Foreign Enemies and Traitors (99 page)

****

After only five minutes on the ground,
Hugh Rogan increased power and pulled pitch.  The powerful Blackhawk helicopter dipped its nose in salute, and then hurtled forward and up.  As the ground receded beneath them, he called in again on VHF. 

                “Clarksburg, this is Army Two-Niner-Five, back with you at 2,500 feet.  We’re okay.”

                “Army Two-Niner-Five, glad to hear it.  Ident.  Do you wish to cancel the emergency?”

                “Yes sir, we just had a chip detector malfunction.  Now we’re good to go.  Squawking ident.”  Rogan pushed the identification switch, giving the Clarksburg tower an enhanced radar image, plus digitally encoded information about his aircraft.

                “Understood, Two-Niner-Five.  Radar contact.  State intentions.”

                “If our flight plan hasn’t dropped out of the system, we’d like to proceed as originally filed to Poppa Four Zero.”  This was the civilian call sign for Camp David.

                “Army Two-Niner-Five, turn right to a heading of 080, climb out and maintain 7,000.  Stand by for a revised clearance to Poppa Four Zero.”

                “Army Two-Niner-Five, heading 080, climb and maintain 7,000.”

                ****

Their flight path took them
across the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia, between Maryland and Virginia.  An hour after landing to pick up the videotape, the Blackhawk left West Virginia’s air space, flew over the Potomac River and entered Maryland.  Born in the Appalachian Mountains behind them, the river formed the jigsaw boundary between Maryland and the states of West Virginia and Virginia, all the way to Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake Bay.  Out here in the foothills and piedmont country the river was a brilliant snake, its coils shining like a quicksilver ribbon in the morning sunlight.  Washington was sixty air miles southeast, more if you followed the meanderings of the Potomac.  Harper’s Ferry, the easternmost point of West Virginia, was only a dozen or so miles south. 

                A thought popped into Phil Carson’s mind as he mentally traced the course of the river.  He wondered if Wally Malvone’s house on the Potomac below Washington had ever been rebuilt since he had burned it down, or if it was just a vacant lot.  And he wondered if Brad Fallon had ever made it to the ocean, or if he was still down there somewhere, resting on the bottom of the river.

                Three miles past the Potomac, out of the left side windows, they saw the white X formed by the crossing of interstates 81 and 70 at Hagerstown, Maryland.  The intersection marked a spot only seventeen miles from Camp David.  The forests of West Virginia were increasingly giving way to a patchwork of small farms, woods, villages and towns.  They were seven minutes out.  It was D-Day, but instead of hitting the beaches or dropping into a jungle LZ, they were going to land inside one of the most highly secure military compounds on the entire planet.

                The two enlisted crewmembers on the Blackhawk had their own positions on each side, forward of the troop seats and just behind the cockpit.  Their gun hatches were closed on this winter flight.  They were not carrying machine guns for this cross-country hop from Fort Campbell to “Naval Support Facility Thurmont,” military-speak for Camp David.  After leaving Hagerstown’s air space and flying over open country again, the crew chief on the left gunner’s seat began to talk to the pilots on his helmet intercom.  He stood and scanned outside and behind the helicopter through the window on his gun hatch. 

                Carson looked out his left bay door window and saw a Marine Corps Super Cobra attack helicopter only a hundred yards away, coming up parallel to the Blackhawk.  They were close enough to see the two helmeted pilots, sitting one behind the other in the nose of the aircraft.  The Cobra was missile armed, and had a three-barreled minigun jutting out from its chin.  This modern Super Cobra didn’t look very different from the Cobras Carson had occasionally seen in Vietnam, when they were making close-air-support rocket and gun runs.  He never saw them in Laos or Cambodia, though.  “Over the fence,” they were always on their own.

                Camp David had a twenty-mile exclusion zone around it when the president was there.  Any civilian aircraft wandering into this air space would receive a similar armed welcome, and then they would be forced to land at the Hagerstown airport to meet some very unfriendly federal agents.  Faster intruding aircraft would be met by F-16 Falcon fighters.  Army Blackhawk 295 was expected today, so after a minute, the deadly Cobra attack helicopter rolled away and quickly disappeared.

                ****

Camp David occupies 180 acres
and is shaped roughly like a diamond, one-half mile from tip to tip.  It sits atop a hill in the middle of Catoctin Mountain Park, a 10,000-acre preserve overseen by the National Park Service.  The camp is surrounded by thick stands of Eastern hardwood trees, and its perimeter is visible from the air because of the cleared security strip around it. 

                The helicopter landing field takes up much of the bottom of the diamond, an area the size of several football fields.  If you divided the camp into two halves from top to bottom, the western half of the diamond would contain most of the support facilities for the camp.  These would be the barracks for the Naval support personnel and the Marine guards, the water works, staff parking, and a military road inside the western perimeter, from the helicopter landing zone at the south to the barracks at the north. 

                The eastern point of the diamond contains the reason for the entire camp: the presidential residence called the Aspen Lodge.  The rest of the eastern half of Camp David is composed of other residences for visiting dignitaries, meeting and dining facilities, and the Laurel Lodge conference center.  All of these lodges and support facilities are connected by asphalt lanes exquisitely maintained by Camp David’s own contingent of Navy Seabees.  They wind between thick stands of birch, hazel, locust, beech, ash and oak trees.  In the summertime these trees make Camp David a shady realm with short viewing distances.  In the winter, when the trees are devoid of leaves, it is possible to look through this forest and sometimes catch glimpses of the multiple rows of wire fencing surrounding the camp.  Camp David’s fences, sensors and cameras would be the envy of any maximum-security prison, but here they serve to keep unwanted visitors out, instead of prisoners in. 

                The Blackhawk banked and turned as it descended, giving Carson a good view of the landing zone.  Three “white top” Marine One helicopters were parked on an asphalt apron that led into a single large hangar.  There were always three, in order to confound any terrorists who might try to assassinate the president with a shoulder-launched missile.  Several other VH-60 “Whitehawks” were parked on the grass landing field.  Like the Marine Ones, these VIP helicopters were painted forest green up to the tops of their windshields and troop doors, and above that, they were gleaming white except for their black rotor blades.  Most of today’s guests were being shuttled up from Washington on these VIP versions of the military Blackhawk.  By contrast, the flat black and dark green MH-60K looked like an old combat boot coming down among polished wingtips and loafers.  The refueling probe jutting out from under the right side of its chin identified it as a special operations “Pavehawk.”

                The Blackhawk landed as directed at the bottom of the field, nearest to the southern tip of the diamond.  They waited until the engines had shut down and the rotors had stopped to slide open the troop doors, deplane and stretch their legs after the three-and-a-half-hour flight.  The pilots and crew chiefs were out first, the crew chiefs immediately pretending to check the chip sensor again.

                Standing by the aircraft, they took off their insulated field jackets and put on their blue ASU coats with the insignias and ribbons attached.  Last on were their blue officer’s combination covers.  The helicopter pilots, the Camp David team and the Raven Rock team briefly conferred.

                “Well, gentlemen, this is it,” said General Armstead.  “Everything is set to go.  I’ll escort Boone and Carson to the conference center, and then we’ll pull the old switcheroo.”  Next the general addressed CW4 Rogan.  “How did the malfunction story go over with them here?”

                “Perfect.  We can stay here for at least twenty minutes without any trouble.  Longer if we need it, but I wouldn’t push it much more than that.  After that, the helicopter maintenance people here are bound to get nosy, and come down to help.”

                The general looked at his watch.  “It’s 0940.  I’ll be back before ten, so you only have to stall for that long.”

                “No problem, sir, we can do that.”

                “All right, good.  As soon as I’m back, we’ll fly to Raven Rock.  Be ready to light the fires when you see me coming.”  The next hop, to Site R, followed their scheduled two-leg flight plan.  What was not officially scheduled was that General Armstead would be slipping out of the Camp David conference center and reboarding the helicopter just before it departed.  Once Armstead was back aboard the helo, the “engine problem” would be fixed, and they would take off.  The point-to-point movements of the helicopter were carefully monitored and tracked, but just who would be aboard for each leg was not so easily checked.  This was the essence of the shell game at the core of their plan today.

                General Armstead gave his two ersatz staff officers one more looking over.  “Are you ready, General Harper?”

                “I’m ready, sir,” said Carson.

                “And is my aide-de-camp ready?”

                “Yes sir, I’m ready, General,” said Boone.  “Let’s get her done.”

                “Okay then,” said General Armstead.  “Hi-diddle-diddle, straight up the middle.  Into the dragon’s lair we go.”

                A white vehicle like a golf cart came zipping across the grassy field and met them at their helicopter.  The cart had a roof and windshield, two conventional seats in the front, and two rear-facing seats behind them.  A Marine corporal in dress blues parked the electric car, stepped out, came to attention and saluted. 

                Boone came to attention and briefly returned his salute.  This type of “transportation coordination” was one of the functions of a general’s aide-de-camp.  “Are you our driver?”  he asked.  Armstead and Carson stood by the helicopter’s open bay, their briefcases in hand.

                “Yes sir, Major.  But only to security.  I’m sure you understand.”

                “Of course.”

                Lieutenant General Armstead and “Brigadier General Harper” sat in the back of the electric cart, facing aft.  Boone sat up front in the passenger seat beside the enlisted driver.  The Marine drove across the grass field between the parked VH-60 Whitehawks, and then along the asphalt toward the big hangar.  The three big Marine One choppers were parked in a row on the paved apron.  Marines in dress blue uniforms stood guard around them.  They were not visibly armed.  Boone knew that the Marines to worry about were the ones he could not see, the ones hidden in the trees with their sniper rifles.  They would not be wearing dress blues, but camouflaged ghillie suits that gave them the appearance of a clump of brush.  As snipers they were his brothers, but he did not want to meet them today.

                The electric cart drove past and around the open hangar, and down a sidewalk to a small one-story prefab building.  Chain link security fencing extended from both sides of this structure.  Their driver parked and hopped out and came to attention again.  “Right through there, sirs.”

                The door was opened by another waiting Marine as they approached it.  A Marine captain in dress blues saluted the party as they entered.  Inside the drab room was a long table, with more Marines standing on the other side.  A staff sergeant said, “Please put your briefcases on the table.”  These Marines were not smiling, saluting or making small talk.  Completely non-ceremonial pistols were holstered on their belts.  The captain hovered behind the enlisted men.  Two men wearing dark suits, presumeably Secret Service agents, were also standing behind the table.  Armstead, Carson and Boone placed their briefcases and binders on the table as directed.  There was nothing in them except folders, briefing papers, cell phones, BlackBerries, computer drives, connecting cables and other expected twenty-first-century office clutter.  A Marine dug through their cases, even taking out smaller folders and binders and riffling through them.  Inside Boone’s briefcase was a binder with a green nylon cover, and its own zipper enclosure.  The Marine unzipped the case, looked inside, and zipped it back up again.  Satisfied with his visual inspection, he then passed them all through an airport-type color X-ray machine.  Another Marine carefully studied each item on his monitor before advancing the belt.

                “Your military IDs, please,” said a Marine sergeant.  Their ID cards were already in their top left jacket pockets, according to regulations.  General Armstead presented his card first.  The sergeant took the ID and held it up, comparing the general’s face to the picture on the card and to the plastic nametag on his uniform.  A tiny embossed logo design on his plastic nametag matched the cloth patch sewn to his left shoulder at the sleeve seam.  The symbol of U.S. Army North, the Fifth Army, showed a white number five nestled under a capital letter A, on a blue and red field.  These nametag logos and shoulder insignias were replicated on the uniforms of Boone and Carson.  Satisfied, the Marine said, “Welcome to Camp David, General Armstead.”  He leaned down to the table and made a check mark on a computer printout listing the names of the expected conference attendees.

                Phil Carson handed his card across the table next, and the staff sergeant again compared faces, seemingly reading every letter and number in every block on both sides of the card, and studying every line on Carson’s sixty-four-year-old face.  Today his officer’s cap concealed the prominent horizontal scar across the top of his forehead.  Makeup had masked the scar when the picture was taken with a digital camera at Hugh Rogan’s house.  This was because the photo on the predated ID should have predated the obviously rather new scar.  Carson was ready with a glib story about a racquetball injury, but it was not needed.  His hat did not come off during the security screening, and his scar was not seen.  Finally, the staff sergeant handed his card back.