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“Roger.” Rapp pressed the speaker button and placed the handset back in its cradle. From the tiny speaker on the control panel of the radio, an electronic hum told Rapp the line was still open. Turning his attention back to the monitor strapped to his chest, he went to work trying to get something from the surveillance unit in the basement.
AZIZ’S SPIRITS HAD rebounded. The news that he would have his hands around the neck of the president by dusk today had helped temper the loss of the idiot Hasan. If he could just hold out until then, the chances for complete success would double, if not triple. The next fifteen or so hours would be the tensest of the siege. Aziz corrected himself on that point: it would be the next five hours. Once the sun was up he would be safe again. But come nightfall the chances of a strike would increase once again. Aziz had gone to great pains to study the techniques used by the world’s elite counterterrorist strike teams, such as Germany’s GSG-9, France’s GIGN, Britain’s SAS, and of course, America’s three premier teams. The groups all shared information on training, strategy, intelligence, and tactics, and competed in annual competitions to help hone each other’s skills.
All of the groups followed a fairly standard procedure when confronted with a hostage crisis: initial deployment of assets; intelligence collection; planning, development, and practice of the takedown; mission approval; and finally, execution of takedown. All of the groups were good, and the three U.S. teams were always ranked at or near the top in every category except one. When it came to mission approval, the U.S. teams were consistently ranked at the bottom. The common critique from the international counterterrorism community was that the U.S. had too many people in the chain of command. Too many people throwing their opinions into the arena and thus slowing down a process that depended on speed and efficiency.
This was one of the things Aziz was planning to exploit. This, as well as the American media and ultimately public opinion. The morning would bring a new day in the media cycle, and Aziz would begin to implement another crucial part of his plan. If he succeeded, it would keep the dogs at bay for another day. The politicians were his allies, and he needed to keep them believing there was a way out of the situation. Aziz needed to keep them and their opinions directly involved in the chain of command, because as long as they stayed involved, the generals would be unable to strike.
As Aziz walked down the hall with Bengazi, he started to see one fundamental flaw in his plan. He had succeeded in negating the Americans’ manpower advantage through the use of explosives and the exterior surveillance cameras he had seized from the Secret Service. With the amount of explosives he had deployed, any attack would result in the deaths of all the rescuers and, if need be, the hostages too. The flaw, Aziz was now sure, was created once again by the separation of the West Wing and the Executive Mansion. The West Wing was one hundred percent secured, but the mansion was not. If the Americans found out that he was in the process of extracting the president from his bunker, there was no telling what they might do. It was entirely likely that they would risk everything to prevent the president from falling into his hands.
As Aziz and Bengazi neared the end of the hall, Aziz stopped and said, “Muammar, I want you to stay here for the rest of the night. I will send you a replacement at”—Aziz looked at his watch—“seven. I want you to make sure that nothing happens to my little ferret.” Aziz pointed in the direction of the bunker. “If you fail me this time, you will be begging for a quick death.” The subordinate nodded while maintaining his ramrod posture.
Aziz turned to go back upstairs and was confronted with two doors. One of them he had not noticed before. Turning to Bengazi, he asked, “Where does this lead?”
“To the boiler room,” the heavily bearded Bengazi answered.
“Boiler room,” Aziz repeated while he mulled over the words. “Was it secured after we took over?”
“Yes,” stated Bengazi. “I checked it personally.”
Aziz stood looking at the doorway, thinking for a long moment. “Do you remember,” he asked Bengazi, “the incident at the Indonesian consulate in Amsterdam . . . back in the seventies?”
Bengazi’s face twisted as he tried to jog his memory. After a while, he replied, “Yes, I remember what happened. The terrorists surrendered after a long standoff with the police.”
“Two weeks,” answered Aziz, referring to how long the siege had lasted. “Did you know that during the standoff the CIA assisted the Dutch government by getting one of their people into the building via the sewer pipe?”
“No.”
“Neither did the terrorists. The man came in through the basement and bugged the building. Everything the terrorists said and did was heard by the Dutch authorities.” Aziz looked back at the door. “When was the last time you checked this room?”
“I checked it yesterday afternoon.”
“A lot has happened since then. I think we should check it again.” Without waiting for Bengazi’s opinion, Aziz started for the door.
THE TWO SEALS trudged forward through the ventilation duct in complete darkness, Craft in the lead and Shultz close behind. This is what they had trained their whole lives to do. There wasn’t a Special Forces operator in the service worth his salt who wouldn’t have given his left nut to be in their position. All the push-ups, early morning runs, icy swims, hour upon hour of target practice, live fire drills, parachute jumps that ran into the triple digits—it all came down to this.
“Apprehension” was a word that didn’t belong in their vocabulary. Maybe “caution” from time-to-time, but not “apprehension.” These men relished the task before them and knew all too well what the stakes were. Death was a distinct possibility. They had seen team members die in both training and covert operations. That was the life they had decided to live, and there wasn’t a day they regretted the decision.
The younger Craft was in the lead because he had asked
to be. The two SEALs were now experiencing the same problem that Rapp and Adams had. The closer they got to the White House the worse their radio reception became. Like the two that had gone before them, they had removed their earpieces after a while because the static became so bad.
It had not occurred to anyone, either at Langley or at SEAL Team Six’s mobile command post, to have Shultz and Craft string along a phone line—a military practice that had been commonplace for almost a century, but had gone by the wayside with the recent onslaught of high-tech radios and billion-dollar satellites. Events had progressed too quickly, and a low-tech solution to a critical battlefield problem had been missed.
Craft was glad he had remembered to put on his elbow and knee pads before being lowered into the ventilation duct. He had about thirty pounds of gear on his body and was pulling another thirty behind him via a rope. Wiggling like a reptile, he could move only four to six inches at a time, and his elbows were doing most of the work.
The two men moved quietly for the most part, the only real noise coming from the equipment they dragged behind them. The noise wasn’t much, no more than that of a shirt sliding down a clothes chute. It was hard to tell how far they had gone, but to Craft it seemed as if they were nearing the end. He stopped momentarily and looked behind him. All he found was more blackness and the sounds of his swim buddy squirming his way forward. Craft decided to shed some light on the situation. Turning onto one side, he extracted his pistol, a Heckler & Koch USP .45 ACP. Attached to the pistol was both a cylindrical suppressor and a laseraiming module. Craft turned on the laser, and the red dot bounced off the walls of the duct. Aiming the pistol straight ahead, Craft found the end of the shaft not more than thirty feet away.
AZIZ PLACED HIS hand on the doorknob and nodded to Bengazi. Bengazi took up position opposite Aziz and signaled that he was ready. When Aziz opened the door, Bengazi swung his rifle and half of his body into the now open space. Bengazi looked down at the expansive room from a slightly elevated position. A small grated metal landing was just on the other side of the door, and three steps led from the landing down to the stark concrete floor of the boiler room. One dim light off to the left provided minimal lighting. After Bengazi looked from one side of the room to the other, he checked on both sides of the doorframe for more light switches. After coming up empty, he spotted a group of four switches at the bottom of the grated steps. Bengazi moved down the steps and slapped all four switches up with the palm of his hand. The room lit up with powerful overhead lamps.
Aziz stepped onto the landing and surveyed the room, his MP-5 gripped in both hands. He nodded for Bengazi to move out ahead while he slowly came down the steps. Neither man spoke. Bengazi had known Aziz long enough to recognize when he was spooked.
Aziz did not know exactly what he was looking for. As he peered around the room, he wondered if he wasn’t being overly paranoid. There had been very little time for sleep over the last week, and his nerves were getting raw. The truth, however, was that it is impossible to be too paranoid when dealing with the CIA. He should have thought of this possibility earlier, but so much had changed from the original plan. It was a grave oversight on his part. He had been thinking of too many things and spreading himself too thin, but he was focused now. Nothing mattered more than getting his hands on the president, and if that meant sacrificing some of his assets to secure this area of the basement, it was a gamble that was well worth it.
As Aziz moved across the room, a good ten paces behind Bengazi, his eyes searched the floor for any type of drain, grate, or pipe. While he looked, he wondered how big the sewer pipe must have been in Amsterdam. Not any pipe would do; it would have to be big, and he doubted that anything big enough to support a human would be running into the White House.
Aziz was looking under one of the large boilers when he heard a soft whistle from Bengazi. Standing up straight, he looked over to his man, who was standing with one finger over his lips and the barrel of his rifle pointing up.
Aziz stood with his neck craned upward, watching the metal duct that ran from the wall diagonally across the room to some large piece of equipment. Listening intently, he focused everything on the duct. After a short while he thought he saw something, a glimmer off the lights, a buckle in the metal. Aziz’s brow furrowed. Again he saw something, some type of movement. Aziz stepped from his cover to get a closer look.
