CHAPTER 1
As it turned sharply uphill toward Camp David, the convoy of black Suburban sport utility vehicles filled with family members of President Bob Smart’s cabinet snaked through the shooter’s scope.
A single black Dodge Charger led four hulking black armored vehicles ferrying excited men, women, and children to the well-known presidential retreat in western Maryland on a warm May morning. Windows were rolled down. Children’s arms hung outside catching the wind and sun. Parents smiled in anticipation of the fun weekend.
As the automobiles made the U-turn, shiny metallic paint winked through the misty air as the sun burned away the dew. The convoy turned off the main road into the Catoctin Mountain Park, leaving behind the grassy fields before ascending into the thick forests. Little publicized, but accessible to the leader of the deadly Threat Zero Team, as the ambush squad called themselves, the itinerary for the annual family day was right on schedule.
As the first vehicle slowed at the hairpin turn, Zero One—the leader—pressed a garage door opener sending unit, which transmitted a signal to a receiving unit antenna sticking up from a faux curbstone. The blown Styrofoam curbstone contained twelve improvised explosive devices called explosively formed penetrators, or six-inch copper plates, that became molten fists when fired from the PVC pipes.
The EFPs fired in a flurry of black smoke and flame. The black rectangular hood of the first Suburban popped off, flew into the air, and bounced off its own windshield. The precisely placed EFPs punched through each of the armored SUVs like rocks through a flimsy porch screen. All four SUVs were hit, two were on fire. Doors opened. Women and children stumbled out. Then two men rolled out of the fourth vehicle, both on fire.
Zero One leveled his scope on the first of the two men, fired. Switched to the second man, fired. Saw the woman in her jeans and five-hundred-dollar shirt, shot her through the head. Two children on the ground, injured. He took them, as well. The other members of his team fired on their targets. Each was assigned a vehicle to avoid squirters that might escape. Zero One eyed the trail vehicle, which he had assigned himself. The fire burned rapidly, flames licking the sky. Anyone inside was incinerated by now.
He moved his scope to monitor vehicle three, which he had assigned to the newest member of the team. Two women were lying on the ground, blood seeping from their heads. Good shots. While that Suburban was not burning, smoke was boiling under the hood. Someone stumbled from the vehicle, gasping. Zero Three nailed the adolescent through the head, spinning the child around. He fell into the open door and slid down, arms and legs splayed open, as if he were making snow angels.
After no further activity on vehicle three, Zero One scanned up to the lead vehicles. Two men from the lead chase car were aiming rifles, scanning for the threat, for them. Zero One fired once, killing the man who was using the open Dodge Charger door as cover. Another team member killed the other man, eliminating the threat. Police sirens screamed in the distance. Time to pack up and move.
“Rally,” he said into his microphone. The team executed their well-rehearsed clean-and-collect plan. They then collapsed to an apartment where they had one final task before they would escape and evade in much the same manner that they had entered the ambush location.
The entire attack had taken three minutes.
CHAPTER 2
The charcoal barrel of an SR-25 sniper rifle pressed into the flesh beneath Sammie Samuelson’s chin, aiming upward into his skull.
Vick Harwood had been watching one of the cable news shows on his smartphone—some former senator from Virginia named Sloane Brookes was discussing her presidential aspirations—when he got the Facebook Live notice. Brookes had been commenting on the president’s latest tweet that referred to her as “Slippery Sloane” and alleged she was conducting shadow diplomacy with Iran in the wake of the cancellation of the nuclear deal. Brookes had quickly pivoted away and reminded the host of her support for free tuition for all college students, paid for by trimming the defense budget.
All that melted away, though, as he stared at his smartphone, watching the Facebook Live feed from Samuelson’s Facebook account. He recognized Samuelson’s slightly deformed skull. The unmistakable scar from a mortar attack was a bright red four-inch hash mark just below a tuft of hair not much larger than a Mohawk. Samuelson’s face was pocked with wounds from rock and shrapnel sustained during the attack in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. His eyes were in their signature half-lidded stare, nearly catatonic. Eyebrows pinched together, making his normal unibrow look even more authentic. This was a pose that Samuelson could conjure whether he was joking or dead serious.
Harwood hoped this was some kind of sick joke.
Thumbs-up, crying face, open-mouthed shock, angry face, and heart emoticons floated across the screen in a steady stream.
“Don’t do it, man,” Harwood muttered. He quickly fired up his MacBook, clicked onto Samuelson’s page, and enlarged the feed to full screen. He pressed off the feed on his smartphone and dialed Samuelson’s number.
A few seconds later a phone began playing George Thorogood’s “Bad to the Bone,” a specialized ring tone that Samuelson had marked just for the Reaper’s phone calls. There was no doubt this was Samuelson with the barrel under his chin. His eyes narrowed slightly at the sound of the phone, but he didn’t move. His pupils unflinchingly stared into the Facebook Live feed, presumably done so from a smartphone.
“Pick up, Sammie. Been through too much, man,” Harwood muttered. The phone clicked through to voice mail with Samuelson’s deep voice saying, “Send it,” in true spotter parlance.
“Sammie, come on, man, talk to me,” Harwood said. The voice mail did not play through Samuelson’s smartphone speakers. The computer screen showed Samuelson’s apartment in the background. It was an untidy studio overlooking a windswept valley of green grass and rising, forested hills. A breeze carried debris and traces of smoke. Over Samuelson’s right shoulder was a desk with an assortment of newspapers, magazines, and loose-leaf papers. Beneath them there appeared to be a MacBook of some variety, a silver monochrome edge peeking out from beneath the mess.
“I’m sorry, Vick,” Samuelson said.
“What are you sorry about?”
Harwood practically shouted at the computer screen. He studied Samuelson’s face. The lips moving in slow motion. The high-definition display on the monitor highlighted every scar, every imperfect line, a cut on the lip, the bristles from missing last week’s Ranger haircut.
“It’s all right in front of you,” Samuelson said. Samuelson’s chin pressed deeper into the muzzle of the weapon.
Copyright © 2019 by Nicholas Irving
