by Rob Sangster
“Shit.” Jack said as he jumped, taken completely by surprise.
Mac glared at him. “You’re talking about my country, my family. You have no right to let what you know get buried with you.”
“I have no intention of being buried.”
“And you won’t be, because I’ll have your back.” His eyes were blazing, challenging Jack.
Mac was right, and they both knew it.
Jack didn’t like it, but he relented. “Pick me up at 7:30 tomorrow morning. We’ll drive together to Travis.”
“I’ll be there. Keep your eyes sharp between now and then.”
Mac walked back to his Land Rover, and Jack pulled away. In his rearview mirror, Jack saw that Mac didn’t get in until he was sure no one was following the BMW.
As the university campus faded from sight, he resented going into hiding. But being attacked by Montana’s thugs only a week ago was vivid in his mind. Even a quick stop at home to pick up fresh clothes was too risky, so he turned down El Camino and into the Stanford Shopping Center where Brooks Brothers had everything he needed to be presentable on Air Force One. Next, he picked up a pepperoni pizza at the Oasis. It felt weird to watch for a face that might look suspicious in the familiar student hangout.
He checked in at the Westin and worked until after midnight, organizing his presentation to Gorton. He kept expecting a call from Gano with the information he’d asked him to get, a piece of the proof he needed for Gorton. The call didn’t come. When he finally stacked his notes and clicked off the light, he was ready to step onto a high wire without a net at tomorrow’s meeting.
Chapter 47
July 12
7:00 a.m.
THE UNRELENTING beep finally drilled into Jack’s brain. It took a moment to locate the phone and fumble it to his ear.
It was the voice of the hotel’s impassive mechanical concierge. “Good morning. It is seven a.m. The temperature is sixty-two degrees. Your personal copy of the San Francisco Chronicle is outside your door. Have a nice day.”
A nice day? Not likely. And the night hadn’t been very nice either, full of stressful dreams. He felt wrung out.
In the bathroom, he forced a smile to improve the weary expression he saw in the mirror. After a hot shower, he used the towel like a shoeshine rag to stimulate his body into full consciousness. Within minutes, he was in his new Brooks Brothers black suit, white shirt and burgundy tie. His objective was initial credibility with the President of the United States.
His cell phone started buzzing. Caller ID told him it was Gano.
“Morning Gano. You’re just in time.”
“Yeah, well, you owe me four hundred bucks, Mr. Paymaster. That’s U.S. money.” The Louisiana accent was like molasses. “The damn Mexican highway patrol claimed they clocked me at 110. Fined me, payable on the spot.”
Jack didn’t even bother to ask if the police had been right. “I’ll pay. What did you find out?”
“Don’t get your knickers in a knot, old boy. I figured if I started tracking those trucks anywhere near the cave the crews would be on me like woodpeckers on a June bug. So I parked on a side street in Batopilas to ambush ’em. Sure enough, four of those big mothers rattled past. I got a few photos but they’re not great. I’ll send them to your cell phone. Anyway, as soon as they passed me, in tight formation like the Blue Angels, I let some other folks get between us, then settled in for the trip back to the Palmer plant. It was all good ’til we got close to Chihuahua City. You said all four trucks would turn north onto 45D toward Juarez.”
“Right.”
“Wrong. Only the first two went north on 45D North. The other two split off, so I swung into the middle lane to stick with them. When one of them suddenly turned onto 45D South, I was way out of position to follow. All I could do was chase the last one into Chihuahua City.”
Something was wrong. “The one that turned south, any idea where it was headed?”
“Could be Monterey, Guadalajara, even Mexico City. Quien sabe?”
“Who knows” wasn’t good enough. He needed proof of the route the trucks took, and Gano didn’t have it. The fact that the trucks split up meant something. He had to figure out what.
“You didn’t lose the last one did you?”
“Hell no,” Gano said. “I ain’t no amateur. As soon as he turned toward the city, the truck jockey pulled over next to an all-night burrito joint. It looked like they were settling in for a while, so I jumped back on the highway and gunned it after the two trucks heading north.”
A soft knock on the door was followed by George McDonald’s voice. “Jack? You ready to roll?”
“Just a second, Gano.” He opened the door. “Hey, glad to see you, Mac. As soon as I get off the phone, I’ll move my BMW to underground parking. It was full when I got here last night.”
“I scoped out the parking lot. No unfriendlies in sight. I’ll move your car, then pick you up at the side exit in my Land Rover.”
Feeling rushed, he gave Mac the BMW keys and got back to the conversation with Gano. “Where are you now?”
“After I followed the trucks to the Palmer plant, I crossed into El Paso.”
“Great. I need to know where Montana is.”
“I’ll track him down and give you a shout. Have to go now. I’m losing bars on the phone. Hasta luego.”
JACK PUSHED through the Westin’s side exit door onto the parking lot. The air was crisp, the sky clear and sunny. Quite a contrast with his mood. He expected to see Mac in his Land Rover, but he wasn’t there. Maybe he was having trouble with the BMW. He walked closer to where he’d parked the night before and saw the BMW, motionless, partly backed out of the numbered space where he’d left it. That was odd. Engine trouble? Still a row away, he heard the motor running so he walked toward the passenger’s side—and stopped in his tracks.
The passenger’s window was a sagging web of safety glass, opaque because of a pink mist washing down the inside surface. Heart pounding, he rushed around to the driver’s side.
Through the open window, he saw Mac slumped at a sharp angle to his right, the seat belt keeping him from falling over. His thick hair looked like a blood-soaked sponge. The left shoulder of his jacket was bloody from a second wound.
Fighting not to throw up, Jack spun around, looking for the shooter. A middle-aged man was helping an elderly woman into a car. A man in a gray uniform stood behind a grocery delivery truck. None of them was acting as if they’d just heard gunfire.
He stood by his car in shock, unable to process what had happened, unable to move. He couldn’t take his eyes off Mac’s brutalized brain and inert body.
Mac had insisted on coming along as his bodyguard, flexing the warrior nature that had made him a champion boxer. With apparently no warning, not even a split second to get his guard up, he’d gone from being a brilliant professor and powerful man to being dead.
But maybe Mac wasn’t dead. He forced himself to lean forward and press his fingers to the side of Mac’s throat. No sign of life. Then his left wrist. Nothing.
“Oh my God, Mac.” He felt completely responsible. He’d drawn Mac into this. Let him get too close. But he had to hold back his grief. He should call 911 or notify the hotel staff to get the police. But if he was detained and questioned, he’d miss his crucial meeting with the President. He hated leaving Mac to be discovered by a stranger, but he had no choice. It wouldn’t be long before some hotel guest walked up to the car to ask the driver to move it.
The wallet would identify Professor George McDonald, but ownership of the car would be traced to Jack Strider, and the hunt would be on. He had to get to Travis Air Force Base before they could catch him.
He thought about taking Mac’s Land Rover, but there was no way he’d try to dig the keys from his friend’s pocket. Glancing around, he started across the parking l
ot toward an Enterprise car rental office across the road. From force of habit he asked the clerk for a convertible, but switched to a black Honda sedan. He needed to be inconspicuous. He tried to pay in cash to avoid leaving a trail, but the agent insisted he use a credit card. Walking to the assigned car, he fought against a surge of nausea.
He drove north on El Camino for a few minutes, then turned east and caught the 101 on-ramp north toward San Francisco. The most common route would be to stay on it to the City and cross the Bay Bridge. Instead, he turned east in Menlo Park to use the Dumbarton Bridge to cross the Bay, a much less predictable way to Travis.
As soon as he settled into a groove on the freeway, his mind filled with images of George McDonald in the BMW. Given the high crime rate in the Bay Area, the CHP would think it had been a botched robbery. But then they would notice what he had—a bullet embedded in the frame just above the driver’s window. That meant at least three gunshots, and they had not been fired by someone standing next to the car. They’d come from farther away. He remembered seeing a dense grove of sycamores beyond the last row of parked cars. From there, a sniper would have had a clear line-of-sight to the BMW. The assassin had found him at the Westin and staked out his car. He and Mac were similar enough in build that, from a distance, a shooter expecting Jack Strider to be getting into the BMW hadn’t realized the target in his sights was a different man. Jack had no doubt that Justin Sinclair had hired the hit man. Question was, had the hit man stayed close enough to the hotel to realize his mistake? And, if so, where was he now?
If Jack called off the meeting with Gorton, the President would forget the name Jack Strider by sunset. But Sinclair wouldn’t forget. It had been in Sinclair’s best interest to set up the meeting with Gorton. But everything had changed since then. Sinclair now knew he was in great danger, so he’d never permit Jack to reach Gorton, and he’d never let Jack escape. That’s why he’d issued a death sentence.
A red Ford sports car swerved past on his left, horn blaring. He deserved it. He’d drifted halfway out of his lane, nearly sideswiping the Ford. That forced him to pay attention to the dense freeway traffic as he sped north past Berkeley.
His eyes flicked repeatedly to the rearview mirror, scanning for any vehicle appearing to be trailing him. He should be anonymous in a rental car picked up less than an hour ago, but he felt as though his caution lights were flashing to attract attention.
Just beyond Vallejo, highway signs led him to the small town of Fairfield and the mammoth Travis Air Force Base. He stopped several hundred yards short of the main entrance and watched. Lots of people walking, most in uniform, many parked cars with couples in them. Trying to identify a shooter was nuts. Shooters made themselves unnoticeable. He tried to convince himself that Sinclair had called off the assassin because he thought he’d been successful. That didn’t work. What did work was telling himself that security was so tight around this base that an assassin would have to be suicidal to start shooting.
He had another problem. A big one. The two people he needed with him in the meeting were missing. He called Debra, but got her voicemail. He said, “I hope you’re almost at Travis because the meeting starts in a few minutes. I was planning to bring both you and Gano in with me, but now I’ll have to leave passes at the gate for you. If you’re still where I sent you when you hear this, stay there.”
He waited another few minutes, then drove to the gate. The guard stepped to the car window and asked stiffly for his identification and destination.
“Jack Strider. I have a meeting aboard Air Force One. Here’s my driver’s license.”
The guard took it and disappeared inside the guardhouse. When he hadn’t returned after several long minutes, Jack grew suspicious. By now the CHP had his name. Could they have already connected him with the rental car and put out an APB?
Suddenly, the man returned. “You’re cleared to go aboard, sir.” He returned the license.
“Thanks. I also need you to get passes ready for two people who’ll be joining me on Air Force One.”
“Beg your pardon, sir, but you’re just a visitor yourself, so I have no authority to write a pass like that. It would have to come from the Commanding Officer of the Base or from the White House.”
This was a fight he wasn’t going to win in the few minutes he had left. “I understand. When they arrive and mention my name, please contact Air Force One immediately. The President will want to see them.”
“I’ll tell the Captain of the Guard about your request, sir. Now please park over there. Master Chief Williams will drive you to Air Force One.” He snapped a crisp salute and held it as Jack drove to the small parking area.
By God, he’d made it here. Then the pain hit him. But Mac hadn’t. If it was the last thing he ever did, he’d make Sinclair pay for that.
Chapter 48
July 12
11:30 a.m.
MASTER CHIEF Williams drove up beside Jack in a black sedan, saluted, and asked him to hold out his left hand. The Chief looped a self-locking plastic strip around Jack’s wrist and pulled it snug. From it hung a multicolored badge with strings of numbers and an imbedded holographic design.
They drove past several office buildings into an area of huge hangars. Following a trail of red markers in the asphalt, Williams turned past the last hangar and there, less than fifty yards ahead, was Air Force One, gleaming in the sunlight. It looked as he’d seen it in news clips showing one president or another descending the roll-up staircase, waving at real or imaginary crowds. The giant Boeing 747-200B, white with powder blue trim, stood at the center of a ring of armored vehicles. There was the Presidential seal on the nose, the words “United States of America” on the side of the fuselage, and the American flag painted on the tail. It was called Air Force One when the president was aboard even though its tail number read 28000.
The layout of the interior of the plane was classified, but he knew that the cockpit and communications center were on the top level with the bottom level used for cargo and equipment. The presidential suite was all the way forward on the main deck.
Williams escorted him to the bottom of the flight of steps used by the President. “Sorry for the inconvenience, sir, but I’ll have to keep your cell phone and any other electronic devices before you go aboard.” He smiled, even though his implication was that Jack might be about to blow up Air Force One.
Jack handed them over, and Williams placed them in a leather pouch, locked it, saluted, and got back into his sedan. While Jack was climbing the stairs, hypothetical shifted to cold reality. He had fifteen minutes to gain the trust of the President and motivate him to stop two looming catastrophes. It was all on him.
A Marine sergeant standing behind a stainless steel podium at the top of the stairs examined the wrist badge, scanned it with a hand-held device, and used a headphone to confirm Jack’s identity. He then searched Jack’s briefcase. Only then did he snap a heel-clicking salute.
A Chief Communications Officer joined them. “Good morning, Mr. Strider. I’ll take you to Sitting Room B. The President will send for you when he’s ready.”
They walked past a galley and a large room nearly the width of the plane. “That’s the President’s conference room,” the officer said. “Those paintings are of earlier presidential aircraft. The one at this end with the label Sacred Cow is FDR’s C-54 Skymaster. Farther down is President Nixon’s Spirit of 1976. And, of course, those black and white photos are aerial shots of President Gorton’s ranch.”
Farther aft, beyond a movable barrier, he saw a few rows of seats marked for reporters, all empty.
“Where is everyone?”
“They aren’t permitted to board until the President passes the word that he’s ready to depart. Most of them wait at the Officer’s Club.”
Just past the conference room, he was shown into Sitting Room B which was set up
as a working office space with computers and phones. He checked his watch. 11:45 a.m. Perfect timing for a noon appointment.
He breathed deeply, trying to steady his nerves. This setting was much less imposing than the Oval Office would have been, but the President was no less the President. He visualized a minute of small talk followed by Gorton asking what made it so important that they meet. He was ready with that answer.
At noon he stood up, expecting a knock at the door. It didn’t come.
By 12:15 p.m. he was mentally bouncing off the walls. Had this delay cancelled the pitiful fifteen minutes he’d been allotted? Had Gorton forgotten him? He picked up a phone but realized how out of bounds it would be to complain that the President was keeping him waiting.
At 12:20 p.m. his internal clock was ticking so fiercely that each second had become an electrode shocking his brain. Something must be wrong. He tried the door handle of Sitting Room B. It opened. Seconds after he poked his head out, the Chief appeared.
“May I help you, sir?” He conveyed respect for anyone on the President’s calendar, along with disapproval of that person for having left his assigned space without being summoned.
“I was supposed to meet President Gorton at noon.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sure it won’t be long.” He smiled and nodded as if sharing inside information.
Jack retreated and continued pacing. Less than five minutes later a knock came and the Chief opened the door.
“Sir, I just took coffee service in to the President and handed him a note that his twelve o’clock appointment was here. He said you should come right in. Please follow me, sir.”
When he entered the conference room, President Gorton was coming toward him from the far end of the gleaming redwood table. Medium height, a few pounds overweight, his black leather flight jacket had a “Commander-in-Chief” insignia embroidered on the chest, surrounded by a circle of five-pointed stars. He looked like an image on a wartime recruiting poster.