Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

wall. He visualized the sewer system map. Behind the grate had to be the access pipe that led to the utility corridor. On Luther’s blueprint, the utility corridor ran north and south for several thousand feet, sandwiched between the sewer tunnel and the Air and Space Museum basement. If someone wanted to gain access to the Capitol tunnels, this would be the starting line.
    Danny felt around the grate’s edges and found hinges on the right side. Then he felt the left side and found the handle. He used Luther’s flashlight to illuminate the handle. It looked like it had recently taken a beating. The thin metal was battered and cut, the fresh scratches gleaming in the flashlight’s beam. Then Danny noticed the handle hung on a round clasp. It didn’t take a detective to realize that someone had recently beaten off a padlock.
    Danny turned off the flashlight and rolled away from the grate. He had two choices. One, he could explore the pipe without any light, or two, stay behind the grate and use the flashlight to get a good look before leaping into total confusion.
    There was really no choice. He peered past the grate and switched the flashlight back on. He followed the pipe past the end of the flashlight’s beam into the darkness. He squinted and thought he saw something. He fooled with the flashlight, tightening and then widening its beam. He edged closer to the grate. He was more interested in trying to see what was at the other end of the tunnel than in his own safety. That’s when a gun was aimed at him, and the shooter pulled the trigger.

Chapter 84
    The gleaming pistol aimed at Sydney had no effect on her will. She stared into the eyes of C. Benjamin Speakes.
    Speakes didn’t say a word. He had already slithered around her to shut his office door. A razor-sharp blankness was etched on his face. Sydney could tell that things like killing were all in a day’s work for the director of the White House Military Office. But could he do it here in the White House? Supposedly the safest place on the planet?
    Speakes eased over to his desk and leaned against it. “You have your father’s eyes.” His southern accent rolled like a paddlewheel boat lulling along the Mississippi. He maintained the relaxed confidence of a man interviewing her for a job, not as someone who had just been exposed by an outsider. He coolly waved his weapon at her. “I thought you might pay me a visit down here, so I took the necessary precautions.”
    “You killed my parents, you bastard,” Sydney spat.
    Speakes shook his head. “Your father killed himself and your mother with his betrayal.”
    “That’s bullshit.” Sydney’s rage amplified. She now longed for the agent’s submachine gun, damn the consequences.
    Speakes cocked his head and sighed. “Life is about choices, Ms. Dumas. Your father chose to become one of us. Then he chose to walk away. He knew the consequences of his actions.”
    Sydney’s anger engulfed her now. She balled her hands into fists. She didn’t care if she lived or died now. All she wanted to do was to hurt this man who took the parents she never knew from her.
    She charged Speakes. Even though the barrel of the gun was right in front of her, she kept her eyes locked on his. He never flinched, never twitched, never even blinked. Sydney was only steps away from him when someone grabbed her from behind and slammed her against the floor.

Chapter 85
    The bullet ricocheted off the grate before the gunshot registered inside Danny’s head. He lunged sideways and tried to steady himself as two more bullets ripped through the rancid sewer air.
    Danny stuck the SIG Sauer’s barrel through the grate and blindly fired twice. Through the echo from his two rounds, he heard a voice travel down the length of the pipe.
    “Should we take him or retreat?”
    Danny helped them out with their decision. He fired two more shots into the tunnel and listened intently. He didn’t hear any more voices. But he did hear movement, and it was fading fast.
    He yanked on the grate, and it swung open. He leaped up into the access tunnel and banged his head on the roof. He bent down and began racing down the pipe, with only the tiny flashlight lighting his way.
    The access tunnel emptied into the utility corridor. Danny aimed the flashlight and his gun in both directions. What he saw a few feet away to his right confirmed his suspicions. Someone had pierced a hole in the corridor’s east wall.
    It would be suicide to chase