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“That’s affirmative.”
Rapp tapped Adams on the shoulder and pointed up the stairs. Adams retracted the snake and coiled it back into a loose loop. Before proceeding, Rapp bent over and checked for any trip wires. After making sure it was safe, he took the lead. At the top there was no landing, just the interior of the wall panel that accessed the area between the Oval Office and the president’s private dining room.
Adams pointed to a latch and said, “It opens in.” Rapp nodded. He would have preferred to have quietly drilled a hole in the wall and inserted a camera to see what was on the other side, but they were short on time. Rapp pressed the latch and held his MP-10 ready. The narrow section of the wall popped in. Pulling it open further, Rapp looked out across the hall at President Hayes’s private study. Almost instantly his nostrils filled with a ripe stench.
The smell crawled into the stairwell, and Rapp started breathing through his mouth. Remembering Adams, he turned and whispered, “I think there are some dead bodies up here. Are you going to be all right?”
Adams nodded and waved Rapp forward.
Rapp pointed at Adams and then the ground, signaling for him to stay put for a second. Rapp moved to the right and hugged the wall. The failing evening light came through the windows. In the dining room ahead, the overhead light was lit as well as a table lamp. It was as if the building were stuck in time. Several half-filled coffee cups littered the table, and a tray filled with dishes was waiting to be carted away. To the right, the pantry door was open, and Rapp could see out into the main hallway. This caused him to pull back a step.
Everything Rapp saw, the people back at Langley saw. Campbell came over his headset. “Iron Man, there is a door on your left that leads out into the Rose Garden.” Rapp’s head swiveled toward the door, and the general said, “That’s it. Let’s check it for explosives.”
“Roger.” Looking back to make sure there was no one in the hallway, Rapp moved out around the left side of the dining room table. A large plant stood next to the door and behind was the same gray metal box Rapp had seen in the president’s bedroom. From the side of the box a clear filament wire wove its way through a series of eyelet screws. The clear wire, really nothing more than fishing line, went across the base of the door, through another eyelet screw, up three feet, where it went through another looped eyelet and then began its horizontal course across the door again. Rapp followed it to the other side and stopped.
“Shit.”
“What is it?” asked Campbell.
“You can’t see the wire?”
“No.”
“It runs across the base of the door, up three feet, and then back across. But the big problem is it doesn’t stop.” Rapp walked along the wall, eyeing the clear wire as he went. “It runs all along the wall, not just the door.”
“That could be a problem.” They had guessed that the doors would be wired, so the HRT was planning to blow mouse holes in the walls to enter the building. With wire running across the walls, that wouldn’t work.
“I’m going to keep moving. We’d better hope those SEALs are good, or we’re in a lot of trouble.” Rapp walked quickly back toward the other end of the room. Instead of heading back into the short hallway, he cut into the pantry and carefully approached the door that led out into the main hallway of the first floor of the West Wing. Clutching the thick grip of his integral suppressor, he inched his way to the doorframe. His eyes were instantly drawn to the trails of dark dried blood that stained the hallway carpeting. The blood came from both directions, as if bodies had been dragged, and went into the room that was across the hall and to the right.
Rapp didn’t want to think about what was behind the closed door, but believed it was probably what was causing the grotesque smell. As he checked up and down the hallway, he noticed another bomb to his left. Rapp cringed and tried to focus the head cam on the gray metal box. This was worse than he thought. Not only was there an outer layer of bombs, it appeared there was also an inner layer to contend with. Rapp retreated to join Adams.
“Did you get a bead on that second bomb and its location?”
“Affirmative. Was the discoloration on the carpeting what I thought it was?”
“It looked like it was dry blood,” replied Rapp as he reached Milt Adams’s position. Rapp continued past him two steps and poked his head into the Oval Office. Instantly, he saw the cause of the smell. The bloated body of a man lay between the two couches on the floor. His head had fallen next to the embroidered presidential seal and had deposited a large pool of blood. Rapp edged around the first sofa and tried to get a look at the man’s face, but it did no good. His cheeks and neck were so swollen they looked as if they might break the binds of the dress shirt and necktie. The man’s hands had suffered the same gross expansion.
Rapp moved on and checked the curved wall behind the president’s desk. Near the door that led onto the Oval Colonnade, he found another bomb. The clear wire traversed the wall horizontally twice.
Exhaling, he said, “Same thing as the other room. I’m taking Milt, and we’re going to check out the interior.”
Adams was standing in the doorway, looking at the puffy body on the floor. As Rapp pulled close, he asked, “Do you recognize him?”
Adams shook his head.
Rapp jerked the barrel of his gun back in the direction from which they had come. As he walked into the dining room, he hugged the wall to his right and kept his gun up and leveled. He turned back to Adams and asked, “There’s a door right across the hall here; where does it lead?”
“The Roosevelt Room.”
“What’s in there?”
“Just a big conference table.”
Rapp nodded. “Okay. I’m going to cover you from this little room here. I want you to go across the hall to the Roosevelt Room and stick the snake under the door. And remember, stay on the left side of the doorframe. Don’t stand in the middle.”
Adams nodded his little head. Rapp had been adamant about where to stand so as not to get shot. Rapp moved out and stepped into the small pantry off the dining room. At the doorway to the main hall, he eased his head out and checked in both directions. His right hand came up by his shoulder, and he waved Adams forward.
Milt scampered through the pantry and across the hall. The door to the Roosevelt Room was just to his right, and the main door to the Oval Office was almost directly across the hall from it. Staying on the left side, as Rapp had told him, Adams eased the tip of the snake under the door and stared at the monitor. He wasn’t sure at first what it was that he w
