I don’t know what the poor guy thought was going on, but by the time I reached them—a few steps behind Shotgun, and practically hyperventilating—the boat owner had the vessel revving along the riverside pier.
The good news was that the boat was a Magnum Maltese in close to museum shape, with a pair of upgraded 350 engines, both freshly tuned. It would have been hard to find a faster boat on that stretch of the river.
The bad news was that the boat was a Magnum Maltese, designed for speed, not passenger capacity or comfort.
We crammed six people into a space that might generously be said to handle four, then sped northward on water that turned out to be choppier than the Snake River just below the rapids. The boat bucked over the waves like a bull trying to get rid of its rider. I had to hold onto the ladies to keep them from falling out.
That’s my excuse, anyway.
We tore past River Rouge and Zug Island, speeding toward the downtown area as if the devil were on our heels.
“Name’s Dave,” yelled the boat’s owner. “Where do you need to go?”
“A place called Sky Towers,” I yelled back. He was maybe two feet from me, but it was hard to hear him over the wind and surf.
“Sky Towers? That’s that fancy new office building just beyond Renaissance Center, right?”
“If you say so.”
“They took part of the park to build it, the bastards. Nice building, though—right on the water.”
“Can you get us there?”
“I can sail you right into the lobby if you want.”
“Do it.”
Dave thought I was joking. But the truth is I probably would have had him jam his boat into the side of the building if it was possible. But Sky Towers turned out to be about eighty-five yards from the shoreline, sandwiched between two parking lots and the riverside park.
Throttling back, Dave fought the current as he took us into the Riverwalk pier. We leapt up onto the concrete and hopped the metal barrier, racing across the boardwalk and through the park. Once more I ended up at the back of the train, struggling to keep up as Trace, Victoria, Shotgun, and Mongoose ran to the building.
While nowhere near as high as the seventy-three-story centerpiece of the nearby Renaissance Center, Sky was no slacker. The office building counted some forty-two stories above its lobby, which was itself three normal stories high. The thick smell of drywall mud stung my nose as I came in through the river lobby door. The building was only about a third occupied, with the interiors of several floors not yet completed. The lobby itself wasn’t even completed, the bare walls near the rear door contrasting sharply with the finely dressed surfaces near the elevators and main security desk not far away.
Trace had already found building security and one of the Secret Service coordinators. (Even though the president had canceled, the team stayed in place due to the earlier threat.) The coordinator’s first name was Rose; she was all thorns and no flower. With thick sunglasses and massive shoulders, she looked like she could wrestle for WWE and I don’t mean as a diva. A big black woman with a booming voice, she stood with her arms folded blocking the elevators, a phalanx of security and Secret Service agents looking on behind her.
“We need to get upstairs to the reception,” Trace told her. “They’re going to make an attempt on the secretary of State’s life.”
“Who’s they?”
“Hezbollah.”
“Right. This is the same bullshit rumor that sent a hundred of our best agents down to Riverview, right?” The woman glanced in my direction before Trace could answer. “Who are you?”
“Dick Marcinko,” I managed. “We need to talk to the secretary of State’s security team.”
“You can talk to me.”
“I told her what’s going on,” said Trace. “She doesn’t believe me.”
I could tell from the way Trace moved her left foot that she was planning to do a step and jump-kick that would put her left foot shoe into Rose’s throat and take her down. It would undoubtedly give us enough of a diversion to reach the stairway to my right. But the last thing I wanted was a pack of Secret Service agents chasing us up the stairs.
Well, maybe as a last resort.
I raised my left hand, warning Trace off.
“The catering company,” I told Rose. “How thoroughly were they checked?”
“Who the hell are you again?”
“Dick Marcinko with Red Cell International. I’ve been working with one of the D.C. supervisors. We all came up to Riverview together.”
“I saw that intel you developed,” she said, in a voice that indicated exactly what she thought of it … not much. “Look, Dick Marcinko, I’m with the Secret Service. We’re not rent-a-cops. You think we haven’t checked every dish going into the building, let alone going onto the penthouse floor?”
“You check all the workers?” said Trace. “How many are undocumented?”
“We check all the workers.”
“You just run the Social Security numbers through the computer and see what comes up,” said Veronica. “That’s not much of a check.”
“This discussion is over, missy,” said Rose.
I put up my hand again, this time to stop Veronica from taking a swing.
“Call up to the secretary’s assistant,” I said, pulling out my cell phone. “Here’s his number.”
“That could be anyone’s number, on any cell phone around.”
I dug out my wallet and took out the ass-istant’s card, which by some stroke of luck I hadn’t torn into little tiny pieces or shoved back down his throat. Rose gave it such a dubious look I would have sworn she knew him.
Finally she reached for her radio and called one of her people upstairs. She took a few steps away so I couldn’t hear.
“Dick,” said Mongoose in a stage whisper from across the room. “You know Johnny?”
Mongoose was standing with a tall man in a blue pin-striped suit and a tiny little pin in his lapel—Secret Service.
“Johnny was a detailer for the SEALs,” said Mongoose. “He’s part of the Filipino mafia.”
I went over and introduced myself.
“Washed out of BUDS, to my everlasting shame,” admitted Johnny, lowering his gaze as we shook.
“It’s not a shame. Being a SEAL is not for everyone.”
He made a little bit of a grimace. “Thanks.”
“Johnny says they checked the food crew really carefully,” said Mongoose. “No Arabs. No Mexicans.”
“No Mexicans on a food crew?” I asked. “That’s suspicious in itself.”
“Tough to believe, huh?” Johnny nodded. “But we went through it real careful. Whole kitchen staff had to strip down. I’m not kidding. Guests are going through X-ray machines, whole nine yards.”
“You have a bomb sniffer up there?”
“No. But we have the one here in the lobby. Nobody gets upstairs without going past it.”
“When did it get here?”
“Yesterday.”
So the bombs were brought in before the sniffer came.
“We had a sniffer upstairs. The place was clean,” added the exdetailer.
The floor was clean. The rest of the building might be clean. Or it might not. No one was really in a position to say.
“What sort of tenants are in the building?” I asked.
“I can get a list,” said Johnny. “But there’s a directory right there.”
Duh.
I went over and looked at the shallow glass case hanging on the wall, your standard list of who’s who and the floor they were whooing on.
There were a bunch of marketing firms, a game development company, a suite of doctors, and an outfit that offered “therapeutic massage.”
“I’ll check the massages,” volunteered Shotgun.
“Canceled all their appointments today, because they figured the security hassle would be too much,” said Johnny. He grinned. “Pretty much the whole team volunteered ahead of you.”
“How about the doctors,” I asked. “They cancel their appointments?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Don’t they have patients? The lobby looks empty.”
“Come to think of it, no. They were all let in earlier this morning.”
“You sure they’re doctors?”
“Uh—”
“Have there been many patients in and out?” asked Mongoose. “You just said hardly anyone came in all day except for the party.”
“That’s right. We had two lines.”
“So were there patients?” I asked.
“Um, I don’t remember any.”
“You sure these guys are doctors?” asked Mongoose.
“Well, I mean, I don’t know that we asked for medical licenses.”
“All right, you can go up,” called Rose. “No weapons. No phones. No radios.”
“No phones?” said Trace. “No radios?”
“You want to argue for the next half hour, or you want to go up?”
I guess she thought we were there for the cocktails. Given all the Secret Service agents and the State Department security people up there, our weapons were probably … twice as necessary. But let’s not quibble.
Unarmed and without any practical means of communicating to each other, we headed for the elevator.
“Goose, you and Shotgun check out the doctors’ clinic,” I said. “The ladies and I will go all the way upstairs.”
“What exactly should we look for?” asked Mongoose.
“Anything suspicious,” said Trace.
“Frickin’ Shotgun’s suspicious,” said Mongoose. “We need something better than that.”
They all looked at me. Mongoose had an excellent point—what exactly were we looking for?
“The tango is probably going to be Middle Eastern,” I told them. “If he’s with Hezbollah. Heavy odds. They had the briefcases made up, so look for those. But don’t let that narrow your thinking.”
“In other words, suspect everything,” said Mongoose.
“Yup.”
“I can tell you were an officer.”
The doors opened on the doctors’ floor. Mongoose and Shotgun jumped out.
I pressed P for penthouse and stepped back as the doors closed.
* * *
What was that from the peanut gallery? You there, in the back of the room. You have a question?
Was I profiling in saying that the most likely suspect was an Arab?
Was that your question?
It was?
Hell no, we’re not profiling. We’re using our COMMON SENSE.
Which I capitalize here, because it is in such SHORT SUPPLY.
* * *
The secretary of State’s ass-istant met us in the lobby of the penthouse level. The lobby was decked out with large pieces of slate on the walls, and somewhat smaller ones on the floor. A waterfall flowed down the wall in front of us, cascading neatly into a rectangular copper base, where shards of slate deflected it before it could splatter on the floor.
Pretty. It would make excellent shrapnel if someone exploded a bomb next to it.
“Dick, so good of you to come,” said the secretary of State’s weasel-faced assistant. He had a phony smile to match his phony voice. “The secretary of State was just asking about you. Care for a drink? I think they have bourbon—”
“See anybody with a briefcase?” I asked.
“Briefcase?” He shook his head. “I left mine in the SUV. This is a social occasion. Have you seen Mr. Macleish? I thought he’d be here by now.”
“He’s been detained,” I told him, starting into the crowd.
“The bar’s that way,” said the ass-istant. “Help yourself. I know you’re a big whiskey lover.”
I always admire someone who does his research.
Veronica and Trace were already working their way through the crowd. Though called the penthouse, the space was actually a large, open reception room, with three levels separated by a pair of steps. The walls were glass on three sides; the fourth walled off an area for a kitchen, a service elevator, and a staff room. There was an outdoor patio on the west side of the room. A handful of guests were out there, mingling beneath the fake trees.
After spotting the secretary of State in almost the exact epicenter of the room, I quickly surveyed the rest of the place without coming up with a likely suspect. So I detoured over to the bar—drinks always provide a plausible cover—where I discovered, much to my surprise and approval, that the bartender had a full bottle of Bombay Sapphire on call.
I took mine on the rocks, then began working my way over to the secretary of State, listening as she held forth on a theory of constructive engagement. I kept glancing around, but didn’t see anyone who looked even half Arab.
“Constructive engagement is the way of the future,” said the secretary of State just as I drew close. She paused to take a sip of her drink, a Shirley Temple from the looks of it.
“Constructive engagement,” I echoed. “That means holding them very close while pounding the crap out of them, right?”
“Mr. Marcinko, I’m so glad you could make it. I so rarely see you at an event when there’s a cash bar.”
“I told them to add this drink to your bill.” I raised the glass in salute.
“I’m sure the auditor will have no trouble approving it,” she said.
“Tell me. Do you still think there’s no truth at all to those rumors that Hezbollah is working with the Mexican drug cartels?”
“I think that’s pure speculation,” she said frostily. “But I believe that’s your job, isn’t it? Weren’t you retained to look into that?”
“I was indeed.”
“Excuse me, Madam Secretary,” said one of the men nearby. “I wonder if we could get your picture.”
She was only too happy to find an excuse to get away from me, of course. I stayed put, sipping my drink and studying the crowd.
Had I just been wrong?
It’s been known to happen. Once, I think. Maybe twice.
The plot did lay out neatly, perhaps too neatly: come in with the briefcases a few days before, stow them in the fake doctors’ offices (or somewhere nearby), then come up to the party. Controlling the caterer was either gravy, or perhaps part of the plot to escape.
One of the advantages of Detroit was that Arabs would blend in easily; a good portion of the city’s population—and hardworking taxpayers, let it be said—are of Middle Eastern extraction. Terrorists would blend right in, at least for a short while.
But the briefcases wouldn’t. They would stick out like sore thumbs.
That must be my mistake, I thought. The fact that we had found a bunch was an argument that I was barking at the wrong tree—if the plot was already under way, wouldn’t they have brought them with them?
I leaned back against the glass that separated the room from the exterior patio. The odds were that I had already broken up the plot. Why couldn’t I just accept success?
Because it didn’t feel right. Like the Bombay—I think someone had watered it down.
A hanging offense.
I glanced around, still unwilling to let go of the notion that Hezbollah was targeting the building. Ideas, even when wrong, are stubborn things.
Nobody had briefcases.
Well, actually, the Secret Service guys tasked to hold the Uzis did so in a sleek and discreet case.
I started across the room, looking for the agent in charge on the floor. He was instantly recognizable by the curl of his radio wire and the color of his lapel pin. As I walked, I drained my glass and handed it to the first person I passed, a banker type who took it, then frowned at the fact that it was empty.
“Dick Marcinko,” I told the Secret Service agent.
“I know who you are,” said the agent.
“All of the guys with the Uzis, they’re all yours?”
“What?”
“The briefcases. Does State have any gunners up here?”
&nbs
p; He frowned. I guess it was supposed to be a big secret that the agents were carrying their heavier weaponry in discreet cases. “One, I think.”
Two little words you never want to hear in a security situation: I think.
I might have started quizzing him, but out of the corner of my eye I saw the secretary of State go out the door to the patio. A tall man who’d been watching her from across the room followed.
He had a briefcase in his hand.
I rushed toward the door, hurrying outside. The man with the briefcase had sidled up next to the knot of well-wishers around the secretary of State, who was chatting with the man who had wanted to take her picture.
The man was tall, blond, and very Nordic-looking.
“You, move away from the secretary of State!” I yelled.
Everyone turned around.
“You with the briefcase!” I shouted.
“Are you pointing at me?” said the man, incredulous. Rather than taking a step away from her, he moved closer. “Are you saying I’m an assassin?”
“No, he is,” I said, grabbing the squirrelly man in a suit who’d been standing near the door.
He, too, had a briefcase, was wearing a dark suit, and had a lapel pin IDing him as part of the security team.
He started to object, trying to duck out of my grip. I leaned into him, putting him on my waist and pivoting as I threw him over the rail opposite me.
There was a loud, collective gasp. Then silence. I walked over to the rail.
“Dick!” yelled the secretary of State. “Now you’ve really done it.”
She literally shook with fury as she joined me at the rail, looking down toward the ground.
“There.” I pointed to where he had landed, some forty-two stories below.
“Where?”
“There,” I said as the man and his briefcase blew up.
XVI
You can interpret some of that to good luck, as I never would have figured out where the bogus security person was until I discovered and followed the actual State Department agent, who had moved to be close to the secretary. From there, it was relatively easy to figure out that the guy who actually looked like a Hezbollah recruit—accepting that he had trimmed his beard for the job—was the bomber. His reaction certainly helped—no self-respecting Secret Service or even State Department security person would have tried to break my hold. They would have reversed it and put me over their shoulder. So I knew as soon as he did that I was right.
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