Election Day (John Taylor #6) - Chapter 10

Taylor took the stairs three at a time, clearing the first floor in seconds, Whitaker’s footsteps echoing close behind him. He’d just made it to the second floor when he heard a crashing sound coming from Kara’s bedroom.

Taylor exploded through the partially opened door, only to find Kara alone, sitting up in bed, the gun he’d given her in her hands. She’d been pointing the weapon towards the remains of the shattered window when he came in. To her credit, she’d reacted quickly, turning the weapon towards the sound of her door bursting open, thankfully pausing long enough to recognize him.

“He went out the window,” she said in Russian.

Taylor turned and pushed past Whitaker, who was coming into the room behind him, almost knocking her down. Once again he took the stairs multiple steps at a time, hurtling over the body of the fallen agent and circling around to the rear of the house where the broken window to Kara’s room faced.

Taylor wasn’t surprised to find Hubbard, who almost certainly had been the person to throw himself out yet another window, gone. Even reacting quickly, it had taken him some time to get around the building. Hubbard was smart enough to know once gunshots rang out it wouldn’t be long before more armed agents showed up.

Taylor slowly walked the backyard. There wasn’t much in the way of cover behind the house, just a large security fence separating the Senators’ house from her neighbors. While it was more solid and much taller than the fences in most people’s back yard, it wasn’t unscalable, especially for someone who had to go through standard obstacle courses in training.

Taylor pulled himself up onto the wall enough to look around, but there was no sign of Hubbard. Knowing Whitaker, she’d already called it in, probably requesting a surrounding of the neighborhood, although Taylor doubted that would do much good. Hubbard would have already worked out his escape route ahead of time and probably had some kind of transportation staged a block or two away. By the time the Secret Service and locals got a cordon thrown up, he’d be gone.

Heading back towards the house, Taylor began checking the ground outside the window. There wasn’t much in the way of blood, except for some residual amounts on the glass shards. Taylor wasn’t an expert, but he’d bet there wasn’t enough to indicate any kind of gunshot wound. The small amount of blood most likely came from jumping through the window.

Looking up at it, Taylor estimated the fall. Hubbard had been through jump training, which means he’d trained in parachute landing falls. Contrary to popular belief, parachutes only slowed you down so much. Even properly deployed, landings could still be pretty rough. Soldiers were trained to roll with the impact of a hard landing so they could get up and keep fighting. They trained by jumping off platforms not that much lower than the second-story window. Hubbard would have done it dozens of times over his career at the very least.

Taylor stood back up and walked around the broken glass fragments back to the front door. Inside, he found Whitaker sitting on the side of Kara’s bed when he got back upstairs, hugging both their adoptive daughter and Mary Jane, who’d joined them at some point.

“He’s gone,” Taylor said, sitting on the other side of girls. “You did a good job, kiddo.”

“Good job would have been killing the son of a bitch.”

“Tell us what …” Whitaker started to say before the sound of screeching tires came from outside, interrupting her.

“That’d be Cole. You called it in?”

“Yes.”

They could hear what sounded like an army crashing up the stairs. Cole appeared inside the room seconds later, a look of relief showing as soon as he saw Mary Jane sitting with them, unharmed.

Everything became chaos at that point. Cole hustled Mary Jane out of the room, probably taking her somewhere more secure before coming back in, clearly agitated.

“What happened?”

“Once the van exploded we realized Hubbard had set a trap to pull Caldwell’s security out of place,” Whitaker said. “Even though the Senator was gone, both our daughter and Mary Jane were here, so we rushed back. We found the agent down at the door and heard gunshots, after which Hubbard jumped out of Kara’s window. Taylor circled around the house, but Hubbard was gone by the time he got there. Then you showed up.”

“Who fired a weapon?”

“I did,” Kara said. “I heard something in the hallway right before my door was kicked in. I saw a man coming into the room, so I shot at him.”

“Where the hell did you get a gun?”

“I gave it to her,” Taylor said. “I was concerned with how close Hubbard had gotten and I wanted her to be able to protect herself.”

“What the hell were you thinking? You can’t give a teenager a firearm, especially a teenager in the same house as my protectees. Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s a good thing I did, otherwise Kara and Mary Jane would both be dead.”

“That’s beside the fact. She what, had the gun under her pillow? Then she’s firing in the dark blindly at an intruder? She could have hit anyone when the bullets went through the wall!”

“I’m not an idiot Cole. First, I’ve been training Kara in firearms and she spent a lot of time at the range. If she hadn’t been then I wouldn’t have given it to her. Look at the wall, there are no bullet impacts. She didn’t miss.”

“If she didn’t miss, then how the hell was Hubbard able to run away?”

“He was almost certainly wearing a vest. I taught her to aim center mass, and that’s where she would have shot. It was enough to drive him off, which was the whole point of giving her a weapon. We’re just lucky he kicked in her door first rather than Mary Jane's, or you’d have more dead people on your hands.”

“It’s still careless and stupid. If you thought there was trouble, why didn’t you say anything to me? It’s our job to protect the Caldwells, not yours.”

“If it’s your job, then why do you have a man dead downstairs?”

“Because that’s what we do. We put our lives on the line every day for our protectees. I know someone like you doesn’t understand what that kind of commitment’s like, but we take it seriously.”

Taylor couldn’t help himself; he started to lunge forward at Cole. Thankfully, Whitaker had been standing more or less between them and could interpose herself between them, putting her back against Taylor’s chest. Had he been really determined, he would have been able to push past her, but she offered enough of a moment’s break for Taylor to get control of himself.

He’d gone a long way over the last few years getting control of his anger, but there were still moments when idiots like this triggered him.

“I appreciate you have protocols for everything, but you haven’t been treating Hubbard seriously since this whole thing started,” Whitaker said. “We tried to warn you from the beginning, but once you saw the man’s records, you should have realized how dangerous he is. The decision to react passively and wait for him to come to you is a mistake. He’s shown you how capable he is.”

“You’re going to get people killed,” Taylor said.

He felt Whitaker tense up and knew he shouldn’t bait Cole. Whitaker was trying to play the peacemaker and get everyone on the same side, and Taylor knew Cole was the kind of guy to get stubborn and defensive when challenged.

“The only person that’s going to get people killed around here is you,” Cole said, his face turning red. “Every minute you’re distracting my men from doing their jobs you put the Caldwells in danger. I know you pulled some strings to get access, but that ends here.”

“Agent Cole,” a voice called from the doorway. “I will decide who has access to my home. From what your men tell me, we have this young lady to thank for protecting my daughter. I appreciate all your efforts, and I am very sorry about your man, but I think we owe her our appreciation. Now, if you’ll excuse us, I’d like a few minutes.”

Cole glared one more time before turning and storming out.

“Senator, you should go wherever they took Mary Jane. We only got to see her briefly, but she’s very shaken up.”

“I spoke with her in the car while I was on the way here and she asked me to come here first. I’ll be going to see her next, but I wanted to make sure y'all were all right. Kara, sweetheart, are you okay?”

“I am fine.”

“Are you sure? I know doing something like that can be traumatic. I wanted to make sure you weren’t too upset having to shoot that man.”

“The only thing I am upset by is I did not kill him. Next time I'll aim higher.”

Kara exchanged a brief glance with Taylor, which went unnoticed, or at least uncommented on, by the other two. Taylor and Kara didn’t often talk about the details of what happened to them in Russia just over a year ago when Kara helped rescue Mary Jane. They hadn’t mentioned to anyone that it had been Kara who’d shot and killed the man holding the Senator's daughter.

Taylor had suggested that Kara keep her more ruthless side quiet, not advertising how cold she could be if needed. Beyond the fact that it would cause some people she might meet to judge her harshly, Taylor also thought it was useful to allow people to underestimate her. Kara was tiny and the farthest thing from intimidating, with her wild red hair and porcelain complexion. The thing that kept her safe, all those years living by someone else’s whims, had been her ability to compartmentalize and make the hard choices. While Taylor had worked hard with her to undo the trauma she'd had from her previous life, he didn’t want her to lose those two skills.

Whitaker might see the world as a good place and believe in justice and fair play, but Taylor was a realist. He knew the world was a heartless and cold place and wanted Kara to be able to keep it together when things went south. It’s why he hadn’t been worried about teaching her to protect herself or giving her the gun, and she’d just proven him right.

“I’m so sorry you had to get involved with this. Had I known he would have gotten this far, into our house, I wouldn’t have had you stay here. The last thing I wanted to do was put you in danger.”

“I already live with Mary Jane; I am in no more danger now than I was before.”

“Less so, especially now. Cole may be an asshole, but he’s good enough at his job to keep this from happening again,” Taylor said, grudgingly giving Cole the compliment. “Hell, we went with him to check on Hubbard’s sighting. He suckered all of us.”

“Still, it seems I will forever be in debt to your family.”

“Senator, we aren’t keeping score.”

“You have no idea how rare that is in my world. It’s why I trust you. All of you. Still, I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to keep having you involved in this.”

“Ma’am,” Whitaker said, “I know we’ve rubbed your security detail the wrong way, but …”

“Ohh, no, it’s not that. Them I can deal with. I’m more concerned about your safety. First John almost gets killed, then your apartment gets blown up, and now Kara. You three have given enough.”

“Senator, I know I speak for us all - myself, Whitaker, and Kara - when I say we aren’t going anywhere. Cole might be good at his job, but he isn’t taking Hubbard seriously enough. I know the man, or at least I know his type. I served with them. Hell, I was him, except for the being insane part. He’s not going to quit, and he’ll keep looking for new ways to get to you. We need to get this guy, and we need to do it soon.”

“I’ll talk to Agent Cole. I’m not sure I’ll have any luck getting him to work better with you, but I’ll make sure he doesn’t try and block you. I trust you. Just do what you need to do to get this guy.”

“You can count on us.”

She gave Kara and Whitaker parting hugs and headed back downstairs to deal with Agent Cole before she headed to console Mary Jane in person.

“Hey,” Taylor said. “You okay?”

“Yes. I’d like to go with Suzette to see Mary Jane, if that’s okay?”

Taylor looked at the broken window for a second, “That should be okay. I know the Senator would be happy to have you with them, and I don’t think Hubbard will make another try at her today. We should be pretty busy for the rest of the night anyway. Knowing Cole, he’s going to have a whole briefing in the next hour. I’m going to put this in your bag, just in case.”

Whitaker frowned as he pulled his backup weapon back out, now that Cole wasn’t poking around the room, and put it inside of Kara’s backpack.

“Are you sure that was a good idea,” Whitaker asked as they left Kara to pack up the few clothes she’d removed from her bag. “Cole’s not done ripping into you about giving her a gun, and you could face blowback for allowing a minor to keep a firearm.”

“Screw Cole. I want her protected until this whole thing is over. You don’t think she can handle herself?”

“I didn’t say that. I know Kara’s more capable than you two like to show, but I don’t like seeing her having to deal with this kind of thing. She’s still a kid.”

“She stopped being a kid a long time ago. She doesn’t need to be coddled or babied. She needs to be seen as someone able to handle all the shit she’s had to deal with, if only so she can believe it herself.”

“You have to stop talking to her shrink,” Whitaker said with a grin.

“Probably, but I still want her to be able to protect herself. Have faith in her.”

“Just be ready to face Cole, 'cause he’s going to have her searched and make sure she isn’t still armed.”

“I’ll deal with Cole.”

The first floor of the Caldwells’ home was pure chaos. Besides a large influx of Secret Service agents, Taylor recognized a few FBI agents he’d met over the last few years along with a handful of uniforms from Metro PD.

They found Caldwell in a heated argument with Cole, who clamped his mouth shut when he noticed Taylor and Whitaker walking up.

“Senator, Kara wanted to know if she could go with you to see Mary Jane.”

“Of course. Mary Jane would probably prefer to have Kara there anyways. Agent Cole, I believe we’ve come to an understanding … yes?”

Cole's eyes flicked to Taylor for a moment before he said, “Yes.”

“Good. I’m glad you could be reasonable. John, Loretta, I’ll see you later.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” Taylor said.

“You two,” Cole said after Caldwell walked away, barely containing his rage. “I don’t care what the Senator says; my mandate comes from the President himself. He’s made it very clear that our number one priority is to keep the Senator safe, and I can’t do that with you two poking around.”

Whitaker started to speak, probably trying to once again smooth the waters between then, when Taylor put his hand on her arm, stopping her. He normally appreciated having her cover up his rougher spots, since her more diplomatic sensibilities usually worked better than his more direct manner, but that wasn’t going to work this time.

Taylor knew Cole’s type. They actually weren’t that much different, as far as temperament went. They both had a hard time listening to anyone when they thought they were right and everyone else was wrong. The problem was that Taylor was right and Cole was absolutely wrong in his approach to the whole situation. Diplomacy wasn’t going to get Cole to accept the way things had to be.

“Cole, I’m not looking to get into a pissing match with you, but we aren’t going away.”

“You’ll do…” Cole started to reply, but Taylor kept speaking, rolling over him.

“You have two options. Option one: you let us keep doing our thing. We’ll keep trying to stay out of your way as much as possible and work Hubbard on our own. Option two: I make sure your screw-ups go public. I guarantee you the President and your bosses don’t want it getting out how you’ve screwed everything up.”

“We haven't screwed anything up!”

“Really? You think the press will report it that way? You have had multiple credible threats on a candidate’s life and didn’t take it seriously until after a federal agent was killed. When you did locate the suspect, you let him escape and set up a van filled with explosives blocks from the same candidate’s house. While you were investigating that, the same suspect managed to break into your protectee's house, a house you pulled most of the protective detail from. The suspect then killedone of your agents and almost killed the candidate’s daughter.”

“You were there for every step of that.”

“Sure, but I wasn’t in charge. We were the ones who found Hubbard the first time. We identified him, and when he got into your protectee's house, our daughter was the one who stopped him from killing Mary Jane Caldwell. You know how the media loves their heroes and villains. One of us stopped a terrorist on live TV in the last six months and one of us has been the one in charge of this catastrophe. Which one of us is the media going to make the hero and which one of us will they make the goat?”

Cole’s face turned two extra shades darker, and his shoulders shook. For a moment, he looked like he might actually take a swing at Taylor.

“Look,” Taylor said, his voice softening. “I don’t want to jam you up. When this is all over and we get Hubbard in custody, you can have all the glory. I don’t really care. You’ve been dealt some bad breaks on this one. This whole situation with the van was a no-win situation and I would have done everything you did. Hell, I pushed you to do what you did. I don’t want it to seem like I’m trying to screw you over, but I’m not going to let you keep me from keeping my friend safe.”

“Agent Cole,” Whitaker said, finally able to get a word in edgewise. “We can all agree we want the same thing. I know you have procedures you need to work through, and you’ve been doing this for a while, and I know that Taylor can be extremely difficult. God help me do I know it.”

“Thanks,” Taylor mumbled.

Ignoring him, Whitaker continued, saying, “If you stop and look at everything though, I think you’ll find his unorthodox way of doing things works. What I think you will agree with is that this situation is dangerous. Hubbard’s gotten way too close to one of your protectees. You don’t have the luxury of taking things slowly. You need every tool you have, and right now we’re one of those tools. I know having us work on this, even on our own in parallel, goes against everything you’ve been taught, but don’t dig in your heels on this. You don’t have the time to waste arguing with us, and we aren’t going to give up. The only smart play is to let us work on finding Hubbard our own way. If we screw up, you can throw us under the bus. If we find him, you can declare victory and never mention us. It’s a win-win for you.”

“It’s not a win-win for any of my agents that get hurt.”

“Do you honestly think the agent that died here today would still be alive if we weren’t involved,” Taylor said. “You might be a giant pain in the ass, but you haven’t struck me as an idiot. If we weren’t here, what would be different? Even if you did get Hubbard’s name without us, which I’m sure you would have, would you have done anything differently tonight?”

Cole paused before saying, “Fine. I’m not saying I like it, but you’re right. I don’t have the time to argue with you or the Senator. Just because I’m not sticking with going to the AG about you two doesn’t mean I won’t if you keep getting in the way. We’re going to have a briefing in about ten minutes, and then you can go.”

“That guy’s got his head so …” Taylor started to say as Cole walked away, stopping when Whitaker’s hip-checked him.

“Ignore him. Let’s just hear what he’s planning on doing and go from there.”

As with nearly any group in law enforcement Taylor had dealt with, ten minutes stretched into twenty and then thirty before everyone who needed to be there showed up and got settled.

“Most of you will have heard about what happened tonight,” Cole said, as he started the briefing. “For those of you who haven’t, check your briefing notes. In short, we got suckered tonight, costing us the lives of two good agents. I shouldn’t have to reiterate how dangerous Hubbard is. You’ve all looked at his sheet, but I want you to read over what he did tonight and understand this … Hubbard isn’t your standard variety wacko. He’s smart, he’s patient, and he’s capable of changing his tactics to fit a situation.”

Taylor had to physically hold himself back from snorting. That was what he’d been trying to convince Cole of since they found out who Hubbard was. Now he was up there acting like he hadn’t put everyone in danger by treating Hubbard like a ‘standard variety wacko’ since the jump. Taylor decided he should at least find solace that Cole had finally seen the light, even if ignoring the man’s mistakes to this point was a bitter pill.

“That being said,” Cole continued, “we aren’t going to start going off half-cocked. We have protocols for a reason, and we need to follow those now more than ever. These systems are in place for a reason, and they’re what are going to keep us from making the kind of mistakes that will get anyone else killed. To that end, although we’ve got the FBI, Capitol Police, and Metro PD on an all-out search for Hubbard, we are not going to join them. We’re going to keep doing what we do to protect the Caldwells.”

Cole held up his hand to settle down the bustle of activity that started as he declared his intentions. Taylor was happy that some of the other people in the room found Coles plan as short-sighted as he did.

“I understand your concern. You’ve lost some of your fellow agents and you want payback. I get it, but we need to keep our focus where it’s needed. We aren’t going to be doing anything. I’ve talked to Agent Bailey and he’s assigned us some additional manpower that should arrive shortly. As of now, we’re doubling up all posts, both the permanent posts like here at the house, and the personal details. We’re also going to put full advanced teams on every place the Senator has planned on going to, just like we would for trips out of the district. Finally, I’ve spoken with her campaign manager and I’ve convinced him that we don’t need any more unexpected trips that would otherwise thin our ranks. As of now, we stick to the schedule we have. Once the advance team has cleared an upcoming location, we will be locking it down. We’ve been allocated additional manpower from the state troopers to help with that. All of that will be coordinated from the command post we’re setting up here. I’m keeping it short, because we’re coming up close to the election, after which we’ll have less public vulnerability. Now, go check out your assignments and keep an eye out for anything that might have been missed. We’re all in this together people. I have faith in each of you, and in our colleagues out there hunting for this maniac. We can get this done!”

“Why don’t we have the Senator stop these events now?” Taylor asked before everyone could disperse. “Hubbard’s close. Every new location, no matter how good your advanced team is, puts Caldwell in more danger. Couldn’t you …”

“That’s it folks, go get to work,” Cole said, raising his voice to drown out Taylor.

“Cole,” Taylor said, trying to talk sense into the man one last time as everyone else filed out.

“I don’t want to hear it,” Cole said, holding up a hand. “I might not have kicked you out yet, but I’m done listening to you. If you interrupt another one of my briefings, nothing you or the Senator could say will keep me from filing obstruction charges against you.”

Taylor threw up his hands and headed towards the front door as Cole turned and stormed off in the other direction.

“How has he not learned yet?” Taylor said to Whitaker. “It should be clear by now that Hubbard’s capable of watching their movements and planning ways around them. Just holding to a pattern is the worst thing they can do.”

“You knew he was going to be like this. At least if we’re out looking for Hubbard we’re less likely to bump into Cole and have to deal with him again.”

“You and I both know we aren’t that lucky.”

“Maybe. Either way, let’s get going.”