The 14th Colony (Cotton Malone 11)

Not yet, he’d said.

A partial report, she knew, had been provided on the incident with Jamie Kelly and the four cases that had been found. She imagined that information would have sent shivers through Fox. Luke was doing fine, wanting out of the hospital, but the doctors had told him one more day. The younger Daniels had been informed, though, as to what had happened, and was pleased things worked out.

The door opened and President Fox entered the office alone, decked out in black tie and tails, looking quite dapper.

“You know,” Fox said to Danny with a smile, “you do have to leave at some point.”

The Sunday twitch in things had made the customary departure of the outgoing president a non-newsworthy event. Usually, just after the Capitol ceremony, the former president was seen waving to reporters and flying off from Andrews Air Force Base. Not this time. Danny had watched Fox take the oath yesterday, spending a final night in the White House, then gawking a second time today before retreating here to leave with his things.

“I’m on the way out the door,” Danny said. “But first we need to have a chat.”

“I feel a little outnumbered,” Fox said. “Should I ask my staff to join us?”

“Let’s keep this between the few of us.”

“I’m sensing that everyone here knows something I should.”

“We tried to tell you things were bad and you wouldn’t listen,” Danny said. “Instead, your people went behind my back and tried to recruit my girl over there as a spy. And, yes, on my orders, she was playing them.”

Fox said nothing. But men like him did not appreciate being cornered. In fact, they spent their whole lives avoiding right angles. This was classic Danny Daniels, though. The Tennessee Torture, as members of Congress and the cabinet had called it.

“Are you referring to the four bombs seized yesterday?” Fox asked. “I was briefed. They weren’t even activated.”

“They were decoys,” Danny said.

And the Secret Service had done a good job diverting public attention from them, labeling Jamie Kelly as some sort of exhibitionist, trying to prove a point, who ended up dead. The “bombs” found were fake. “Security teams doing their job” had also been the explanation used for the helicopter landing on the North Lawn.

“There was a bomb,” Danny said. “Six kilotons, placed directly beneath the White House in an old tunnel.”

“And I wasn’t told?” Fox asked.

“I wanted that privilege.”

“I’m going to have to speak to the Secret Service about their loyalty. Since noon yesterday, I’ve been in charge around here.”

“Not on this operation. You told us to handle it. We did. Now it’s over, so we’re reporting back, as you requested.”

Hard to argue with that logic, since it was all true.

“Okay, Danny. I get your point. As to recruiting Stephanie, that was a clear miscalculation on my attorney general’s part. When he told me what he’d done I was not pleased. That’s not my style.”

Danny nodded. “I get that. I’ve had Lone Rangers, too.”

A couple even tried to kill him, she thought.

“But I am wondering,” Fox said, “how no one knew a tunnel existed beneath this building.”

Stephanie nearly smiled. Fox was trying to score a few points of his own.

Danny reached down to the Resolute desk and retrieved the Tallmadge journal that she’d handed over to him yesterday. “This is some interesting reading.”

And Danny told Fox about the Society of Cincinnati, then said, “It all started with the War of 1812. We wanted Canada to be our 14th colony, to be part of the great United States. But the British didn’t want us to have it. We burned Toronto, so they came and burned DC. We’ve done some checking and discovered that, a long time ago, we did know about the tunnel. Records show it was shut down during the Civil War. By then it had collapsed beneath the White House, so they sealed it on this end, then went over to St. John’s, dug it out from the cellar, and bricked up that side. No one at the church even knew it existed. Not wanting to draw any attention to its presence during a time of civil war, they just quietly got rid of it. If not for the fact that the Cincinnati Society kept a record, it would have stayed forgotten. And if not for the excellent work of the people in this room, along with my nephew who’s in the hospital thanks to all this, we’d be dead. Cotton stopped the bomb maybe seconds before it would have exploded.”

Fox glanced at Malone, but said nothing.

Danny went on. “And to top it off, the guy you specifically wanted as the go-between to keep you informed decided he wanted to be president. So he didn’t tell you that a bomb was there. Instead, he ran like a dog on fire and got as far away from here as he could.”

Surprise now filled Fox’s face. “What do you mean?”

Stephanie said, “I called from the helicopter and told Litchfield to warn you and everyone else. There was time then to get away. But Litchfield used that time for himself. If we’d all died in a nuclear blast, he’d be president right now. He was at the swearing-in, saw that the secretaries of state, treasury, and defense were all there—each of whom are ahead of him in the line of succession—so when I called and told him what was happening, he just left.”

The implications hit home.

“That sorry son of a bitch.”

“Can you imagine,” Danny said, clearly enjoying this. “The designated survivor comes out from his assigned hiding place, ready to take command, then Litchfield shows up and says, ‘Excuse me, I’m still here and you’re not the one. The AG outranks you on the list, and the succession law says the highest qualified person on the ladder wins.’ I guess he figured he’d pay us both back.”

“He’s fired.”

Danny chuckled. “He’s worse than that.”

Fox seemed puzzled.

“Cotton found him a few hours ago,” Danny said. “He owed him one for wanting to leave him to rot in Siberia. So I had him pass on both his own and our collective displeasure. How many broken ribs?”

“More than one,” Cotton said. “We had a spirited discussion on presidential succession. Along the way, Mr. Litchfield decided that he would be pursuing other career opportunities and tendered his resignation. Then he went to find a doctor.”

“You beat him up?” Fox asked Cotton.

“Absolutely.”

The new president seemed pleased. “Then that’s that. Everything is tied up.”

“Not exactly,” Danny said. “Stephanie here quit yesterday, which you may or may not know.”

“I was told.”

“You need her, Warner.”

Danny’s deep tone had changed. Lower. More conciliatory.

“This a shakedown?” Fox asked.

Which she was wondering, too.

Danny shrugged. “Call it what you want. But I don’t think you want me tellin’ the world that we all came within moments of having hundreds of thousands of people vaporized, all because you wanted to be sworn in on live TV inside the White House at noon. Not to mention that your people actively tried to interfere with an ongoing investigation that was working to reveal the plot. Then, when I add in the conspiracy with Litchfield and his betrayal, wow, we’ve got ourselves a TV series. It’ll run for weeks on every news outlet in the country. What was it you said on Saturday? ‘We’ll never get on message.’”

Danny hadn’t explained what he planned, but she’d suspected.

“Cotton,” Danny said, “Litchfield will make himself available for interviews, right?”

“He gave me every assurance that as soon as the pain subsided, he was at our disposal.”

“See? There you are. We even have a witness.”

Fox smiled. “I was told you could be terribly persuasive, when you want to be.”

“You’re going to learn that’s a valuable skill to have around here.”

Fox considered things for a moment before saying, “So we’re clear, I didn’t jump on your parade

Saturday because you offered no concrete evidence of anything. I wasn’t oblivious to the risks, I just wasn’t prepared to bet everything on your instincts. But I was ready to move when, and if, you had proof. Now, with Litchfield, that was my mistake. We listened to him. My AG was dead wrong and, as Mr. Malone describes, we had a spirited discussion, just without the violence.” Fox looked at Stephanie. “Litchfield convinced us you were something other than what you clearly are. My apologies for that wrong assumption. The Magellan Billet will be restored, with no interference from me or the new AG. And though we all know this idea was forced onto me, I agree completely with Danny. I want you watching my back.”

“I’ll do my best, Mr. President,” she said, deciding a little concession of her own was in order. “You’ll find me a loyal soldier.”