Pierce put his weight onto the stone and felt it drop a fraction of an inch. King pulled and the stone shifted easily, completing the circle and the Herculean Society’s symbol. They let go and moved back. The stone began shifting back into its previously unaligned position. It clicked into place as a flashlight cast it in yellow light.

The first guard to arrive drew his weapon and pointed it beneath the low ceiling where he thought he’d seen moving shadows. But the pit was empty and looked untouched. He stood and scanned the area, finding no one but his partner. If someone had been there, they were gone now.

Chapter Thirty

TWENTY-NINE

Washington, D.C.

DOMINICK BOUCHER HAD been wrong.

Not only had Marrs not backed down, but he’d responded to the vulture comment like something out of a Tazmanian Devil cartoon, spinning madly from rally to news station to rally again. With a beet-red face, he shouted at the media. At crowds. At the television audience. And despite the flying spittle and shaking jowls, people were listening.

He turned the self-serving vulture comment around on Duncan. “If one senator keeping the president accountable is enough to make him crack, how is he going to lead the nation?” he had said.

When the media picked up on the fact that Marrs was also responding in anger, he spun the story. “I’m responding to a man who has failed this nation several times. A man who’s inaction has led to the deaths of our children. I should be angry. Every good citizen of this nation should be angry. At Duncan for not preventing the attacks and at the people who perpetrated them. But who is our president angry at? Me! The office needs transparency. It needs accountability. If he can’t handle it, well…” With that he threw up his hands.

The man provided enough sound bites and accusations to keep the media and the public focused on Marrs and, as a result, on Duncan. His hands were bound more than ever now. The media requests didn’t stop coming. There were protesters surrounding the White House grounds and more arrived every hour.

Alone in the Oval Office for a few minutes before meeting with a slew of advisors on a range of issues arising because of the current crisis, Duncan looked out the row of windows. The south lawn, trim and neat like a marine’s head, stretched out before him. The trim grass annoyed him. Nothing was that clear cut anymore. In the Rangers there were good guys and bad guys. Black and white. Right and wrong. He had successfully carried on that tradition through the Chess Team. But now … now there were other battles, unnecessary battles that had to be fought. With Marrs. With the media. With public opinion.