Transfer of Power (9 page)

The White House

WARCH STEPPED BACKWARD to cover the president's retreat.

With his gun still leveled on the man across the room, he listened to the frantic radio traffic coming over his earpiece and tried to decide where to take the president. A decision had to be made, either evacuate him from the compound via the south ground's limo or stash him in his new bunker. Right as Warch reached the doorway to the study, the building was rocked by an explosion.

Aziz had been waiting for the explosion and sprang. Taking a quick step to the side, he grabbed Chairman Piper around the throat with one arm and drew his knife with the other. Aziz stuck the tip of the knife into Piper's throat, breaking the skin and drawing blood. Careful to keep his head shielded behind Piper's, Aziz yelled, "Order your men to stop with the evacuation, or I will kill him!"

The request fell on deaf ears. Warch's primary, immediate, and only concern was the president. Nothing else mattered, especially not the political operative who had brought this snake into the White House. Warch took one final step backward into the study and closed the door to the Oval Office.

Seconds earlier Special Agent Morton had pressed a hidden button in the short hallway. There was a hydraulic hiss, and an entire section of the wall lurched inward, revealing a hidden staircase. Morton started down the steep stairs first, followed by two agents who had the president sandwiched in between them. Valerie Jones, caught up in the human freight train, was grabbed by one of the last two agents and thrust forward.

Warch was now at the top of the stairs yelling, "BUNKER!

TAKE HIM TO THE BUNKER!" Warch then stepped into the hidden passageway and sealed the wall behind him. As he started down the stairs, he raised his hand mike to his mouth and said, "Horsepower, fromwarch. We are moving Woody to the bunker! I repeat, we are moving Woody to the bunker!"

The group clambered down to the first landing. Waiting for them at the bottom were two Secret Service agents who had just come out the side door of Horsepower. They had already opened the heavy steel door to the tunnel that ran underneath the Rose Garden and over to the mansion. One of them took the lead and started down the next flight of stairs, while the other one waited to cover from the rear.

The caravan, now totaling eleven people, continued into the tunnel. The wide passageway was covered with an ugly brown carpeting. The group raced ahead at full speed, the agents almost carrying the president.

When they reached the far end, they had two choices. They could proceed either up a set of stairs and into the first basement of the mansion or down a short set of stairs on the right. The lead agent hustled down the steps on his right. He came to an abrupt halt at a riveted steel door and punched an access code into the control panel.

As soon as he heard the metallic release of the lock, he threw his shoulder into the door and burst into a large anteroom. The first two agents into the room fanned out to the left, and with their guns leveled, they covered a second door to the twenty by-ten-foot anteroom.

As soon as the last agent had cleared the tunnel, the door to it was closed and locked.

Jack Warch pushed his way through the group, grabbing the president firmly by the upper arm. The two large agents who had been glued to Hayes on the way down the stairs and through the passageway moved forward, staying with their charge.

A dazed President Hayes looked to Warch and asked "What in the hell is going on?"

Warch decided not to answer the obvious and proceeded forward. At the opposite end of the anteroom, Warch approached a large, smooth vault door. The special agent in charge of the presidential detail flipped open the cover to the control panel and punched in a nine-digit code.

There was a brief moment of silence and then a hissing noise as the rubber airtight seal on the door contracted. Next, the locking stems retracted and an electric motor began to whine as the two foot-thick solid steel door swung open, revealing the president's newly completed bunker.

The White House Mess

ANNA RIELLY WAS standing near the center of the White House mess holding a paper cup of black coffee and listening to Stone Alexander explain why the room was called a mess instead of a dining room. Apparently it had something to do with the U.S. Navy. She was only half listening to Alexander as he rambled on. Two men in dark suits sitting at a nearby table had caught her eye. They had a police-officer look about them that was common to most of her father's friends and more than one of her brothers. Almost simultaneously, the two men brought their hands up to their ears and held them there.

Rielly guessed from the gesture that they must be Secret Service.

She was about to turn her attention back to her tour guide when the two agents abruptly stood and raced across the room with their weapons drawn.

Oblivious to what had just transpired not more than twenty feet away.

Stone Alexander continued with his oral dissertation on the West Wing.

Being new to the job, Rielly wasn't sure if what she had just witnessed was normal, but common sense told her that law enforcement officers didn't draw their weapons unless there was a good reason. Rielly looked around the room and concluded from some of the faces she saw that she wasn't the only one who had noticed the brandishing of firearms.

Rielly set her coffee down and looked at Alexander.

"I think there's something going on."

Alexander looked down at her and smiled. "Don't worry; I have that effect on a lot of women. You'll get used to it." It was apparent from the full-fledged grin on Alexander's face that he found himself quite amusing.

Rielly shook her head.

"Jesus, do you ever give it a rest? I'm talking about those two guys who just ran out of here with their guns—" An explosion rumbled from somewhere in the building and stopped the young reporter in mid-sentence. The noise was so startling, and out of place, that Stone Alexander flinched and spilled half of his coffee down the front of his shirt. The next brief moment seemed like an eternity. Everyone in the White House mess froze with the same wide-eyed look, and then the silence was shattered by loud cracks of gunfire.

The Executive Mansion

MUAMMAR BENGAZI slammed on the brakes, and the forklift came to a skidding halt in the first basement of the Executive Mansion. He could hear the higher pitch of the ATVS' engines not far behind. Bengazi swiftly jumped to the ground and ran through a door to his left. Bounding up the stairs two at a time, he kept his AK-74 aimed upward as he climbed.

The two men who had fired the RPGS followed close behind.

When they reached the first landing, the door above them opened and two uniformed Secret Service officers rushed into the stairwell with their pistols drawn. Bengazi unleashed a quick burst of bullets, striking both men in the chest and sending them backward. The fallen officers blocked the door from closing, and as Bengazi reached the last step, he rolled a smoke grenade and then a fragmentation grenade into the hallway.

The double explosion was followed by a chorus of screams and falling debris. Bengazi and his men burst from the stairwell through the thickening gray smoke and began firing their weapons in all three directions. With their gas masks secured, they moved unhindered by the smoke toward the South Portico. Bengazi grabbed another grenade from his vest and yanked the pin. Fifty feet ahead, directly down the hall, was the Palm Room—the same room the president walked through every morning on his way to the Oval Office. Bengazi threw the grenade forward and ducked into an alcove on his right, while his men took shelter in a doorway on the left. There was a clinking noise as the grenade hit the tile floor and then a glass-shattering explosion as it detonated.

Bengazi rushed forward again; every second was precious. As he reached the Palm Room, he turned the corner and almost tripped over a bloody Secret Service officer, who lay dying on the floor, his body eviscerated by shards of glass. Bengazi looked through the shattered windowpanes out onto the South Lawn and saw four black-clad men running toward him, their machine guns searching for a target.

They belonged to the Secret Service Uniformed Division's Emergency Response Team or ERT, and they had been expected. Bengazi raised his weapon to take aim at the lead man, but before he had a chance to dispose of him, the officer was struck by a high-velocity round that separated a large chunk of his head from the rest of his bodywithin seconds the other three Secret Service officers were all lying on the ground, either dead or dying.

Bengazi was happy to see that Salim Rusan was doing his job. From his spot on the roof of the Washington Hotel, Rusan was to cover Bengazi and the others as they broke out into the open for the West Wing.

Bengazi yelled over his shoulder, "RPG!"

While he searched the South Lawn for more targets, one of his men stepped to his side with a rocket-propelled grenade launcher steadied on his shoulder and dropped to one knee.

The man sighted in on the double doors at the other end of the Colonnade. The clicking of the trigger was followed by a low swooshing noise and another deafening explosion. Bengazi broke into a full sprint along the Colonnade, his AK-74 aimed at the burned and smoking entrance to the West Wing.

The Oval Office THE FLOOR SHOOK, and several chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling of the Oval Office. Rafique Aziz had his back pressed against the fireplace and was holding Russ Piper tightly at knife point The loud cracks of rifle fire told him his men were close. Aziz was enraged with himself for letting the president get away. He had been so close.

Seconds later Bengazi burst into the Oval Office, sweeping the smoking muzzle of his rifle from one end of the room to the other and back. The only two men in the room were Aziz and Chairman Piper. Bengazi's other men joined him within seconds and covered the hallway. Not daring to ask the obvious, Bengazi lilted his gas mask and retrieved a pistol from his thigh holster. He extended the grip toward Aziz.

Aziz threw Piper to the side. The chairman of the DNC stumbled over a chair and fell to the ground. He propped himself up on one elbow, still not quite sure what he had done.

"What are you doing?" Piper yelled with a look of utter shock on his round face.

"This can't be happening!"

Without hesitation, Aziz pointed his weapon at Piper and squeezed the trigger. The bullet struck the chairman right between the eyes and sent his heavy head thudding to the floor. A pool of crimson blood flowed from Piper's head and began to work its way across the plush blue carpet and onto the presidential seal. "I have been waiting to do that all morning," growled Azizthen extending his hand, he said, "Give me your radio."

Bengazi turned his back, and Aziz withdrew the small radio from Bengazi's combat vest. Aziz unplugged the headset jack and brought the radio to his mouth. With the gun in one hand and the radio in the other, Aziz started for the doorway.

"The president has made it to his bunker. Cut the communications immediately, secure the building, and take as many hostages as possible."

THE SMALL JET cleared the dark expansive water of the Atlantic, and within minutes the jagged shoreline of the Chesapeake Bay came into view. Mitch Rapp looked down at the familiar body of water with a determination and focus that had been missing just hours earlier.

When Irene Kennedy had called and recounted the startling events at the White House, Rapp found himself awash in a sea of shock. For a decade he had followed, more closely than any other individual, the actions of Rafique Aziz. There had been the kidnappings in Beirut, Istanbul, and Paris; the bombings in Spain, Italy, France, Lebanon, and Israel; and the event that had led Rapp into his unusual occupation, the downing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Despite Kennedy's insistence that Aziz was, in fact, in control of the White House, it took several minutes for the sheer scope and gravity of the situation to sink in with Rapp. As more of the morning's events were relayed, the fog hanging over Rapp's mind began to dissipate. Instead, Rapp saw before him, in this turmoil and tragedy, an opportunity to bring the destructive chase to an end. He was sick of showing up to count the bodies and look at the evidence. He was sick of chasing Rafique Aziz, always missing him, sometimes by months and days, or even seconds.

As the plane descended toward Andrews Air Force Base, Rapp looked out the window at the rolling Maryland countryside with a clear and precise plan in his mind of what he needed to do. In Paris he had hesitated because of a single innocent bystander. At the time, he did not know it, but he had traded the lives of all the people who had died this morning for the life of that one woman. The logic was irrefutable. If he had pulled the trigger in Paris, none of this would have happened.

Never again, he told himself. This would be the end of the road for one of them.

The Learjet set down gently and taxied to a portion of the base the CIA leased from the Air Force. As the plane approached a brown hangar, the large doors were opened, inviting the jet out of the sunlight and away from prying eyes.

Once inside, the doors were closed and the pilots shut down the engines.

Rapp peered out the small window and saw a group of a half dozen people waiting in the hangar's glass office. He immediately recognized Irene Kennedy and Director Stansfield. Rapp grabbed his backpack and started for the door while Jane Hornig appeared from the bedroom. Rapp lowered the door and took one large step to the ground. Out of habit he turned and offered his hand to Hornig. The two of them walked across the spotless concrete floor to the fluorescent-lit office. Rapp opened the glass door, and the loosely hung Venetian blind swung away and then back, clanking several times.

Director Stansfield stood in the sparsely furnished military office, the handset of a secure mobile phone held firmly against his ear. His SPOOR security protection officer, was standing next to him holding the rest of the unit, which was roughly the size of a camera case. Stansfield looked up at Rapp and said into the receiver, "He's standing right in front of me." The directors gray eyes then looked to the ground, and he nodded several times.

"I was planning on it. We should be there in about twenty minutes."

Stansfield handed the phone to his SPO and said, "Would everybody excuse us for a minute?" The four other people who had been waiting in the office with Kennedy and Stansfield filed out of the room, leaving the director and Kennedy alone to talk with Hornig and Rapp.

Irene Kennedy grabbed a garment bag from the back of one of the chairs and handed it to Rapp.

"You need to get changed. We have a meeting at the Pentagon in twenty minutes."

Rapp took the bag and looked to Stansfield. He didn't like the idea of showing his face to a roomful of politicians and bureaucrats.

"Who was that on the phone?"

"General Flood. He wanted to make sure I was bringing you to the meeting."

"Why?" asked Rapp as he started to take off his holster.

"He didn't say."

Rapp looked at Stansfield with some concern.

"Am I giving a briefing?"

Kennedy fielded the question by pulling a leather wallet out of her purse.

"Your credentials? Same cover as always.

Mitch Kruse, Middle Eastern analyst on my counterterrorism team. You have been with the CIA for five years, etcetera, etcetera…" Kennedy handed him the wallet.

"You know the routine. We want you there if the need arises. We would, of course, prefer it if you kept a low profile."

Rapp took the wallet and set it on the desk next to his holstered 9-mm Beretta. He quickly stripped down to his boxers while Kennedy and Stansfield began to question Hornig. A small pinkish scar was visible just above his left hip, about the size of a quarter, the mark left by the bullet of an overzealous and confused FBI agent. On his tanned lower back was a scar left by the knife of the surgeon who had removed the bullet.

"Have you got an exact number out of him yet?" asked Kennedy of Jane Hornig. "Yes"—Hornig shrugged her shoulders—"at least we think so.

Remember that everything we get out of him is what he thinks to be the truth. As far as Harut knows, there are twelve of them, counting Aziz."

Hornig folded her arms across her chest and assumed a wider stance.

"What type of weapons?"

"Besides your standard firearms"—Hornig looked to Rapp, who was pulling on his dress pants—"a lot of plastique explosives. Mitch?"

Rapp grabbed a white T-shirt and said, "More than enough to blow the whole place to kingdom come." Stansfield shook his head and asked, "What about his demands?"

"I haven't had the chance to get around to that yet, but I'll start as soon as we get him moved."

Stansfield nodded.

"We have arranged to transfer you to one of the safe houses in Virginia.

You are to talk to no one other than Irene, Mitch, and me. Very few people outside of our immediate circle know we have Harut, and we would like to keep it that way. I need you to focus your questioning in the area of demands. We need to know what Aziz is going to ask for, before he asks for it."

Hornig accepted her orders with a nod and cautioned, "If he knows what the demands are, I will find out."

"And," started Kennedy, "it would help if we got as complete a list as possible of the men Aziz brought with him."

Hornig made another mental note. She was prepared to extract every last piece of information from Harut, and if they had a shopping list, she was more than willing to oblige.

"Mitch, can you think of anything else?" asked Kennedy.

Rapp shoved the tails of his white dress shirt into his pants and buttoned them.

"Yeah. I'd like to know how long he plans on hanging around, and how in the hell he plans on getting out of there. If I know aziz, he has a timetable, and he's planned this entire thing down to the last minute."

Stansfield nodded in agreement and said to Hornig, "You know how to get ahold of us. We'll try to stay out of your way, but I want to be updated the moment you find anything of consequence."

"I'll get to work immediately." Dr. Hornig pushed her glasses up on the bridge of her nose and nodded.

"Good. Mitch, let's go. You can finish in the helicopter."

Stansfield started for the door with Kennedy and Hornig on his heels.

Rapp grabbed the garment bag and the rest of his stuff and followed. As he stepped out of the office, he saw a gurney being wheeled across the smooth floor toward an ambulance. Harut was strapped to the top under a gray blanket.

A small outer door to the hangar was opened, and a stream of bright sunshine shot across the floor. Rapp could now hear the spinning rotors of a helicopter waiting on the tarmac. He paused for a second and watched as the gurney was shoved into the ambulance. Jane Hornig and her two assistants climbed in, and the doors were closed. Rapp was now frozen in thought as he looked at the ambulance pulling away.

Irene Kennedy appeared in the small door with her sunglasses on and her hair blowing in the wind. "Come on, Mitch.

We're going to be late."

Rapp, his concentration broken, turned to his boss and blinked several times. Kennedy waved for him to hurry, and Rapp jogged to the door, still wondering what it was that he was missing.

VICE PRESIDENT SHERMAN Baxter had returned to Washington from a fund-raising trip to New York as fast as his entourage could pull up stakes and ship out. Air Force One had landed at Andrews about forty minutes before Rapp and Dr. Hornig had set down.

Baxter sat in the back of the tanklike presidential limousine with his chief of staff, Dallas King, and Attorney General Margaret Tutwiler. As the motorcade of Secret Service vehicles raced through DC." Dallas King laid out their strategy. The Stanford Law grad and San Diego native ran a hand through his signature bleach-blond hair.

"This crisis presents us with a unique opportunity." King paused for emphasis and then looked at Attorney General Tutwiler.

"Your job in this is going to be crucial. Marge. We need to let the FBI know that Shem is in charge. We can't have them withholding information from us, and we definitely can't have them trying any rescue operations without our approval." The thirty-two-year-old rising star smashed his fist into the palm of his hand for emphasis.