The Shield Read online

  Matthew glanced up at me. He furrowed his brow.

  “How do you know they’re even real?” Chef added.

  Matthew said nothing. Just looked to the side, thinking.

  Chef smiled. He wiped his hands on his pants. “I’ll tell you what,” he said, glancing at the other Secret Service agent posted outside the door, “you give me five minutes to clean up and I’ll show the both of you a few things. Okay?”

  Matthew’s face lit up again. “Really?”

  Chef smiled broadly at the boy. “Really,” he said. “I’ll be right back. Don’t you go off by yourself, now.”

  I turned and noticed an old wooden bench down the hallway, over by the Oval Office and another Secret Service agent posted outside it. I put my hand on Matthew’s back as we walked together to the bench. It was quiet. Nobody else was around. Matthew was looking down, admiring his shield again as we moved. We sat down and waited for Gregory to return.

  Matthew eventually turned to look at me. “You like it?” he asked, showing me his shield.

  I nodded and said that I did. He glanced back down and I watched him. Thought about how attached he’d become to me over the last three months. Then I thought about his dad.

  I sat there for a moment until I realized Matthew was glancing at me again. “Do you like your medal?” he said.

  I nodded. Reached into my pocket and pulled the medal out. Unfurled the ribbon I’d wrapped around it. Held it tight and looked at the boy again. “The president shouldn’t have given it to me, though,” I said.

  Matthew furrowed his brow. “Why not?”

  I shrugged.

  “Who should’ve gotten it, then?”

  I thought about it. “Your mom.”

  Matthew made no reply. Just looked at me like he really didn’t understand.

  “Your dad was the real hero that night. Your mom tell you about what he did?”

  He shook his head and I looked away. “He saved a little girl. He helped her escape. It was the kind of thing a real hero would do.”

  Matthew became distant. Not sad or upset. Just quiet and thinking deeply about what I was telling him.

  I wrapped the ribbon back around the medal. Handed it to the boy. He became present again. Matthew looked up and stared at me, not understanding. “I want you to have this,” I said. “For what your dad did.”

  Matthew shook his head. “But I already have a gift, Uncle Blake,” he replied, pointing at his shield.

  “Well, now you’ll have two,” I said as he took the medal from me and looked at it. “Just don’t tell your mom until we get home, okay? She’ll try to make you give it back to me, and it’s not mine. Understand?”

  He nodded vaguely. Looked at the medal for another few seconds, then stuffed it into one of his pockets. Then he started fiddling with the shield the president had pinned onto his shirt. I watched him undo the latch. He pulled it from his shirt and turned it around to get a good look at it and admired it for a moment.

  Then Matthew turned in his seat and pushed my jacket to one side.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  He was careful not to prick his finger as he worked. “You gave me your gift, so I want you to have mine.”

  Matthew finished pinning the gold Secret Service shield onto my shirt. I glanced down at it for a moment; then I moved my jacket back into place to cover it up. Then we sat together for another minute in silence.

  “I know you miss your dad,” I said. “I miss my dad, too. But you know what?”

  Matthew looked at me.

  “He’d be proud of you, just like I’m proud of you.”

  He said nothing. Just grew distant and looked away.

  “I know you’ve been through a lot. And I know your mom doesn’t want you to be scared anymore.” I paused. “But you know, sometimes it’s okay to be scared. It just means you’re about to do something really brave.”

  I heard footsteps from the other end of the hallway. I turned back and saw Chef Gregory approaching. He was changed from his white uniform and was now wearing black slacks and a matching black sweater.

  “Y’all ready to see something real cool?” called Chef, smiling broadly as he motioned for us to join him.

  We stood and walked over to meet up with him. But as we walked past the Oval Office, the doors opened. Keller emerged with Ethan Meyer. They didn’t see us at all. Just exited to the right and walked down the hallway together, discussing something. Then a third man stepped out of the room. Someone I knew well.

  SIX

  TOM PARKER NOTICED us. He narrowed his eyes and stared at me, then stepped away from the Oval Office and walked over to us. “Blake Jordan,” he said, offering his hand, and I shook it.

  “It’s good to see you, Parker,” I said.

  Parker nodded at Gregory and looked down at Matthew, and then he put a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “How are you, son?”

  Matthew said he was okay and smiled and stared up at me.

  Chef Gregory asked if I knew where the movie theater was, and I told him I did. I said I’d catch up with them and watched him leave with Matthew. Parker and I stood in silence as they disappeared down the hallway.

  “So you’re the president’s guest,” he said, turning back to look at me.

  I nodded.

  “The boy’s mom okay?”

  I nodded again. “She’s upstairs, resting.” I paused a moment, thinking. “So why are you here?”

  Parker looked away. “Having a hell of a time working with the president.” He paused and turned back. “Maybe you can talk some damn sense into him. Shutdown’s causing all kinds of issues for the Bureau.”

  “It’s been going on for a while,” I said and glanced at my watch. “Why meet him late on a Friday night?”

  Parker said nothing. Just looked me over for a second and ran a hand across his face and sighed heavily. “You think more about my offer?” he asked, and a memory from three months earlier rushed over me.

  Parker and I had just taken down the man responsible for the mass shooting in Chicago. As a result, the president asked him to create an off-the-books black ops team at the Department of Homeland Security. Similar to the team Keller had asked me to form, but this time under DHS. Parker wanted me to work for him. But I said no. He said he’d tried recruiting the FBI and Department of Domestic Counterterrorism agents I’d worked with over the years. But they didn’t want to work for him. They only wanted to work for me.

  But Matthew had just lost his father, and Kate was in the hospital, recovering. And Matthew was my priority. It had been then. It still was now. I had made a commitment to be in the boy’s life. To be there for him.

  “I’ve got other priorities now,” I said.

  He nodded knowingly. Looked away again. “The Bureau doesn’t have the manpower they need right now. Tried explaining that to the president. Told him about a serious threat he needs to take action on. A threat the FBI can’t do anything about.” He turned back. “So they’ve handed it off to me and my team.”

  “What kind of threat?” I asked.

  He shook his head slowly. “Has something to do with drones.”

  I glanced away, thinking about the threat and the shutdown. “So you got funding to put a team together?”

  “Had to,” he said. “The president’s expectation. Told you before, DHS was willing to give me anything I needed. Just needed you, primarily.” He paused. “Homeland had a budget for me to use, so I got to work.”

  I thought about Morgan Lennox, a man who’d worked for me at the DDC field office in Chicago. The best analyst I’d ever known. Morgan had helped Parker and me back in Chicago. I wondered if Parker was working with Morgan now, or if he’d thought to ask him for help with whatever it was he was dealing with.

  “Tell me about the drones,” I said as we started walking toward the White House theater.

  Parker said nothing. Just looked me over for a second as we moved and then looked away.

  “Come on, Parke
r. What happened?”

  “A drone crashed on the White House lawn,” he said. “They had the damn thing rigged with explosives. Told the president about it a few minutes ago. Told him how the Secret Service wouldn’t tell him about something like that. They don’t share those kinds of threats with protectees. Their job is to keep him safe. His job is to lead. They called in the FBI. Mulvaney made some calls and got his Explosives Unit out here. But Mulvaney says he doesn’t have the manpower to properly run this thing down for the Secret Service.”

  “And you do?” I said. “How many people do you have?”

  Parker said nothing. Just stared at me blankly.

  “Always thought the Secret Service had a way to monitor for anything violating the presidential airspace.”

  “They do,” said Parker. “But they can’t do a thing about these drones, Jordan. Too small. They’re flown low to the ground and in the middle of the night, we think. Can’t shoot them down. Can’t even see them.”

  I stopped moving and crossed my arms. “You said drones . Was there more than one?”

  Parker made a face and nodded vaguely, like he was confused by it.

  “Was it rigged with explosives, too?”

  “It had a note in the payload. Mulvaney’s got a couple of people on it trying to match the handwriting.”

  “Forensics team?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  “What did the note say?”

  He stared at me and narrowed his eyes, deciding how much information he wanted to share with me. “One word,” he finally said, maintaining his stare.

  I said nothing, just stared back, waiting.

  “Retribution.”

  We stood in silence for a spell. I looked past him and watched as a Secret Service agent moved farther down the hallway. I glanced back at Parker. “So what are you going to do about all of this?”

  He shrugged again. “President’s in danger. Got to keep working the drone angle and find the owner.”

  Parker and I walked together in the direction of the agent down the hall. Neither of us spoke. In another life, I would’ve offered to help him. I would’ve called people to help me figure it all out. But there was a system in place. The Secret Service would do their job. Peter Mulvaney would get his Bureau people on the most critical tasks until the shutdown was over. And Tom Parker would do his best.

  We walked together until we reached the East Colonnade and stopped outside the movie theater doors.

  “My dad wasn’t home a lot,” he finally said to me.

  I furrowed my brow and stared at him, a little confused.

  Parker shrugged. “Didn’t mean he didn’t care. Didn’t mean he wasn’t there for me. At the time, I missed him a lot. Hard not to when you’re a boy and all you really want is your dad around to spend time with.” He paused for a long moment and dug his hands into his pockets. “My dad had to travel a lot with his job. He’d leave on trips early in the morning before I woke up. Sometimes the hardest goodbyes are the ones never said and never explained. But he always came back. His dedication to his job and his work ethic, that was how he showed me he cared about me. We always had food on the table. Always had money for whatever my mother and I needed.” He paused again and looked away briefly. “He was a good provider.”

  I said nothing. Just stared at him as I heard a movie playing through the closed theater doors next to me and noticed the faint smell of popcorn in the air. Parker forced a smile. Brought a hand out and I shook it.

  “It was good seeing you,” he said and turned to leave. I watched him as he walked away and disappeared.

  SEVEN

  I STOOD ALONE outside the White House theater for another minute, listening to the movie playing inside the historic room. I had never been inside the theater myself, but had walked past it a few times. I remembered Keller telling me once that he’d used the room to rehearse his speeches. I thought about Kate upstairs and how she’d be expecting Matthew any minute now. Figured Jami was still with her sister and was reassuring her that Matthew was perfectly fine. No need to worry about anything when staying the night inside one of the most secure places on the planet.

  The movie sounded like some kind of animated feature. I could smell popcorn again. Heard Matthew laugh. I smiled to myself and crossed my arms. Then I thought about Tom Parker and the offer he’d made, asking me to work for him at DHS. How the president had made him the person I was supposed to be, running a counterterrorism unit under the protection of a big government entity like Homeland Security. I thought about how I’d tried to run a similar unit once. Tried and failed, outed by the New York Times .

  I turned and stared at the white double doors. Reached for the handle and stepped inside the dark room.

  Matthew noticed me. He was sitting in the front row of the forty-seat theater, right next to Chef Gregory. There was a big bucket of popcorn in between the two of them. Matthew motioned for me to join them, so I stepped around the front and ducked a bit as I moved across the screen. I took in the room as I moved. Dull light from the screen illuminated the back of the theater. I could see everything inside had been decorated in red, from the carpet on the floor to the drapes on the walls to the theater seats themselves.

  Light from the projector streaked across the room. I saw dust particles in the air as I sat down on the other side of Matthew, who was now in between Chef and me. Matthew took the large bucket of popcorn and offered me some. I smiled and grabbed a handful as I looked up at the screen.

  We were happy in that moment. I thought about the commitment I’d made to Matthew. I hadn’t said it to him, but Matthew and I were family now. I knew I could never replace his father, but I could still be there for the boy. I watched the movie, lost in thought, remembering my own dad and how much I missed him.

  Then I heard a loud noise. It was timed perfectly with an action scene in the movie. I furrowed my brow and looked around the room before glancing across at the doors leading out to the hallway.

  “What was that?” I asked.

  Chef glanced over at me and shrugged, then pointed at the screen and the movie that was playing.

  I stared at the doors again. Saw movement through the quarter-inch gap between them. Saw someone running past the theater in a hurry. I kept staring and saw it again. More people running past the room. “Stop the movie for a minute,” I called to Gregory as I stood and moved toward the door cautiously.

  I glanced over my shoulder. Watched as Chef Gregory stood and left Matthew with the popcorn. The boy just kept watching the movie as Chef jogged to the back of the room and stopped it. There was darkness and silence as I turned the door handle and stepped outside as light spilled into the room. I saw no one. Just stood there at the entrance for a second, glancing down both sides of the East Colonnade, listening.

  A moment later, I heard something. Shouts from somewhere close, somewhere farther down the hallway. Men yelling. Matthew and Chef stepped to the door. I told them to stay inside the theater. I went right, moving in the direction of the voices, when I heard footsteps coming from the Garden Room behind me.

  I turned around. My heart was pounding hard in my chest. Then I saw a man in a suit appear.

  “Sir, you need to get back inside the theater and stay there until I come back to get you,” he said to me.

  I looked back. Saw Chef and Matthew in the doorway, staring at the agent. “Why?” I asked, turning back.

  The agent slowed his gait. He held out two hands and walked toward me, ushering the three of us back into the room, just repeating the same order he’d barked to us—get back inside the theater and stay there.

  “What happened?” I asked, but before the man could respond, there was a loud explosion overhead.

  It was the same sound I’d heard earlier over the loud movie that had been playing. Only it was closer and louder now. The East Wing shook. Matthew got close to me. I put an arm around him and held him tight.

  The Secret Service agent brought a wrist up to his mouth and
spoke into his radio, then covered an ear with a hand to hear the response. He glanced down the East Colonnade toward the Visitors’ Foyer and the Executive Residence. He spoke again and then listened again. “Okay, come with me,” he finally said, changing his mind after learning more about what was happening from the people speaking into his ear.

  I thought he’d take us down the East Colonnade toward the residence, but instead the man ushered us back the way he’d come. We passed through the Garden Room and entered the East Wing lobby. We moved fast. “Where are you taking us?” I asked as Matthew, Gregory, and I tried to keep up. Another agent brushed past us, followed by a third man. The agent we were following made no immediate reply.

  We entered an elevator. The agent pressed his hand against a reader, and a light illuminated green briefly. He pressed a button to get to the basement, which I knew existed, but had never actually been inside of.

  I gestured toward Matthew. “His mom and aunt are still upstairs,” I said. “East and West Bedrooms.”

  “We know, sir,” the agent replied. “We’ll send for them.”

  Matthew stared at me with wonder in his eyes. Gregory didn’t seem to know what to make of all of this.

  A few seconds later, I felt the bump of the elevator stopping hard, and the doors opened fast. Directly in front of us was a large room, and the agent told us to move quickly. We stepped out and he handed us off to an agent named Rivera, whom I knew well. The first agent stepped back into the elevator and disappeared from view. I overheard him speaking into his wrist, asking for a status of the visitors upstairs.

  “Please follow me,” said Rivera. He led us down a hallway shorter than the East Colonnade back upstairs. Several agents were posted outside a set of doors. They were composed and focused. I looked inside and realized it was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, a bunker underneath the East Wing where presidents have meetings during emergency situations. I didn’t see Keller inside. Rivera told us to wait where we were until they could bring Jami and Kate down, and I put my hands on Matthew’s shoulders.

  We heard another explosion. Somewhere upstairs. The sound was faint this time, just a dull thud through the dense underground bunker. Rivera put a hand to his ear and listened. Asked for a status on Hawk, President Keller’s code name. He nodded to himself when he heard the answer he wanted to hear, then turned to look at me as he continued to listen to chatter from the other agents inside the White House.