Chapter Nine
"So… this is good, right? We know who this guy is, what he looks like, where he's been. He can be arrested." Stevie was aware that she was railroading slightly, hoping that if she said it confidently enough, Russell would capitulate and just agree that it was as simple as she was making it sound.
The Chief of Staff looked up from his phone and it was clear that he had, at best, been only half-listening to her trying to convince herself that everything was almost okay. "We're certainly throwing everything at this thing to make sure that happens," he said.
Well, that was annoyingly inconclusive.
Try again. "And it should be soon, right? I mean –"
"Stevie," Russell cut her off, his exasperation leaking out at her for the first time that night.
She had to admit she was surprised he had managed to keep it bottled up in front of her for so long. "Sorry." She flopped down into a hard-backed chair and looked absently at a stack of reports on Russell's desk.
There was a clunk as Russell dropped his phone down next to the reports, followed by a weary, slightly impatient sigh. Stevie looked up to see Russell rubbing his eyes before awkwardly replacing his glasses with one hand. "I get the urgency," he told her. "Believe me, I'm right there with you. And you're right, it should be soon. It should be. But this is the situation that we…" He trailed off like he couldn't quite decide how to phrase what he wanted to say.
Then an expression crossed his face that looked like screw it, and he abandoned the attempt to practice diplomacy with the daughter of America's top diplomat.
"This is the situation that we dread," he said, bluntly. "Because all the training and planning and practice exercises in the world can't tell you exactly what is going to happen when this situation occurs. When someone slips the net and pulls the trigger. And this isn't an organised, resourced group that we know about and have an FBI file a foot high on. This is a couple of guys with a laptop and social media and a licence to own a gun. In a way, it's worse. They're unknown. Unpredictable."
"More dangerous," Stevie filled in when Russell failed to articulate what he was so obviously intending to convey.
He didn't acknowledge her comment. "The Wallowski brothers spend their evenings online spewing a whole lot of vitriol – and a whole lot of it is about your mother. Now Justin never learned to shoot properly and they're making this up as they go along, but the hate they have is genuine."
That makes them dangerous, were the words he didn't say. Stevie didn't feel the need to give voice to the missing words that time.
"And they're really stupid," Russell went on. He let out a laugh that may have included some genuine amusement, if only at the audacity of the brothers. "Aiden sent a tweet about Elizabeth the other day. 'It'd be worth going to jail just to see her dead.' They broadcasted it."
And Stevie thought that raised some important questions. A threat that blatant, in the public sphere? For everyone to see? Her expression hardened. "Why wasn't it picked up?" The question came out like an accusation, like she was laying blame at Russell Jackson's feet. "Why didn't we know? Security should have seen it."
Russell was quiet for a long moment. He swallowed heavily, and his next words held the tone of a hushed confession. "The security guys…" He sighed. "It's like this. When you're faced with wading through that level of hate… all day, every day, most of it just angry, empty words… a lot of them the same as the angry words of one hundred other people – sometimes a real threat gets missed."
Those words hung heavy in the air between them.
Stevie's biting indignation slashed through the cloak of silence. "Not good enough."
Russell Jackson looked towards her but he couldn't quite hold her gaze. "No."
He looked down at his phone as it buzzed on the desk, thumbed the screen and then was still for a second. He looked back up. "Your mom is in the car. She's on the way home."
Elizabeth was aware of Henry sitting hyper-vigilant beside her, his body tense and set to high alert, and she knew there was no point in trying to talk him down.
But that didn't mean she wasn't going to try, albeit in a roundabout way, because she was on edge enough as it was, and the overwrought aura humming around him wasn't particularly helping matters. "Sit back, I need a pillow." She tugged at his arm to get him to abandon his position sitting at the very edge of the leather seat and instead lean back against the cushion.
He glanced at her and whatever he saw on her face softened him. He gave her an apologetic look and relaxed into the seat, lifting one arm to let her tuck herself against him, her cheek against his shoulder. "Sorry," he said. "Can't seem to stand down my brain."
She shook her head to dismiss the unnecessary apology – of course he couldn't get his brain to calm down. Neither could she. Her mind was racing a mile a minute but her body was demanding that she seek out comfort, and she figured she could still freak out while she was leaning comfortably against her husband. No reason he couldn't do something similar. She still felt the need to reassure him, even as she wasn't sure she believed her words: "It's going to be okay, Henry."
"Says the woman who was shot at," he retorted. Then he cringed. "Sorry," he said again. "I just… if a threat from a couple of amateurs can turn into such a circus? Let's just say it doesn't fill me with confidence for when this happens with professionals."
She wanted to say that wasn't ever going to happen, but that would be a lie. She lived her life as a target by virtue of her job. Nothing was guaranteed. But – "Henry, I'm pretty sure that's how madness starts."
"What is?"
"Playing what if like that."
"Yeah." He shook his head as if to rid himself of the thoughts.
She changed the subject. "So much for getting out of the hospital unnoticed by the press."
Elizabeth had caught sight of the mass of journalists as DS had bundled her into the car outside the hospital's back door. Just far enough away that they wouldn't be able to see her in the middle of the DS scrum formation, she had still felt the hungry energy of them as cameras flashed and journalists shouted blurred questions in the direction of the motorcade. The blades of a helicopter that could have belonged to either a news station or the FBI could be heard whipping overhead, and the noise had felt like it was pressing down on her, wrapping itself around her and making her claustrophobic with its rhythmic embrace.
By contrast, the inside of the car now felt open and vast.
And she at least felt slightly – slightly – better now that they had a name to work with.
"Maybe we should be glad the press is there," Henry said. "If Aiden Wallowski is anywhere nearby, they might get him on videotape. He won't be able to go unnoticed for long."
Yeah, but there were some things she didn't exactly want broadcast to the world. She supposed it was a price to pay. She could live with the reminder of the documentary evidence of this awful night if it somehow helped to catch the damn guy.
The car turned a corner and Elizabeth shifted in her seat, her head throbbing with the movement. She picked up her head from Henry's shoulder so that she could look out of the window, hoping that tracking their journey would help to lessen the unstructured pulsing in her head. The sights outside were familiar: only a few streets away from home.
Finally.
She sighed in relief and for the first time allowed her thoughts to start to turn to what she might do once they were home. Even just the prospect of her own space – and her own bed – was tantalising. And she badly wanted a shower so that she could wash off the grime of the day, the blood and sweat and the rush of bullets and fear.
The car slowed for a red light.
A burst of chatter came from the DS radios.
She couldn't make out the words – but she thought they sounded frantic. Her agents in the front seat started to exchange low, urgent whispers.
Elizabeth sat up straight, turning to look at her agents up front. "Guys?"
More chatter and static up front and then Frank, sat in the passenger seat, answered a call on his cell phone.
Elizabeth exchanged a curious, worried glance with Henry.
Then Frank turned to Matt in the driver's seat and said, "Go."
There was a crunch and a squeal and then the car was turning abruptly around a corner and down a wide street that led away from the house, weaving around a couple of parked cars and then picking up speed as they cleared the brief obstruction.
They rounded another corner and Elizabeth was pressed back in her seat from the suddenness of it, breathing fast and heart racing hard.
Her head was spinning. Police sirens were blaring.
In her mind she heard gunshots and the screams of a frightened crowd.
Frank told Matt, "Go faster."
The car went faster.
Elizabeth reached back blindly to fumble for Henry's hand. She clung on tight.