panting, having trouble standing.
"You've got enough time to catch up to him and take him out."
"What about you?"
"I'd only slow you down," he said. She hesitated. An hour ago, she had
not wanted him to be part of this. Now she felt as if she was deserting
him.
"You're wasting time," Battat said. He gave her a gentle push and
started toward the door.
"Just go. I'll get to the stairwell and make my way back to the
embassy.
I'll see if I can do anything from there."
"All right," she said, then turned and hurried toward the door.
"He'll be armed!" Battat yelled after her.
"Don't hesitate!" She acknowledged with a wave as she left the room. The
hallway was filling with smoke. The few guests who had been in their
rooms were filing into the hallway to see what was happening.
Housekeeping staff and security personnel were beginning to arrive. They
were helping everyone toward the stairwell. Odette told one of the
security men that someone needed help in 312. Then she rushed ahead to
the stairwell. In less than a minute, she was in the street. The
parking lot was on the other side of the building. She ran toward it.
The Harpooner was gone.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 3:13 a.m.
Paul Hood returned to the Cabinet Room and shut the door. He took a
calming breath. The room smelled of coffee. He was glad. It covered
the stink of treason. Then he took out his Palm Pilot, looked up a
number, and went to the phone to enter it. This was not something that
Hood wanted to do. It was something he had to do. It was the only way
he could think of to prevent what was effectively shaping up as a coup
d'etat. The phone was answered right after the second ring.
"Hello?" said the voice on the other end.
"Megan, it's Paul Hood."
"Paul, where are you?" asked the First Lady.
"I've been worried--"
"I'm in the Cabinet Room," he said.
"Megan, listen. Fenwick is definitely involved in a conspiracy of some
kind. My feeling is that he. Gable, and whoever else is in this have
been trying to gaslight the president."
"Why would anyone want to make my husband think he's lost his mind?" she
asked.
"Because they've also set in motion a confrontation with Iran and Russia
in the Caspian Sea," Hood told her.
"If they can convince the president or the public that he's not equipped
to handle the showdown, he'll have to resign. Then the new president
will either escalate the war or, more likely, he'll end it. That will
win him points with the people and with Iran. Maybe then we'll all
divide up the oil wells that used to belong to Azerbaijan."
"Paul, that's monstrous," Megan said.
"Is the vice president involved with this?"
"Possibly," Hood said.
"And they expect to get away with it?"
"Megan, they are very close to getting away with it," Hood informed her.
"The Caspian situation is revving up, and they've moved the strategy
sessions from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. I don't have
security clearance to go down there."
"I'll phone Michael on the private number and ask him to see you," Megan
told him.
"That won't be enough," Hood said.
"I need you to do something else." Megan asked him what that was. Hood
told her.
"I'll do it," she said when he was finished.
"Give me five minutes." Hood thanked her and hung up. What Hood had
proposed was a potentially dangerous tactic for him and for the First
Lady. And under the best of circumstances, it was not going to be
pleasant. But it was necessary. Hood looked around the room. This was
not like rescuing his daughter. That had been instinctive. He had to
act if she were to survive. There had been no choice. This was
different. Hood tried to imagine the decisions that had been made in
this room over the centuries. Decisions about war, about depressions,
about human rights, about foreign policy. Every one of them had
affected history in some way, large or small. But more important than
that, whether they were right or wrong, all of them had required a
commitment. Someone had to believe they were making the proper
decision. They had to risk anything from a career or national security
to the lives of millions on that belief. Hood was about to do that. He
was about to do both, in fact. But there was a proverb that used to
hang in the high school classroom where Hood's father taught civics. It
was appropriate now:
"The first faults are theirs that commit them. The second theirs that
permit them." As Hood turned and left the Cabinet Room, he did not feel
the weight of the decision he made. Nor did he feel the danger it
represented. He felt only the privilege of being able to serve his
country.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 11:15 a.m.
It had been a long time since Maurice Charles had to make a sudden
retreat from a safe site. It infuriated him to run from a place he had
carefully prepared. But it infuriated him even more to run from anyone
or anything. It did not even matter to him at the moment how someone had
found out where he was. From their accents, the intruders were Russian
and American. Perhaps Moscow and Washington had been tracking him
without him knowing it. Perhaps he had slipped up somewhere. Or maybe
one of his associates had made a mistake. But Charles did not believe
the couple had been there by accident. For one thing, he had taken both
of the keys to room 310 when he checked in. The front desk did not have
a third key to give out. When the click of the bolt being opened woke
him up, he knew something was not right. For another thing, Charles had
watched the woman's feet, listened to her speak as she came in.
Everything about her entrance was tentative. If she truly thought this
were her room, she would have strode in and turned on the light. Women
were always eager to prove things when they believed they were correct.
Yet, as angry as Charles was, he refused to give in to his rage. The
immediate task was to cover his tracks so he could get away. That meant
eliminating the couple who had come to his room. He had not considered
calling the assassins he had used the night before. He did not want it
to be known that he had run into trouble. That would be bad for his
reputation and bad for business. He had gotten a good look at the
couple's feet and pants. That would be enough to identify them. He had
his gun and his knife. They would not survive the morning Charles had
walked halfway into the parking lot before turning around. If the couple
were looking out a window to find him, he wanted them to see him. He
wanted them to come rushing downstairs to stop him from getting away.
That would make them easier to spot. It would also tell him whether or
not they had backup. If they had called for help, cars or other
personnel would converge on the parking lot within moments. If that did
not happen, he could dispatch them and then get out of the city by train
as he had planne
d. After giving the couple a chance to see him, Charles
doubled back to the hotel. He entered by the side door, which led past
a row of shops. There were fire sirens approaching the hotel but no
police sirens. No other cars came speeding into the lot. That did not
mean Charles was home free. But it did suggest that the man and woman
had been acting without immediate backup near or on site. Losing
himself in a crowd that was fleeing a fire should be easy. First,
however, he had to finish his business with the intruders.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 3:17 a.m.
During the administration of Harry Truman, the White House was virtually
gutted and rebuilt due to the weakened condition of its centuries-old
wooden beams and interior walls. The Trumans moved across the street to
Blair House and, from 1948 to 1952, new foundations were laid and the
decaying wooden struts were replaced by steel girders. A basement was
also excavated, ostensibly to provide more storage space. In fact, it
was created to provide safe areas for the president and members of his
staff and family in the event of nuclear attack. Over the years, the
basement was secretly expanded to include offices, command headquarters,
medical facilities, surveillance posts, and recreational areas. It is
now comprised of four levels that go down over two hundred feet. All
four basement levels are only accessible by a pair of elevators. These
are located in both the East and West Wings. The West Wing elevator is
located a short distance west of the president's private dining room, in
a corner that is halfway between the Oval Office and the vice
president's office. The carriage is small and wood paneled and holds
six people comfortably. Access to the elevator is gained by thumbprint
identification. There is a small green monitor to the right of the door
for this purpose. Since the White House recreation areas are down
there, all the members of the First Family have access to the elevator.
Hood went to the vice president's office and waited outside. Because the
vice president was at the White House, there was a secret service agent
standing a little farther along the corridor. The vice president's
office was close to the State Dining Room, where the original White
House meets the newer, century-old West Wing. Hood was there less than a
minute when Megan Lawrence arrived. The First Lady was dressed in a
medium-length white skirt and a red blouse with a blue scarf. She was
wearing very little makeup. Her fair skin made her silver hair seem
darker. The secret service agent wished the First Lady a good morning as
she passed. Megan smiled back at the young man and then continued on.
She embraced Hood warmly.
"Thank you for coming down," Hood said. Megan put her arm through his
and turned toward the elevator. That gave her a reason to stand close
to Hood and talk quietly. The secret service man was behind them.
"How are you going to handle this?" she asked.
"It's going to be a tough, uphill fight," Hood admitted.
"Back in the Oval Office, the president was very focused. If your
husband has had doubts about his ability to function, then what Fenwick
and the others have given him is the perfect remedy. A crisis. They
couldn't have planned it better. The president seemed to be putting a
lot of trust in what Fenwick was telling him. He needed to. It was
helping him get his confidence back."
"So you said," the First Lady remarked.
"And they're all lies."
"I'm certain of it," Hood assured her.
"The problem is, I don't have hard evidence."
"Then what makes you so sure they are lies?" the First Lady asked.
"I called Fenwick's bluff when we were alone in the Cabinet Room," Hood
said.
"I told him we had the terrorist who orchestrated the situation
overseas. I told him the terrorist is going to tell us who he was
working for. Meaning Fenwick. Fenwick told me I'll never get the
information to the president." They reached the elevator. Megan gently
put her thumb on the screen. There was a faint hum behind it.
"Fenwick will deny he ever threatened you," she pointed out.
"Of course he will," Hood said.
"That's why I need you to get the president away from the meeting. Tell
him you need to see him for five minutes. If I did that, Fenwick and
his people would chew me up. But they'll be very reluctant to attack
you. That would turn the president against them."
"All right," Megan replied. The door slid open. The First Lady and
Hood stepped in. She pressed button Sl--Sublevel One. The door closed,
and the elevator began to move.
"There's a guard downstairs," Megan said.
"He's going to have to call ahead. I don't have access to the Situation
Room."
"Hopefully, someone other than Fenwick or Gable will answer the phone."
"What if I can only get my husband alone? Just the two of us," Megan
asked.
"I get his attention. Then what?"
"Tell him what you've noticed over the past few weeks," Hood said.
"Talk to him honestly about what we're afraid of, that Fenwick has been
manipulating him. Buy me time, even if it's only two or three hours.
I need that to get the evidence to stop a war." The elevator stopped.
The door opened. Outside was a brightly lit corridor. The walls were
white and lined with paintings of American military officers and famous
battles from the Revolution to the present. The Situation Room was
located at the end of the corridor behind two black double doors.
A young, blond, fresh-faced marine guard was seated at a desk to the
right of the elevator. There was a telephone, a computer, and a lamp on
the desk. On a metal stand to his left were several security monitors.
The guard rose and looked from Hood to Megan.
"Good morning, Mrs. Lawrence," he said.
"Up kind of early for a swim," he added with a smile.
"Up kind of late. Corporal Cain," she smiled back.
"This is my guest, Mr. Hood. And I'm not going for a swim."
"I didn't think so, ma'am," he replied. The guard's eyes shifted to
Hood.
"Good morning, sir."
"Good morning," Hood said.
"Corporal, would you please phone the president?" Megan said.
"Tell him I need to speak with him. Privately, in person."
"Certainly," the guard said. Cain sat and picked up the phone. He
punched in the extension of the Situation Room. Hood did not often pray,
but he found himself praying that someone other than one of Fenwick's
people was there to answer the phone.
A moment later, the guard said, "The First Lady is here to see the
president." The guard fell silent then. Hood and Megan stood still in
the quiet corridor. The only sound was a high faint whine that came
from the security monitors. After a moment, the guard looked up.
"No, sir," he said.
"She's with a gentleman. A Mr. Hood." The guard fell silent again.
That wasn't a good sign. Only one of Fenwick's people would have
thought to ask that question. After several seconds the guard said,
"Yes, sir," and hung up. He rose and looked at the First Lady.
"I'm sorry, ma'am. I've been told that the meeting can't be
interrupted."
"Told by whom?" she asked.
"Mr. Gable, ma'am."
"Mr. Gable is trying to keep Mr. Hood from delivering an important
message to the president," Megan said.
"A message that may prevent a war. I need to see my husband."
"Corporal," Hood said.
"You're a military man. You don't have to take orders from a civilian.
I'm going to ask you to place the call again. Ask to speak to an
officer, and repeat the First Lady's message."
"If Mr. Gable gives you trouble, I will take responsibility," Megan
said. Corporal Cain hesitated, but only for a moment. He picked up the
phone and remained standing as he punched in the extension.
"Mr. Gable?" he said.
"I would like to speak with General Burg." General Otis Burg was the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
"No, sir," Cain said after a moment.
"This is a military matter, sir. A security issue." There was another
pause. Hood tasted something tart in the back of his throat. He
realized, after a moment, that it was blood. He was biting his tongue.
He relaxed.