Camel Club 01 - The Camel Club

by David Baldacci

  Gray’s eyes had regained their focus and his mind its priorities. “The president, we have just learned, has been kidnapped,” Gray said. “I need to get back to Washington as soon as possible.”

  A minute later the chopper lifted into the air and headed south.

  CHAPTER

  56

  DJAMILA SLOWLY DROVE BACK from the rendezvous point toward the Franklins’ house. The transfer of the president from her van to his final transportation out of the area had gone very smoothly, taking barely a minute. She had the radio on to drown out the sounds of the boys from the back and also to find out what the news stations were reporting. The airwaves were filled with the breaking events, although the commentators were not making much sense. There were reports of many dead, but right now it seemed that the country, which had been watching the event on TV, was focusing on the fact that the president had been rushed to the hospital. They would soon find the truth far different.

  So engrossed was Djamila in her thoughts that she failed to notice the police cruiser closing in on her from behind. She finally looked in the rearview mirror when the flashing roof lights caught her attention. She could hear a loud voice coming from one of the cars as the police talked to her through their PA system.

  “Pull the van over and get out immediately!”

  She didn’t pull the van over, and she had no intention of getting out immediately. Instead, she accelerated slightly.

  In the lead cruiser the officers eyed each other. “Looks like she’s still got the kids in there with her.”

  The other cop nodded. “We can box her in and try to talk her out.”

  “Yeah, but if she doesn’t come out? Call in a sniper unit, pronto.”

  “I don’t think there’s any left. Hell, we haven’t had a single murder here in over four years, and in one day we have an attack on the president and some crazy nanny kidnapping her employer’s kids.”

  A half mile farther up the road another police cruiser blocked the way. Djamila saw this and pulled off the asphalt and drove across the grass. The cruisers were about to follow but then stopped as Djamila turned the van around so it was facing back toward the road. She unfastened her seat belt and climbed into the backseat.

  “What the hell’s she doing?” one of the cops said. “You think she’s gonna hurt those kids?”

  “Who knows? What’s the status of the sniper?”

  “I took it as a really bad sign when the dispatcher laughed when I asked for one.”

  “There’s no way we can chance a shot with those kids in there.”

  “So what do we do?”

  “Look! The side door of the van’s opening.”

  They watched as an arm appeared and the baby was set on the ground still in its car seat. Next the two older boys were likewise deposited on the ground.

  “I don’t get this,” the cop in the passenger seat said.

  “If she makes one move to run them over, you take out her tires and I’ll try for a head shot through the windshield,” the other replied.

  The men climbed out of their cruiser; one had his pistol out, the other held a pump shotgun.

  However, Djamila had no intention of hurting the children. She glanced at them each in turn as she settled back in the driver’s seat. She even waved to the oldest boy.

  “Bye-bye, Timmy,” she said through the window. “Bye-bye, you naughty little boy.”

  “Nana,” was all the tearful boy said back as he waved his hand at her.

  As much as Djamila had disliked Lori Franklin, she was relieved she hadn’t had to kill the woman. Children needed their mothers. Yes, children needed their mothers.

  She took a moment to write something down on a piece of paper that she pulled from her purse. She folded it carefully and then gripped it in her hand.

  She put the van in gear, started rolling forward and pulled back onto the road.

  Another police cruiser had joined the hunt now. Djamila headed toward the two policemen who were standing outside their cruiser.

  “Stop the car!” one of them said over his portable PA.

  Djamila didn’t stop. She accelerated.

  “Stop the car now or we’ll open fire!” Both officers aimed their weapons. One cruiser closed in on the rear of the van while the other cruiser broke off and got the boys safely in their car.

  “Shoot the tires out,” one of the cops said as Djamila bore down on them.

  They both fired and took out the front tires. Still, Djamila kept coming. She gunned the motor, and the van hobbled along at a fair clip on the shredded wheels.

  “Stop the van!” the cop yelled again through his PA.

  The cops behind the van shot out Djamila’s rear tires, and still she rolled on. The van was weaving and lurching but was still headed directly for the two policemen.

  “She’s crazy!” one of the cops cried out. “She’s gonna run us down.”

  “Stop the car! Now!” the cop shouted again. “Or we will open fire on you!”

  Inside the van, Djamila didn’t even hear him. She was chanting over and over in Arabic, “I bear witness that there is no God but God.” For an instant, as she hurtled forward, her thoughts careened to a young man named Ahmed who didn’t know her, despite having captured her heart. Ahmed, her poet, who was dead, and surely now in paradise.

  Djamila thought of the Prophet Muhammad climbing the miraj, or ladder, that fateful night, until he reached the Farthest Mosque, the hallowed “seventh heaven.” It was the promised paradise and it would be so beautiful. Far better than anything here on earth.

  She pushed the gas pedal to the floor, and the crippled van shot forward.

  The shotgun and pistol roared together. The van’s windshield exploded inward.

  The vehicle immediately weaved off the road onto the grass and hit a tree.

  The van’s horn started blaring. The cops rushed over to it and cautiously opened the driver’s door. Djamila’s bloodied head was resting against the steering wheel, her eyes open but no longer seeing. As the officers stepped back, a piece of paper floated out of the van. One of them stooped and picked it up.

  “What’s it say?” the other asked. “Suicide note?”

  He looked at it, shrugged and handed it to his colleague. “I don’t read Chinese.”

  It was actually Arabic. Djamila had written something down.

  It was the date and exact time of her death.

  CHAPTER

  57

  CARTER GRAY SAID NOTHING IN the chopper ride back to Washington. Hemingway didn’t attempt to break into the man’s thoughts; he had quite enough of his own.

  They landed at NIC, and Gray climbed out of the chopper.

  “Do you want to go home, sir?” Hemingway asked.

  Gray looked at him incredulously. “The president is missing. I have work to do.”

  He walked into NIC headquarters as the chopper lifted off again. Hemingway spoke into his headset to the pilot.

  Tyler Reinke confirmed this command and they headed west.

  Hemingway glanced down at the floor of the chopper. In the cargo hold a foot under him, President James Brennan was sleeping peacefully.

  Within a few hours even the most remote parts of the world knew at least some of the details of what had happened in the small town of Brennan, Pennsylvania.

  The Secret Service had immediately implemented its continuity of government plan, securing all persons in the chain of command down to the secretary of state. The vice president, Ben Hamilton, had assumed the duties of the chief executive in accordance with the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, the first time it had been invoked in response to a kidnapped president.

  And the newly installed acting president was not a happy man.

  Hamilton had verbally eviscerated the director of the Secret Service. Next he’d summoned the heads of every intelligence agency to the White House and took them to task for having been so totally oblivious to an operation that had clearly taken enormous pl
anning and manpower. It was well known that the VP had presidential aspirations. He obviously thought that, aside from the damage the kidnapping had caused the country, it was probably not beneficial to him to assume the top spot in this way.

  Then he ordered Carter Gray to come to the Oval Office that night.

  By all accounts, Gray handled the tirade thrown his way in stride. When Hamilton finished, Gray calmly asked him if he could now go about the business of finding the president and returning him safely. His new boss’s response, according to the sources who’d heard it through the very thick walls, was not printable in any newspaper.

  At Kate’s invitation Adelphia and the Camel Club reconvened back at her carriage house on their return from Brennan. Adelphia still carried a horrified look. Kate gave her some water and a cold cloth, but the woman just sat there staring down at her hands and slowly shaking her head.

  Kate said, “Alex is okay, but I haven’t been able to see him, only talk to him on the phone for a few minutes.”

  “I’m sure he’s being debriefed,” Reuben replied. “He was right in the middle of it all. He might’ve seen something that could help.”

  “What did we all see that might be useful?” Stone asked.

  “A lot of shooting, people dying and cars on fire,” Caleb listed.

  “And the president being carried away,” Milton added.

  “But there was something wrong with him before that,” Caleb said. “I saw it on the big TV. He was clutching his chest.”

  “Heart attack?” Reuben suggested.

  “Possibly,” Stone said.

  “Well, it was Arabs shooting,” Reuben added. “I grabbed one of their guns before the man got shot.”

  “It was definitely a coordinated attack,” Stone commented. “Even with all the chaos, that was clear to see. Shooters and then men setting themselves on fire, and then more shooters. In structured bursts of directed fire.”

  “At least the presidential limo was able to get away,” Kate added. “Even if the president ended up being kidnapped.”

  “Yes, but the perpetrators probably intended that the limo escape,” Stone said. “After cutting it off from the rest of the motorcade.” He looked over at Milton, who was frantically typing away on his laptop. “Anything new, Milton?”

  “Only that the president is confirmed missing, and there was a tremendous gun battle outside of Mercy Hospital in Brennan.”

  “Mercy Hospital,” Stone said thoughtfully. “If the president was ill, they must’ve taken him to the hospital. That would have been standard procedure.”

  “And they set fire to the ambulance,” Kate said.

  “Also part of the plan,” Stone replied.

  Caleb looked at all of them. “So what now?”

  “We really need to talk to Alex. He needs to look at that film,” Kate said.

  “I’m sure he’s pretty busy right now,” Reuben commented.

  “I’ll go and see him as soon as he’s home,” Kate said. “I know he’ll want to help.”

  Stone, however, didn’t look nearly as confident as she did.

  At Secret Service headquarters the crisis room was abuzz. Although the FBI was officially handling the investigation, the Service was not about to back down on this case.

  Alex Ford, his arm bandaged, his bruised ribs wrapped with tape and his lungs still feeling like they’d been charcoaled, had been debriefed for the tenth time and was, in turn, being caught up on recent developments.

  “We’ve got the hospital security guard,” said the Secret Service’s director, Wayne Martin. “The two other men in the ambulance were killed after a gun battle, but we got the bastard.”

  “And the president?” Alex asked anxiously.

  Martin said, “No sign of him. We think he was transferred to another vehicle. A woman named Djamila Saelem may have been involved. She worked as a nanny for a couple named Franklin. She tied up Mrs. Franklin and took the kids. Later she released the kids but was killed by the responding officers when she tried to run them down.”

  “What’s the connection to the president?” another agent asked.

  “We think she used the kids to get through the roadblocks. A nanny with three screaming babies is not really high on the suspect list.”

  “I’m still not getting it,” the same agent commented.

  “When the officers inspected the van she was driving, a secret compartment was found in the rear. It was copper- and lead-lined with an outline of a man’s body roughly the size of the president’s cut into it, plus space for an oxygen tank that was later recovered. Mrs. Franklin said the nanny was highly upset when she was told that Mrs. Franklin had changed her plans and was going to the dedication event with her sons. That would’ve thrown a big monkey wrench in their plan, so Franklin had to be taken out.”

  “Has he talked?” Alex asked. “The security guard, I mean.”

  “The FBI has taken over that line of inquiry,” Martin said bitterly. “But his prints were run through the system and came back with zip.”

  “Sir, that guy is no rookie. I can’t believe this is his first op,” Alex said.

  Martin said, “Agreed, but I guess he never got caught before.”

  Alex then asked the question he’d been dreading. “How many are dead, sir?”

  Martin looked at him strangely. “Counting the dedication grounds and what happened in town, twenty-one terrorists were killed.”

  “I mean what about our guys?”

  Martin glanced around the room at the other men and women there. “This is not public knowledge, and it won’t be until we can figure out what the hell’s going on.” He paused. “We had no casualties.”

  Alex jumped up and looked at the man. “What the hell are you talking about? Guys were dropping all over the place. I was there. I saw them, damn it. Is this some kind of bullshit political spin? Because if it is, it stinks!”

  “Just hold on, Ford,” Martin said. “I know you’re on heavy meds for the pain, but you don’t talk to me that way, son.”

  Alex took a deep breath and sat back down. “Sir, we had casualties.”

  “Our guys were shot, over twenty-five of them, plus about fifteen uniforms. And Dr. Bellamy.” Martin paused. “But they were shot with tranquilizer darts. They’ve all recovered. That’s why the shooters were able to get their weapons through the magnetometers. The guns and darts were made of composite materials with no metal.” He paused and then said, “None of what I’m telling you leaves this room.”

  All the agents in the room looked at one another. Alex said slowly, “Tranquilizer guns? They weren’t firing tranquilizer darts at the hospital. Those were real bullets.”

  “The snipers fired darts into the two other agents we found there. Then they held off the reinforcements with real ammo. However, despite having the high ground and one of the best sniper rifles on the market, they didn’t hit one damn person with live ammo. Eyewitnesses said the snipers only shot in the vicinity of our guys. They put up walls of fire in front of the hospital to keep our people away. That seems clear now. They apparently never took a kill shot, although our guys said there were plenty of opportunities for them to do so. I don’t claim to understand it, but those are the facts right now.”

  Alex touched his wounded arm. “They used live ammo on me.”

  “Congratulations, you were the only one. I guess they didn’t anticipate you being able to get into the hospital and mess up their plans.”

  “I obviously didn’t mess them up enough.”

  Martin eyed him closely. “You did as much as any agent could’ve.”

  Alex didn’t acknowledge this compliment.

  Martin continued. “The plan obviously was to funnel the president to the hospital without his normal security contingent. They knew our procedures and methodology well, and used them against us. We think the fact they didn’t harm any of the security forces may bode well for the president. They could have killed him easily.”

  “So they’ll
hold him for ransom, and not just money,” another agent said.

  “That’s the probable scenario,” Martin conceded. “God only knows what they’re going to ask for.”

  “But why go to all the trouble of not killing us, sir?” Alex asked in exasperation. “I mean that’s what these guys do, they kill. Look at 9/11, the USS Cole, Grand Central. And they were slaughtered in the process. It makes no sense.”

  “Agreed, it makes no sense. We seem to be in new territory here.” Martin picked up a remote and pointed it at a large-screen plasma TV hanging from the wall. “We just got this video feed in. I want everyone to sit here and watch this thing. Anybody sees something that strikes ’em funny, sound off.”

  The TV came to life, and Alex watched as the horrific events at Brennan unfolded.

  They viewed it three times, and while a few agents had some comments, nothing jumped out at them. It was clear that the terrorists had been very organized and very disciplined.

  “They took the ambulance out and Dr. Bellamy too so we’d have to take the president directly to the hospital for treatment,” Martin said. “Then they used a tractor-trailer and a downed water tower to block off reinforcements. Pretty damn clever. Lucky we weren’t facing these guys when Reagan got shot. He got to the hospital with a handful of guys. Somebody waiting there would’ve had a pretty easy target. Which means we’re going to have to change how we do things from now on.”

  “But the president was looking ill,” Alex said. “I remember seeing him grab at his chest. When we got to the hospital, he told me he was dying. I checked his pulse. It seemed okay but I’m no doctor.”

  “The hospital staff said a doctor at the hospital injected him with something and he went unconscious,” Martin added.

  “They couldn’t just count on him becoming ill and going to Mercy Hospital,” Alex said. “They had to make that happen at the ceremony.”

  “Right, but we don’t know how they did it.”

  Another agent spoke up. “Maybe he was hit with a dart that made him sick.”