The president was remaining in Washington, though the vice president and a significant number of congressmen were in seclusion in rural Maryland. Air Force One was ready at Andrews, with its crew on standby 24/7 to whisk the president out of the area within minutes of notification. A Marine helicopter and crew stood by on the south grounds in sight of the West Wing. And the White House Secret Service detail was tripled, and supplemented by Marines and additional radar-guided Patriot missile launchers.
“We’re facing one big problem,” Townsend’s deputy assistant warned. “We don’t know if they’re going to come at us with airliners again, or if they’re going to hit us with a nuke, or a bioweapon, or a car bomb. We just don’t know, Mr. President.”
The Gulfstream got off the main runway, followed one of the taxiways across the airport from the main terminal building and past the maintenance hangars of several airlines, and was directed by a Follow Me pickup truck to an unmarked hangar.
Watching from the window, McGarvey spotted Adkins and a pair of men standing next to a Cadillac SUV with tinted windows. The two men, who were obviously security officers, were dressed in dark blue windbreakers and baseball caps, their Heckler & Koch M8s in the compact carbine version at the ready, their heads on swivels.
Fred Rudolph climbed out of a plain gray Chevy Impala, and as the Gulfstream came to a stop and its engines began to spool down, he went over to Adkins and they shook hands. Neither of them seemed to be particularly happy to be there.
Before the aircraft door was opened, one of the guys who had come to escort McGarvey back to the States handed him a padded envelope. “Your weapon, spare magazine, and cell phone, sir,” he said. “We were instructed to give them back when we got here. Someone will grab your bags from the hold in a minute.”
“I thought I was under arrest,” McGarvey said, ripping open the envelope. He wasn’t feeling charitable.
“That was just for the benefit of the French,” the agent replied, evenly. He wasn’t enjoying the exchange, but he had a job to do and he was doing it.
“Right,” McGarvey said. He loaded his pistol, stuffed it in his belt, and pocketed his spare magazine and cell phone. He was tired and irascible. His chance to get to Khalil on Corsica had been blown. Coming back like this would be starting all over again. And he didn’t know if there was enough time.
Last night, trying to get a couple of hours sleep, he had wondered if he should go on. If he should ignore the president’s orders to back off.
The woman did not want to be rescued from the water without her baby. Her cries still pierced his heart. There had been no reason to kill them. No reason at all.
Backing off, he decided, had never been an option.
He tossed the envelope aside. “Did you guys have a surveillance set up on me?”
“No, sir. We were instructed to sit tight and wait until you got into trouble, then bail you out if we could.”
The other agent was watching from the open door, a neutral expression on his features. Like his partner he had a job to do, and he was doing it. He only wanted McGarvey to get off the airplane and his job would be over.
McGarvey softened a little. “Okay, fellas, thanks for the lift. What do you say we try to catch the bad guys before they can hit us again?”
“Yes, sir.”
McGarvey got off the airplane and walked across to where Rudolph and Adkins were waiting. “Your timing stinks, Fred.”
Rudolph didn’t offer his hand. “Nothing I could do about it, Mac. Weissman gave me no room to maneuver, and his orders came straight from the White House.” He glanced at Adkins. “We’re not screwing around here.”
“Neither am I, Fred.”
Rudolph was angry. “Goddammit, going after the Saudis won’t help. We’ll just get tangled up in money trails, nothing more.”
From the beginning Rudolph had been caught between a rock and a hard place in his dealings with the CIA. This time it was worse because he and McGarvey had become friends. McGarvey nodded. “What’s my situation? Am I under arrest?”
“The president wants you neutralized. And he’s serious about it.” Rudolph was apologetic. “Means house arrest.” He glanced at Adkins again. “Why the hell did you have to quit in the middle of this?”
“Because I don’t agree with Haynes. The Saudis were behind 9/11, and they’re right up to their necks in this one. I had a chance to stop one of them in Corsica.”
“If you’re talking about Salman, he’s not there. In fact, his jet landed at Dulles a couple of hours ago. He’s here at the Saudi Embassy. If it makes you feel any better, we’re keeping a watch on him.”
For just an instant McGarvey was taken aback. Salman coming here was the last thing he’d expected. “Well, that’s a real comfort, Fred,” McGarvey said, meanly, to cover his racing thoughts. The arrogance of the Saudi bastard was awesome.
Rudolph turned away in frustration. “I’m not the enemy,” he shouted.
McGarvey’s muscles bunched. He was in Alaska. He couldn’t get it out of his head. “Someone is,” he barked, “and unless we get off our dead asses we’re going to have another fucking 9/11 on our hands.”
Rudolph lowered his head and shook it. He was silent for a second, and when he looked up he compressed his lips. “What happened to us, Mac? What the hell happened in the past ten years to make us the bad guys? I thought it was the Russians.”
“Simpler times, Fred,” McGarvey said. He turned to Adkins. “Take me home, would you, Dick?”
“Stay there, Mac,” Rudolph said. “I don’t want to arrest you.”
FIFTY
Dennis Berndt put down the telephone, paused for a moment, then got up and went to the window that looked toward the Rose Garden. It was morning finally, after a long and difficult night. He rubbed his eyes and took a deep breath to relieve the pressure that had steadily built in his chest since he’d heard bin Laden’s tape.
When he’d come down from Harvard at Haynes’s behest to become the president’s adviser on national security affairs, he had thought of the job in academic terms. He would work in the White House. He would be among the chosen few to actually make history and not simply live it, or react to it. He would conduct national security briefings on a daily basis. He would consult with the heads of the CIA, FBI, and National Security Agency. He would be among the privileged few who were privy to the nation’s secrets. He would have the ear and the trust of the president of the United States.
But now his job wasn’t so academic. He had a wife and two children, one in high school and the other at Princeton. It was his family that the bastards were targeting.
Government was no longer simply an intellectual exercise.
His secretary, who like most of the other White House staff was working 24/7, catching catnaps whenever possible, buzzed him. “The person from Langley you wanted to see is here.”
“Send him in.”
Otto Rencke, carrying a plain buff file folder, his red hair flying in all directions, his sneakers untied, his Moscow University sweatshirt stained with what might have been coffee or Coke, bounded in as if he were the March Hare with no time to spare. “Oh, wow, Mr. Berndt,” he bubbled, “thanks for agreeing to see me.”
Berndt motioned for his secretary to close the door. “Give us five minutes; I don’t want to be disturbed.”
“Yes, sir,” she said, and she withdrew, closing the door behind her. This meeting was an unofficial one, and it would not be logged, except by security.