Housekeeping staff and security personnel were beginning to arrive. They were helping everyone toward the stairwell. Odette told one of the security men that someone needed help in 312. Then she rushed ahead to the stairwell. In less than a minute, she was in the street. The parking lot was on the other side of the building. She ran toward it.
The Harpooner was gone.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 3:13 a.m.
Paul Hood returned to the Cabinet Room and shut the door. He took a calming breath. The room smelled of coffee. He was glad. It covered the stink of treason. Then he took out his Palm Pilot, looked up a number, and went to the phone to enter it. This was not something that Hood wanted to do. It was something he had to do. It was the only way he could think of to prevent what was effectively shaping up as a coup d’etat. The phone was answered right after the second ring.
“Hello?” said the voice on the other end.
“Megan, it’s Paul Hood.”
“Paul, where are you?” asked the First Lady.
“I’ve been worried–”
“I’m in the Cabinet Room,” he said.
“Megan, listen. Fenwick is definitely involved in a conspiracy of some kind. My feeling is that he. Gable, and whoever else is in this have been trying to gaslight the president.”
“Why would anyone want to make my husband think he’s lost his mind?” she asked.
“Because they’ve also set in motion a confrontation with Iran and Russia in the Caspian Sea,” Hood told her.
“If they can convince the president or the public that he’s not equipped to handle the showdown, he’ll have to resign. Then the new president will either escalate the war or, more likely, he’ll end it. That will win him points with the people and with Iran. Maybe then we’ll all divide up the oil wells that used to belong to Azerbaijan.”
“Paul, that’s monstrous,” Megan said.
“Is the vice president involved with this?”
“Possibly,” Hood said.
“And they expect to get away with it?”
“Megan, they are very close to getting away with it,” Hood informed her.
“The Caspian situation is revving up, and they’ve moved the strategy sessions from the Oval Office to the Situation Room. I don’t have security clearance to go down there.”
“I’ll phone Michael on the private number and ask him to see you,” Megan told him.
“That won’t be enough,” Hood said.
“I need you to do something else.” Megan asked him what that was. Hood told her.
“I’ll do it,” she said when he was finished.
“Give me five minutes.” Hood thanked her and hung up. What Hood had proposed was a potentially dangerous tactic for him and for the First Lady. And under the best of circumstances, it was not going to be pleasant. But it was necessary. Hood looked around the room. This was not like rescuing his daughter. That had been instinctive. He had to act if she were to survive. There had been no choice. This was different. Hood tried to imagine the decisions that had been made in this room over the centuries. Decisions about war, about depressions, about human rights, about foreign policy. Every one of them had affected history in some way, large or small. But more important than that, whether they were right or wrong, all of them had required a commitment. Someone had to believe they were making the proper decision. They had to risk anything from a career or national security to the lives of millions on that belief. Hood was about to do that. He was about to do both, in fact. But there was a proverb that used to hang in the high school classroom where Hood’s father taught civics. It was appropriate now:
“The first faults are theirs that commit them. The second theirs that permit them.” As Hood turned and left the Cabinet Room, he did not feel the weight of the decision he made. Nor did he feel the danger it represented. He felt only the privilege of being able to serve his country.
Baku, Azerbaijan Tuesday, 11:15 a.m.
It had been a long time since Maurice Charles had to make a sudden retreat from a safe site. It infuriated him to run from a place he had carefully prepared. But it infuriated him even more to run from anyone or anything. It did not even matter to him at the moment how someone had found out where he was. From their accents, the intruders were Russian and American. Perhaps Moscow and Washington had been tracking him without him knowing it. Perhaps he had slipped up somewhere. Or maybe one of his associates had made a mistake. But Charles did not believe the couple had been there by accident. For one thing, he had taken both of the keys to room 310 when he checked in. The front desk did not have a third key to give out. When the click of the bolt being opened woke him up, he knew something was not right. For another thing, Charles had watched the woman’s feet, listened to her speak as she came in.
Everything about her entrance was tentative. If she truly thought this were her room, she would have strode in and turned on the light. Women were always eager to prove things when they believed they were correct.
Yet, as angry as Charles was, he refused to give in to his rage. The immediate task was to cover his tracks so he could get away. That meant eliminating the couple who had come to his room. He had not considered calling the assassins he had used the night before. He did not want it to be known that he had run into trouble. That would be bad for his reputation and bad for business. He had gotten a good look at the couple’s feet and pants. That would be enough to identify them. He had his gun and his knife. They would not survive the morning Charles had walked halfway into the parking lot before turning around. If the couple were looking out a window to find him, he wanted them to see him. He wanted them to come rushing downstairs to stop him from getting away.
That would make them easier to spot. It would also tell him whether or not they had backup. If they had called for help, cars or other personnel would converge on the parking lot within moments. If that did not happen, he could dispatch them and then get out of the city by train as he had planned. After giving the couple a chance to see him, Charles doubled back to the hotel. He entered by the side door, which led past a row of shops. There were fire sirens approaching the hotel but no police sirens. No other cars came speeding into the lot. That did not mean Charles was home free. But it did suggest that the man and woman had been acting without immediate backup near or on site. Losing himself in a crowd that was fleeing a fire should be easy. First, however, he had to finish his business with the intruders.
Washington, D.C. Tuesday, 3:17 a.m.
During the administration of Harry Truman, the White House was virtually gutted and rebuilt due to the weakened condition of its centuries-old wooden beams and interior walls. The Trumans moved across the street to Blair House and, from 1948 to 1952, new foundations were laid and the decaying wooden struts were replaced by steel girders. A basement was also excavated, ostensibly to provide more storage space. In fact, it was created to provide safe areas for the president and members of his staff and family in the event of nuclear attack. Over the years, the basement was secretly expanded to include offices, command headquarters, medical facilities, surveillance posts, and recreational areas. It is now comprised of four levels that go down over two hundred feet. All four basement levels are only accessible by a pair of elevators. These are located in both the East and West Wings. The West Wing elevator is located a short distance west of the president’s private dining room, in a corner that is halfway between the Oval Office and the vice president’s office. The carriage is small and wood paneled and holds six people comfortably. Access to the elevator is gained by thumbprint identification. There is a small green monitor to the right of the door for this purpose. Since the White House recreation areas are down there, all the members of the First Family have access to the elevator.
Hood went to the vice president’s office and waited outside. Because the vice president was at the White House, there was a secret service agent standing a little farther along the corridor. The vice president’s office was close to the State Dining Room, where the original White House meets the newer, century-old West Wing. Hood was there less than a minute when Megan Lawrence arrived. The First Lady was dressed in a medium-length white skirt and a red blouse with a blue scarf. She was wearing very little makeup. Her fair skin made her silver hair seem darker. The secret service agent wished the First Lady a good morning as she passed. Megan smiled back at the young man and then continued on.