AllFreeNovel
Share Us
PRESIDENT HAYES LOOKED at his watch. It was nearing five o’-clock. “Are you sure we shouldn’t wait until it’s dark?”
Jack Warch shook his head. “I’d like to, but we don’t know how much time we have.”
All of the agents were either sitting or standing around the group of couches in the middle of the room. Warch had convinced the president that their chances for survival were better if they made the break. Valerie Jones had also agreed. Not that it made a huge difference, but at this crucial juncture the less dissent the better. After getting Jones out of the way, Warch had brought the agents in, and they were now finalizing the plan.
Warch looked up at Pat Cowley. Cowley was hands down the best shot of the group with either a pistol or submachine gun. The former Supreme Court police officer had just finished a four-year stint with the Secret Service’s Counter Assault Team, where he had spent the majority of his time riding around in the back of the old, black, armor-plated Suburban that followed the president’s limousine wherever it went. These were the men that carried the big hardware. If the motorcade came under attack, it was their job to, first, cover the president’s evacuation and, second, neutralize the threat if possible. Their basic doctrine was to carry enough firepower that they could enfilade the threat with a volley of bullets while the president was evacuated from the area.
Warch continued going through the agents’ assignments one by one. He picked two agents to leapfrog behind the point as they moved, and assigned Ellen Morton and three other agents to stay with the president at all times. The last agent was to provide a rear guard if needed. Warch himself would stay fluid and try lead as they moved.
After all questions were answered and the evacuation routes were decided on, Warch got the troops lined up. Five of the nine agents carried MP-5 submachine guns along with their SIG-Sauer pistols. The others, including Warch, were armed with their pistols only. With weapons checked and ready, Warch turned to Ellen Morton and said, “Take the president and Valerie and put them in the bathroom. When we give you the all clear, you bring them out, and we move.”
As Warch turned for the door, he was interrupted by a noise he had been waiting to hear for more than two days. Simultaneously, every head in the room snapped toward the small kitchen table. On the second ring, Warch bolted toward the noise. Reaching out, he snatched his digital phone and pressed the send button.
“Hello!”
“Jack, it’s Irene Kennedy.”
Warch’s heart was in his throat. “Thank God!”
Kennedy spoke quickly, her eyes staring at the monitor in the center of the big board. “How’s the president?”
“He’s fine . . . but somebody’s drilling through the bunker door. What in the hell’s going on?”
Kennedy took a deep breath and started in. “Jack, we don’t have a lot of time, so I’ll give you the short version. Rafique Aziz and a group of terrorists have taken over the White House. They are holding hostages, and we know they are trying to break into the bunker.”
Warch was a little surprised that Kennedy knew about the assault on the door. The president was now coming toward him from across the room. “Well, what are you guys doing about it?”
“We’re working on it, but we need to speak to the president first.”
“Sure, he’s right here.” Warch handed Hayes the phone, saying, “It’s Irene Kennedy.”
Hayes took the small gray phone and held it to his ear. “Dr. Kennedy?”
“Yes, Mr. President. How are you doing?”
“Good!” exclaimed a relieved Hayes. “It’s great to hear your voice.”
“It’s nice to hear yours too, sir, but we have a lot to cover, and we’re short on time, so I’m going to hand the phone over to Director Stansfield.”
Stansfield and General Flood had just entered the room. Kennedy had her chair turned around, and as the men hurriedly approached their seats, she held up three fingers.
Stansfield grabbed his phone and pressed line three. In his normal businesslike tone he said, “Mr. President, I apologize for taking so long to get through to you, but we’ve been experiencing some difficulties.”
“What in the hell has been going on?” asked Hayes.
Stansfield started from the top and moved through the highlights of what had happened over the last three days. He covered the demands that had been made and met, and those that were in the process of being met. He told the president of the murder of his national security adviser and his secretary, and the subsequent mental breakdown of his attorney general. He in
tentionally stressed certain events and exchanges that hinted at Vice President Baxter’s incompetence. Stansfield gave him the soft sell. It was better to let Hayes come to his own conclusions than to hit him over the head with the obvious.
The president, for his part, let Stansfield brief him without interruption. President Hayes was not happy about much of what he heard. The only bright spot thus far was the news that Stansfield had managed to get someone inside the White House. And not just anyone, but the man he had just learned of several days earlier. The man the president knew only as Iron Man. A man that had been billed as the absolute best Thomas Stansfield had ever seen.
When the director of the CIA explained the vice president’s reaction to the news that Aziz was in the process of extracting the president from his bunker, Hayes lost it.
“He told you to do what?” Hayes’s face was tense with anger.
“He told us that before he would risk the hostages’ lives by ordering a raid, we would have to present him with more precise information.”
Hayes shook his head. “It sure as hell sounds to me like you had pretty good information.”
