Triggers

Muilenburg looked up at the bank of red digits, just in time to see it change from 74:00:00 to 73:59:59. “God save us,” he said.

Chapter 3

There were always two members of the Secret Service Countersniper Team on the roof of the White House; today one of them was Rory Proctor. The chill wind cut through him. He was holding his rifle in gloved hands and walking back and forth, scanning the grounds between here and the Ellipse, the fifty-two-acre public park south of the White House fence. The Washington Monument was visible, but even from this elevated position, Proctor couldn’t see the Lincoln Memorial, where all of the action had been taking place, although he was listening intently to the chatter in his earpiece.

Proctor was so used to scanning for things in the distance, he didn’t pay much attention to the rooftop, which had a stunted colonnade around its edges and a few potted shrubs. But a dove happened to catch his eye as it flew into view. It landed a few yards from him, by a squat metal enclosure at the base of one of the rectangular chimneys on the south side. There was some odd scuffing of the white roofing tiles in front of the enclosure. He took one more look at the grounds on the south side, saw nothing of interest, then walked over to look at the enclosure.

The padlock had been jimmied, and although it had been closed, it wasn’t locked. He swung the lid of the enclosure up, leaning it back against the white chimney, and—

Oh, shit. Inside was a hexagonal contraption of squat metal about two feet in diameter and, judging by the depth of the enclosure, about a foot thick; it looked like someone had taken a slice through one of the lava pillars from the Devil’s Causeway. Proctor recognized the device from intelligence briefings. The attacks on Chicago, San Francisco, and Philadelphia had been successful—meaning the bombs used there had been utterly destroyed when they exploded. But a planned attack on Los Angeles International Airport had been averted ten days ago when a terrorist from al-Sajada, the al-Qaeda splinter group that had risen to prominence after the death of Osama bin Laden, had been intercepted with a device just like this one in the trunk of his car.

Proctor spoke into his headset. “Proctor, Central. I’m on the White House roof—and I’ve found a bomb.”

The doors to the operating room burst open, and Dr. Mark Griffin, the CEO of Luther Terry Memorial Hospital, strode in, wearing a hastily donned green surgical smock, surgical hat, and face mask. “Sorry, Michelle,” he said to the startled surgeon. “You’ve got to clear out.”

Michelle sounded shocked. “I’m in the middle of a kidney transplant.”

“We’ve got a priority patient,” Griffin replied, “and no other operating room is available.”

“Are you nuts?” Michelle said. “Look at this woman—we’ve opened her up.”

“Can you stop?”

“Stop? We’ve just begun!”

“Good,” said Griffin. “Then you can stop.” He looked at the assembled team. “Clear out, everyone.”

“What about the patients? They’re intubated and we’ve put them both under, for God’s sake.”

“Sew her up, then move them out to the corridor,” Griffin replied.

“Mark, this is crazy. The donor flew in all the way from London for this, and—”

“Michelle, it’s the president. He’s been shot, and he’ll be here any minute.”

As soon as the bullet hit President Jerrison, Secret Service agents swarmed into the Lincoln Memorial. The interior was divided into three chambers by two rows of fifty-foot-tall columns. The large central chamber contained the giant statue of a seated Abe made of starkly white Georgia marble, mounted on a massive oblong pedestal. The small north chamber had Lincoln’s second inaugural address carved into its wall, while the small south one had a carving of the Gettysburg Address.

Agent Manny Cheung, the leader of Phalanx Beta, looked around. There were only a few places to hide: behind the columns, in the narrow space behind the statue’s pedestal, or somehow clambering up to perch on Lincoln’s back. Cheung held his revolver in both hands and nodded to Dirk Jenks, the thickset young agent on his left. They quickly determined that there was no one else in here, but—

But the elevator door was now closed. It was in the south chamber, in the wall adjacent to the Gettysburg Address, and had been locked off here at the top with the door open; Cheung knew that Jenks had checked it before the president had arrived. The elevator—used to provide handicapped access to the statue—went from here down to the small exhibit hall in the lower part of the memorial. Cheung barked into his sleeve. “He’s in the elevator heading down.”