In Margaret Truman's Murder on the Metro, Jon Land's first thrilling addition to the New York Times bestselling Capital Crimes series, Robert Brixton uncovers a sinister plot threatening millions of American lives!
"A roller coaster of a novel." —David Baldacci, New York Times bestselling author
Israel: A drone-based terrorist attack kills dozens on a sun-splashed beach in Caesarea.
Washington: America awakens to the shattering news that Vice President Stephanie Davenport has died of an apparent heart attack.
That same morning, a chance encounter on the Washington Metro results in international private investigator Robert Brixton thwarting an attempted terrorist bombing. Brixton has no reason to suspect that the three incidents have anything in common, until he’s contacted by Kendra Rendine, the Secret Service agent who headed up the vice president’s security detail. Rendine is convinced the vice president was murdered and needs Brixton’s investigative expertise to find out why.
In Israel, meanwhile, legendary anti-terrorist fighter Lia Ganz launches her own crusade against the perpetrators of that attack which nearly claimed the lives of her and granddaughter. Ganz’s trail will ultimately take her to Washington where she joins forces with Brixton to uncover an impossible link between the deadly attack on Caesarea and the attempted Metro bombing, as well as the death of the vice president.
The connection lies in the highest corridors of power in Washington where a deadly plot with unimaginable consequences has been hatched. With the clock ticking toward doomsday, Brixton and Ganz race against time to save millions of American lives who will otherwise become collateral damage to a conspiracy destined to change the United States forever.
"Margaret Truman’s Murder in the Metro is a spectacular international thriller of intrigue and conspiracy that I could . . . not . . . put . . . down." —Mark Greaney, New York Times bestselling author
At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
Release date:
February 16, 2021
Publisher:
Tom Doherty Associates
Print pages:
352
* BingeBooks earns revenue from qualifying purchases as an Amazon Associate as well as from other retail partners.
Shortstop is in for the night,” Kendra Rendine said into her wrist-mounted microphone from outside the vice president’s bedroom door. “Repeat, Shortstop is buckled in for the night.”
As head of the vice president’s Secret Service security team, Rendine had personally led the detail that had accompanied Stephanie Davenport, America’s first-ever female vice president, from her event that evening back home to 1 Observatory Circle. As procedure dictated, she checked the bedroom where Davenport had slept alone since the death of her husband from cancer, and then moved to the door.
“Good night, ma’am.”
“You too, Coach,” Davenport had said, with a smile that belied how exhausted she must have been after an exceptionally long day that had seen her up and running from the virtual crack of dawn.
Davenport’s Secret Service code name had come courtesy of a stellar career as a shortstop on Brown University’s softball team the year they’d won an Ivy League championship. She’d managed all-Ivy honors, as well as honorable mention All-American. She’d attended Brown as part of the Marine Corps’ officer training program before knee and shoulder injuries washed her out. She’d gone to law school and spent the early part of her career defending the poor and indigent, while acquiring a disgust for injustice that knew no bounds and had ultimately drawn her into politics, where she believed she could have the greatest effect as an agent of change.
The rest of Stephanie Davenport’s life en route to the vice presidency included stints as both governor and senator, ample proving grounds even before her infectious charisma and fundraising prowess entered into the mix. Rendine had been put in charge of Davenport’s Secret Service detail from literally the moment she was officially added to the ticket, meaning that she’d been with Davenport through all moments good and bad, thick and thin, glorious and tragic. The woman unceasingly impressed her, never more so than when she refused to let a recently diagnosed heart condition derail her ambitions or affect her schedule. The vice president considered the whole matter a nonissue, and as of today, only a handful of people in and out of the White House knew the whole truth—how, a month earlier, stents had opened up a trio of nearly totally blocked arteries, after surgery had been ruled out because Davenport also suffered from atrial fibrillation.
Today was one of the few days since the vice president had resumed a full working schedule that Rendine could see the strain on her features after walking even short distances. Rendine found it sad, unfair, that such a magnificent athlete in her youth could be so hobbled in middle age. But it seemed to have been exacerbated in recent days. Rendine had initially passed that off as the lingering effects of the procedure. Earlier today, though, she’d peered into the vice president’s eyes and seen something other than fatigue:
Fear.
She’d been around Davenport long enough to trust her instincts, and today those instincts had told her something was bothering the vice president. It would be an unacceptable breach of protocol for Rendine to raise that issue, beyond the mundane utterance, “Is everything all right, Madam Vice President?” And she hadn’t bothered with even that, since the query would have provoked nothing more than a smile and a sigh, followed by, “Thanks for asking, Coach,” in typically disarming fashion.
The secluded twelve-acre compound that held the vice president’s official residence at 1 Observatory Circle sat amid the seventy-two acres of parklike grounds perched on a hilltop in a stately neighborhood about two and a half miles from the White House. Built in 1893, the handsome three-story Queen Anne–style home was surrounded by a forest-like setting, complete with lush greenery, wildlife, and the serene sounds of nature that nursed Davenport to sleep on nights mild enough to leave the windows open. A kind of oasis set just footsteps away from the bustling traffic on Massachusetts Avenue.
Rendine knew the structure up and down, not a single nook or cranny escaping her attention. She’d walked every square foot on multiple occasions, to the point where she could do so blindfolded—not so much folly, since Secret Service agents were well schooled in maintaining their vigil even in the event of a blackout. This wasn’t her first detail, only the first she’d ever been in charge of, a duty made all the easier by the genuine high regard and affection in which she held Stephanie Davenport. Though her training had counseled avoiding the kind of relationship that bordered on friendship, Rendine never hid her admiration for the vice president or the genuine pleasure she took in their conversations on long overseas flights and in various green rooms before an event was about to start. She counted herself fortunate to have this be the first detail she’d ever led, typical of everything she’d been taught, with a single exception: Stephanie Davenport’s heart condition.
The one compromise the vice president had agreed to make was to wear a watch that monitored her heart rate 24/7, triggering an alarm in the event the slightest anomaly was detected. All Secret Service agents underwent vigorous emergency medical training, but the vice president’s detail was further supplemented by having a battle-tested medic manning a shift at all times. There were three of them in the rotation, and Rendine liked them all, especially the fact that all insisted on checking Davenport’s pulse, heartbeat, and blood pressure at regular intervals throughout the day. And the vice president had reluctantly agreed to give them final word on whether a trip to the hospital was warranted, on their say-so alone.
When triggered, an alarm would buzz directly in the earpiece of either Rendine or the head of the vice president’s detail at the time. For redundancy, the alarm would also be sent to the Secret Service central monitoring station on the Naval Observatory grounds, which used electronic surveillance to watch for intruders or anything else requiring the attention of patrolling or posted agents. That station, too, would respond by dispatching the medic assigned to that particular detail, just in case the detail head’s communicator had somehow malfunctioned. Rendine had heard and felt the annoying screech a dozen times during drills but, fortunately, never in a real-time event. Although she was a believer in the mantra that there was a first time for everything, Rendine hoped this case proved to be an exception to that.
With Vice President Davenport tucked away for the night and an agent posted directly outside her door, Rendine made a quick round of the house. She found the rigors and responsibilities of her job to be far easier to bear when she stayed active, kept in motion. Standing still left her contemplating all the things that could go wrong with a protectee, in this case the second most important person in the Secret Service’s charge. She found everything buttoned up and secure as it always was, and had just decided to do a check of the exterior perimeter as well, when the familiar screech sounded in her ear.
Even though, Rendine’s first thought was that it must be a malfunction, she lit out for the stairs, raising her wrist-mounted mic to her mouth.
“Stellar One,” she said to the guard outside Stephanie Davenport’s door, who fortuitously also served as this shift’s medic, “we have an active medical alarm from Shortstop. Repeat, we have an active medical alarm from Shortstop.”
“Breaching now,” the guard’s voice came back, using the term for entering the vice president’s bedroom without pause or announcing himself.
A pause followed, Stellar One’s voice returning as Rendine reached the third floor.
“Shortstop is down! Shortstop is down!”
Rendine barked orders into her mic while charging for the open door to Davenport’s bedroom herself, calling for an ambulance and ordering her team to set up a secure perimeter, given that the second most powerful person in the world had been incapacitated. Her final order before reaching the bedroom was to activate a protocol whereby security around the current Speaker of the House of Representatives would be tripled immediately, since the Speaker was next in the line of succession after the vice president.
Oh my God …
Did Rendine say that or merely think it, when her first look inside the bedroom found the detail’s medic feeling for a pulse along Stephanie Davenport’s neck? She was seated in a desk chair before her laptop computer. Judging by the reddish bruise on her forehead, the vice president must have fallen forward when she lost consciousness, impact having left its mark amid the ghastly pale visage that made her features look more like a wax figure’s.
“No pulse,” Stellar One reported. “And she’s not breathing.”
The agent started to ease Davenport from the chair. Rendine moved in to help Stellar One get her lowered onto the floor, where he began to apply CPR.
“Ambulance?” he asked, when Rendine dropped to the floor on the other side of the vice president.
“Coming. Just a few minutes away.”
The agent went back to performing CPR, looking over at Rendine. “A few minutes too many,” he said. “We’re losing her.”
Without needing to be prompted, Rendine rushed to the closet and yanked the portable defibrillator from the shelf. She was well schooled in its operation but preferred to trust the process to a trained professional. And it took Stellar One all of twenty seconds to get the machine charged and paddles readied.
“Clear!”
Rendine lurched back involuntarily, as the detail medic clamped the rubber fittings across the vice president’s chest. She heard the eerie whine of the machine get louder, reaching a crescendo before Stellar One pressed them downward with a thwack!
After an initial jolt, Stephanie Davenport’s frame settled stiffly. Rendine noted her lips were blue and her complexion had turned pasty and pale.
“Charging,” said Stellar One. “Clear!”
He shocked her again, drawing an even more pronounced jolt that nonetheless produced no results. The next moment, as Stellar One readied another shock with the defibrillator paddles, Rendine heard the welcome scream of the approaching sirens. That gave her hope that timely treatment might yet save the vice president’s life, even though Stellar One’s third try with the defibrillator produced the same results as the first two.
The detail medic looked at her grimly from the other side of Stephanie Davenport’s stiff, motionless frame, uttering a deep sigh.
Please log in to recommend or discuss...
