Chapter 63

We waited.

And waited.

We waited so long that I needed to take Charger out for a walk, and we had wandered down to the cafeteria and got ourselves something to eat. Charger is especially fond of double cheeseburgers and seasoned French fries.

We lingered over the fast food quality meal, knowing that the staff would come get me if anything changed. The holdup appeared to be the comings and goings from the hideout. Our agents on the ground were ready, willing, and anxious to put those bastards in the ground, but it made perfect sense to wait to see if they could roll up even more of the network.

So we waited.

We would have still been waiting eight hours later had the current President not asked his Chief-of-Staff to find out what the holdup was. Once Sam was impatient, everything started to move at once.

“Red. This is Blue.” The radio chatter was almost nonexistent.

“Blue. Go ahead.”

It was dark and the falling rain gave the low-light video a hazy kind of look. Throughout the viewfinder, it was obvious that the agents had every possible exit covered and were ready to spring the trap. Holding Charger between my legs for comfort, I prayed to God and the universe for the safety of Ann Marie and her girls. My prayer was interrupted when everything that was readied for the attack happened at once.

I could see the doors cave in followed by the flash bang grenades to blind and confuse the occupants of the abandoned warehouse where the attackers held Ann Marie. The flashes had barely registered in my mind before the teams rushed the doors, coming at the terrorists from all four sides at once. Gunfire broke out all around the place as agents neutralized terrorists and steadily moved inward.

Some rag headed bastards were not having any fun tonight.

One of my minders tapped me on the shoulder. “Mr. President. You might want to let up on the arm of that chair. You are about to rip it off completely.” He was right. My hands ached from squeezing so tightly. Charger licked my hand in sympathy for my condition.

After what seemed like an eternity, the radio exploded with chatter.

“Blue Leader, we have the captives. Repeat, we have all three captives.”

“Red Leader. Confirm hostiles and causalities.”

“Blue Leader. We have three live and multiple dead hostiles. I do not - repeat, Do Not – have a body count, but it is above twenty. There are zero injured team members. We are coming out whole.”

As the people around us celebrated the entire screen went white. It could have been only one thing. The terrorists expected to be captured and set a series of devastating charges to kill everyone in, or near their hideout. It was a nearly foolproof way to avoid the investigation turning up additional cells and took out both assault teams and Ann Marie with her two babies.

The surveillance picture returned, but showed only debris and dead bodies.

Nobody survived the explosions.

It was all a trap.

If anyone was talking around me, I couldn’t hear them. My mind was numb and my soul was bubbling with rage. So many people would die for their role in killing Ann Marie and her children. So many people would suffer unimaginably before giving up their secrets for their complicity in murdering those agents.

For some time I was away in my head. It was only when I felt a hand on my shoulder that I became aware of my surroundings. Shane Victorello was trying to get my attention. “Mr. President. Your Secret Service detail has been formed and is waiting to move you somewhere safe for the night. We will deal with the fallout of all this and give you an update tomorrow, Sir.”

He was being gracious. If I hadn’t dismissed my detail Ann Marie and her children would be fine. It was all on my head ... again.

“Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I am in your debt.” It was all I could manage. The need for revenge had me vibrating with destructive energy, and I had to get somewhere private to channel it into judgment day for some very demented terrorists.

Sleep never entered into the equation for me that night. Charger and I had a couple of extended walks, accompanied by a phalanx of agents, but while he slept, I reached out far beyond government operations for some very special people who would put names and faces to the people behind the murder of Ann Marie.

My old investigative unit was thrilled to be back in business and they were even more motivated by the money I threw at them. It was a lot, but not enough to give what I desperately needed.

Revenge ... Closure ... Finality ... Retribution...

Maybe...

Mostly I wanted their heads on a silver platter, or better yet, splattered all over the pavement where their compatriots could see the carnage and know that the same or worse was coming for them. It mattered not what they charged me.

It’s very satisfying to have money when you need results fast.

Charger and I spent the next weeks living in the Vice President’s Mansion. Sam hadn’t gotten around to naming a replacement for Hawk, and since it was empty, the Secret Service thought of it as an easy place to maintain security. In that time my investigative unit began to unpack the phantom people who organized the hit on me and the murder of Ann Marie.