Detective Danny Cavanaugh 01 - The Brink

up. The three others beneath it were labeled ‘B’, ‘SB1’, and ‘SB2’. There was a biometric scanner protruding from the panel next to them. Cannon didn’t bother with scanning his fingerprint and punched the ‘B’ button.
    “We going to the basement?” Danny asked.
    “Yeah,” Cannon replied.
    Danny motioned to the other two buttons. “What’s on those other floors?”
    “Storage.” The answer came too quick, like it was a practiced one used to hide the truth.
    The ride to the basement level was a short one. The elevator chimed and Cannon pounced on the “Close Door” button with his thumb.
    “You mind telling me what might be out there?” Cannon asked.
    Danny had been considering his answer ever since he ended his last phone call with Chip. “I think there’s a bomb set to go off under the House of Representatives tonight, in a matter of minutes.”
    Danny half expected Cannon to bust out laughing, but he didn’t even flinch.
    “Explain,” Cannon replied.
    “The sarin gas attack last week, at L’Enfant Plaza.” Danny paused to make sure Cannon was on the same page.
    “Yeah?” Cannon said.
    “I think it was a cover to plant a bomb.”
    Cannon looked confused. “But bombs were already found under the Lincoln Memorial and near the Washington Monument. There were no bombs found at L’Enfant Plaza. Every agency, from the FBI down to the meter maids, has been sweeping everything around here since the gas attack. There’s nothing.”
    Danny thought of another border story. Several members of the fledging Meridian Cartel had slaughtered a lieutenant of the rival Juarez Cartel, most of his family and several other cartel members at the lieutenant’s daughter’s wedding. A full revenge assault was inevitable. Every member of the Meridian Cartel was murdered, which is exactly what the Mexican government had counted on. For the killers weren’t actual members of the Meridian Cartel. They were Mexican Army officers in disguise.
    Deception has always been the true art of war.
    “Who said they didn’t deliver the bombs here before the gas attack?” Danny offered. He pictured the group of men who had fired on him underneath L’Enfant Plaza returning to their cramped quarters in the utility corridor after planting the bombs, before the gas attack. Then he pictured them waiting until after the gas attack and the subsequent investigation to commence the other part of their plan: linking the gas attack to their delivery. He pictured one of them unlocking the sewer grate’s lock to gain access to the sewers, relocking it and them smashing it off. He pictured another one scratching the grate underneath the platform in the station. That’s why the FBI didn’t notice the scratches. They weren’t there until after the Metro station investigation was complete. The assailants wanted to make it look like an outside job, the blame no doubt falling on some terrorist cell.
    Rather than argue with him, or even question his line of thinking, Cannon jumped ahead. “The only security we have down here are the cameras.” It seemed Cannon shared Danny’s take on cameras: they were too heavily relied upon and were susceptible to tampering, a recipe for a security disaster.
    “No guards?” Danny asked.
    “Not before the gas attack. But since then, the entrances to the escape tunnels have been guarded 24/7.”
    “Who works on the cameras?” Danny asked.
    “We control them.” Cannon’s response oozed of contempt, like Danny shouldn’t have even thought that a member of the Capitol Police could be mixed up in anything sinister.
    “I didn’t ask who controls them. Who works on them? Who fixes them when they go down? Who maintains the software, the network?”
    “Private contractor,” Cannon replied.
    “Your chief hire them?”
    “No, procurement department does. But I know they’re new.”
    Danny stiffened. “New? How new?”
    “They came in with the Butcher administration. But that’s nothing different. New contractors always come around with the changing of the guard at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
    “How much time until the State of the Union?” Danny asked.
    Cannon flicked his left wrist, checking his watch. “Less than 45 minutes.”
    “Which means we probably only have a half hour to find the damn thing,” Danny said. He eyed the control panel. “What’s really on SB1 and SB2?”
    “Like I said Cavanaugh, it’s for storage. Sub-basement one and two are filled with private