“White House,” he said.
This time, the driver said nothing. Just fired it up and eased out of
the garage. Bumped up and out into the afternoon rush. Crawled the
sixteen hundred yards west in silence. Webster was directed to the
same off-white room. He waited there a quarter-hour. Dexter came in.
Clearly not pleased to see him back so soon.
They’ve stolen some missiles,” Webster said.
“What missiles?” Dexter asked.
He described everything as well as he could. Dexter listened. Didn’t
nod. Didn’t ask any questions. Didn’t react. Just told him to wait
in the room.
The air force Bell put down on a gravel turnout two hundred yards south
of where the road into Yorke narrowed and straightened into the hills.
The pilot kept the engine turning and the five passengers ducked out
and ran bent over until they were out of the fierce downdraft. There
were vehicles on the road ahead. A random pattern of military vehicles
slewed across the blacktop. One of them was turning slowly in the
road. It turned in the narrow space between the rocky walls and
straightened as it approached. It slowed and halted fifty yards away.
General Johnson stepped out into view. The car moved forward and
stopped in front of him. It was a new Chevrolet, sprayed a dull olive
green. There were white stenciled letters and figures on the hood and
along the sides. An officer slid out. He saluted the general and
skipped around to open all the doors. The five men squeezed in and the
car turned again and rolled the two hundred yards north to the mess of
vehicles.
The command post is on its way, sir,” the officer said. “Should be
here inside forty minutes. The satellite trucks are an hour
OKR
behind it. I suggest you wait in the car. It’s getting cold
outside.”
“Word from the missile unit?” Johnson asked.
The officer shook his head in the gloom.
“No word, sir,” he said.
Webster waited most of an hour. Then the door of the small off-white
room cracked open. A secret service agent stood there. Blue suit,
curly wire running up out of his collar to his earpiece.
“Please come with me, sir,” the agent said.
Webster stood up and the guy raised his hand and spoke into his cuff.
Webster followed him along a quiet corridor and into an elevator. The
elevator was small and slow. It took them down to the first floor.
They walked along another quiet corridor and paused in front of a white
door. The agent knocked once and opened it.
The president was sitting in his chair behind his desk. The chair was
rotated away and he had his back to the room. He was staring out
through the bulletproof windows at the darkness settling over the
garden. Dexter was in an armchair. Neither asked him to sit down. The
president didn’t turn around. As soon as he heard the door click shut,
he started speaking.
“Suppose I was a judge,” he said. “And suppose you were some cop and
you came to me for a warrant?”
Webster could see the president’s face reflected in the thick glass. It
was just a pink smudge.
“OK, sir, suppose I was?” he said.
“What have you got?” the president asked him. “And what haven’t you
got? You don’t even know for sure Holly’s there at all. You’ve got an
undercover asset in place and he hasn’t confirmed it to you. You’re
guessing, is all. And these missiles? The army has lost radio
contact. Could be temporary. Could be any number of reasons for that.
Your undercover guy hasn’t mentioned them.”
“He could be experiencing difficulties, sir,” Webster said. “And he’s
been told to be cautious. He doesn’t call in with a running
commentary. He’s undercover, right? He can’t just disappear into the
forest any old time he wants to.”
The president nodded. The pink smudge in the glass moved up and down.
There was a measure of sympathy there.
“We understand that, Harland,” he said. “We really do. But we have to
assume that with matters of this magnitude, he’s going to make a big
effort, right? But you’ve heard nothing. So you’re giving us nothing