hadn’t seen the end of the parking lot standoff and wondered if Captain America was hurt, dead, or across the room firing.

Outside, the rain had slackened.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Voccio said.

He was in no mood for defeatism.

“Stay with me. I know what I’m doing.”

MALONE DESCENDED THE STAIRS, RETRACING HIS ROUTE TO the ground floor, coming ever closer to the loud retorts. He found the exit door, eased it open, and caught sight of shadows advancing across the lobby. Not much light, but enough to see two men with automatic rifles concerned with a target on the far side of the room. These could not be the same two from before. They’d disappeared down the second-floor corridor, headed to the other side of the building and another staircase.

>

These must be the ones on the other end of the radio.

Whoever these people were after, their quarry was now caught in a pincer, men ahead and behind. He could not reveal himself, as anonymity seemed his best defense, but he also could not just wait to see what happened.

So he aimed and fired.

WYATT HEARD SHOTS AND SAW MUZZLE FLASHES BEYOND WHERE he’d spotted the shadows advancing.

Somebody was behind his two problems.

Malone?

Had to be.

MALONE FIRED AGAIN, CATCHING ONE OF THE SHADOWS IN THE shoulder, hurling the form forward into the wall with a dull thump. The other shadow reacted, whirling around and unleashing a burst of rounds. He jerked himself back inside the stairway and allowed the metal door to close.

Bullets dinged off the other side.

Apparently, his presence had not been expected.

WYATT HEARD THE STAIRWAY DOOR-BEHIND WHERE HE AND Voccio lay-open and he turned as movement disturbed the darkness.

Men were also behind him.

The shooter whom he assumed was Malone had taken down one of the men in the lobby, and the other was now firing at a second illuminated exit. He rotated on the floor, spine down, and fired at the door less than ten feet away.

They had to get out of here.

Voccio was apparently thinking the same thing. The doctor belly-crawled toward the outside exit.

Not smart.

Little cover existed between here and there, though the main threats across the lobby seemed occupied.

He watched as Voccio found the glass doors, slammed a hand into a quick-release latch, and slipped outside. The other gunman, the one firing at Malone, heard the escape, turned, and aimed toward the doors. Before he could fire a shot, Wyatt sent three bullets the man’s way. The form spun, flailed backward, then shrank to the floor.

Two attackers down.

Voccio raced outside.

An instant later both downed forms came to their feet, rifles in hand.

Then he realized.

They wore body armor.