Lincoln becoming President, a man so energetic and physically powerful he was renowned for his parlor trick feats of strength. Four years later, just before he was assassinated, the stress of the Civil War had turned him into a frail and wizened old man.
Susan was still beautiful, but it was different now. She looked almost weathered. He wondered what she thought about it, or if she had even noticed it yet. Then he answered his own question – of course she had noticed it. She was a former supermodel. She probably noticed the smallest changes to her appearance. For the first time, he noticed the dress she was wearing. It was deep blue, very fancy, and clung perfectly to her shape. The neckline was ruffles – there, but understated.
“Hey, nice dress,” he said.
She gestured at it with mock disdain. “This old thing? It’s just something I threw on. You did know we were having a ceremony today, didn’t you?”
Luke nodded. He knew. “It’s amazing,” he said. “The way they put this place back together exactly the way it was before.”
“It’s a little creepy if you ask me,” Susan said. She glanced around at the high-ceilinged room. “I lived at the Naval Observatory for five years. I love that house. I wouldn’t mind living there the rest of my life. This place is going to take some getting used to.”
They lapsed into silence. Luke was here simply to pay his respects. In another minute, he was going to ask her for a car, or preferably a helicopter, to take him out to the Eastern Shore.
“So what do you think?” she said.
“What do I think? About what?”
“About the meeting we just had.”
Luke yawned. He was tired. “I don’t know what to think. Do we have nuclear weapons in Europe? Yes. Are they vulnerable? It sounds like they could be more secure than they are. Beyond that…”
He trailed off.
“Will you go?” she said.
Luke almost laughed. “You don’t need me in Belgium, Susan. Just put an extra security detail at the base there, preferably Americans, and preferably carrying loaded weapons. That should do the trick.”
Susan shook her head. “If it’s a credible threat, we should get to the source of it. Listen, we’ve been playing footsie with the Belgians far too long. There have been too many attacks coming out of Brussels, and I’d like to break those networks. It’s beyond the pale that after the Paris attacks they didn’t put all of Molenbeek on lockdown. Sometimes I wonder whose side they’re on.”
Luke raised his hands. “Susan…”
“Luke,” she said. “I need you to do this. There’s something that didn’t get covered in the meeting. It makes all of this a lot more urgent than you might think. Kurt knows about it, I know about it, but no one else who was there knows.”
“What is it?”
She hesitated. “Luke…”
“Susan, you called me yesterday and had me fly out to Colorado on two hours’ notice. I did as you asked. Now you want me to go to Belgium. You say it’s important, but you don’t want to tell me why. You know my wife has cancer? I only mention that so you know exactly what you’re asking me to do.”
For a second, he thought he was going to tell her more, maybe tell her everything. He and his wife had split up. She was from a wealthy family, but Luke didn’t want any money from her. He just wanted to see his son on a regular basis, and Becca was threatening that. She had been gearing up for a custody battle, but now, suddenly, she had cancer. She was probably going to die. And still she wanted to fight. The whole thing had knocked Luke off his feet. He had no idea what to do or where to turn. He felt completely lost.
“Luke, I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you. It’s hard. We’ve been having a lot of problems, and now this.”
She was staring directly into his eyes. “If it helps any, I understand. My parents died when I was young. My husband seems to have checked out of our marriage, and become a recluse. I don’t even blame him. Who would want more of what they’ve been putting him through? But he’s taken my girls with him. I know what it’s like to feel alone – I guess that’s what I’m saying.”
Luke was surprised that she would open up to him like that. It made him realize how much she trusted him, and made him want to help her even more.
“Okay,” Luke said. “Then tell me why this so important.”
“There’s been a data breach at the Department of Energy. No one knows the extent of it yet, whether it was accident or was planned. No one knows anything. A lot of information is just gone, including thousands of legacy nuclear codes. No one can even say whether that matters – would they even still work? It’s going to take some time to get this sorted out, but in the meantime, the last thing we can afford is to lose a nuclear weapon.”
He sat back. He would go. With any luck, he would get over there, knock a couple of heads together, tighten up the security protocols and be back in a couple of days. In his mind’s eye, he saw Gunner in the backyard shooting baskets.
By himself.
“Okay,” Luke said. “I’ll need my team. Ed Newsam, Mark Swann. And I’m down a member. I need an intel officer to replace Trudy Wellington. Somebody good.”
Susan nodded and flashed a smile of gratitude.
“Whatever you need.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
5:15 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)
The Skies Above the Atlantic Ocean
“Are we ready for this, kids?”
The six-seat Learjet screamed north and east across the afternoon sky. The jet was dark blue with the Secret Service seal on the side. Behind it, the sun began to set. Luke gazed out his window to the east. It was already dark ahead of them – it was late fall, and the days were getting shorter. Far below, the ocean was vast, endless, and deep green.
Luke used his typical psych-up lingo, but it was rote. He didn’t feel it. He’d been awake too long. He had too much weighing on him. And he had taken on a job that he probably didn’t need to take.
He and his team used the front four passenger seats as their meeting area. They stowed their luggage, and their gear, in the seats at the back.
In the seat across the aisle from him sat big Ed Newsam, in khaki cargo pants, a long-sleeved T-shirt, and a light jacket. He dropped his sunglasses over his eyes, against the sun streaming in his window. When he was relaxed, as he seemed right now, all of the muscle tension would go out of Ed’s brawny, hyper-athletic body. He was like a flat tire draped across the seat. Ed was weapons and tactics, and Luke had rarely met a man more qualified – Ed himself was about as devastating a weapon as you could ask for.
Across from Luke and to the left, facing him, was Mark Swann. He was tall and thin, with long sandy hair pulled into a ponytail and fancy black-framed rectangular glasses – Calvin Klein. He stretched his long legs out into the aisle. He wore an old pair of faded jeans and a pair of big black Doc Marten combat boots. The boots made Luke smile – the man had never seen a minute of
