The Exile (3 page)

Lily had folded her arms over her exposed breasts the instant she saw the camera, but the officer didn't seem to notice. He was holding a small square of glossy paper in his right hand. He stared at the paper for a long moment, as if committing its contents to memory. As her mind slowly adjusted to the unexpected turn of events, Lily realized he was looking at a photograph. His eyes moved to her battered, tear-streaked face, and he studied her carefully.

“You are Lilith Durant?”

She was still struggling to catch her breath. When she could speak, she said, “Yes.”

“The niece of the American president?”

For a second Lily did not think she had heard correctly. But then the full weight of the words hit her, and in that instant she knew why they had attacked the camp.

Somehow, they had learned who she really was. She had done everything in her power to keep a low profile, but it was now clear that somewhere along the line, she—or somebody close to her—had made a critical mistake. It was the only possible explanation, and the officer's words were enough to verify her worst fears. They had come for her, and in doing so, they had been willing to destroy anything and everyone that stood in their way.

Everything that had just happened to the camp, the destruction that swept over it, killing so many of the refugees, leaving those innocent men, women, and children
massacred
…she had brought it all down on them.

All of it,
all
of it, was her damned fault.

She closed her eyes in anguish, crushed by her sudden revelation. She felt dizzy, sick with guilt, but she couldn't change what had happened, and it wouldn't help to dwell on it. The only thing she could do now was try to save as many lives as possible, starting with the people in the surrounding beds.

She took a second to collect herself and then opened her eyes. The commander was watching her closely.

“Please,” she whispered through bloodied lips. “Let it end here. With me.”

The commander didn't react, but he had spoken in fluent English before, and Lily knew he could understand.

“You don't have to do this,” she pressed. “These people are not a threat to you. The camp is destroyed, and the people who ran will not come back. You've made your point—”

“And what do you believe that to be?” His eyes were fixed on her. “Look at me carefully, Ms. Durant. Is mine the face of a master or follower?”

Lily stared in confused silence, her mind groping for a response. When it didn't find one, she simply shook her head in futility. “You've got what you came for. You have me. Please, just let the rest of them live.
Please.
”

The colonel seemed to consider her request for a long moment, and Lily felt a tiny spark of hope.

“I'm afraid I can't do that.” The colonel held out his hand, palm up, and Lily watched in despair as a second man stepped forward to hand over a large black pistol. The colonel hefted it in his hand as he smiled down at her. “But don't worry. Those you came to help won't be without you for long.”

He extended the pistol at arm's length, and Lily closed her eyes, found herself counting down. She didn't know why, maybe just to give herself something to focus on besides the pounding of her heart.

The last thing Lily Durant heard was a young girl's scream of rage and despair. Then her world ceased to exist.

T
he sky was still dark over central Maryland as the Bell 206B Jet-Ranger cut a fast, steady path north, sweeping over the gentle rise of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Although the helicopter had room for four passengers, just one was on board for the short hop from Langley, Virginia, to Camp David, in the northernmost reaches of Catoctin Mountain Park. He had buckled in just twenty minutes earlier, but checking his watch, the sole passenger saw that he was already close to his final destination. The private retreat of every U.S. president since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was just 70 miles from the White House, and not much farther from the passenger's point of embarkation. When he realized how close they were to touching down, he swore softly under his breath. Everything was moving too fast, and the worst was still to come.

Normally, he would have been gratified by the short travel time, as it wasn't the usual state of things. As the deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Jonathan Harper was used to working on the fly, whether it was in the backseat of a government car or in the air, on one of the Agency's executive jets. On this occasion, however, he could not bring himself to focus on the upcoming meeting. It wasn't even the lack of useful information on hand, although that certainly wasn't helping matters. Simply stated, he was still trying to wrap his mind around the news he had been given just one hour earlier.

The call had come in on his secure telephone at two minutes past midnight. Fifteen minutes later he had stumbled out of his three-story town house on Embassy Row to meet the black Lincoln Town Car that was already idling at the curb. His driver had taken him straight to Agency headquarters outside Langley, where the Jet-Ranger's twin rotors were already turning. In his hurry to get in the air, Harper had not had the opportunity to fully absorb what he'd been told by the night duty officer trotting along with him on the tarmac.

The news could not have been worse. The refugee camp at which the president's niece had been working in Darfur had been burned to the ground, a fact that satellite imagery had confirmed just five minutes earlier. They had heard from at least one reliable witness that Lily Durant had been killed in the attack. That particular fact had yet to be verified, though there was little doubt in Harper's mind that it was true.

The deputy director of operations at Langley had called Harper personally to relay the first piece of information—and although it wasn't much, Harper was grateful for it. The SATINT seemed only to confirm their worst fears, but at least it was something to work with. More to the point, it was hard intel. Harper couldn't abide conjecture for one simple reason…. He couldn't afford to. The nation's intelligence apparatus was fueled by information, and given the stakes, that information had to be rock solid each and every time. That partly accounted for Harper's dread of the upcoming meeting. He had almost no information to work with, which meant he was about to be put in the uncomfortable position of being briefed by his own superiors.

His own personal ignorance, however, wasn't Harper's primary concern. What really worried him was the emotional element involved in this particular situation. He had served the current president for nearly six years, and Harper knew him to be a smart, careful, methodical man. A man who had never let his power—or his anger—influence his ability to analyze and solve a given problem. He didn't always come up with the right answers, but to his credit he never lost sight of the overall picture, or the core awareness that millions of people were affected by every decision he made. Still, Harper couldn't help but wonder if the president would be able to maintain that sense of proportion given the tragic circumstances, and felt uneasy when he considered the possible consequences if he could not.

A voice in his ear jolted Jonathan Harper back to the present. It was the pilot informing him that they were three minutes out. Harper keyed his mic and acknowledged the words, then settled back in his seat. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying in vain to clear his mind, knowing that he would need a clear head for the upcoming meeting.

A few minutes later the helicopter touched down with a slight jolt, the skids settling onto the rain-drenched tarmac. Harper waited until the pilot gave him the all clear. Then he unbuckled his harness, removed his headset, and reached for the door.

 

It was a short ride from the helipad to Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin on the east side of the compound. As the black Tahoe threaded its way along the steep mountain road, a Secret Service agent behind the wheel, Harper stared out the rain-streaked window. This was his first time visiting the presidential retreat, and despite the troubling thoughts swirling through his mind, he found himself absorbed in the passing scenery. He had always been interested in history. In fact, he had minored in that particular subject at Boston College some twenty-two years earlier, and it was hard not to feel the weight of it here.

After passing the camp commander's quarters, they turned onto a secondary road and immediately hit a checkpoint. Harper displayed his ID to the marine sergeant standing post, and the sentry proceeded to call in the information. They were cleared through a moment later.

Without being asked, the driver hit a button and the window whirred up. Then the Tahoe lurched forward, the tires slipping for a moment on the damp road. A mile or so later the road curved gently to the left, and Aspen Lodge came into view.

Harper's first thought was that the presidential cabin didn't look like much. The brightly-lit exterior was constructed of rough-hewn planks painted a monotonous shade of gray. A single fieldstone chimney jutted from the black shingle roof, and the building itself was dwarfed by the surrounding oak, maple, and hickory trees. In front of the cabin, a grassy slope led down to a modest pond fringed by cattails and irises. On the whole, the building looked like it could belong to anyone with a little money and a need to get away from it all. The only sign that it might be something more was the Secret Service agents posted in front of the two main entrances, as well as the dark shapes Harper had seen moving through the trees on the approach to the building.

Harper knew that the retreat was guarded year-round by approximately 100 soldiers and sailors, the bulk of whom were drawn from the ranks of the navy and the marines. As he opened the door and stepped out of the vehicle, he found himself wondering if they knew what had transpired in Darfur less than eight hours earlier. Looking up at the members of the president's detail, he took note of the hard edge to their usual fixed expressions and decided that these individuals, at least, had been made aware of the situation. Even from 30 feet away, Harper could sense their anger and frustration. A person close to the president had died on their watch, and they had been unable to stop it from happening. Of course, it was absurd to think they could have prevented it, and on some level, they would know that as well. At the same time, Harper was quietly impressed by their demeanor. In his eyes, the fact that they were taking it so personally was a testament to their commitment and professionalism.

A tall figure was coming down the steps at a brisk pace, his features blotted out by the light at his back. As he drew closer, his face came into focus, and Harper recognized him at once. Joshua McCabe was the assistant director of the Office of Protective Research, one of the senior figures in the U.S. Secret Service. Harper had worked with him several years earlier to prevent an attempt on the president's life. The CIA—and one man in particular—had been instrumental in preventing the assassination, and to his credit, McCabe had never forgotten the Agency's crucial role in averting that near catastrophe. Thanks to him, Harper had more access to the president than most of the cabinet. More importantly, McCabe was able to provide insight as to the president's general mood, as well as his stance on various issues. Harper supposed that accounted for why he felt relieved beyond measure to see him coming down the steps.

“Josh, it's good to see you.” Harper extended a hand. “I just wish it was under different circumstances.”

“Same here,” McCabe replied as they shook. “We need to get inside. They're waiting.”

Normally, Harper would have been taken aback by the assistant director's curt tone. Looking at the other man's face, though, he could see that McCabe was merely trying to tell him something. He realized that his fears regarding the president's mind-set were probably completely justified. That was about the only thing that could have shaken McCabe to this extent.

“Who's in there?” he asked.

“Andrews and Stralen are meeting with the POTUS right now. Thayer was—”

“Stralen?” Harper frowned. Joel Stralen was the recently appointed director of the Defense Intelligence Agency and a close personal friend of the president. He was also a very vocal opponent of the CIA, which he considered to be a rival agency. Harper could almost understand the man's mind-set, as to some extent, every government agency was in constant competition for a larger chunk of the federal budget, but that didn't make his animosity any less tiresome or easier to bear. “Where did he land from?”

“I have no idea. He arrived fifteen minutes ago, and he went straight in.” They were 20 feet from the main entrance and walking as slowly as they possibly could. “Are you aware of the timeline?”

Harper nodded, but in truth, he hadn't really considered it until now. The attack on the camp in West Darfur had taken place eight hours earlier, at 2:00 a.m. Darfur time. Sudan was eight hours ahead of Washington. The first report hadn't come into the U.S. embassy in Khartoum until six o'clock in the morning local time, and it had taken another forty minutes for someone to verify that the president's niece was, indeed, based at the camp that had been targeted. Harper checked his watch and saw that it was half past one. That meant that the president had heard the news less than…

Jesus.
Harper shook his head as the time frame came together in his mind. The president had known for just over an hour. Not much longer than he had known himself. No wonder McCabe was worried.

“Yeah,” Harper said. “I know the timeline.” They were 15 feet from the main entrance, and he made an effort to slow his pace even more. “Any word on Lily Durant?”

McCabe shook his head slowly. “Nothing new. You know how we found out, right?”

Harper nodded. He had been brought up to speed by the night duty officer out at Langley even as they'd raced toward the airstrip. It had started, he knew, with a panicked call from Greg Beckett, the UNICEF doctor assigned to Camp Hadith, to the U.S. embassy in Khartoum. Harper had yet to see the transcript, but he knew most of what had been said between Beckett and the chief of mission, who had taken the call personally. Beckett had run when the attack began, but he had seen the entire thing unfold from a distance. About an hour after the raiders had left, he had ventured back into the camp with two other aid workers.

Inside the hospital, they had discovered the remains of 40 people, including Lily Durant. It had taken an hour from that point for the phones to come back on, at which time Beckett had placed his frantic call to the embassy.

“Have we been able to verify what Beckett said? I mean, has anyone actually seen her body?”

“Not yet. It's going to take a few hours to get people out to the scene, but we have no reason to doubt what he told us.”

Harper took a second to think that over. “Does the president know? I mean, does he
really
know?”

McCabe suddenly stopped walking. Harper was caught off guard, but he stopped, turned, and stepped back to face the assistant director.

“I think he does,” McCabe said. He seemed to hesitate, but he had already said too much, and there was no point in stopping now. “He's not taking it well, John. They were very close.”

Harper took a moment to absorb this unwelcome news. It was just as he'd feared, and he only hoped he wasn't too late to reverse the slide. The world was a complicated place, and it was hard enough for a president to calmly process those complexities when weighing a response to brute aggression. When emotion entered the equation, it inevitably blew the whole damn thing to pieces. And Harper did not want to be in the position of having to stop President David Brenneman from making a potentially catastrophic decision based on nothing more than the rawest of passions.

“How did they find her?” he mused aloud. Whoever the hell
they
might be. “Did the leak spring from her end, or ours?”

McCabe shrugged uneasily. “That is obviously what we need to figure out. When Lily decided to go over there, the president tried to talk her out of it. And when he couldn't, he made an effort to distance himself so there wouldn't be tracks anyone could follow. I guess he was trying to protect her…and to be fair, it worked for a long time.”

“Until now,” Harper murmured.

“Right,” McCabe said. “Until now.”

His voice was strained, but Harper thought it was something more than the normal stress of the situation. Was it possible he had known Durant personally? It would certainly explain the casual way in which he had used her first name.

“Maybe it was intentional, and maybe it wasn't,” McCabe was saying, “but someone gave her away, and the regime in Khartoum took advantage—”

Harper interrupted. “How do we know that?”

“I didn't say we know anything. But someone sent armed units in after her, and al-Bashir has been waving his sword for months. There's no doubt he's capable.”

“Capable isn't the same as responsible. What I'm hearing is speculation, Josh, and that's fine as a springboard. But it's way too soon to draw conclusions. We need to take a step back and—”

“Hey,” McCabe broke in, spreading his arms wide, “you'll get no argument from me. I agree with you, and I am not the man you need to convince.” He lowered his voice and took a step forward. “POTUS needs to hear it from you, and he needs to hear it now. He's too close to the whole thing, and Stralen isn't helping matters at all. He's been adding fuel to the fire ever since he arrived.”