Jones looked up with a fair amount of fright.
“What are you trying to say?”
“Exactly what I said.
“Sorry’ might not be good enough.
People have died Val, and there are a lot of questions that are going to have to be answered.” President Hayes stared at her, making sure she truly understood the gravity of the situation.
Across the bunker, near the door. Special Agent Jack Warch was sitting on his bunk, sprawled against the cool concrete wall. The usually rigid Warch had removed his tie and jacket, both of which were neatly folded next to him on the hinged navy-style bunk. The thirty- by twenty-foot room had eighteen sturdy bunks. Two sets of four, one lower and one upper, were bolted along each of the long walls and two more on the wall by the door. The bunks were of the no-frills military style.
One side of the bed was attached to the wall by two hinges, and the outer corners were each attached to a three-foot chain that was bolted to the wall. When not being used the bunks could be swung up and out of the way. The floor and the first four feet of the wall were covered by the same plain brown carpet that adorned the floor and walls of the evacuation tunnel. At the opposite end of the bunker there was a small bathroom and kitchenette. In the middle of the room was a square arrangement of two couches and two love seats, all four made of brown vinyl trying to disguise itself as leather. The seamless ceiling and walls were painted an off-white that helped to soften, just slightly, the room’s bleak appearance.
The special agent in charge of the presidential detail reached out and picked up his black Motorola encrypted radio.
His flesh-toned earpiece and hand mike lay uselessly coiled on the bunk’s pillow. Not more than ten minutes after they made it into the bunker the expensive little radio had dropped code-the Secret Service’s euphemism for the radio not working.
It was not just Warch’s radio. All ten agents had looked at each other at the exact same moment, knowing Instantly that they were cut off. The terrorists had gotten to the digital encryption system and crashed it, taking all of the radios offline. Warch had switched to his digital phone, and for five minutes he tried frantically to reestablish contact with the Secret Service’s joint operations command. The phone was working, but they weren’t answering. Then the line went dead.
They were completely cut off from the outside and could only assume the worst. If the Secret Service had fended off the attack, they would not still be sitting in the bunker. With or without communications, his people knew the codes and could simply come and open the door. The worst had to be assumed. They had lost the White House. Warch looked across the bunker at a disheveled President Hayes and his chief of staff. They were sitting on one of the couches talking in whispers.
It was time to tell him the truth.
AFTER AZIZ’S ELECTRIFYING phone call, chaos had once again broken out in the Pentagon’s Joint Chiefs briefing room. To Mitch Rapp’s left, his bosses were conferring with the Joint Chiefs, and to his right. Vice President Baxter was holding court with the cabinet. Rapp, having a fairly good idea how most of the people to his left would handle the situation, decided to focus his listening on the politicians to his right.
After several minutes, Rapp concluded that no one in Baxters group knew their head from their ass, and in the process of coming to this conclusion, he also discovered a correlation between their opinions and the conviction with which they stated them. It seemed that the less someone knew, the more forcefully he tried to state his case.
Words like “caution” and “prudence” crept into every sentence, and every time Rapp heard them uttered, he couldn’t help but think that these men and women had no idea whom they were dealing with. On more than one occasion, Rapp fought the urge to interject his frank opinion and correct the neophytes to his right. Twice he actually started to come out of his seat, but caught himself in time. Kennedy was right. It was best for him to keep a low profile.
The fragmented conversations continued for several more minutes, and then Vice President Baxter began snapping his fingers and calling for the group’s attention. The discussions trickled to a stop, and then Baxter said, “Attorney General Tutwiler has a plan, and I would like everyone to hear her out.”
All eyes went from Baxter to the attorney general as she pulled her chair forward. Tutwiler took off her glasses and held them in both hands.
“Treasury Secretary Rose has confirmed that this money does in fact exist, and as most of us know, it was frozen by our government when the Shah was overthrown.
There is a case to be made that this money is not ours.”
Tutwiler set her glasses down and centered them on her leather briefing folder.
“I strongly believe that as a sign of good faith and willingness to negotiate for the hostages we should release part of the money at nine tomorrow, and in return, we will ask Mr. Aziz to show his good faith and release some of the hostages.”
In unison her end of the table turned to see how the idea would be received by the other end, which was anchored by the representatives from the Joint Chiefs, the CIA, and the FBI.
Admiral Nelson, the chief of naval operations, was the first to speak.
With his bald head and gaunt face. Nelson said, “I would advise against giving them anything! It will set a horrible precedent! Our policy on terrorism has always been zero tolerance and no negotiation. Zero!”
Nelson brought his hand up and formed the number with his thumb and fingers.
“The entire world is watching… Now? is not the time to reverse our course.”
Vice President Baxter looked at his military advisers. He had known this would be their position, but now he needed them on board. He needed to build some consensus. That way if everything blew up, he wouldn’t be the only one holding the bag. Baxter decided to play up the compassion factor.
“Let me remind everyone that we have hostages in there. American citizens. Yes the president is safe, but we still have to do our best to get our people out of there alive. These are troops we left behind, and if we have to pay a little money… that isn’t even ours”-Baxter looked around the room nodding his head-“to get some of them out… then that is what we are going to do.” The vice president focused his attention on the opposite end of the table, looking each of the military officers in the eye, one at a time. He would call them later individually to shore up support where it was needed.
After finishing his Dale Carnegie personal-eye-contact maneuver, the vice president moved on to his conclusion.
“In light of the recent news, this is what we are going to do.” Baxter pointed at Director Roach of the FBI.
“I want you and your people to take charge of the entire area surrounding the White House. If you need to use any of the Secret Service’s people in an advisory role, feel free to do so.”
Director Roach leaned forward.
“I assume you would like us to draw up plans for rescuing the hostages?”
“Of course, but no action is to be taken unless I say so. If we have to go in, I want to have secured the release of as many hostages as possible beforehand.”
Baxter then turned to Attorney General Tutwiler and said, “Marge, please fill us in on how things will proceed tomorrow.”
Tutwiler inclined her head forward so she could see all the way down the table.
“At nine tomorrow we will call Mr. Aziz and inform him that we are prepared to transfer part of the money into his accounts. This will be fairly easy to do. Secretary Rose tells me the money is in a dozen separate banks, so we will simply transfer the proper amount of money from one of the banks to Iran. The sum will be around a billion dollars.
We will tell him we are working on getting the rest of the money, but it would help if, in a sign of good faith, he would release some of the hostages
“Tutwiler paused for a moment, distracted by a man halfway down the table who was shaking his head vigorously.
Tutwiler started speaking again but kept her eyes on the man.
