Out of the Dark

33 Big, Boomy Reds

Doug Wetzel stumbled up to the northwest gate of the White House, his face so ruddy and flushed it looked almost rubbery. As he reached the guardhouse, he thumbed the white button on the intercom and announced himself in a shaky voice.

The front gate rolled open.

He stepped into the embrace of the sally-port pen, credentials held aloft in a trembling hand.

Before he could approach the slot in the bulletproof glass, one of the Uniformed Division officers keyed to him, the voice made tinny by the speaker box. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”

Wetzel broke, sobbing openly, saliva gumming at the corners of his mouth.

He tilted back his head, the well-trimmed beard lifting to show what had been secured around his neck.

A bomb collar made of tubular nylon.

“Hands! Hands! Don’t move! Don’t move!”

An emergency-response team materialized instantly out of the night fog.

As Wetzel spread his arms, his jacket pulled open and the duct tape ringed around his torso came visible, securing not explosive charges but manila files from his own briefcase.

A photograph pinned to his hated tie showed a federal prosecutor lying in a pool of her own blood in her foyer.

“Please God,” Wetzel said. “Can anyone help me?”

President Bennett tipped back his big-bowled sommelier’s glass and took a considered sip of Château Lafite Rothschild. He liked big, boomy reds — deep-throated burgundies and earthy bordeaux.

He enjoyed the moment of glorious aloneness in the West Sitting Hall, elaborate chandelier dimmed, the famous half-moon window an elegant portal to the night sky.

He had a full day tomorrow. Morning briefing, fifty-five minutes of world-leader calls, physician check-in regarding A-fib and blood draw, eye and vision examination if time permitted, bipartisan delegation for a foreign-policy meeting, tailor measurements for a new rack of suits, speechwriter meeting in the Oval, lunch with senior advisers, drop-by of counsel’s office staff meeting, informal powwow with the secretary of state, a thrice-delayed photo with the NCAA Championship Wolverines, a Situation Room briefing, the daily wrap-up with the chief of staff, and then maybe — in the brief window between when Europe went to sleep and before the East woke up — a swim in Jerry Ford’s pool.

The footsteps against the plush carpet were soft and soothing, but they portended bad news.

His assistant secretary moved toward him, lipsticked mouth trembling against her porcelain skin.

He set down his wineglass and stood.

The president assembled with a few staff members in the West Wing Situation Room, where he watched a live feed of the bunker where Doug Wetzel had been secured.

Wetzel stood alone, stark against the concrete walls, broad shoulders hunched. Though he’d run out of tears, he was keening hoarsely.

The emergency-response team had acted quickly to contain the problem. Keeping a safe standoff distance from Wetzel, they’d steered him away from any public sight lines, marching him across the North Lawn. He’d kept twenty paces ahead of them, arms held wide, a prisoner walking to his execution. Following their shouted commands, he’d locked himself in a bomb-shelter room in the rear of the bunker, two blast layers removed from the world.

Over the high-def feed, Bennett could hear the ERT leader’s voice through the door: Take off your jacket!

Wetzel squirmed out of the jacket, let it fall to the floor.

Arms wide! Raise your chin!

Wetzel complied, giving a good view of the files strapped to his body and the collar tight against his neck.

Bennett spoke into the starfish-shaped speakerphone unit. “Doug. Calm down. Catch your breath.”

Wetzel was hyperventilating, chest seizing, head jittering. “… trying.”

“What does Orphan X want?”

Wetzel said something, the words blurred over a sob.

Bennett stood and neared the large screen, confronting Wetzel’s life-size image. It was just like standing in the same room with him. “What?” Bennett said. “I can’t understand you.”

Wetzel jerked in a few breaths. “… wants you … to see this.”

As the explosion came through the speakers, Bennett jolted back from the screen, banging his hip against the table’s edge.

His palm had come up to cover his mouth.

On-screen, singed bits of paper fluttered in the air.

It was hard to look at the mess on the floor but harder not to look at it.

The secretary was neither screaming nor crying, but the noises escaping her were an awful hybrid of both. To her credit, she’d kept her feet.

The other staffers were sunk into their chairs, pale, faces drawn. To a one, their blink rates had picked up — were it not for that, they would’ve looked like mannequins.

On the screen the bomb-shelter door swung inward, the team pouring in.

Bennett lowered his hand from his mouth. He noticed that he was still in a protective crouch and drew himself upright.

He gave a wave that was feebler than he would have liked, and someone cut the feed.