by John Farris
A bomb shelter designed to withstand anything short of as a direct hit by an ICBM lay in the granite beneath the house. A disguised radar installation on Silverdust Peak six miles away was there to give the President time to reach the shelter in the event of unexpected hostilities.
Within easy walking distance of the main house and away from the barns and stock pens four well-appointed guest lodges and offices of the western White House were scattered among the lofty conifers and creekside poplars, separated from one another by the meandering trout stream. The White House Communications Agency had installed three uplink dishes next to the office building, which contained a fully equipped television studio. Two generators of the type used for movie location work, enough emergency power for the entire ranch complex, were parked beside the studio in bombproof trucks, protected around the clock by members of MORG's Elite Force. Several more members of the force rode the range day and night equipped with sniper rifles and night-vision scopes. There were dozens of surveillance cameras on the property, but an expert eye was needed to spot most of them. Two helicopter gunships stationed in Bozeman were combat-ready and twelve minutes away. The ranch's water supply was tested four times a day. Rona had decided that it was just too medieval to have a food-taster on the premises. MORG used two of the ranch's Border collies for that chore. They remained in robust health.
Rona loved the pomp and circumstance of the heritage-laden White House, but she loved her downtime on the ranch even more.
On arrival she parked Clint downstairs with two MORG agents and a personal trainer to supervise his session with the Nautilus machine. She changed into her shit-kicker duds, substituting sneakers for boots, which hurt her feet when she wore them only once in a while. She left the house and, unaccompanied, drove a golf cart down to the largest of the guest lodges, two stone chimneys on either end and a deep screened porch across the front. Two more MORG agents, still in city clothes but with their jackets off, were on the porch. Rona gave them a jaunty wave and went inside.
Victor Wilding was having brunch on another sunny porch at the back of the lodge. He smiled in a relaxed way at Rona, who wiped a bit of egg from his lower lip and kissed him fervently. Then she plopped into a padded chair and sighed.
"Made it."
"Care for something to eat?"
"No thanks. These jeans are snugger than the last time I had them on. How's everything?"
"Fine. How about you?"
"Oh, fine. Now that you're here."
Wilding spread apple butter on corn bread. "Thought I noticed a frown just then."
"I wasn't frowning, I was squinting. Bright in here." Rona adjusted the angle of her chair away from the windows. Then she reached impulsively for the apple butter and ate some with a spoon. "Oh, boy. Nobody puts up better apple butter than Jonquil Huckey, bless her heart." She enjoyed another spoonful from the canning jar, licked her lips, and sighed. "Clint gave me kind of a jolt on the way down here," she finally admitted.
"Really? How?"
"When we passed the Broken Wheel he saw a string of riders and, in particular, one of the ranch hands leading them into the mountains on a pack trip. The guide I'm talking about had, you know, Linda's shape and profile and wore her hair like the first and late Mrs. Harvester."
"What about it?"
"He said her name. With this look in his eye. God damn it, Clint remembered. He remembered being married to or at least knowing her twenty-three years ago."
Wilding said after a few moments, "An isolated flashback. Doesn't signify that he's coming out of it."
"But there has always been that possibility. Lately he's been fucking uncanny with Rubik's Cube. Solves it in a couple of minutes. That's memory too, isn't it? And I caught him yesterday moving pieces around on the gold and jade chessboard one of the sand nigger sheiks gave him for his fifty-third birthday. Clint looked as if he was trying ... to figure out a move."
"I wouldn't worry about it," Wilding advised. "He won't suddenly recover all of his faculties." He paused, looking her in the eye. "Not in the time he has left. Marcus Woolwine assured me of that."
Rona bit her lip and shrugged. "I was a little creeped out, I guess. I've been on edge. Speaking of Woolwine, how's our Shaman-in-Chief doing with Eden Waring?"
"Remarkable results."
"Can she heal Robin Sandza?"
"Don't know yet. Marcus and I introduced her to Robin two days ago. We're certain they've made contact on some level of apprehension. Quoting Marcus. But she's a kid still, not the experienced Avatar and neurosurgeon Kelane Cheng was. It's too soon to tell what she may be able to do for him, or how long it will take. After Eden's visit, he appeared to rally. That's encouraging."
"It certainly is. Have you almost finished eating? Not that I'm rushing you, but I want to get into your pants. Like I said, I've been terribly on edge."
Wilding smiled. "We should touch base on the important stuff."
"Your cock is important." She moved her chair closer to him. Put a hand even closer, under the table. "Go ahead," she told him. "While I'm getting you ready. When's the blastoff?"
"Eleven-fifteen P.M. CDT."
"I'd say in about ten minutes, way it feels now."
"What about the help in the k-kitchen?" Wilding said, looking over one shoulder.
"They see me doing this; they better stay in the kitchen. Damn this zipper! Okay, next."
"One hour later we start our spring roundup. Washington, New York. Pretext is a phone call from a spokesman for H-Hamas, threatening total extinction of the white capitalist devils of the West and their client state in the Mideast. The t-tape will subsequently be released to all the m-media."
"Am I giving you the stutters?" Rona asked with a devilish expression, working his penis free of his Jockey shorts. "Everyone accounted for?"
"No, but we'll have ninety percent of the members of the executive and judicial branches iced within an hour. Some important exceptions. We haven't been able to keep track of Buck Hannafin since his Chief of Staff resigned. Buck's canceled appointments and committee meetings. There's a rumor he checked into the Mayo Clinic under another name. Prostate cancer."
"Yeah, right. If Buck's being surreptitious, something's up. Buck Hannafin is a problem for us. Major problem. You'd better find him."
"We will. Wanda Chevrille is her usual elusive self; may be on a religious retreat, that cloister she favors in western Maryland. The Veep is in Bonn trying to talk the Krauts out of withdrawing from NATO. AG is at the bedside of her sick mother in Maine. Admiral S-Sobieski left yesterday for o-oh!-Oceania to dedicate the Navy's new super-carrier, c-can't touch him there. Jesus, Zeph, I was going to have a second cup of c-coffee."
Rona's face was snuggled naughtily in his lap. "Uh-uh," she murmured.
"The tapes are ready. Clint addressing the nation from the western White House. Clint invoking his executive powers. The d-disinformation will come thick and fast from around the world. Who is it? Who else is involved in this conspiracy? London, Paris, Israel, Seoul. Everyone will be on full military alert. Washington is rumored to be the next target. Pandemonium. Mass exodus. And then the really b-bad news." He inhaled sharply. "The P-president of the United States is—God, Zeph!"
She looked up with a grin. One hand still clutching the empurpled stalk.
"And a new legend for our time arises in the darkness of fear and turmoil, twelve feet tall with thunderbolts flashing from the tip of her swift sword." Rona gave Wilding a downstroke and a series of slow squeezes that took him close to a peak of ecstasy. "Don't suppose we could borrow Excalibur from the British Museum. Now there is a goddamn sword. No negative comparisons intended, lover. Or maybe Excalibur is in the Tower with all of the family jewels." With her thumb she gave Wilding's engorged jewels a little nudge, then unexpectedly relaxed her hand.
"Excalibur is a m-myth, I'm afraid. You're not going to leave me like this?"
"Of course not. La la la la la! That's enough business talk. Come along, darling, play
with li'l Ron-er till it's time to pull on the chain mail."
Rona knew they were being peeked at from the kitchen while she elevated Victor Wilding from his chair, Victor laughing with the roots of his short hairs a-sizzle, Rona towing him playfully by his extended penis toward the master suite of the lodge. God help her, she did love it so, as General George S. Patton reportedly had remarked in a different context. Her hand on a willing weenie, and the rest of the nation soon to follow.
CHAPTER 25
BROKEN WHEEL RANCH • JUNE 7 • 10:15 A.M. MDT
The fourteen riders from the Broken Wheel Ranch took a break at the Mahoon Falls meadow. From that elevation there were exceptional views of three mountain ranges, national forests, and the ranches in the Black Alder Valley below. Forty-three square miles in all. Good photo opportunities.
Buck Hannafin walked about half a mile higher through a grove of old-growth cedar and fir with three of the men who had accompanied him up the trail. They followed a pack mule and a woman named Courtney Shyla, whom Clint Harvester had glimpsed in passing an hour ago and had mistaken for his first wife. Courtney had worked at the Broken Wheel a decade ago during her summer breaks from college. She had studied biology and ecology at the University of Montana, then opted for adventure in her life. Her current employer was the United States Army. She held the rank of major in the Special Forces.
Her boss was Lieutenant General Royce Destrahan, in charge of the U.S. Special Operations Command, which had jurisdiction over all of the armed forces' elite military units. These included Shyla's group and the Navy's SEALs. Destrahan also was Buck Hannafin's son-in-law. One of the other two men with them was Nick Grella of the Secret Service, who knew all of the security arrangements at Big Country Ranch. The last man was a Special Forces noncom, the best long-range sniper in the Army.
"Good place for a BASE jump," Courtney commented when they reached the cliff she had selected for their reconnaissance. "Watch your footing, everyone. Follow the mule."
The huge cliff, with a pitch of twelve degrees, was more than four thousand feet above the valley floor. The footing was mostly loose talus rock partly held in place by bear grass and huckleberry. There was enough sun-dappled lodgepole and spruce growing there to afford concealment if anyone was looking their way through binoculars.
Destrahan had studied satellite photos of the Big Country Ranch layout, but he wanted to see if MORG had installed any surprises. Courtney Shyla unpacked the telescope the mule had carried up and installed the fork mount on a field tripod. The twelve-inch Astro-type scope was motor-driven and could pick out a tenth magnitude smudge in the sky. Aimed toward the ranch, the lenses magnified a barbed-wire scar on a cow's behind at ten thousand yards. Courtney hooked up the telescope to a CCD camera, a laptop computer, and an ink-jet printer.
The sniper had a pair of 40X150 Japanese-made, military-spec binoculars to do his own reconnaissance. Buck was frowned at by Courtney the ecologist, and guiltily put it away. Nick Grella labeled the photos as they came from the printer.
"Did you ever rodeo?" Buck asked Courtney.
She swatted a biting fly away from one cheek. "Yes, sir. I was Little Britches' National Champ three years in a row before I got more interested in boys than barrel-racing."
"While you were working summers at the Broken Wheel, did you ever get over to Big Country?"
"No, sir, never did, they kept me too busy where I was."
Buck smiled. Down at the meadow she had taken off the wig of dark abundant curls that was part of her cowgirl pose. The wig was hot and made her sweat. He assumed that the severe military bob of her natural hair was necessary in her line of work, but damn she sure had been something special in all those curls.
"So nobody over there would know you, didn't date any of the cowboys?"
"No, sir."
Buck nodded vaguely, watched a couple of golden kestrels riding a thermal. Then he said, "If you boys have had yourself a good enough look, listen up here for a minute." When he had their full attention Buck looked at his son-in-law. "Just give me the bottom line, Royce."
"It can be done."
The sniper said with deadpan relish, "Fifteen hundred yards downrange, night, moving targets. Affirm, initial phase is do-able, sir."
"Well, sure; but done tidy, or done with a whole lot of unnecessary bloodshed on both sides? Seems to me that when you attack their perimeter, the perimeter collapses around 'Rawhide,' and he's hustled forthwith into that rockbound shelter. Which there is no way to breech without putting his life in jeopardy. Am I telling you true?"
"That's the way it works," Nick Grella said.
"Buck, it's all in how you coordinate the strike! There are multiple assault points, from the ground and the air simultaneously. Casualties, I can't sugarcoat that. Eight, maybe ten of ours. All of theirs, guarantee. I don't hold MORG's Elite Force in such high regard."
"And if one of them has instructions to turn his weapon on the President at the first indication of trouble?"
General Destrahan took a breath, let it out, finally nodded.
"That's the drag coefficient we can't afford."
"So maybe the best way to get Clint out of there is not to mount a hellfire assault, but to work stealthy from the inside. Inside the house, where they all feel the most secure. Those guys guarding the First Family are new on the job. Whatever Rona was thinking when she put MORG in charge of the POTUS detail, experience still counts. Isn't that a fact, Nick? So what is the most relaxed time of the day for most folks? Right around supper, dark-thirty, after the happy hour."
"Oh, no, Buck. No, no, no, I couldn't face Reggie if she found out that I let her father—"
"Why not? Has to be me, Royce. For certain you're not goin' in there with all your hard-ass ninja types. Or even by yourself. They'll scope General Royce Destrahan two hundred yards from the front door. 'Sorry, sir, the President and Mrs. Harvester are indisposed, we'll let them know you paid them a call.' On the other hand—" Buck looked at Courtney Shyla. "We fix up the major here with a pair of horn-rims and a cell phone; I can pass her off as one of my staff."
"Doesn't matter, Mrs. Harvester won't let you in either."
"Yes she will. Know why? Because Rona's cooking up something big, and I'm the fly in her souffle. What is it the old Mafia hands used to say? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. Hell, it'll make Rona's day to see me on her doorstep."
"With what? You'll never get a weapon past them. This isn't a good idea, Buck. Now let's get serious about—"
"General Destrahan?"
"Yes, Major?"
"Begging the General's pardon, but I believe Senator Hannafin's idea has merit."
"Major, I've already—"
"Let her talk, Royce."
Destrahan nodded, but folded his arms.
"Well, sir, there wouldn't be any need to try to get a gun into the house, because I'm sure there are some inside already. Although probably not close by while everyone is having dinner. The element of surprise is central to all of our operations. I know that at some point I would have an opportunity to—obtain a gun from one of the MORG guys." She smiled. "Once I have one, then I'll have them all. Sir."
"She's making sense to me, Royce," Buck Hannafin said. "And you told me not two hours ago that you had a lot of confidence in this young woman."
"I have confidence in a well-made plan with second and third options. If even a single shot is fired inside that house, the game is lost."
Courtney Shyla responded by pulling a prehistoric obsidian knife from a boot scabbard. She passed one edge of the knife through a hanging alder leaf. The leaf barely stirred on the branch as it was sliced in two.
"Whisper-quiet, sir."
"We're gonna be a hell of a team," Buck said, beaming.
"Buck, nothing personal, but you're not as fast as you used to be."
"You haven't seen me on a dance floor lately. It's footwork, not foot speed that counts. Audacity and a little pluck can succeed where an enti
re company of Rangers might fail. I just have a bad feeling. Therefore I'm invitin' myself to dinner tonight at the western White House. Be nice to have your approval, Royce; but as you well know it ain't essential."
Destrahan chewed over the proposition, looking from Buck to Courtney Shyla. He couldn't completely sell himself, but finally he nodded his concession.
"All right, Major. I'll agree that you can probably pull it off, up to a point. How do you get the President out of there, and into safe hands?"
"Well—I think—we declare a medical emergency, sir. POTUS has a fainting spell, vertigo or something. A little chloral hydrate would do the trick."
"Go on."
Courtney looked at Nick Grella. "Which hospital in the area has been prepped to receive the President in case of an accident or sudden illness?"
"Bozeman. Twelve minutes by chopper. Medevac team from Mountain Home Air Force Base. The helicopter is on the pad at Deaconness Hospital. The team includes a cardiologist and a flight surgeon, and they're on twenty-four-hour call."
"Once the President is at the hospital, a Secret Service team already in place can seal it off from everyone, including MORG, long enough for the psychiatric exam to be completed."
"Okay," Destrahan said. "Here's my part of it. A diversionary thrust at the perimeter on Major Shyla's signal from inside the house. We'll make it look like right-wing nutballs operating out of the back of a pickup truck."
"Aw-dacious," Buck said admiringly.
"Still leaves a hell of a lot of variables. Not the least of which is the First Lady."
Buck's attention seemed to wander. He reached absently for the cigar that Courtney Shyla had disapproved of earlier, twiddled it between his fingers, took out his cutter and trimmed one end, fished for a kitchen match that he struck on one of the hand-tooled silver studs that ran down the sides of his leather chaps. He took his time, putting on a show that had everyone's attention, looking smug as only a man lighting a fifty-dollar cigar can look. He took a few puffs. Then he spoke.