Once they were warmed up with basic information, they started jumping in with commentary and questions. To my surprise and delight, the banter didn’t stop, and the kids really seemed to enjoy themselves for the duration of the presentation. I kept an eye on the clock, and when we had about two minutes left I answered a final question.
A little girl raised her hand and said, “My mom says that I should eat carrots because bunnies don’t need glasses.” She pointed to the frames on her own face. “She says if I eat a lot of carrots maybe I won’t need these anymore either.”
I smiled. “My mom used to tell me the same thing. Carrots have something called beta-carotene in them. It’s very good for you, and helps provide vitamin A, which is very important,” I said. “I don’t know if eating a lot of carrots will help you get rid of your glasses, but some people believe that vitamin A does help.” I pointed to my own eyes. “Carrots are very good for you, but there are other things you can eat that are good, too. Bananas, apples, green peppers, strawberries, spinach ...”
At the word
spinach,
they all made “ugh” and gagging noises.
I laughed. “If you tasted my spinach, you might change your mind.”
Josh made a face.
“Don’t you like my spinach, Josh?” I asked him.
He frowned. “I liked yours that you made the other night for the tasting. But Virgil does something different. He puts something weird in it that I don’t like at all.”
I seemed to remember that Virgil had prepared his spinach with beets and kalamata olives. I winked. “I’ll have to share my recipe with him.”
Josh nodded.
“Thank you very much,” Mrs. Fosco said when our time was up. She had the kids give me a round of applause. I thanked them for allowing me to be a part of their career project and looked to Nourie for guidance. He held up a finger and pointed to the door.
In the hall just outside, I could hear the sounds of all the classes of kids getting themselves ready to leave for the day—teachers’ voices raised to combat chaos—and just as everything quieted again, a distant bell rang.
Doors swung open, and kids filed out in double lines. I wondered how the Secret Service agents assigned to Josh dealt with this every single day. With so many kids, so many variables, there had to be a constant fear of something going wrong. There were two agents stationed at the end of the hall to my right and two to my left.
A moment later, Josh’s class was dismissed. I stood close to the wall as they processed out past me toward the school’s front door. I looked for Josh, but he wasn’t among the chattering, cheerful students.
“No talking until we’re outside,” Mrs. Fosco admonished.
As the kids dispersed and the line diminished, Josh finally appeared, accompanied by Agent Nourie, who had brought my coat out for me. He waved me to follow. “We exit through the back,” he said. Gesturing with his eyes, he continued, “There are lots of cars out front with parents and nannies picking up kids. There’s no way to know if there’s a vehicle out there that does not belong. So our team pulls up in the back parking lot.” He smiled. “Less chance for trouble.”
Josh was used to the routine. He skipped next to me. “The kids really liked you, Ollie,” he said. “You were funny.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I enjoyed meeting all your friends.”
He made a so-so face. “I’m still the new kid,” he said. “But when we were getting our coats, a few of them came over to say they liked what you said.”
“I’m glad.”
The two agents at the end of the hall fell into step with us as we took a narrow stairway to the school’s back door. One of the agents went first. He opened the door, stepped outside, and spoke into his microphone before waving us out. “Clear,” he said.
Poor Josh. He lived in this bubble every day of his life.
Nourie stayed close to his charge, and I followed. The other agent brought up the rear. The back of the school was set up like a giant U, with a parking lot just beyond a small courtyard. Josh’s limo cleared the grassy center strip and swung into the driveway that skimmed the back edge of the school. Great for deliveries or for quick, secure exits like this one. Our little group followed a bricked walkway to the waiting limousine. The first agent raced ahead to open the car door for us.
About three hundred feet away, the school’s back gate remained open in anticipation of our departure. With the castle structure surrounding us, the giant iron gate in the distance, and all the security, I felt quite out of place. Almost like the unnamed narrator in
Rebecca
. Everything was so grand, so precise, so large.
I followed Nourie and Josh along the walkway, fascinated by how closely Nourie guarded his charge. Secret Service agents were posted to our right and to our left—and every single one of them was brightly alert, ready for anything. I was convinced we were as safe as anyone could be.
At that moment, a black car swerved through the back gate. Big, and government-issue, it barreled at us. Fast.
I heard shouts, and shots fired in the distance, but couldn’t tell which direction they came from. The agent behind me pushed me to the ground.
“Down! Down!” Nourie shouted. He lifted Josh off his feet and sprinted to the waiting limousine, covering Josh’s small body with his own and reaching the door in two strides. Pushing myself to my feet, I followed, and the agent behind me shoved me forward until I tumbled into the back of the limo, right behind Nourie and Josh. I was about to ask what was going on, but the agent outside slammed the limo door shut and then slapped the back of the car twice.
Nourie shouted to the driver, “Go, go!”
The driver didn’t need a second prompting. I heard the car doors lock as the limo leapt forward, its engines revving like jets on a plane. Above that, I heard the sound of more shots fired.
Heart pounding, I struggled to right myself, looking from side to side. The mysterious black car screeched to a halt. Someone who looked a lot like Bost bounded out. I gasped.
The Bost-man began to run after our car, but he was quickly surrounded by agents. The car he’d jumped from made a giant U-turn, clearly intending to follow us, but we were gaining speed. As soon as we cleared the iron gate, it lurched into action behind us and slowly closed them in.
Josh buckled up. Smart kid. I did the same.
“What happened?” I asked. For Josh’s sake, I tried to keep the panic from my voice. “What was that? What’s going on?”
Nourie ignored me. He spoke into his microphone. “Shots fired. Attack at Dolorosa Academy. Subject is safe. Repeat: Subject is safe. Implementing plan Delta. I repeat, Delta.”
Nourie practically leapt over the back of the front seat. He yanked the GPS monitor so that he could see where we were headed. He pointed. “Initiate Delta maneuver,” he told the driver tersely.
The driver kept his eyes forward, but he blinked. “Sir?”
“Delta,” Nourie repeated, this time with more authority. He glanced back at me. “Are they behind us?”
I looked back. “Not yet,” I said.
Nourie ordered the driver, “Hurry.”
“Yes, sir.” The driver shook his head, but didn’t seem nearly as rattled as I thought he should be. But then again, they were the professionals, not I. “I’m not familiar with Delta, sir,” he said.
Nourie swore as he expelled a breath of frustration. “Whose idea was it to replace all the seasoned agents with you new guys?”
The driver had no answer. Nourie ordered him, “Turn left. Here. Now.”
The driver complied.
Nourie muttered under his breath. “Get to 495.”
“The expressway?” the driver asked. “That’s the wrong direction.”
“We aren’t going to the White House.” Exasperated, Nourie said, “Plan Delta has us rendezvous with a special team north of the city. We will have cover and reinforcements there. Go.” He glanced behind us again. “They will assume we’re headed back to the residence. They’re going to be looking for us on Woodmont Avenue. We might have lost them. Take a circuitous route to 495. I’ll let the team know where we are.” He spoke again into his microphone.
I couldn’t hear the reply, but I did see Josh. His eyes were wide and his bottom lip trembled. “What’s going on?” he asked.
“Here,” I said. Some reflexive maternal instinct caused me to put my arm around him. “We’re okay. We’ll get back to the White House really soon. It’s okay.” When he wiggled closer, trusting me, I felt my own panic abate. Helping console him helped me calm myself. A little.
Our limo raced through side streets, going north and west toward 495. We were bounced and flung sideways by the driver’s erratic choices. Josh whimpered and snuggled closer.
“Faster,” Nourie shouted.
“Who’s after us?” I asked.
Nourie didn’t answer. He spoke so quietly into his microphone I couldn’t hear what he said, but whatever he heard in reply made him startle. He sent me another panicked look, then used both hands to gesture me to stay calm.
That made me worry even more.
“Driver,” he said. “Pull over.”
“But ...”
“Pull over. Now.”
The driver complied. “But, sir, the other car ...”
The moment the car was in park, Nourie was over the backseat, plunging a syringe into the driver’s neck.
I screamed, and covered Josh’s eyes.
“He’s with whoever’s after us,” Nourie explained, his eyes flashing. “He didn’t know Delta. Even the new guys know Delta.”
I didn’t know what to say, what to do. Josh wriggled his face free from my protection. “What happened?”
“Don’t worry,” Nourie said, reading the alarm in my eyes. “I got word that we lost that other car. At least temporarily.”
“But ...” I was shaking as I pointed to the driver, who was writhing and convulsing. “What did you do to him?”
“Knocked him out. That’s all.” With that, he unlocked the car doors, jumped out, and climbed into the driver’s seat, shoving the now-unconscious young man to the passenger side. “We need him alive for questioning.” Putting the car in drive, Nourie checked the rearview mirror and sped off. “What I wouldn’t give to put a bullet in his head right now.”
I didn’t think that was appropriate for Josh to hear, but I was too shocked to come up with a reply. “Where are we going?”
“There’s a safe house where we’ll meet up with another team,” he said.
“Wouldn’t we be better off at the White House?”
Nourie started fiddling under the dash. “That’s where they expect us to go.” He yanked something free and sat back, satisfied.
“Who?”
He met my eyes in the mirror. “Armustan. That’s who’s behind this.” He shot a look of pure hatred toward the man in the passenger seat. “And they almost had us.”
“Who’s Armustan?” Josh asked. “Why are they after us?”
I didn’t want to have to explain how the individuals who had taken people hostage at the hospital were part of a larger group—and that group was after us now, but I also didn’t want Josh to think this situation was anything but serious. These were the same people who had targeted him and his sister with the chicken wings. We’d been warned that they were relentless. “Some very bad people. They tried to get their way once before, and it looks like they’re trying again.”
“You mean the people who want their leader to be let out of jail?”
I nodded.
Josh spoke confidently. “My dad told me all about that. He won’t give in to them. He says he won’t negotiate with terrorists.”
Nourie met my eyes in the rearview mirror again. I doubted the president would be so secure in his policy if his own child’s safety was at risk. I stared outside at the landscape zipping by. “How far is the safe house?” I asked, glancing behind us. No one followed.
Nourie didn’t answer.
I stole a look at the GPS monitor. “What happened?” I asked.
Concentrating on his driving, Nourie still didn’t answer.
“The GPS,” I said, “it’s not on. Did we lose signal?”
We took a hard left, making the tires screech. We were staying on side streets and avoiding any busy roads, veering different directions at almost every intersection. I assumed that made it more difficult for the Armustan operatives to follow us. “The GPS,” I said again.
“Don’t need it,” Nourie said. He pulled hard to the right this time, and studied the next intersection before zipping past. I hated traveling this fast—we had to be doing more than 40 miles per hour—down residential streets.
“Watch out!” I screamed.
Blowing through a stop sign, we narrowly missed hitting two bicyclists. They veered sideways just as Nourie swerved around them and one of the cyclists toppled to the ground. “Is he okay?” I asked.
Josh twisted to stare out the back windshield. “He’s getting up, I think,” he said. Turning to me, he asked, “What’s going on?”
“Why is the GPS off?” I asked again.
“We have to assume our GPS has been compromised,” Nourie said. “This is all part of Plan Delta. Disengaging the signal will make it that much harder for the Armustan soldiers to know where we are. We don’t want to lead them to our safe house.”
After a moment, I said, “But then the Secret Service can’t track us either.”
“That’s why we’ve initiated Delta,” he said. “The Secret Service knows exactly where we’re headed. Now hold tight and keep an eye on Josh; it may get bumpy.”
He wasn’t kidding.
We swerved right to take a frontage road alongside one of the expressways. Sheltered from sight by a row of trees, the road was unpaved and caused us to jiggle in our seats. Good thing we were belted in. Even with the monstrous vehicle’s heavy shocks, we were getting bounced around pretty badly. Josh’s voice was uneven. “I’m scared, Ollie,” he whispered.
“It’s going to be okay.”
I glanced up at Nourie. His expression was hard and his eyes remained focused on the road ahead.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket against my leg. I had ensured the device was on silent before I went into the classroom but had not had a chance to turn the ringer back on. I was holding on to the door handles so tightly, I couldn’t answer it right now. It was probably Bucky or Cyan calling, wondering where I was. I glanced at the dashboard clock. We’d been due back at the White House about ten minutes ago.