“I appreciate that, Dad, I really do, but I can’t stay here. I have a meeting in Palo Alto tomorrow.”
“Well, Veronica, you’ll have to cancel. You’re staying here for now,” he replied dryly. “Tomorrow morning, investigators from the FBI and the Secret Service will speak with you about what happened in San Francisco.”
She nodded. There was no point in arguing further. She had her laptop with her and would connect with her team at SkyCU remotely if she had to.
“I’ll check in with you tomorrow,” he said, heading toward the door.
“Dad?”
He stopped and turned to face her.
“About Clay,” she said. “Can you—”
“There’s nothing I can do to help him,” he said, cutting her off.
“That can’t be true,” Veronica said. “You’re about to become the vice president of the United States.”
“And that’s exactly why I can’t do a thing.”
“Oh, c’mon, Dad, that’s bullshit,” she said. “I wouldn’t be here with you right now if it wasn’t for Clay. And he’s my fiancé. Please do something, at least about the charges you talked about.”
Her father shook his head slowly. “If you had come to me twenty-four hours ago, I would have been in a position to help. Clayton would have been reassigned. Now that the investigation has started, my hands are tied.”
Veronica rolled her eyes. “I have a feeling you’re saying this because you’re ticked off Clay didn’t come to you first. Because he didn’t ask you permission to marry me.”
“No, Veronica,” he said, his tone turning paternalistic, as if she were still a little girl. It made her blood boil beneath her skin. “I’m angry because by acting the way he did, notwithstanding how he handled himself once the shit hit the fan, he compromised his team and jeopardized the security of the person he was sworn to protect. And in this instance, it was you. My only daughter. He needs to face the consequences.”
She stared at him long and hard, not recognizing fully the man standing in front of her. She could feel that her father wasn’t being completely straightforward with her. For a fleeting moment, there was an expression of regret on his face. Then he turned away and strode out of the aircraft.
Alexander Hammond was fuming as he climbed back into his SUV. His daughter had no idea the shit her goddamn Drain application was stirring. Why did everything these days have to be crowdsourced and crowdfunded? Some technology was better off staying controlled by those who knew how to use it, not available to the masses.
Hammond didn’t remember the last time he’d been under such pressure.
“Where to, sir?” his driver asked.
“Back to my plane,” he replied. “We’re headed to San Francisco.”
Hammond grabbed his phone and quickly typed a message to General Tom Girdner, a longtime friend and associate who was now the provost marshal general of the United States Army. Hammond had always wished he wouldn’t have to go ahead with this, but his stubborn daughter had left him no choice.
He tapped the send button. His phone rang almost immediately.
“I’m listening, Tom,” Hammond said.
“I just received news that we have eyes on Clayton White, sir.”
“Okay, good work. Ask your guys to pick him up and have them bring him to a hotel somewhere in the city.” Hammond looked at his watch. “I’ll meet White in about four hours. Did you get my last message?”
“Yessir,” Girdner confirmed. “The men are already staged not too far away from the target building. Just in case you called.”
“Thanks, Tom.”
“I thought we’d put this all to bed six years ago. I’ll call you again once I hear back from the team,” Girdner said before ending the call.
Leadership required hard decisions, and as much as he’d hated going along with the assassination of Maxwell White, he’d known what he was doing was for the good of the country. But he couldn’t help but think about what it now meant for his daughter. There was so much Veronica didn’t know about him, and if she ever came to learn what he had just agreed to, it would obliterate their relationship.
Forever.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Palo Alto, California
Krantz wasn’t a tall man, but the width of his rowing shoulders made him appear taller than his five-foot-eight stature. His hair was dark brown, like his scruffy beard. His powerful body moved with the athletic grace of a man confident in his physical strength as he jogged across Independence Avenue and bumped into the young man he’d been following for the past ten minutes.