“An S-key,” Adams said in a dramatic tone, “gets you into all of the sensitive areas. All of the agents on the presidential detail have one and only a select few others. This little key opens stuff like the weapons lockers and”—Adams tapped the blueprint—“doors that lead to places that don’t exist.”
Rapp took the key from Adams and studied it. He had taken a liking to the old man. He knew his stuff, and if Rapp’s gut was right, he could trust him in a pinch. “If this thing is so important, how did you just walk off the job with one?”
Adams snatched the key back, acting more offended than he really was. “How many times do I have to tell you? I ran the place. Those goofy White House ushers like to think they run things . . . the way they always strut around; well, let me tell you, it was my place. When something needed to get done, I was the one they called.”
“Take it easy, Milt. I believe you. I’m just ribbing you a little bit.”
“You’re a funny guy, Mr. Secret Agent Man.” Adams reached out with surprising quickness and poked Rapp in the stomach.
At that exact moment, the door to General Flood’s office opened and in walked Director Stansfield and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs himself. Flood wasn’t more than a step into the room before he was tugging at the buttons of his uniform blouse; he always seemed to be in a hurry to get out of the constricting tunic. By the time he reached the conference table, the jacket was off. “This must be Milt Adams,” he said. The capacious general walked over to the considerably smaller Adams and extended his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Milt.” Flood then gestured to Stansfield. “Have you met Thomas Stansfield?”
Adams shook his head and extended his hand. “Nope.”
Stansfield smiled ever so slightly. “It’s nice to meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.” Stansfield pumped his hand. “General Flood tells me you fought with the Marines on Iwo Jima.”
“Yep. The Sixth Ammunition Company.”
There was an awkward moment of silence, and then the general said, “Mitch here tells us you think you may have found a way into the White House.” Flood glanced down at his conference table.
“Yep.” Adams waved them over to his blueprints and proceeded to show Stansfield and Flood the way in.
Adams was about sixty seconds into his song and dance, and everything seemed to be going pretty well with one exception. He kept using the plural we instead of the singular I . Stansfield picked up on this and began glancing at Rapp for clarification. Milt Adams had offered his guide services to Rapp, and Rapp had instantly seen the value in bringing Adams along. What he hadn’t yet figured out was how to pitch the idea to his boss.
General Flood made the question moot when he interrupted Adams by asking, “What’s this ‘we’ stuff?”
Looking up from the blueprints, Adams waggled his thumb back and forth between himself and Rapp. “Mitch and me . . . that’s who the ‘we’ is.”
“Hmm,” snorted Flood with a frown thrown in for good measure. “Aren’t you a little old for this kind of stuff, Milt?”
“I might be old, but I’m fit as a fiddle.” Adams turned to Rapp. “Should I show ’em?”
Slightly embarrassed, Rapp nodded and said, “Sure.” Milt had already given Rapp proof of his fitness.
Adams hit the deck and ripped off twenty push-ups in quick order; then he sprang back to his feet, barely out of breath. “I do a hundred push-ups and two hundred sit-ups every morning, and I walk five miles a day.” Adams licked his lips. “Except Sundays . . . Sundays are my day off.”
General Flood eyeballed the little spark plug before him, unsure of what to make of the unorthodox display and slightly envious, since he had let his own fitness slide so far.
“I don’t think his fitness will be an issue,” Rapp added hastily. “If there’s any heavy work to be done, I can handle it. The key is his knowledge of the interior. It’ll be invaluable to me.”
Stansfield was skeptical. “Why not grab someone from the Secret Service?”
“They don’t know where everything is.” Adams shook his head. “They know where some of the stuff is, but not all of it. I know every inch of that building.”
Flood studied Adams for a moment and said, “You know things could get hairy in there.”
Milt Adams looked up at the general with a no-nonsense grin on his face. “You know, General, I spent almost two months on Iwo. We lost over six thousand marines, and the Japs lost over twenty thousand soldiers. I saw buddies get their heads literally blown clear off; I saw men burned to death; I saw people die in the worst ways you could imagine.” Adams shook his head, “No offense, gentlemen, but it’s all child’s play compared to the hell I went through on that island.”
Flood had been in battle himself, but nothing that even came close to the hell that had occurred in the battle for Iwo Jima. “I would imagine you’re right.” The general was beginning to admire the old man’s spunk. After another moment of consideration, Flood said, “Mitch, if you think it’s a good idea, I’m behind you.” Then turning to the director of the CIA, he asked, “Thomas?”
Stansfield, with his typical calm demeanor answered, “If Mitch thinks it wise . . . I’m behind him as well.”
Just then there was a knock on the door, and everyone turned. General Flood bellowed across the room, “Enter.”
Lt. Commander Harris and Admiral DeVoe stepped into the room and saluted. The admiral said, “You wanted to see us, General.”
Flood returned the salute and said, “Yes. Come over here, gentlemen. I don’t want you to think your talents are being squandered while Delta Force and the FBI get all of the action. I have plans for you, but I didn’t want to discuss them in front of the group.”
The two naval officers approached the group. Admiral DeVoe was the commander of the Naval Special Warfare Group and in charge of all SEAL teams. Harris, looking quite a bit more like an officer than the last time he and Rapp had met, walked at his boss’s side. His ponytail and beard had been removed at the direction of Admiral DeVoe. The unruly hygiene of a terrorist was fine when Harris was holed up down at HQ in Little Creek or out in the field, but a meeting with the Joint Chiefs was cause for a more by-the-book appearance.
“I think you know these two gentlemen.” Flood pointed to Rapp and Stansfield.
Harris nodded professionally. “Director Stansfield, Mr. Kruse.” The admiral did the same.
Rapp stuck out his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Harry.”
Harris locked on to Rapp’s hand and shook it firmly. “Good to see you, Mitch.”
Flood grabbed the two naval officers by the shoulders and showed them the blueprints strewn out across the conference table. “Gentlemen, I’ve asked you to join us because I’d like your opinion on something.”
19
Washington, D.C.
AS THE SUN set on the capital, two hulking C-130s descended from the darkening sky on their final approach to Andrews Air Force Base. The base, located a short hop to the southeast of the White House, had been chosen by the Joint Special Operations Command as the forward staging area for what was now known as Operation Rat Catcher. Security at the base had been doubled for the arrival of its newest contingent, and all nonessential personnel had been removed from the staging area. The Army took its secrecy surrounding Delta Force very seriously.
The large matte green cargo planes moved in perfect synchronicity, both banking for the runway at the same time and dropping their landing gear, their powerful turboprop engines rumbling in the stagnant humid air of the Potomac River Valley. The first plane touched down smoothly, followed just a dozen seconds later by the second. The control tower directed the two planes to a group of large hangars, where they were met by Air Force ground crews, who had been told in advance not to turn on the bright floodlights. The people who had traveled from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina were used to working in the dark and rather preferred it.
As the planes taxied to a stop, they spun ninety degrees o
n a dime and left their tails facing the open doors of a sprawling hangar. Bright yellow chocks were thrown under the wheels by the ground crew, and the loud engines were cut. A hydraulic whir announced the lowering of the rear cargo ramps, revealing a mass of black-clad men standing in two rows, almost seventy in each plane. They represented the bulk of the A and B assault squadrons of Delta Force, the U.S. Army’s supersecret counterterrorist assault and commando force.
The men filed down the ramps. They came in all shapes and sizes, but all were at the apex of physical condition and walked with the grace and confidence of world-class athletes. Each man carried a large black backpack loaded with equipment. Most of them had H&K MP-10 submachine guns with integral suppressors strapped to the top of the packs, but there were others who carried assault shotguns, sniping rifles, and even several who had 7.62-mm heavy-caliber machine guns.
Colonel Bill Gray, Delta Force’s commander, stood by the door of the darkened hangar and looked proudly at his men as they filed past. Gray was also dressed in the standard black ninja jumpsuit, although it was highly unlikely that he would be going into the fray, unlike his cowboy counterpart at SEAL Team Six. Gray got along well with Lt. Commander Harris, but thought it irresponsible for him to lead individual strikes, a point that he had just recently brought up with the general staff of the Joint Special Operations Command.
Colonel Gray had stayed in Washington after his afternoon meeting at the Pentagon rather than flying down to Bragg and coming right back. The colonel, who stood just above six feet, had a full head of close-cropped black hair and bushy eyebrows to match. The native Texan had the unanimous respect of his men due to the fact that he never asked them to do anything he hadn’t already done or wasn’t willing to do.
At the end of both columns, Gray spotted the two men he was looking for and moved out to meet them. As he approached, the two men saluted. Gray returned the salute and asked, “How was the flight up?”
The two men standing before Gray were the commanders of his A and B squadrons, Lt. Colonel Hank Kleis and Lt. Colonel Pat Miller. Kleis answered, “No sweat. We’ve been locked and loaded since two; we just had to wait around for it to get dark.”
Colonel Gray nodded. “How are the men?”
“Good,” answered Kleis. “If they can’t get up for this one, I should be drummed out of the service.”
Gray looked to Miller, the quieter of the two.
Miller answered, “They’re ready.”
Nodding, Gray looked over his officers’ shoulders and watched the load masters taking equipment off the planes. “Here’s how we stand. Pat, you and B squadron are in charge of the airports. Hank, you’ve got the airborne assault on the White House. Get your communications secured ASAP, and pass the word that I want a staff meeting in thirty minutes.” Gray pointed over his shoulder. “There’s a briefing room at the rear of the hangar; we’ll meet in there. Also tell your troop leaders to bring their sergeant majors. We’re gonna get a big intel dump from Langley and the Secret Service, and I want them in on it.” Gray turned, and without his having to say anything, the two junior officers fell in astride their senior. “Training is going to be tricky for this. We don’t have time to build any mock-ups.” The colonel was referring to Hollywood-type sets that Delta used to train for real-life takedowns. The full-scale mock-ups were usually built on a remote area of the massive Eglin Air Force Base, in northern Florida, and done with blueprints provided by the CIA and satellite imagery provided by the NSA.
“General Flood tells me there is no way this thing will last for more than a week and that we could conceivably be ordered in tonight, so we need to be ready to go, pronto . Hank”—Gray pointed to the commander of his A squadron—“I want you to divide the White House into sections immediately and get your troops assigned to handle specific sectors of the building. If we get the phone call in two hours, I want to have, at the very least, a basic plan . . . . As time goes on and we get more intel, we can finetune it.”
Gray turned to his B squadron commander. “Pat, I want advance teams in place at Reagan, Dulles, and Baltimore. Prewire at least two planes at each airport for video and sound, and do it quietly . . . . We don’t want the press covering any of this. Put your people in the airlinemechanic uniforms while they’re doing it. The less attention we raise the better. Langley tells us that Aziz is using the Situation Room, so we have to assume he’s getting real-time coverage from the media. The FBI is sending us some agents to help with subpoenas.” Gray stopped abruptly and slapped both men on the back. “Now get moving. I want updates at the staff meeting in”—Gray looked at his watch—“twenty-eight minutes.”
The two squadron commanders hustled off in earnest to form up their groups, and Gray turned back toward the open hangar door. Grabbing his secure digital phone from his tactical assault vest, Gray hit the speed dial for the operations center at the Pentagon. As the colonel waited for the encryption to kick in, he noticed a string of navigation lights descending on the runway. They would be his MD-530 Little Birds, flown by the Army’s 160th Special Operations Regiment. These were the stealthy, almost silent, helicopters that would be crucial in any assault on the White House. Farther down the valley, Gray could see another string of red and green lights. Unlike the Little Birds, Gray could already hear this second flight of helicopters. Those would be his MH-60 Black Hawks. Faster, larger, and louder than the Little Birds, the Black Hawks would be used to chase Aziz if he headed for an airport.
Gray watched as the first of the Little Birds came in and touched down softly. Seven more of the small black helicopters quickly followed. Gray shook his head. Everything was happening too fast. If they went in tonight, it wouldn’t be a calculated raid; it would be a bloodbath. They would lose hostages, and he would lose men. He needed more time to get things set up.
* * *
TWO MILES NORTHWEST of the White House sat the Naval Observatory, the official residence of the vice president of the United States. The large circular estate was located off Massachusetts Avenue on Embassy Row, atop a hill. Its many gardens and rolling wooded lawn provided a serenity and seclusion that was quite absent at the Executive Mansion.
Irene Kennedy drove north in her maroon Toyota Camry on Massachusetts Avenue. Every time Kennedy drove through this area of Washington, she couldn’t help but think that this one-mile strip of asphalt had to have the single largest concentration of electronic surveillance equipment in the world. With all of the embassies spying on each other and their host country, and the FBI, the CIA, the National Security Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency, and the National Reconnaissance Office all spying on the embassies, it was unlikely that any conversation went unrecorded.
As Kennedy continued north, the large plantation-style home of the vice president came into view on her left, its fresh white paint bathed in floodlights. Kennedy drove past the main gate and the slew of reporters and camera crews that had besieged the compound. Not far past the main gate, she took a left onto Observatory Circle and worked her way around the north side of the estate. A small unmarked gate appeared on her left, and Kennedy turned off the city street and onto the private drive.
Four uniformed Secret Service officers and a German shepherd approached her car. The men all wore flak jackets over their white shirts. Kennedy rolled down her window and presented her credentials.
The officer looked at her ID and said, “Could you please pop your trunk, Dr. Kennedy?”
After the dog had taken two laps around the small sedan and the trunk had been thoroughly checked, Kennedy was granted admission. Two white steel retractable bollards standing three feet tall and one foot wide dropped down beneath pavement, and then the heavy black gate opened inward. Kennedy maneuvered her car up the winding driveway and passed several of the outlying buildings that were used for offices. Near the main house she saw her boss’s limousine and parked next to it. She was several minutes late for the nine-thirty P.M. meeting.
The normal complement of uniformed off
icers was bolstered by the black-clad, machine-gun-toting men of the Service’s Emergency Response Team. These heavily armed men could be seen patrolling the elevated tree line just beyond the fence. They moved ominously from shadow to shadow, determined not to allow another debacle to take place. A second line of ERT officers ringed the actual residence, and the vice presidential detail was inside the home, never more than one room away from their charge.
One of the vice president’s staffers appeared in the entrance doorway, and Kennedy was ushered into the large foyer. Director Stansfield was sitting on a couch to the right with his legs crossed. He was, as always, wearing a dark conservative suit, white shirt, and striped tie. Stansfield peered over the top of his spectacles when Kennedy entered, a questioning expression on his face.
Kennedy plopped down next to him and said, “It looks good. Mitch went over to the White House and checked out the fence line. He thinks they can get to the shaft without any problems.”
Stansfield nodded thoughtfully. “What do you think?”
Kennedy glanced up at the ceiling for a second.“We need someone in there, and he’s the best we have.”
“What about bringing Adams along?”
“I’m not crazy about the idea, but again, I have to defer to Mitch. He’s the one with the field experience.” Kennedy looked at her boss. “You seem to have some reservations.”
Stansfield pondered the comment for a second and shook his head. “No. I trust Mitch. How are you holding up?”
Kennedy rolled her eyes. “I could use a little sleep, but besides that, I’m fine.”
The sound of dress shoes clicking on the hardwood floor caught their attention, and both looked to see Dallas King coming down the hallway. The vice president’s chief of staff was dressed in a pressed French blue dress shirt and a pair of black slacks, looking dapper as always. King stopped about ten feet away and said, “The vice president is ready to see you.”