“No, I haven’t.”
Garret looked at his watch. “We’re supposed to start this whole show in thirty minutes and you haven’t made up your mind?”
“No, I haven’t decided yet, Stu, and if you’d please excuse me, I have a lot of things to take care of.” The increasingly impatient Lortch stepped around Garret and continued down the hallway. Lortch had decided after witnessing Garret’s unwarranted and childish temper tantrum two evenings earlier that it was time to be more firm with the temperamental chief of staff.
The elderly-looking gentleman parked his rental car by the front gate of Arlington
National Cemetery and got out. He was wearing a tan trench coat, an English driving cap, and using a cane that he didn’t need. On the lapel of his trench coat was a veteran’s pin and an American flag.
He smiled and nodded to the guard at the main gate as he entered the cemetery and started the climb up the hill to the Kennedy Memorial and Robert E. Lee’s house. He looked at the rows of tombstones as he walked up the slope and said a quick prayer for his fallen comrades as he went.
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This national shrine, this place of honor, had an unearthly feel to it.
He did not see his friends die all those years ago so America could be destroyed by a bunch of self-serving politicians. When he reached the front yard of Lee’s house, he turned and looked to the east. Beneath him, across the river and beyond the Lincoln
Memorial, he could see the White House. He situated himself beneath a large oak tree and leaned against its trunk. A short while later, he heard a rumble in the distance and turned to the south. Beyond Washington National Airport, he saw the first formation of helicopters moving up the Potomac. The four large, dull green helicopters surrounded the single shiny, green-and-white Presidential helicopter. As they reached the Potomac
Railroad Bridge, the formation gained some altitude, passed over the Jefferson Memorial, and came to a stop over the Tidal Basin, which sat between the Jefferson Memorial and the Mall. The old man looked back and forth between the five helicopters and the White
House. He saw more movement to the south and turned again. Two more formations were working their way up the Potomac, and the first of these two stopped just on the south side of the Potomac Railroad Bridge. A third appeared farther down the river, and then a fourth and a fifth just where the river started to bend back to the west and out of view.
All five of the formations were holding their positions with about two hundred feet of separation. The noise of their large twin turbine engines and the thumping of their rotor blades echoed throughout the Potomac River Valley. From his perch on the roof of the
White House, Lortch could see and hear the helicopters just to his south. The Tidal Basin, in front of the Jefferson Memorial, was approximately a half mile away, and the five helicopters held their position directly over it, waiting for the order to proceed to the
White House. In the distance Lortch could see the second group of choppers hovering. He looked toward the Mall and focused his binoculars on a group of Park Police officers who were in charge of securing the area from the Capitol to the Lincoln Memorial. Most of them were staring at the loud choppers hovering over the Tidal Basin. Turning to Manly, he said, “Sally, get on the radio and remind the people on the street that they are to pay attention to what is going on around them and to ignore the choppers. Agent Stiener was scanning the surrounding rooftops with his binoculars, and Lortch tapped him on the shoulder.
“Joe, tell Kathy and Jack to take the networks off their live feed.” Stiener lowered his binoculars and spoke into his mike. Special Agents Kathy Lageski and Steve Hampson were standing by the news vans talking to each other when they received the order from
Stiener. Out of habit, both agents brought their hands up and pressed down on their earpieces as Stiener gave them instructions. Without pause, Lageski and Hampson turned and went to work. Lageski started with the CNN van and approached the producer who was sitting at the control board. “Tony, we have to take you off the air.” The producer nodded to Lageski and then spoke into his headset, “Ann, they’re taking me off the air.
I’m going to tape.”
The producer waited another couple seconds and then started to flip switches. Before shutting down the live feed, he put in a fresh tape and checked to see if it was recording
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properly. Lageski watched over him as he turned off the power on the transmitter that sent out the live signal. After the producer was finished, he stepped out of the van and
Lageski shut the door. “Tony, if you need to get back in there, ask me first.” The producer nodded and Lageski moved on.
Stiener informed Lortch that the networks were off their live feed, and the special agent in charge looked down at the news vans and then up at the first group of helicopters hovering less than a mile away. “Are our guests ready to go?” Stiener raised his mike to his mouth and relayed the question to one of the agents downstairs. A moment later he looked up at his boss.
“They’re all set downstairs.”
“Good, send in the first group, Sally.”
Agent Manly gave the order and then asked Lortch, “Which bird do you want to put
Tiger on?” Tiger was the code name that the Secret Service used for the President. Lortch thought for a moment. “Let’s go with number three. Don’t let anyone know until number two lands.”
The old man leaned against a tree and looked intently at the five helicopters hovering by the Jefferson Memorial. He hoped that the pilots flying those things were as good as he’d been told. He did not want to see any Marines die.
The choppers started to move north toward the White House, and the old man pulled a digital phone out of his pocket, punched in a phone number, and hit the send button. He let the phone ring four times and hung up.
