by Vince Flynn
Again, the shorter of the two went to work on the lock. When he was finished picking it, he opened the door and placed a piece of duct tape over the lock. The two men stepped into the subbasement of a twelve-story office building and let the door close behind them.
The shorter of the two headed for the staircase and disappeared. The second man weaved through the mass of pipes and structural supports until he found what he was looking for.
He pried open the steel access panel to the main duct of the building’s ventilation system
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and placed it on the ground. The other man had just finished climbing to the sixth floor of the multi-tenant office building.
They had scouted the building months in advance. The top five floors were leased by a law firm, and the rest of the floors were half-filled with lobbying firms, smaller offices, and various other businesses.
Vacant suites were interspersed on all of the floors except the top five. He opened the staircase door and looked down the hallway. With no one in sight, he casually walked down the hall and stopped at the third door on his right. Setting his bag down, he started to pick the lock.
Speed was not crucial; acting relaxed and nonchalant was. He wasn’t worried about one of the office workers seeing him. If they did, they wouldn’t be surprised by someone from the phone company going into an empty office suite. Finishing with the lock, he entered the room and walked over to the tinted window. Dropping to one knee, he set his bag down and emptied the contents, laying them out on the floor in a precise manner. In under a minute he assembled the rifle and placed the nitroglycerin-tipped round in the chamber. Twenty seconds later the rifle was affixed to the top of a tripod. The assassin eased his left eye in behind the scope and stared down at the front door of the building directly across the street. He then turned on the laser sight, and a small red dot appeared on the tinted window. Twisting the screws on the tripod, he locked the rifle into place, and then, reaching into his bag, he grabbed a glass cutter and placed the suction cup in the middle of the red dot. Slowly, he swung the cutting piece in a clockwise motion with his right hand. Instead of popping the newly cut piece free, he tied one end of string around the glass cutter and the other end around one of the tripod’s legs. Pulling the microphone arm down from under the short brim of his hard hat, he said, “Chuck, this is
Sam, come in, over.” Despite the whine of the machinery in the basement, the second man heard his partner loud and clear. “This is Chuck, over.”
“Everything is set on my end, over.”
“Roger, everything is set down here, over.”
Secret Service agent Harry Dorle had been pulled out of the field and directed to head the personal protection detail for Congressman Thomas Basset. Since Basset was the
Speaker of the House, he was deemed a high-profile target by the FBI and the Secret
Service.
Dorle had been the special agent in charge for the Presidential detail of the previous administration. When his boss lost his reelection bid to Stevens, it was the end of Dorle’s assignment. Like most of the Presidents before him, Stevens wanted a changing of the guard. The Secret Service did not object to this tradition because they knew it was good for their agents to be rotated. It helped prevent complacency and boredom. Dorle sat in the lobby of Speaker Basset’s Capitol office and waited for the Speaker to give the word that he was ready to leave.
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The tall, middle-aged agent looked calm on the outside, but inside he was a wreck. He had read the report on the Koslowski, Fitzgerald, and Downs assassinations, and it scared him. The assassins were professionals.
Three hits, all in one night. One a bare-handed kill, the second a rifle shot, and the third a point-blank hit. These guys were not your run-of-the-mill Aryan Nation types.
They were pros, and with the way Basset liked to gallivant around town, he would be an easy target.
Because there were so many Congressman and Senators to protect, the Secret Service had not been able to give Dorle the number of agents he wanted. They had given him only five men and women, and the Speaker’s normal Capitol Police detail had been increased to eight officers around the clock. Dorle made a cursory effort to ask Basset to cancel all public appearances until things cooled down, and as Dorle had expected, Basset declined. This, of course, made Dorle’s job extremely difficult.
He knew the only way to really protect Basset was to keep him locked up in his house, his office, or his armor-plated limo. As soon as Basset left either of the three, Dorle’s ability to protect him was reduced significantly. They were minutes away from leaving for Basset’s taped interview with CNN. Dorle told his new boss that he thought it was a bad idea, and Basset had politely told him he wasn’t going to cancel.
CNN had been advertising the appearance of the Speaker since late Sunday afternoon, and although it would be tape-delayed, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out when the taping would take place. Dorle could not remember being more worried about an assignment. Whoever these killers were, they’d had months to plan what they were doing.
They’d stalked and studied their targets, and if that letter was for real, they would strike again. Dorle was gambling with his assets. He just didn’t have enough men to do a complete job. He had sent four of his Secret Service agents and two of the uniformed officers ahead to do an advance check of the CNN building. They were to do a quick check of the street, the exits, and the rooftop. He would put four of the uniformed cops on body detail. They would surround Basset as he got out of the limo and walked into the studio. Dorle had contemplated using his Secret Service agents for the body detail; they were trained to do it, but they were more valuable to him doing other things.
Speaker Basset and his aide, Matthew Schwab, appeared in the lobby, and Dorle rose to his feet. “Are you ready to go, sir?”
“Yes,” Basset answered.
Dorrell brought his left hand up to his mouth and spoke into a tiny microphone. “Art, this is Harry, over.”
The Secret Service agent just outside the office door responded, “This is Art, over.”
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“Bobcat is ready to roll, over.” Bobcat was the code name that had been given to
Basset. The agent looked up and down the hall and nodded to the police officer holding the elevator. “The hallway is secure, over.”
“Roger, let the boys downstairs know we’re on our way, over.” Dorrell turned to
Basset and motioned for the door.
“Whenever you’re ready, sir.” Dorrell opened the door and Basset and Schwab stepped into the hallway. The entourage of Basset, Schwab, Dorrell, the other Secret
Service agent, and two cops started for the elevator. Dorrell took up the rear, while the other three men surrounded Basset and Schwab. The entourage stepped into the elevator for the short ride to the garage level. When the door opened, another police officer was waiting for them, and the group moved out of the underground parking garage. Dorrell wasn’t nervous about anything happening in the Capitol.
The assassins would have to be suicidal to try something with all the military personnel and police in the building. When they reached the garage, the limo was waiting with one police squad parked in front and another behind. Schwab and Basset Were quickly ushered into the backseat. Dorrell brought the Capitol Police officers together for a quick reminder of how things would go when they arrived at their destination. When he was finished, the police got into their squad cars, Agent Art Jones climbed behind the wheel of the large, black Cadillac, and Dorrell got into the backseat with the Speaker and
Schwab.
Before giving the order to pull out, Dorrell brought his mike up to his mouth and said, “Advance team Bravo, this is Alpha, do you read?
Over.”
The leader of the advance team at the CNN studios heard the call through his earpiece and had to cut off one of the building’s private security guards in mid-sentence. “This is
Bravo, over.”
“About as secure as we could get things on such short notice, Harry, over.”
“Roger, our ETA is two minutes. If anything changes, let me know immediately, over.” Dorrell looked at his agent behind the wheel.
“Let’s move out, Art.” Jones flashed the limo’s brights at the lead police car, and the motorcade sped out of the parking garage. The assassin looked out of the window and down at the two police officers in front of the CNN building. They’d just stepped off the curb and were standing on the street, waving by cars and cabs that wanted to stop in front of the building. He spoke into the mike hanging in front of his mouth. “Chuck, stay loose.
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They should be arriving any minute, over.” The response came back immediately.
“Roger, everything is set down here.” The man standing in front of the ventilation shaft took off his hard hat, placed it in his bag, and pulled out a gas mask.
Reaching back into the bag, he grabbed two gray canisters and set them on top of the ventilation unit.
The motorcade pulled up in front of the building and stopped. Dorrell immediately noticed that, despite telling the drivers of both squads to give the limo at least thirty feet on either end, they had forgotten and the limo was boxed in. “Art, call the guys in the squads and tell them to move their cars farther away from the limo.” Dorrell turned to
Basset. “Sir, please stay in the car for a minute while I check things out.” Dorrell exited the limo and met his agent in charge of the Bravoteam on the sidewalk. “How are we doing?” he asked the junior man.
“Fine. The exits are secured, the elevator is being held, and Alan is on the roof keeping an eye on things.” The assassin looked down at the two men on the street and guessed that they were either Secret Service or FBI. It had been expected.
He spoke into his mike, “Chuck, get ready to pull the pin.” The man in the basement pulled the gas mask down over his face and grabbed one of the canisters. Back on the sixth floor, the assassin watched as the man who had stepped out of the limo waved several police officers over and started to organize them around the door of the limo.
None of these men would do any good. The assassin had chosen the sixth floor so the angle of the shot would be such that four seven-foot-tall officers would make no difference. They didn’t want to kill anyone other than Basset. That was also the reason the nitro-tipped bullet was being used. Unlike most rifle bullets, this one would explode on impact and not exit the target. A typical rifle bullet would spiral through the target and exit with enough velocity to inflict damage, and even death, to anyone unfortunate enough to be standing on the other side. The assassin saw the man who had gotten out of the limo a moment earlier stick his head into the open door and then step back as he helped Basset out of the backseat.
The assassin clutched the butt of the rifle a little tighter, placed his right hand on the string, and spoke into the small mike hanging in front of his mouth, “Chuck, drop the smoke.” The man in the basement pulled the pin from the first canister, tossed it into the open vent, and quickly grabbed the second canister and did the same. He then grabbed the metal access panel and covered the opening. The smoke from the two canisters immediately shot upward through the ventilation system, pushed by the warm air leaving the furnace. The man then walked briskly to the wall and waited. The assassin on the sixth floor concentrated on taking slow, deep breaths.
When he saw the head of Basset pop out of the limo, his right hand yanked the string attached to the glass cutter, and the newly created circle of glass dropped to the floor.
Basset was ushered into the middle of the four police officers, and the group started to move toward the door. The assassin spoke into his mike, “Pull the alarm.”
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In the basement, his accomplice yanked on the fire alarm. The loud buzzing of the alarm reverberated throughout the building and spilled out onto the street. Dorrell and his agents were sweeping the street and looking at everyone but Basset. When the alarm went off, the police officers surrounding Basset did what their instincts told them to do.
They stopped and looked to see where the noise was coming from.
At the same time the police officers’ instincts kicked in, so did Dorle’s. He lunged forward and screamed, “Keep moving!” As he reached the back of the first officer, he heard what he instantly knew was the loud crack of a rifle shot. He continued to push the group as he yelled, “Move! Move!” He took two steps, and then the officer in front of him stumbled and fell, landing on the fatally wounded Basset.
Dorrell placed his hand on the back of the officer to prevent himself from falling and looked down to see if Basset had been hit. The answer was immediately obvious. There was blood everywhere. The nitro-tipped bullet had ripped apart the back of Basset’s head, and the white shirts of the Capitol Police officers were covered with blood and a good portion of the Speaker’s brain.
Dorrell kneeled over the pile and brought his mike to his mouth.
“Bobcat’s been hit! I repeat, Bobcat has been hit!” Two of the Secret Service agents were now standing between the street and the pile of bodies on the ground, their Uzis drawn, and their eyes searching the buildings across the street. The assassin quickly disassembled the rifle and put everything back in the bag. Smoke was filling the room and he yanked his gas mask over his face. Grabbing the bag, he ran down the hallway toward the stairwell. Once in the stairwell, he pushed his way past the scared office workers who thought the building was on fire.
Dorrell looked down at what was left of Basset’s head and knew the Speaker was dead. Just then, the voice of the Secret Service agent on the roof of the CNN building came barking over Dorle’s earpiece. “I think the shot came from the building directly across the street!”
Dorrell jumped to his feet and started shouting orders. “Art, call for backup, let’s secure that building!” Turning to one of the cops, he yelled, “Take two of your men and head around the back! I don’t want anyone leaving the area! And be careful!” Grabbing the two agents who had their Uzis drawn, he ran across the street for the front of the building. They darted between the cars that had stopped to see what was happening. They made it to the other side of the street, and just as they reached the front of the building, an onslaught of frantic office workers met them coming the other way. They were blocked from getting inside. Three blocks away at Union Station, the blond-haired assassin was wearing loose jeans, a large sweatshirt, and a baseball hat. He walked over to a row of pay phones. Union Station, like most large train and subway stations, had hundreds of pay phones. It was an easy place for a person to come and go unnoticed. The man
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reached into his left pocket and pulled out a quarter. The dirty-blond hair that came out from under the cap and down to his shoulders was not natural.
Neither was his posture. Instead of standing erect and looking like an athletic, six-foot-tall man, he was slouching. To the casual observer he looked like a slightly overweight man who was no taller than five ten. He punched the seven digits into the phone and pulled a small recorder out of his pocket. A female voice answered on the other end, “Good afternoon, American Broadcasting Corporation. How may I direct your call?” The man pressed the play button on the recorder, and a computerized voice emanated from the small speaker. “Do not hang up.
This message is from the group that is responsible for the killings of Senator
Fitzgerald, Senator Downs, Congressman Koslowski, and Speaker Basset.” The twenty-three-year-old receptionist felt her heart jolt.
She panicked for a moment and then remembered that all calls coming into the main switchboard were recorded. After a short pause the recording continued. “Speaker Basset was killed because he and the rest of his colleagues have failed to take our demands seriously. We are not terrorists. We have killed no innocent civilians; in fact, we have gone to great lengths to avoid doing so. We are not, as the Whi
te House has led the media to believe, part of a conspiracy to topple the Stevens presidency. We are a group of
Americans who are fed up with the corruption and complete lack of professionalism that exists in Washington, D.C. “We gave you a chance to implement in a peaceful, democratic way the reforms you have been promising. You have failed to do so, so we have intervened. Do not test us again or we will be forced to impose more term limits.
We have the resources and the resolve to kill any Congressman, any Senator, and even the President.
“We will grant a cease-fire and give you the remainder of the week to bury
Koslowski, Downs, Fitzgerald, and Basset. After they have been laid to rest, we expect immediate action on the reforms we have proposed.”
IT WAS STILL LIGHT OUT AS HARRY DORRELL PASSED THROUGH THE
SECRET Service checkpoint and parked his car outside the staff entrance to the West
Wing of the White House. Getting out of the car, he asked himself for the hundredth time since the shooting how the assassin had gotten away.
The police had sealed off the entire block within minutes of the attack.
All of the people who had evacuated the smoke-filled building had been roped off and were being questioned for the third and fourth time by the FBI and the Secret Service. So far, every one of them had checked out as a legitimate office worker. The building had been searched with dogs and was empty. What a mess, he thought to himself. I’ve had twenty-three good years and now this.
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As he reached the entrance, Jack Lortch opened the door. “Harry, I’m sorry… I’m really sorry.” Lortch had replaced Dorrell as the special agent in charge of the
Presidential security detail. The two men had known each other for most of their professional careers. Dorrell nodded his head in acknowledgment, but kept his eyes averted. They walked to the main floor, Lortch leading and Dorrell following, neither saying a word. When they reached the door to the Roosevelt Room, Dorrell stopped and asked, “Jack, is the President in there?”