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“Yes, as a matter of fact, there is.” Kennedy looked down at the sheet of paper in front of her. “I’d like you to look at a list of names for me.”
“How many?”
“Ten. We have good intel on seven of them, but the last three we’ve come up blank on.” Kennedy again looked at the list of names that had been provided by Dr. Hornig.
“You can count on me putting all of my resources into it. Send me the list, and I will personally make sure it gets taken care of immediately.”
“Thank you, Ben. I appreciate it.”
There was a pause, and then colonel said, “I have a question for you, as long as I’ve got you on the line. There have been several reports, all unconfirmed of course, that a certain high-ranking member of Hezbollah is missing.” The Israeli colonel stopped talking for a moment and then added, “You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?”
Kennedy lifted her eyes and looked up at the bank of television sets. “I might have some insight into the subject.”
Fine didn’t reply right away. Instead his silence conveyed an implicit tit-for-tat request. “I assume when the time is right, you will enlighten me.”
“I had planned on it,” answered Kennedy honestly.
“Good,” stated a satisfied Fine. “Do you need anything else from me?”
Kennedy thought about it for a moment and said, “No, not that I can think of, but anything you can do with the names would be greatly appreciated.”
“I will get started right away, and do not hesitate to call if you need anything else.”
“I won’t. Thank you, Ben.” After setting the phone back in its cradle, Kennedy placed the list of names in a file folder and walked to the end of her row. Looking up toward the back of the room, she waved the file and caught the attention of one of her people. A man in his early thirties came down the stairs, and Kennedy handed him the file. “Fax this to Colonel Fine immediately.” The man nodded dutifully and started back up the stairs, headed for the secure fax machine.
WHITE NOISE hissed through the earpiece. I have to be near the end, Rapp thought to himself. The tunnel seemed to be getting smaller and smaller. Rapp was sweating profusely, and his heart rate was much faster than it should have been. Irritated by the noise of his radio, he reached up and took the headset off, letting it fall around his neck. He knew Milt Adams wasn’t far behind, because he had heard him sneezing. It must have been the thin layer of dust that lined the metal walls of the duct. There wasn’t a lot of it, but Rapp himself had fought back the impulse several times.
Rapp paused for a second and took in a deep breath. He lowered his sweaty head onto his arm and told himself to relax. He was expending far more energy than necessary due to his slightly panicked state. Rapp lay still for almost a minute as he got his breathing under control. His watch told him that he had been in the shaft for almost fifteen minutes. Longer than he had expected. It couldn’t be that much farther. After making the left turn that would take him parallel to the southern end of the mansion’s foundation, he had turned the miner’s light off. Rapp thought it was doubtful that anyone would be in the third basement—Aziz did not have enough men to patrol every area of the White House—but it was not worth the gamble of having the light spill through a crack or a seam in the ductwork.
After several more minutes of confined crawling, Rapp reached the end. He was drenched in sweat, almost all of it from nervous energy. Gently, he let his head fall down on his arm, and he listened to make sure no one was in the boiler room. For the next two minutes that was all he did. Outside the shaft he could hear the heating, ventilation, and cooling system going through the labors of regulating the climate within the old house, but other than that, the only thing he heard was the approaching Milt Adams and his not-so-quiet sneezing.
Rapp decided it was better to open the access panel before Adams and his involuntary reports arrived. He turned on his miner’s lamp and ran his hand over the smooth surface of the duct until he felt a groove. Zeroing in with the light, he spotted what he was looking for. Just as Milt had said, there was an access panel right before the duct connected to the filtration system. A not-so-small wave of relief washed over him. The thought of it not being there, and having to crawl all the way back, had occurred to him several times. Before twisting the metal catches up, Rapp drew his silenced Beretta and turned off the miner’s light. With the gun in his left hand, he felt for the catches with his right and turned the first one from its horizontal position to vertical. Adams had explained that the panel was attached with hinges on the bottom and two catches at the top.
After twisting the second catch, he slowly allowed the panel to swing downward and looked out into the dimly lit boiler room of the White House. The ventilation duct was hung from the ceiling and ran halfway across the room, where it connected to the hulking HVAC unit that o
ccupied the majority of the room.
Poking only his head out, Rapp methodically searched the room for any signs of motion sensors or trip wires. After making sure it was safe, he pulled back into the duct and rolled over onto his back. He untied the rope around his ankle and noticed Adams crawling toward him roughly forty feet away. Neither man spoke. Rapp had been extremely clear about that aspect of the operation. There was to be no talking unless absolutely needed.
Rapp fed the loose end of the rope out of the opening, leaving several-feet dangling toward the ground and the other end tied to his gear. Quickly, he scooted forward to the end of the duct, pushed himself out of the vent, and hung from his fingers, his feet dangling a little more than a foot from the ground. Gently, he let himself drop to the ground, immediately grabbed the rope, and pulled the rest of his gear down. With the pack on the ground, Rapp retrieved his silenced MP-10 submachine gun and turned on the small flashlight affixed to the underside of the barrel.
If Aziz had planted any security devices, Rapp saw no sign of them. Several moments later Milt Adams poked his sweaty, bald head out of the vent and stifled a sneeze with both hands. Rapp looked up in irritation. He set his MP-10 down and held his hands out for Adams. Adams squirmed his way out of the opening. Rapp grabbed him under the armpits and helped him down with ease.
As soon as Adams’s feet hit the ground, he grabbed a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his dripping nose. Rapp grabbed his submachine gun and whispered, “What’s wrong?”
Adams blew his nose as quietly as possible and said, “All that dust in there . . . it makes my allergies act up.”
Rapp frowned. “Are you going be all right?”
“Yeah.” Adams finished wiping his nose. “I’ll be fine.”
Getting to work, Rapp opened the top of his backpack and retrieved a micro video monitor with a directional fiber-optic cable attached to the end. They would use this to see around corners and under doors. The black-and-white monitor, which was six inches across by five inches high, was zipped into a black nylon harness. Rapp helped Adams strap it firmly between his chest and stomach allowing the semirigid fiber-optic cable to hang at Adams’s side.
Rapp took the barrel of his silencer and stuck it under the access panel. Standing on his toes, he closed the metal panel, and with the very tip of the silencer he pushed up one of the latches and secured it.
As Rapp looked toward the door, he whispered, “Any questions?”
“Nope.”
