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“Oman, I think.” Burke nervously checked her planner. Warch was acting very out of character. “Yes, he’s from Oman.”

Warch’s suspicion doubled at the mention of the tiny Persian Gulf state. In a quick clipped voice, Warch asked, “Has he ever been to the White House before?”

“No.” Burke shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

Warch had to decide, and he had to decide fast. His mind quickly scrolled through a list of possibilities, and all the while his conversation with Irene Kennedy loomed larger and larger. Warch paced back and forth in front Burke’s desk, and then finally his instincts kicked in. He turned for the door that Special Agent Ellen Morton was standing next to, and his left hand snapped up to his mouth. He was about to make the best or the worst decision of his career. Into the hand mike, the special agent in charge of the president’s detail barked out the command, “Warch to detail. Harden up on the Oval Office!”

PRESIDENT HAYES FINISHED writing a note to himself and said, “It was good talking to you, Harry. I appreciate your help on this. Thanks.” Hayes hung up the phone and stood. From the back of his chair, he grabbed his suit coat and put it on. The president tugged at each sleeve once and then buttoned the top button of the dark coat. Smiling, he stepped out from behind his desk, and with Valerie Jones at his side, he said, “Prince Kalib, it is an honor to finally meet you.”

Rafique Aziz rose from the couch and smiled his first honest smile all morning. Subtly, he crossed his hands in front of his waist, letting his right hand fall on the wrist of his left. Aziz felt for t

he button, not wanting to take his eyes off the president. He had practiced it so many times and dreamt about it thousands of times more. This was how he had always thought it would be. The so-American gesture of shaking hands. It was the perfect opportunity to strike. He had been right to wait for the president to come to him. Aziz’s smile broadened even further as his index finger circled the face of the watch once, searching for the proper button. He found it and pressed it twice. Then his hand moved casually to his belt, a feeling of ecstasy washing over him as his hostage approached.

The Treasury Building

IN THE CAB of the White Knight Linen truck Abu Hasan felt the vibration on his hip and tossed his clipboard onto the floor of the cab. While his left hand jerked open the driver’s door, his right grabbed a small bundle. Hasan leapt from the cab in his green pants and white shirt. As he hit the concrete pavement of the parking garage floor, he heard a roar erupt from the cargo area of the truck as the forklift and ATVs were fired up. Hasan sprinted for the plain gray door and dropped to one knee, placing the small canvas bundle on the ground in front of him. He opened it and threw the thick sheets of cotton to the side, grabbed the preformed piece of plastique explosive, and attached it to the door. Hasan smacked the gray claylike material with the side of his fist twice to make sure it was secured and then stuck a blasting cap into the explosive material. Grabbing the reel of yellow Primacord, he ran along the same wall for twenty feet and hunched down. Hasan pressed the detonator, and a split second later there was a short, loud bang.

The tailgate of the truck flew open immediately, and two men jumped to the ground. On the right-hand side, against the wall of the truck’s cargo area, the ramp lay on its side. The men yanked it from the vehicle and secured it just as Bengazi moved the forklift to the edge. The heavy machine teetered forward until the majority of its weight was on the ramp. Then Bengazi released the brake and let the machine carry itself to the concrete floor. As soon as all four wheels were on solid ground, Bengazi stepped on the gas and roared for the blown-away door. The two men with the RPGs ran alongside and jumped onto the side steps.

Hasan yanked open the remnants of the Marilyn Monroe door. A cloud of cordite filled the air, and Bengazi and his men pulled their gas masks all the way down. The forklift lurched forward, the two men carrying the RPGs clinging to the sides, as Bengazi gunned the powerful engine. The heavy yellow machine thundered into the concrete tunnel as the agile ATVs raced down the ramp one by one, their knobby rubber tires squealing as they turned hard for the tunnel.

The Washington Hotel

ON THE TOP floor of the Washington Hotel, in the cluttered janitor’s closet, Salim Rusan was waiting patiently. Laid out before him on a clean white towel was a Russian-made SVD sniper rifle. The SVD fired a powerful 7.62-mmx54 rimmed cartridge and could achieve accurate kills at ranges of up to a thousand yards in the right hands. Rusan did not plan to use even a quarter of the rifle’s range. On top of the long rifle, almost fifty inches from shoulder butt to muzzle, was a PSO 1 x 4 scope. A ten-round magazine was inserted in the rifle, and a second magazine was in Rusan’s pocket. That was all the ammunition Aziz had allowed him to take. Aziz had been adamant that Rusan was to stay for no longer than two minutes and then leave the hotel. There were other things that he would be needed for later.

The pager began its vibration, announcing that after almost a year of planning it was time for action. Rusan reached down and turned the pager off with one hand while grabbing the light nine-pound rifle with the other. He burst from the closet into the empty hallway and walked quickly for the rooftop’s patio doors. Rusan counted to himself slowly to help keep his heart rate low, a trick his Soviet trainers had taught him while he had stalked the burned-out buildings of Beirut as a teenager.

With his sniper’s rifle clutched in one hand, he opened the door to the patio and dropped to his stomach. Quickly, he crawled the thirty feet to the edge and stuck the long black barrel through the railing. Hugging the rifle tightly against his shoulder and cheek, he looked through the scope and acquired the large South Portico of the White House. From there, Rusan followed the edge of the building to the Oval Office and prepared to fire. When he reached the door that was just outside the president’s office, he found nothing. Rusan searched the patio quickly and again found nothing. Not having time to waste, he moved on to his secondary target. The scope quickly found not one, but four Secret Service agents standing near the guard booth on the roof of the White House. Rusan picked the agent on the far left, centered the crosshairs on the man’s head, and squeezed the trigger.

The White House

THERE ARE VERY few things, short of a gunshot, that can get a Secret Service agent’s heart beating faster than the phrase “Harden up.” Those two little words, heard so often during training exercises, are rarely uttered while on duty at the White House. Just outside the main door to the Oval Office, the two agents standing post drew their weapons without hesitation. The shorter of the two also pulled out a set of keys and opened the door to a seemingly benign wooden credenza. A second later a third agent appeared from around the corner with a gun clutched in both hands. The agent who had opened the credenza quickly extracted three Uzi submachine guns, passing one to each of the other two agents and keeping the third for himself. The entire process took less than five seconds.

One floor below, in Horsepower, the detail’s command post, the agent sitting at the security console rose and walked quickly across the room. He bolted the door shut and returned to his seat without speaking. Two more agents, at the far end of the room, unlocked a metal cabinet, revealing a cache of weapons. Each man took an MP-5 submachine gun. They both chambered a round and walked to the room’s other door, which led to a hidden staircase to the Oval Office.

Upstairs Jack Warch entered the Oval Office with his suit coat open and thrown back over his right hip. His right hand was wrapped around the grip of his still holstered weapon. Warch quickly approached the president’s side, not taking his eyes off the dark-featured man standing by the fireplace.

“Excuse me for the intrusion, Mr. President, but I need to talk to you for a second.” The president stopped in his tracks, alarmed by the forceful entrance. He looked to Warch and then his chief of staff.

There was a moment of uncertainty. As Warch eyed the president’s visitor, he couldn’t quite discern the intent of the well-dressed man he was staring down. Then he saw it, something in the other man’s eyes. Gripping his gun tighter, he pulled it up a half an inch out of the smooth leather holster. The president was saying something, but Warch wasn’t listening. He was waiting for one more sign that this man standing in the Oval Office was not who he said he was.

Back downstairs in Horsepower, the young agent sitting at the security-console looked intently at the array of surveillance monitors before him. His eyes searched for anything that could be even remotely construed as a threat. Midway through his sweep, his focus was broken by the beeping of his computer. The agent’s eyes snapped from the monitors to his computer screen to find four capitalized words flashing. Grabbing the arm of his headset the agent blurted out the words, “HORSEPOWER TO DETAIL! WE HAVE A SECURITY BREACH IN THE TREASURY TUNNEL! I REPEAT, WE HAVE A SECURITY BREACH IN THE TREASURY TUNNEL!”

Up in the Oval Office the stream of words blared into Warch’s right ear like Klaxons. His gun was out of his holster and aimed at the president’s guest in a split second. His left hand snapped to his lips, and he barked into his hand mike, “WARCH TO DETAIL. HARDEN UP ON WOODY IMMEDIATELY!”

Three of the four doors to the Oval Office burst open instantly, and four agents rushed to surround the president, their weapons drawn and ready. As the wall of agents closed around the commander-in-chief, the next sign of danger came blaring over their earpieces. “AGENTS DOWN! AGENTS DOWN! HERCULES IS UNDER FIRE!”

With his SIG-Sauer aimed at Aziz’s forehead, Warch screamed, “EVAC, EVAC!”

Ellen Morton was standing directly behind the president when the evacuation order was given, and in a tribute to her training, she didn’t waste a second. Morton reached up and grabbed President Hayes by the back of his shirt collar and yanked him to the left. Two more agents rushed through the main door with their guns drawn and joined the scrum that was moving toward the president’s private study. Morton kicked a chair out of the group’s way as they moved in unison. The president’s chief of staff was caught up in the wave of bodies and was rushed out of the room with them. Jack Warch stood his ground and covered the evacuation, his eyes still locked in a stare with Aziz.

The Treasury Tunnel

THE HEAVY FORKLIFT screamed down the smooth concrete tunnel, gaining speed as it went. The two men riding on the sides wrapped their inside arms around the cage and aimed their armor-piercing shells at the door in their path. Both men sighted in on the hinges and fired. There was a loud swooshing noise marked by a white trail of smoke as the warheads raced forward in unison and then slammed into the steel door.

The ensuing explosion was deafening as debris, smoke, and fire erupted back down the throat of the narrow passageway. Bengazi closed his eyes and kept the accelerator to the floor. The forklift maintained its speed, passing through the bright showering debris and then into total darkness. There was a moment of silence, and then a foundation-cracking collision as the forklift thudded into the steel door, knocking it off its twisted hinges and lurching to a stop inside the basement of the White House.

The collision had jolted Bengazi forward, knocking his foot from the gas pedal and sending his two men flying from the vehicle. His ears were ringing from the explosion, and he couldn’t see past the cage of the forklift due to the thick smoke and dust. By the time he had righted himself in the seat, his two men were back at his side and climbing back onto the vehicle. Bengazi pressed the gas pedal to the floor, the engine roared, and the forklift lurched forward.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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