2

“Her toe?” Tom slammed his fist on his desk.

His face had gone pasty white. “They sent you her toe?” John nodded.

He’d told them the whole story. A disjointed telling, but he didn’t think he’d missed anything important.

He glanced up from his seat at Decker, who stood to the side, hands behind his back, impassive, then back to Tom.

“Tom, I’m sorry. I didn’t… I don’t know what I was thinking… but I didn’t see that I had a choice…” I’ve doomed Katie. The thought kept hammering at him. Why couldn’t I have let Tom swallow those pills? What kind of a father am I? Snake will find out. And then he’ll…

“You didn’t have a choice,” Tom said, “but you still couldn’t go through with it. Even with poor Katie’s life at stake you couldn’t. Honestly, John, if positions were reversed, I’d have done the same.” He slammed his fist on the desk again. “The soulless bastards! I can’t believe this has happened.” He looked at Decker. “What do we do first. Bob?”

Decker rubbed his jaw, looking uncomfortable. “Well, the first thing I think we need to deal with is the crime that was committed a few moments ago.”

“What?”

“An attempt on the life of the President of the United States. That’s…”

Tom held up a hand. “Stop right there. As far as I’m concerned, nothing happened.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m not permitted to ignore an…”

“Ignore what? Did you see anyone do anything to me, or attempt to do anything to me?”

“I heard his own statement about giving you those pills.”

“And you now have my statement that he didn’t. And without corroboration from the alleged victim, you don’t have a case. So we will drop that subject and move on. What do we do now?”

Decker sighed. “All right, first thing is to call in the FBI. They’re the kidnap experts and we’ll need access to their crime lab. Next—”

“No!” John said, rising from his chair. “You can’t do that. Once I’m exposed, I’m of no use to them. And if I’m of no value, neither is Katie. They’ll kill her!”

“We can keep it all under wraps,” Decker said. “We’ll—”

“No!” John could hear his voice rising but he didn’t care. He had to make them see. “They’ll know! They’ve got someone inside. Maybe right here in the White House.” He turned to Tom. “If they can find out about your chloramphenicol reaction, they can sure as hell find out that I didn’t give you those pills and I’ve told you what’s going on! Please! There’s got to be another way!”

“He’s right. Bob,” Tom said. “They must have one hell of an information pipeline. And by the way, any ideas about this ‘they’ we’re talking about?”

“Well, we know it’s drugs,” Decker said. “They told Dr. Vanduyne flat out they don’t want you showing up at The Hague conference. It’s probably Colombians, or maybe Mexicans.” He rubbed his jaw. “And I think you’re right about that high-level leak. They picked up the little girl the morning after your speech.”

Tom nodded. “Which means they knew what I was going to say and had the plan in place, ready to go.” He swiveled in his chair and spoke toward the windows. “Who is the son of a bitch? I swear, if I ever find out…” He swung back. “We’ll find him eventually. Question is, what do we do now?”

Decker said, “Let me think.” John watched the Secret Service man wander around the Oval Office, staring at the floor, at his shiny brown wingtips, then at the ceiling. John wished he could come up with his own plan, but his mind was numb, dead, empty.

Finally Decker returned to Tom’s desk.

“All right. Here’s an idea. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I can do on such short notice. Why don’t we try a two-tier approach? Only three people know for sure you didn’t take those pills. Let’s keep it that way. We three will make up that first tier.”

“Who’s on the second tier?” Tom said.

“A small task force”—he glanced quickly at John—“a tiny task force consisting of select members of the Secret Service, the FBI, and the DEA that will—”

“They’re going to find out!” John said, feeling close to panic. “As soon as they find out there’s a task force, Katie’s dead!”

“Not if I limit it strictly to people I’ve known for a long time, and not if the President himself puts them on special assignment and forbids them to discuss the details with anyone, even their superiors.”

“Consider that done,” Tom said.

John didn’t know what to say. Did Decker know people who were absolutely trustworthy? Was anyone absolutely trustworthy? Maybe it could work. Maybe. But if it didn’t…

“But there’s one big point you haven’t covered,” John told Tom. “They’re expecting you to get sick. If you don’t…”

“I think we can cover that,” Decker said. He turned to Tom. “But it will involve you admitting yourself to Bethesda Naval Hospital. Your office will say you’re in for a check-up but the people behind this will read that as a sign that you’re ill.”

Tom pressed his fingertips together and leaned back, musing. “Well, Bethesda’s got the presidential suite… I can conduct business from there for a few days… Not a good time for this… not a good time at all…” He glanced up and his eyes met John’s. “But that’s what we’ll do.”

John felt his throat constrict. “Thanks, Tom. You don’t know what this—”

“It’s Katie. And she’s been kidnapped and hurt because of our friendship. That makes me part of this. Don’t you worry. We’ll get her back.” John leaned back and closed his eyes. He wanted to believe that. He had to believe that.

3

Bob Decker saw Dr. Vanduyne out to the elevator, then headed back to the Oval Office.

He had to admit he was pumped up. That had been one goddamn close call in the Oval Office. A catastrophe had been averted, but the Service could take no credit for it. Yet if Vanduyne had let Razor swallow those pills, even though he was Razor’s best friend, the Service would have taken all the heat. A no-win situation all around.

But that was past. Razor was safe, the conspiracy had been exposed, now came the fun part: tracking down these sons of bitches.

Maybe not that much fun. The leak bothered the hell out of him. Directly beneath the Oval Office lay W-16, the Secret Service command post. Was the mole among the select one hundred agents on the White House detail who worked out of there? Decker hated to think so, but he had to consider the possibility. Had to be very careful who he brought in on this.

But the first step had been taken. He’d sent Vanduyne home to e-mail the kidnappers that he’d dosed the President with whatever it was that was supposed to kill him—Decker still didn’t understand that part—and then he was to return with hard copies of all the e-mail he’d received from the kidnappers… plus his daughter’s toe and whatever packaging had come with it. Who knew? Maybe they’d get lucky and find a fingerprint or something else to help narrow the search.

He stepped back through the door into the Oval Office.

Razor was standing at the windows, gazing out at the morning. He turned as Decker closed the door behind him.

“I want this settled quickly. Bob.” His eyes were blazing. “I want these bastards. I want them to resist arrest, and I want the shit kicked out of them. I want them hurt real bad, real bad before they’re brought in.” Decker had never seen Razor this angry; he realized it was the emotions speaking and figured the best course was simply to agree.

“Yes, sir.”

“But I can’t emphasize quickly enough. I want that little girl returned before The Hague conference.”

“We’ll do our best, but without a full mobilization—”

Razor nodded. “I understand. You’ve got one hand tied behind your back. But what’s your plan? Who are you bringing in?”

“Well, I figure I can limit the second tier to one each from FBI and DEA. Get them up to speed on everything except the fact that you didn’t swallow the pills.”