“No.”
The vice president stood and walked over to a window away from the group. Baxter thought about the potential pitfalls.
If this Kruse didn’t perform as advertised, there could be some serious repercussions. Why wasn’t someone from the FBI sent in? Why didn’t they wait to see if they could get more hostages released? The questions would go on and on. Baxter saw a risk-hell, the whole thing was a risk, and his political instincts told him to protect himself. After another minute of thought, Baxter decided to walk that thin line again.
The vice president came back over and sat.
“Director Stansfield, I have given you…” Baxter paused, searching for the most innocuous word, “permission to collect intelligence in this matter. What you choose to do specifically is up to you. I don’t need to be kept in the loop for every decision along the way.”
Stansfield, an expert at interpreting political speak, understood the vice president clearly. It was another Iran-Contra.
Baxter wanted Stansfield and the CIA to stick their necks out, and if things fell apart, he would have his plausible denial.
Stansfield looked at Baxter and nodded his understanding.
There would be time to handle these details at a later point.
For now they needed to get the ball rolling.
Baxter continued, “I’m reluctant to do anything until Aziz releases his next set of demands, which, of course, will be tomorrow morning. If we can exchange more hostages for money, I’m inclined to do it.”
“Sir,” said Kennedy, “if I may be frank, I don’t think he’s going to keep asking for money.”
“What do you think he will ask for?”
Stansfield leaned forward and fielded the question.
“That is anyone’s guess.” The director of the CIA wasn’t about to divulge his ace in the hole, their custody of Fara Harut-especially to someone like Baxter.
“But, I would agree with Irene.”
Baxter pondered what the next demand might be and then turned his attention back to the matter at hand.
“Who knows about your plans for Mr. Kruse?”
“General Flood, a select few others at the Pentagon, and us.”
“No one at the FBI?” Baxter repeated.
“No.”
“For now I think you should go about collecting your intelligence independent of the FBI… They have enough to worry about.”
Stansfield again read between the lines and nodded. The FBI was to be kept in the dark about Rapp. More proof that the vice president wanted to insulate himself from any potential disaster.
Baxter looked at Stansfield and asked, “Is that all?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“Good. Thank you for keeping us informed.” Baxter motioned for the door.
“Now, if you’ll excuse us, I need to get ready to address the nation.”
Stansfield and Kennedy stood and started for the door. As they neared it. Vice President Baxter called out, “If you decide to send your man in, please keep him on a short leash.”
Stansfield gave his silent answer with a nod, then followed Kennedy into the hallway.
THEY HIT THE first checkpoint three blocks away from the White House. A quarter of a moon shone in the night sky, and not a cloud was in sight. Rapp was riding in the backseat of the long, black Suburban with Milt Adams. Lt. Commander Harris of SEAL Team Six was in the passenger seat, and Chief Petty Officer Mick Reavers was driving.
Following the Suburban through the checkpoints were a plain blue van and a larger black box van. Lt. Commander Harris handled the D.C. Metro Police at the first two checkpoints and then the Secret Service agents at the last checkpoint. Word had been sent down from on high that the CIA was moving in some sensitive equipment to conduct surveillance.
Approaching the White House from the east, they pulled through the last checkpoint at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street. Reavers, the large linebacker type that had been along on the mission to grab Harut, drove the Suburban onto Hamilton Place and continued past the southern edge of the Treasury Building. The White House was now in sight, ahead and to the right, the top floor of the mansion visible above the trees.
On the right was the entrance to the underground parking garage that the terrorists had used just yesterday to assault and take the White House.
A white Suburban was now parked at the top of the ramp, blocking its use. Straight ahead was a closed gate that led onto the south grounds of the White House. Reavers extinguished the headlights and turned left onto East Executive Avenue. Continuing south for another fifty feet, Reavers took a hard right at the direction of Milt Adams and pulled up on the curb, the front grill of the truck stopping inches from the heavy black fence. As had already been decided, the blue van backed up onto the curb about twenty feet to the north of the Suburban and stopped with its rear bumper almost touching the fence. The large, black box van parked on the street, right in between the two vehicles, creating a space in the middle that would shield the men from prying eyes.
Doors began to open, and bodies piled out of all three vehicles.
Everyone, even Milt Adams, was dressed in the standard black Nomex jumpsuits worn by Navy SEALS. Three of Harris’s SEALS set up a security perimeter on the outside of the vehicles, while four more unfurled a massive black tarp. In a little over a minute they had the tarp stretched over the top of all three vehicles and secured. With the tarp in place, two of the men went to work on the fence. With a small handheld hydraulic jack, they began prying apart the vertical bars so Rapp and Adams could pass through.
Harris and Rapp approached the fence and tried to spy a look at the roof of the White House. The trees and undergrowth between them and the residence were dense, hopefully dense enough to conceal their movements.
Harris raised his small secure Motorola radio to his mouth and asked, “Slick, whada’ya got for me?”
Lying on his belly less than a block away, Charlie Wicker peered through a pair of night-vision binoculars. Wicker was set up on the backside of the pitched roof of the Treasury Building. Arriving thirty minutes in advance of the others, he had been watching the terrorist sitting atop the roof of the White House, trying to discern any patterns. Wicker lowered the lip mike on his headset and said, “He has no idea you’re there. He spends most of his time looking west, over at that ugly building on the other side of the White House.”
“Good,” replied Harris.
“Anything else to report?”
Wicker squinted as he looked at the hooded man no more than one hundred fifty feet away-the only thing separating them was a half inch of bulletproof Plexiglas. “”Yeah… I think I can take this guy out with a pair of fifties. “Wicker was referring to a.50 caliber sniping rifle.
The heavy-caliber weapon was used by Special Forces snipers to take out targets at distances exceeding a mile.
“I’ll keep that in mind. Let me know if he starts looking our way.
Over.” Harris turned to Rapp.
“So far so good.”
“Good.” Rapp led the way and he, Harris, and Adams walked over to the blue van. The side cargo doors were open, revealing an array of equipment stacked in electronic racks, or, as the man sitting behind the main console called them, “pizza racks.” Marcus Dumond was a twenty-six-year-old computer genius and almost convicted felon. Rapp had brought Dumond into the fold at Langley three years earlier. The young cyber genius had run into some trouble with the Feds while he was earning his master’s degree in computer science at MIT.
He was alleged to have hacked into one of New York’s largest banks and then transferred funds into several overseas accounts.
The part that interested the CIA was that Dumond wasn’t caught because he left a trail; he was caught
