House Divided

Right now, her eyes were like saucers. She looked like she needed to go to the bathroom.

“Rodriguez, you’re with me, girl. Ain’t nothing to this. We’re just utility workers, knocking on doors during a power outage. We’ve got a clipboard. The door opens, whoever answers, we take them down. You secure them, I move on. Got it?”

She nodded. “Got it.”

“Stamos, Anderson, you guys move up that alleyway and connect with Marshall and King on the back porch. Stamos, you and King are swinging hammer. You get the word, I want to see you hit that thing with all you got. Two hits max, I want that door open. One is better.”

Stamos nodded. He looked less nervous than Rodriguez, but still pretty green. “I got it.”

“Of course you do. This ain’t your first rodeo, man. So stop acting like it. You got nothing to prove to me. Just do your job the way I know you can.”

“Okay.”

Ed looked at Anderson, then shook his head and smiled. Anderson was thirty-two, and had come to SRT out of Delta Force. He needed a shave. His eyes were hard, but his body language was relaxed. He was probably bored. They had hired him, more than anything, out of Luke’s nostalgia for Delta. Ed doubted he would last. There were wars going on out there in the world, and mercenary work was where the money was.

“You know what to do, man.”

Anderson nodded. “Yeah.”

He addressed the whole group. “Look. There are women and children in there. Job One is to bring the subject out, but Job One-A is to do it with no loss of life. Non-lethal force is the motto for today. That said, don’t anybody let yourself die in there. If they want a fight, you give them one. Understood?”

Everyone understood.

Ed spoke into his mic. “Marshall, King, where are you?”

A voice came through his speakers. “We’re in the neighbor’s yard, just on the other side of the wooden fence. Waiting for go.” Marshall was former FBI. King had come from a SWAT team in Newark, New Jersey.

“You guys heard all that? You on my page?”

“We got you, Ed. Nobody dies today. Not them, but especially not us.”

Ed nodded. “Good.” He took one deep breath. He tried to let whatever tension was in his body release into the universe.

“All right. In and out in ninety seconds, kids. Let’s hit it.”

* * *

“Here they go.”

A dozen video screens were mounted on the wall in Swann’s office. Six of them were currently active, each showing the view from the body camera on each of the SRT agents about to hit Mustafa Boudiaf’s house.

“Office” was a generous term for Swann’s strange kingdom. There were four desks, each with at least three video monitors on top. Three tall computer server racks were bolted to the wall across from the video screens. Wires snaked all over the floor. Everywhere – on the desks, on the floor – were pieces of electronic equipment, with LED lights blinking in red and green and white.

There was one long window; the shelf below it seemed to have a force of magnetism that drew empty Coca-Cola and Red Bull cans to itself.

Swann sat in a chair in front of the video screens, Luke and Trudy standing perfectly still behind him. The screens showed a bizarre jumble of imagery, each screen marked with the last name of the person whose point of view was showing.

The screens marked NEWSAM and RODRIGUEZ both showed a snowy walkway, and a red door at the top of some steps. ANDERSON showed an alleyway, a house to the right and bushes to the left. ANDERSON was moving fast. STAMOS showed the same view, except with a tall man in a yellow safety vest running just ahead, slipping and sliding just a bit in the snow. MARSHALL and KING showed a tall wooden fence, then the POVs went right over the top of it. Now there was a tan house with a wide back porch covered in snow.

“Agents converging,” Swann said. “Anytime you’re ready, Ed.”

The camera marked NEWSAM was right in front of the red door. A hand reached out and its index finger pressed the doorbell.

Ding-dong!

The camera marked STAMOS showed a thin black man, also in a yellow reflective vest, and with his visor in place now, standing with his fist in the air. Then the camera turned to a back door.

Luke held his breath. They were about to take that door down with a battering ram. Then they were going to throw a stun grenade in, a so-called flash-bang. Both of these things would make loud noises. Luke didn’t love loud noises. The flash-bang would make one hell of a loud noise.

Just then, he got a text on his phone. It vibrated in his hand; he had set it to silent mode. He glanced down. It was Gunner.

Hi Dad. Where r u?

“Spell out your words!” he said in his mind. The simplified Orwellian language kids used in texts drove him crazy. Still, he let it drop.

He texted back. At work. Where are you?

Snow day 2day. Wanna get lunch?

Luke smiled. Did he want to get lunch with Gunner? Of course he did.

“Back porch, go!” Swann said, nearly shouting. “Go! Go! Go!”

On the screen marked KING, two men reared back and swung the battering ram.

* * *

“Help you?” the man who answered the front door said.

He was a young guy in a blue T-shirt and red track pants, flip-flops on his bare feet. His brown eyes were flat and more than a little annoyed. His hair stood up in tufts. He had a full beard.

“Yes, hello,” Ed said. He indicated the clipboard in his left hand, and tiny Rodriguez standing to his right. “We’re from the electric utility. We’ve been getting reports of power outages from the storm in this neighborhood. We need to come in and check your smart meter to see if your system is working properly.”

The guy made a sort of grimace. “What? Why would you have to – ”

Suddenly, there was a loud noise somewhere deep in the house.

BAM!

The guy turned halfway around. It sounded like something in the kitchen had —

Ed punched him in the side of the head. He didn’t rear back – he just uncorked it from halfway. It wasn’t hard enough. The guy’s eyes were dazed, but he was still conscious and on his feet. Ed stepped in, slid a foot behind the guy’s legs, and shoved him onto the floor.

“Rodriguez!” he shouted and ran past the guy. Somewhere, in his peripheral vision, through the eyes in the back of his head, he saw Rodriguez jump on the guy, already turning him onto his face and zip-tying his hands, almost in one movement.

Ed walked down the hallway, moving fast. His Glock had appeared in his hands.

“Flash-bang coming!” someone shouted inside his helmet. “Flash-bang coming.”

He stopped, shut his eyes, and ducked back.

Even behind closed eyes, he could see the flash. Even with his ears protected by sound cancellers, he could hear and feel the explosion.

BOOOM!

Somewhere down the hallway, a child started crying. A young woman appeared, carrying a baby in her arms. She ran past Ed, her face frozen in terror.

Up ahead, four large men suddenly swarmed into the house, shrieking, “Down! Down! Get DOWN!”

The stairs to the upper floor were to Ed’s left. He bounded up them, two at a time. If the floor plans were correct, the master bedroom was to the right. He turned that way at the top of the stairs. He could feel, rather than see, another man right behind him. There was a door straight ahead.

He ran at that door full speed. Surprise was everything today. Speed was everything. He hit the door without slowing down, giving it his right shoulder, blasting through it. It was a cheap wooden door – it looked nice, but there was nothing to it.

Ed came crashing into the room head first, rolling to the ground. A bald man in a sleeveless T-shirt and boxer shorts was crouched on the ground in front of him, pawing through a box.

He turned. He held a small revolver in his hand – an old .38 special.

A shadow flew over Ed, reached the old man, and knocked his gun sideways just as he fired it.

BANG!

Then the old man was on his back, the shadow now resolved into a man – a man with a yellow reflecting vest on. The SRT man – it was Anderson, the former Delta operator – put a forearm across the old man’s throat. The .38 caliber slid away across the floor.

“I think this is the subject,” Anderson said over his shoulder.

Ed stood. “All clear?” Ed said into his microphone. “Give me your all clears.”

“All clear.”

“All clear.”

“All clear.”

“Anybody hurt? Anybody down?”

“We’ve got two young guys trussed up downstairs,” a voice said behind him. Ed turned and it was King. “They’re down, but not hurt. Rodriguez corralled the women and kids and has them in the living room.”

Ed glanced at the bed. It was an old rickety cot. The blankets were kicked all over the place. A pair of eye shades was on the floor. The old man had probably been asleep just a minute ago.

Anderson had zip-tied him and was in the process of putting a black canvas bag over his head.

“Mustafa Boudiaf?” Ed said.

The old man shook his head. “Who wants to know?”

Ed turned back to King. He looked right into King’s body cam. He smiled pretty for the folks back home.

“You seeing this, Stone? Smooth as glass. Hard, fast, totally devastating. No chance for meaningful resistance. That’s how you do the tumultuous entry.”

CHAPTER SEVEN

11:45 a.m. Eastern Standard Time

McLean, Virginia

They met in a diner just across from the famous one-arch McDonald’s. The place was ten minutes from headquarters. Luke was there early, nursing a coffee. He sat in a booth at a big bay window, half-watching CNN on the big TV mounted behind the serving counter.

Luke had just spent two hours with Mustafa Boudiaf. He was having trouble getting it out of his mind.

The one place in the SRT headquarters where smoking was allowed was the interrogation room. They had given Boudiaf coffee and cigarettes, and he had drunk and smoked the entire time. But that didn’t soften him up any.

Boudiaf wanted a lawyer. Boudiaf wanted a phone call. Boudiaf wanted to know if he was under arrest. Boudiaf had apparently watched a lot of television.

“What do you know about the plane crash in Egypt?” Ed said.

The sight of a giant black man looming over him didn’t seem to hold any terror for Boudiaf. He shook his head. “I don’t know anything about a plane crash. I was asleep when you invaded my home.”

“Where did all your furniture go?” Ed said.

Boudiaf shrugged. “I am very poor. That’s America. I work all the time, but I have no money. I don’t have any furniture. What you saw is all I have.”

Luke nearly laughed. “What if I told you we know you sent all your furniture to Pennsylvania three days ago? That’s a strange thing to do, isn’t it? Send your furniture and all your belongings inland? Why would someone do that?”

Luke paused.

“Is that what you were doing?”

Boudiaf looked at him. “Who are you, please?”

“It doesn’t matter who I am.”

“It does because I will have your job.”

Luke shook his head. “You’re not the first person who has told me that.”

“You must charge me with a crime or release me. Since I have committed no crime, there is nothing to charge me with. You are breaking your own laws.”

Luke shrugged. “I know you’re in a hurry because you have a plane to catch tomorrow night.”

Boudiaf made no attempt to conceal it. “Yes, I do. I am going home.”

“I thought this was your home.”

“You’re a very foolish man.”

Suddenly, Ed hit the jackpot. “You’re going to miss your plane,” he said quietly, and in a matter-of-fact tone.

That idea set Boudiaf off. “You must release me!” he shouted. “You’re dead men, do you understand? You’re all dead men!” Then he stopped and took a deep breath, seeming to realize what he had just done.

“Why are we dead men?”

Boudiaf shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“How are we going to die?”

“I don’t know that, either.”

Boudiaf’s shoulders slumped, and his body language changed. A moment before, he had been wired, sitting tall, ready to resist. Now he settled into his chair, seeming to resign himself to a terrible fate.

“I must get a message to my family.”

Ed nodded. “We will send it. That I can promise you.”

“If you are being honest, then give them this message. If I am not released, they must get on the plane without me, and leave me behind.”

Boudiaf wanted his family to get out. Before what happened?

Now, in the diner, the car pulled up. It was a black Lincoln Navigator SUV with smoked windows, moving slowly and carefully on the snow-slicked streets. Sometimes it was easy for Luke to forget that Gunner’s maternal grandmother was a descendent of the man who had invented floor varnish in the mid-1800s; his product was still in use more than 150 years later. Of course, the original fortune had been diluted over succeeding generations, but Gunner’s grandparents had a lot of money.

Gunner attended private school and lived in a large stone mansion at the end of a long driveway. A driver took him anywhere he wanted to go. He wasn’t breathing the rarified air of the billionaire elite like Susan’s girls, but…

It was good. Luke wanted only the best for Gunner, things he would never have if Luke’s good civil servant’s salary was paying the way. And as much as Luke wanted to see him every day, it was good that Gunner lived in a place where people were always home. He couldn’t have that with his father – Luke was away from home a lot.

He watched as the boy stepped out of the car, slammed the door, and without a backward glance picked his way through the snow toward the front door of the diner. He wore a long coat of gray wool, heavy boots, and a red scarf wrapped around his throat. He was tall and thin. He reminded Luke of a young English gentleman.

Luke smiled. The kid was trying on personas. It’s what kids did.

Gunner came in, pausing in the foyer to stomp snow and slush off his boots. He moved through the aisle with easy grace and slid into the booth, across the table from Luke. His eyes were big and blue and he was grinning.

“Hi, Dad,” he said.

“Hi, Gunner. What’s the smile about?”

Gunner shrugged. “No school today. What’s your smile about?”

Luke shrugged. “Having a surprise meal with my favorite person.”

The waitress came over, a woman of about forty-five. “This is who you were waiting on?”

Luke nodded.

She put a hand on the side of her face, as if to block Gunner from hearing what she said. “He’s good-looking.”

Now everyone was smiling. “Maybe a little young, though,” Luke said.

She winked at Gunner. “That’s okay. I can wait. You guys ready to order?”

They ordered eggs, pancakes, sausages, the works. Gunner had orange juice. Luke stuck with a bottomless cup of coffee. Then they settled in. Luke was mindful of the time, but on the other hand, he had been up and working since before five a.m., and what was more important than time with his son?

“I saw that plane crash on the news this morning,” Gunner said without preamble. “An American congressman got killed.”

Luke nodded. “Yeah. That’s tough.”

“Are you going there?”

“Egypt?” Luke said.

Gunner shrugged. “I don’t know. Wherever the plane crash was.”

“It was in Egypt,” Luke said. “I don’t know if I’ll go there. No one has asked me to. And there isn’t necessarily any reason for me to go.” Luke could hear the evasiveness in his own answer. “They’re still investigating the reason for it.”

Gunner was shaking his head. “The show I saw said it was probably a terrorist attack. The host said he was ninety-nine percent sure.”

Luke smiled again. This smile was a little more rueful than before. “Well, if a TV host says he’s ninety-nine percent sure of something, then it must be true.”

“Would you consider not going, if I asked you?”

Luke nodded. “I would consider it. But I would also ask you to realize that I have a job to do.”

“Dad, what if I told you I wanted to join the military?”

That’s the way it was this kid. He had a sharp mind, and it made sharp turns. It was hard to know sometimes what was around the next corner.

“Well, I would tell you that if you still feel that way five years from now, then I would help you explore your options. But I would also want to explore your motivations. There are easier ways to get in shape. And if you think you want to do it because it looks like fun, I can tell you right now that it isn’t. The idea of fun will go right out the window the first time a drill sergeant is screaming at you and breathing down your neck during a ten-mile run before breakfast, or the first time you’re face down in the cold mud while they’re lobbing live rounds over your head. And the first time actual bad guys are trying to kill you, using innovative and surprising methods that were never discussed during your training? That will not be fun.”

Gunner shook his head again. On his face was the ghost of a smile. “I would just do it so you can worry about me the way I worry about you.”

Game. Set. Match.

Luke was temporarily without any kind of answer. The kid could do that to you.

“Anyway, here’s some good news,” Gunner said, instantly changing the subject. He could do that, too – get you on the ropes, then suddenly let you go again. He was a little bit like a cat playing with a mouse.

“Let me have it,” Luke said.

“You know how Nana and Grandpa love their skiing. Well, we’re going out to their condo in Colorado for a few days. So that will be nice. I like skiing.”

Luke nodded. He couldn’t imagine how much skiing Rebecca’s parents still managed to do at this point, but so be it. “When are you leaving?”

“Tonight,” Gunner said. “So I’m going to miss another day of school. You know how they are. They think school is for poor kids.”

Luke smiled. Gunner had razor-sharp insights. It was like he could cut into people’s minds and crawl around inside. Luke thought back to Boudiaf, trying desperately to get his own family out of town. Luke’s family – one person – happened to be leaving anyway. That was a very good thing. Whatever was happening, at least Gunner would be nowhere near it.

Across the way, Susan’s face appeared on the TV screen. The camera panned backward, taking in her full body, standing at the podium. She was still wearing the blue suit from this morning. In his mind’s eye, Luke pictured her jumping out of bed nude, in the pre-dawn darkness, to face another trying day. He sighed.

On the screen, Susan looked as beautiful as ever, perhaps less formal than in the past. Less Presidential? A person might say that. The camera pulled back even further, showing the crowded press room at the White House.

Luke stared hard at the room. Feelings washed over him, and it was important not to look away. That was the room where Luke had taken a bullet for Susan, and where Marybeth Horning has been assassinated. For an instant, Luke saw Horning’s head come apart, and his side began to itch where the bullet had penetrated.

Susan was about to speak.

Gunner’s eyes darted back and forth between the TV and Luke’s face.

“Do you love Susan?” he said.

“That’s a difficult question to answer,” Luke said. “We’re both adults. We’ve both had a lot of ups and downs. We both have demanding jobs – she probably has the most demanding job in the entire world.”

“Do you love her the way you loved Mom?”

Luke looked at Gunner then. He shook his head slowly. “I will never love anyone the way I loved your mom. Except for you. I love you just as much.”

He nodded at the truth of what he had just said. Whatever he and Susan had, and it was great, and it was important – it wasn’t the same as what he and Becca once had. He imagined that Susan could say something similar about herself and Pierre. Leave it to a thirteen-year-old boy to clarify all that for him.

On the TV screen, Susan stepped to the microphones.

“Good afternoon,” she said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

12:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

The Press Briefing Room

The White House, Washington, DC

“Good afternoon,” Susan said. “I don’t have a lot of information for you, so I’m going to keep my remarks brief.”

She stood at the podium. She looked out at about fifty reporters and about as many cameras and microphones, which she knew would bring her face and her words to nearly every corner of the globe. She had long ago stopped worrying about that.

For a brief moment, she let her gaze wander the room. It was a bleak winter morning. People did not look like they wanted to be here. Neither did she. The news was bad, and she didn’t want to be the one to deliver it. But the situation demanded leadership, and so…

“As you all know, about four a.m. our time, and eleven a.m. local time, a chartered plane crashed on its approach to the Sharm El Sheikh airport in the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt. On board were United States Congressman Jack Butterfield of Texas, as well as other close friends of ours, including Sir Marshall Dennis of the United Kingdom, and the Egyptian Consul-General to London, Ahmet Anwar. A total of eighty-three people died on board that plane, including twenty-seven Americans, as well as people from ten other countries. There were no survivors.”

Susan paused. Cameras whirred and clicked in the quiet.

“Video surveillance footage from the airport, as well as our own satellite data, have now confirmed what many of us suspected all along – the plane was brought down by a surface-to-air missile fired from the surrounding mountains. We condemn in no uncertain terms this cowardly attack on innocent people, and we stand united with the international community in our resolve to defeat the agents of terror.”

Already the reporters were gabbling and muttering, readying themselves to shout questions at her. This, even though they had been informed beforehand that she was taking no questions.

“We offer our sincere condolences to the families of the victims. Our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

Susan’s breath caught in her throat. For a moment, she surprised herself by fighting back tears. She thought she had gotten past this sort of thing, that she had become so hardened by tragedy, it didn’t reach her emotions anymore. But she was wrong. The crash of that plane, the loss experienced by the families of those on board, triggered something in her – the losses of so many people these past several years, her own losses, and her fears of more.

A sudden image came to her – that of her daughter Michaela, held by gunmen, tied up and secured to a catwalk nearly fifty stories above Los Angeles. She shook that away. It was replaced by the briefest, most fleeting image of an explosion underground, a big steel door blowing outward, and flames engulfing the big Secret Service man walking just in front of her – the Mount Weather disaster.

Everyone in the room was staring at her now.

She stopped following the prepared speech and wandered off script. “In a very real sense, we don’t just stand with you, we are you. This isn’t to minimize anyone’s personal pain, but we’ve all been through the wringer in recent years. We’ve lost family, we’ve lost friends – I’ve lost some of my very best friends on Earth – and we’ve lost the feeling of a secure and sane world that we once had. But we’re going to get that feeling back, and we’re going to pass it on to our kids and grandkids. These terrorist atrocities are going to stop!”

Despite themselves, some of the reporters and TV crew people began to clap.

“We do not yet know who the perpetrators of this attack were. But I promise everyone in this room, and everyone around the world, that we will find out, and when we do, we will act swiftly to bring them to justice. I also reiterate to you that we are working hard, together with our many allies and friends, to create a world where incidents like this do not happen.”

There was near-silence now. She was beginning to repeat herself. That’s what you get for veering away from the prepared remarks.

A heavyset, bearded man in the front row raised a meaty hand. Susan did not acknowledge it, but he spoke anyway. “When you say ‘bring them to justice,’” he said, “do you mean a court of law?”

Susan knew the reporter well, but at the moment, his name escaped her. It was that type of day. “When we know more, you will know more,” she said.

A flood of questions came. Everyone was talking at once, and Susan could barely differentiate one word from the next. Her Secret Service detail began to hustle her from the stage. She leaned into the microphone one last time.