CHAPTER 94

brEE, MAHONEY, AND I were still debating the likeliest targets twenty minutes before U.S. Supreme Court chief justice Winston Hale was set to be picked up by his normal security detail at his house in Falls Church, Virginia.

The team would take Hale to the White House, where he would join the sitting president and president-elect for coffee. Afterward, he would head to the Capitol for a larger reception and the swearing-in ceremony.

There was no question in our minds that the death of a chief justice would have a cataclysmic effect on the judiciary and would give the new president tremendous leverage and political power on day one of her administration. Because of that, Mahoney and Marshal Zhang had moved in an FBI counterterrorism squad to back up the detail assigned to the chief justice.

They had also beefed up security around the homes of seven other justices and at George Washington University Hospital, where Justice Mayweather was recovering from cancer surgery.

We listened to the radio chatter as the pieces of the security apparatus slid into position. We studied the various pinch points on the travel routes the other justices were set to take on their way to Capitol Hill, especially the locations where they were to transfer vehicles: two at a park in Alexandria, two at a park in McLean, and three in a school parking lot in Chevy Chase.

FBI agents were already in those spots and setting up surveillance and perimeters. A similar group would back up the detail protecting Justice Mayweather, who would travel in a private ambulance from the hospital to Capitol Hill at the last moment and return to the hospital following the formal ceremony.

Bree threw up her hands. “I don’t know what else we can do.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t be thinking about specific locations,” I said. “Maybe we should be thinking about specific targets. I mean, who would he most want to kill?”

Mahoney said, “The justices likely to oppose his way of thinking?”

“I think they’d all oppose his way of thinking,” I said. “Especially Keller and Damaris.”

“Chan too,” Bree said.

“But remember what Malcomb said—it’s not about the judges they kill.”

“It’s who they put in the dead judges’ place,” Mahoney said. “I get it. But that doesn’t change the fact that we want zero justices dying today.”

Bree said, “Exactly. And Chan and Damaris both change vehicles in McLean.”

Mahoney got on his radio, called the leader of the FBI team moving into position around the state park there. “Stay sharp. This could be focused on Chan and Damaris.”

“Roger that, SAC,” the team leader came back. “We have a small army surrounding this place at the moment, working dogs, heat-sensing devices. You’d have to be Houdini to get in here without us knowing.”

In the minutes that followed, Chief Justice Hale was picked up at his home without incident and driven into Washington with armored black SUVs front, back, and sides. He arrived at the White House at seven thirty a.m. as the other justices were being picked up.

Justice Margaret Blevins was first, driving with her escort from Potomac to Chevy Chase. Several days before, while we were being held by Maestro, Blevins had fainted in her office. She had been taken to the hospital but released not long after, and doctors attributed the episode to low glucose levels. The justice had even been well enough to go for a run earlier that morning.

By eight fifteen, seven justices had been successfully transferred to their various vehicles. Forty-five minutes later, the last of those vehicles entered the garage off Independence Avenue, and eight justices were inside the Capitol Building.

At five minutes to nine, a motorcade bearing the old and new administrations left the White House and headed to Capitol Hill. Fifteen minutes later, an FBI agent called over the secure radio we were monitoring: “Justice Mayweather is en route. Looking strong for a guy who just lost part of his liver.”

Bree’s brow furrowed.

“What?” I asked.

“Private ambulance. Looks to me like a pretty easy target for a Sparrow.”