When Hale saw a man lingering near the elevators, he had a sudden sense of déjà vu, remembering a particularly intricate operation in Denmark.
Another man, in an ill-fitting waiter’s uniform, was moving to the stairs by the veranda, and Hale thought about a long night spent near a garbage chute in Belize.
“That settles it.” Kat sounded annoyed by Hale’s silence. “I’m coming up.”
“No, Kat!” Hale shouted, but she was already gone. “Marcus, I need you to go downstairs. Now. Stop Kat.”
“Of course, sir.”
“And, Marcus,” Hale called after him. “Just…tell her I have these.” Hale reached into his pocket and found the long-forgotten earbuds.
It is a testament to both Marcus’s demeanor and the oddities of Hale’s new life that the butler didn’t say another word. He didn’t ask a single question. And Hale was left with one other thing to do.
“There you are,” Hale told his mother when he found her.
“Oh, darling, do you know Michael Calloway? His mother is the event chair. We’ve just been arguing over whether he is going to let me outbid him for this gorgeous antique clock,” Mrs. Hale said, but her son didn’t care.
“Sorry,” Hale told the man in the tux with the small bits of sweat gathering at his brow. “I need her,” he said, pulling his mother from the table and toward the bank of elevators on the far side of the room, the ones that appeared to still be operational.
“Mom, I need you to come with me.”
“But, darling,” the woman protested, “it’s Swiss!”
The elevator dinged and Hale pushed her inside it. “Sorry. Dad will meet you downstairs.”
The doors were just starting to close when someone yelled, “Hold it!” and Hale turned to see Macey McHenry dragging her own mother behind her. “She’s going down,” Macey said, and pushed the button for the lobby. Before anyone else could protest, the doors slid smoothly closed.
Behind Hale, another elevator opened, and Macey pointed to it. “After you,” she said.
“No.” Hale let the word stretch out. “After you.”
“No,” Macey said. She grabbed his arm and pushed.
“Hey, I bruise,” Hale said. “Also, you are freakishly strong.”
Macey McHenry was sidling up to him. She looked like a bored society girl who was in the mood to grab the nearest guy and leave the party. But if there was anything that W. W. Hale V truly understood, it was that looks could often be deceiving.
As soon as she was close, she whispered, “You’ve got to get out of here.”
“No. You’ve got to get out of here,” he told her. “Go downstairs. Go now.”
“No,” she countered. “You go.”
“Why?” he asked.
“You tell me first.”
But before they could say another word, the last elevator slid slowly open and two men in masks rushed out. From the opposite side of the ballroom, shots rang out, rapid-fire, piercing the ceiling, plaster falling onto the dance floor like snow.
And then Hale and Macey whispered in unison, “Because of that.”
Chapter 3
PERHAPS IT WAS TOO LATE—the crowd too tipsy—but it seemed to take a moment for the partygoers to realize exactly what was happening. Their exits were blocked. And the finest of New York society had no choice but to huddle together, watching a series of masked men run into the ballroom through the fog of falling plaster.
They were not a group accustomed to being told what to do, even when one of the men jumped onto the stage. He carried a machine gun and wore a plastic mask over his face, the kind popular at Halloween with people who just want to put on a suit and pretend to be a president.
This man had chosen Ronald Reagan.
“Stay where you are,” he ordered. He kept his gun at his hip, pointed into the air, the butt resting against his side in a way that made him look more like an old-time gangster than a Navy SEAL.
Macey could have told him he was doing it wrong, but she had a feeling he wasn’t the type to take orders. He was the type to give them.
“I assure you, ladies and gentlemen, that we mean you no harm.” He walked slowly down the stage. A member of the band had dropped a violin and he kicked it, daring anything or anyone to stand in his way. “But that doesn’t mean we won’t hurt you. Do not fight us. Do not doubt us. And do not do anything stupid.”
Macey couldn’t help herself; she looked at the boy beside her, thought of how casually he’d pulled the phone from the mayor’s pocket, and wondered if maybe stupid was what he did best.
“Now, with the formalities out of the way,” Reagan said, “I’m so glad you could join us.”
A rush of cold air filled the room and Macey turned to see another gunman (Jimmy Carter) coming in from the balcony, pushing a small group of about a dozen partygoers in front of him. One woman was crying. A man looked indignant. They all carried themselves with hurried, nervous strides until they examined the larger scene—the masks and the guns and the fact that there was absolutely no way out.
“Good. We’re all here,” Reagan went on. “Now let’s get comfortable.” He spun and pointed his gun at one of the armed men Macey had spotted earlier. “Not you. Bill, why don’t you help Rambo here get comfy?”
A man in a Clinton mask walked toward the private security professional.
“Hands up,” Clinton said with a fake southern accent.
Slowly, the guard raised his hands, and Clinton pulled the man’s own gun from the holster at his side. Clinton slipped a pair of zip ties around his wrists and pulled them tight. But the guard didn’t try to stop him.
“You too.” Reagan pointed at the other private guards, the two men who hadn’t seen the signs, who hadn’t noticed the subtle shifts in the room that had seemed so obvious to Macey.
She looked at the boy beside her. And to Hale.
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen,” Reagan said with a little flourish, like part of him was putting on a show. “If you could move to the edges of the dance floor...” he said calmly, but no one moved. “Do it!” Another burst of bullets filled the air.
People screamed. Some fell to the floor with their hands over their heads, but almost everyone was frozen.
“Now move to the edge of the dance floor,” Reagan said again very slowly, and this time the people did as they were told. “Hands where we can see them, ladies and gentlemen. In fact, ladies, why don’t you toss your handbags into the center of the room? No use hanging on to those now.”