Page 133 of Enemy Within
The driver stopped and looked her in the eyes after he rolled down his window. She walked toward him. “Hi! Thanks for agreeing to this special delivery. We really need to try and bring some cheer into the White House. Everyone has been so down since the attack.” As she spoke, she motioned to his hip, and his holstered weapon.
The driver withdrew his weapon slowly and held it out to her, below the windowpane. A silencer was already screwed into the barrel.
“Thanks so much,” she said, reaching for the weapon.
She whirled around, facing Jason, and pointed it at his chest. “Sorry about this, Jason.”
Shock blasted across his face, followed by betrayal.
She squeezed the trigger twice. Jason fell to the ground, limp, and his head cracked against the concrete. Twin pools of blood spread from his chest, above his heart.
“You missed,” the driver growled.
“Shut up.” She passed the weapon back to him. “He wasn’t supposed to follow me.”
“What are we going to do about him?”
“Leave him there. He won’t matter in ten minutes anyway.” She slapped the side of the van and the rear doors burst open. Twelve men poured out, each wearing the coveralls her normal delivery florists wore. Bins and buckets of roses and tulips, lilies and sunflowers came out of the back of the van, too. The men dumped the flowers on the concrete.
Weapons poured from the bottom of the buckets. Subcompact rifles and handguns, magazines and clips. Enough ammo to lay siege to an installation, shatter a building’s foundation, and kill everyone inside. Or to take the West Wing of the White House.
Jennifer grabbed a subcompact rifle and held it close, low and ready, her finger over the trigger. “Up the stairs, down the East Colonnade, through the Cross Hall, and into the West Wing. Head for the elevator to the PEOC. The bunker.” Her team nodded.
These were her brother’s men.
Her twin brother had died years before during a “training accident”, according to the government. When she’d asked for more information, tried to find any information at all about how he died, door after door had been slammed in her face. No one had wanted to talk to her about her brother.
A personal visit from General Madigan had set the story straight. Her brother had been a hero, fighting in the shadows, in the black spaces off the edge of the map. Leading missions so dark only an elite few knew about them.
Years ago, her brother had a led a mission into the dark heart of the Middle East. He’d never returned, and the government had erased all knowledge of him. A stock letter, with a typo, was all she had left of his life, telling her he’d perished in an “unfortunate training accident”.
Until Madigan had come to her. Given her the truth. Told her what really happened, and how the United States had abandoned her brother to die and then abandoned him again to be forgotten from history, stricken from the record and denied his rightful honors as a hero. Rage had nearly killed her for two years, but Madigan kept checking in on her through his people. Helped her when she needed it. Guided her when she was lost.
Doors opened before her, acceptances to Georgetown, and a position at a top DC think tank, a consultancy that worked with the off-book segments of the military. Through it all, she’d trained when she could, meeting contacts in underground gyms and country escapes. She’d learned to shoot in the West Virginia backwoods, under the tutelage of a Special Forces sergeant who specialized in training individuals, no questions asked. She had purpose again.
One day, out of the blue, an invite to a prestigious floral design course in Paris appeared, alongside an advertisement for a position as a White House floral designer. Her path unfurled before her like a rose in slow bloom. She would be the spider at the center of the blossom, waiting to strike.
During the first coup, she’d sheltered in the East Wing, huddled in Barbara’s office as she longed, with all the fire in her soul, for the end of Jack’s government, and of Jack Spiers himself. As hard as Barbara prayed, weeping softly in her shaking voice and huddled with Jennifer, Jennifer begged for the exact opposite. Downfall. Destruction. A new dawn in the world. It had been so close.
And then, setback.
She’d almost quit. Almost put a bullet in her brain, determined to join her brother at last. Madigan was gone, on the run and in hiding, and their world, their dreams, were at an end.
Until a man came to visit her one night with a message from Madigan. One of her brother’s men, he said. And they had work to do. Stay in place. Keep your cover. Report back. Wait for more orders.
Her next orders came much later, from the lips of a Marine who worked for Ethan Reichenbach. One of the select members of the elite team responsible for hunting Madigan.
They laughed all night long at that, sharing drinks before tumbling into bed. She saw him every time he was in DC with his team, working operations and missions for Reichenbach. They shared intel, and her bed, and he passed everything to his contact at Madigan’s side.
Soon, she’d see him again. He’d sent word that he was headed out on one last mission, one last operation embedded in Lieutenant Adam Cooper’s team before their new dawn rose.
When the world was in ashes and the fire burned out in the sky, they’d find each other in the rubble and wreckage, and make their way by the flaming light of the new dawn.
But first, she had her own mission. Her own part to play in the revolution. Jennifer led her team out of the underground garage, stepping over Jason’s unmoving body. They snaked up the silent East Wing stairwell. All she needed now was for Barbara to poke her head out.
The East Wing was a ghost town. Only key staff remained. With Ethan Reichenbach presumed missing and the government in crisis mode, there wasn’t much for a social secretary and floral designer to do. Her team padded through the empty hallways, slipping silently down the East Colonnade. She led the stack by the door to the Residence, outside the Grand Visitors Foyer separating the East Wing from the Residence.
Her team, her brother’s men, each looked her in the eye. She nodded back to them.
