CHAPTER 2

Dalton Mercer tried to shake the gnawing feeling that something bad was about to happen.

The security chief shaded his eyes and stared up at Air Force One as it circled above Andrews Air Force Base. Soon the shiny silver bird would taxi down the runway and come to roost at Hanger 19, but only after Dalton gave them clearance.

“The pilot is squawking about the delay,” said the radio operator in the tower.

“Does he know about the gasoline spill?”

“Yes, sir.”

Dalton’s jaw tightened. “Tell him to keep his shirt on.”

Dalton didn’t like delays either. What he hated most was a lastminute glitch in his meticulous safety measures. Thirty minutes ago the Secret Service had been ready for the plane to touch down on the east landing strip. After a damaged hose leaked 5,000 gallons of gas on the taxiway, the president’s arrival had been switched to the west runway. That meant scoping out the new area and transporting the press from one end of the base to the other.

A bus barreled towards him. The driver braked to a stop and stepped off, followed by dozens of men and women in heavy jackets.

There are more people than usual, Dalton thought.

It was a chilly, wet morning at the beginning of spring, not the kind of day most people would pick to spend hours outside. Still, hundreds of curious bystanders and reporters had not hesitated to climb onto crowded shuttle buses, and shiver in the cold for over an hour to witness President Franklin’s landing. Now they had been relocated and crammed behind a velvet rope that would separate the VIP section from the president. It stretched for twenty-five yards, so spectators arranged themselves in small clumps that thinned out and extended to the stainless steel posts that anchored the cord.

Dalton’s eagle-like gray eyes stared at the soldiers standing like bookends at each end. It occurred to him that someone