CHAPTER TWENTY
7:05 a.m. Eastern Standard Time
The Situation Room
The White House, Washington, DC
The room was abnormally subdued.
Susan walked in carrying her coffee, Kat Lopez with her step for step, three Secret Service agents—a woman and two men—surrounding them in a reverse-pyramid shape. Susan had barely slept, but she felt alert. She might not have slept at all, come to think of it. She wasn’t sure. She seemed to have reached a place where lack of sleep gave her more energy, not less.
She felt optimistic. The heavy paper cup in her hand was her third jolt of coffee in the past half hour, and that was part of it. Stone and his team were on the ground, and that was the other part. Susan wanted to put the problem of this missing weapon to rest.
Then she wanted Stone to come home
