25
The Secret Service Emergency Response Team section leader directed the driver of the lumbering, tractor-like Snow Cat — vital in conditions that were the worst Washington had ever seen — towards the landing zone. The figure of the man who had piloted the aircraft had pulled himself out of the cockpit window frame and dropped to the ground behind a snowy ridge. The heavy metal unit clanked and ground its way slowly forwards.
‘Weapons hot,’ he ordered his men, and they all racked back the cocking levers of their cold weather-modified assault rifles.
As the Snow Cat rumbled over the hill, the eight armed men swarmed out of the vehicle, weapons raised.
Cole’s hands were already raised in surrender in preparation for them. He knew the White House’s security force would be on high-alert and geared up for action, and would therefore be in a state of mind where they would react with force to any slight movement.
Essentially, they would have no idea who he was or what his intentions were; they would just have orders to arrest him on sight.
Although it was a relief not to have the elements channelled directly into him at high speed as they had been in the plane, at least there had been heating in the cockpit. It was freezing cold at ground level, and Cole was again glad of the thick woollen sweater that helped shield him from the subzero elements.
The cold air assaulted Cole’s unprotected head and face though, and he could feel his brain instantly start to go numb. He had been on training exercises in the Arctic Circle that hadn’t been as cold as this.
‘Strip,’ the team leader now ordered. Cole knew they wanted to check for explosives, but was reluctant — the cold could potentially kill him within a few minutes. When he saw the guns press forwards towards him ever so slightly in response to his delay though, he complied; first taking off his gloves, then his boots and then his thick jump suit.
Cole’s breath caught in his throat as he stood there in his underclothes, his body already starting to react. Then the leader nodded, and four men rushed forwards and grabbed hold of him, dragging him through the snow back towards the big all-terrain vehicle.
Once inside the heated compartment, the men cuffed his hands and then covered him in a thermal blanket. He was already shivering uncontrollably, unable to breathe properly.
Inside his near-frozen brain, he started to get a mental grip on himself, forcing himself to relax, to breathe, to allow the warmth to re-enter his body. Soon he was calm again, his breathing regular.
His eyes focused in time to see his clothing being loaded into the back of the Snow Cat, and moments later the vehicle was moving again, the roar of its big diesel engine competing loudly with the crash of its rotating tracks.
‘Sir,’ he heard the team leader announce into his radio, ‘it’s Team A. We’re on our way back.’
26
Cole noticed the impressive neo-classical façade of the White House lit up before them, from the warmth of the Snow Cat as it laboured through the snow and finally came to a stop on the South Lawn, a Marine security detail lined up to meet them and escort them inside.
After receiving a change of clothes — basic Marine combat fatigues — he was bundled out of the Snow Cat and marched across the Rose Garden to the first floor entrance to the West Wing underneath the West Colonnade.
He was grabbed and then manhandled along the corridor, around the corner to the left and then pushed and pulled down the stairs to the basement. At the bottom, the door to the left of the stairs was already opening, and Cole was pushed unceremoniously inside, where more men from the ERT grabbed him, pulling him onto a hardback chair in the corner of the room.
From his rapid journey through the West Wing, Cole knew he must be in the basement’s Secret Service room, directly below the Cabinet Room and Oval Office above.
He looked around the room, and saw banks of computers, weapons racks, equipment stores, as well as the ubiquitous kettle and microwave. But apart from the ERT guys who now held him, the room was empty of personnel.
Cole watched as the men listened to their ear mikes, and then as one of the men came forward, undid Cole’s handcuffs, pulled his arms tightly back around the chair, and then re-secured them.
Cole wasn’t panicking yet — David Grayson, the Director of the Secret Service, wasn’t on the list of JMIC alumni, and so Cole had to assume that the agents were just doing their job, securing the unknown threat until they received further orders.
The door opened then, and a woman walked in, her features stern, hard and decidedly unfriendly. Two suited agents followed her.
‘Go back to your posts,’ she ordered the ERT men, ‘Barnes and Davis will guard the prisoner.’
The assault team left the room without a word, and Cole realized he had been wrong to be unconcerned.
Because even though David Grayson wasn’t a member of the Alumni, the Secret Service was under the direct control of the Department of Homeland Security.
And the Secretary of State for that particular department was Elizabeth Harden, graduate of the Joint Military Intelligence College, year 2000.
27
‘Vice Admiral Hansard sends his congratulations to you on your unbelievable success so far,’ Harden began, her face still emotionless, almost machine-like. ‘But, like all good things, it too must come to an end.’
She smiled then, for the first time. ‘Like your family,’ she said cruelly, watching as Cole twitched involuntarily in response. ‘Yes,’ she said happily, ‘it turns out you really can’t trust anyone, can you? Stefan Steinmeier contacted us last night, telling us all about his visitors.’
Cole tried to disguise the fear, the rage, the uncertainty, the anger, but failed; Harden saw it all. ‘Don’t judge him too harshly,’ she continued. ‘A ten million dollar reward is too much to pass up for anyone. Offered by Hansard to old allies of yours all over Europe. Agent Albright is on his way there now to take care of your family personally.’
She gestured behind her, and Barnes and Davis drew their Sig Sauer pistols. ‘You escaped, tried to kill me, and were put down by these two fine Secret Service agents,’ Harden explained. ‘An assassin sent by Russia and China, just to add a little more fuel to the fire.
‘And it really doesn’t matter what you know or don’t know,’ she continued. ‘Abrams is upstairs right now, in the stairwell behind the podium with Mancini, getting ready to address the world in’ — she checked her watch — ‘just under three minutes.’
Cole smiled up at her. ‘Well, that should just give me enough time.’
28
Whilst Harden had been talking, Cole had been slipping his wrists free from the cuffs. When they had been re-secured, Cole had slipped his wrists down fractionally so they had gone round a thicker portion of his lower forearm, tensing the muscles to make them even bigger. The result was that when he relaxed the muscles and the cuffs slid down to his wrists, there was just enough space within the cuffs to squeeze his hands through.
He had paused halfway through at the mention of his family. Was it true? Could it possibly be true? She knew Steinmeier’s name, anyway, and that was more than enough to concern him.
But he couldn’t do anybody any good stuck to the chair awaiting execution — not his family, not the President, and not the citizens of the United States who stood to have their lives irrevocably altered.
And so Cole wasted no more time in freeing himself, hurling himself off the chair towards Harden, grabbing her and turning her towards the shooter on the left even as he slammed the callused edge of his hand across the bridge of the other man’s nose; blood flicked out from the corner of the agent’s eyes and he fell dead to the floor.