For an instant while the latest body dropped, the white-haired man seemed to lose his footing on the snow. But if that was the case, he quickly regained it.
The final Alaska National Guard soldier was thrusting with his bayonet when he became aware of a lightness to his hand. He quickly realized that the lightness stemmed from the fact that he no longer had a hand. His wrist now ended in a raw stump. His hand, still clutching his knife, lay in the snow at his feet. The soldier had no time to ponder the horror of what had just transpired. As he stared down numbly at his own severed appendage, he was finished off with a punishing blow to the forehead.
As the crumpled body fell, the white-haired young man turned slowly to Colonel Robert Hogue. Behind him came the others, dressed now in snow-white fatigues. Black goggles and ski masks covering their faces, they swarmed in like ants around their queen.
The Colonel backed against the nearest shanty, breathing puffs of frightened white steam into the cold air.
"Who are you?" Colonel Hogue demanded. The white-haired man smiled.
"I am the Master," he said in an accent that was unmistakably Russian. "You need know me by no other name. I have been sent to give you notice that your days of sowing decadence are over. Tell those who hold your leash that the Soviet Union has reclaimed Russian America." His eyes took on the demented glint of a zealot. "Long live the new Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik," the Master said coldly.
And as Colonel Hogue felt his blood run to ice, the white-haired Russian flashed a toothy smile.
In spite of his great fear, the Army Colonel couldn't help but notice that this fearsome fighter with the flashing deadly hands was, at least in one small way, a typical Russian. Even after ten years without communism, with access to all the bounty the West had to offer, there apparently still wasn't one damn toothbrush or tube of Crest in the whole godforsaken Bolshevik country.
Chapter 10
Mark Howard gained entry to the White House through the Old Executive Office Building. He followed subterranean corridors to the main mansion.
Men and women swarmed busily all around him. Some were hired guns who were still on hand to help with the transition from the previous administration, but most had the fresh-faced, starry-eyed look of political ideologues.
With his bland young Midwestern face, Mark fit right in. No one gave him so much as a second glance on his way through the labyrinthine tunnel system.
He clutched a small black valise tightly in one hand. It looked neither new nor old, just ordinary. His knuckles were clenched white, and the handle was slick with sweat.
His first visit to the White House had been just a few weeks before. That was as a CIA analyst, when he had gone to the West Wing for an Oval Office meeting with the outgoing President. This time everything was different: his purpose, the President, the agency Mark worked for, even his identity itself. The laminated ID tag Smith had issued him was clipped to his jacket.
The tag identified him as a telephone company official with high security clearance. The badge looked real enough. Mark hoped it was good enough to fool the pros.
Heart thudding, Mark followed the memorized route to the small West Wing elevator. A Secret Service agent stood at the closed door, a white wire threaded from collar to ear.
Mark did his best to hide his anxiety as the agent carefully studied his ID. After a glance at the nervous young man before him, the agent handed back the card.
"Open your bag, please, sir," the agent said. If he was suspicious, it didn't show. His voice was perfectly modulated, with not a hint of inflection.
Mark obediently thumbed open the tabs on the valise.
As the Secret Service man picked through the materials inside, Mark clipped his tag back to his jacket. After a perfunctory search, the agent handed the bag back.
"Left off the elevator, sir," he announced as he pressed the button. The elevator doors slid open. "Another agent will be there to accompany you."
"Thanks," Mark said with an anxious smile. Bag in hand, he stepped onto the car.
The agent followed him with his eyes. "First time at the White House?" he asked abruptly.
Mark was surprised at how easy the lie came.
The young man exhaled. "I guess it shows, huh?" Howard said.
The Secret Service agent nodded. "Sometimes I still find it intimidating," he offered. As the doors slid shut there was just a hint of a knowing smile.
Once the doors were closed, Mark took a deep breath. The car whisked him up to the First Family residence.
The agent downstairs was wrong. When the doors slid open there was no one waiting for Mark. An order to abandon the family quarters had been issued to all Secret Service personnel on this floor. The command had come from the highest level at the Treasury Department. All agents were to stay out for two hours while national-security experts updated the White House satellite system.
Of course it was a lie. Feeling like the only man inside the most famous residence on Earth, Mark followed the wide, empty corridor to the Lincoln Bedroom.
Going to the nightstand next to the bed, Mark opened the bottom drawer. He pulled out a cherry-red telephone that sat inside. Unclipping the cord from the back, he placed the phone on the bed.
Mark drew the cord through a hole in the back of the drawer and followed it to a silver wall plate behind the bed. Detaching the other end of the cord from the wall, he quickly retrieved a screwdriver from his bag. Removing the phone jack plate, he replaced it with a blank one.
There would be no problem with someone removing the plate at a later date and tapping into this line. Once he removed the phone, the line had already been rerouted. The Lincoln Bedroom phone line was now officially dead.
Dropping the old plate and cord into his bag, Mark picked up both bag and phone.
Where he'd placed it on the bed, the dialless red phone had left a square imprint in the quilt. Sticking the phone up under his arm, Mark smoothed the wrinkles flat with one hand.
He glanced around the nightstand area. Everything appeared to be as he left it. He crossed to the door. Casting one last look at the stately room that during the Civil War had been President Lincoln's cluttered office, Mark hurried out into the hallway. Unfortunately, in his haste to leave the Lincoln Bedroom, he collided with the man who was rushing into the room from the hall.
When the two men collided, the President of the United States went one way and Mark went the other. With a grunt Mark fell against the door frame. He lost the red phone from under his arm. It struck the floor hard, the receiver spilling off the cradle. The bell inside gave a muffled tinkle as the phone bounced across the carpet.
The President had fallen to his backside. Lost in thought, he had been hurrying along with his head down. He seemed shocked that anyone was in the residence.
"Oh, it's you," the leader of the free world said.
"I'm so sorry, sir," Mark apologized. He hustled over, helping the President to his feet.
"What are you doing here?" the President asked.
He spotted the red phone on the carpet. "Where are you going with that?" he demanded.
"You requested that the phone be moved to your bedroom, Mr. President," Howard said nervously.
"Oh. That's right," the President said. "Well, hurry up and get it hooked up. I need to talk to your boss."
Fumbling the receiver back into the cradle, Mark scooped up the phone. With the President in the lead, the two men hurried down the hall to the presidential bedroom.
According to Dr. Smith, the phone had been in this room years ago. Even through various renovations and several administrations, the CURE director had been careful to issue circuitous orders that the old wall jack not be removed, lest it become necessary to reuse the old line.
Howard found the blank silver plate behind the bed. He reversed the process from the Lincoln Bedroom, installing a female plate on the wall. He ran the line through a hole in the back of the nightstand's bottom drawer before plugging the red phone back in.