“Boy, are you going to have some explaining to do. I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes,” snapped Agent Zuschnitt.

This guy is a real asshole. I thought this shitty treatment was reserved for muscling in on local law enforcement jurisdictions or when the FBI got one-upped by the CIA. Most of the FBI guys Scot had met in his career had been pretty decent. The Secret Service and the FBI normally got along quite well. This guy, though, was asking for it.

“Agent Zuschnitt, I know you’re doing your job, and I’m just trying to do mine.”

“If you’d done yours, the FBI wouldn’t have to be here cleaning up your mess.”

“What’s your fucking problem?”

“I don’t have one. What’s yours?”

Harvath’s pissed-off meter was now well into the red zone, but he fought to stay in control and keep his cool.

“Over two dozen men probably have died on my watch-”

“And you want me to let you in here to contaminate this crime scene? Somehow that’s going to make everything all right? Guess again, buddy.”

“You know,” said Harvath, backing down, “you’re right. You’ve got a job to do, a post to stand. I can appreciate that. If you couldn’t keep one lowly Secret Service agent out, it’d probably make you look like a pretty big ass.”

A smile spread across the lips of the beefy FBI agent as he smelled victory and saw Harvath turn to walk away. The smile disappeared when Harvath quickly spun around and delivered a blow to Zuschnitt’s sternum. It felt like a red-hot ingot of lead that had been fired at him from a cannon. As the air rushed from his lungs and the agent doubled over in pain, Harvath placed his palms on Zuschnitt’s shoulder blades and drove his knee up into the man’s mouth, splitting his lip open and knocking him unconscious.

“So much for professional courtesy,” said Harvath as he ducked under the tape and walked up the hill to where several small flags had been placed in the snow.

Blue tarps were pitched over the bodies to protect against further snow accumulation. Sealing the scene was the right thing to do, but there was no reason that Scot shouldn’t have been allowed in. The scene was already greatly disturbed because of the rescue efforts. Snow was one of the biggest pains in the ass to try to gather evidence in. This case was no exception. As a matter of fact, the difficulty had been compounded by the avalanche, which Harvath now knew was no accident.

Scot moved from tarp to tarp, looking beneath each one, recognizing every face. The eyes of many of the bodies were still open, staring right through him. The pattern of precise head shots on all of the bodies coupled with random bullet wounds on some didn’t make sense. He had a feeling that before this was over, he would be running across a lot of things that didn’t make sense.

Scot was trying to process the information as he walked over to one of the final tarps, under which lay the body of Sam Harper. He lifted the sheet of blue plastic and saw the body with the SIG-Sauer clasped in Sam’s right hand. A flood of memories poured through Scot’s mind, and it was almost impossible to push them out.

Whenever a president made an appearance on or near water, the Navy SEALS were called upon to provide support. Harvath had transferred to Dev Group after several years with Team Two and was part of a contingent of SEALs that assisted several such protective details for a former president who loved to race his Cigarette boats off the coast of Maine. Scot had proven himself to be extremely talented on many occasions, but when he discovered and defused a small explosive device meant to disrupt one of the president’s outings, Secret Service agent Sam Harper stood up and took notice. Harper had been looking for someone just like Scot to help improve the Secret Service’s protection of the president.

He pursued Harvath back to Little Creek, Virginia, where Scot was an active part of the SEAL think tank. It took some doing, but Harper eventually succeeded in wooing Scot on board the Secret Service team. After Harvath completed his courses at the Secret Service advanced-training facility in Beltsville, Maryland, he joined Harper at the White House. Not only did Sam Harper show him the ropes, but he made him a part of his family. Scot had lost track a long time ago of how many barbecues and holiday dinners he had eaten with Sam, his wife, Sharon, and their two daughters. The thought of how they would take this news tore right through his heart.

”What the hell are you doing?” came the voice of a very angry Tom Hollenbeck.

Without turning around, Harvath walked toward the last and final tarp, which he knew must be covering the man Harper had shot.

“Harvath, I asked you a question!”

Scot lifted the tarp and stared at the bloody body. Half of the back of its skull had been blown away.

“What the hell’s the matter with you? Assaulting an FBI officer? Damn it, Harvath, look at me.”

It took him almost a full minute to tear himself away from the body of the Middle Easterner. Silently, Scot was making a promise to Harper. He would personally deliver the bullets that would take out every last one of the fuckers responsible for this tragedy.

“Skorpion,” said Harvath so quietly that Hollenbeck almost didn’t hear him.

“What?”

“The machine pistol, it’s a Skorpion,” said Scot, turning to face Hollenbeck.

“What about it?”

“They’re manufactured by the Czechs, but are the darlings of every Middle Eastern group with a bone to pick.”

“Speaking of bones, my friend, I’ve got a big one to pick with you. I know what kind of weapon that is, but I’ve got a couple of other questions. Just what the hell were you thinking when you coldcocked that FBI agent?”

Scot shook off the melancholy trance that had descended on him when he had seen Sam Harper’s body. “He was asking for it.”

“Asking for it? He was doing his job maintaining the integrity of this crime scene. You know damn well that in a situation like this it becomes the FBI’s purview.”

“Yeah, when we call them in.”

“And we have called them in, so therefore you’ve gotta back off. Our job now is to function in a support capacity.”

“Doesn’t that piss you off, Hollenbeck? Whoever did this, breached our security, killed our men, and took the president.”

“We can’t be sure that he was taken.”

“Not you too. Come on.”

“Of course it pisses me off, but that doesn’t change the fact that the law is the law.”

“We’re supposed to be the best protective force in the world, none better. And yet, someone was able to just fly in here, wipe out our team, and then take off with the president.”

“Scot, we’re all in shock over this. None of us can believe it happened. You saved Goldilocks, though, and you should be extremely proud of that. We are all proud of that.”

“But, Tom, they took the president. Our president. Not only are our reputations and the reputation of the Secret Service at stake here, but so is his life. We can’t just sit back and do nothing.”

“Scot, the cold reality is that he might already be dead. We have no idea either way. They could dig four feet in another direction and come up with him…though I doubt it. I actually agree with you. I think he’s been grabbed, which is all the more reason for us to cooperate and play the parts we’ve been assigned. Now, let’s get you out of here. I’m gonna have to do some fast talking to keep your bacon out of the fire, and I need a few minutes to think.”

“Thinking is only going to waste time we already don’t have. We need to act.”