White: A Novel (45 page)

“What about the
Intrepid
?”

“Just cleared the straits of Yemen,” Havelock answered. “The War Room says they’ll have launch standoff in about two hours.”

“Good.” Venable nodded. “That will give everyone time to stand up to war footing at Raven Rock and Site Seven. I assume the vice president has come up to speed on COG protocols?”

He smiled gruffly, pleased with his new grasp of acronyms and esoteric terms of art.

“That’s our understanding,” Havelock responded. He looked out a side window at two other identical Marine Corps choppers flying in loose formation. They were decoys, he knew, designed to throw off attempts to shoot down their slow-moving and very visible “high value” target. One in three struck him as poor odds.

“David,” Chase spoke up. “I think we need to talk about your decision here.” The helicopter’s interior was noisy but secure from eavesdropping. “We still don’t have irrefutable evidence that the Saudis are behind this. There are several options available to us that fall short of nuclear weapons.”

It was a losing argument, she knew, but one she felt compelled to make.

“This country is at war,” Venable countered. “And my sworn duty as commander in chief is to protect it from all enemies foreign and domestic.” He stared directly at the black suitcase, imagining what it would feel like to order it opened. “The only way we are going to stop further bloodshed is by sending a clear message.”

“But a message to whom?” she asked. “To an Arab world that already thinks we’re a threat to their very existence? This will only spur more resentment among moderate states. Saudi Arabia has been an ally, someone we . . .”

“I think you’re going to want to hear this before digging your heels in,” Havelock interrupted. The national security advisor closed his bifold cell phone. “DOE has detected high levels of radiation inside the White House, Capitol, and several other downtown buildings. DHS thinks it is a contamination of the public water supply.”

“My God,” Venable muttered. “The Louisville isotopes.”

“Closed-system contamination,” Havelock agreed. “Our worst fear.”

Everyone in the chopper understood the implications. Every drop of water, from the Oval Office lavatory to FBI drinking fountains to showers in the Senate locker room had been poisoned. Terrorists had turned the nation’s capital into a ghost town.

“How soon can we get airborne?” the president asked. His face glowed furious red.

“They’re standing by with turbines spinning,” Havelock said. “Twelve minutes.”

“I want Great Britain, Russia, China, and NATO on the line as soon as we go wheels up,” Venable demanded. “We launch as soon as the
Intrepid
gets into position.”

“FREEZE, ASSHOLE!”

Jeremy had heard the upstairs door burst open and heavy footsteps storming through the house. He at first thought it had to be more of Ellis’s Cell Six members, but there were too many of them.

“Police!” another voice shouted as flashlight beams shined down the stairs. A team of black-suited SWAT officers flowed down after them.

Jeremy dropped his gun and pushed his hands over his head, anticipating their tactics. They would key on weapons, assuming that anyone with a gun deserved killing.

“FBI!” Jeremy yelled. “I’m FBI!”

This seemed to cause a stutter step among the first two men in line, but not for long. The five-member team moved lightning quick to secure Caroline and the kids while knocking Jeremy to the floor and wrenching his hands behind his back.

“Holy shit,” Jeremy heard one of the men say. It had to be a grisly sight. Caleb had bled out in a gallon-wide pool. The shotgunner’s brains were splattered against the wall. Caroline lay almost naked, bound in an unnatural contortion. Patrick and Christopher huddled beside her, sobbing and moaning in torment.

“I know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong,” Jeremy tried to argue. “I’m an undercover FBI agent, and this is my family.”

“Shut the fuck up,” one of the SWAT members yelled. “We know you’re the one who drove that concrete truck.”

Another operator searched Jeremy for weapons then pulled his wallet out of his pants pocket. “This says his name is Walker,” he called out, reading Jeremy’s undercover license.

“That’s my undercover ID!” Jeremy tried to explain. One of the men pressed his knee into the back of Jeremy’s neck and wrenched his wrists up between his shoulder blades. It hurt so badly, he briefly forgot about his leg.

“Save your breath, asshole,” the man who had cuffed him said. “My wife was on the Hill when your fucking bomb went off.”

Patrick began to howl again, and one of the other officers tried to comfort him.

“It’s OK, darlin’,” he said. “We’re gonna get you out of here.”

“Bravo Two to CP, we need EMS with ALS,” another man radioed. He reached down and re-covered Caroline with the ragged shirt.

“Don’t you hurt my daddy!” Maddy yelled. She seemed to have rebounded quickly from the shock of another violent entry.

“Easy, darlin’,” the team leader tried to calm her. “We’re not hurtin’ nobody.”

“I need to reach the vice president,” Jeremy pleaded. “We don’t have time to . . .”

Before he could finish, another two-man team descended the cellar stairs.

“It’s Ansar, no doubt about it,” one of them advised. “You should see what we found upstairs: audiotapes, C-4, weapons, maps . . . the whole nine yards.”

“Holy shit,” the other said, aping an earlier observation. “What the hell happened down here?”

“I’m telling you . . . ,” Jeremy tried to explain, but the man kneeling on his neck choked off further words.

“I don’t know,” the team leader said. “But we’re sure as hell going to find out. Get the woman and kids to a hospital. Then take this piece of shit to Meade. We’ll see what he’s got to say with a cattle prod up his ass.”

JORDAN MITCHELL HAD
always considered variability his greatest enemy. It was the common lament of a control freak, he knew, but that didn’t change his compulsion for order.

“Where are they?” he asked.

Trask pointed to a PowerPoint time line off to their left.

“Just touched down at Andrews,” the chief of staff replied. “Kneecap is fueled and ready. Airspace is closed. They’ll go with a vertical takeoff.”

“They can do that?” Mitchell asked. Despite the crushing array of issues confronting him, the aerobatic abilities of a Boeing 747 suddenly seemed the most interesting.

“Yes,” Trask said. “Bush did it right after 9/ 11.”

“Got them!” Sirad spoke up. She sat at a terminal, alone.

Mitchell peered over her shoulder.

“Keystroke or voice transcripts?” he asked.

“Neither.” Sirad pointed to a page of jumbled numbers, letters, and symbols. “This is the launch-code verification framework at Raven Rock. Even though WHCA handles all voice and data transmission, the NSA is responsible for verifying any attempt to use the football.”

“Explain.”

Sirad typed rapidly at the keyboard. She had done her homework well.

“As a fail-safe measure, the NSA changes launch codes—called gold codes—daily. These changes are wired via a secure Web-based conduit called DSNET3 to the White House, the Pentagon, Strategic Air Command, and through burst comms to the Navy’s TACAMO communications aircraft.”

“This is their site you’re looking at?”

“Not their site, their data stream,” Sirad said. “We’re tapped directly into the transmission conduit linking the National Command Authority—in this case, the president aboard Air Force One—and the Pentagon.”

“Giving us immediate notification of any order to fire,” Mitchell responded.

“More than that,” Sirad said. “We have the ability to intercept. The NSA conduit has an automatic verification response fail-safe. The system is designed to ask for a redundant command, just like when you delete something on your computer. We can intercept the second response before it gets through. Think of it as having a pair of vise grips at one end of a garden hose.”

“And we have access to Air Force One?” he asked.

“Same as the Pentagon.” Sirad nodded. “They won’t know the difference between us and some E-5 electronics tech.”

“Excellent,” Mitchell said in a rare exclamation of approval. “I have an urgent message from the FBI to the president. Prepare to copy.”

ELLIS LAY IN
his wooded sniper hide, knowing his part in the endgame was just minutes away.

Deep breath,
he reminded himself.
Adrenaline is the shooter’s scourge.

His hands began to tremble as the three Marine Corps helicopters appeared from the northwest. He had lain in position for more than two hours now, but it wasn’t cold that made him shiver.

Ammo, magazine, receiver, chamber, safety, trigger, scope,
he silently recited. Each individual part of the process could fail, and there would be no second chance.

Ellis dropped the magazine and tapped it gently against his forearm to make sure the monstrous cartridges had properly seated. He pulled back the heavy spring-loaded bolt and checked the receiver group to make sure nothing had fallen in to contaminate it. Finally, he inserted the magazine, released the bolt, and listened for the first round to slam into battery.

Discipline,
he coached himself. The colonel was a military man, born of violence and destined for delivery, but only God himself could guide what was to follow.

The Phineas priest settled behind the massive weapon’s steel-and-plastic stock. He lowered his eye to the 10x Unertl scope and tested the swivel on his specially constructed bench rest. The stainless-steel device allowed free motion of the long black barrel.

United States of America,
he read through his scope: four words written on an airplane. Four words that still represented his second strongest allegiance.

ELIZABETH BEECHUM HAD
begun to assemble her shadow government as soon as the first armored Town Car arrived: forty members from each house of Congress; the secretaries of state, defense, interior; the attorney general; and three Supreme Court justices. Everyone gathered in a tiered 250-seat amphitheater fronted by a proscenium stage.

Members of Congress gravitated into predictable caucuses—Republicans on the right, Democrats on the left. The cabinet members sat down front, the Supreme Court justices nestled quietly off to the side.

“I’ll dispense with formality,” the vice president said. She spoke from a podium atop the stage. Her voice filled the room, courtesy of an ample PA, and conversation calmed to an almost palpable still.

“I don’t know how much you have heard, but Washington’s water supply has been contaminated with radioactive material,” Beechum advised.

Voices erupted again. These people had families and friends in the District.

“Our experts tell us that it can be flushed out within days, but the president has ordered wholesale evacuation. His chopper just landed at Andrews Air Force Base. Kneecap should lift off within moments.”

“Kneecap?” the junior senator from Rhode Island called out. “Isn’t that the Doomsday Plane?”

“It’s a mobile command and control center,” she said in a clear, calm voice. “I have been authorized to tell you that the president plans to exercise his authority under the War Powers Act to launch retaliatory strikes against four strategic targets inside Saudi Arabia.”

The group erupted again.

“What kinds of attacks?” the House’s Republican whip called out. Rumors and speculation had already begun to spread.

“Tactical nuclear,” Beechum announced to gasps and pockets of outrage. She stood at the podium, trying to present a visage of authority and calm.

“That will start a holy war!” someone called out.

“I know this comes as a shock to some of you,” she said. “But that’s the president’s decision. If you have any objections, I suggest you take them up with him.”

“SHUT THE FUCK
up,” the driver said.

Jeremy sat in the back seat of a blacked-out Suburban. Two marked units raced ahead of them, lights and sirens blazing a path through downtown DC traffic.

“I’m telling you, my name is Jeremy Waller. I’m an FBI agent assigned to the Hostage Rescue Team. I’ve been working a classified undercover operation in connection with this terrorism investigation.”

They had restrained his feet and hands, but there was no way to silence his protests.

“Fuck you,” the passenger said. “We’ve been surveilling you and your terrorist puke friends since you dropped off the concrete truck. So save the bullshit for your lawyer.”

“All right, then, let me talk to him,” Jeremy agreed. If Caleb had been telling the truth, he desperately needed to find Beechum. Only she could prevent the president from launching the world into Armageddon. “When can I talk to my lawyer?”

“Well, considering that you are an illegal enemy combatant, caught during the course of a national security investigation, and that we’re under no obligation even to acknowledge that you exist, I’d say sometime around the end of the next century, you asshole.”

Jeremy’s heart actually hurt in his chest.
Think!
he screamed at himself. If he didn’t find a way to Beechum, the identity of Jafar al Tayar would rot with him in his grave.

“Why don’t you accept that you’re busted, you traitor bastard?” the passenger said. He spun in his seat and jammed an accusatory finger in Jeremy’s still-bloody face. “The only things I want to hear out of your mouth are the names of the people you’re working with and the words
I’m sorry.
”

Jeremy wanted to fight back, but a sudden moment of revelation froze him in his seat.
That’s it!
he thought.
That’s the way out!

“I’m sorry,” he said with all the remorse he could fake. “OK, I’ve said it. Now take me to the vice president and I’ll tell you everything I know.”

“YOU’LL NEED TO
take your seats immediately,” the flight officer advised. It was the first time President Venable had seen any member of his military entourage wearing camouflage BDUs.