‘And?’ I prompted anxiously.
‘He told me to tell them to stay away from the area surrounding the mile stretch of University Avenue between Stanford University and Middlefield Road. I asked him how long for, and he said from 2:30 p.m. until the end of the day.’
‘So that’s it – she’s gonna be on University Avenue?’
Mort grunted. ‘So where are you? Can you really do this alone?’
‘I’m in San Carlos, a fifteen minute drive north. And I have to do this alone. If you send agents in, their presence alone may accelerate the plot. And there isn’t time to devise a more nuanced approach.’
‘And what’s your nuanced approach, Saul?’
He sounded bleak. This was hardly surprising: we were against the ropes, and things looked hopeless.
But this was a man who’d done everything for me; who’d time and again risked his ass for me. And I owed it to him not only to demonstrate confidence, but also to follow through and fight to the very last.
‘My plan’s to get there as soon as humanly possible,’ I said with all the fire I could muster, ‘and do everything I can.’
Mort groaned. ‘And that leaves me with nothing to do but sit and pray.’
‘What time is it, Mort?’
‘2:02 your time.’
I felt a feverish urgency. I had to be in Palo Alto in twenty-eight minutes. And not only didn’t I have a car, I didn’t have a goddamn plan. And the stakes could hardly have been higher.
‘Right, it’s do or die.’
Chapter 31
I powered away from the payphones, my fingers tingling.
I had half an hour to get my ass to University Avenue. So right now, I needed a ride.
I rounded a corner onto a parade of shops. Then, as I feverishly contemplated options and tactics, I got lucky – I spotted a woman pull over in a Toyota Highlander, exit without disengaging the engine, and duck into a dry-cleaners twenty-five yards off.
This was my chance.
Calmly, I walked to the passenger door, got in, and shimmied over to the driver’s seat. Then I powered off, without once looking back.
Before I knew it, I was blitzing along the southbound lane of El Camino Real towards Stanford University. And I knew that my chances of getting pulled over within the ten to fifteen minutes it’d take to make the journey were slim. It’d be at least five minutes before the car was reported stolen, and probably another 10 before the police put out a report. So I was pretty damn certain I wasn’t about to run into trouble in this small window of time.
What awaited me on the other end of this journey, however, was far less certain. But I had some basic knowledge of how the Secret Service worked – from conversations with Service agents many years ago – that gave me something to go on. When someone in their care has a meeting lined up, that protectee doesn’t simply show up. Before the meet, agents thoroughly survey the building, and neighboring buildings, for threats. A route to and from the meet is decided on, as are alternative emergency routes. A route within the building – from entrance to the room the protectee will end up in – is decided on, as are emergency alternatives. Hospitals in the area are selected. A safe-house is prepared nearby. And every staff member due to be in the building is investigated and vetted.
Then, on the day itself, agents are split into two teams: one in a Command Center; one in the field. And under the Command Center’s direction, the field agents will carry out a multitude of tasks. Some field agents – the snipers – are installed on rooftops near the meeting place, and along the routes the protectee will be taking. Other agents will travel with the protectee: some in the reinforced limo in which the protectee is ferried about; some in the surrounding motorcade. Still other agents will travel in a decoy motorcade, which also consists of a reinforced limo. And sometimes there are multiple decoy limos. Then, when the protectee arrives at the location, a number of agents will flank them as they travel on foot, creating a ‘sanitized zone’ around them. And when the protectee then enters the building, agents will stand guard and ‘seal’ every entrance.
At the same time, the agents traveling in the decoy motorcade will seal off another building to maintain the illusion.
And still more agents will be roaming around on the streets nearby, in plain clothes, keeping an eye out.
So what I needed to do was spot the reinforced limos, and decide which one actually marked Forsyth’s whereabouts. And while I knew this wouldn’t be easy – it was a whole mile stretch, and there could be multiple limos – I reckoned I could spot the real thing. Because though I knew decoy agents would seal off a decoy building, the plain-clothed agents on the street would gravitate towards the real site.
Then when I figured out Forsyth’s real whereabouts – well, then I’d have to make it up on the spot…
I suppressed my doubts, and concentrated on navigating the road as quickly as I could – dodging vehicles, and repeatedly wiping the seemingly unlimited pelt of sweat from my face. Fifteen minutes later, with the dashboard clock reading 2:22, I came off El Camino, and parked on a quiet residential road, a quarter mile north-west of University Avenue.
There was no sign of a security operation in motion. But that didn’t mean squat.
I got out, and started weaving towards University Avenue. Five minutes later, I arrived at the corner of Waverley and University Avenue. And while there were civilians populating this bustling high street, and frequenting its up-market shops and restaurants, it was clear this wasn’t business as usual: there was a considerable Palo Alto Police Department presence – I counted ten squad cars and fifteen bikes off the bat – and the road was closed to all other vehicles. This was unsurprising. The Secret Service don’t cordon vast areas of urban space: it’d be impractical with their limited resources. Instead, they cordon off smaller areas they know they can control and deploy local law enforcement in the surrounding vicinity.
These officers would’ve been forewarned in the past forty-eight hours that they would need to be on-hand to help protect Secretary Forsyth – though, given the heightened security threat, they were probably only told within the last hour where they ought to be specifically.
And even these officers were unlikely to know exactly where Forsyth was due to be.
But the pressing question for me was, left or right?
Right took me towards Stanford, left, towards Midfield Street. A fifty-fifty tossup. And if I chose wrong, it might well be the nail in the casket.
I decided to head right, then double back as soon as possible.
I started pounding down the sidewalk, keeping my speed just below a run. It had to now be past 2:30 p.m. That meant disaster was imminent and I could feel the panic rising.
Then three minutes later the landscape changed. Up ahead, the usual foot traffic gave way to a rope-barrier cordon around a smart restaurant. Sure enough, as I got closer, I saw a reinforced limousine out front – a hard-to-miss, incredibly robust, modified Chevrolet Kodiak, that I knew could sustain a direct hit by a bazooka. That I knew had its own oxygen supply, and special wheels that were near-impossible to shoot out. And surrounding the vehicle, and at the entrances of the building, and lining the rope barrier, were men in black.
I knew that each of them were packing a concealed Uzi submachine gun – a weapon that made my Walther look like a toy.
But I knew that even the decoy limos would be identical to real thing in every detail – so the fact it was definitely a Secret Service model was no guarantee. As I joined the hundred or so curious onlookers that’d gathered impromptu, I began scanning faces, looking for plain-clothed agents who were themselves scanning faces. After a few seconds, I spotted one: a big guy, in a windbreaker, fifteen yards off. But he seemed the only one.
Then I looked up. If this was the real deal, I reckoned I should spot at least a few sharpshooters on the roofs, because though some remain out of sight, others intentionally make themselves known as a show of force.
Again, I spotted onl
y one.
This was a decoy. That’s what my gut said. I wasn’t sure, but I had a strong feeling.
I hesitated for an agonizing second; then, I turned back.
I was walking faster now, attracting the odd look from police-officers, with doubts clouding my mind. I knew I might live to regret the decision for the rest of my life. But I’d made the call, so now I had to stick to it.
Soon enough, I was back at the corner of Waverley and University Avenue. Then I pushed on, forcing myself to slow down so as not to attract too much attention. A couple of minutes passed, and there was still no sign of action, and I started to lose my cool – started to convince myself I’d made a cataclysmic error; that the limo I had seen was the real deal, and that there was in fact no decoy in play.
But barely did I start thinking this than the landscape up ahead again changed; again the foot traffic and dense police presence gave way to a milling crowd. But this time, they snaked around an upcoming right turn at a crossroads, and this crowd was bigger.
But the landscape was also different in terms of architecture. Whereas most of the buildings along University Avenue were no more than four stories high, over the crossroads, on the left-hand side, there was a miniature office block skyscraper – a modernist slab of steel and reflective glass – consisting of twenty-one stories. And round the corner to the right, where the crowd was focusing its attention, I could see the back of another tall building, seven stories, towering above its neighbors. It looked like an upscale hotel – just the sort of place Forsyth might hold a meeting.
I quickly reached the crowd, and made a right. Sure enough, the second building on the right was a hotel – The Garden Court. And outside was another reinforced limo; another team of black-suited agents, securing the entrances, and establishing their sanitized zone by lining the rope barrier they’d erected around the hotel.
I looked up, and quickly identified three sharpshooters on three separate rooftops. As I then scanned the crowd, I instantly identified three men who I took for plain-clothed agents – one of whom had a Belgian Malinois sniffer dog on a leash.
This had to be it – the real McCoy.
I started sifting through my options. I could try to communicate with one of the agents – only, FBI HQ might’ve told the Service I was in town, and that message might’ve been relayed to these agents. And even if it hadn’t, they might simply detain me for suspicious behavior. What’s more, if they were to report it into their radio system – the radio system used by all the agents on the ground and the Command Center, known as the assault net – it might be enough to cause a potential rogue agent to initiate disaster.
Another option was to rip off my shirt to reveal the phony vest I was still wearing, and precipitate a situation that would cause them to whisk Forsyth to her safe-house. But that seemed just as likely to cause a lockdown, and a dangerous amount of panic.
As these thoughts shuttled through my mind, I began – without even realizing it – skirting the crowd, and scanning faces; scanning in vague hope something would jump out.
Then, suddenly, something did – a round, peaky face, under a shock of blond hair, belonging to a man, maybe twenty yards from me, who was walking deliberately across my field of vision and in the direction of the skyscraper. For a second, I was completely lost: I recognized him, but had no idea where from. An instant later, I placed him.
This was the man from the news segment I’d seen at Matt’s house. The man who’d thrown himself before a tram, but ducked away at the last second. An aborted suicide attempt.
Immediately I thought of Arthur Bremer: the man who, on May 15, 1972, after failing to get close to President Nixon, tried to assassinate presidential candidate Governor George Wallace by shooting him with five .38mm slugs. The man who, a week before this assassination attempt, wrote “Killer” on his own forehead, and tried to hang himself.
In fact, this guy, with his striking blond hair, looked eerily similar to Bremer.
But more to the point was the suicide theme. Because if you’re attempting suicide, it signifies you believe you have nothing to lose. And if you’ve got nothing to lose, you’re helluva lot more likely to try and take someone’s life.
I started following him, matching his pace: I couldn’t go faster without attracting the attention of the sharpshooters, and in fact I reckoned we were already sailing close to the wind. He carried on towards the office block, intermittently glancing over his shoulder to reveal a face white with fear – though each time he did, he failed to notice me in among the throng of bodies.
The police, who were on motorcycles, and lining the curb near the office block in good numbers, seemed oblivious to both of us.
Even as the guy then passed right by them, they didn’t look twice.
I gazed up at the skyscraper. It was diagonal across from the hotel – seventy yards off. Yet while it was at an awkward angle, there were a number of offices within the building that’d give a clear shot at the hotel’s front façade with a sniper rifle. And this meant the Secret Service would surely have locked it down, surveyed every room, stationed their own snipers on the roof and in positions that would afford the best shot at Secretary Forsyth, and posted a number of highly armed and trained police officers at every entrance. And though this guy was heading for the leftmost corner of the building, and I reckoned for an entrance that was round the corner and out of sight, I could see that, maybe eighty yards up the road to the right, there was another entrance with five uniformed officers standing guard.
As I too passed unnoticed by the police motorcycles, it occurred to me that maybe Yuelin’s influence was about to make itself felt. Maybe she had a man on the inside who’d organized it so that this guy would somehow be permitted entry; organized it so that there was a temporary blind spot. Then maybe the guy I was following was supposed to head to a room where a sniper rifle – again, organized by Yuelin’s inside man – would be waiting. A rifle aimed at the Secretary of State.
This seemed outrageous; and yet, it felt like it added up. And if it was the case, then this guy would have surely been told he’d get away with it – that a route out of the building had been prepared for him. And while I had no doubt Yuelin planned for him to eventually take the rap, I’d no idea whether she would actually provide an exit route for him.
The guy slipped round the corner, and I continued after him at a measured pace.
Ten seconds later, I rounded the corner; and, sure enough, the guy was approaching a completely unguarded side-door, and unlocking it with a key fob.
Would I be willing to kill this guy if need be? Considering the crimes some of Yuelin’s other blackmail victims had perpetrated, there was a good chance this guy had it coming. But that said, there were things someone might desperately want to keep quiet – so much so they might even be willing to kill someone – that didn’t warrant death.
The guy now entered the building and the door started closing slowly behind him. So, with a quick glance at the oblivious police at the curb, I risked upping my pace.
The door continued closing, my insides churned. Then, at the last moment, with a gasp of relief, I slid a hand in the gap and slipped through the door.
Nobody stopped me. No sharpshooter took a pop at me.
I could now progress quickly and calmly. But no sooner did I think this than the guy, now fifteen yards off, and about to pass through the door to the stairwell, looked over his shoulder, briefly opened his mouth as he spotted me, then disappeared through the door at a sprint.
Chapter 32
Sunday, December 12, 2:36 p.m. – 12 Hobart Avenue, San Mateo, California.
Scott was sitting on the sofa in the lobby, watching the news on the small TV – watching the coverage of the fire at the Consulate.
He was as tense as he could ever remember being.
One of the two unnamed men – the one with the rosy cheeks – was standing behind him, his back to the wall. The other – a small guy, with an underbite – was sitting
at the computers in the room to the right. And by having their guns clearly on show, they’d both made it abundantly clear that Scott was under their watchful gaze.
Only Shuai Zhang had made himself scarce: he’d retreated into the bedroom on the left-hand side, and closed the door behind him.
But while the armed guards had made Scott tense, it was the news that’d really got him going. He’d been watching it over the past hour or so. First he’d seen to his surprise that the Consulate attack had gone ahead anyway. Next he’d seen, half an hour later, that the charred body of Todd Liang, the Deputy Secretary of State, had been found on site, and realized this meant the individual these nationalists were plotting to target was in fact Secretary of State Ruth Forsyth. And these two news development were huge – a massive terror attack had come off, and another was in the works.
And if that wasn’t enough, he’d also been haunted by thoughts of Saul Marshall. If he’d survived Yuelin’s inevitable assassination attempt, there was a chance Saul was working to find and save Forsyth. But there was also a chance Saul was tracking him down. That Saul would appear at the door, with the intent of unleashing brutal retribution.
But still, it was the news that was once again running footage of the gruesome aftermath of the fire that was most responsible for Scott’s tension.
Just as Scott was thinking this, the screen once again cut to the anchor, who announced they had a development on Forsyth’s whereabouts. Apparently she’d just arrived in Palo Alto for a late lunch with a technology big-wig. They were hoping that she might provide a comment afterwards.
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