Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

an adviser to two young men in the same class. One was at Oxford because of his birthright; the other was there because he was the American Rhodes Scholar that year.”
    Danny flashed back to the photo he had seen on the president’s credenza in the Oval Office. He found Jack Butcher again and then scanned through the rest of the faces in the small crowd. He whispered the names before Chip could spit them out. “King Edward and President Jack Butcher.”
    “You get the gold star, Sergeant. But how the hell did you know that?”
    “I saw a photo of the 1975 Oxford graduating class in the Oval Office.”
    “Aha. That noggin of yours to the rescue once again.”
    Danny remembered all that Sydney told him about Colin Tanner. Tanner had realized that however altruistic the intentions of the Marxist student group he started, they became infected by human nature. Tanner couldn’t help what they turned into, but he could still influence other Oxford students.
    Danny visualized Jack Butcher on the phone with the British monarch after he left his supposedly private meeting in the Oval Office.
    I did tell one other person about your mission.
    It was as if someone had slapped his face. Danny listened past the words uttered underneath L’Enfant Plaza as he replayed the moment over and over in his mind.
    Should we take him or retreat?
    Danny nearly jumped out of his chair when he finally recognized the accent. The man was British! If they were King Edward’s men underneath the plaza, that meant they were also President Butcher’s men. He then pictured himself at the White House pool, cutting Sydney off before she could fully explain why she thought Stefan Taber was working for the president.
    I never told you that I encountered a diver under the water. He held a knife to my throat, but he didn’t kill me. It was Taber.
    Taber also had an open shot at Danny back at the racquet club. He could have easily killed them both, which if he was really working for the Bilderbergers, would have been his main directive. And while Taber shot at the president at the Willard Hotel, he must have known that the Secret Service agents would have jumped in the line of fire. All Taber needed was an out.
    How could I have been so stupid, Danny thought. He turned and stared at Ethan Goodnight. The boy’s bleary eyes were stuck on his mother’s kind face as she spoke to him, pointing out the famous policymakers beneath them. Danny focused on the reddened patch of skin around the trachea tube in his neck. Suddenly, all he could hear was the pulse of the machine. He watched Ethan wince every time the machine breathed for him.
    Danny caught Elisha Goodnight’s eyes and then motioned for her to swing her head behind her son’s wheelchair. “If I may ask, what condition does Ethan have?” Danny whispered.
    Elisha cocked her head at Danny, like it was a very odd question to be asked in their surroundings. “Dysautonomic mitochondrial myopathy,” Elisha whispered back. “It’s a form of muscular dystrophy.”
    Danny mouthed, “Is there a cure?”
    Elisha shook her head.
    Danny nodded at her politely and then gazed down at the House floor. He visualized another photo on the president’s Oval Office credenza, the one of Jack Butcher holding onto his son amid the tubes and machines that kept him alive. There was nothing Butcher could do but watch a painful disease slowly tear apart his little boy cell by cell. But what about this time? What about Ethan Goodnight? Butcher couldn’t cure the incurable, but he could provide another little boy with a quick, painless death. The question was how?
    “Danny? Danny? You still there, man?”
    Danny blinked as he heard Chip’s voice in his ear. “Yeah, I’m here,” Danny replied as he studied the House floor. Although the power that rested in the hands of the gathering people was awe-inspiring, the most powerful man on the planet was still nowhere to be found. “Listen Chip, I’ve got to get going. But tell me something, will you? Who would you trust around here in an emergency?”
    Chip laughed cynically. “Find Admiral Howard Fielding.”
    Danny spied him pressing the flesh near the dais on the House floor. “The director of National Intelligence?”
    “He was my mentor back when I was at Naval Intel.”
    “He’s a little busy right now.”
    “Then find a beat cop. The lower on the totem pole, the better. Got it?”
    Danny was already out of his seat and vaulting up the stairs. “Yeah.