Day Zero

Epilogue

Vice President McKeon slammed the receiver down on his desk phone and buried his face in his hands. Winfield Palmer and Virginia Ross had both disappeared. Eighty-seven passengers on Global Flight 105 were dead or missing. Witnesses from the wreckage recalled seeing several men with children, but Quinn was still unaccounted for. McKeon would assume nothing until he had a body to prove the man was dead.

He snatched up the phone again, ordering his secretary to get him the commanding officer of the I Marine Expeditionary Force.

Thirty seconds later, Lieutenant General Race Craighead came on the line. He wasn’t an “inside man” as McKeon had come to call the moles put in place by his father, but Craighead had his eye on a job with the Joint Chiefs, and wanted it badly enough to hop if the administration told him to.

“What can I do for you, Mr. Vice President?” the general asked.

“I’m aware of a certain gunnery sergeant,” McKeon said, “whose skills are being wasted pushing papers at Quantico. I’d like to see him put to better use, say in some forward operating area in Afghanistan.”

Two hours later, Jacques Thibodaux found himself standing tall in the colonel’s office at Marine Corps Headquarters and Service Battalion at Quantico.

“I don’t know who you pissed off, Gunny Thibodaux,” Mike Wilde, the battalion colonel, said from behind the desk in his sparsely furnished office. Thibodaux’s senior by only a couple of years, the commanding officer looked much older, with thinning gray hair and an even grayer disposition.

“Proud to serve, sir,” Thibodaux said.

“Stand at ease, Gunny,” Wilde said, getting up to shut the door. “I’m a friend of Win Palmer’s, if that means anything.”

Thibodaux nodded his head, but said nothing.

“The administration is trying to pull a little Uriah the Hittite shit with you. You know what that means?”

Thibodaux nodded. “My wife’s a Bible girl,” he said. “David sent Uriah into battle, and then withdrew in the heat of it, so he’d be killed and David could have his wife, Bathsheba.”

“Exactly,” Colonel Wilde said. “But Marines aren’t that way. Are we, son?”

“No, sir,” Thibodaux said, smiling. “I expect if Uriah would have gone to battle with a bunch of Marines, he’d have come back alive and kicked David’s ass.”

“Precisely,” Colonel Wilde said. “So, we’ll ship you off, just like the administration wants us to. According to Palmer, you have a friend over there who could use your help.”

Glen Walter turned south off K onto 16th Street, heading toward an appointment at the White House. He was just a half a breath away from a bullet and he knew it. That Japanese girl was much more than McKeon’s assistant. Walter could smell it on her. If anyone tried to kill him, it would be her. He’d managed to lose Virginia Ross and seven men on the same day. The men were of no consequence to the administration, but the media and his superiors had more of a conscience than the Vice President, so there would be a flurry of questions that could very well throw his anonymity, and thus his ability to do his job, in jeopardy.

He’d just passed the Hay Adams hotel and was approaching the back entrance to the White House grounds when his phone rang. He took the call via Bluetooth on the speaker of his Crown Victoria.

“Mr. Walters… I mean Walter,” the voice said, shaky with tension and excitement.

“What is it?” Walter said. He took a left on H to make another block, in no hurry to see the Vice President and his little Japanese assassin girlfriend.

“Sir… this is Gant,” the caller said. “You know that Cuban girl you’re looking for?”

Walter slowed the car. His hands gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white. “Go on.”

“She’s riding a motorcycle heading north out of Beltsville…”

“Do not lose her again,” Walter said, nearly coming out of his seat. “I’ll get you some air support right away.”

“I won’t let you down, sir,” Gant said.

Walter hung up, turning toward Logan Circle and Highway 1. The Vice President would just have to wait.