Double Crossfire Read online

  “We’ve got a runner in the water,” a voice said coolly into a megaphone.

  Right about that, she thought.

  She splashed through ankle-deep water in the culvert, trying to find a higher line so that she could run along the drier portions, but the slimy mud caused her to slip and fall. Undeterred, she pushed up and sprinted forward, wiping the mud from her face. She didn’t dare think about what kind of crap, literally, she was wading through.

  Reaching the far end, she saw a maintenance path that took her up to the far side of the GW Parkway. She was near some apartment buildings that she recognized. Cassie needed desperately to hide the long gun and get back to Zara’s apartment. She needed to confirm that what was in the oxygen tanks was not cyanide gas, otherwise an entire condo full of people were at risk. She ran back down the maintenance trail to the culvert and studied the west side. It was nothing but muck and marsh for over two hundred meters.

  Cassie removed her rifle from her back and did her best version of a javelin toss, watching it dive into the muck and disappear—she hoped for forever.

  In her boots and wet clothes, she ran along the road, and sprinted until she was in the Crystal City underground. She leapt over the Metro turnstile and raced onto the platform as a Yellow Line train was approaching. The few commuters at this hour barely gave her a glance. She boarded and rode five tense minutes to L’Enfant Plaza, where she exited and hurdled the turnstile on her way out, some man shouting, “Hey!” but not bothering to pursue her.

  She raced up the steps, popped out onto the street, and darted to Zara’s new apartment building on the waterfront at the Wharf. Retrieving Zara’s keys, she fumbled with the fob, waved it in front of the reader; the light turned green and she pressed the PENTHOUSE button.

  On the ride up, Cassie thought about Zara and the potential for a double cross. Who was she working for? Good or evil? They were important questions. As obvious as something may seem, intentions were always the most difficult motivations to discern. Plus, Cassie’s personal code had matured in Iran. She had learned from Jake—yes, Jake—that the mission came first, and that you could accomplish the mission while also taking care of your people. No matter what Zara and Jamie told her, Jake was good to the core. He loved her and came back for her. The word from the Rangers was that he had tried to leap from his helicopter at one hundred feet above ground level, a fall that would have most likely killed him.

  Now that the president, vice president, and Speaker of the House were reported as dead, the newly appointed Senate pro tem was next in line for the presidency.

  Senator Carter, the same woman who had lost the presidency during the most recent election. Coincidence? Cassie didn’t believe in those types of coincidences, which would confirm the foundational intelligence that Jake had provided her weeks ago as they developed The Plan. Neither, though, did she fully trust her mind and everything that she was processing. She had been at the scenes of the deaths of the top three figures in government. Her fingerprints were on this . . . everywhere.

  The world went to sleep last night with a duly elected president and vice president and would awake this morning to the news that Senator Jamie Carter is now the president. She had achieved more popular votes than President Smart, but Smart, of course, had run the table on the Electoral College, winning where he needed to win.

  And what about the women who were trained assassins? Was she one of them? Had she avoided similar brainwashing and directed lethality because she had escaped? Or had she been allowed to escape? Set up? Had Jake thought through all of these possibilities? Or was she on her own?

  She needed Jake now more than ever, but now that she was involved and most likely a suspect, he might steer clear or even have orders to capture her. Did he trust her? Could he? She was unsure of whether she should try to reach out to him. With no means of communication, and fully into her undercover legend, was that even a possibility? He had been such a grounding force for her ever since her parents had been slain: then, in Iran, and after. Now, though, she didn’t know. But there was The Plan. She was doing her part and wondered if Jake had done his. She would press on for now, because she sensed there was safety with Senator Carter . . . until her purpose was done. With the Speaker of the House dead, perhaps that time had come. She would find out soon enough.

  The elevator doors snapped open.

  Staring at her was Senator Jamie Carter.

  “We need to get to the swearing in ASAP,” Jamie said.

  CHAPTER 13

  “YOU CAN’T BE SERIOUS,” CASSIE SAID.

  She stepped from the elevator, looking like a paramilitary operative fresh off the battlefield. The mirror in the foyer reflected back at her matted shoulder-length dark blond hair, bloodshot eyes, muddy clothes, and outer tactical vest. Maybe fifty people had seen her, but without the M4, she could pass for an off-duty cop or a chick into popular street grunge wear, like Grunt Style clothing, who just finished a mud run for physical training.

  “Yes, there’s no time,” Jamie said. “It’s all happening so fast.”

  Jamie was dressed in fashionable navy blue skirt and blazer, silk white blouse, and black heels. Stuck to the lapel of the blazer was an American flag pin, required ever since 9/11 and a brooch fashioned into a cardinal, crested tuft and all. Jamie’s blond hair was swept straight back, coifed perfectly. Around her neck hung a David Yurman necklace, with a gold-and-diamond cluster at the bottom that looked like a supernova bursting in the sky. A faint whiff of citrusy perfume hung in the air. Zara’s ninety-five-inch HD television was showing CNN having a panel discussion with possible succession of the presidency. One lawyer was showing a flow chart from the president to the vice president to the Speaker to the Senate pro tem.

  “But how did you even know to be here in DC?” Cassie asked. She stepped into the living room, saw the floor-to-ceiling windows with the automatic blinds raised, giving her an expansive view of precisely the location where she had just been. Maybe two miles straight-line distance.

  “I was coming up anyway. Session is about to start back up after the holiday weekend,” Jamie said.

  Yes, it all made sense. Newly elected senator. She had to be here anyway. Cassie wondered if she was becoming delusional.

  “You don’t seem concerned about Zara?” Cassie asked.

  “Why should she be?” Zara said, stepping from the master bedroom. Her hair was up in a towel, wrapped like a turban. She wore a bathrobe and was applying some cream to her face. She showed no evidence of the wound someone had inflicted on her, but there was swelling around her left temple, where Cassie had whacked her with the butt of her M4 rifle.

  There was Jamie directly in front of her. Zara coming from her left. The rucksack with the Zyklon B was still sitting where she left it. What was happening? How did Zara get back before her? How did she get back at all? The police. The shots. True, her swim had taken some time. Plus, her circuitous route had consumed precious minutes. But she had left Zara among four dead guards, the dead Speaker of the House, and the bum-rush of police.

  “What’s on your mind, Cassie?” Zara asked. She phrased the question as if she was asking her how her day had been. Nonchalant.

  “You seem . . . troubled,” Jamie said. “Here, girl, have a seat.”

  Jamie reached out and gently tugged at her.

  “This can’t be happening,” Cassie said.

  “She’s coming down off her medication,” Zara said, toweling her black hair. Then to Jamie: “I’ll get her enough to get through the next couple of hours.”

  Cassie walked into the living area and stood by the sofa, eyed the rucksack she had worn, and lifted it.

  “I’m tired of your games,” Cassie said. She removed one of the oxygen tanks and grabbed the valve release.

  “Cassie, what are you doing? Those tanks are filled with poisonous gas,” Zara said.

  “Are they?” Cassie palmed the circular valve release, which looked like the average garden hose spigot. She lifted th
e tank and walked over to Jamie, who backed up.

  “What? You’re part of the Resistance? Trying to kill the third in line to the presidency? It’s not enough that you were at the scenes of the other three murders? You have to potentially kill me, too? When all I’ve done is try to help you. Nurse you back to health after your trauma in Iran. Is this what you really believe? Is this what I deserve after all I’ve done for you?” Jamie said.

  Jamie seemed nervous. Perhaps she didn’t know, or perhaps Cassie was wrong? Maybe there was cyanide in these tanks. The report was that the president and vice president had been killed by an explosion, not cyanide gas. As if to emphasize this point, Zara said, “Cassie, we’ve discussed this. You don’t trust well, right now. Think about it. Think about everything you’ve seen.”

  Cassie paused, the tank feeling heavier by the moment. “I know I saw four women I recognized from the Valley Trauma Center. Four women that I presume had sessions with you,” Cassie said. She nodded at Zara.

  “Yes. Our intelligence is showing us that Broome was running the trauma center as a secret training camp for the Resistance. Former athletes and military personnel who had traumatic brain injury. Easier to manipulate, I presume.”

  “Who’s in charge?” Her comment was more of an accusation than a question.

  “Carmen Biagatti, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency,” Jamie said. “We’ve known this about her for several weeks. Our intelligence sources have pictures of her conversing with known Resistance leaders and operatives. She’s got spies everywhere. It’s pervasive.”

  “But I heard you! I heard you tell Broome he was no longer needed. I saw you shoot him! And Syd Wise from the FBI was there. I saw Sally Bergeron and she’s not a pentathlete, is she? She’s a convict from somewhere. Wise made all that happen, right?” Cassie shouted. She pushed the tank toward Zara, emphasizing her point.

  Zara cocked her head and said, “We’ve been over this, Cassie. You think you saw a lot of things, which weren’t real. Convicts? Syd Wise? You even think Jake loves you and wanted to save you.” She walked back to her bedroom, was gone a second, and came back out with a syringe. She tapped it with her finger, expelling any air trapped inside as she applied force to the plunger.

  “Let’s get you some of your medicine. Then we can talk,” Zara said.

  “No. I don’t want any more of that crazy-making shit,” Cassie replied. She lifted the tank across her chest, as if to defend herself.

  “This isn’t going to make you crazy. Quite the opposite. It’s what was in the medical cooler you took from the pharmacy. It is what brings you down from your controlled rage,” Zara said. She cocked her head. “I know you enjoy the hunt. You’re a warrior, after all. First female Army Ranger, and all of that.”

  “Then why? Why give me drugs that make me more aggressive, more hyped up?” Cassie asked. She could feel her resolve soften. Jamie stared at her disapprovingly, as she had done when Cassie was a child. Zara had recovered nicely and looked like she had a full night’s sleep.

  “The medicine I’ve been giving you, Cassie, has been to give you a soft landing. Your mind became conditioned to violence, expected the worst. You told me you even believed you were going to die in that cold cave surrounded by strangers. Jamie ordered General Savage and his team to go in and retrieve you, dead or alive. Thank God you’re standing here alive. Your brain was conditioned to believe you had to do two things: first was to fight, and always fight. The second was to prepare to die and always be prepared. It’s as if your fight-or-flight syndrome was stuck in high gear. The testosterone mix I’ve been giving you taps into that chemical imbalance and alters those perceptions, rewires your thinking, bit by bit. It can’t be done overnight. It takes months. And I’ve also been giving you midazolam, which is a drug I rarely prescribe, but it is effective in helping separate your current thought processes from your agony.”

  “In other words, it helps me forget?”

  “It does. When coupled with the other treatment, this seesawing effect taps into your fight instinct and the midazolam pulls you away from it. It’s trial and error, but I’ve seen it work before. And it has been working on you.”

  “You’re changing the topic,” Cassie said.

  “From what? You think you saw certain things tonight. Women from the trauma center. The Speaker of the House dead. Me, wounded in the boat. Police coming for you, so you ran, instead of staying to help me. I forgive you, by the way, because I understand that a heavy dose of flight comes with the fight, so that you can live to fight another day. It’s primal and core to who you are.”

  “Listen to her, Cassie. You abandoned Zara in that boat. Left her to die, when all we’ve done is try to help you recover. My friends from the Secret Service had to pull her out of there,” Jamie said. Zara walked up to Cassie and placed her hands on the tank, pulling at it. She released it and let Zara carry it back to the center of the living room.

  “We are not the Resistance, Cassie,” Zara said. She turned and looked at Cassie, who was processing everything she was hearing.

  “Then why not go to the police right now?”

  “And say what?” Zara replied.

  “That we’ve been at the crime scenes. We know,” Cassie said. The words, when spoken, sounded ridiculous. Zara was right. What would they say? To that end, if Zara and Jamie were part of the Resistance, how could she even prove it? All the evidence seemed to point at the Valley Trauma Center and, more precisely, to the one former resident who had escaped and been at every critical juncture in the coup: Captain Cassie Bagwell.

  “I see even you realize how crazy that sounds,” Zara said.

  “But that doesn’t mean we can’t benefit from what has transpired,” Jamie said. Then, looking at Cassie, she said, “Do you believe that I am a good leader? A good person? The candidate that received the most popular votes in the last election?”

  After a moment, Cassie said, “I honestly don’t know what I believe anymore. My world is upside down. Here you and Zara are telling me there hasn’t been a coup, when, in fact, that’s exactly what has happened.”

  “We never said any such thing,” Jamie said. “Just the opposite. It appears there has been one, indeed. Does that mean we can’t seize the opportunity? You know the old saying ‘Never let a good crisis go to waste,’ correct?”

  Cassie shrugged.

  Jamie clucked and shook her head. Out of patience.

  “We’ve wasted enough time, Cassie. We can’t keep explaining everything to you. You either trust us or you don’t. If you want to be the special assistant to the president, then you can be so. If you want to go back to your troops at Fort Bragg, I won’t get in your way. Don’t think that for a second anything you’ve seen has anything to do with me or Zara. We have been furiously trying to work behind the scenes to protect this country and its institutions, not overthrow the administration! Because the Resistance has metastasized, and because they view me as somewhat of an unofficial figurehead, we get intelligence fed to us daily. I ignore most of it. We tried to get in front of all of this. Zara’s got those stupid canisters of poison gas in here. Both of you nearly got killed last night, but you were too late to help the Speaker, a dear friend. We either make the most of a bad situation or we let history pass us by. This has been thrust upon me. I will not let the nation down,” Jamie said.

  To Cassie, it sounded a bit as if she was practicing her acceptance speech there at the end.

  “Let’s get cleaned up,” Zara said. She had slipped behind Cassie and pinched the needle into her neck, sending the fluid into her system.

  “What the hell?” Cassie flinched, but Zara had placed her left arm around Cassie and held her. She had her tunnel vision on Jamie and she had lost sight of Zara.

  “This is the midazolam. It will help you come down from the DHT. You need to get in the shower, get cleaned up, and be ready. We’ve got to get Jamie to the Capitol in twenty minutes. You’ve wasted a lot of time, but I understand. You’re c
entral to all of this, so we need to have you on board.”

  Cassie felt the effect of the concentrated antianxiety drug immediately. She stumbled, held on to Zara’s shoulder. The doctor walked her to the shower in the guest bedroom. Jamie’s hanging bag full of clothes was on the bed. Zara helped her strip her nasty clothes off and turned on the shower for Cassie.

  “Might as well burn these putrid things,” Zara said, holding up Cassie’s clothes. She tossed them into the fireplace in the bedroom and torched them immediately. The outer tactical vest hung on a hook on the back of the bathroom door. “We’ll clean up the rest afterward. Your clothes are in the closet. Put on something reasonable, but tactically practical also. You know the drill.”

  Cassie showered, picked out sensible black pants and a navy blouse, with a black Windbreaker. She walked into the living room and noticed the two tanks were on the balcony. Better to spray the neighborhood than just the inside of her apartment, Cassie figured. Jamie and Zara were sitting at the dining table, adjacent to the kitchen. An elaborate gold-and-silver chandelier hung above the granite table. They were both staring at the screen of a MacBook.

  “Cassie, you need to see this,” Jamie said.

  Cassie walked around the table and looked over their shoulders. They were viewing a camera feed from a dark house somewhere. She saw two bodies, one holding a weapon, another holding a spotter’s scope. She immediately recognized Jake as the one holding the weapon. The second man had to be Sean O’Malley. She recognized his tuft of curly hair and his Boston accent as the recorded conversation between the two men began.

  “You’ve got the shot,” O’Malley said.

  “Be good to put this bitch down,” Jake said.

  “That’s Cassie, you know,” O’Malley said.