Page 104 of Cross Down
We don’t hear the rest because Deacon opens the door and we step in.
The office is large, luxurious, with two leather couches facing each other across a coffee table with copies of today’s newspapers—New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal—next to a spread of magazines ranging fromFortunetoAviation Weekand Space TechnologytoDefense Weekly.
There are bookshelves on which sit models of aircraft and drones—I wonder which model represents the one that destroyed Mir Kas—and on the walls are photos and paintings. Retired army general Gerrold Mason is sitting behind his desk in a fine gray suit that probably cost twice as much as my SUV’s monthly gasoline bill. He’s just as I remember him from Tajikistan except his face is fleshier.
He smiles and starts tapping on his keyboard, his eyes on the computer screen. “Good to see you, Lizzie,” he says.
“You were always a lousy liar, Gerry.”
We get closer to his desk and I say, “Stop typing. Now.”
He smiles more and continues typing. “If I don’t, what are you going to do, shoot me?”
I take out my Glock and point it at him.
He keeps his hands on the keyboard; his eyes stay on the screen. “Lizzie, you’re not going to have me shot, are you? After all we’ve been through?”
With a sigh she says, “No, I’m not, Gerry. You’re right. I’ll tell him not to do it.” She pauses for the briefest of moments. “But he won’t listen. Get your fucking hands off the keyboard.”
Mason does just that and finally looks up from the screen. “What the hell is going on here?”
She smiles, motions to me, and we both sit in the deep brown leather chairs in front of his wide and large desk.
“That, my former dear,” she says, “is what you’re going to tell us.”
Chapter
121
One of the closesthotels to the White House is the famed Hay-Adams, located at 1 Lafayette Square. From the balcony of his sixth-floor suite, Maynard has a clear and unobstructed view of the White House. This is the second time he’s stepped out onto the balcony to look down at the White House with a pair of 7x50 binoculars; he’s also carrying the latest edition ofField Guide to the Birds of North Americafor the benefit of the watchers out there.
His phone rings, and the familiar computer-disguised voice says one word: “Proceed.”
And he responds with one word: “Acknowledged.”
He wonders for a moment if he’ll ever find out her true identity.
He leaves the balcony and goes back into the suite, thinking about the scores of watchers at the White House and the surrounding buildings who don’t know that they themselves are being watched and who also don’t know that at the appointed hour, their observation posts will be destroyed by pre-planted C-4 charges or they will get .50-caliber rounds through their heads.
In his suite, he listens in satisfaction to the sound of keyboards, the static-filled transmissions, and the low voices of his upper team, ready for this day of days. He looks them over. They’re dressed in the uniforms of various services—U.S. Park Police, the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the DC Metro Police.
One thing the movies and TV never get right is what it’s like being in the middle of an ops center. The actors on-screen are always yelling, shouting, cursing, running around in a frenzy. Which is all bullshit. The people on a good team like this one keep their heads down and mouths shut as they look over the continuing deployment of—
“Sir? You need to see this.”
Maynard goes to the workstation belonging to a woman—is her name Taunton?—who worked for the Capitol Police for thirty years before being forced to retire over a bogus charge concerning the alleged assault of a tourist.
She taps her large screen. “Message just came in via one of your older e-mail addresses.”
He looks at it:
MAYNARD, I’M IN MY OFFICE WITH MY BITCH CIA EX-WIFE AND JOHN SAMPSON. THEY KNOW THINGS. GET HERE QUICK. I’LL STALL AS BEST I CAN. MASON.
He says, “Shit!” He glances around the room, then yells, “Smith, Lopez, McCoole, grab your go bags! You’re with me! Now!”
Maynard ducks into his office, grabs his own go bag, steps out, and says to Maria Tucker, a former Marine gunnery sergeant, “Maria, you’re in charge until I get back.”
She doesn’t even look up from her workstation. “Understood, sir,” she says.
