Long before anyone understood what was happening, Washington, D.C. felt wrong. People on the sidewalks sensed it without being able to explain it—a pressure in the air, a heaviness that didn’t belong to a normal afternoon. Street vendors paused mid-sentence. Commuters slowed their pace for reasons they couldn’t name. Even the pigeons circling over Lafayette Square seemed restless, scattering in short, frantic bursts. Something was winding up beneath the surface, something the city recognized before its people did.
Earlier that morning, unmarked SUVs rolled through the downtown grid with an unfamiliar rhythm—circling the same blocks, cutting down alleys normally avoided, pausing at corners without pulling over. Their windows were impossibly dark, their movements too controlled to be random. A pair of office workers later claimed they heard clipped radio chatter from a passing vehicle, the tone precise and urgent. They brushed it off at the time. In hindsight, it felt like the first crack in the dam.
At 17th and I Street NW—an intersection that usually buzzes with government staff, tourists, and early lunch crowds—the day carried on as if nothing was amiss. Two National Guard personnel stood at their post, alert but unbothered, part of the city’s daily backdrop. The White House sat only a few blocks away, quiet in the winter sunlight, its presence steady and predictable. No one knew the next few minutes would rip that illusion apart.
Continue reading next page…