'I believe that he already said that.'
'What if?'
'I'll check,' she said.
'Petty Officer Talleigh for the chief of staff's desk,' she said, keying her two-way radio. 'I'm with the subject… and he has a question… over.'
'This is the chief of staff's office, Petty Officer,' crackled the reply. 'What is the question?'
'He wants to know whether the president will reconsider his proposal, over.'
'What the… he what?'
'He wants to know whether the president will reconsider his proposal.'
There was a long, crackling pause before the man who worked for Fachearon's chief of staff responded.
'Petty Officer Talleigh?'
'Roger.'
'They tell me to tell you to tell him that the president is absolutely not interested in reconsidering, but he has something to tell the Firehawk man… so bring him back up to Laurel.'
'Aye-aye, sir. Petty Officer Talleigh, out.'
'The president will speak with you,' she said. 'But don't hold your breath about talking him into anything.' 'Yeah… I heard.' Arnold nodded.
They exchanged no words on the walk back to Laurel Lodge. They had exhausted their topics of conversation. There was nothing more to be said. The mood was as dark and gloomy as the weather.
For Albert Bacon Fachearon, though, there was one more thing.
'Mr. Arnold,' he said, meeting Raymond Harris's emissary on the doorstep. 'Tell Raymond Harris… tell him emphatically… that I will not relinquish the presidency unless or until there is a trial. Under the Constitution, an impeached president can't be removed until convicted in a Senate trial… a fact obviously lost on Raymond Harris.'
Fachearon was angry. Fachearon was taking it personally. Fachearon could feel his systolic blood pressure surging toward two hundred.
'Suit yourself,' Aron Arnold said calmly, not taking it personally. 'I'm here because I'm ordered… and apparently the senators and congressmen gave my boss the authority to issue that order.'
'It will suit me to do as I have said I will do,' Fachearon replied, unnerved that Aron Arnold betrayed no emotion, while he could feel the pressure of the blood throbbing in his neck.
'I will convey this information to the appropriate parties.' Arnold nodded calmly.
Overhead, they heard the distant thunder of jet engines, and all eyes turned skyward. The clouds were low, and there was nothing to be seen. The sound soon died way.
As Aron Arnold bade Tiffanie Talleigh good-bye, he could sense her breathing a sigh of relief.
His Lexus remained as he had left it, the lone vehicle in the visitor parking lot outside the Camp David main gate. As he opened the door, he took out his cell phone. He decided that it would be a good idea to check in.
He dialed, pressed the send button, and put the phone to his ear.
Nothing.
What?
How could he have a dead battery?
He looked at the phone. Everything about it looked normal.
He turned it over and slid out the battery. Maybe some dirt had gotten on the contacts.
Then he saw it.
Someone had inserted a GK356a4 high-power, miniaturized homing transmitter.
When could this have happened?
The only time that he had taken his phone out of his pocket since he set foot at Camp David was when it went through the metal detector when he had arrived. None of the guards had touched it.
When was the last time that it had been out of his sight?
Then he remembered.
It had been in his jacket pocket that morning at the White House. In turn, he had left his jacket on the back of a chair in a conference room while he went to the bathroom.
Who?
Damn. Shit. Fuck.
A half mile down the mountain road, Aron Arnold stopped the Lexus, got out, and tossed the cell phone as far as he could into the thick brush.
Chapter 55
'Falcon three, do you have a shot?' Jenna asked.
'Gotta get a lock-on,' Troy said, gritting his teeth.
By this time, Raymond Harris knew he was up against someone good. He had tried to run, single-mindedly trying to get back on his trajectory to the target.
However, to do this was to put his vulnerable hindquarters into the eyes of the F-16's Sidewinders. Each time, he heard the ping of a lock-on. Each time, he was able to maneuver out of the way, but with each maneuver, he was off course for his target.
The Raven and the F-16 twisted and turned across the sky as Troy tried to achieve lock-on and as Harris tried both to prevent this and to push the Raven itself into a shooting position.
They had gotten into the dogfight maneuver that dogfighters call a scissors, a series of repeated turn reversals in which the aircraft being chased tries both to stay out of the line of fire and twist itself in such a way as to cause the pursuer to overshoot. The idea is that the hunted suddenly becomes the hunter.
Harris groaned and cursed.
The HAWX Program had designed the Raven to be as maneuverable as it was fast, but with seven hundred pounds of nuclear bomb in its central weapons bay, the Raven was not as agile as it might have been otherwise.
Troy thumbed off a burst of twenty-millimeter rounds as the Raven crossed his pipper.
They went wild, but at least Harris knew he was there.
Aha!
For a split second, Harris stopped maneuvering.
It is a natural impulse when you are taking fire to stop moving, and Harris had succumbed.
It is a natural impulse, when you see your quarry pause, to take a shot, and Troy succumbed.
The Sidewinder got its lock-on and streaked forward.
The distance was short — probably less than half a mile.
It is a natural impulse when you catch yourself pausing in a pursuit to move quickly to compensate for a moment of inaction, and Harris moved quickly.
He banked hard to the left.
Troy watched the Sidewinder arc left.
Harris scissored to the right.
The Sidewinder was going too fast to turn so quickly, and it missed him by barely a few feet.
It is a natural impulse when you are chasing your prey to push yourself to catch up. So it was with Troy.
However, he moved too fast, and he slid past the Raven.
He had overshot his prey.
The hunted was suddenly the hunter.
The pinging came, and Troy reacted.
He was in a left turn already, so he rolled hard left.
To evade a heat-seeking missile, you have to obscure the heat source. This was far more difficult for the F-16
