Reaching his arms toward the ceiling, White performed a quick three-minute stretching session to get his blood moving, before completing two series of push-ups, sit-ups, and burpees. Once he was done, he examined the clothes the CID agents had gotten for him. In addition to the underwear, there was a pair of blue jeans, a white collared shirt, a navy-blue light jacket, and a pair of brown boots. That would have to do.
For someone who had slept for less than sixty minutes, White felt surprisingly refreshed. He headed to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He wanted the water as hot as he could stand. Using the razor and toothbrush from the courtesy kit the CID agents had given him, he quickly shaved and brushed his teeth. The skin on his face was still tender, but at least the colors hadn’t gotten worse. With a pair of sunglasses, he’d look okay. He spent five glorious minutes under a powerful stream of hot water. Planting his outstretched hands against the tile wall in front of him, White leaned forward and brought his head down. He let the scalding water loosen his tensed muscles and massage his back and neck.
Once out of the shower and wrapped in a towel, White turned on the television to see if there were new developments. He watched the news as he got dressed. The clothes he’d been given were a bit too large for him, by maybe a size or two, but they were comfortable, and the boots fit perfectly. He had just turned on the coffee maker when someone knocked on his door. He looked through the peephole and recognized Warrant Officer Ashby. The CID agent was holding two large coffees in unbranded paper cups.
“Come in,” White said, opening the door.
Ashby entered and looked at the coffee maker, which had started percolating, and handed White one of the coffees. “This one isn’t crappy,” he said. “I got it from the lobby. It’s surprisingly good.”
White tasted the hot drink, enjoying the burst of subtle flavors. He wasn’t a coffee snob by any means, but the air force had taught him the benefits of a good cup of joe. He drank it black because most of the time he didn’t drink it for the taste. One of the best coffees he’d ever had he had drunk from a tin cup in Afghanistan. One of the PJs had concocted it himself. The brew had been as thick and black as motor oil. And White had loved it, especially the slapped-in-the-face effect it gave him.
“Hammond will be here in about ten minutes,” Ashby said. “Then me and Tim are off.”
White nodded and shook Ashby’s hand. “Thanks for the coffee,” he said.
“Yeah, no problem,” Ashby replied, opening the door. As he was about to exit, he turned toward White and said, “They say you killed two guys and stabbed another one in the back, and that you’re the one who saved the vice president-elect’s daughter. Is that true?”
The question caught White off guard. “Between you and me, Veronica Hammond played a huge role in saving her own life,” he said.
Ashby looked at him for a moment and then said, “She does look kind of badass, doesn’t she?”
White smiled and thanked the CID agent once more for the coffee. Once Ashby had left, White picked up his phone from the night table and typed a text to Veronica.
About to meet with your father. Love you.
Her reply was instantaneous. WHY???
He said he wants to talk to me face to face. I’ll text when we’re done.
White placed his phone in his jeans pocket and drank a few more sips from the paper cup as he watched the news. The anchor was saying that the authorities hadn’t yet identified the perpetrators of the attack at the hotel, which wasn’t surprising. The FBI and Secret Service would do their best to delay any information that could be detrimental to their investigation. Keeping the media at bay was going to be a full-time job—an impossible task, really. White knew how the game was played. A senior FBI or Secret Service official, usually one with only a few months left before retirement, would leak something juicy in exchange for future consideration for a contributor job with the network.
He was considering topping up his paper cup with some of the coffee from the coffee maker when there was a knock at his door. Before he could reach the door, it swung open and two Secret Service agents entered. Both wore dark suits, white shirts with no ties.
“Hey, boss,” one of them said. “He’s on his way up.”
Before White had a chance to say that he wasn’t the boss anymore, the other agent spoke into the microphone at his wrist and let the rest of the protective detail know the site was green and that Angler was clear to enter White’s hotel room. Angler was the code name the Secret Service had assigned to Alexander Hammond. Since Hammond’s love for fishing was notorious, White thought the name fitting.