“The Cessna’s veering off and hightailing it for Maryland!” informed Matt Durham.
“The hell with that frigging plane!” yelled Morrison, whose own glance remained locked on the descending parachutist. “Come on, Thomas. If that fool thinks he’s going to get away with crashing our party, we’re going to have to show him differently.”
They rushed back down the stairs to the South Portico. As they reached the mansion’s exterior terrace, Thomas spotted their airborne trespasser. The parachutist was somewhat awkwardly manipulating the canopy’s steering risers to fly the chute to a South Lawn touchdown.
With another 1,000 feet to go before hitting solid earth, Thomas estimated that the jumper would land somewhere near the helipad. A small army of over three dozen uniformed and plainclothes Secret Service agents were also headed toward this portion of the South Lawn, and Thomas sprinted past the tent area to join them.
The caterers, band members, and roadies who were congregated beneath the tents, were getting an excellent view of the entire incident.
Several of them were capturing this spectacle on their video cameras.
As Thomas ran past them, one of the long-haired onlookers shouted out in encouragement.
“Go get ‘em, man!”
Thomas reached the helipad area just as the jumper was about to touch down. Thomas didn’t bother drawing his pistol, his associates already displaying more than enough firepower to put down a riot. A wide assortment of pistols and revolvers, along with several Uzis, and an Ingram MAC 10, were aimed skyward, and one formidable-looking uniformed agent intently followed the parachutist’s final few feet of descent with the glistening barrel of an Ithaca Model 37 pump-action shotgun.
Seemingly oblivious to this awesome arsenal, the jumper aimed himself at the helipad’s center. A bare fifty feet from touchdown, Thomas could tell that the jumper would never make it. He showed his inexperience when he failed to compensate for what little wind was blowing, trying vainly to correct this miscalculation by pulling down on the wrong steering riser.
As it turned out, the parachutist was able to make a standing, yet somewhat rough, flared landing on the helipad’s southeastern corner. In a matter of seconds, he was completely surrounded, with Samuel Morrison catching the billowing chute and collapsing it in his arms.
Thomas made his way to the outer circle of agents, and watched as Morrison disgustedly handed the chute to an associate. Then, with his own Smith and Wesson 44 Magnum Model 29 drawn, the SAIC moved in for the interrogation.
“Hands up, you idiot!” he commanded.
Their prisoner timidly did as ordered. Yet the jumper’s face remained masked by a large pair of goggles. With the addition of a bright yellow, Pro-tech helmet and a green flightsuit, there was no telling who they had captured.
This changed as soon as Morrison positioned himself directly in front of the trespasser, aimed the intimidating barrel of his Smith and Wesson at the jumper’s forehead, and pulled back the revolver’s hammer, saying, “You’d better have one hell of an excuse, pal.”
“Hey, dude, chill out!” the jumper broke out in a rather high-pitched male voice. “I surrender, dude! I surrender!”
Thomas watched as a pair of agents moved in to frisk their intruder. No weapons were found, and they had to remove the jumper’s harness before they could handcuff him. It was while doing so that a pink, stuffed teddy bear fell out onto the lawn from the prisoner’s backpack.
Morrison bent over to grab this toy, and proceeded to roughly probe its stuffed body for any signs of hidden weapons.
This generated a passionate complaint from their trespasser. “Hey, dude, easy does it, big guy. That’s my birth day gift for the First Kid. We’re schoolmates, and I told her that I might be dropping in like this!”
The same two agents who frisked him were responsible for pulling off his helmet. This revealed the determined, smooth-skinned, adolescent face of a teenager. Thomas guessed his age to be about sixteen. He had longish blond hair, defiant hazel eyes, and in the best Generation X tradition, a golden earring piercing his left earlobe.
“Jesus, kid,” managed Morrison as he lowered the barrel of his pistol.
“Do you have any idea of what a shitload of trouble you caused here today?”
The SAIC didn’t bother to wait for a response. He holstered his weapon, his coworkers doing likewise. Morrison then turned his back on their youthful intruder, and beckoned two of his senior agents to join him at the southern edge of the helipad beside Thomas.
“Get the kid inside, check out his story, and get his parents on the line,” instructed Morrison. “Then find out who the hell was flying that frigging plane. I want that bastard’s license. And I want this entire incident played down to the press. All we need in tomorrow’s papers is to read how the Secret Service almost blew away a teddy bear-armed, teenybopper sky diver!”
Looking at Thomas, the SAIC facetiously added, “And here you thought that you had an exciting morning, Kellogg. Still sorry that you won’t be joining us at sea? Because if this little incident is any indication of what the future holds, Lord only knows what’s going to be waiting for us in the middle of the frigging Atlantic.”
6
Paching his two-suiter — which included stashing a spare box of 9mm rounds in his stateroom’s wall safe and sending his shirts out to be laundered with a deeply attentive Filipino steward named Nelson — Vince wound his way through the ship to the Queens Grill for lunch. He walked through a small intimate lounge area and was greeted by a smiling, tuxedo-clad maitre d’. “Ah, Special Agent Kellogg, I presume. Good afternoon, sir, and welcome to the Queens Grill. My name is Andre, and it will be my pleasure to serve you. This is your first crossing with us?”
Vince nodded that it was. Andre’s smile further widened. “Ah, excellent, sir. I see that you’ve been preassigned to balcony table Three-C, where Melanie and Neil will be taking excellent care of you.
If you’ll follow me, your party is waiting inside.”
The restaurant was as intimate and reserved as its exterior lounge.
Small by the QE2’s standards, the Grill was designed to hold 231 passengers. A central dining area held a dozen circular tables, several of which were set for six, with a number of smaller tables set up on a surrounding balcony. The furnishings were elegant and subdued: White leather chairs trimmed in black, fine crystal and silver table settings, fresh flower centerpieces, all illuminated by three large windows on each side of the room. Fewer than a dozen tables were currently occupied. As Vince followed Andre across the central seating area, he spotted evidence of the Grill’s namesake mounted on the after bulkhead — an intricately carved wooden crest of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.
“Special Agent Kellogg.”
Robert Hartwell was seated beside two fellow officers. They were already eating their appetizers, and Vince beckoned them not to stand as Hartwell initiated the introductions.
“Special Agent, I’d like you to meet the ship’s executive chef, Bernhard Langer, and our esteemed physician, Dr. Andrew Benedict.”
Vince exchanged handshakes and took the vacant seat to the security officer’s right. No sooner had he done so, than a pair of crew members materialized at his side. The first of these white-uniformed figures was a vivacious, green-eyed blonde, who introduced herself as Melanie and handed Vince a menu. Her bespectacled associate sported clipped brown hair and a serious manner. He efficiently unfolded Vince’s napkin and handed it to him, at the same time identifying himself as Neil.