“Yes, sir. He asked to see you immediately. He says it’s extremely urgent.”
Sandecker saw his face turn incredulous in the mirror. The esteemed Director of the FBI did not make office calls at eight in the morning. The Washington bureaucratic game had rules. Everyone from the President on down abided by them. Emmett’s unannounced visit could only mean a dire emergency.
“Send him right in.”
He barely had time to throw on a terry-cloth robe, his skin still dripping, when Emmett strode through the door.
“Jim, we’ve got a hell of a problem.” Emmett didn’t bother with a preliminary handshake. He quickly laid his briefcase on Sandecker’s desk, opened it and handed the admiral a folder. “Sit down and look this over, and then we’ll discuss it.”
Sandecker was not a man to be shoved and ordered around, but he could read the tension in Emmett’s eyes, and he did as he was asked without comment.
Sandecker studied the contents of the folder for nearly ten minutes without speaking. Emmett sat on the other side of the desk and looked for an expression of shock or anger. There was none. Sandecker remained enigmatic. At last he closed the folder and said simply, “How can I help?”
“Find the
“You think they sank her?”
“An air and surface search has turned up nothing.”
“All right, I’ll get my best people on it.” Sandecker made a movement toward his intercom. Emmett raised his hand in a negative gesture.
“I don’t have to describe the chaos if this leaks out.”
“I’ve never lied to my staff before.”
“You’ll have to keep them in the dark on this one.”
Sandecker gave a curt nod and spoke into the intercom. “Sylvia, please get Pitt on the phone.”
“Pitt?” Emmett inquired in an official tone.
“My special projects director. He’ll head up the search.”
“You’ll tell him only what’s necessary?” It was more an order than a request.
A yellow caution light glimmered in Sandecker’s eyes. “That will be at my discretion.”
Emmett started to say something but was interrupted by the intercom.
“Admiral?”
“Yes, Sylvia.”
“Mr. Pitt’s line is busy.”
“Keep trying until he answers,” Sandecker said gruffly. “Better yet, call the operator and cut in on his line. Tell her this is a government priority.”
“Will you be able to mount a full-scale search operation by evening?” asked Emmett.
Sandecker’s lips parted in an all-devouring grin. “If I know Pitt, he’ll have a crew scanning the depths of the Potomac River before lunch.”
Pitt was speaking to Hiram Yaeger when the operator broke in. He cut the conversation short and then dialed the admiral’s private line. After listening without doing any talking for several moments, he replaced the receiver in its cradle.
“Well,” asked Casio expectantly.
“The money was exchanged, never deposited,” Pitt said, looking miserably down at the floor. “That’s all. That’s all there is. No thread left to pick up.”
There was only a flicker of disappointment in Casio’s face. He’d been there before. He let out a long sigh and stared at his watch. He struck Pitt as a man drained of emotional display.
“I appreciate your help,” he said quietly. He snapped his briefcase shut and stood up. “I’d better go now. If I don’t lag, I can catch the next flight back to L.A.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t provide an answer.”
Casio shook Pitt’s hand in a tight grip. “Nobody scores one hundred percent every time. Those responsible for the death of my daughter and your friend have made a mistake. Somewhere, sometime, they overlooked a detail. I’m glad to have you on my side, Mr. Pitt. It’s been a lonely job until now.”
Pitt was genuinely moved. “I’ll keep digging from my end.”
“I couldn’t ask for more.” Casio nodded and then walked down the stairs. Pitt watched him shuffle across the hangar floor, a proud, hardened old man, battling his own private windmill.
27
The President sat upright in a black leather-cushioned chrome chair, his body held firmly in place by nylon belts. His eyes stared off in the distance, unfocused and vacant. Wireless sensor scans were taped onto his chest and forehead, transmitting the physical signatures of eight different life functions to a computer network.
The operating room was small, no more than a hundred square feet, and crammed with electronic monitoring equipment. Lugovoy and four members of his surgical team were quietly and efficiently preparing for the delicate operation. Paul Suvorov stood in the only empty corner, looking uncomfortable in a green sterile gown. He watched as one of Lugovoy’s technicians, a woman, pressed a small needle into one side of the President’s neck and then the other.
“Odd place for an anesthetic,” Suvorov remarked.
“For the actual penetration we’ll use a local,” Lugovoy replied while staring at an image-intensified X ray on a video display. “However, a tiny dose of Amytal into the carotid arteries puts the left and right hemispheres of the brain in a drowsy state. This procedure is to eliminate any conscious memory of the operation.”
“Shouldn’t you shave his head?” Suvorov asked, gesturing toward the President’s hair, which protruded through an opening of a metal helmet encasing his skull.
“We must ignore normal surgical procedures,” Lugovoy patiently answered. “For obvious reasons, we cannot alter his appearance in any form.”
“Who will direct the operation?”
“Who do you think?”
“I’m asking you, comrade.”
“I will.”
Suvorov looked puzzled. “I’ve studied your file and the file of every member of the staff. I can almost repeat their contents by heart. Your field is psychology, most of the others are electronic technicians and one is a biochemist. None of you has surgical qualifications.”
“Because we don’t require them.” He dismissed Suvorov and scrutinized the TV display again. Then he nodded. “We can begin now. Set the laser in place.”
A technician pressed his face against the rubber eyepiece of a microscope attached to an argon laser. The machine tied into a computer and displayed a set of coordinates in orange numbers across the bottom of the microscope’s position fixer. When the numbers read only zeros the placement was exact.
The man at the laser nodded. “Position set.”
“Commence,” Lugovoy directed.
A wisp of smoke, so faint that only the laser operator could see it in the microscope, signaled the contact of the imperceptibly thin blue-green beam with the President’s skull.
It was a strange scene. Everyone stood with his back to the patient, watching the monitors. The images were magnified until the beam could be seen as a weblike filament strand. With a precision far above human dexterity, the computer guided the laser in cutting a minute hole one thirtieth of a millimeter in the bone, penetrating only to the membrane covering the brain and its fluid. Suvorov moved closer in rapt fascination.
“What happens next?” he asked hoarsely.
Lugovoy motioned him over to an electron microscope. “See for yourself.”
Suvorov peered through the twin lenses. “All I make out is a dark speck.”
