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Gambit

Page 17

by Karna Small Bodman


  The plane would take off, get up to supersonic speed at a high altitude and launch or drop the smaller plane which then goes into orbit about one-hundred-twenty miles up and takes better pictures than anything else the U.S. currently has in its arsenal.

  As Hunt typed up his proposal, he realized that it might be a hard sell because DOD probably wouldn’t want their newest generation spy plane to be out there for others to see or even hear about. He knew that if word got out, there were a lot of people around the world who would accuse them of launching a vehicle in space that could be used as a first strike weapon-delivery system.

  Who gives a damn? We’re in a war against God knows who, and we have to use everything possible to figure out who the bad guys are, don’t we?

  He finished the memo by adding two lines at the bottom. AGREE_______ and DISAGREE________, signed it and asked his secretary to expedite it to the vice president’s desk.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND

  It was getting late. As Cammy looked out of her office window, she saw the trees being whipped by a furious wind. Good thing she had brought her trench coat with her that morning. She didn’t relish the thought of traipsing around the streets of Washington when it was so chilly and windy out there right now.

  She still had a number of things to do before she left for the Heritage panel. She wondered whether she should plan to go back to Melanie’s apartment after that or whether Jayson would come up with a better idea.

  She hated the thought of being a gypsy again. She had gone through that routine once before when Hunt had secured FBI protection for her and had her move in with him at his home in Georgetown several months ago. Even though she was under a tremendous amount of stress at the time with some lunatic chasing her all over town, trying to steal her invention of the Q-3 missile defense system, she had felt safe at Hunt’s place.

  He had a wonderful house there on P Street with its homey western feel. She remembered that he had prints on the wall of the Tetons because he had gone to a ranch camp in Jackson Hole when he was a kid, and he liked to be reminded of the place. He had comfy leather couches in his living room and a few other western touches in the place. At least he hadn’t gone in for the antler chandeliers or saddles made into bar stools that some westerners seemed to like. After all, it was Georgetown.

  Yes, she had been scared at the time, but ultimately Hunt had taken care of her. Well, Hunt, along with the FBI. She wondered what she should do now.

  She had a thought about possibly checking into a hotel in Chevy Chase. She could talk to the desk clerks, say she didn’t expect any visitors and ask them to alert her if anyone asked about her. Yes, that might work.

  As she was pondering her rather dire situation, the phone rang. It was Jayson Keller. She was continually amazed that the vice president of the United States could keep making personal phone calls on her behalf when he had the weight of the world on his shoulders right now. She was glad he had called, though.

  “Cammy, I’ve got news,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About your apartment.”

  “I was just thinking about that and wondering if I should stay in a hotel for a while,” she replied.

  “My answer is absolutely not. I’ll get back to that. First, let me tell you about a report I just received from Janis.”

  “The FBI director?”

  “Yes. She sent a team over to your place this morning, right after we talked, and you were absolutely right.”

  “It was arsenic in the milk?” Cammy asked.

  “Not just in the milk, in the orange juice, in the cranberry juice and just about everything else you had in that refrigerator.”

  “Oh no!”

  “And that’s not all.”

  “What?” Cammy asked as she felt herself cringing at the news.

  “Your stove.”

  “What about my stove? I almost turned it on to broil a steak.”

  “My God! It was wired to explode if you as much as touched the controls.”

  Cammy closed her eyes and pictured the explosion that had rocked Wen Hu’s lab. She shuddered. She couldn’t speak.

  “Cammy, you still there?” Jayson asked in a concerned tone. “Are you okay?”

  She took a deep breath and finally uttered a sigh, “What can I say? Whoever did that must be some kind of explosives expert. Remember what happened to Wen Hu?”

  “Yes, of course I do. Look, we’ve obviously got a cadre of killers on our hands. It looks like they’ve got cells or gangs or agents or whatever they are in a number of our cities. I doubt if one lone guy is traveling between Washington and Cambridge.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you’re right. Did they find any fingerprints?”

  “Unfortunately, no. But they figure it was a professional.”

  “What should I …? Her voice trailed off.

  “Janis and I have talked this over and here’s our proposal. First, she’s assigning a team to drive you to and from work every day. And wherever else you want to go. Okay?”

  “Yes, that’s good of her. I mean, I’ve been through this before. She probably told you that Hunt arranged … I mean, back when …”

  “Yes, I know,” he interrupted. “I know all about the previous attempts on your life. We’re not going to put you in any more danger. So step one is that when you finish work today, you leave your car there in the company garage, and the agents will pick you up right outside the corporate entrance.” He gave her a number to call to alert her new drivers when she wanted to leave.

  “Okay. Tonight I had planned to go over to a seminar at Heritage. It starts at six.”

  “That’s fine,” Jay said. “Just give them an hour or so’s notice so they can get to Rockville and pick you up.”

  “No problem. I’ll do that. But after the seminar?”

  “Tell the agents to take you back to Melanie’s. Pick up your clothes or whatever you have there, but don’t go back to your own apartment. When you exit the building, your driver is going to take you to the Indian Embassy.”

  “The Indian Embassy? But why?”

  “Janis and I feel that you will be quite safe there.”

  “But why would you want me at a foreign embassy?” Cammy asked, rather bewildered by his suggestion.

  “Janis and I talked about this and decided that it would be better than one of our safe houses right now. Besides they’re all way out of town. I just got off the phone with the Indian ambassador. You know that their government has been eternally grateful to you for the way your Q-3 system worked to protect New Delhi from a cruise missile attack a few months ago.”

  “Yes, but …”

  “No buts. They would be delighted to host you for a few days. I explained the situation. They’ve read the Post article. They can see how you are now a target of some terrorist group, just as you were before. They said that they have their own security that surrounds their residence 24/7. So with the embassy police along with the FBI, there’s no way anyone is going to get near you. Besides, they have a pretty nice place over there on Macomb.”

  “You mean just above the Washington Cathedral?”

  “Yes. The ambassador and his wife say they would be honored to have you as their guest for a while. Uh … hope you like curry,” he added.

  Cammy hesitated. Live in an embassy? Or rather an ambassador’s residence? This would be unique and, as he said, she should feel perfectly safe there. She had a fleeting thought about whether she should bring them some sort of house gift. Maybe she could stop on the way and pick up a bottle of wine or something. Why she was cluttering up her mind with such trivialities was a question when she had so many other things to worry about right now. But this would be a new experience, and she wanted to be a good guest.

  “I guess this could work out pretty well,” she ventured. “And you said a few days would be okay?”

  “Yes, of course. And that brings me to my next question. How soon do you think you co
uld take your team to a base to test the laser?”

  “The laser? We just had a meeting about that. It looks like we should be ready to go in a couple of days. We talked about using an F-16, so where do you think …”

  “Travis.”

  “Travis Air Force Base?” she exclaimed. “That’s where I used to live. It’s a MATS base. But it’s way across the country.”

  “Yes, I know. Military Air Transport. But we’ll ferry over an

  F-16 for you to use. I had Iggy, uh, the secretary of defense, call the base commander to give him a heads-up that we may want to use his facilities out there. He was happy to oblige. He can send a cargo plane to take all of your equipment to California. So as soon as you give us the go-ahead, we’ll arrange to transport you, your people and your supplies out there. We all realize it’s a distance from here, but we feel it would be the best facility. Besides, you told me you had lived there, so we thought you might feel more comfortable working in such a familiar place.”

  Her mind was racing. First, she’d be staying with the Indian ambassador and his wife, then she’d be flying to California where she’d not only revisit her childhood haunts, but maybe she could see her mother who was teaching computer science at San Francisco State University.

  The only problem was, she’d have to fly. The mere thought of getting on a plane again made her tense up. Even though she’d had to fly to India several months ago, she still hadn’t gotten over her tremendous fear of strapping herself into an airplane seat and putting her confidence in a pilot and a machine. She could never erase from her memory the flip comment she once heard from a pilot who said that takeoffs were optional. Landings were mandatory.

  She knew she had to do it. She had no choice. How else could they go test the laser and ensure that it could be mounted on a passenger plane and save a lot of innocent lives if they became the target of these crazy terrorists once again.

  “All right,” she said. “This sounds like a plan. I’ll go through everything with my team again tomorrow and perform a few more simulations. Then, if everything’s on track, maybe we can plan on leaving in about three days. But I’ll let you know for sure.”

  “Sounds good. And in the meantime, remember, call that number I gave you. When you’re not within the embassy grounds or inside your office, stay with the agents and don’t let them out of your sight!”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “That wind is really kicking up,” Claudia said as she buttoned her trench coat and pulled the red silk scarf around her head. “No sense in getting my hair blown around before we get to the seminar.”

  “You’re right,” Hunt said, opening the door of his dark green Jaguar for her. He went around, slid onto the tan leather seat and started the car. He realized that Claudia wore the same type of trench coat that Cammy always wore—that Burberry look. She was about Cammy’s height too.

  Damn. There he was thinking about that woman again. But he couldn’t help it. The littlest things seemed to invade his sense of self control and turn his thoughts to the pretty scientist who was acting like the nickname he’d heard about some time ago. She had told him that Stan Bollinger had once called her the “IQ.” But it didn’t have anything to do with her intelligence. It stood for “Ice Queen.” Now he could understand why.

  They drove out the Southwest Gate of the White House and headed toward the Hill. “Great car,” Claudia said, examining the dashboard. “Where’d you pick this up?”

  “Friend of mine from State got assigned to Nigeria. Got this for a song.”

  “Nice lyrics,” she said with a wink.

  They chatted about the background briefing she had given to a reporter from the Miami Herald that afternoon. She said that she had focused on her belief that the terrorist groups had not secured their missiles from Central or South America and that the administration was following up on a number of other promising leads.

  “Promising?” Hunt asked.

  “Well, we have to let people know that we have some decent leads, don’t we?”

  “Sure. Just don’t mention China.”

  “Of course not. I’ve got the guidance.”

  When they pulled up to the Heritage Foundation building on Massachusetts Avenue just off Columbus Circle, Hunt said, “Why don’t you get out here. I’ll go park and meet you inside.”

  A dark blue sedan pulled up a block behind them and stopped in an opening to an alley. The driver watched as the woman in the trench coat and scarf got out of the Jaguar and rushed up the stairs of the building. Then he saw the Jaguar head around the corner to look for a parking place.

  The man figured he had plenty of time. Must be some sort of meeting going on in there. This should be easy. He had been trailing this colonel for quite some time. They told him the colonel often worked with the scientist. He had his orders, and he intended to follow them. Tonight.

  He sat quietly and stared at the entrance to the building where a number of other people darted inside out of the wind. He waited a while and then glanced at his watch. Ten after six. Nobody had gone inside for over five minutes. The meeting, whatever it was, must have started at six.

  He grabbed a small package, one he had been keeping for just such an opportunity, and held it carefully as he got out of the car and started to walk toward the building.

  He looked around, but didn’t see anyone on the sidewalk. Most of the traffic was headed down Massachusetts Avenue, workers heading home. No reason any of them should notice a man of medium height and medium build in jeans and a dark jacket and cap walking down the street carrying a small box.

  This was perfect. He couldn’t have asked for a better place. He walked nonchalantly up to a FedEx box right in front of the building, pulled open the deposit door and slowly slid his package inside. Then he turned and quickly walked back to his car. Once inside, he pulled out his cell phone, punched in a series of numbers and set it on the seat beside him.

  He knew he could relax for a while. He turned on the radio, put his head back and listened to his favorite sports talk show. He planned to start watching the door again in about half an hour.

  Then, all he had to do was to wait for the tall woman in the trench coat to come back outside. If the colonel was next to her, that would make his job just that much simpler. But whenever he saw her, he could hit the “Send” button.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  THE WHITE HOUSE

  “Thanks for coming over so late,” the president remarked as he, the vice president and DNI leaned in to examine the sheaf of high resolution photos the secretary of defense handed him.

  “No problem,” Iggy said. “We just got these in. I knew you’d want to see them right away, so I thought it best to get them over here.”

  Jayson Keller looked over the president’s shoulder and said, “I’m not sure we’re getting anything new here, are we?”

  “I don’t believe I see any changes either,” the intelligence director said. “Our people have been comparing photos like these to others DIA took six months ago, and we can’t identify any new installations. At least not in those areas.”

  “Looks like another big flood in this section,” Jay remarked, pointing to one picture.

  “Oh yes, floods and polluted water. Big problems all the time over there,” the DNI said.

  “Another spill in the Songhua River?” the president asked.

  “Looks like it. They’ve had over seventy spills in just the last year. You know there are something like three hundred million Chinese with no decent water to drink. Well, out in the countryside, I mean. Though the cities are having more and more problems as they modernize. In fact, the top ten polluted cities in the world are all in China,” the DNI said.

  “Make a note that we could propose a massive water clean-up program with our latest technology when we head to those new trade talks next month,” the president muttered, turning over another photo.

  “Good idea,” Jay said, writing in his e
ver present leather folder. “But if it turns out that China has anything to do with these attacks, there’ll be no more trade talks or talks about anything else. Right?”

  “God damned right,” the president barked.

  “I wonder if we have the right satellites looking at the right locations,” the DNI ventured. “You know, the Chinese are experts in what they call strategic deception. Their word for it is moulue. They’re very clever about it.”

  The vice president pulled a memo out of his folder and handed it to the president. “Take a look. I just got this NSDD from Hunt Daniels.”

  “Daniels?” the president said as he grabbed the memo. “Guy usually has some pretty good ideas. What’s he got this time?”

  “He’s suggesting we deploy Borealis.”

  “Borealis?” Iggy blurted. “We haven’t used that system. It’s Top Secret! We can’t let that out of the bag yet, it’s our strategic ace in the hole. You know that.”

  The president leaned back in his leather chair behind the handsomely carved Resolute Desk, given to Rutherford B. Hayes by Queen Victoria and used by many U.S. presidents ever since. A panel had been added during FDR’s time to hide the view of his wheelchair. Now this president took a moment to think about Daniel’s recommendation and he could hardly hide his concern. “That system is the best thing we’ve developed since the space shuttle. But Iggy’s got a point. If we deploy, how can we ensure that word doesn’t get out that we’ve got it?”

  “Everyone working on that system knows it’s Top Secret, and I’m sure we can get that plane to take off from its base without arousing suspicion. After all, we test lots of different kinds of planes all the time. If we emphasize secrecy about its launch, I think we can pull it off,” Jayson said.

 

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