Transfer of Power

by Vince Flynn

  “Are you Mr. Kruse?” asked Adams.

  “Yes.” Rapp walked up the first two steps and stuck out his hand. “You must be Milt Adams.”

  “That’s correct. It’s nice to meet you.”

  “Likewise.”

  Adams motioned for Rapp. “Follow me, I’ve got everything set up inside.”

  The two men walked into the house, the dog following at Rapp’s side. Adams continued straight ahead, down a long hallway to the rear of the house and the kitchen. The hardwood floors had been recently redone with a shiny coat of polyurethane, and the kitchen floor was tiled in a classic black-and-white checkerboard pattern. The trim was all restored to its natural wood finish with a light stain.

  Adams opened a glass-paned cupboard and grabbed two mugs. “You look like the black type.”

  “That’d be great.” The German shepherd parked his butt right next to Rapp and leaned his head against Rapp’s thigh. The proximity of the canine made Rapp increasingly uncomfortable.

  Adams finished pouring the coffee and turned around. He took one look at Rapp’s stiff posture and said, “You don’t like dogs.” It was more a statement than a question.

  “Ah . . . not really.”

  Adams handed him a cup. “What’s the problem? You been bit before?”

  “Several times.” Rapp winced as he thought of one time in particular.

  Adams surveyed his guest; the longer hair and facial scar made him begin-to wonder if this man really worked for the Secret Service.

  “Don’t worry,” Adams offered. “As long as you don’t hurt me, Rufus won’t hurt you.” The owner of the house started across the room. “Let’s go down to the basement. That’s where I have everything.”

  Rapp watched Adams cross the kitchen and followed. The damn dog would not leave his side. Rapp was impressed with Adams, who hustled down the steep steps like a man half his age.

  When Rapp reached the basement, he stopped and looked around the large room. It was a retired man’s wet dream. The floor was painted a spotless gray and looked clean enough to eat off. Tools of every kind hung from brown pegboard along one wall, and each spot was labeled to ensure optimal organization. Along the far wall, six metal storage cabinets were lined up, each of them again labeled with a laminated catalog of the items within. Two drafting tables and a computer dominated the wall to the right. In the center of the room several white sheets covered something roughly the size of a pool table. Cocking his head sideways, Rapp tried to sneak a peek under the sheets, but couldn’t see anything.

  The wiry Adams stopped at the drafting table on the left and turned on a bright overhead lamp. He motioned down at the three-by-four-foot blueprint on the table. “This is an overview of the White House and its grounds. Director Tracy tells me you’re interested in finding a way to get into the mansion unnoticed.” Rapp nodded. Adams looked up questioningly, as if studying Rapp. After a moment, he said, “Something tells me you’re not Secret Service, Mr. Kruse.”

  “Please call me Mitch, and no, I don’t work for the Secret Service.”

  “Okay, Mitch, who do you work for?”

  “I’m an analyst for the CIA.”

  A wry smile creased Adams lips. In his deep voice he replied, “Analyst my ass.” Rolling up his left sleeve, Adams revealed a thick wormlike scar that sliced from his elbow almost down to his wrist. Holding it up for Rapp to see, he said, “Got this on Iwo Jima . . . bayoneted by some crazy Jap.” Adams pointed to Rapp’s face. “You’ve got a nice thin scar there. Can’t even see it unless you’re looking at you from the side. You’ve had some nice plastic surgery done on it, but my guess is it used to be a big ugly thing like this one here on my arm.” Adams studied him again. “You didn’t get it from analyzing satellite imagery, did you?”

  Rapp played it cool, asking, “How’d you know I had plastic surgery?”

  “My oldest daughter is a doctor over at GW. I can see the work of a talented surgeon, so let’s cut the shit. What do you really do for Langley?”

  Rapp looked at Adams deliberately. He liked his cut-to-the-heart-of-the-matter style and decided the old man was a little too wily to play games with. So Rapp decided to give it to him as straight as he could.

  “I can’t get into the details, but I’m more than a paper pusher.”

  “Is Kruse your real name?”

  Rapp shook his head.

  Adams eyed him suspiciously and then shrugged his shoulders. “Well, I’ll have to trust Director Tracy. If he says I should give you the information, I’ll give it to you.” Adams turned his attention back to the blueprint and ran his finger over it, tracing a line.

  “There is one way to get into the White House belowground.” Adams flipped up the first blueprint and revealed another one. “It’s the most wellknown . . . the tunnel that comes over from the Treasury Building.” Adams stabbed his finger on the right side of the blueprint and drew a line showing Rapp where the tunnel was. “This is the tunnel that the terrorists used.”

  “That’s it?” asked Rapp surprised. “There’s only one tunnel?”

  Adams nodded. “There’s only one tunnel. All the BS Hollywood puts out has most people thinking there’s a dozen secret tunnels heading in every different direction.” Adams shook his head. “Not true.”

  Disappointed, Rapp said, “So there’s no other way in belowground.”

  “I didn’t say that.” Adams held up a finger and smiled. He then stepped over to the other drafting table. “During the Reagan administration the Army Corps of Engineers installed a new heating, ventilation, and cooling system. This HVAC they installed was really impressive stuff . . . very high tech. Besides providing all of the basic heating and cooling requirements, the system is designed to keep the air pressure inside the White House higher than the air pressure outside.”

  “Why?” asked Rapp.

  “Maintaining a higher internal pressure ensures that all air flow, either through open doors, windows, or cracks, will always flow out instead of in. This way if anyone tries to introduce a biological or chemical weapon into the building’s environment, they couldn’t do it by simply releasing the toxin upwind from the building. They would have to get inside the building and release it, and even if they did, the system is equipped with alarms and filters.”

  Rapp thought he saw where Adams was going and asked, “Where does the system get its air?”

  “The system has two sets of intake and exhaust ducts. The first is located on the roof of the White House, and the second is located here.” Adams pointed to an area on the South Lawn. “The duct is hidden under a clump of fake bushes not more than fifteen yards from the fence on the east side, just south of Jackie Kennedy’s rose garden. The duct drops thirty feet straight down and then runs for a little over two hundred feet, where it connects with the main system in the engineering room of the third basement.”

  Rapp looked at the drawing. “What kind of cover is there around this duct? Could you get to it without someone from the roof seeing you?”

  “There’s plenty of cover. Come over here, and I’ll show you on the model.” Adams walked over to the middle of the room and proudly pulled two white sheets off the large table. Lying before them on the table was a detailed model of the White House and its grounds. “This is what retirement does to you, Mitch. I started this project almost twenty years ago with one of my nephews. It took me almost all of that time to get half of it finished, and then I retired and finished the rest of it in six months.”

  Rapp stared at the model and searched for the duct in question. Readinghis mind, Adams reached down and moved a small bush. “Here’s your way in.” Adams’s skinny black hand pointed at a green metal shaft that came out of the ground and then looped back down in an inverted U with the open end pointing at the ground.

  Rapp studied the trees and bushes between the vent and the White House. “You’re sure someone on the roof wouldn’t see me approaching the duct?”

  “I don’t think so. Your problem, as I
see it, is whether or not they are in control of the Secret Service’s surveillance and alarm system. This entire area”—Adams pointed at the fence—“is loaded with sensors. If they have our system, they’ll know you’re there the second you step over the fence.”

  Rapp folded his arms and grabbed his chin. Looking down at the model, he studied the large horseshoe-shaped fence that ringed the South Lawn and nodded.

  “We can overcome that, though.” Adams dismissed the problem with a wave of his hand. “Through a diversion or something. . . . Your real problem is going to be finding your way around once you get inside the building. There are secret doors, elevators, stairs, passageways—you name it . . . and you won’t find any of them on a blueprint or a model. Hell, half the agents on the presidential detail don’t know where all of the stuff is. You are going to need someone with you who knows their way around that place. . . .” Adams paused for a second. “Or you’re going to have to tell me what you have in mind, so I can help you plan it.”

  Rapp looked up from the model and studied Milt Adams. A decision had to be made. Adams had to be either brought onboard or kept in the dark, and Rapp didn’t have the patience to debate the pros and cons with Kennedy and Stansfield.

  DALLAS KING WAS standing in a small office across the hall from the FBI’s command post. He had been there for five frustrating minutes while a paramedic worked on Tutwiler. King looked down at the attorney general and shook his head.

  The paramedic that was checking her out finished taking her blood pressure and said, “I think she’s in shock.”

  “Shit.” King paced back and forth. “So what are you telling me? Can she speak to the press or not?”

  “No.” The female paramedic, who was still on one knee, frowned. “She needs to get to a hospital.” Tutwiler was sitting frozen on a brown leather couch, her eyes staring blankly into space.

  King placed his hands over his mouth and swore three times in rapid succession. Next, he grabbed at his hair and said, “I fucking knew it.”

  Turning back toward the paramedic, he said, “Take her to Bethesda, and I don’t want anyone talking to her.” King yanked the door open and began marching down the hallway, his arms swinging wildly. When he reached the other side of the building, he ignored the gaggle of Secret Service agents standing outside the conference room and entered without knocking.

  King slammed the door behind him and screamed an expletive.

  Vice President Baxter, startled by the unexpected intrusion, spun around in his chair with a look of thorough irritation on his face. “Dallas, I said I wanted to be alone.”

  “The stupid bitch is in shock.”

  “What?” asked a confused Baxter.

  “Tutwiler . . . the bitch is in shock . . . she cracked.” An angry expression contorted King’s face. “She can’t talk . . . She’s on her way to the hospital.”

  Baxter closed his eyes and moaned, “Oh, great.”

  King began pacing up and down next to the conference table, while Baxter buried his face in his cupped hands.

  “It’s nothing we can’t handle,” insisted King, trying to find an angle, a way to spin the story. “It’s just a temporary setback.” King walked the length of the room twice and then said, “I’ll leak it through the right sources that the whole thing was Marge’s idea, and when it blew up in her face, she cracked . . . and then we’ll have Director Roach handle the press briefing. We’ll be fine.”

  With his face still in his hands, Baxter added, “For now.” Then lifting his head up, he said, “This thing is only going to get worse. We are going to have to storm that place eventually, and from what everyone is telling me, we are going to lose a lot of hostages. It’s just like I told you yesterday, Dallas; we are screwed.” Baxter growled the last word. “Any way you slice it, I’m going to have the blood of a lot of people on my hands, and my name will forever be associated with this damn mess.”

  King shook his head. “Nothing’s over. If there’s a way out of this, I’ll find it.” Rubbing his hands together as if he were trying to warm them up, he said, “For now, we continue to walk this thin line. Marge is out of commission, so we’ll move Director Roach and the FBI to the forefront. If this sick bastard releases one-third the hostages, we should probably have a photo op with you consoling them. It won’t hurt for you to take credit for that, but once it’s over and he starts making his next demands, you should keep a low profile. This isn’t over yet, Sherman. Stay with me.”

  17

  SLEEP HAD BEEN out of the question. After Warch had discovered someone was trying to breach the bunker door, everyone was up for the night. Tensions were running high as the grinding noise grew a little louder with each passing hour. Another foreboding sign was that the door was no longer cool to the touch. Areas of heat could be felt as one placed one’s hand in different spots.

  In an effort to lower the tension and keep his people focused, Jack Warch had drawn up a duty schedule with Special Agent Ellen Morton, the day shift’s whip. The first order of business was to collect all of the radios and phones. With nine Secret Service agents in the bunker, that amounted to nine encrypted Motorola radios and nine digital phones. One of each would be kept on and monitored around the clock. Since the batteries on the phones were interchangeable, Warch’s phone was to be used and the batteries from the other phones were to be rotated through.

  While one agent monitored the communications, another agent was to stand post by the bunker door and report any strange noises or occurrences. Two more agents were assigned to remain at all times between the president and the bunker door. While these four agents were manning their posts, the other four were to sleep or eat. The two teams, as they were now referred to, were on four-hour rotations. Warch was the only one not included in the rotation.

  After checking on the battery supply, Warch walked over to the thick vault door and placed his hand flat on the surface. He ran his other hand through his thinning hair and tried to remember the details that had been passed on to him about the construction of the bunker. If he remembered correctly, it could withstand any conventional bomb and most nuclear bombs as long as it wasn’t a direct hit. If the White House was ground zero, they were toast like everyone else. As for how it would hold up against a bunch of bloodthirsty terrorists using drills and God only knew what else, Warch had no idea.

  The commanding agent turned away from the door and glanced over at the president, who was sitting on one of the couches with his chief of staff. The president looked at Warch and gestured for him to join them.

  President Hayes was one of those men who shaved twice a day. Having already missed two shaves his face was covered with a solid growth of gray and brown whiskers. His tie and suit jacket were lying on the bunk he had slept in. Looking over at Special Agent Warch, the president said, “Jack, please take your tie off, and tell the men to do the same.”

  After the raid Warch had torn his tie off in frustration. His feelings toward his president were at an all-time low. Hayes and his chief of staff had circumvented Secret Service security procedure, and people were dead because of it. Now, over twenty-four hours later, he had put his personal feelings aside and put his tie back on. He had a job to do, and part of that job was to show respect to the presidency, regardless of the individual.

  Warch nodded his thanks to the president and began to tug at the silk knot around his neck.

  “Anything new to report?”

  “I’m afraid not, sir.” Warch kept his expression neutral.

  “Are you sure,” started Valerie Jones, “that those aren’t our people tryingto drill through the door?”

  Warch paused and checked his desire to snap at the president’s chief of staff. He had already been over this with them twice. “It’s not our people.”

  “Are you sure?” Jones’s tone was more pleading than asking.

  Warch exhaled a tired sigh and said, “I don’t like it any more than you do, but it would make no sense for our own people to drill thr
ough the door. They have the code. All they have to do is punch it in like we did, and the door opens.”

  Jones moved forward on the couch, tugging the hem of her black skirt as she did so. “What if the terrorists damaged the door control?”

  Warch called on his patience. They had already been down this road before. He decided he would go over it with her one last time. “Outside this door”—Warch pointed over his shoulder—“is a second room. That room has two reinforced steel doors. One leads into the tunnel, and the second one leads into the third basement of the White House. Again, my people have the codes to get through either of those doors. So there would be no reason for them to be drilling now.”

  “No.” Jones shook her head. “You’re not listening. I said what if the terrorists blew apart one of the other doors and that damaged the control panel for this door?” She pointed at the door with her bright red fingernail.

  “Ms. Jones, you are the one who is not listening.” Warch kept his voice low but firm. “If our people were the ones drilling out there, they would have called us and told us so.” Warch drew her attention to the nearby table filled with radios and digital phones. “They would not be jamming our communications and drilling at the same time.” Warch didn’t see it as his job to like or dislike people at the White House, but this Valerie Jones was really getting on his nerves.

  Jones started to speak again, but President Hayes reached out and placed his hand on her knee. “I think Jack has made his point, and I agree with him. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  “Who says it has to make sense?”

  Hayes eyeballed her and said, “Valerie.”

  Jones sat back and folded her arms. “Sorry, I’m just trying to think of a way out of this mess.”

  Hayes ignored her and looked to Warch. “What do we do now?”

  Warch was tempted, really tempted to let fly, to explain very forcefully to Ms. Jones that they wouldn’t be in this mess if she had followed Secret Service procedure, but now was neither the time nor the place. That would all be discussed later, if they ever got out of this mess alive.