Page 2 of The Night Of
Baker had been too aggravated, too frustrated, and too surly to spar with the young Russian president, and he’d just growled at the man, said they’d discuss it later, and then parked himself against the patio railing for the next hour, brooding as he stared at the pool.
I’d watched it all from my post on the trails, counting the minutes that Baker had spent alone and watching his own reflection as the rest of the world rotated around him. A bubble built—impenetrable, it seemed, walling off anyone and everyone and locking him in a prison of his own rage. Not even the First Lady tried to talk to him.
Baker’s bad mood had followed him into his cabin. I’d been on the close side of the perimeter, rounding the back of the pool, when the call came over the radio two hours ago: POTUS and FLOTUS were arguing, screaming at each other.
That was unusual. They had a fairy-tale love, twenty years of marriage, and knew each other down to the molecules that made up their bones. You could see the love they shared whenever they looked at each other. I’d felt it, even, when I had been on the president’s detail. Their marriage was warm and full of affection, and the private moments I’d seen away from the press and the public had made me smile, made me believe there might be some truth to love stories. Not much made my dried-up, shriveled heart feel romantic, but seeing them together had made me think,You know, maybe.
Maybe that was why I’d been so fucking stupid I thought I could—
I shook my head. No matter what my reasons were, they, like me, had been fucking stupid. And I wasn’t thinking about this, damn it.
Every agent had been advised to give Baker and the First Lady some breathing room. Ease off. Even from where I’d been by the pool, I could hear the shouting. What would the other dwarfs think if they heard Baker and his wife bellowing at each other, especially after watching Baker throw his attitude left and right all evening?
Those were not my problems. I wasn’t on the president’s detail anymore. I was in charge of this trail, this patch of dirt ambling through the woods, and these midnight hours. That was it. In fact, I was barred from anything beyond these duties. I’d forgotten that once, but I wouldn’t again.
Never again.
One foot in front of the other. I kept my mind blank through sheer force of will.
Dirt crunched beneath my boot. An owl hooted. The cloud shifted away from the moon, opening up the wide, open expanse of the president’s backyard. I could see all the way across the golf green, all the way onto the pool deck and the back terrace.
I froze midstep. My heel touched the ground. The rest of my foot did not.
Someone was on the president’s pool deck.
Someone hugging themselves and staring at the water. Slender, tall. The fine details were obscured, and they were more a shape and an outline than anything else. They also weren’t moving, weren’t sneaking around or trying to hide in the shadows. They were just standing there, almost as still as I was, arms wrapped around their waist as if they were chilly, despite the warm summer night. It wasn’t a secretive pose.
Another figure came from around the far side of Aspen from the direction of Witch Hazel. They came out of the shadows and strode up the path to the president’s pool deck without so much as a glance over their shoulder, not a worry in the world. Someone who was confident in their place at Camp David. High probability this was another agent, then. Dick move to not announce their movement on the radio, but then again, after midnight we kept chatter to a minimum. Especially with so many ears around us and seven nations’ worth of intelligence agents breathing down our necks.
Figure number two—a man, I could tell by the silhouette as he passed through a band of moonlight—joined the first at the pool deck. His arms went around the first one, wrapping her—I saw her silhouette as she turned—up and pulling her into the circle of his hold. Her head rested on his chest, and they became one dark blob as he stroked her back.
Lovers’ rendezvous, maybe? It didn’t look overly romantic from here. More comforting than sensual. But still. Was it a Secret Service agent and a presidential aide? If I picked up a handful of rocks and hurled them in any direction, I’d hit half a dozen aides. If an agent were carrying on with someone on the staff, they wouldn’t have time for much more than a midnight rendezvous by the pool, a quick kiss and maybe a dash to the bushes if they were brave and didn’t mind scopes watching their every move. Were these two that brave? Or foolish? A year earlier, I’d risked it, a world away. But I’d taken him way, way outside the ring, and we’d been alone, absolutely alone, when I’d—
I set my foot down and walked on. Left my thoughts on the trail, like they were trash I could drop behind me. Like black oil and regret.
My mind slithered back to what I’d left behind, though. I couldn’t move on. I remembered so clearly the sharp bark of his laugh, the softness of his hair, the warmth of his skin. Goddamn it. Another G8, another moon-soaked midnight, one year ago. I didn’t want to remember—fuck, not at all. But maybe I should. This was the punishment I deserved, after—
A gunshot fractured the night. Its echo rolled on and on, over the green and into the woods. Into me and through me, as if the cavitation had opened a hole in the center of my chest.
For a second, there was stillness.
The radio in my ear screamed, “Shot fired! Shot fired! Shot fired in Aspen!”
All hell broke loose as I ran, tearing toward the cabin. The couple I’d spotted on the pool deck had vanished. Voices fought for dominance on the radio. “What’s POTUS’s status?” “Who fired?” “Lock everything down!”
“Oh, Jesus Christ!”
The last, I heard both over the radio and bellowed at the top of Garcia’s lungs as I barreled up the pool deck steps and vaulted over the patio railing. The doors to Aspen were open, and the three agents who had been stationed outside were already in. I had heard a door splintering open as I ran, and now flashlights were bouncing around inside, down the dark hallway to Baker’s bedroom.
I was at the back door when I heard in my ear, “POTUS is down! POTUS is down! Get the medevac, now!”
I shouldered past a frozen agent in the doorway and burst into Baker’s bedroom.
And stopped dead. My stomach wrenched itself inside out. Every muscle seized. I felt a part of myself continue forward, inertia and momentum ripping something loose. It banged around inside me as I stood there like a crash dummy, frozen and stupid. Something cold took root in my heart: failure.
President Baker lay slumped on his side, one cheek resting in a pool of blood that ran down his neck and circled his throat before soaking his chest and his dress shirt and spreading to the floor. Jesus, there was so much fucking blood, like someone had turned on a faucet and it just kept coming and coming. The one eye I could see was open, his pupil fixed and dilated, a glaze already beginning to settle. It was like I was looking into a doll’s eye, not a man’s. Not President Baker’s. Not good, not fucking good.
Garcia, Pitt, and White were the three agents on duty. I’d passed Pitt on my way in. Garcia was on his knees behind Baker, his hands fluttering over him like he didn’t know what the fuck to do. White had his gun drawn at the side of the bed, his body performing the sweep-and clear maneuvers even as his gaze was locked on Baker. All three were more junior than me, just a few years on the detail. Junior enough to have drawn the short straw for the graveyard shift.
