Adams readied the first one and handed it off to Rapp, who stepped out into the hallway. Immediately to his right was a small credenza with an arrangement of wilting flowers sitting in an ornate vase. Rapp reached behind the credenza and stuck the surveillance unit to the back of it.
Stepping back into the pantry, he retrieved the second unit and placed it underneath the credenza at an angle that would cover the hallway as it went in the other direction.
MUSTAFA YASSIN WAS proud of his work. He doublechecked his progress again and grinned. With satisfaction, he flipped off the power switches on all three drills and backed the bits out of their holes. He had reached the proper depth early.
Yassin did not have the brawn of men like Aziz, but he was smarter than most. The little thief had learned from dealing with men like Saddam to pad his estimates and manage his superiors’ expectations.
The main drill, and largest of the three, sat on a tripod.
Yassin tugged at the base and pulled it back out of the way. The other two drills were magnetized. After wresting them from the door, he sat on his toolbox and lit up a cigarette The plump man inhaled deeply and picked up his radio. He toggled the transmit button and called Aziz.
Aziz was snacking on a sandwich in the galley of the White House mess when he heard the call. Pulling his radio to his mouth, he said, “Mustafa, this is Rafique. What do you want?”
“I am ready for you.”
Aziz set his sandwich down and wiped the crumbs from his fingers.
“Say again.”
“I am ready for you When you arrive, I will proceed with the last part.”
Aziz was elated. “I will be over shortly.” Grabbing his MP5 from the counter, he walked out into the mess and looked over the mass of huddled hostages. There was one person in particular he was looking for. Someone who would elicit the proper emotion from the president. Aziz circled the group looking for the face of Sally Burke, the president’s secretary and mother of five. If the president’s bodyguards chose to fight, Mrs. Burke would be used as a shield. Aziz found her sitting with a group of women.
With his long thin finger, he gestured for her to join him.
Burke pointed to herself nervously and asked, “Me?”
“Yes, you, Mrs. Burke.” Smiling, Aziz extended his hand to help the woman to her feet.
Burke reluctantly grabbed it and stood.
“What do you want with me?”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be all right; we just need you to talk to someone.”
“Who?”
“Don’t worry. Everything will be just fine.” Aziz squeezed her shoulder and again told her not to worry. Then gently he turned her toward the door and led her from the room. Bringing his radio to his mouth, he said, “Muammar, meet me in the pressroom.”
TO RAPP’S LEFT was the hall leading to the main entrance for the first floor. To his right was the pressroom and a door that led out onto the Colonnade. Rapp wanted to check both of them and see if they were as strongly defended as the doors in the president’s dining room and the one in the Oval Office.
As Rapp headed for the pressroom, he heard an increase in the chatter over his headset. At the same time he heard voices from somewhere ahead.
He began rapidly backpedaling down the hallway.
General Campbell came over the headset, his voice rushed.
“Iron Man, we’re out of time. They’ve stopped drilling and are getting ready to open the bunker door.” Rapp couldn’t respond at the moment. He had more urgent things to worry about and didn’t want to give himself away by making any more noise than he had to. He made it back to the pantry seconds later and ducked out of the hallway alongside Adams. He whispered into his headset, “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How much time do we have?” They cut through the dining room and into the hallway, where he pushed open the wall panel.
“We’re not sure.”
Rapp closed the wall behind him and gestured for Adams to start moving down the stairs.
“What’s our best guess?” he whispered.
There was some discussion on the other end and then, “Ten minutes, tops.”
Rapp and Adams hit the landing outside of Horsepower, and Rapp pushed Adams into the tunnel. Once they were inside, Rapp closed the door so he could speak without worry of being heard.
“Control, let’s take it from the top. The place is wired to the gills, and we’ve only seen a quarter of it. Our only shot is to get these SEALS in here and have them defuse a point of entry for HRT.”
“We’ve got another problem. We just discovered that one of the monitors in Horsepower is tuned to a rooftop camera.”
Rapp thought about it quickly and came up with a solution.
“I’ll wait down here, and if the Tango in Horsepower sees them come in I’ll take him out.”
Rapp looked at Adams and waited for Campbell’s reply. He quickly grew frustrated with being cut out of the discussion process on the other end. After more than ten seconds of waiting, he shouted into his lip mike, “Irene, are you there?”
“Yes.”
“Keep me in the loop. I’m your only on-site asset, and we don’t have time to debate every point.”
General Flood came on the line.
“Iron Man, we’ve got some logistical problems. We were off by almost thirty minutes on our last estimate, and we can’t afford to be off by that much again. Not with the president’s life on the line.”
“Then bring Delta in quicker, but we have to get Harris and his boys going, or those hostages are all dead.”
“They might be anyway,” stated General Campbell. “right now the chances of getting HRT in that building are between slim and none. And if we do get them in, the chances of them coming out alive aren’t much better.”
Rapp was pissed. The minutes were ticking away and people were getting cold feet.
“I need help. I can take out the Tango in Horsepower. I can maybe take out the Tango up in the Roosevelt Room, but there’s no way I can contend with all of these bombs and take out the Tangos in the mess. We need to take some risks!”
Floods deep voice came over the headset.
“We don’t want to see the hostages die either, but we’re not about to send good men on a suicide mission.”
“We’re paid to take risks. General Flood. You’ve been out in the field, and if you were twenty years younger, you would want in, no matter how bad the odds. Put the question to Harris and his men, and I’ll guarantee they’ll want in.”
There was a moment of silence, and then General Campbell said, “I agree.
We have to try.”
Kennedy and Stansfield agreed with Campbell, which put all the pressure on General Flood. It was a risky operation, but they had to try. Flood knew it. After a brief moment of reflection the chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave the approval. The second he did so. General Campbell turned around and started barking orders to THE JSOC staff sitting in front of him. The officers in turn relayed the orders over secure lines.
THE MC-13 °COMBAT Talon was three minutes away from the jump point when they received the go-ahead FROM JSOC.
The navigator informed Commander Harris of the countdown, and the four SEALS moved to the back ramp with their bulky chutes and packs. Under their left arms, their suppressed Heckler & Koch MP-10 submachine
