Chapter 20
Alone in his darkened Folcroft office, Harold Smith was scanning the latest list of motion-picture studio phone numbers flagged by the CURE mainframes when the dedicated White House line jangled to life. He attempted to find correlations between numbers and names even as he pulled the phone from his desk drawer.
"Yes, Mr. President," he said crisply.
The hoarse voice on the other end of the line was panicked. "They're here, Smith," the President whispered urgently.
Smith's chair squeaked as he sat straighter. Save the almost inaudible hum of his desk computer, it was the only sound in the tomb-silent office.
"I beg your pardon, sir?" he asked, puzzled.
"They're here!" the President repeated. "At the White House!"
"Forgive me, but who is there?" The frightened tone of America's Chief Executive had already sent the first sparks of concern through Smith's fluttering heart.
"I don't know!" the President pleaded. "It could be anyone. The Indonesians, the environmentalists, the gays, the Chinese, the RNC, the DNC, the Democratic Leadership Council. They're all mad at me for one reason or another. Nobody likes me," he wailed.
"Mr. President, please," Smith said, trying to inject a rational note into a most irrational call. "Why don't you begin at the-"
"My wife!" the President burst out. "That's who's behind this! She's wanted to rule this roost from day one. She's always threatened a coup, but I figured she'd at least have the decency to do it while I was out of town."
In the far distance, Smith heard the sound of muted pops.
"What was that?" he asked, instantly wary.
"Gunshots!" the President cried. "What do I do, Smith? My God, I see them. They're coming across the lawn."
America's Chief Executive sounded as if he was about to burst into tears.
"Who is coming across the lawn?" Smith pressed.
Too late. The line had already gone dead. Quickly, Smith tried to reestablish contact. The phone, which was located in the Lincoln Bedroom, rang the instant the connection was restored. But the call went unanswered.
Smith hung up, swiveling hurriedly to his computer. His hands hadn't even brushed the buried keyboard before the computer alerted him to a new crisis.
Fearing that he already knew what his mainframes had discovered, Smith opened the pop-up window.
The CURE mainframes had intercepted dozens upon dozens of messages and memos flying across the endless streams of the Internet. Computer lines from the CIA to the NSC, from the Pentagon to the Secret Service, from the FBI to the NSA, from the Capitol to the Defense Intelligence Agency, were clogged with activity.
Smith didn't need to read far in order to understand the point of all of those desperate, flashing messages.
The White House was under siege.
For a few frenzied minutes, Smith tried to make some sense out of precisely what was happening. But there were no clear accounts yet. The crisis was so fresh that not even the news outlets had logged on with stories.
The best he could glean was that some unnamed force had found its way onto the White House grounds. A Secret Service e-mail sent to the Treasury Department minutes after the President's call indicated that there had been heavy casualties taken by those guarding the chief executive's home.
That might mean something. The Secret Service was still able to log onto its internal system. Smith's hand had already dropped on the blue contact phone when it buzzed beneath his palm. He jumped, startled, even as he wrenched the receiver to his ear.
"What's the good news, Smitty?" Remo's voice asked.
"Remo, I do not yet know the details, but the White House is under attack."
Remo's tone instantly hardened. "You're kidding, right?"
Smith shook his head impatiently. "I know nothing as yet." He typed rapidly as he spoke. "I am arranging for transportation out of Edwards Air Force Base. Get there as quickly as possible."
It was the shortest conversation they'd had since Remo was first drafted into the organization. Remo's last words were sharp as he slammed down the phone.
"I'm on my way."
Chapter 21
At first, the problem for the Marines and Secret Service was containment.
The First Daughter was not at home, thank God. That was one less headache. But the President and the First Lady were in the residence. The highest priority was to keep the situation as far away from the First Family as possible.
That idea crumbled two minutes into the crisis when the assailants overwhelmed perimeter positions and swept into the mansion itself.
Option two was reached at once: remove the First Family from harm's way.
That alternative fell by the wayside when the invaders cut off all known escape routes. Even the emergency elevator, which ran from the family quarters down to the subbasement, was captured. It was as if this unknown army knew every strategic retreat the President might take.
In a running gun battle, the surviving members of the President's security force retreated upstairs to the family quarters in order to reestablish a closer defense perimeter around the Chief Executive.
They were greeted by something more horrifying than an army of terrorists brandishing assault weapons.
"What the hell is going on here!" the First Lady screeched as the armed men swarmed into the hallway from the First Family's main elevator.
Her face was caked in some kind of dried green goop. Furious piglike eyes shot daggers from the middle of her weirdly tinted face.
"The White House is under attack!" a Secret Service agent shouted, weapon aimed down the elevator shaft.
The other agents were disabling the elevator so that no one could use it to follow them. The doors had been pried open and a mirror angled into the opening to alert them of anyone attempting to climb the shaft. Several automatics were aimed down into the darkness.
"Oh, my God!" the First Lady cried as she watched them work. Her eyes grew larger in her beauty cream mask. "They know about the duplicate billing records!"
"Ma'am, I think this is mor-" a Marine began sharply.
But the First Lady didn't hear him. She was already running down the hall, her latest pageboy hairdo bobbing crazily around her cream-caked face.
"I expect you to cover my ass if you have to get yours shot off in the process!" she shouted over her shoulder.
The First Lady disappeared inside the library. An instant later, the whirring sound of a paper shredder echoed down the corridor. It was a familiar noise to anyone working in this White House.
The men had every intention of following the First Lady's final shouted order. They would die before they let anyone get past their fortified line. However, they soon found that it was a moot point.
The advance had halted. For some reason, unfathomable to those holed up in the family quarters, the invading force stopped on the ground-floor level of the White House.
And as the blood of the dead burbled crimson on the green spring lawn far below, the strangest standoff in America's history began.
REGINALD HARDWIN WAS seated at the desk of the President of the United States. As he carefully crossed his legs, he noticed a slight tear in the knee of his impeccably tailored trousers-the result of his awkward dive to the sidewalk.
Hardwin tsked as he examined the hole with slender, delicate fingers.
He had bought the trousers with money from his first five-million-dollar windfall. Even though he was now quite rich as a result of his current employment, he couldn't help but examine the tear with a poor man's mentality. After all, he had been poor for a long, long time.
"Five hundred dollars," he complained.
"What?" The voice came from the lightweight cell phone in his hand. It was crisp, efficient. Authoritative in a noncommittal way. The FBI negotiator.
"Nothing," Hardwin said. His fingers fled the hole. He became once more Reginald Hardwin, world terrorist. "I have your President and his wife captive above me. All escape routes, including those to the old Executive Office Building, have been secured."