The Mark of the Assassin (12 page)
Elizabeth pressed the button, and a solemn bell tolled somewhere inside the imposing house. A trim man in a tuxedo opened the door. He helped with her coat and glanced outside expectantly, looking for her partner. “I’m alone tonight,” she said self-consciously, then immediately regretted it. She thought, I don’t have to explain myself to a fucking butler.
The butler informed her that drinks were being served in the garden. She followed the center hall into the house. French doors gave onto a magnificent terraced garden. Gas heaters burned the chill from the autumn night air. Elizabeth stepped outside, and a waiter presented her with a glass of cold Chardonnay. She drank half of it very quickly.
She glanced around at the other guests and felt even more embarrassed. She was surrounded by the elite of Washington’s Republican establishment: the Senate majority leader, the House minority leader, a smattering of lesser members, and the upper echelon of the city’s lawyers, lobbyists, and journalists. A famous conservative television commentator was holding forth on the banks of the lap pool. Elizabeth awkwardly drifted into his orbit, clutching her wine like a shield. Beckwith was in trouble, the commentator pronounced, because he had betrayed the Party’s conservative principles. His audience nodded slowly; the Oracle had spoken.
Elizabeth glanced at her watch: eight o’clock. She wondered whether she could make it through the evening. She wondered who would be the first to comment on the fact she was alone. Someone bellowed her name. She turned in the direction of the sound and saw Samuel Braxton floating toward her. He was a brilliant and ruthless lawyer, warehoused inside a lineman’s body gone soft with age and prosperity. His latest acquisition, a big-breasted blonde named Ashley, hung on his beefy arm. She was wife number three or number four; Elizabeth couldn’t recall for certain. They had sat next to each other at a dinner party while she was still Ashley DuPree, waiting for her divorce to become final so she could “make an honest man of Samuel.” She was Huntsville rich. Her family made money from horses and from cotton, some of which was stuffed inside her head, masquerading as a brain. She suited Braxton’s needs perfectly : an upper-class pedigree, money of her own, and the body of a
Playboy
centerfold despite her respectable thirty-eight years.
Playboy
centerfold despite her respectable thirty-eight years.
“Where’s your husband?” Braxton asked loudly. “I wanted to show off Ashley.”
The Oracle stopped speaking, and his audience turned to hear her answer.
“He was called out of town suddenly on business,” Elizabeth said. She felt her face flush, despite her lawyerly effort at courtroom composure. The lying was the hardest part. It would be so much easier if she could tell the truth just once: The President is about to order air strikes against the Sword of Gaza, and my husband works for the CIA, and he couldn’t exactly leave work this minute to come to this ridiculous dinner party.
Braxton made a show of looking around the garden at the other guests. “Well, Elizabeth, you do seem to be in the minority here tonight. If I’m not mistaken, you’re the only card-carrying member of the Democratic Party in the room.”
Elizabeth managed a careful smile. “Believe it or not, Samuel, I’m one of the few people who actually likes Republicans.”
But Braxton didn’t hear the crack because he was already looking past her at Mitchell Elliott, who had just entered the garden. Braxton jettisoned Ashley and floated through the guests toward his most lucrative client. For the next half hour, Ashley and Elizabeth discussed horses and the benefits of personal trainers. Elizabeth listened politely while she finished her first glass of wine and quickly drank another.
Shortly before nine o’clock, Elliott asked for everyone’s attention. “Ladies and gentlemen, the President is about to address the nation. Why don’t we hear what he has to say before dinner?”
Elizabeth followed the crowd into the large living room. Two giant-screen television sets had been wheeled in. The dinner guests clustered around them. Tom Brokaw was chatting on one, Peter Jennings on the other. Finally, the shots dissolved and a grim-faced James Beckwith was staring into the camera.
Paul Vandenberg didn’t believe in public displays of stress, but tonight he was nervous and it showed. This one had to be perfect. He sat with Beckwith in makeup and reviewed the address one last time. He stared at the television monitors to make sure the shot was perfect. He ordered a run-through on the TelePrompTer to make sure it was working properly. The last thing he needed was a dead prompter and James Beckwith staring into the camera like a deer in the headlights.
The speech was scheduled to begin at precisely 9:01:30 p.m. Eastern. That gave the networks ninety seconds to preview the speech with their White House correspondents. Vandenberg had carefully chummed the waters. He had told reporters—on background, of course—that the President would discuss a military response to the attack on Flight 002 and a major new defense initiative. He did not go into specifics. As a result, a sense of urgency hung over Washington as the President strode into the Oval Office.
It was two minutes to air, but Beckwith calmly shook hands with every member of the network pool crew, from the executive producer to the floor director. He finally sat down at his desk. A production assistant clipped the microphone to his crimson tie. The floor director shouted, “Thirty seconds!”
Beckwith adjusted his jacket and folded his hands on the desk. A look of determined composure settled over his handsome, restrained features. Vandenberg permitted himself a brief smile. The old man was going to be just fine.
“Five seconds!” the floor director shouted. She silently pointed to James Beckwith, and the President began to speak.
Michael Osbourne intended to watch the President’s speech from his desk, but shortly before nine o’clock Adrian Carter came into the bull pen and gestured for Osbourne to follow him. Five minutes later they strode through the entrance of the Operations Center.
DCI Ronald Clark reclined in a black leather executive chair, smoking a cigarette. Monica Tyler sat next to him. Tweedledee and Tweedledum drifted in an uneasy orbit.
Beckwith’s face appeared suddenly on a wall of television monitors: CNN, the broadcast networks, the BBC. Ghostly infrared images flickered on three larger monitors, live satellite images of the Sword of Gaza training camps in Libya, Syria, and Iran.
Carter said, “Welcome to the best seat in town, Michael.”
“Good evening, my fellow Americans,” Beckwith began, pausing a beat for dramatic effect. “Two nights ago TransAtlantic Airlines Flight Double-oh-two was shot down off Long Island by a terrorist armed with a stolen Stinger missile, killing everyone on board. It was an act of cowardice and barbarism with no possible justification. The animals that carried it out apparently believed there would be no consequences for their action. They were wrong.”
Again, the President paused, allowing the line to sink in. Vandenberg had gone down the hall to his office to watch the address on television. A chill ran down the back of his neck as Beckwith delivered the line perfectly.
“The law enforcement and intelligence agencies of this nation have concluded that the Palestinian terror group known as the Sword of Gaza is responsible for the attack. They will now pay the price. At this moment, the men and women of the U.S. armed forces are launching a careful and measured strike against Sword of Gaza training camps in several countries in the Middle East. This is not about vengeance. This is about justice.”
Beckwith paused, breaking script. The TelePrompTer operator stayed with him. “Let me repeat that: This is not about vengeance. This is about justice. This is about sending a message to the terrorists of the world. The United States will not and cannot stand idly by and watch its citizens be slaughtered. To do nothing would be immoral. To do nothing would be an act of cowardice.
“I have one thing to say to the Sword of Gaza and the governments that provide them with the tools of their terrorist trade.” Beckwith narrowed his eyes. “Do nothing more, and it ends here. Kill another American, just one, and there will be a very heavy price to pay. On that you have my solemn word.
“I ask for your prayers for the safe return of all those taking part in tonight’s action. I also ask you to join with me in praying for the victims of this barbaric act and for their families. They are the real heroes.”
Beckwith paused and shuffled the papers of his script, a sign that he was changing the subject.
“I want to be brutally honest with you for a moment. We can take steps to make certain that an attack like this is never repeated. We can keep a more careful watch on our shores. Our intelligence agencies can increase their levels of vigilance. But we can never be one hundred percent certain that something like this could never happen again. If I sat here before you tonight and told you that was the case, I would be lying to you, and I have never lied to you. But there is something this government can do to protect its citizens from terrorists and terrorist nations, and I want to talk to you about that tonight.
“The United States now possesses the technology and the ability to build a defensive shield over this country, a shield that would protect it against an accidental or deliberate missile attack. Some of the same nations that provide support to groups of savages like the Sword of Gaza are also actively trying to acquire ballistic missile technology. In short, they want missiles that are capable of striking American soil, and slowly but surely they are getting them. If just one missile, armed with a nuclear warhead, fell on a city like New York, or Washington, or Chicago, or Los Angeles, the death toll might be two million instead of two hundred and fifty.
“Together with our allies, we are trying to prevent nations such as Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, and North Korea from obtaining ballistic missile technology. Unfortunately, too many countries and too many companies are willing to help these rogue nations out of greed, pure and simple. If they succeed and we are unprepared, our nation, our foreign policy, could be held hostage. We must never allow that to happen.
“Therefore, I call on the Congress to rapidly approve the funds necessary to begin construction of a national missile defense. I challenge the Congress and the Department of Defense to have the system in place by the end of my second term in office, should you grant me another chance to serve you. It won’t be easy. It won’t be inexpensive. It will require discipline. It will require sacrifice from all of us. But to do nothing, to give the terrorists a victory, would be unforgivable. God bless you all, and God bless the United States of America.”
The camera dissolved, and James Beckwith disappeared from the screen.
Senator Andrew Sterling watched Beckwith’s speech from a Ramada Inn in Fresno, California. He was alone except for his longtime friend and campaign manager, Bill Rogers. The sliding glass window was open to the pleasant evening air and the sound of traffic rushing along Highway 99. When Beckwith appeared on the screen, Sterling said, “Close that, will you, Bill? I can’t hear the sonofabitch.”
Sterling was an avowed liberal, a Humphrey-McGovern-Mondale-Dukakis tax-and-spend bleeding-heart liberal. He believed the federal government spent too much on guns it didn’t need and too little on the poor and children. He wanted to restore cuts in welfare and Medicare. He wanted to raise taxes on the wealthy and on corporations. He opposed free trade. His party agreed, and it had anointed Sterling as its nominee after a long and bitter primary fight. To the surprise of the political chattering class, Sterling roared out of the Democratic National Convention five points ahead and stayed there.
He knew his lead was fragile. He knew everything depended on holding California, where Beckwith had the home court advantage. Which explained why he was spending the night at a Ramada Inn in Fresno.
Sterling’s face turned red, then something approaching purple, as Beckwith spoke. He had consistently voted against the national missile defense program. Beckwith had put him in a box and nailed down the lid. If Sterling supported Beckwith, it would look like a flip-flop. If he opposed him, the Republican attack machine would wheel out the “soft on defense” ads. There was a more important factor: California’s defense industry would be rejuvenated if the missile defense system was built. If Sterling opposed it, Beckwith would jump all over him. California would slide back into the GOP’s column. The election would be lost.
“Now, that’s what I call an October fucking surprise,” Sterling said, when Beckwith finished speaking.
Rogers rose and shut off the television. “We’ll need to issue a statement, Senator.”
“Fucking Vandenberg. He’s one smart sonofabitch.”
“We can support Beckwith on the air strikes against the Sword of Gaza. Politics stop at the water’s edge and all that happy horseshit. But we’ll have to oppose him on missile defense. We have no other choice.”
“Yes, we do, Bill,” Sterling said, staring at the blank television screen. “Why don’t you go downstairs and get us a twelve-pack? Because we just lost the fucking election.”
Michael Osbourne watched the first cruise missiles strike their targets while the President was still speaking. In Iran, at Shahr Kord, they must have been listening to the speech on shortwave radio, because a dozen men burst from the largest building of the compound as Beckwith announced imminent action. “Too late, boys and girls,” murmured Clark. A few seconds later ten cruise missiles, fired by the Aegis cruiser
Ticonderoga
in the Persian Gulf, struck the camp simultaneously, igniting a spectacular fireball.
Ticonderoga
in the Persian Gulf, struck the camp simultaneously, igniting a spectacular fireball.
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