Transfer of Power

chapter 50
Mustafa Yassin was proud of his work. He double-checked his progress again and grinned. With satisfaction, he flipped off the power switches on all three drills and backed the bits out of their holes. He had reached the proper depth early. Yassin did not have the brawn of men like Aziz, but he was smarter than most. The little thief had learned from dealing with men like Saddam to pad his estimates and manage his superiors' expectations.

The main drill, and largest of the three, sat on a tripod. Yassin tugged at the base and pulled it back out of the way. The other two drills were magnetized. After wresting them from the door, he sat on his toolbox and lit up a cigarette. the plump man inhaled deeply and picked up his radio. He toggled the transmit button and called Aziz.

Aziz was snacking on a sandwich in the galley of the White House mess when he heard the call. Pulling his radio to his mouth, he said, "Mustafa, this is Rafique. What do you want?"

"I am ready for you."

Aziz set his sandwich down and wiped the crumbs from his fingers. "Say again"

"I am ready for you. When you arrive, I will proceed with the last part."

Aziz was elated. "I will be over shortly." Grabbing his MP-5 from the counter, he walked out into the mess and looked over the mass of huddled hostages. There was one person in particular he was looking for. Someone who would elicit the proper emotion from the president. Aziz circled the group looking for the face of Sally Burke, the president's secretary and mother of five. If the president's bodyguards chose to fight, Mrs. Burke would be used as a shield. Aziz found her sitting with a group of women. With his long thin finger, he gestured for her to join him.

Burke pointed to herself nervously and asked, "Me?"

"Yes, you, Mrs. Burke." Smiling, Aziz extended his hand to help the woman to her feet.

Burke reluctantly grabbed it and stood. "What do you want with me?"

"Don't worry. Everything will be all right; we just need you to talk to someone."

"Who?"

"Don't worry. Everything will be just fine." Aziz squeezed her shoulder and again told her not to worry. Then gently he turned her toward the door and led her from the room. Bringing his radio to his mouth, he said, "Muammar, meet me in the pressroom.

* * *

To Rapp's left was the hall leading to the main entrance for the first floor. To his right was the pressroom and a door that led out onto the Colonnade. Rapp wanted to check both of them and see if they were as strongly defended as the doors in the president's dining room and the one in the Oval Office.

As Rapp headed for the pressroom, he heard an increase in the chatter over his headset. At the same time he heard voices from somewhere ahead. He began rapidly backpedaling down the hallway.

General Campbell came over the headset, his voice rushed. "Iron Man, we're out of time. They've stopped drilling and are getting ready to open the bunker door."

Rapp couldn't respond at the moment. He had more urgent things to worry about and didn't want to give himself away by making any more noise than he had to. He made it back to the pantry seconds later and ducked out of the hallway alongside Adams. He whispered into his headset, "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

"How much time do we have?" They cut through the dining room and into the hallway, where he pushed open the wall panel.

"We're not sure."

Rapp closed the wall behind him and gestured for Adams to start moving down the stairs. "What's our best guess?" he whispered.

There was some discussion on the other end and then, "Ten minutes, tops."

Rapp and Adams hit the landing outside of Horsepower, and Rapp pushed Adams into the tunnel. Once they were inside, Rapp closed the door so he could speak without worry of being heard. "Control, let's take it from the top. The place is wired to the gills, and we've only seen a quarter of it. Our only shot is to get these SEALs in here and have them defuse a point of entry for HRT."

"We've got another problem. We just discovered that one of the monitors in Horsepower is tuned to a rooftop camera."

Rapp thought about it quickly and came up with a solution. "I'll wait down here, and if the Tango in Horsepower sees them come in I'll take him out."

Rapp looked at Adams and waited for Campbell's reply. He quickly grew frustrated with being cut out of the discussion process on the other end. After more than ten seconds of waiting, he shouted into his lip mike, "Irene, are you there?"

"Yes."

"Keep me in the loop. I'm your only on-site asset, and we don't have time to debate every point."

General Flood came on the line. "Iron Man, we've got some logistical problems. We were off by almost thirty minutes on our last estimate, and we can't afford to be off by that much again. Not with the president's life on the line."

"Then bring Delta in quicker, but we have to get Harris and his boys going, or those hostages are all dead."

"They might be anyway," stated General Campbell. "I'd say right now the chances of getting HRT in that building are between slim and none. And if we do get them in, the chances of them coming out alive aren't much better."

Rapp was pissed. The minutes were ticking away and people were getting cold feet. "I need help. I can take out the Tango in Horsepower. I can maybe take out the Tango up in the Roosevelt Room, but there's no way I can contend with all of these bombs and take out the Tangos in the mess. We need to take some risks!"

Flood's deep voice came over the headset. "We don't want to see the hostages die either, but we're not about to send good men on a suicide mission."

"We're paid to take risks, General Flood. You've been out in the field, and if you were twenty years younger, you would want in, no matter how bad the odds. Put the question to Harris and his men, and I'll guarantee they'll want in."

There was a moment of silence, and then General Campbell said, "I agree. We have to try."

Kennedy and Stansfield agreed with Campbell, which put all the pressure on General Flood. It was a risky operation, but they had to try. Flood knew it. After a brief moment of reflection the chairman of the Joint Chiefs gave the approval. The second he did so, General Campbell turned around and started barking orders to the JSOC staff sitting in front of him. The officers in turn relayed the orders over secure lines.

* * *

The MC-130 Combat Talon was three minutes away from the jump point when they received the go-ahead from JSOC. The navigator informed Commander Harris of the countdown, and the four SEALs moved to the back ramp with their bulky chutes and packs. Under their left arms, their suppressed Heckler Koch MP-10 submachine guns were safely secured.

The four men stood in single file at the top of the ramp. Reavers, the jumpmaster, was first in line. He checked everyone's chute one last time and then took up his place in the number one slot.

Harris walked up to Reaver's side and looked out at the horizon. To the west the sun was now down, but the sky above it was still lit. To the east it looked as if the world were about to end. The sky was black from as far to the north and east as the eye could see. Looking down, Harris could see the Beltway running east to west, and to his right was the University of Maryland. Beyond the university, the city of Baltimore was getting pounded by the storm. The commander could tell from the trees below that it was gusting hard.

Mick Reavers yelled into his CO's ear, "Great weather to jump in. Who's the crazy bastard that came up with this plan?"

Harris smiled. "We've been in worse situations, Mick. Just make sure you hike up your skirt before you jump. We wouldn't want it to get caught on anything." Reavers gave his boss the bird. Harris smiled at the big slab of beef before him and slapped Reavers on the shoulder. Returning to his spot at the end of the stick, the commander checked the altimeter strapped to his left wrist and waited for the signal.

Through the eerie red light of the cabin, the green jump light began to flash. Almost instantly Reavers raised his right hand and gave the signal for the men to stand by. Seconds later, Reavers gave the go signal and leapt from the open ramp of the Combat Talon. Tony Clark came next, then Jordan Rostein, and lastly Dan Harris pivoted and leapt from the plane.

All four men turned one hundred eighty degrees in the air and assumed the free-fall position known as the frog   arms and legs extended and bent slightly upward. In the darkening sky, the luminescent tape on their helmets helped them keep track of each other and line up. Beneath them and to the south, the White House was easily identifiable.

* * *

Rapp was receiving steady updates from Langley while he tried to think of potential problems. He had identified many, but there were two he could actually do something about.

He turned to Adams and asked, "Is that door to Horsepower locked?"

"Yes."

"Does the S-key open it?"

"Yep."

Rapp pointed to Adams. "Take the monitor off, quick." As Adams started to do so, Rapp grabbed his lip mike and said, "Control, I am sending Milt up to the roof to guide the team through the tunnel."

General Campbell came back, "Are you sure we need to do that? They've studied the blueprints."

"We can't afford any screw-ups. Milt knows the way."

Rapp flipped his lip mike up. "Milt, bust your ass back over there and grab my silenced pistol from Anna. I don't want you using yours. Tell her to hurry back over here because I need her help. Then you get up to the back staircase that leads to the roof. Someone will be talking to you on the radio and telling you if the coast is clear. When you hear that the snipers have taken the shot at the terrorist in the guard booth, I want you to pop that hatch immediately. If that terrorist is still alive, you are to put him down. You cannot allow him to say anything over the radio."

Rapp grabbed the monitor from Adams and started him down the stairs. "Hurry up, Milt."

Adams raced down the stairs with amazing agility for his age and disappeared into the tunnel. Rapp checked his watch and listened to the radio chatter coming over his headset. Waiting for Rielly to get back, he tuned the monitor into the surveillance unit that was mounted just outside of Horsepower. The image of the back of the terrorist's head appeared on the screen.

Less than thirty seconds later, Anna Rielly hustled up the stairs, out of breath and holding her side.

Rapp looked at her and asked, "Is it your rib?"

Rielly nodded with a look of pain on her face.

"Just hang in there a little while longer. Here's what I need you to do." Rapp held up the S-key. "There's a door on the other side of this, and that key opens it. In that room one of the terrorists is watching surveillance monitors. We might need to take him out, but we don't want to unless we absolutely have to."

"So you want me to open the door with this?"

"Yes. I'm gonna open this door, and once I do that, we have to talk in whispers. Just do everything I tell you to do, when I tell you to do it, and we'll be fine." Rapp punched in the code for the door, leaned on the handle, and stepped into the landing area. He set the monitor and his MP-10 on the ground. Dropping to a knee, Rapp moistened the jagged end of the S-key with spit. When he had it wet enough, he bragged the doorknob with one hand and brought the tip of the key to the lock. Looking back and forth between the monitor and the lock, he began to slide the key in. it was inserted a third of the way when Rapp stopped. The terrorist leaned back his chair and clasped his hands behind his neck. Rapp didn't move, didn't breathe for five seconds; then slowly, he slid the key the rest of the way in.

He leaned back and gestured for Rielly to join him on the ground. Pulling her close, he whispered into her ear, "When I give you the signal, I want you to grab the key and the doorknob. After that, if you hear me say the word Go,' open it as quickly as possible and then get out of the way."

* * *

Three MD-530 Little Bird helicopters worked their way up the Potomac River. The small, agile, and quiet helicopters were being flown by the elite pilots of the Army's 160th Special Operations Regiment   the Night Stalkers. Each helicopters carried four Delta Force operators. The commandos stood on the chopper's landing skids, two to a side.

The helicopters approached the group of bridges just to the south of the George Mason Memorial Bridge, skimming the windswept waters of the Potomac. Instead of climbing to fly over the bridges, the pilots of the 160th continued to hug the deck.

Under the four bridges they went, working their way north and closer to the White House. They were to stay out of sight until given the green light. The choppers closed on the Arlington Memorial Bridge and began to slow. When they reached it, the three choppers pulled in under the bridge and hovered. This was where they were to wait.

Meanwhile, a second flight of three Little Birds worked its way up the Anacostia River to the northeast. The three helicopters passed over the Frederick Douglass Bridge and turned north. Skimming over the roofs of apartment buildings and row houses, they cruised at an easy sixty knots, keeping the noise of their rotors and engines nice and quiet. The choppers passed around the east side of the Capitol so no one out on the National Mall would notice them. The wind buffeted them as they turned west and cruised over the roof of the Department of Labor. Dead ahead, five blocks away, was the monolithic structure of the Hoover Building. The choppers slid in over the rooftop and hovered just five feet above the structure. That was where they were to wait.

The operators standing on the skids were loaded for bear. Each man was outfitted with the latest in body armor, including ballistic Kevlar helmets and throat protectors. Gas masks were readily accessible in spare pockets, as were night-vision goggles. Ten of the twelve men carried suppressed MP-10s. the eleventh carried a Mossberg 12-gauge shotgun, and the twelfth carried the heavy 7.62-mm M60ES machine gun. All of them were confident they could overcome anything they met, with one exception: the bombs. If the SEALs didn't find a way around them, they would be in for a real nasty operation.