Transfer of Power

THE AMBULANCE FOUGHT its way through the late morning traffic. Downtown D.C. was a quagmire. The security perimeter around the White House had been expanded from two to three blocks to the north, east, and west. To the south, Constitution Avenue had been blocked off, and the section of the National Mall between Seventeenth and Fourteenth was also closed.

The normally congested downtown was unbearable.

The driver of the ambulance inched forward on Pennsylvania Avenue. In his side mirror he could see the large dome of the Capitol, and in front of him, a sea of cars locked in gridlock trying to make their way into the heart of the business district and around the White House. Salim Rusan was surprisingly calm. Part of this was due to his faith in Aziz’s plan, and part of it was due to the fact that he would much rather be stuck in traffic than stuck in the White House.

The ambulance was the last car to make it through the stoplight at Ninth Street. The monolithic Hoover Building appeared on his right-the famed FBI headquarters. Rusan did not smile. It was not in his personality. He was more like Bengazi than Aziz. He was a worrier, and that was why Aziz had chosen him for this crucial mission. R-usan was both the backup plan and the surprise. Depending on how things went, he was to do one of three things. The first was easy and harmless, and despite what Aziz had told the men, Rusan seriously doubted that option would ever present itself. It would be either the second or the third plan that would have to be executed, and both of those would lead to death. Rusan was sure of it. Not just the death of his comrades, but the hostages, the American FBI agents, and hopefully hundreds of others.

Rusan’s only hope was that in the chaos that would erupt when the Americans tried to retake their White House, he could further add to the confusion and buy some of his friends the time to get away. Rusan thought he had a chance to survive.

The plan for his escape was good, well thought out, and just might work.

It was unnerving, nonetheless, to be heading back into the center of the crisis, to the spot where, just three days earlier, he had fired from the roof of the Washington Hotel and killed a dozen-plus Americans. The boldness of the plan was what gave success a chance. Practically every law-enforcement officer in the world was looking for him. The old him, he corrected himself. They would never make the connection between Salim Rusan, the dark-haired Islamic militant terrorist, and Steve Hernandez, the openly gay paramedic from Miami. No, he would continue to inch his way toward the White House, taking his time. When he reached the first roadblock, he would hit the lights on the roof, roll down the window, and tell the D.C. police that he had been told to come down in case they needed him. Aziz had told him it was standard procedure for this type of crisis. He would be one of dozens of ambulances waiting to rush people to the hospital if the need arose.

Rusan had time. The American assassins did not show their faces when the sun was out. They would wait until it was dark, and ifaziz’s timetable was right, they would come either tonight or tomorrow. As long as he had everything in position within an hour or two after the sunset, he would be fine.