by Cara Charles
That reassured Dez. She had some time before Elise started pacing.
Suddenly, Elise kissed Buddy with energy.
“Her mind’s made up.” Dez got ready to run to her, but something made her wait.
Elise jumped off the bed. Instead of going toward the door, Elise began to run in place pumping her arms. After three minutes of running in place, Elise did her Tai Kwon Do routine. She was fast and agile. Push-ups were next.
Dez pushed back from her desk as she watched the daughter of her heart, prepping for the battle of her life.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO -- NOWHERE TO RUN
THE FREIGHT ENTRANCE GATES at the back of the White House were closing behind the big tractor-trailer linen supply truck that visited the White House weekly. Holiday season meant lots of laundry.
The familiar rig and routine driver had passed inspection by the escorting guards with their bomb-drug sniffing dogs.
Standing by were the armed guards and their Belgian Malinois Shepherds, the most respected attack dogs used exclusively by Secret Service, Navy Seals, and Police Departments worldwide. Cairo, a Belgian Malinois was with Navy Seal Team Six when they took out bin Laden.
The driver was well known to the guards, familiarity diminishing any threat. The driver opened the trailer’s back doors, so his counterpart could offload the pallets of monogrammed White House linens with his forklift.
Security had missed the device Mavra’s team re-designed to look like a normal part of the manifold.
Earlier, two different sets of male tourist couples left their cars in the public parking lot on Jefferson Street near the Smithsonian. They’d rehearsed for two weeks, touring the sites, separately, never acknowledging each other, at different times during the day, hoping to be exposed to different shifts of tour guides, so none of the workers would notice them. They took great care to dress differently, and speak in different languages.
They’d done the White House tour three times. They never saw the same tour employees. Their luck was running.
Four men exited the back door of the White House with their group.
The tour was outside the gates now. The tour group had gotten their final shots of the famous lawn. The Annual Legendary Christmas tree, and the Portico decorated with boughs and holiday wreathes. The tour group moved on to other destinations, feeling privileged and happy.
Two groups of men stood looking at the White House. They’d timed their arrival at this area, with that of the linen tractor-trailer, each wearing backpacks and bullet proof vests with aluminum shields sewn inside their down jackets. They took photos of the Portico.
Leader opened his cell phone looking at the time and nodded to his partner. He looked at the other two, their adrenalin rising with their breathing, ready to begin their mission.
They’d have one minute to get inside, three minutes to find their target, forty-five seconds to get out. Any longer, they’d be dead.
Leader clicked his small walkie in his pocket, got a vibration response from the aluminum lined van circling Lafayette Square.
Leader looked at his men, blinking his eyes twice. Now, bobbing his head, keeping time with the music coming in on his headphones, he was really counting down.
The cold wind was picking up, so putting their parkas on was quite normal.
Just as the others started their watches, zipped their aluminum lined parkas and put their aluminum lined hoods up, they didn’t notice a bi-speckled, chatty middle-aged teacher from Virginia with straight blond hair, and razor sharp bangs, step forward to take pictures of the White House with a long lens on her 35 mm camera, glasses up. She’d been on tour with them.
“Did you see that?” she said. “The sentries on the roof disappeared.”
“Change of shift, don’t worry,” one of the team said, smiling as the first set of men took the sidewalk toward the service entrance. She looked familiar, he thought.
She zoomed her camera and saw nothing. ‘It looked like they fainted.’ “I can’t see a thing without my glasses.”
“They probably stepped down a steep stairway. You must be a thriller reader, huh?”
She put her glasses back onto her nose, accepted this, and nodded, “Big time. I feel silly now, you’re right.”
Big One in team two elbowed his chatty partner, unsnapping his thigh pocket.
Something ominous in his predatory smile, opened her rage and her instincts. She kept her wide-eyed innocence, but she knew to move off. Now.
The Big One stepped toward her feeling the knife’s plastic blade in his palm letting it slip down to his fingertips.
But she’d turned to leave, “Be sure to see Ford’s Theater,” she was simply friendly. She waved as she joined her friends.
His chatty partner stepped in front of him. ‘No, leave her.’ “Thanks! We will,” he said, trying to sound like he was from Omaha, when he really was born in Odessa, Oblatz, Ukraine.
She jogged to catch up with her friends. She zipped up her lined jacket and pulled up her lined hood as they had.
He turned to glare at his over-anxious partner and noticed the knife slide back into his thigh pocket.
“You ass! You would have blown us and the mission.”
The Big One glared at his chatty comrade, ‘he’d better shut up.’ He jerked his head toward their destination. They hurried down the sidewalk, toward the back gate of the White House zipping up and tightening their hoodies. Big One turned to look at his prey across the street.
Undercover Secret Service Agent Patty Birch crossed the street, feeling the big perp’s eyes on her and kept going. She loved it when her instincts were right. Because they put their hoods on as a unit, she too put her lined hood up, her parka lined like theirs. If they’d only known, lined parkas were standard issue, she’d be dead. She keyed the walkie in her pocket, her dangling earring, a microphone.
She scratched her head to cover her face as she talked, “Chief? Birch here. UC Tours. Set-rep STAT Report!” Patty turned back to locate them. They were gone.
“Yo, Birch. What’s up?”
“Got suspicious male foursome all in identical black parka hoodies, on the South lawn sidewalk. Third time, this month, on the Nest Tour. They went toward the back entrance best I can tell. They didn’t come my way, didn’t get picked up. Very interested in the linen truck.”
“Follow them, Patty. You’re onto something. Sending back-up.”
Patty felt vibrations throughout her body, as she heard alarms through her ear piece. Cars started slowing, and running into each other.
The vibrations stopped. She shook her body out and took deep breaths. She knew what had happened.
“Holy Shit! The electricity is out at the White House. We’ll meet you there. Big guy and family, OOT. Not a drill! This is not a drill…!”
“Sweet Jesus! It’s a PEMP! Send a chopper to check on roof team. I think they’re down. Gotta be these guys. Four non-descript blond, blue eyed white males, mid thirties, three about 5’11’’. One at least 6’3”, wearing black down parkas. Caught an Eastern European accent from the only one who talked during the tour. Ominous big buddy weight lifter type, thick necked with thigh pockets on his black pants wanted to eat me for lunch. Will follow.”
“Wait ‘til back up arrives, OK? Please Patty, I know you…”
“I got this.”
“Damn it, Patty! Check in frequently with your locale. Out.”
Agents with guns drawn were emptying offices all around the White House.
Patty would never know how close she’d come to being killed as she was the only one standing and able to run into a building across the street to a hidden tunnel entrance, pulling her Secret Service badge out of her bra.
In every office of the Secret Service, Homeland Security, water and power agencies in the District, the interruption in electric service alarm to the White House, shattered the afternoon.
“This is not a drill. This is not a drill. Take your re-breathers. Get yourselves to the White Hou
se and the tunnels. Now! Agent Patty Birch on scene. Watch your crossfire.”
Agents ran for the stairs, grabbing their guns, and gas masks. They took secret tunnels located in buildings around the White House.
Shift supervisors called their counterparts at the White House. No answer.
They fielded calls from other agencies as the alphabets converged on the White House.
The Agent in Charge called Air Force One.
The other agencies put their assault plan into operation.
The Vice President, the Speaker and the other Secretaries were being secured.
Another called the Secretary of Defense, Ash Carter ,on his crisis phone.
“Sir? ID please.”
“Alter Boy. What’s going on? Power’s out at Eagle’s Nest?” Carter answered.
“McCabe, at the Blue office. Yes sir. No one’s answering at the White House. The switchboard just rings! And rings. Walkies are dead. Not a soul is picking up. Must be a PEMP. We’re keeping this secure from the Press for now, sir.”
“Alright. You’ve begun the Lemming plan?”
“Yes sir.”
“Good. Keep me posted. You know where I’ll be. Carter, out.”
Shanti woke up in Joseph’s bed, in near darkness, her ears ringing. Her wristwatch backlight said she’d been out a minute or two.
A battery emergency light lit the room from the outlet. The electricity was out.
She turned to look at Joseph next to her struggling to breathe. She pulled him off the bed. He had a very slow carotid pulse, less than thirty, so she put her mouth on his and began to breathe for him. She opened his shirt. There was a pacemaker implanted on his chest. She listened to his chest. Nothing was capturing. She began CPR.
“Come on Joe, Climb back. Come on Joe.”
After about three cycles, he was coming out of it. She put her ear to his chest, heard clicking. The pacemaker was capturing, and color was returning to his cheeks.
Shanti gently slapped him to revive him, “JOE WAKE UP, BREATHE! JOE!”
Joseph opened his eyes, looking right into hers, “What happened?”
“I felt a buzzing in my head, then I went out. You were out. Let’s get out of here before they do it again. Can you stand? Can we get off the grounds?”
“Yes. Just get us to your car.”
Shanti realized as she helped him, Joseph was old. She’d wasted all those years. His room only contained his mother’s photo. She wouldn’t let him live the rest of his life alone. She wouldn’t drive by his home any longer, just to catch a glimpse of him. Shanti listened for footsteps and voices.
Joe struggled to follow, holding onto the door jam.
Joe’s room, behind the elevator shaft, had protected them.
Shanti slowly opened the door. She stepped into the hallway. Agents were on the floor, out cold. She checked their carotids, pumping and breathing regular. Slapping didn’t arouse them. She took one of his two guns.
Now, she heard men running up the stairwell. Shanti backed Joe into his room.
Four men stopped out in the hall near Joe’s door. They split off, going into all the rooms, searching.
Shanti listened at the door.
They ran on. They were opening doors upstairs in the Residence.
Joseph made it to his dresser, opened his top drawer, grabbed his special Blackberry, and texted the President.
‘Intruders in WH. Power out. Agents out cold. Niece and I will try to get out. JRJ’
Joe deleted the text, removed it from history, placed it on vibrate in his pocket.
“If I can’t make it out with you, the gate code is the signing of the Declaration, backwards. Six, seven, seven one, four, zero, seven, zero. Got it? It’s the four zero seven zero part people forget.”
“I promise, I won’t.”
Shanti couldn’t leave him again, just when they’d been reunited after fifty years. But the possibility was real. Her eyes welled up.
He smiled seeing her tears, thinking the same thing.
“Nothing will separate us. That I promise,” Joseph kissed her.
The President was in Air Force One en route to DC, his Chief of Staff came into his office, just as his special Blackberry vibrated in his pocket. Poor timing, as Barack Obama tried to mask the surprise in his face, but David picked up on it. It could mean one thing, trouble. METAPHOR needed him. The President felt the plane turning.
“Sir? Power’s still out at the White House. We are in Lemming mode, diverting to the safe house, until we’ve got the situation secured. An electromagnetic devise we think. Our exterior teams are hitting the doors now. Everyone at the White House must be unconscious, because no one is answering. Patty Birch, our undercover agent with the tour, reported four suspicious men having toured with her two times this month, may have been involved. She was in pursuit. But we haven’t heard from her.”
“She could be in danger alone with them, inside.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Keep me informed.”
David left. Waiting for a few seconds making sure he didn’t come back in, the President read Joseph’s text. He texted back.
“Joe? Not mechanical. They’re after her. Get out of there! Female agent inside with four male bogies.”
Joseph felt his pocket vibrate. He read the text then answered. ‘K. Thx. Leaving now to visit spa. JRJ.’
Joseph took out the photograph of his pregnant mother with Mrs. Roosevelt at the Little White House and laid it face down. The President would understand.
“A female agent is inside. Let’s get to your car. If I slow you down, I want you to leave me. No arguments. We’ve got to get you away from here. The whole town will be here soon. They are after you, POTUS said.”
They headed out the door. His knees buckled, his heel bumped the paneled door back open an inch. They struggled down a back stairs.
Joseph saw agents out cold. “My God!”
Shanti propped Joe against a wall to take the carotid of agents down.
“Just, unconscious.”
“Thank God! This way.”
Men were running above them.
“Come on, honey,” Joseph’s strength was returning. He pulled her in the service elevator.
Shanti took another gun from a downed agent, stuffed it in Joe’s belt.
“You will use this if you have to, right?” Shanti whispered showing him, “safety on, safety, off.”
Joseph smiled and nodded, “I have training, my love.”
Up stairs, the four men found his room. Two looked inside.
“He’s here, somewhere. I can feel him. Bed’s still warm. 90 seconds. Find him.”
The other two, Big Mr. Knife and Mr. Chatty went looking for Joseph. Inside Joe’s room, Number Three saw the photo face down, wondering if it was a message. Number Four looked under the bed, in the closest, in the bathtub. He pressed the paneling, looking for a hidden door. Nothing happened. Pointing to his watch, they ran out.
“SECRET SERVICE! FREEZE!” Agent Patty Birch yelled as she pulled the trigger.
They opened fire with Uzis taken from downed agents.
Patty got off two kill shots as she dove for cover behind the corner in the hallway, while their bullets shredded anything in its path. The credenza exploded near her.
Patty felt searing pains. They’d grazed her temple. She felt a hot knife pierce her shoulder as a bullet ripped into her. It wasn’t shattered, nor was there a big hole. She did her pain management breathing, as she listened for movement from the two remaining intruders. Nothing. Patty crawled toward the two dead guys.
Shanti and Joseph heard the shots. “My car is in the security lot. They have my purse!”
“This way. If I slow you down, you know the manual gate code. Watch out for the dogs. They will kill you, if you run. Agents from across the street should be here.”
Joe and Shanti looked across the street. No one was coming. Many lay on the sidewalk.
“They’re down too, Joe. We’re
on our own.”
Joe began to sink to his knees, again. “Leave me. Don’t be a hero!”
“Don’t you dare move from here! I’m not leaving you!”
Shanti kissed him. He was weak but not cold. She ran, kept low. She looked in the windows above and behind her.
‘If she was one of them, she’d be waiting for her to make a break for it.’
Inside the Security Office even the big Malinois were down. The agents were out, drooling.
Shanti grabbed her purse from the cubby. Her guns were hanging, clips still full, tagged with her clearance number. Her other guns intact in her purse. They trusted her. She put her gun in the small of her back and the clips in her pockets. She left her visitor’s badge, but the GPS chip was still in her arm. She’d have to dig it out later.
All those men lying at her feet knew she’d graduated from the FBI Academy, but she chose not to go active, her file had told them. When they woke and saw her purse gone, they’d either think she was part of the plot or she’d gone in pursuit. It could go either way. She could be on an APB and the Ten Most Wanted List across the TV within minutes of them awakening.
If it were an electromagnetic pulse devise, maybe they’d all have amnesia, as it was reported in the journals. That would give her time, if the research were true. It had been her duty to keep up with all the journals.
From the rooftops, she’d be visible. Shanti ran out toward her car. Putting on her vest, Shanti looked at the rooftops and across the street. No one was moving on the street.
She jumped in her car backed around to Joe in the bushes.
Joseph saw her backing up toward him. He stood, testing his legs. He felt a sharp pain in his neck. Big Mr. Knife had stuck a needle in his neck as Mr. Chatty grabbed his arms from behind. He fell helpless against his assailant.
The last thing Joseph remembered was her car. He was unable to utter a sound. Everything went black. His last thought was, ‘God please help her.’
Mr. Chatty waited. He looked behind him. Wondering where that agent was. Someone had gotten the other two in his team. No one was on their feet. Gregor had pulsed them all. Mr. Chatty saw Gregor’s white van cruising by the back service entrance again. They were so close to victory. He was determined to get out with Joseph. This old man was his million-dollar ticket.