Transfer of Power

chapter 45
President Hayes looked at his watch. It was nearing five o'clock. "Are you sure we shouldn't wait until it's dark?"

Jack Warch shook his head. "I'd like to, but we don't know how much time we have."

All of the agents were either sitting or standing around the group of couches in the middle of the room. Warch had convinced the president that their chances for survival were better if they made the break. Valerie Jones had also agreed. Not that it made a huge difference, but at this crucial juncture the less dissent the better. After getting Jones out of the way, Warch had brought the agents in, and they were now finalizing the plan.

Warch looked up at Pat Cowley. Cowley was hands down the best shot of the group with either a pistol or submachine gun. The former Supreme Court police officer had just finished a four-year stint with the Secret Service's Counter Assault Team, where he had spent the majority of his time riding around in the back of the old, black, armor-plated Suburban that followed the president's limousine wherever it went. These were the men that carried the big hardware. If the motorcade came under attack, it was their job to, first, cover the president's evacuation and, second, neutralize the threat if possible. Their basic doctrine was to carry enough firepower that they could enfilade the threat with a volley of bullets while the president was evacuated from the area.

Warch continued going through the agents' assignments one by one. He picked two agents to leapfrog behind the point as they moved, and assigned Ellen Morton and three other agents to stay with the president at all times. The last agent was to provide a rear guard if needed. Warch himself would stay fluid and try lead as they moved.

After all questions were answered and the evacuation routes were decided on, Warch got the troops lined up. Five of the nine agents carried MP-5 submachine guns along with their SIG-Sauer pistols. The others, including Warch, were armed with their pistols only. With weapons checked and ready, Warch turned to Ellen Morton and said, "Take the president and Valerie and put them in the bathroom. When we give you the all clear, you bring them out, and we move."

As Warch turned for the door, he was interrupted by a noise he had been waiting to hear for more than two days. Simultaneously, every head in the room snapped toward the small kitchen table. On the second ring, Warch bolted toward the noise. Reaching out, he snatched his digital phone and pressed the send button.

"Hello!"

"Jack, it's Irene Kennedy."

Warch's heart was in this throat. "Thank God!"

Kennedy spoke quickly, her eyes staring at the monitor in the center of the big board. "How's the president?"

"He's fine . . . but somebody's drilling through the bunker door. What in the hell's going on?"

Kennedy took a deep breath and started in, "Jack, we don't have a lot of time, so I'll give you the short version. Rafique Aziz and a group of terrorists have taken over the White House. They are holding hostages, and we know they are trying to greak into the bunker."

Warch was a little surprised that Kennedy knew about the assault on the door. The president was now coming toward him from across the room. "Well, what are you guys doing about it?"

"We're working on it, but we need to speak to the president first."

"Sure, he's right here." Warch handed Hayes the phone, saying, "It's Irene Kennedy."

Hayes took the small gray phone and held it to his ear. "Dr. Kennedy?"

"Yes, Mr. President. How are you doing?"

"Good!" exclaimed a relieved Hayes. "It's great to hear your voice."

"It's nice to hear yours too, sir, but we have a lot to cover, and we're short on time, so I'm going to hand the phone over to Director Stansfield."

Stansfield and General Flood had just entered the room. Kennedy had her chair turned around, and as the men hurriedly approached their seats, she held up three fingers.

Stansfield grabbed his phone and pressed line three. In his normal businesslike tone he said, "Mr. President, I apologize for taking so long to get through to you, but we've been experiencing some difficulties."

"What in the hell has been going on?" asked Hayes.

Stansfield started from the top and moved through the highlights of what had happened over the last three days. He covered the demands that had been made and met, and those that were in the process of being met. He told the president of the murder of his national security adviser and his secretary, and the subsequent mental breakdown of his attorney general. He intentionally stressed certain events and exchanges that hinted at Vice President Baxter's incompetence. Stansfield gave him the soft sell. It was better to let Hayes come to his own conclusions than to hit him over the head with the obvious.

The president, for his part, let Stansfield brief him without interruption. President Hayes was not happy about much of what he heard. The only bright spot thus far was the news that Stansfield had managed to get someone inside the White House. And not just anyone, but the man he had just learned of several days earlier. The man the president knew only as Iron Man. A man that had been billed as the absolute best Thomas Stansfield had ever seen.

When the director of the CIA explained the vice president's reaction to the news that Aziz was in the process of extracting the president from his bunker, Hayes lost it.

"He told you to do what?" Hayes's face was tense with anger.

"He told us that before he would risk the hostages' lives by ordering a raid, we would have to present him with more precise information."

Hayes shook his head. "It sure as hell sounds to me like you had pretty good information."

"Yes," replied Stansfield. "We felt so, sir."

"Well, get him on the phone so I can give him irrefutable information that he's an idiot."

Now came the time for Stansfield's calm vision. His ability to slow things down when they seemed to be speeding up for everybody else had been one of his greatest assets over the years   that and his ability to approach a situation like a grand master and plot his moves far in advance. Stansfield was pretty confident where this entire situation was headed, and for now he knew it was best to keep the knowledge of their contact with the president to a bare minimum.

In regard to putting the president in touch with his next in command, Stansfield said, "I would advise against that right now, sir."

"Why?"

"We have suffered several leaks from the vice president's camp thus far." Stansfield paused, giving the president time to digest the innuendo. "We know that Aziz is monitoring the news, and I would not want it to leak out that we are in contact with you. We need to let Aziz continue to think that he has the upper hand. General Flood and General Campbell are in the process of putting the final touches on an assault plan. As soon as they are ready, and you give the order, we can end this."

Hayes thought about the decision. His mind was made up almost instantaneously, and then he paused, wondering why Baxter hadn't given the approval. Turning his back to the group of agents and his chief of staff, he asked, "Why hasn't the vice president given this order?"

"I'm not sure, sir. I have some ideas, but I don't think you're going to like them.

"Try me."

"I think it would be best if waited to discuss them face to face."

Hayes nodded. "All right." Then moving on to practical matters, he said, "I'm assuming that the powers of my office have been transferred to the vice president."

"That's correct, sir."

"Well, if I remember my Constitution correctly, we have some procedural issues to take care of."

"Such as?"

"We need to inform both the president pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House that I am able to resume my duties. Technically, unless we do that, the transfer of power is not complete."

Stansfield exhaled an uncharacteristic sigh. To someone who had spent years trying to skirt, bend, and sometimes break laws, this technicality seemed to be utterly trivial. He reminded himself that President Hayes was both a lawyer and an amateur presidential historian. Stifling the temptation to tell Hayes that it was a waste of time to discuss such a point, Stansfield instead said, "Sir, you are the president. The powers of your office were transferred to the vice president for the sole reason that we could not communicate with you. That is no longer the case. General Flood and I are going to take our orders from you. If you feel that it is absolutely imperative to inform the vice president and the Speaker of the House that you are once again able to discharge your duties, we can do that in the minutes just prior to the raid."

Hayes thought about it. Always a stickler for detail, he wanted to make sure everything would be legitimate. "That sounds fine to me. I just want to make sure those calls are made."

"We can do that, sir."

Hayes turned and looked at the bunker door, the humming sound of intruders just on the other side. "Thomas, what are we to do if they breach the door before the strike teams are ready?"

Stansfield paused for a moment and looked at Kennedy. Kennedy was listening in on the call, and she pointed to herself. Stansfield nodded for her to go ahead.

"Mr. President, it's Dr. Kennedy again. We are monitoring your situation and have both audio and video surveillance of the bunker door. Iron Man is very close by. If it appears that they are about to get the bunker door open, we can order him to prevent that. In addition, the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team is deployed across the street at the Executive Office Building. They have a pretty good idea of where the hostages are being held and"   Kennedy sounded less than enthusiastic   "if we really need to rush it, they can be inside the West Wing within thirty seconds of the execute order."

Hayes picked up on Kennedy's tone and said, "I get the feeling you have some reservations, Doctor."

"Aziz brought a lot of explosives with him, and he has threatened to bring the whole building down if there is any rescue attempt."

Hayes thought about this new, disturbing piece of information. "Any chance he's bluffing?"

"None at all, sir."

"Can we handle this?"

Kennedy looked up at her boss and General Flood. "We're working on it, sir."

* * *

The sun was falling in the western sky, and from the east a solid wall of gray was approaching. Salim Rusan stood near the tailgate of his ambulance and looked in both directions. A deeply superstitious man, he did not like the foreboding change in the weather. One of the other ambulance drivers had stopped by and introduced himself, and as luck would have it, the man was gay. Instead of the disguise working as a repellent, it had done the opposite.

After several moments of idle chitchat, Rusan made up the excuse that he needed to run and make a phone call. When the other ambulance driver offered his cell phone, Rusan declined and stated that in addition to having to call his boyfriend, he also had to use the bathroom.

He turned and started walking to the east down Pennsylvania Avenue. Just a dozen paces later he approached two D.C. cops manning the barricade at Fourteenth Street.

"Excuse me, Officers," he asked. "Can you tell me where I can get a bite to eat?"

One of the officers eyed him with a frown while the other paused for a moment and then pointed down the street. "If you head down E Street here, you'll run into a deli and a couple fast-food joints."

Rusan smiled and said thank you as he passed the two men. Then turning, he asked, "Will I have any problem getting back to my ambulance?"

"No, we'll be here for a while."

Rusan turned on his toes. He ducked under the blue sawhorse at the far end of the intersection; he was immediately pleased with the volume of people. After pressing his way through the crowd, he found that it ran about ten people deep and then loosened up. A large concrete trash can, overflowing with trash, sat behind the crowd. There must have been a McDonald's nearby because eight or so their of bags stuffed with cups and spent French-fry containers littered the immediate area around the receptacle. All the better, since the bomb would do more damage lying on the sidewalk than in the garbage can.

He pulled one of the cans of diet Coke from his fanny pack and bent over. Taking one of the spent McDonald's bags, he wedged the can in with the rest of the refuse and set the whole package back on the ground. He positioned the bag so the majority of the blast would be directed toward the crowd.

Rusan stood and started down the sidewalk again. He would come back the same way and make sure the bag was still there. Up ahead on his right, he could make out the ugly brown surface of the Hoover Building. He wouldn't go that far, although it was very tempting. There were too many cameras and too many professionals with a trained eye. Rusan would play it safe for now. There was no need to risk exposure.