“So you don’t think it would be wise to start asking questions about Higgins?” asked Michael.
“From what I’ve heard about the man, no, I don’t. What has got you so interested in him?”
“Seamus and I took a little trip down to Georgia yesterday to talk to Augie Jackson.”
“Seamus’s friend who used to work for the CIA?”
“Yes. . . . Augie told us some pretty interesting stories about Higgins. He’s convinced that he’s responsible for the killing of Erik and Congressman Turnquist.”
Coleman grew cautious. “So he buys into the idea that there are two separate groups doing the killing?”
“Yes.”
“Did he ask any questions about who the first group might be?”
“Yes.”
Coleman stared at Michael for a long time. “You told him, didn’t you?” Coleman looked to Seamus, and neither he nor Michael answered the question. The former SEAL shook his head and swore.
“He only knows that I’m involved,” said Seamus. “Scott, we can trust Augie.”
Coleman looked at his watch. “Well, we’ll know the answer to that any minute. If you hear any choppers overhead, we can all kiss our asses goodbye.”
“Scott, he believes in what we’re doing. He hated Fitzgerald and Koslowski more than we did, and he was very convincing with the stuff he told us about Arthur.”
“Why does he think Higgins killed Erik and Turnquist?”
Michael spent the next several minutes telling Coleman Augie’s story. He relayed the story of the covert mission that Arthur had masterminded to get rid of the French politicians back in the early sixties and then went on to explain Arthur’s hatred for Senator Olson. Coleman asked few questions. Michael told him how Arthur was forced out of the Agency by Stansfield and ordered to cease any involvement in intelligence and national security issues. When Michael was done recounting Augie’s story, he asked Coleman what he thought.
“The man has the power and resources to pull it off, and as I told you several days ago, whoever blew up Erik’s limo has to have some real connections. They had less than a week to put that operation together.” Coleman shrugged his shoulders. “It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he had a hand in this, but we don’t have the intel or the capability to know for sure.”
“I know, but we have to do something.”
Coleman tapped the side of his mug. “I really don’t think it’s a good idea to ask any more questions about this guy. The FBI’s investigation is kicking into high gear. It’s important that we act normal and don’t draw any attention to ourselves.” Coleman pointed at the three O’Rourkes. “You guys can get away with a lot more than I can. They’re not going to come after you, but sooner or later they’re gonna come knocking on my door.”
Seamus thought about what Coleman had said for a moment and then asked, “What about taking him out?”
“Higgins?”
“Yes.”
“In principle I don’t have a problem with it. From what I’ve heard he’s the snake of snakes, but I’d like to be a little more sure that he was behind this before we go to that extreme. Besides, I’m not even sure we could get to him. My guess is that he has some pretty tight security around him.”
Michael slid the dossier across the table. “Augie gave this to us before we left. It’s a full profile of Arthur’s movements and security measures. It breaks down his estate’s security system step-by-step and describes, in detail, the endeavors he has continued to be involved in since he was forced out of the Agency.”
Coleman opened the file and started thumbing through the pages. After several minutes Coleman looked at Michael. “You got this from this guy that used to work at the CIA?”
“Yes.”
“Where did he get it?”
“He compiled it for Director Stansfield.”
“They were thinking about taking him out, weren’t they?”
“Yes.”
“Unbelievable.”
“In the back,” Seamus said, “there’s a section describing his business dealings and continued meddling in the CIA’s business. If you turn to page four of the section, you’ll find a highlighted paragraph that you’re not going to like.”
Coleman flipped to the back of the file and scanned the paragraph. It stated that Higgins was believed to be involved with a group of black marketers who were stealing high-tech U.S. weaponry from manufacturers and military bases and selling it abroad through a Middle East arms dealer that had known sympathies for anti-American regimes. Like any other U.S. soldier, Coleman hated the thought that he or his men might be killed by an American-made weapon, especially a high-tech weapon that wasn’t supposed to be sold.
Coleman finished reading the paragraph and looked up at the former Recon Marine sitting across the table. “Michael, I think you and I should go take a look at his estate this evening.”
On the top floor of the residential side of the White House was a large room that faced south called the Solarium. The room sat above the Eisenhower Balcony and had large plate-glass windows running from the floor to the ceiling. Stevens liked the room because it was the brightest in the White House, and since he was starting to feel like a caged animal, he decided to move his lunch meeting up to the top floor, where he could actually see beyond the gates of the compound. He was scheduled to meet with the leaders of his party to go over the legislative agenda for Monday’s reconvening of the House and Senate.
Stevens looked out across the South Lawn toward the Washington Monument. The large green personnel carriers and tanks were clearly visible from his panoramic perch. “God, it’s only been four days since we got back from Camp David, and I already feel trapped.” Stevens shook his head at a flight of four green Cobra gunships working their way eastward across the Mall from the Lincoln Monument to the Capitol. The sight of all the military equipment so openly visible in the heart of Washington made him wonder if the decision to bring in the military was wise. “Stu, are you sure this is the right thing to do?”
Garret was sitting at a small desk feverishly writing. Without looking up he asked, “Is what the right thing to do?”
Stevens waved his arm in front of him, gesturing toward the Mall. “Bringing in such a strong military presence. I mean, do we really need tanks in front of the Washington Monument? It just . . . it just makes me look so harsh. Like I’m a dictator.”
“That’s what we need right now, Jim. I’ve talked to every pollster from New York to L.A. over the last three days, and they’re all telling me the same thing. The American people want law and order returned to their capital. The voters are scared and they’re looking to you for guidance and leadership. Bringing the military in will portray the right message. You’ll be seen as a strong and decisive leader.”
“I know, but what about what you said initially? That we’d look like the Chinese if we brought in the tanks?”
“Shit, that was before they killed the damn Speaker of the House in broad daylight and tried to blow us out of the sky. Things have gotten much more serious than they were after that first morning. The voters are scared. At first they got off on the thrill of seeing a couple of dinosaurs like Fitzgerald and Koslowski get assassinated. That initial thrill is gone, and they want a return to law and order. They’ll turn on their TVs when they sit down to eat dinner tonight, and they’ll see a stone-faced soldier sitting on the turret of a tank and they’ll be happy they have a strong president who’s willing to take action in a time of crisis. Trust me, Jim, I know what I’m doing on this one.”
31
COLEMAN AND THE O’ROURKES STAYED AT THE cabin until almost 10 A.M., talking about which course of action to take with Arthur. After the O’Rourkes left for D.C., Coleman spent most of the afternoon checking out the neighborhood where Arthur lived. From his SEAL training, Coleman had developed a knack for memorizing maps. He drove down every street within five miles of Arthur’s estate, checking for unmarked service drives and paths that
led from the road down to the water, making mental notes of anything and everything that might be useful. Before taking any action against Arthur he wanted to be completely familiar with the neighborhood. The closer he got to Arthur’s estate the more details he took in: which houses had security cameras, which ones had Beware of Dog signs, and which ones had guardhouses. He only drove past Arthur’s gate once. Anything more than that might arouse some suspicion. Besides, he was more worried about the houses that bordered Arthur’s. Augie’s file stated that neither had high-tech security systems. Both had security company signs at the end of the driveway, but neither had gates or fences, which probably meant the houses were wired but not the grounds.
After his sight-seeing tour, Coleman drove out to Sparrows Point, just south of Baltimore on the Patapsco River. The large industrial yard was once entirely occupied by Bethlehem Steel, but with the decline of the U.S. steel industry it was now partitioned into extremely cheap warehouse and waterfront dock space. The SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation was located in a dirty, dank building that faced Old Road Bay on the east end of the point. The lease was a meager one thousand dollars a month for one thousand square feet of finished office space and another ten thousand square feet of bulk warehouse. Coleman pulled his Ford Explorer into the large warehouse and got out. Earlier in the day he had called his only two employees and told them to meet him at the office around 4 P.M. They were standing next to the office checking diving equipment when he arrived. Dan Stroble and Kevin Hackett were also former SEALs. They had served on Coleman’s SEAL team for three years and had left the Navy about six months after their commander.
Since the inception of the SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation four months earlier, they had only done one job, for British Petroleum. BP had quietly contracted to have one of their abandoned oil rigs in the North Atlantic demolished. Somehow, word had leaked out, and Greenpeace was mobilizing a group of protesters to occupy the rig and prevent the demolition. They wanted BP to dismantle the rig girder by girder. To the executives at BP the decision was simple: demolish the rig at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars or dismantle it piece by piece at an estimated cost of $5 million.
BP scrambled to put together the demolition team and blow the rig before Greenpeace could mobilize. BP’s best estimate was that they could have all of the charges in place and ready to go within forty-eight hours. They found out that a boat loaded with Greenpeace activists was docked in Reykjavík, Iceland, and set to leave port the following morning. The activists would arrive at the rig by noon the next day and storm the platform, creating an international media event that would bring public and political pressure down on BP to dismantle the rig. BP needed to slow the protesters down so they would have enough time to blow the rig.
The vice president of operations at BP was told to find a way to stop the activists from reaching the rig without making it look as if BP had had a hand in it. The executive made several calls to his contacts in America and Britain and found out that a new, upstart company in Maryland might be perfect for the job. The man called Coleman and explained the situation to him. He had twenty hours to get to Reykjavík and stop the boat from leaving the harbor. The man didn’t care how it was done, just so long as no one was hurt.
Coleman had a rough idea of how much it would cost BP if they had to dismantle the rig, so he said he’d do the job for three hundred thousand dollars. The BP exec agreed, and Coleman, Stroble, and Hackett were on the next flight out of Dulles with their diving gear.
They landed in Reykjavík just before sundown and were down at the pier by eleven that evening. During their tenure as SEALs, they had spent countless hours swimming around dirty harbors attaching explosives to hulls and disabling propellers and rudders. The only thing that was difficult about the mission was the temperature of the water. Even with their neoprene wet suits they could stay in the water for no more than fifteen minutes at a time. They took turns swimming over to the ship from a berth about two hundred feet away. Using an acetylene torch, they cut away at the U-joint where the driveshaft met the propeller. The boat would be able to maintain steerage and prop speed up to about ten knots. Anything more than that and the laws of physics would take effect. The increased torque on the propeller would cause the sabotaged joint that connected the driveshaft to the prop to snap.
They sat at a café the next morning and wagered on whether the ship would make it out of the harbor. Coleman didn’t feel guilty about the job. He’d been around the ocean his whole life and had a deep respect for and healthy fear of it. Sending a couple thousand tons of steel to the ocean floor wouldn’t harm it a bit. As they drank coffee and waited for their 8 A.M. flight back to Washington, a tug moved in and towed the ship out to the main channel. The lines were released and the ship was under way. A white froth churned up behind the stern of the boat as it headed for the open sea. It had just cleared the seawall when the frothy wake subsided and the ship stalled, turning sideways in the middle of the channel. An hour later, Coleman, Stroble, and Hackett were on their way back to Washington. Over the last month they had received two more offers for jobs, but they had told the prospective clients they were too busy to take the work.
Coleman slammed the door of his car and walked over to Stroble and Hackett. “How are you guys doing?”
“Great, sir. How about you?”
“Fine. Have you checked the messages?”
“Yep,” answered Stroble. “There was nothing on the machine.”
When Coleman asked if they’d checked the messages, he actually meant, have you checked the office and phones for bugs? They knew that eventually the FBI would put them under surveillance. They needed an alibi that would explain all of the time they’d spent together while planning for their mission, so with some seed money from Seamus they had started the SEAL Demolition and Salvage Corporation. They weren’t the only retired SEALs living in D.C. who were working with each other. Coleman knew of two others a little older than him who ran a charter fishing operation out of Annapolis and had a sneaking suspicion that they did a little work for the CIA on the side. There were also several other groups of SEALs that ran security firms, providing bodyguards for diplomats and corporate executives. Coleman and Seamus had agreed that the key to not getting caught was making sure they afforded the FBI no hard evidence. That meant no fingerprints, no eyewitnesses, and no ballistics that would link them to the killings. They wore gloves during every phase of the operation and kept their faces concealed. The rifles used to kill Koslowski and Basset and the pistol used to kill Downs were now rusting at the bottom of the Chesapeake. No real evidence linked them to the murders. If the FBI came, all they would find would be three former SEALs trying to launch a new business venture.
Coleman went into the office and came back out saying, “Let’s get the gear together. I want to take the boat down to Annapolis and do a bid on a project. If the weather stays nice, we might be able to get some fishing in on the way back. Let’s pack up and shove off in about thirty minutes.”
While Stroble and Hackett gathered up the diving gear, Coleman topped off the tanks on the boat. Within thirty minutes they were under way and headed for the Bay. They centered their conversation on inconsequential small talk until Stroble finished going over the boat with a sensor. Coleman stood behind the wheel on the flybridge and watched the movements of the ships and small vessels around them. He feared that the FBI might try to bug the office, his apartment, or his car, but that didn’t scare him. Those could be detected, and if they were dumb enough to bug him, they would tip their hand. What he feared most was the use of directional microphones. The CIA had been using them for years, and the technology was getting better and better. A person could stand over three hundred feet away and eavesdrop on someone’s conversation by merely pointing a microphone at them. The CIA had developed the technology to listen through walls and other hard materials where it was difficult to place a bug.
As they reached the open water of the Bay, Stroble an
d Hackett huddled next to Coleman on the flybridge. With the engines roaring, the wind rushing past, and not another ship within a mile, Coleman started to fill them in on the details of Seamus and Michael’s meeting with Augie. Neither Stroble nor Hackett was surprised by the story. They’d heard the rumors about Higgins before, and it seemed well within the realm of possibilities that he was responsible for the murders of Olson, Turnquist, and their bodyguards. By the time they reached Annapolis, Coleman had given them all of the details regarding the meeting he’d had with the O’Rourkes.
They cruised south past Annapolis to Tolly Point, and Coleman headed for shore. He told Stroble and Hackett to stay below until they were back out in the Bay. The sun was setting in the west, and patches of gray clouds were moving in off the Atlantic. Rain would be welcomed but not crucial. Still atop the bridge, Coleman maneuvered his boat into the marina at the end of Tolly Point. He saw someone standing next to the gas pumps on the dock and raised his hand to block the low sun. Coleman swung the boat in and came up alongside the dock. Michael jumped on board holding a fishing pole and tackle box.