“This way, sir.” The agent was absolutely insistent. “We have a situation. We need to leave the hotel immediately.” He took Henry Lamden by the arm, making his intensions perfectly and immediately clear. Another agent fell in step on the other side of Big Sky. The Secret Service had come up with the designation name when they officially were assigned to guard him during the primary elections. It was an appropriate handle for the then-Governor of Montana.
Though they trained for this, Henry Lamden recognized that this was not another drill. This was the first time it really felt like an emergency. His heart quickened.
“Okay, okay. But I need to get….”
“We’ll take care of everything, sir,” the agent answered.
The president’s guard force hurried him out of the secure suite at the Century Plaza Hotel. He noticed that the other agents looked equally as serious as the two men who flanked him.
The freight elevator door was open. Two more agents were posted there. Thanks to the use of an override key, they went down without stopping. Once in the basement, they proceeded along a planned exit route through a myriad of unmarked tunnels that led to a closely guarded garage exit and the waiting presidential limo. Lead and tail cars were already in place. The LAPD escort would have to catch up.
The agents pressed the president’s head down, almost shoving him into his car. A second later they were screaming through the garage tunnels, faster than they’d ever practiced.
From the Reagan Presidential Suite to the backseat of the bulletproof, iron-lined underbelly Lincoln: 2 minutes 45 seconds. Acceptable only because Big Sky was alive, and they were clear of a Rip Van Winkle House.
Chapter 4
“Mister…” the DNI hesitated over the telephone. This was still hard for him to get right, “…vice president.”
“Yes, Jack.” Morgan Taylor responded to the Director of National Intelligence. “You don’t sound happy.”
“I’m not. We have a situation developing in Sydney.”
“The evacuation at the St. George?” The vice president had seen the news. “Am I correct to assume there’s no water main break?”
“Right. I hope the story sticks long enough to disarm about twenty bricks of C-4.”
“Any idea who?” Taylor asked.
“No. Maybe there will be some signatures in the work. But my educated guess is al-Qaeda. Maybe Abu Sayyaf. And if you want my two cents?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t think it was intended to go off today or tomorrow.”
The vice president’s mind raced. “The Ville St. George. Isn’t that one of the hotels designated for presidential visits?” He hadn’t stayed in it yet, but he was certain it was the venue for the upcoming nuclear proliferation conference. The session was already on Lamden’s calendar, though not officially announced.
“Right again.”
“August?” Taylor said after putting it all together.
“Yes, sir.” Evans acknowledged. “It’s a miracle some house electrician found the device now. SASR says it had enough battery power to keep the Energizer bunny going for years.”
“Give me the wide shot, Jack. Short-term, long-term impact.”
“In the immediate, all the Rip Van Winkle houses will be off limits for you and the president until they’re turned upside-down. Long-term, millions around the world in security upgrades, from initial construction through identity checks on the lady who changes the toilet paper.”
Morgan Taylor suddenly remembered the president was in one now. “Henry?”
“On the road as of seven minutes ago,” the nation’s chief intelligence officer answered. “We implemented Rolling Thunder as soon as we heard.”
“Wise decision.”
“Has Congressman Patrick been informed?” The vice president referred to the new Speaker of the House, Duke Patrick.
“Next on the list.”
“What’s Homeland Security saying?”
“Nothing yet. But I don’t think you and the president will be able to take a piss without your boys looking over your shoulders.”
There was a knock at the door. “Mr. Vice President.” Taylor recognized the voice of his principal Secret Service detail.
“Like clockwork, Jack,” he said over the phone.
“Thank you. Secret Service wants you at the White House until the president is safely back. I’ll have the Speaker driven there as well.”
Taylor didn’t relish spending any more time than necessary with Congressman Patrick, but protocol dictated. Patrick, a self-made man and a fast decision maker, retired twelve years earlier from Dynlcom, a multi-billion dollar Internet provider, with a billion of its profits. Taylor should have liked him, but politics drove them apart. Patrick went into Congress as a Republican, then five years ago recast himself as a “modern Democrat.” That meant that as Democrats go, he was way right of center and suddenly someone to watch. Duke, as he liked to be called, wasn’t even the kind of Democrat that Lamden could wholeheartedly embrace, but he was the man that the party looked to for the future. As speaker of the House, he was also number three in the order of Presidential Succession.
“Mr. Vice President!” the voice came more forcefully through the door.
“Yes, yes. I know. I’ll be right with you.”
“Get going, Mr. Vice President, I’ll keep you posted,” Evans stated.
“Before I go, give me your real sense, Jack.”
Evans always appreciated Morgan Taylor inviting his personal appraisal. It often told more than some of the hard facts. “We got a lucky break, Morgan. No immediate danger to Henry,” he used first names only with Morgan Taylor. “Next time we might not be so lucky. The enemy is getting smarter.”
“But who’s the enemy, Jack?”
The national intelligence chief answered before the blink of an eye. “Nothing’s changed. Everyone.”
Morgan Taylor wasn’t good at being vice president. He knew it. What’s more, most of the press within the Beltway also knew. Hell, I should have just gone fishing! he constantly told himself.
After running the country with the intensity with which he flew his Navy F/A-18s, this job was the worst. A typical day: Presiding over the Senate…enduring the hours of posturing from young jerks he’d all but thrown out of the White House…shaking hands and not meaning it.
Morgan Taylor hated it, but it wasn’t the kind of job you simply retired from. He accepted it for two reasons. First, he admired Henry Lamden. The second and real reason, decided in the instant that Lamden asked him, was that he had unfinished business. He claimed it was professional. Reporters speculated it was more personal. He was determined to find out who was responsible for stealing his presidency. Teddy Lodge was the end to the means, but not the means itself. Someone else had patiently manipulated the political process for more than forty years. He had failed, which Taylor assumed would be hard for a man who counted on winning.
The same could be said for Morgan Taylor.
He won at Annapolis, graduating in the top ten percent of his class. He won in the air, as an aircraft carrier Super Hornet commander. He won on the ground, coming out alive after a crash landing in Iraq. That was thanks to a man who remained close to him today. He won in business as an executive for Boeing. He won in the Senate, and he won the presidency.
Now 54, Taylor kept to a military regime and a military look. His weight remained a relatively fat-free 195 pounds, and his hair was no longer than when he was in the Navy. He exercised like he’d go hungry without it and kept current in the cockpit of almost everything the Navy had in the air.
While he wore black pinstriped Brooks Brothers suits during work hours, he couldn’t wait to get into loose-fitting turtlenecks, khakis, and a Navy flight jacket. Sometimes he wished he could chuck the suits in his closet altogether. He got close, but when Lamden asked him to remain in government, he unpacked his suits and sent them back for a pressing. For his Senate confirmation hearings, he wore his favorite, which was really hard to tell since they all looked the same.