The Camel Club (Camel Club 1)

“I scouted this out before, Tyler,” Peters said. “It’s the best location, but a bit of a hike. We’ll carry him using the tarp. That way nothing from us gets on him.”

“Right,” Reinke replied as he stared warily down the steep, uneven terrain. “Let’s just take it nice and slow.”

They made their way carefully down, leaning heavily into tree trunks along the way. Luckily, it had not rained lately and the ground provided firm footing. Still, carrying the man between them on the plastic was awkward, and they had to take several breaks along the way, with the stout Peters puffing hard.

Their path finally leveled out and Reinke said, “Okay, almost there. Let’s set him down and take a recon.”

The two men drew out night-vision binoculars from a duffel bag that Reinke had strapped to his back, and took a long look around.

Satisfied, they took up their trek once more. Fifteen minutes later they reached the end of the dirt and rock. The water was not deep here, and flat boulders could be seen in several locations poking through the surface of the slow-moving river.

“All right,” Peters said. “This is the place.”

Reinke opened the duffel bag, pulled out two objects and set them down on the ground. Squatting next to the larger object, he felt along its contours. Seconds later his fingers found what they were searching for. A minute later the dinghy was fully inflated. The other item he’d pulled from the duffel was a small engine prop that he attached to the boat’s stern.

Peters said, “We’ll keep to the Virginia side. This engine’s pretty quiet, but sound really carries over the water.” He handed his colleague a small device. “Not that we’ll need it, but here’s the GPS.”

“We have to dunk him,” Reinke pointed out.

“Right. Figured we’d do it by the shore here.”

They took off their shoes and socks and rolled up their pant legs. Carrying the captive, they stepped along the soft dirt and rocks lining the water’s edge and then waded in up to their knees and lowered him into the warm water until his body—but not his face—was submerged and then quickly pulled him up again. They did this maneuver twice more.

“That should to it,” Peters said as he looked down at the soaked man who moaned a bit in his sleep. They hadn’t dunked his face because they thought that might rouse him, and make it more difficult to transport him.

They waded back to shore and then placed him in the inflatable dinghy. The men made one more careful sweep of the area and then carried the small boat out to the water and climbed in. Peters started the engine, and the dinghy sped out into the river at a decent clip. The tall Reinke squatted next to the prisoner and eyed the GPS screen as they made their way downriver hugging the forested side.

As he navigated the craft Peters said, “I would’ve preferred doing this somewhere more private, but that wasn’t my call. At least there’s a fog rolling in. I checked the weather forecast and for once it was right. We’ll put into a deserted little cove a couple hundred yards down from here, wait until everything is cleared out and then head on.”

“Good plan,” Reinke replied.

The two men fell silent as the tiny craft headed into the gathering fogbank.

CHAPTER

3

ALEX FORD STIFLED A YAWN AND rubbed his tired eyes. A clear voice shot through his ear fob. “Stay alert, Ford.” He gave a barely noticeable nod of his head and refocused. The room was hot, but at least he wasn’t wearing the Kevlar body armor that was akin to strapping a microwave to your body. As usual, the wires leading from his surveillance kit to his ear fob and wrist mic were irritating his skin. The ear fob itself was even more aggravating, making his ear so sore it was painful to even touch.

He touched the pistol in his shoulder holster. Like all Secret Service agents, his suits were designed a little big in the chest, to disguise the bulge of the weapon. The Service had recently converted to the .357 SIG from the nine-millimeter version. The SIG was a good gun with enough stopping power to do the job; however, some of his colleagues had complained about the switch, clearly preferring the old hardware. Alex, who wasn’t a big gun buff, didn’t care. In all his years with the Service he’d infrequently pulled his gun and even more rarely fired it.

This thought made Alex reflect on his career for a moment. How many doorways had he stood post at? The answer was clearly etched in the wrinkles on his face and the weariness in his eyes. Even after leaving protection detail and being reassigned to the Secret Service’s Washington Field Office, or WFO, to do more investigative work at the tail end of his career, here he was again taking up space between the doorjambs, watching people, looking for the needle in a haystack that intended bodily harm to someone under his watch.

Tonight was foreign dignitary protection at the low end of the threat assessment level. He’d been unlucky enough to draw the overtime assignment to protect a visiting head of government, finding out about it an hour before he was about to go off duty. So instead of having a drink in his favorite pub, he was making sure nobody took a shot at the prime minister of Latvia. Or was it Estonia?

The event was a reception at the swanky Four Seasons Hotel in Georgetown, but the crowd was definitely B-list, many here only because they’d been ordered to attend. The few marginally important guests were a handful of junior levels from the White House, some local D.C. politicos hoping for decent newsprint and a portly congressman who was a member of some international relations committee; he looked even more bored than Alex felt.

The veteran Secret Service agent had already done three of these extra-duty soirées in the past week. The months leading up to a presidential election were a manic swirl of parties, fund-raisers and meet-and-greets. Members of Congress and their staffers would hit a half dozen of these events every evening, as much for the free food and drink as to shake constituents’ hands, collect checks and sometimes even discuss the issues. Whenever one of these parties had in attendance anyone under Secret Service protection guys like Alex would trudge out after a long day’s work and keep them safe.

Alex glanced at his partner for the night, a tall, beefy kid out of WFO with a Marine Corps buzz cut who’d been called in at the last minute too. Alex had a few more years until he could retire on his federal pension, but

this kid was looking at more than two decades of riding the Secret Service’s career roller coaster.

“Simpson got out of this again,” the kid muttered. “Second time in a row. Tell me this: Whose ass is getting kissed upstairs?”

Alex shrugged noncommittally. The thing about duty like this, it gave you time to think; in fact, way too much time. Secret Service agents were like jailhouse lawyers in that respect: a lot of clock on their hands to mull things over, creating complicated bitch lists as they silently guarded their charges. Alex just didn’t care about that side of the profession anymore.

He glanced at the button on his wrist mic and had to smile. The mic button had been problematic for years. Agents would cross their arms and accidentally turn it on, or else the mic would get stuck on somehow. And then coming over the airwaves would be a graphic description of some hot chick wandering the area. If Alex had a hundred bucks for every time he’d heard the phrase “Did you see the rack on that one?” he could’ve retired already. And then you’d have everyone yelling into his mic, “Open mic.” It was pretty funny to watch all the agents scrambling to make sure it wasn’t them inadvertently broadcasting their lust.

Alex repositioned his ear fob and rubbed at his neck. That part of his anatomy remained one large train wreck of cartilage and fused disks. He’d been pulling motorcade duty on a presidential protection detail when the truck he’d been riding in rolled after the driver swerved to avoid a deer on a back road. That little tumble fractured Alex’s neck. After a number of operations and the insertion of some very fine stainless steel, his six-foot-three frame had been reduced by nearly a full inch, though his posture was much improved, since steel didn’t bend. Being a little shorter didn’t bother him nearly as much as the constant burn in his neck. He could’ve taken disability and left the Service, but that wasn’t the way he wanted to go out. Single and childless, he didn’t have any place to go to. So he’d sweated and pushed himself back into shape and gotten the blessing of the Secret Service medicos to return to the field after months on desk duty.

Right now, though, at age forty-three, after spending most of his adult life on constant high alert amid numbing tedium—a typical Secret Service agent’s daily existence—he seriously wondered just how demented he’d been to keep going. Hell, he could have found a hobby. Or at least a wife.

Alex bit his lip to mitigate the smoldering heat in his neck and stoically watched the prime minister’s wife cramming foie gras into her mouth.

What a gig.

CHAPTER

4

OLIVER STONE GOT OUT OF THE TAXI.

Before driving off, the cabby said with a snort, “In my book you’re still a bum no matter how fancy you talk.”

Stone gazed after the departing car. He’d long since stopped responding to such comments. People would think what they wanted to. Besides, he did look like a bum.

He walked toward a small park next to the Georgetown Waterfront Complex and glanced down at the brownish waters of the Potomac River as they licked up against the seawall. Some very enterprising graffiti artists, who obviously didn’t mind working with water right under their butts, had elaborately painted the concrete barrier.

A little earlier there would have been traffic racing along the elevated Whitehurst Freeway that ran behind Stone. And a jet-fueled