Chapter Eight
What had happened to their lives, Elizabeth wondered, that had somehow led them to this? Waiting in the back of a car while her security agents checked to make sure it was safe for her and Henry to come out. Yeah, something weird had happened somewhere along the line.
She was pretty sure it could be blamed on Conrad, and planned to tell him so at the first opportunity.
"We're clear. Madam Secretary, Dr McCord, if you could leave the vehicle and move briskly into the embassy, it would be appreciated." Matt stood on one side of the open back door of the car, Frank on the other. Kev remained in the driver's seat until all his passengers were safely inside.
Keeping Henry's hand in hers, Elizabeth shuffled out of the car. "You know, technically the building is the chancery," she said. "The staff forms the embassy."
"Noted, Ma'am," Matt said drily, reaching out to take her arm and help her step out of the car.
It wasn't something he usually did, but she supposed it could be forgiven in the circumstances. Also as soon as she stepped onto the ground and stood fully upright, the bump on her forehead pulsed uncomfortably, sending her dizzy and swaying back against Henry's chest as he stepped behind her. "Babe?" he questioned.
She pressed the hand not caught up in Henry's to her forehead, feeling the light-headedness slowly abate. "Fine," she said.
"Let's go, Ma'am," Matt said, keeping hold of her arm and hustling her and Henry towards the door.
Elizabeth stumbled along after him, blinking rapidly to try and clear her head. Standing up so abruptly after sitting for a while had thrown her off. Damn, it was only a tiny bump on the head; she should hardly even notice it. Then again, she supposed, coupled with the stress of the situation, her blood pressure was probably doing all sorts of weird things. She was grateful when Henry dropped her hand to wrap his arm around her so she could lean into his side, helping her feel more centred and righting her balance as they came abreast of the door. She could practically feel the concern radiating off him and wanted to take the time to reassure him that she was fine, but that would have to come later.
They stepped inside the building with her DS agents close behind them and then the door was closed and locked by one of the embassy security staff. Elizabeth let out a sigh of relief.
The relief lingered even as she realised she could still hear the activity going on outside. "Damn, it's good to be back. Even if this place hasn't been redecorated since 1972." To say that the interior of the chancery building could use a little updating in some places was an understatement. She was pretty sure it dated back to communism.
"Hey, don't knock our interior design, Madam Secretary." The reply came from a door a little way down the hallway. Helena Garfield, the US ambassador to Petria, stepped out to greet them. "It's lasted us this long and when I was given the choice between buying paint or a new computer system, I have to say I went with the latter."
"Helena, how many times have I told you that it's OK to want to make your house look nice?"
"Oh, at least four, Ma'am."
"How many more will it take before you comply?"
"I'm not sure yet."
Elizabeth smiled and stepped forward to greet the ambassador. Helena Garfield had also been at the formal dinner at the presidential palace earlier that evening, but she had stepped out of the reception after only half an hour after receiving a call to say that the protest outside the embassy was growing, and could she please return and figure out what to do about it. She still wore the floor-length red dress she had chosen for the evening but had swapped her high heels for well-worn sneakers. Elizabeth had got to know the woman better over the past couple of days during her stay in the chancery residence, and she liked her a great deal. "I'm so glad to see you."
"Not as glad as I am to see you, I imagine. When the reports started coming in that the building was under attack, I just…" She trailed off, scrubbing a hand through her long dark hair. "Well, I can't imagine."
"Good," Elizabeth said. No one should have to imagine what it was like. She wished that she didn't know what it was like, that Henry didn't know what it was like. Stepping out of the ballroom to see those dead bodies in the corridor and then seeing Artur Zembrovko shot in cold blood… she shuddered at the memory. "Helena, we need your help."
"Anything."
"I need to call the White House. Urgently. And then we need a strategy to get out of here and get home."
"Of course. We've been trying to put a call through ourselves, but all the lines are currently jammed and our internet connection is a little patchy. I suspect the local ISP is a little overwhelmed right now." Helena stepped closer and peered at Elizabeth's face. "Why don't you go and sit down for a minute, Ma'am? I'll call you once the call goes through."
There was no time to go and sit down. She had to keep moving, had to fix this, had to get them out, get Henry home. She couldn't sit down while her staff were still working. "No, it's fine, I –"
"Elizabeth," Henry said in the voice he used when he meant business, the one that suggested he would brook no arguments. "There's nothing we can do right now. Let's go and get changed." He reached out and took her arm, giving her a gentle tug towards the staircase that led up to the chancery's accommodation quarters where they had been staying for the past few days.
She couldn't deny him. She sighed in defeat. "Yeah."
"We'll start formulating a plan to locate the rest of our party, Ma'am," Matt said, doing his best reassuring face.
"Not until you get your shoulder checked out." She hadn't forgotten that her DS agent had been injured getting out of the ballroom.
"I can multi-task, Ma'am."
Elizabeth figured there'd be no point in arguing with him, and it seemed that the bleeding had stopped, so she let it drop for the time being. She turned to Helena.
The ambassador pre-empted what Elizabeth was going to say. "We'll keep trying Washington until we get through. Don't worry. I'll shout you if we get anywhere."
Urged on by Henry at her side and feeling a little weary, Elizabeth made her way upstairs.
"This is all just rumours. Why is there nothing confirmed?" Alison McCord was close to tears as she sat at her laptop, alternating between scrolling through her Twitter feed and refreshing the Reuters Wire homepage. CNN played on the small TV screen mounted on her bedroom cabinet.
Stevie paced the floor in front of her sister's bed, her phone pressed to her ear as she tried to get hold of their brother, who had gone to a friend's house. "I don't know, Ali," she said. "You know Mom and Dad will call us as soon as they can."
"It's been over an hour now since this attack started. They should have called by now."
There was no good answer to that, but just then Stevie got Jason's voicemail and so she distracted herself from thinking about her parents' phone silence by leaving her brother a message. "Hey, Jason. Call me. I think… I think you should come home, OK? Something's going on."
She hung up and turned back to her sister. They had debated for a while whether they should tell Jason what they knew, which was not much; he had managed to get through their mom's unfortunate trip to Iran blissfully unaware of the trouble until it was all over and they had hoped for a minute that the same could happen again. But he was a year older now, and he'd never forgive them if they didn't say anything and then later it turned out that something happened he really needed to know. So Stevie called him.
"Stevie." Alison's voice was quiet and something in her tone made Stevie stop dead.
She went over to where her younger sister was curled into her desk chair, eyes glued to the laptop screen. "What?"
Alison didn't say anything, but instead turned the laptop so Stevie could see it better. It was set to a Twitter feed giving rolling updates of events in Petria, and most of the updates were from local residents tweeting what they could see from their windows and eyewitnesses caught up in the commotion. In the middle of the screen was a photo of a car blocked by a group of banner-wielding protestors in front of a large ornate building.
The scene outside the US embassy, the caption read. Elizabeth McCord's car blocked by protestors. US aggression turned around. Da zdravstvuyet Petria!
"Oh my God," Stevie said, feeling her heart thumping hard against her ribcage and hearing the blood start to rush in her head. She gripped the back of Ali's chair for support and, when her sister offered her hand, slid hers into it gratefully. "Wait. What does that mean?" She nodded at the tweet.
"The Russian?" Alison said. "I Googled it. It means 'long live Petria'."
Stevie was quiet for a moment, thinking things through. "OK, so… at least we know Mom and Dad made it out of the palace alive."
"Mom made it out of the palace," Alison corrected. "It doesn't say anything about Dad."
"It wouldn't, though," Stevie protested. "He's not the story. But we both know she'd never leave him behind in a million years. He's in the car with her." She was convinced of it. Her mother would never have left her husband at the palace. They either left together or not at all.
Alison nodded thoughtfully. "OK…" Her head snapped round to look at Stevie. "The car! Her DS agents drive the car."
Stevie's mind caught up a moment later. There were still a couple of DS agents stationed outside their house as a skeleton detail even though their mother was away. "Maybe the guys downstairs will know something." And maybe one of them could be persuaded to go and fetch Jason. She knew that they were all safe in DC, but she thought that she would feel better when her brother was home with them, so they could stay together and support each other. She was also sure that her parents would prefer their kids knew nothing about what was going on but, if they had to know, they'd feel better knowing that they were all together.
The two girls left the TV news playing and the laptop open on the desk as they dashed downstairs with the intention of interrogating the DS agents assigned to protect their house.
