First Strike (7 page)

A white limousine arrived for them at six o'clock. Jade was wearing a pale blue dress; the hem was just shy of the floor, and that was with high heels. Rich looked smart but slightly uncomfortable in a dark suit and plain tie. Halford—as ever—looked as though he might have slept in his suit. He seemed totally relaxed, a contrast to Jade and Rich's palpable nervousness.

“The White House, yeah?” the uniformed driver checked, calling back through the sliding smoked-glass partition. He made it sound like any other destination.

“West Wing,” Halford confirmed.

“Sure thing. You British? Love that accent.”

“
I
don't have an accent,” Halford told him, closing the partition.

Chuck White had arranged for them to arrive early so he could greet them in person. He was waiting for them when they arrived, wearing his dark suit. Rich could see the arm of his sunglasses poking out of his top pocket.

“On duty?” Rich asked.

“Sort of. Never off duty when I'm at the office, but I'm also a guest at the reception.”

“Is that unusual?” Jade asked.

Chuck nodded. “The hired help doesn't usually get to stay for champagne.”

“Quite an honour then,” said Halford.

“Guess so.”

The Roosevelt Room seemed much bigger without the conference table. There were several smaller tables against the walls, covered with white cloths. One had plates stacked at the end—each plate printed with the presidential seal.

Two uniformed waitresses were putting out food. A man in a dark grey suit was arranging chairs and music stands in the opposite corner of the room.

“Is there a band?” Rich asked.

“A small orchestra,” Chuck told him. “We don't skimp on ceremony here, isn't that right, Chester?”

“They should be here by now,” the man sorting out the
chairs said. “It's a new lot; they haven't been before. I'll just check they have the address.” He smiled and rolled his eyes. Flipping open a mobile phone, his smile turned to a frown. “Funny—no signal. Still, the walk will do me good. I'll see if they're in the visitors' foyer.”

More guests were arriving. The waitresses were offering champagne or orange juice, served from silver trays. Rich couldn't stop grinning, and he was pleased to see that Jade and Halford were also smiling.

“This is the life,” said Halford. “Waitress service, as much champagne as you can drink. Bit of food and some sophisticated music later.”

“And a chat with the President of the United States,” said Jade.

“Maybe he'll give a speech,” said Rich. “Tell some jokes.”

“He was a navy pilot, not a stand-up comedian,” said Halford with a laugh. “Your poor dad doesn't know what he's missing.

Rich felt his good mood fade.

Jade had stopped smiling. “I just hope he's all right.”

“He'll be fine,” Halford reassured her. “He won't let a few Chinese rebels and the odd nuclear missile slow him down for long.”

Rich reckoned Halford was right. “Even so, it's a shame he's not here.” Instinctively he checked his cell phone. Like Chester's it had no signal—typical.

“But we're glad you came,” Jade was saying to Halford. “There's no one quite like Dad…” She hesitated, thinking about this. “Which is maybe a good thing,” she decided. “But you're as close as anyone gets.”

Halford laughed. “I think that's a compliment.”

“Hey look, the band has arrived,” said Rich.

“Orchestra,” Jade corrected him.

There were maybe a dozen musicians, setting up their instruments and getting ready in the corner where the music stands and chairs were arranged.

One of the female musicians was wearing a plain, dark grey suit, her brown hair tied up. She turned away as Rich looked at her so he could only see the back of her head. But for just a moment he thought there was something familiar about her. He was sure he'd seen her somewhere before. Was she famous, maybe? Had he seen her on television, or the cover of a CD?

But then Chuck returned to tell them that the food was arriving and soon the President would join them, and Rich thought no more about it.

The first the Police Department knew about it was when the tanks rolled in. It was a strange sight—battle tanks on the streets of Washington DC. Even stranger to see them rumbling down Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House.

The phone line for the Chief of Police was burning. Messages were piling up. The Mayor was threatening to come over in person. And still he couldn't get any response from the military.

“Can somebody tell me why there are goddamn tanks on the Avenue?” he bellowed.

Finally, with something close to relief on her face, his secretary told the Chief that a General Harris Wilson was on the line demanding to speak with him.

“Thank God,” the Chief said, taking the handset. “General Wilson—what the hell's going on? Are we being invaded?”

“I think we've both been the victims of some serious miscommunication,” the General's voice replied. He had a deep, southern accent. “And I can sure tell you I'll bite the hide off whoever screwed this up.”

“What's going on?”

“Manoeuvres. A major anti-terrorism exercise. Been planned for nearly a year, and now they tell me that no
one thought to inform you guys that we're sealing off the Avenue and other roads close to the White House for twenty-four hours. How can that happen, Chief? You tell me that.”

How indeed, the Chief of Police wondered. His anxiety was giving way to relief, but he found he was angry too. “You can't just do that,” he heard himself saying.

The General laughed. “Bit late to tell us now. Anyway, it was all cleared with Homeland Security, the Secret Service and the FBI. Hell, even the Fire Department got informed, yet some joker decides you guys don't need to know. The boys who keep this great capital city of ours running, and no one thinks to tell you? Jeez. I got to hand it to you, Chief, your guys do a great job. It's an honour and a privilege to be working with you all on this one. You give me a call if you need any further clarification, won't you? And I just know I can count on you if my team needs anything.”

The Chief opened his mouth to tell the General he was sending a team over to monitor what was happening, and that in his city unless there was a war on he—the Chief of Police—was in charge of any law and order exercises.

But the phone was dead. General Wilson had hung up.

“All sorted, folks,” General Wilson told the policemen standing by the container truck that was his operations suite. It was parked—or rather, stopped—in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue. Behind it, the floodlit White House looked on impassively.

“What did the Chief say?” a police lieutenant asked.

“Like I told you, there's been a screw-up. All sorted now. Of course, you'd better call in and double check with the Chief's Office. Don't want you guys getting into trouble. And as soon as you've done that, Major Brandon has a road map showing where we need the cordons. No civilians inside, right? Not even the fearless boys in blue. You need anything—you stand at the line and holler.”

The ground beneath them shook as an M1A2 main battle tank, weighing close to seventy tons, passed by. Its enormous 1500 horse power gas-turbine engine drowned out any protest the police lieutenant might have made.

The tank had been fitted with a TUSK—Tank Urban Survival Kit—which modified it specifically for warfare in an urban environment. Amongst other additions, this meant it had a remote-operated weapons-station
mounted on top of the turret, and infra-red sighting. The machine gun, controlled from inside the tank, swivelled slowly to point across the grass towards the White House.

Jade got to the food before Rich, which, she thought to herself, meant there was still some left. There was plenty of vegetarian food for once, and she loaded her plate. A few minutes ago she had been too nervous to think about eating. Now she realised she was hungry.

She moved away from the buffet to let others take their turn. Nearby, the orchestra was still setting up. It seemed to be taking them a long time. She watched a young woman in a dark grey trouser suit unloading a cello from its large, black case. The cello slipped, and almost fell.

Instinctively, Jade moved to help. But the man beside the woman caught it easily and held it for her. He was very ordinary looking with short brown hair, but it was the woman who drew Jade's attention.

It was Kate Hunter—Chuck White's colleague—Jade was sure of it. But Chuck had told them Kate was away in New York State. How could she be here—and in the orchestra?

“Hi there,” said Jade, smiling. “Didn't think I'd be seeing you.”

The woman's expression froze and she glared at Jade. Giving the slightest shake of her head, she said: “I'm real sorry, but I don't think I know you.”

Jade was about to protest, but there was something about the woman's tone. Something about the way she flicked her eyes quickly and urgently towards the brown-haired man beside her. Something about the way the man's very ordinary looking eyes narrowed and hardened as he waited for Jade to reply.

“I'm sorry,” said Jade. “I just meant, I'm surprised to see an orchestra. It's going to be some party.” She forced a smile.

The brown-haired man smiled back. “One hell of a party,” he said. His voice was a husky whisper. “You can bet on that, young lady.”

Jade turned and moved quickly away. She didn't know who the man was, though his whole demeanour had unsettled her. But she was certain that despite her protestations, the woman was Kate Hunter, agent of the US Secret Service.

There were two Chinese fighters on Chance's tail. He had them on radar, but since they were J-10s exactly like he was flying, they couldn't catch him up. He just had to hope they couldn't get within missile range.

He was almost at the border with India, but whether the Chinese planes would turn back remained to be seen. If there was no sign of the Indian Air Force, they might risk following him.

Chance was running low on fuel, and keeping the plane at supersonic speed was draining the tanks even quicker, but he didn't have much choice. If he slowed down, he'd be dead. If he didn't, the plane would run out of fuel and crash.

Just as he reckoned he was reaching the point where he
would have to decide whether he wanted to be shot down or fall out of the sky—either inside a crashing plane or on an ejector seat—the fighters behind him turned away. Chance double-checked the radar. They were definitely breaking off. But why? What were they planning? What did they know that he didn't?

Chance soon found out. Four more planes were approaching him rapidly from in front. Somehow the Chinese had managed to get fighters ahead of him. He was going too fast to avoid them, the ambush was perfect.

“Running out of options,” Chance muttered. If he opened fire first, he could start a small war. Maybe even a big one. If he didn't, and they got missile lock…

But the fighters didn't seem to be attacking. They had slowed and were approaching cautiously. He could see the first of them ahead—an elongated, ungainly dark grey shape against the blue of the sky. It looked more like a Russian design than Chinese.

As the plane banked and manoeuvred to come alongside, Chance saw the Indian Air Force markings. He reduced speed. The pilot of the other plane was pointing and gesturing, clearly wanting Chance to follow him. On the radar, Chance could see that the other three Indian planes were holding their positions—ready to attack if
Chance tried anything. He gave the Indian pilot a thumbs-up, hoping to show he was friendly.

He had crossed the border and not even realised. When they were further into Indian air space, the other planes joined the formation. Jointly built by India and Russia, the SU-30MKIs kept Chance's Chinese J-10 hemmed in as they escorted it to their base.

It was the early hours of the morning when Ardman took the call. He was reading a detective novel, which he was pretty sure he'd solved in chapter four, and sipping from a large glass of single malt whisky.

“Let me see if I've understood this correctly,” he said, swirling the amber liquid round the glass and letting the ice cubes clink together. “You are with the commander of an Indian airbase, and he's happy to let you use his secure line, and to arrange transport, despite the fact you violated Indian air space without any identification or authorisation, if I get the Foreign Secretary to vouch for you.”

“And in return for a second-hand Chinese J-10,” Chance replied.

“Yes, well, I think we'll pretend I don't know about the theft of a secret fighter plane from the People's Liberation
Army Air Force for now. And we won't mention it to the Foreign Secretary either, thank you very much. Let's concentrate on your theory that the Wiengwei rebels are planning to get hold of US nuclear launch codes, shall we?”

“I have to get to Washington.”

“And your new friends in India can arrange this for you, can they?”

“Near enough. In return for the plane.”

Ardman sighed. “I suppose that will have to do then. But we want pictures and a copy of their technical report. Even if that means you have to go economy class.”

“I do think speed might be of the essence.”

Ardman had to agree. “I'll get the Foreign Office to make the necessary arrangements. And I'll check on your friend Ralph as well. Stay where you are for now, and I'll call you back in ten minutes.”

“I'll look forward to it.”

“Oh, and John…” Ardman began, “…well done.” But Chance had hung up.

An hour later, Chance was on an Indian Air Force plane to an American base in Northern Iraq. A US Air Force jet was waiting there to fly him to Washington.

“So the Americans are on the case?” Chance asked Ardman as he called in between the flights.

“They claim they are. My contact at the Pentagon said they don't really believe there's any danger, but they had already got a threat warning in place. They don't take any risks where the President is concerned, and they know Marshal Wieng has considerable influence and resources. The Pentagon has already deployed special forces outside the White House in case of a full attack.”

“They
are
taking it seriously,” Chance agreed. “Just as well. From what I can gather from Mr Chang, Ralph was buying arms from some crooks in the Chinese military and selling them on to the rebels in Wiengwei. He would learn what he could of the rebel plans and targets and sell that information back to the Chinese government. But the Chinese found he was playing both sides, so when he discovered the nuclear plot he couldn't go back to them.”

“So he went looking for the only other person he reckoned might listen to him—you. Even Ralph didn't fancy getting caught in the middle of a nuclear exchange,” Ardman agreed. The Americans have General Wilson in charge. You'll liaise with him when you arrive. He shouldn't need much convincing, my friends tell me that
it was his decision to up the threat level and deploy the troops.”

“Sounds like they can handle it. It's good that they're prepared for anything.”

There was a slight pause at the other end of the line. “Maybe a little too prepared. I've taken the precaution of sending some people to keep you company. Old friends and colleagues of yours, from Hereford.”

“Understood.”

“You'll find General Wilson parked somewhere on Pennsylvania Avenue.”

Chance's plane was ready. His mind was already working through the possibilities as he climbed into the co-pilot's seat. He hoped that Jade and Rich—and Dex Halford—were all right. Normally, he wouldn't have worried at all. Inside the White House, they would be in one of the best protected buildings anywhere on the planet. The chances that anything could happen to them inside were minimal.

Ardman was naturally cautious, but even so, he must be more than usually suspicious to arrange for a team from Hereford to travel to Washington DC in secret—and it would
have
to be in secret. Because a facility near the market town of Hereford was the main base for the most
efficient and deadly military special forces team in the world: the SAS.

The President was due in a few minutes. There was a heightened atmosphere at the reception as everyone waited. Conversations seemed hushed; there was a tangible sense of anticipation.

Jade had left the musicians as they unpacked and assembled their instruments. She had no idea what Kate Hunter was up to, but she wanted to find Chuck White. A dark-suited Secret Service agent accompanied several of the musicians from the room. A woman with flame red hair was carrying a long, black case.

“You take your flute to the bathroom?” the Secret Service man asked.

“I take it everywhere. You have no idea what a good flute costs these days.”

Chuck was on the far side of the room. Jade could see him over the shoulders of several other people. Close to Chuck, she saw Dex Halford, and guessed Rich was there too.

Sure enough, as she approached, she caught sight of her brother's distinctive blond hair.

“Have you tried these sesame toast things?” Rich asked as Jade reached them.

“I haven't tried anything,” Jade realised, glancing down at her plate. “I saw Kate Hunter.”

“Thought she was out of town,” said Halford. “That's what Chuck told us.”

“She's with the orchestra.” Jade was trying to attract Chuck's attention, but he seemed distracted. He held his hand up, gesturing for her to wait a moment. With his other hand he was adjusting his earpiece. A thin coiled wire ran down behind his ear and disappeared under his collar.

“Useless thing,” Chuck muttered.

He looked round, trying to catch the eye of another Secret Service agent. The agent by the nearby door was also fiddling with his earpiece. Across the room, Jade saw another man trying to catch Chuck's eye. The agent raised his hands in a “what's up?” gesture and pointed to his own ear.

“I don't like this,” said Chuck. “You guys stay here.”

“My mobile's given up working too,” said Rich. “No signal at all.”

“Is it to do with Kate?” Jade asked.

“What?”

“Kate Hunter—she's with the orchestra.”

Chuck froze. “Kate's here?”

Jade nodded, surprised at the sudden anxiety in the man's tone.

“Oh, my God,” said Chuck. He raised his hand so he could speak quietly but urgently into the tiny microphone in the cuff of his jacket. “Can anyone hear me? Anyone got comms? This is Agent White declaring a situation. We have a Code Red, repeat Code Red. Do not bring in the President. Get him to a safe area now.”

The agent on the other side of the room was still shrugging and tapping his ear. The man by the door didn't move.

There was an audible gasp as the door opened, and the President of the United States stepped into the room.

The ceramic gun is a myth. There is no firearm available that is made of a substance undetectable by x-ray scanners or metal detectors. The materials that might be used are simply not strong enough. And even if they were, the ammunition would be detected.

But there are other ways of getting a weapon past security checks. It was a compromise, but Jefferson Kent's team was willing to sacrifice speed for surprise. It took Kent himself several minutes to assemble his handgun from the metal components of the trumpet he had openly
and legitimately brought through metal detectors and thorough searches into the White House.

The barrel was disguised as the trumpet's lead pipe. The stock was the tuning slide. The valves formed the handle and the magazine—bullets and tranquiliser darts had been concealed in lead sheaths within the valve casings.

The other weapons were just as ingeniously disguised. If everything went to plan—and Kent had no doubt that it would—then Lorraine Metz would have removed the knife concealed in the metal side of her flute case and killed the Secret Service agent escorting her, Hank and Tom to the restrooms. Hank had already quickly assembled his own handgun from a saxophone. Tom would take the agent's weapon. Then they would make their way to the Situation Room in the basement.

With all communications into and out of the West Wing already jammed, Jefferson Kent's next task was easy.

As the President stepped into the Roosevelt Room, Kent raised the fully assembled handgun and fired.