The Warren Omissions (13 page)

The only other place that seemed more easily penetrable was the domed ceiling. Though Flynn suspected it had been swept, his CIA training taught him that hiding in such a place wasn’t impossible. If the Kuklovod contained the world’s best covert operatives, Flynn recognized the dome as being a possible location for a shooter—if that’s how they intended to kill President Briggs.

Now Flynn only had one problem: getting past security.

He scurried around the outside of the room, looking for access to the top. Security looked tight and he needed some luck if he was going to get by. And he had to do it fast. The speech was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes.

To get to the catwalk area inside the dome, Flynn needed to get to the roof. No other location seemed more daunting as it was always heavily guarded. On his way he needed to think of something fast.

Away from the main entrance to the room, security was more lax if not non-existent. Flynn eyed a service stairwell entrance accessed only with a security card. With a drinking fountain nearby, he began gulping down water. Flynn kept an eye fixed on the door located just ten feet away, ready to grab it once a staff worker opened it. He didn’t have to wait long before someone opened the door. The heavy door nearly flung shut before Flynn could grab it, but he slipped his fingers in just in time. Before opening it all the way, he looked around to see if anyone noticed him. Everyone was too busy, lost in the minutiae of the day, to even notice him. That was the easy part.

Flynn waited until the person who opened the door disappeared through a door leading to the third floor, the highest floor adjacent to the main assembly hall. He causally walked up the steps while listening for the door. Once he passed the third floor, only two doors remained—one to the catwalk and one to the roof. He was all in now.

As Flynn continued to climb, he noticed a member of the Secret Service guarding the door to the catwalk.
 
This isn’t going to be easy.
 
He climbed quietly, looking up, until the agent heard his footsteps about one flight away from the landing.

“Hey, you can’t be up here!” the agent said.

“Relax, I’m CIA. Just came up here to check out what you’re doing,” Flynn said.

Once his face came into full view, the agent immediately recognized him.

“I know who you are and you’re not CIA!”

Before the agent could alert the rest of the team what was happening, Flynn struck the man’s throat before landing a left and right haymaker along each of his temples. He crumpled to the ground and tumbled down several steps before coming to a stop.

“Well, I used to be CIA,” Flynn said as he lifted the agent’s gun and walked back up the stairs. The agent was out cold.

Flynn checked the clip of the Sig Sauer P229 .357 handgun. The last thing he wanted was to get in a gunfight atop the general assembly hall, though it would make for great theater. He simply wanted to stop the Kuklovod—if he was right. And since he had just neutralized a Secret Service agent, Flynn was betting his career that he was right.

He quietly pulled open the door leading to the catwalk.
 
Here we go.

CHAPTER 22

SANDFORD WATCHED CNN’s live coverage of President Briggs’ speech from the U.N. He felt somewhat guilty for not caring about the content.
 
A famine in Central Africa? Really? We’ve got Russia constructing missile silos along its eastern coast—just miles away from Alaska—and we’re worried about starving Africans. Gimme a break.
 
Sandford took the President’s compassion as weakness.

President Briggs wore a tailored black suit with a non-descript blue tie. He clearly wanted the focus of his speech to be on the content, not on his appearance. It was a welcome change from the previous President who treated his position in the White House as if it were more about celebrity than statesmanship. Nevertheless, Sandford thought President Briggs had lost his way. Small points became large points of emphasis for his administration, yet he ignored the looming threat from Russia.

There was a time when African famines mattered to Sandford, too. His compassion ran deep for those in need. When he first sought to run for office, such issues drove him. He wanted to be the kind of statesman who leveraged American money and power into a force of global goodwill. It’s something he learned from his compassionate-hearted daughter.

When Sydney was six years old, she heard about an orphanage in India that would be shuttered if enough generous donations didn’t pour in. More than $40,000 was needed to keep the orphanage from sending its children back to the impoverished streets all alone. Sydney begged her father to build a lemonade stand so she could help. She raised $37 one Saturday and had her father mail off every penny to the orphanage. So moved by his daughter’s compassion, he added $1,000 of his own money. Along with a few other generous donors she had inspired to give as well, it was all just enough to keep the orphanage open. That was the kind of effect Sydney had on people, especially Sandford. Yet he realized that she was likely going to die in captivity—where she had been for the past sixteen years—if he couldn’t figure out a way to bring her home.

Lost in reminiscing about the past, Sandford’s ringing cell phone whisked him back to the present.

“Ready to become President?” the voice on the other end asked after he picked up.

“Who is this?” he demanded.

The caller ignored his question. “When you take office, the first thing you need to do is authorize a new missile defense system and show Russia you mean business. If you do this, I’ll know where your allegiances lie—then you must meet our other demands.”

“Hey, wait —”

The line went dead.

Sandford was left alone to ponder what the call could have meant. At first he thought it was the Russian government wanting to force his hand with some type of treaty. But now he realized whoever was behind his daughter’s kidnapping and staged death had a far more different agenda, an agenda that included a little saber rattling from the U.S. It was an agenda that Sandford openly braced without any qualms.

He turned his attention back to President Briggs’ speech. It was still droll and monotonous, not to mention self-serving. Sandford recognized there were far more important issues than this to tackle tonight. He could only sit and hope that maybe the events in the next few minutes might put him in a position to address them.

CHAPTER 23

FLYNN PULLED THE DOOR OPEN to the catwalk and realized handling the situation with any degree of stealth wouldn’t be easy. The recessed lights circling the dome would create shadows on the floor below—and they blinded him above. The catwalk shook as he stepped onto it. He gently shut the door behind him and began walking around the circular structure.

If Flynn had one advantage, it was that of surprise. The Kuklovod’s shooter—whoever he was—likely wouldn’t expect anyone to scour the catwalk just as the President’s speech began. Nor would he be interested in engaging in a shootout seventy-five feet above the floor. A quiet tussle suited Flynn better anyway. When he was a CIA operative, his shooting skills were legendary. But this wasn’t a range—nor had he fired a handgun in several years.

Flynn held the gun close to his body as he crept around the catwalk, looking for any sign that someone might be hiding in the beams above. If indeed a shooter was lodged in the rafters, Flynn thought it a genius position from which to eliminate a target. Not only did the beams provide cover, but so did the shining lights, making it nearly impossible to see beyond the light itself.

Halfway around, Flynn saw nothing. He realized he might appear like most of his fans to the rest of the world.
 
Just another tinfoil hat loon.
 
Even if he was right about the Kuklovod orchestrating JFK’s death—which he knew he was—it would all be forgotten unless he could prove they were trying to kill another president today. Yet he remained vigilant to his self-imposed mission.

Just as he made it about three-fourths of the way around, he saw something. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to catch his eye. A glint off a black surface. Something was moving and it shouldn’t have been. That’s when he recognized the gun in the hand of the shooter, pointing at the President.

“Stop!” Flynn shouted. He wished that his voice would carry more in the cavernous facility. But no one heard him—except the shooter.

Flynn pointed his gun at the shooter who slowly raised his weapon, pulling it away from its target.

“And what are you going to do about it? Shoot me?” the shooter asked, shrouding his face from Flynn.

“If I have to, yes,” Flynn answered. “If you try me, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

“No, I’m afraid you’re the one who has underestimated me, Mr. Flynn.”

The fact that the man holding a gun a few feet away knew his name unnerved Flynn.

“How do you know my name?”

“Never mind that. The real question is this: Do you think you can shoot me and not suffer any consequences? I’ve come too far to let a little detail like this get in the way of what I’m about to do.”

Flynn continued to hold his gun on the assassin.
 
Who is this guy?

“I have no idea who you are—and you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Really? I don’t? I wonder if Ms. Hart would appreciate you being so cavalier with her life.”

Flynn froze. He pondered for a moment if the shooter was bluffing.

“You don’t know where she is. She’s at her office, probably watching the President’s speech.”

“Oh, she’s watching the speech right now, but she’s not at the office. And you can bet she’s rooting for me to shoot the President—it’s the only way she gets to go home.”

Flynn attempted to reason with the man, anything to stall and possibly get a better look at his face.

“Just throw the gun over here so I won’t have to kill you. I’d have to blow your head off up here. It’d make such a difficult mess to clean up.”

The shooter stopped and stared at Flynn. “You think this is all a game, don’t you? Well, it’s not. Like I said before, you’ve underestimated me if you don’t think I’ve thought of everything.”

The shooter paused for a moment before continuing.

“So just remember if you pull that trigger, you’re also pulling the trigger on your little girlfriend’s life as well. If my friends don’t hear from me in thirty minutes, they’re going to kill her. Understand?”

That voice. Where do I know it from?

Flynn couldn’t discern if the shooter was bluffing or not. It wasn’t a chance he wished to take.

Yet as Flynn stood there, processing what the man just said, the assassin pulled out his gun and aimed it at President Briggs. The assassin’s face was in plain view.

Ivan!

“No!” Flynn yelled as he lunged toward the shooter.

It was too late. Ivan’s shot was true.

President Briggs crumpled to the floor in front of a stunned assembly.

CHAPTER 24

SANDFORD GAWKED AT THE SCREEN, struggling to believe what he just witnessed. Even though he suspected it was a possibility—even though a nutty reporter went on the news the night before and said it could happen—Sandford couldn’t believe it. His friend—and President of the United States, Arthur Briggs—writhed in pain on the floor in a chaotic scene in front of the entire U.N. general assembly.

Some Secret Service agents helped him up and rushed him off the main floor. Others gazed skyward, searching for where the shot came from. In an effort to escape the horrific scene, delegates dashed through the doors and lobby. An overhead camera from a local helicopter captured the surreal scene of frantic delegates spilling out into the street.

The television commentator tried to make sense of what had just happened. She stammered over her words, doing well to remember that
 
The
 
National’s
 
investigative reporter, James Flynn, had forewarned the nation about such a plot. Despite many reporters attending the speech, in case something did happen, no one was prepared for the blood sport, based on their bumbling reports. Seeing the leader of the free world gunned down made for compelling television—but it unnerved even the most composed anchors.

Sandford didn’t have a chance to hear any more of the reports before he was ordered to go with Secret Service agents as a precautionary measure. Protocol demanded that in the event of an attempted assassination on the President’s life, the Vice President would be taken to a safe place until further notice. Sandford didn’t like the idea of being cut off from the outside world, but it was something he could endure if he was going to find his way behind the desk in the Oval Office.

The phone in his pocket buzzed. He figured it was his wife, checking in with him and see how he was doing. He was wrong. It was a text message.

How do you feel now, Mr. President?

Sandford stared at the screen for a few moments before sliding it back into his pocket. He thought he would feel happy, being the acting President, if not the permanent one. But he felt sick to his stomach. Guilt overwhelmed him, as if he had a hand in his friend’s demise, possibly even his death.
 
I should have said something.