Designated Survivor by John H. Matthews Page A

laughing or crying,” Grace said.
    “Actually I think he’s puking,” Levi said.
    Levi rolled the man onto his back and pulled the man’s pistol from the holster on his belt then checked him for other weapons.
    “He’s clear,” Levi said. “But the hall is littered with weapons.”
    “Tie him up,” Grace said.
    The rest of the team came from the door and Avery helped Levi put zip ties on Laurence’s wrists and ankles. Grace looked up and saw Netty headed for the door to the House chamber.
    “Don’t open the door,” he said.
    “Isn’t this why we’re here?” she said.
    “We don’t need 600 people rushing out to get on camera,” Grace said. “This guy was nervous as hell about something, so I’m not ruling anything out. Let’s split up and look around.”
    The team moved out in teams of two. Methodically they checked every office door and stairwell surrounding the House as well as the connecting Statuary Hall. Grace and Holden were clearing an office on the backside of the House when Avery’s voice came through their earpieces.
    “Boss, you should get down here.”
    “Where’s ‘here’,” Grace said.
    “A level down, east hallway,” Avery said.
    “On our way,” Grace said.
    The two men went to the stairs, weapons always at the ready, and made their way down. They followed the center hall between offices and saw Netty standing at the far end.
    “What do you have?” Grace said.
    “In here,” Netty said.
    They followed her into an office at the corner of the east and central halls and found Avery in the small room, standing on a desk he’d pushed against the wall.
    “What is it?” Grace said.
    “In the stairwell on the other side of this wall I saw fresh plaster. Couldn’t reach it without a ladder so I went to the office on the other side of the stairs,” Avery said. “It was a pretty crappy plastering job and the paint on top of it didn’t even match.”
    He was picking at the wall with his six-inch pocketknife blade and chunks of plaster were falling to the ground. He opened a foot long section running along the edge of the ceiling then pointed his flashlight into the hole.
    “Yup, it’s here, too,” Avery said.
    Grace climbed up onto the desk beside Avery and looked into the hole.
    “Holy shit. That’s C4,” Grace said.
    “And a lot of it,” Avery said. “This is the third office I’ve found it in.”
    “Always at the ceiling?” Grace said.
    “Yup,” Avery said.
    Grace looked up at the ceiling.
    “Let’s check the rest of the offices,” Grace said.
    Avery, Grace and Netty made their way through each of the offices, finding the fresh plaster along the ceiling of all the rooms and stairwells on the inner square of the floor. They came out of the last office and stood in the hall.
    “I need you two to go up two levels and check some more, most likely at the floor instead of the ceiling,” Grace said.
    Avery and Netty moved out. Grace reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone and dialed. The phone just beeped at him, showing no signal.
    Grace made his way back to the main entrance to the House Chamber. He went to the double doors and inspected the frame and hinges then took his knife from his belt and slowly slid the blade under the frame and pried it out.
    “Shit,” a line of C4 was running along the doorframe below the trim.
    A voice came through his earpiece.
    “Boss. More of the same up above,” Avery said. “Not just the perimeter, but everywhere you could get access.”
    “You see any detonators or wires?” Grace said.
    “I do, but no ends,” Avery said. “No idea where it’s originating. No way to disable it. Even if I pulled the detonators I can reach, there’s many more I can’t.”
    “Okay. Get back down here. We have work to do,” Grace said. “Looks like the house doors are wired, too.”
    The rest of the team stood and looked at him.
    “What now?” Holden said.
    “Time for some construction work,” Grace said. “Or