by Stuart Woods
Kate spoke up. “It’s my firm belief that the circumstances require it.”
“But there’s no time for preparation, is there?” Will asked.
“All these men and women have run multiple rehearsals for missions such as this,” Halstead said. “They are equipped with the latest surveillance and communications equipment, which, I might add, would be destroyed in the event of the threat of capture.”
“The alternative,” Kate said, “is to share our intelligence with the Pakistanis and let them send their people in. They would have the advantage of blending in with the population and would be able to travel openly in daylight.”
“I seem to recall,” Will said, “that a couple of years ago we requested a similar mission from the Pakistanis. How long did it take them to mount it? Does anyone remember?”
“Three weeks,” Kate said.
“And that warhead could be anywhere in three weeks,” Will replied.
“Exactly. It’s entirely possible that we are already too late, that the warhead has been moved.”
“Then we’d better find out,” Will said. “Send them in. I know I don’t have to tell you to take every possible precaution for their safety.”
Kate and Halstead stood up. “Thank you, Mr. President,” she said. “The order will go out within minutes.” They shook hands and left.
Will watched them go and tried to reorder his mind for his next meeting, but it didn’t work.
52
NELSON PICKETT ANSWERED THE PHONE IN HIS OFFICE AT THE NATIONAL Inquisitor. “Yes?”
“Nelson, it’s Jimmy Pix.” Jimmy Pix (the only name by which Pickett knew him) was a slimy little guy who did dogwork for publications like the Inquisitor, and Nelson had assigned him to follow Martin Stanton’s campaign plane around the Southwest, where Stanton had been assigned to bring in the Hispanic vote.
“Where are you, Jimmy?”
“In Denver. Stanton spoke here yesterday, and he has another appearance today.”
“What have you got for me?”
“I’ve got this: Stanton and his road manager, the lovely Liz Wharton, are in adjoining rooms at the Brown Palace. Stanton has a suite, Liz has the room next door.”
“Are the two connected?”
“They sure are, by a door that needs to be unlocked from both sides.”
“Good start. What else?”
“They both ordered a late dinner last night from room service, and within a minute of each other. The two dinners were delivered to their separate rooms at the same time, and the trays were left in the hallway a couple of hours later.”
“I want photographs of the suite and the other room and the connecting door,” Pickett said.
“Hey, come on, Nelson, we’re talking Secret Service protection here. I can’t get past them and into their rooms, and if I did, I’d end up in a federal prison.”
“All right, then, bribe a room-service waiter or, better yet, a chambermaid to photograph the rooms. Stained sheets would be nice. Tell them to squirt some ketchup on the bedding.”
“That might be possible,” Pix said. “Let me work on it.”
“Do it fast, Jimmy—I’m running out of time.”
“Will do.”
Pickett hung up and phoned a technically oriented man he knew, and gave him an assignment.
GENE PEARCE HUNG UP the phone and began checking the gear in the work case he traveled with. It contained an assortment of electronic tools and gear, and half a dozen kinds of pickup devices.
He got into his van, which was disguised as that of a plumber, and drove from his Silver Spring, Maryland, home to the Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. It was late morning, and he had been told the mark would be at work.
He parked a couple of doors down from the address he had been given, walked to the house, carrying a bag of plumber’s tools and his work case, and rang the bell. He didn’t want to stumble upon the cleaning lady. No answer.
Gene looked carefully around the block. Not much traffic and no one at all on foot. The curtains were drawn on the house directly across the street. He dug out a set of lock picks and went to work on the front door. He was inside in less than a minute.
The first thing he saw inside was an alarm control box. He stared at the thing, waiting for it to start beeping. It did not. The lady had not set her alarm before leaving home. Sweet of her.
He set down the plumbing tools in the entryway, then entered the house. Cute. Two floors, the master bedroom and a guest room upstairs. A cursory glance told him the master had been occupied.
Gene placed three microphones in the bedroom, one by the bedside where the phone was, one by the dressing table, and one high, on top of a picture, that would bridge any gaps between the other two. When he finished there he went downstairs and placed one under the living room phone. As an afterthought, he placed one in the kitchen, as well. You never knew.
He was done and back in his truck in under an hour. He dialed the number and listened on his equipment for it to ring. It worked perfectly. As a final touch, he placed a voice-activated tape recorder in what appeared to be an electrical box, and fixed it to the outside of the house behind some azalea bushes. He would collect the tape every day.
Gene called Nelson Pickett. “Nelson, you’re up and running in Georgetown,” he said.
“Send me your bill,” Pickett said.
“I have to pick up the tape every day,” Gene told him.
“You do that, and be sure you pick it up tomorrow,” Pickett said.
“Something special about tomorrow?”
“You bet your ass,” Pickett replied.
53
TODD BACON LOCKED HIS NEW OFFICE DOOR AND TOOK A SANDWICH AND A SODA TO his desk. He had a couple of more files to read from Owen Masters’s safe before he would be done. The first was a kind of telegraphic diary, documenting Owen’s joining the Agency right out of Yale, his training, and every assignment he had been given during the ensuing thirty years. Interesting, but not very. Owen must have been planning to write an autobiography.
The second file was clearly labeled “Teddy Fay.” That name rang a distant bell for Todd, then the whole thing flashed in his frontal lobe. Teddy Fay was the former Agency employee with liberal political leanings who had vanished after retirement, then emerged as the assassin of several right-wing political figures, among them a blowhard talk show host and the speaker of the House, one Eft Efton, both deceased. Before leaving the Agency, Fay had deleted all his personal records from every computer he had access to, so there were no photographs of Teddy extant. Todd suddenly knew he had what was probably the only one.
He read slowly through the file, which contained a number of newspaper clippings, and he formed the opinion that Teddy, who had been reported dead a number of times, was Owen’s man in Panama, the one he had assigned Todd to find. The last item in the file was a large clipping from the International Herald Tribune, originally printed in The New York Times, about a man named Henry King Johnson, a black preacher from Atlanta who had announced his candidacy for the presidency as an independent and who had become a threat to the reelection of President Will Lee.
Todd had heard Owen make a number of favorable remarks about Lee and his wife, Katharine Lee, who was director of Central Intelligence, and Todd was, himself, favorably disposed to both of them, having joined the Young Democrats organization in college. He noted, too, that all the people Teddy Fay had assassinated were outspoken opponents of President Lee and his moderate Democratic policies.
Todd then asked himself two questions: (1) What had Teddy Fay been doing in Panama? Answer: Hiding, obviously, since if it were known that he was still alive, all sorts of agencies would be hunting him. (2) If Teddy had left Panama, then where had he gone? Answer: Unknown. Lance had said Owen’s assassin would be in South America by now, but Teddy seemed to have a record of going where there were people he wanted to kill.
Todd scanned the article on the Reverend Johnson again. “Teddy wou
ld not like this guy,” he said aloud to himself.
Something else in the file reminded him of what Owen had said about the man in his briefing: He flew airplanes. Todd was a pilot, too, having grown up with a father who flew and having earned his private license in the family Beech Bonanza when he was in college and his instrument rating not long afterward.
Todd knew the private-pilot mind-set well enough to know that pilots, when they traveled, much preferred flying themselves to flying the airlines or driving. Teddy Fay had faked his death in an airplane, and it stood to reason that, if he were out there and on the run, a light airplane would be his transport of choice.
Todd got onto his computer and logged into the Agency’s mainframe. He did a search for “Reported aircraft incidents” and narrowed it by date. He got a list of fifteen incidents. In one a small Piper had flown too close to a nuclear power plant in New York state; in another, a Beech Baron had made a wrong turn on departing Santa Monica Airport, in Los Angeles, and had had a near miss with an airliner. And in another, a light aircraft had filed a flight plan from the Cayman Islands, across Cuba and to Key West, then had disappeared from approach radar when only a few miles from its destination. A search had been conducted by the Coast Guard, but they found nothing.
Todd did a little more searching and found the daily logs of Key West Approach Control, which was operated by the Navy at its base on Boca Chica. There was a note that a Cessna had reported taking off from Marathon, fifty miles up the Keys from Key West, and was flying under visual flight rules to Sarasota. Todd then found the Sarasota Tower logs and noted that no light Cessna had landed there within the time frame for the flight from Marathon.
Todd went to the FAA registry, online, and entered the tail number of the Cessna: It had been registered to someone on Long Island . . . until the airplane had been totally destroyed while landing at East Hampton in fog.
Todd got out his atlas and checked the route. From Panama, it was due north to the Caymans, then to Key West, and he calculated the mileages. It was possible for a light Cessna, particularly with some ferry fuel aboard.
Todd left his office and walked down the hall to the embassy library, where he found an aeronautical chart for Panama. He found the international airport at Panama City, then, a few miles north, a private grass strip. He dug a large-scale map of the area from the stacks, then went back to his office, locked his safe and the door, put on his jacket, and took a cab home, where he had left his car.
Half an hour later, he found a little dirt road off the Colón highway, with a sign with the outline of an airplane painted on it. He drove through the jungle for five minutes and emerged into a large, elongated clearing containing a grass airstrip of four to five thousand feet. There was a cluster of hangars at the near end of the strip, and in one of them Todd found an attendant, his feet on his desk, his head thrown back, a flying magazine resting on his chest, snoring loudly. He pinched the man’s toe, and he woke up, startled.
“Buenos días,” Todd said, smiling.
“Buenos días,” the man replied. He looked as though he may have had a few beers, and a glance into his trash can confirmed that.
“Speak English?” Todd asked.
“Yes, I speak,” the man said sleepily.
“How many airplanes are based here?”
“Maybe twelve, sometimes,” the man replied.
“How many Cessnas?”
“A twin, over there,” the man said, pointing at a tied-down aircraft, “one 172, over there,” pointing at another, “and one 182, in the hangar, there,” he said, pointing again.
“Can I see the one in the hangar, please? I’m interested in buying a 182.”
“Okay,” the man said. He led the way to the hangar, took hold of the door, and pulled up on it. “She’s out,” he said. The hangar contained only a motor scooter.
“When?”
“Dunno. They come, they go, sometimes when I’m not here.”
“You have fuel here?”
The man pointed at a pump.
Todd nodded and walked into the hangar and over to the scooter. He inspected it closely. It was very clean, as if it had been wiped down. He opened the little storage compartment and found a rag and a bottle of Windex. Then he walked around the hangar slowly, finding only two cans of motor oil and a few basic tools, which also looked very clean. He turned back to the attendant.
“What is the tail number of the airplane that lives here?”
The man shrugged. “N something,” he said. “I don’t remember the rest.”
N meant American registration. “Thank you very much for your help,” Todd said. “If the owner returns, would you ask him to call me about his airplane?” He scribbled his number on a page of his notepad and ripped it out.
“Sure, señor,” the man said.
Todd drove back to Panama City, thinking all the way. His guess was that Teddy Fay was in Atlanta, looking for the Reverend Henry King Johnson, who was now a threat to the reelection of President Will Lee.
Todd went home and packed a bag, then called the international airport and chartered a CitationJet from a service the Agency did business with. He was now station head, and he had that authority. He called his number two and told him he would be away for a few days on business and available on his BlackBerry, then left a similar message with the ambassador’s secretary. No one would miss him, or even question him.
Todd strapped on a compact SigArms 9mm semiautomatic, got into his car, and left for the airport.
54
BARBARA ORTEGA LEFT HER NEW OFFICE AT THE JUSTICE DEPARTMENT A LITTLE after six and drove toward home. She stopped at a supermarket on the way and stocked up on groceries for her new house, and as she was waiting her turn at the checkout counter a headline in a tabloid newspaper on the rack next to her caught her eye.
VEEP AND HOTTIE CAMPAIGN MANAGER
IN TRAVEL TRYST?
Barbara wanted to read the newspaper then and there, but she tossed it onto her pile of groceries and checked out. Once at home, she made herself wait until the groceries were put away before she opened the paper and read the text of the article.
“VICE PRESIDENT MARTIN STANTON, who has long had a reputation with the ladies, has been raising eyebrows among the press and staff on his campaign plane, and rumors are circulating about his relationship with his traveling campaign manager, Elizabeth Wharton. The lovely Liz, who is at least fifteen years younger than her boss, has been quartered nightly in several cities in a room adjacent to the veep’s suite, with a connecting door, and room-service deliveries to their separate rooms seem to have been coordinated.
“Vice President Stanton, until recently governor of California, has been rumored to have had regular liaisons with at least two California women over the past few years, and is in the middle of what some say is a contentious divorce from his wife of many years. Has Marty been seeking solace in the arms of the nearest beautiful woman?”
BARBARA PUT DOWN the paper, dug her secret cell phone out of her purse, sat down on the living room sofa, and called her lover. The phone rang a number of times before it was answered.
“Yes?” Stanton said.
“I think you know who this is,” Barbara said.
“Yes?”
“Have you seen this rotten . . . paper?”
“What are you talking about?”
Barbara picked up the paper. “The National Inquisitor.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“According to this vile rag, you are fucking your campaign manager, somebody named Elizabeth. Is that true?”
“I, ah, can’t really talk right now,” Stanton said. “Can I call you back?”
“I just want you to deny it,” Barbara said, seething. “Will you deny it right now?”
“I’m afraid I’ll have to call you back, and what with my schedule, it might be a couple of days before I can do that,” he replied.
“Don’t bother, you son of a bitch,” she said. “Don’t bother
ever to call me again. I’ve torn my life apart for you, Marty Stanton. I’ve moved across the country, bought a house, found a new job—all just to be near you—and this is how you treat me?”
“I’ll have to say good-bye for now,” Stanton said, then hung up.
Barbara threw the cell phone at the opposite wall as hard as she could, shattering it.
THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, Gene stopped at the Georgetown house, collected the tape from the recorder, inserted a new one, then drove to the offices of the National Inquisitor. He put the tape in the envelope, wrote Nelson Pickett’s name on it and left it at the reception desk.
The envelope was sent to the Inquisitor’s mail room, and shortly before the office closed, it was left on Pickett’s desk. He returned from the men’s room to find the envelope there. The cassette had no name on it, just the date and time of collection.
Pickett took a small tape player from his desk drawer, inserted the cassette, and pressed the play button. Then he listened, with increasing interest, as he heard the conversation between Barbara Ortega and the vice president of the United States. Before he had finished he was on his way to the office of William Gaynes.
He burst into Gaynes’s office to find him on the phone. Gaynes pointed at his sofa and put a finger to his lips. Pickett waited impatiently while Gaynes continued his conversation. Finally, he hung up the phone. “What?” he said to Pickett.
“Running that story in yesterday’s edition did the trick,” he said. “Listen.” He played the tape.
Gaynes waited until it was finished before he said a word. “Brilliant!” he said, finally. “She actually used his name!”
“And he didn’t deny it,” Pickett said. “Do you realize what effect this could have on the national election?”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what effect it has on the election,” Gaynes said, “I’m Australian. All I care about is circulation.”