There were indeed police sirens in the background. Lots of them.
Ashby and Folsom holstered their pistols, which, combined with the fact that they had themselves suggested calling the authorities, told White they truly had no idea what had happened here. He brought down his hands.
“How did you know to come here?” Ashby asked.
“As I said, this is the company Veronica Hammond works with. I just thought I’d check it out.”
“So, this is definitely connected to the attack at the Ritz,” Folsom said. “It has to be.”
White didn’t reply directly; instead, he asked if he could go outside to let the city cops know where to go.
“I’ll come down with you,” Ashby offered. “Tim’s gonna stay here to secure the scene.”
Folsom gave him a thumbs-up.
White and Ashby remained silent as they rode down the elevator. White still couldn’t believe that the three dead men were CID agents. There were no scenarios in which that made sense.
Then he remembered the smartphone in his pocket, and he realized that wasn’t entirely true.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Twenty-four thousand feet over New Mexico
Alexander Hammond fought to keep his calm in front of the five members of his protective detail who had boarded the small government jet with him, but the effort required was immense. He had to keep his mind clear. There were a lot of moving pieces to juggle. The attack on his daughter had stunned him. He hadn’t seen it coming. At all.
And up until he had boarded the plane and received a call from General Tom Girdner, he had no idea who had been behind the attempt on her life. Girdner’s call had changed all that. Expecting a brief account of the off-the-book operation he had asked Girdner to take care of after his failed talk with Veronica, the provost marshal general’s report had shocked Hammond to his very core. The three CID agents Girdner had tasked with setting fire to the SkyCU Technology office had been killed before they could execute their plan.
And, of all people, it was Clayton White who had found their bodies.
Hadn’t Hammond asked Girdner to pick White up and bring him to a hotel? What was White doing at SkyCU in the first place?
Hammond took a deep breath, but it did very little to calm his nerves. How could the easiest of tasks have turned into a goddamn train wreck? Hammond didn’t much believe in coincidences. Someone had beaten him to the punch in Palo Alto. Someone whose goal was the same as Hammond’s, but who was willing to go even further to achieve it. There weren’t that many people who had so much to lose that they would benefit from Veronica’s death and the demise of the start-up she was associated with. In fact, he could think of only two.
Himself. And Roy Oxley.
That cockroach of a man has everything he needs to take me down, and that includes what I did to Maxwell White, Hammond thought. And that can’t stand.
Hammond’s past was catching up to him, and if he didn’t act quickly and decisively, it would engulf him and torpedo his vice presidency before it had even started. Even worse, there was nothing guaranteeing that Oxley wouldn’t have another go at Veronica. That meant Hammond had to crush Oxley first. It was a question of survival.
And what about Clayton White? What the hell was he thinking, proposing to Veronica while on duty? It was so unlike White to have acted this way it blew Hammond’s mind.
White was arguably one of the best special agents ever to work for the Secret Service; he had Maxwell’s sense of dedication and single-mindedness. If anyone but White had been inside the room with his daughter when the intruders barged in, Hammond and his wife would be planning Veronica’s funeral.
Nevertheless, he was going to let the inquiry into White’s behavior run its course. He wouldn’t intervene. And, contrary to what he had told his daughter, it wasn’t because he couldn’t or didn’t want to. It was because having White on administrative leave suited his purpose perfectly.
The fact was, Hammond needed White’s services—and he wouldn’t be able to use him if he was under the authority of the Secret Service. Vice president-elect or not, there was only so much he could do without arousing suspicion. He wasn’t the commanding officer of JSOC anymore. His soon-to-be position as vice president, although in theory more powerful and influential, didn’t allow him the same flexibility. He would have to get used to that.
He was confident White still had no idea that his father’s death was anything more than it had appeared at the time, and that was something Hammond could use to his advantage now. Still, guilt assailed him. Not only because he was about to manipulate Clay, but because what he’d been forced to do to Maxwell still haunted him.