Transfer of Power

chapter 49
The Air Force MC-130 Combat Talon cruised through the skies over Washington, D.C., at ten thousand feet. Part of the 1st Special Operations Wing, the Combat Talon was a unique asset in the delivery and retrieval of Special Forces operators. Lt. Commander Harris stood in the back of the modified C-130, looking out the open ramp and down at the city. The wind whistled through the back of the cargo area, and the four engines outside rumbled in the evening air, making communication difficult. To Harris's right, the bright orange orb of the sun was falling beneath the horizon. To his left, storm clouds were moving in. The first was a good sign   darkness was something that he welcomed   but the second was not. Wind and rain did not go well with parachuting.

The pilots were flying up and down a fifteen-mile corridor five miles east of the White House. Harris and his fellow SEALs had made every jump there was. He'd done both high-altitude, high-opening (HAHO) and high-altitude, low-opening HALO) jumps, as well as static-line jumps from five hundred feet all the way up to thirty thousand plus. Eight years earlier, when he had participated in the exercise for the Secret Service, he and his men had conducted a HAHO jump out of the back of an Air Force C-141 StarLifter. At an altitude of twenty-five thousand feet the men leapt from the plane and popped their chutes. From almost five miles up, Harris and his team expertly guided their double canopy parachutes over a forty-five-mile distance and set themselves down gently on the roof of the Executive Mansion. At first the Secret Service was shocked by the results. But, after they sat with the SEALs and realized the years of training and high level of skill that such a jump required, they ruled the possibility of a terrorist group successfully conducting such an operation all but impossible.

Harris and his men were about to put all of their jumping skills to use. General Campbell had briefed him minutes earlier on the newest aspect of the plan, and it was creating a mathematical nightmare for the SEAL. No longer would they be able to choose their jump time. They would now have to wait to for Aziz to make his move and then quickly get the plane into position.

Repeating the jump he had done eight years earlier was not an option. Jumping from that altitude would have required that he and his men, and the crew of the unpressurized aircraft, go on oxygen an hour before take-off. By the time his plan was approved, they had missed that window on opportunity. There wasn't enough time, so Harris had decided they would jump from ten thousand feet and go into free-fall glide for the White House. At one thousand feet they would pop their chutes and float down the last leg.

Commander Harris moved away from the back of the ramp to inform his men of the impending rain. Inside, the bleak cargo area glowed with the red light to help the men gain their night vision. Harris had brought along the large Mick Reavers, who was serving as the jumpmaster, and Tony Clark and Jordan Rostein   two of Six's best shooters and demolitions experts. All four men were dressed in their black Nomex coveralls, balaclava hoods, and gloves. The fire-retardant material was a must in any operation, and even more so when dealing with explosives. Operating in a dry environment, all of the men were carrying 9-mm SIG-Sauer P226 pistols, integrally silenced MP-10s, and a bevy of extra magazines in their assault vests that fit snuggly over their Kevlar body armor. Radio checks had been completed on the ground. The four operators were using Motorola MX300 radios rigged with throat mikes and earpieces.

Harris approached his men and screamed over the wind, "That storm keeps coming in from the east, and it doesn't look good."

Clark shook his head at CO. He'd known Harris for over a decade and knew the man to be just crazy enough to try to jump in the middle of a storm. Clark reached up and adjusted his goggles. While doing so, he leaned closer to Harris. Over the roar he yelled, "We ain't jumping in the rain, Harry."

Harris nodded, and then, turning back for the ramp, he muttered to himself. "We'll see."

Out the rear of the plane Harris saw the storm intensifying. Suddenly, a flash of lightning lit up the sky and streaked toward the ground in two separate veins. The strike was followed by a crack that could be heard over the roar of the engine. Sheets of rain could be seen falling over the Chesapeake. The rain would continue to roll in across the Maryland countryside and envelop the capital. They had thirty minutes, tops, before the rain rendered the jump suicidal.

* * *

Rapp and Adams were ready to go. They were at the door going over the final checklist. If things went sour, HRT was twenty second away from breaching the building and Delta Force could be on-site to secure the president in under two minutes. Now was the time to take risks and roll the dice.

Before telling him to punch in the code, Rapp asked Adams, "Are you good to go, Milt?"

Adams pulled off his baseball cap, and with a handkerchief, he wiped a layer of sweat from his bald, black head. Then with a nod, he said, "I'm ready."

Rapp did one last quick check of his equipment, and said, "Iron Man to control. We're going in. Over." Rapp then nodded to Adams, who punched in the code.

At the first sound of air escaping from the gasket-sealed door, Adams stepped back, allowing Rapp to move forward and take the lead. Rapp didn't know what to expect on the other side. The door could be booby-trapped; Aziz could have a guard posted on the other side   there was no way of knowing. Rapp had to guess. With a limited amount of resources, Rapp thought, Aziz wouldn't be able to afford to place a guard outside the door. And that was assuming he had found it.

The bigger concern was a bomb. Rapp pushed Adams against the wall closest to the door's hinges and placed his hand on the handle. After pausing for a moment, he turned his head away, pushed down on the handle, and pulled the door in two inches.

Hiding behind the heavy steel door to protect him from the possible blast, Rapp listened for the telltale sound of a trip wire pulling a pin. He counted to three, then five, for good measure. With his left hand clutching his MP-10, he reached back with his right, and Adams handed him the snake. Rapp nosed the tiny fiber-optic camera around the corner. He scanned to the left, to the right, and then up. The shadowy images were being broadcast back to Langley.

Over his headset he heard the voice of General Campbell, "Everything looks good, Iron Man."

Rapp peeked around the door to get a better look. To his left was a set of steep concrete stairs. Rapp had half expected the passageway to be dark. Instead, the hidden staircase that led up the Oval Office was dimly lit with only two bulbs. Straight ahead a sliver of light shone from underneath a door that led to Horsepower   the Secret Service's presidential detail command post. That was where the alarm systems and surveillance cameras were monitored. All video surveillance of both the grounds and the interior of the West Wing, Executive Mansion, and East Wing were monitored by the new Joint Operations Command, across the street in the EOB. Horsepower was concerned primarily with the president and watched only the areas of the compound where the president was. The uniformed division was responsible for everything else. In Rapp's Secret Service briefing they had explained that in the moments after the raid, the interior cameras around the White House began to go off-line one by one. The obvious reason was Aziz did not want the Secret Service to be able to watch what he was doing. Rapp's responsibility was to discover how much of the system was still on-line, and if any Tangos were monitoring it.

Stepping completely from behind the door, Rapp carefully edged forward into the small landing area just outside of Horsepower. Adams followed close behind, then slid the tiny lens under the door and began working it from one side of the room to the other.

Rapp watched over his shoulder. A couple of old metal desks came into view, and then they spotted something. Rapp gestured for Adams to bring it back. There, all the way across the room, were the shoulders and head of a man.

"Mark one Tango," said General Campbell over Rapp's headset. "That's the control panel. Can you get us a better look at what he's watching?"

Adams zoomed the camera in on the man sitting behind the door. In front of the terrorist were a dozen small black-and-white monitors mounted in a metal rack. The bottom middle two were obscured by the man's head, but the ten other monitors all appeared to be showing images of the exterior of the White House.

Rapp turned away from the door and, in as soft a voice as possible, asked, "You're recording this, right?"

"That's affirmative," replied Campbell.

"Good. We're going to plant a monitor here and move on." Rapp fished one of the micro video-and-audio surveillance transmitters out of his pocket and turned it on. Then, setting it on the floor, he edged the unit's thin fiber-optic camera under door as far as it would go. Turning away from the door again, he whispered, "Are you receiving the new signal?"

"That's affirmative."

Rapp tapped Adams on the shoulder and pointed up the stairs. Adams retracted the snake and coiled it back into a loose loop. Before proceeding, Rapp bent over and checked for any trip wires. After making sure it was safe, he took the lead. At the top there was no landing, just the interior of the wall panel that accessed the area between the Oval Office and the president's private dining room.

Adams pointed to a latch and said, "It opens it." Rapp nodded. He would have preferred to have quietly drilled a hole in the wall and inserted a camera to see what was on the other side, but they were short on time. Rapp pressed the latch and held his MP-10 ready. The narrow section of the wall popped in. pulling it open further, Rapp looked out across the hall at President Hayes's private study. Almost instantly his nostrils filled with a ripe stench.

The smell crawled into the stairwell, and Rapp started breathing through his mouth. Remembering Adams, he turned and whispered, "I think there are some dead bodies up here. Are you going to be all right?"

Adams nodded and waved Rapp forward.

Rapp pointed at Adams and then the ground, signaling for him to stay put for a second. Rapp moved to the right and hugged the wall. The failing evening light came through the windows. In the dining room ahead, the overhead light was lit as well as a table lamp. It was as if the building were stuck in time. Several half-filled coffee cups littered the table, and a tray filled with dishes was waiting to be carted away. To the right, the pantry door was open, and Rapp could see out into the main hallway. This caused him to pull back a step.

Everything Rapp saw, the people back at Langley saw.

Campbell came over his headset. "Iron Man, there is a door on your left that leads out into the Rose Garden." Rapp's head swiveled toward the door, and the general said, "That's it. Let's check it for explosives."

"Roger." Looking back to make sure there was no one in the hallway, Rapp moved out around the left side of the dining room table. A large plant stood next to the door and behind was the same gray metal box Rapp had seen in the president's bedroom. From the side of the box a clear filament wire wove its way through a series of eyelet screws. The clear wire, really nothing more than fishing line, went across the base of the door, through another eyelet screw, up three feet, where it went through another looped eyelet and then began its horizontal course across the door again. Rapp followed it to the other side and stopped.

"Shit."

"What is it?" asked Campbell.

"You can't see the wire?"

"No."

"It runs across the base of the door, up three feet, and then back across. But the big problem is it doesn't stop." Rapp walked along the wall, eyeing the clear wire as he went. "It runs all along the wall, not just the door."

"That could be a problem." They had guessed that the doors would be wired, so the HRT was planning t blow mouse holes in the walls to enter the building with wire running across the walls, that wouldn't work.

"I'm going to keep moving. We'd better hope those SEALs are good, or we're in a lot of trouble." Rapp walked quickly back toward the other end of the room. Instead of heading back into the short hallway, he cut into the pantry and carefully approached the door that led out into the main hallway of the first floor of the West Wing. Clutching the thick grip of his integral suppressor, he inched his way to the doorframe. His eyes were instantly drawn to the trails of dark dried blood that stained the hallway carpeting. The blood came from both directions, as if bodies had been dragged, and went into the room that was across the hall and to the right.

Rapp didn't want to think about what was behind the closed door, but believe it was probably what was causing the grotesque smell. As he checked up and down the hallway, he noticed another bomb to his left. Rapp cringed and tried to focus the head cam on the gray metal box. This was worse than he thought. Not only was there an outer layer of bombs, it appeared there was also an inner layer to contend with. Rapp retreated to join Adams.

"Did you get a bead on that second bomb and its location?"

"Affirmative. Was the discoloration on the carpeting what I thought it was?"

"It looked like it was dry blood," replied Rapp as he reached Milt Adams's position. Rapp continued past him two steps and poked his head into the Oval Office. Instantly, he saw the cause of the smell. The bloated body of a man lay between the two couches on the floor. His head had fallen next to the embroidered presidential seal and had deposited a large pool of blood. Rapp edged around the first sofa and tried to get a look at the man's face, but it did not good. His cheeks and neck were so swollen they looked as if they might break the binds of the dress shirt and necktie. The man's hands had suffered the same gross expansion.

Rapp moved on and checked the curved wall behind the president's desk. Near the door that led onto the Oval Colonnade, he found another bomb. The clear wire traversed the wall horizontally twice.

Exhaling, he said, "Same thing as the other room. I'm taking Milt, and we're going to check out the interior."

Adams was standing in the doorway, looking at the puffy body on the floor. As Rapp pulled close, he asked, "Do you recognize him?"

Adams shook his head.

Rapp jerked the barrel of his gun back in the direction from which they had come. As he walked into the dining room, he hugged the wall to his right and kept his gun up and leveled. He turned back to Adams and asked, "There's a door right across the hall here; where does it lead?"

"The Roosevelt Room."

"What's in there?"

"Just a big conference table."

Rapp nodded. "Okay. I'm going to cover you from this little room here. I want you to go across the hall to the Roosevelt Room and stick the snake under the door. And remember, stay on the left side of the doorframe. Don't stand in the middle."

Adams nodded his little head. Rapp had been adamant about where to stand so as not to get shot. Rapp moved out and stepped into the small pantry off the dining room. At the doorway to the main hall, he eased his head out and checked in both directions. His right hand came up by his shoulder, and he waved Adams forward.

Milt scampered through the pantry and across the hall. The door to the Roosevelt Room was just to his right, and the main door to the Oval Office was almost directly across the hall from it. Staying on the left side, as Rapp had told him, Adams eased the tip of the snake under the door and stared at the monitor. He wasn't sure at first what it was that he was looking at. There were lumps on the floor and the large conference table had been overturned and flipped against the far wall. Something moved, and that's when he figured out that the lumps on the floor were bodies. What had moved was a leg. A leg wearing blue trousers with a red stripe running down the side. Adams immediately recognized the pants as those belonging to a U.S. marine.

A pair of more discerning eyes were back at Langley, watching both the shots from the head cams and the fiber-optic snake. General Campbell's voice came over Adams's headset. "Milt, give me a full sweep nice and slow, and then pull back away from the door." Adams turned the dial with his thumb and slowly moved the snake from the left to the right and then back again. When he was done, Campbell told him, "That's good, now bug out." Adams withdrew the snake and went back across the hall to join Rapp.

Rapp whispered into his lip mike, "Control, what did you see? Over."

"One Tango at eleven o'clock, sitting in a chair facing your door, holding what appears to be an AK-74 in his lap." As Rapp listened, he could hear other voices in the background. Campbell came back seconds later. "I've been advised that there are two other entrances into the room, one of which is blocked. On the floor we appear to have at least a half dozen hostages, maybe more. They look to be tied and wearing hoods."

Adams, who was standing just behind Rapp, was hearing the same thing, and he added, "One of those men in there is a marine."

"That's affirmative. We are reviewing the tape to see what else we can get, but for now, it looks like we've found our missing hostages."

Rapp peeked back around the corner and then looked at the base of the door to the Roosevelt Room. Turning his head back toward Adams, he whispered, "Milt, fish out one of the surveillance units. Bend the lens at a right angle and stick it to the base of the door. I'll cover you."

Adams nodded, walked quietly across the hall, and placed the camera. Rapp asked, "Control, how does the new feed look?"

"Good, we've got about eighty percent of the room, and the Tango is in the picture."

Rapp turned back to Adams. "Rig me two of the black ones."

Adams readied the first one and handed it off to Rapp, who stepped out into the hallway. Immediately to his right was a small credenza with an arrangement of wilting flowers sitting in an ornate vase. Rapp reached behind the credenza and stuck the surveillance unit to the back of it. Stepping back into the pantry, he retrieved the second unit and placed it underneath the credenza at an angle that would cover the hallway as it went in the other direction.