Blood Covenent, page 32
Darby found the Marine version of a Remington 870 twelve gauge not far from Dirk’s computer terminal. He edged sideways to stand parallel to Dirk’s line of access. The last thing Darby wanted to do was explain to Harper how he got Jonas shot in the Caribbean. The Texan caught Darby’s eye and measured him.
No love lost there.
“Jonas Benjamin,” replied Jonas as he retrieved his hand from the oversized Texan.
“And your associate?”
“Darby Hayes,” said Jonas.
Dirk started walking backwards, when Darby said quietly, “I wouldn’t.”
The Texan glared maliciously at the sergeant and Jonas seemed confused. He gathered himself quickly and said, “We’re here on business.”
“Oh,” said Dirk never taking his eyes off Darby.
“Mister Benjamin, would you just step back, please?”
Dirk kept his hands visible. Gun shot wounds were not a thriving specialty on St. Kitts. Sunburn was the usual complaint.
“What kind of business are you interested in?” he asked.
“Email.”
“All this for an email account,” laughed Dirk.
“No, we wish to monitor a specific account,” continued Jonas.
Understanding blossomed for Dirk and he eyed Darby a bit differently. “Cops?”
Darby shook his head.
“We are prepared to pay you ten thousand dollars in whatever currency you desire. No questions asked,” continued Jonas.
“Then why the gun?” asked Dirk.
“In case you decide not to accept my generous offer.”
CHAPTER 32
Washington, D.C.
Monday, July 19, 1999
1:00 P.M. EDT
The Treasury Building is located next door, east of the White House, and the Secret Service is tasked with presidential protection. There is an elaborate antennae farm located on the roof of the Treasury Building. The Secret Service developed the capability of intercepting all radio traffic in the Metropolitan DC area including encrypted transmissions from the Justice Department and FBI. Armed guards protected the communications center, and access was only gained via retinal scan machines.
The Secret Service kept the activities of their communications center shrouded in the secrecy surrounding presidential protection. They correctly surmised the various law enforcement organizations would be outraged to find their sensitive and not so sensitive communications were routinely plucked from the airwaves. It became one of the most tightly held secrets inside the Beltway. The secret was kept within the Treasury Department. It was never shared with the politically appointed staff—including cabinet secretaries—or regular government employees. Its funding was buried in a nebulous line item on the budget, and considering the national security implications, no one ever challenged the necessity of modern communications for the Secret Service.
Computers were not entrusted with the task of determining what might be important. A staff of eight men and women monitored communications in the District during normal threat assessments. TheSAMSON weapon and its detonation on Friday ignited a crisis mentality inside the Secret Service. The communication center’s staff was doubled, and on Saturday, they were briefed onSAMSON .
Due to their self-imposed isolation from the rest of the intelligence and law enforcement community, the communication center did not benefit from the email tag General George Carnady instructed the National Security Agency to perform, nor did they have knowledge of the email Harper had discovered in New York generated byHarlequin. In fact, the Secret Service did not even know thatHarlequin existed. What they did know was that the FBI was highly agitated over something this morning. A two-person team was tasked to monitor the FBI frequency exclusively.
Someone else was tasked with their normal duty of monitoring the DC Police band and the Metro Police. There were the normal calls reporting gunfire, muggings, and car thefts on the eastern side of the District. The Secret Service ignored these routine matters, because it fell into the normal violent patterns. The only time they worried about such things was when their charge decided a photo op regarding education or poverty or the homeless was required. Then an armored caravan of limousines, Ford Expeditions, and Chevy Suburbans would meander through Washington’s mean streets. The area would besanitized by the DC Police—except for those very desperate persons needed for the programdu’jour. After the obligatory speeches were delivered, video manufactured, and journalistic prostitution committed, the entire procession would make a hasty retreat back to the District’s safer zones.
The communication center staff was rotated on a six-hour basis with a two-hour overlap. It was cheaper to use more people than to risk missing something because of fatigue or inattention. The wisdom of this precaution came to fruition Monday afternoon. Judy Gertz was the officer assigned to monitor the local police band. She had started her shift at noon and had discovered nothing in the passing hour. Posted on each of their cubicles was a photograph ofSAMSON , a physical description, and the arming and disarming codes. Unlike the rest of the country, they were told the truth about Westchester.
At seven past one, Judy heard: “Dispatch, I’ve got something kind of strange here.”
“Come again, describe strange.”
Judy pulled a notepad and jotted down the time. She tapped some commands on her terminal and filtered out other police band frequencies.
“I’ve got a rental vehicle with a phony parking permit located between the Supreme Court and Library of Congress buildings.”
Judy started to relax. Someone was trying to take advantage of the limited parking spots and got caught. The rental car was an odd twist, but fake or non-existent parking permits were nothing new.Why would that seem strange?
“Call it in and get a tow truck,” replied the dispatcher in a perturbed tone.
“Yeah, I know the procedure,” came an irritated voice, “but that’s not the problem.”
Judy’s fingers paused above her keyboard.
“There’s a case in the back seat, and it looks like that thing we were briefed on this morning.”
Judy could hear the dispatcher gasp. “Describe what you have!”
“I’ve got a stainless steel cylinder about two or three feet long with a bubble on one end. There are some glowing red numbers counting down—”
“What’s the reading?” asked the dispatcher urgently.
“Eh, zero zero five one zero three,” came a shaky voice.
“Fifty-one minutes?”
“Yeah.”
Judy reread theSAMSON description and motioned for the watch officer to come over. “We’ve got a problem.”
“Okay, on your briefing papers today, there’s a code to type on the keypad. This should disarm—”
“Dispatch, there’s no keypad. There’s just this countdown clock.”
Judy looked at the picture taped to the end of her cube. This one had a keyboard.They were supposed to have keyboards! The keyboard was what it took to shut the thing off.
“Come again, I don’t think I caught that.”
“I said there’s no keypad.”
The watch officer picked up the phone in Judy’s cubicle and dialed a special number at the White House. His call set into motion the machinery to remove the nation’s political leadership from Washington.
* * * *
Peter Rasmussen flew the traffic helicopter for an association of several Virginia and Maryland radio stations. His days consisted of explaining the usual congestion on the beltway and its arterial roadways were right where everyone expected. It let Peter fly and it kept him out of a confining office. Above the crowded streets, there was a certain freedom and focus that got lost below when the red taillights become the entire world.
“Hey, Pete—you up there?” crackled his headphones.
“Yeah,” he replied.
Mary Ellen was one the station news reporters trying to break in with the majors. She spent her days listening to the police scanners and combing the news wires for some scrap no one quite understood.
“Where you at?”
Peter checked the ground below and said, “I’m coming up over Georgetown.” Georgetown was one of those addresses that looked great on a business card, but Peter could not see the value of spending three or four hundred thousand for a two-hundred-year-old row house where the District restricted what changes could be made. The current crop of yuppies flocked and spent their money on housing and the boutique shops as if they really believed the Y2K bug was ushering in the end of the world.
“So you’re not too far from the Supreme Court?”
“A minute maybe,” he answered.
He wheeled the Bell 206B JetRanger III away from the protective White House perimeter zone and flew parallel to Pennsylvania Avenue as it led towards the distinctive Capitol Dome and the Supreme Court behind. Already, he could see a couple of flashing lights from a collection of emergency vehicles. He hovered in restricted airspace over the Capitol Hill parking lot.
“Mary Ellen, I see about two or three squads blocking off traffic and surrounding a vehicle parked on the street across from the Court.”
It surprised both Mary Ellen and Peter when he was ordered to land the aircraft on the Capitol Hill parking lot. The orders came directly over his headphones. There was an edge to the dispatcher’s tone as he brought the JetRanger down to the vacant parking lot.
“Are you in trouble, Peter?”
“Who knows? These days you can get in trouble for looking the wrong way at somebody. But usually, they behave like that on the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.”
There were two Capitol Hill cops running towards the JetRanger with their hands resting on top of their holstered weapons. He knew about restricted airspace, but usually they gave you a warning and sent you on your way. There was no notice of any VIP traffic. Peter shrugged and started to shutdown the JetRanger.
“Mary Ellen, I’ve got a couple of cops running towards me. I’ll let you know what’s going on. Probably be here for a while.” He was very wrong.
The first cop opened the side door and waved his finger in a circle above his head. “Keep it going!” he shouted.
Peter shrugged his shoulders and stopped his shutdown routine, “Mary Ellen, any idea what’s going on?”
“Nope, but according to the scanner they seem real upset. They keep talking about something called Samson.”
Running towards the helicopter were two of DC’s finest with a case held between them. It banged against their knees, and one lost his cap as he ran under the downdraft of the JetRanger’s blades. They pulled open the side door and the two Capitol Hill cops helped the two DC cops manhandle the case into the JetRanger. As soon as they were inside and before the door was firmly latched, the older cop said, “Take off!”
Peter stared at the sweating cops and asked, “Anywhere in particular?”
The two gave him a puzzled look. No one had thought that far ahead.
Not a good sign.
He pulled the yoke back and lifted the JetRanger into the air.
The controlling voice in his headphones returned. This time it was a military air controller from Andrews Air Force Base. “I want you to fly as fast as you can to the southeast over Chesapeake Bay.”
“But there are—”
“Don’t worry about that. You have top priority. All other air traffic has been diverted from your line of flight.”
Peter cocked his head and looked back at the two frightened men behind him. They were cradling the case between them. The lid was open now and they were staring at something inside. From his position, he could not make out the configuration. He keyed the radio for Mary Ellen, but she was off the air.
Strange.
The JetRanger sprang away from the Mall area cutting a direct line towards open water. After a minute or two, he asked casually, “Anyone want to tell me what’s going on?”
The two cops behind him did not have their headphones on and could not hear him over the steady beat of the rotor blades. The military air controller replied to his query, “I’m not authorized to tell you.”
Terrific.
* * * *
Pentagon
Louis Edwards examined the digital map displayed on the main screen of the Pentagon’s situation room. George Carnady looked at the blinking white locator dot for Peter Rasmussen’s helicopter. Below the screen was a digital display running a countdown clock they hoped was synchronized with the one on the bomb. The helicopter’s path overlaid a topographical map of Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware.
George thanked a lieutenant who handed him the specifications for Peter’s Bell 206B JetRanger III helicopter. He frowned as he examined the document and glanced back to the main screen where most everyone’s attention was focused. It did not look promising. “Has this been plotted yet?” he asked the lieutenant.
“It should be coming up on the status screen in a few seconds, sir.”
Louis looked from the chart table where two other captains were busily working out the limits of the JetRanger’s range before the bomb detonated.
“We need to talk to the pilot,” said Louis.
Carnady nodded thoughtfully. “Lieutenant, I want the distribution of air assets that can reasonably rendezvous with the JetRanger in the next fifteen minutes.”
Thirty-five minutes.
The JetRanger’s range popped up as a red circle on the screen. “That represents the JetRanger’s maximum range based on a straight line from their present position,” explained the lieutenant.
The blood red arc cut across the border separating Delaware and Maryland. It continued south slicing well inside the natural breakwater formed by the portion of Virginia extending south from Maryland down to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge connecting Virginia Beach to North Hampton. The arc rolled westward cutting a line north of Richmond.
“He can’t make it to the ocean in time,” concluded George.
Louis stared at the map. The decisions they made in the next few moments would decide the extent of the damage and the loss of life.
Peter Rasmussen’s voice echoed through the speakers in he situation room. “If someone doesn’t get on the horn right now and tell me what’s going on, I’m setting this bird down.”
The locator indicated the JetRanger was somewhere above Prince Georges County, Maryland.
“I’ll talk to him,” volunteered Louis.
“Lieutenant, patch him through.”
The lieutenant pointed to a phone next to Louis and said, “That one, sir.”
“And lieutenant, where’s my list?” prodded George.
“Working on it, sir. Doesn’t look like much.”
Louis picked up the phone. “Mister Rasmussen?” he asked tentatively.
The lieutenant’s list of possible air assets popped up as blue dots on the main screen. There were three of them. They were all to the north of the Jet Ranger’s current position, which meant it would have to reverse course and count on making a rendezvous between two aircraft and pilots unfamiliar with each other. Any mistake and the already ragged safety margin for getting out of this mess whole would be spent. George scowled.
“Yeah, who’s this?”
“My name’s Richard Jones,” said Louis. The lie came easily to his lips.
“Okay. Let me ask you. Are you authorized to tell me what’s going on?”
“Yes.” Louis was not sure if he was or not.
George leaned over the chart table and tapped the area of the map. “He needs to fly right here. Figure out where he’ll be one minute before detonation and issue orders to clear any naval traffic in the area.” He closed his eyes for a moment and said softly, “We won’t be able to warn everyone, some of the pleasure craft and sail boats won’t have their radios on, or even have a radio.”
The two captains looked at Carnady and saw the stress lines below the iron-gray hair. They seemed relieved that a flag officer faced this decision as they set about to implement his orders.
Thirty-four minutes.
Louis looked at the biographical folder assembled from a fax from the main radio station he serviced. “May I call you Peter?” he asked.
* * * *
JetRanger
The two cops sitting behind Peter figured out how to plug their headphones into the JetRanger’s intercom system. Peter did a voice check and both men came online. He keyed his radio again. “Okay, we’re all listening.”
“We are on an open channel, so I’ll keep this brief,” began Louis.
Peter rolled his eyes as he checked the farmland below. His thoughts wandered back to the two cops behind him and he considered what had happened in the last fifteen minutes. Now, he was flying his helicopter directed by a voice on the other end of his radio—a voice that did not sound like an air traffic controller.
“You are carrying an armed weapon. I presume you can see a red LED display with a clock counting backwards.”
“I can,” said the younger cop.
Clocks counting backwards did not sound very promising either. Somehow, he suspected the cops knew about the case they were carrying. “I take it this is not good news,” suggested Peter. He opened the JetRanger’s throttle wide open. The airspeed indicator wiggled between 120 and 130 on the dial.
“No,” agreed Louis. “The timer should read about thirty-three minutes,” continued Louis.
The older cop confirmed the number. What was he doing with a bomb flying across Maryland with two frightened cops? Where was the bomb squad? he wondered angrily.
“Thirty-three minutes is not enough time to disarm the weapon. The best we can do is about two hours,” continued the slippery voice on the other end of the radio. The instructions to fly toward open water made a desperate sort of sense. Dead fish were easier to handle then dead people.
“You’ve seen this sort of thing before?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Another voice interrupted. “Son, your aircraft doesn’t have the range or speed to make it to open ocean before detonation.”
The specification sheet indicated the JetRanger’s top speed was one hundred thirty-two miles per hour. The aircraft was not designed to handle a sustained maximum speed for close to an hour. Cruising speed was closer to one hundred ten miles per hour. The Atlantic Ocean was fifty minutes away and deep water possibly beyond the range of successfully getting back to land. His fuel tank gauge read less than half full.
