The Warren Omissions (14 page)

A staffer shoved a piece of paper into his hand. It was a security brief regarding the missile silos being erected in Siberia. According to satellite photos, it appeared that five silos were already operational. Intelligence reports suspected another five would be operational by week’s end. It was enough to help Sandford remember why he never said anything. If Russia wanted to bang the drums of war, the U.S. better disrupt the beat.
 
Briggs or no Briggs, the country needs me right now. And they need me more than ever.

CHAPTER 25

IVAN GLARED DOWN AT FLYNN. He was sure his shot accomplished the job, but he didn’t appreciate Flynn’s brazen attempt to distract him. By the time Flynn reached him, where he was wedged between a structural beam and the wall, the bullet had long left the chamber headed for President Briggs. Ivan quickly grabbed the barrel of his rifle and used it as a battering ram against Flynn’s head.

With Flynn moaning on the ground, Ivan scuttled Flynn’s pistol a safe distance away from him.

“Get up,” Ivan barked. “We’ve got to move now—unless you want me to leave you here with the weapon, after I wipe it down.”

Flynn staggered to his feet, moving groggily.

“Here, put this on,” Ivan said, tossing an FBI windbreaker in his direction. “Put this hat on, too. God, I love American merchandise.”

Once Flynn regained his composure and put on the FBI disguise, Ivan would’ve sworn he was a real agent.

Ivan, still wearing his catering uniform, led them through a ventilation shaft that allowed them to slip down to the third floor. With the chaos emptying the building, nobody even noticed them merge into the crowd and make their way out to the street.

Once outside, Ivan felt Flynn resist his firm grasp as if he might try to make a dash to escape. Ivan tightened his grip and pulled Flynn’s ear closer to his mouth so he could hear him.

“If you want to see your girlfriend alive again, you won’t do anything stupid. Understand?”

Flynn nodded and relaxed, continuing to follow Ivan’s lead through the mass hysteria.

After another hundred yards, they arrived at the curb, where a dummy news van awaited with its doors wide open. Ivan’s cousin, Andrei, was driving.

“Hurry up and get in,” Andrei said. “We need to get moving before they quarantine the area.”

Ivan shoved Flynn to the back of the van where another operative zip tied his hands and feet.

“You’re not going anywhere for a while unless you know some magic tricks,” he said as he yanked on the tie to make sure Flynn had no chance at escape.

Ivan slapped the inside of the van wall twice and off they went.

He then edged next to Flynn and whispered in his ear.

“That was a stupid thing you did back there,” he said. “You almost made me miss. Fortunately for you—and your girlfriend—I’m not easily rattled. You just better hope your President died from that shot. If he didn’t, I’m holding you personally responsible. You might have to die in his place.”

Ivan watched Flynn’s hand shake.

“You nervous?” Ivan said, gesturing toward Flynn’s hands.

Flynn shook his head.

“Well, you should be. My boss says if you prove to be useful, you can live. Once you start being unuseful—”

Ivan made a throat slashing motion with his thumb.

It only made Flynn tremble more.

“Don’t worry. You’ll get to see your girlfriend in a few minutes. Maybe she can kiss your forehead and make it feel all better.”

Ivan laughed out loud before slamming his elbow against Flynn’s forehead and banging him into the side of the van. The vicious hit knocked Flynn out again.

Staring at the reporter, Ivan almost felt sorry for him.
 
If you would’ve just stuck with the story I gave you, you wouldn’t be in this mess.

Ivan leaned against the van wall and reflected on the events of the previous hour. His back still ached, but his heart felt good. He had been training his whole life for something like this, hoping that he could be part of influencing change in the world. Good change.

He glanced at Flynn, who started to edge back into consciousness. Ivan bashed his head against the van wall one more time, putting him out again.
 
When he wakes up, he’ll have no idea where he is.
 
He then took Flynn’s phone, turned it off, and tossed it out the window.

Fifteen minutes later, they arrived at a warehouse used as a staging area for all of the Kuklovod’s operations. Ivan grabbed Flynn by the back of his jacket and led him to the door. He proudly showed his catch to the three other men, who offered a light-hearted applause as they congratulated him on a successful operation.

“Is he dead yet?” Ivan asked to no one in particular.

“Who?” one of the men asked.

“The President, you idiot. Who else do you think I’m talking about?”

“Not yet, but from the sound of it, he won’t be alive much longer. That was one heck of a shot, Ivan.”

Ivan beamed with pride as he shoved Flynn toward one of the men.

“Lock him up with the girl,” he said. “They may still be of some use to us yet.”

One of the guards slammed Flynn’s head against the wall, knocking him out cold again. He dragged Flynn’s body across the floor before sliding him into the room with Natalie and locking the door.

Ivan then sat down in front of the small television set placed on an empty desk near one of the barren walls. It wasn’t often that he got to watch his target die on national television. He grabbed a bottle of vodka out of the bottom drawer and took a long pull on it. It was almost time to celebrate.

CHAPTER 26

OSBORNE STORMED DOWN THE HALL toward the conference room. The stack of operational papers in his hand meant little to him now.
 
If Barksdale’s ego wasn’t so big, we wouldn’t be in this mess right now.
 
He entered the room and sat down in the closest empty seat, slamming his papers down in front of him. The agents already present buzzed about how the Secret Service let such a thing happen. It only made Osborne angrier.
 
This was our nightmare to stop and we did nothing.

Osborne seethed, unwilling to engage in any speculation with the others as to the whereabouts of the shooter or the chance of survival for the President. He joined the agency to serve his country, to protect the ones he loved. Yet an incident like this made Osborne question his competency, as well as that of the entire agency. He wondered how directors and agents let their egos mitigate their ability to make wise snap decisions. Perhaps he was making more of the situation than he should have, extrapolating an isolated incident with one bull-headed director across the entirety of the CIA. Nevertheless, the happenings in the past hour gnawed at him.

Instead of casting blame, Osborne realized that he needed to focus on the task at hand: locating and capturing the shooter.

When Barksdale breezed into the briefing, nobody was ready for what he was about to say.

“Quiet everybody!” Barksdale hissed.

He glared at each person around the table, spending more time looking at Osborne more than any other person. It made Osborne uneasy.

“We have our first lead—and we are working with other law enforcement branches to find who we believe is our shooter,” Barksdale said, gesturing toward the screen. “This is who we think shot President Briggs.”

Osborne’s jaw dropped, leaving him staring at the screen in disbelief.

“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Osborne blurted out.

It was a picture of James Flynn.

Barksdale looked up from his papers and shot a nasty look toward Osborne.

“I wish I was, but all the evidence points to him at this point as being our shooter,” Barksdale said.

“What evidence?”

“This evidence,” Barksdale said, pointing to the flat screen on the wall where pictures were uploaded.

The first picture was of an agent lying unconscious—or maybe even dead—in a stairwell.

“This is Trey Madison, a Secret Service agent immobilized by James Flynn.”

Barksdale scrolled to the next set of images, one of Flynn walking with another man through the crowd to a van with an open door with another one of them getting into a waiting van with an open door.

“You can’t tell if he’s leading that operation or if he’s a hostage,” Osborne said, defending Flynn.

“He’ll have his chance to defend himself without you making up theories for him,” Barksdale said.

Osborne looked at the papers in front of him. He felt the uneasy stare of Barksdale fall on him. Osborne looked up. Barksdale looked like he might eat Osborne on the spot.

“Do you know how James Flynn knew there was going to be an attempt on the President’s life today? It’s because he was going to make it! Wake up, Osborne!”

Osborne shifted nervously in his chair, uneasy with the operational plan being put in place—and even more so of Barksdale’s determination to pin the assassination attempt on Flynn. The public would find delicious irony in such a story if Barksdale rushed to leak this to the press. But Osborne hated it.

He knew Flynn was innocent—now he had to prove it before he could save him.

CHAPTER 27

HOLED UP WITH A CADRE of Secret Service agents and White House staffers, Sandford wondered if this was really happening. People intended to kill the President with surprising regularity, yet the Secret Service and the FBI thwarted most attempts. And the public rarely heard about them. Sandford couldn’t believe someone actually succeeded—almost.

The staffers huddled as they discussed protocol for introducing Sandford as the acting President. A pair of speechwriters began working on Sandford’s speech informing the country of Briggs’ death. But it was all premature.

Despite the furious preparation taking place, Briggs remained alive, fighting for his life as doctors worked to save him. The reports flowed out of the hospital and to staffers every five to ten minutes—mostly updates on what the doctors planned to do or what procedures they were utilizing. None of it meant anything to Sandford. He just wanted to know if Briggs was going to live or die. And that was a question no one dared attempt to answer at the moment.

Amid the flurry of activity, Sandford slunk into a chair lodged in the corner of the room. Without any decisions to be made, he used the time to think and reflect. In a matter of hours, he could be announced as the new President of the United States, the leader of the free world. Just a few days before when he started receiving the anonymous calls and texts, he dreamed about what such a moment would mean to him. In his mind, it was grand.
 
Gerald Sandford, the most powerful man in the world.
 
But that’s not how he felt now. Feelings of guilt and shame overtook him.
 
Arthur Briggs, my friend, would still be alive if I had said something.
 
Maybe he was right, yet there was no way of knowing for sure. If this secret group—whoever they were—wanted Briggs dead and him to be President, they likely would’ve found another way to make it happen.

More than anything, Sandford worried if he would be able to govern like he needed to.
 
Will they use Sydney’s life to control me? What if I say no?
 
Those were real questions that demanded answers. But Sandford had no way of answering them.

Sandford tried to put things in perspective—the country needed
 
him
 
, not weak-stomached Briggs. With Russia threatening U.S. security daily, the American people needed a leader who wasn’t afraid to go on the offensive and protect them from danger. Briggs would never authorize a pre-emptive strike. But Sandford? He
 
dreamed
 
of launching missiles on the country where his daughter disappeared. His thirst for revenge overwhelmed him.

Conflicted feelings aside, Sandford’s major concern was figuring out how to extract his daughter from the clutches of the Russians without starting a major war. Apparently, they had her—and they had her all along. But could he find her? And could he legally authorize a tactical team to rescue her? It was his daughter. He’d get on a helicopter and go rescue her himself if he knew where she was being held. His fantasy of bravado was interrupted by a staffer making an announcement.

“I just got word from the hospital and it isn’t good,” he said. “President Briggs made it through surgery but then he took a turn for the worse. He’s on life support now and his organs are shutting down. If you’re the praying type, now would be the time to start.”

Sandford wanted to pray. It was part of his daily routine in the morning. He always read his Bible and prayed. But he couldn’t put his heart into it.
 
What kind of demented person prays for a man he wants to die?
 
He couldn’t even muster up the words in his head, much less mean them.
 
What does the Bible say? God appoints government leaders? What if this is what God wants?

Sandford concluded he couldn’t be sure if divine intervention was playing a role in Briggs’ death—and he wouldn’t presume to know what God wanted. But Sandford wanted it, mixed feelings and all. He wanted to take charge. He wanted to save America. He wanted to save his daughter.