by Allan Folsom
"Yes, Jake."
"Can the others hear me too?"
"We can, Jake." It was the voice of Secretary of State David Chaplin.
"Okay, here we go." Lowe looked to the others. "The hotel's already in an uproar. Everyone knows we feared a serious breach of security. What no one knows is we first got word of that breach, a serious terrorist threat, at three o'clock this morning. At that time we woke POTUS and took him down a service elevator to the basement garage and then by unmarked car to an undisclosed location. That's where he is now. Safe and unharmed, while our investigation continues." He looked to Dick Greene. "Can you handle that?"
"I think so. At least for a while."
Now he looked to Hap Daniels. "You?"
"Yes, sir. But that still doesn't answer the most urgent question. Where he is and who's got him?"
National Security Adviser Marshall's eyes swung to Daniels. "He was lost on your watch. This has never happened in history. You find him and you bring him home safely. But you keep the doing awful goddamn quiet. You don't and this gets out, the Secret Service is going to look like Little Bo Peep to the whole damn world."
"We will bring him home, sir. You have my word on it. Safely and quietly."
Marshall glanced at Lowe and then back to Hap Daniels, "You damn well better."
33
• ROME, LEONARDO DA VINCI AIRPORT, 9:40 A.M.
Nicholas Marten's Air Malta flight from Valletta had landed thirty minutes earlier and now he waited to board an Alitalia flight for the hour-and-forty-five-minute trip to Barcelona, which was Demi Picard's destination when she left Malta.
He'd learned where she'd gone the same way he'd found out where she was staying in the Maltese capital—by bribing the maître d' at the Café Tripoli for the destination of the taxi he had called for her, Reverend Beck, and the young woman, Cristina—"The British Hotel, Mr. Marten," he'd said quietly.
Marten had done the same with the mustachioed concierge at the British Hotel, approaching him moments after Demi left, telling him Ms. Picard was his fiancée and that they had gotten into a quarrel and she had run off.
"Her mother was supposed to meet us here in Valletta tomorrow. I don't know what I should tell her now; Demi is her only child," he'd lied despondently, playing the kind of game he hadn't played since he'd been a homicide detective in Los Angeles, taking almost any role necessary to get the information he was after. "Do you have any idea where she went?"
"I'm afraid I can't say, sir."
Marten became even more sincere. "She was quite upset, wasn't she?"
"Yes, sir. Especially when she called just after six this morning and asked, or rather demanded, that I do everything in my power to make a hotel reservation for her."
"And did you?"
"Yes, sir."
It was then Marten slipped the concierge a sizable tip and said, "For mother."
The concierge hesitated then leaned forward and quickly scribbled Hotel Regente Majestic, Barcelona on a piece of stationery. Folding it, he handed it to Marten. "For mother," he said genuinely. "I understand completely."
Why Demi was going to Barcelona and in such a hurry after everyone in Malta had seemingly abandoned her, or at least left the island, was anyone's guess. No matter what had happened between her and Reverend Beck, she was clearly connected to him, as, it seemed, was Merriman Foxx. Once again he thought how curious it was for an African-American minister to be a long-time friend of an apartheid-era officer in the South African army who had headed a medical unit attempting to develop secret biological weapons designed to wipe out the black African population.
There was also something else. Something Marten hadn't really thought much about until he'd come upon Beck at Merriman Foxx's table at the Café Tripoli—that it had been the reverend who called Dr. Stephenson for medical assistance when Caroline had broken down after the funerals of her son and husband, and that it had been Stephenson who administered whatever it had been that had started Caroline's rapid spiral into death. Beck to Stephenson to Foxx, the doctor/white-haired man, with his long, hideous, fingers and that horrid thumb with its tiny balled cross. Those things taken together made Reverend Beck nearly as interesting as Dr. Foxx himself, and Marten hoped that by following Ms. Picard to Barcelona he would find either or both.
Marten heard his Alitalia flight called for boarding. Carry-on bag with his electronic notebook inside over his shoulder, he started for the gate. As he did, he noticed a slightly built young man in line several passengers behind him. He looked to be in his early twenties and was wearing jeans and a baggy jacket over some kind of campy T-shirt. A student maybe, or a young artist or musician, who knew? The trouble was he had seen him before. In the lobby of the Castille Hotel in Valletta as he checked out, and then again on his flight from Valletta to Rome. And now here he was boarding the same flight to Barcelona. There was no reason to suspect that it was anything more than coincidence. Except that he did, and it made him uneasy. It was almost as if the young man had the name Merriman Foxx written on his forehead.
34
• MADRID, 11:00 A.M.
It was now four hours since Jake Lowe discovered the president was missing. In the United States every top-security federal agency was clandestinely in overdrive, among them the Secret Service, the CIA, the FBI, the NSA, and every branch of military intelligence. Vice President Hamilton Rogers had personally informed the prime minister of Spain and the U.S. ambassador to Spain. It was thought at first he should also inform the U.S. ambassadors worldwide and in turn, the presidents of Russia, China, Japan, France, and Italy, the chancellor of Germany, and the prime minister of Great Britain, but that idea was stopped in its tracks by Jake Lowe.
This was and had to remain an absolute "need-to-know" circumstance, Lowe said. What had happened had taken place only a short while earlier, meaning there was every chance the president was still somewhere close by and could be found quickly and brought to safety in secret. The more people who knew what had happened, the greater the risk of a security breach. If that happened it would only be a heartbeat before the world knew the president was missing. What would follow—he elaborated on Dr. Marshall's earlier worries—would be a sudden perceived imbalance of global power, followed in turn by sharply escalated national security fears, America's as much or more than any other. In rapid succession those fears would morph into raised military tensions and a massive upheaval in the international stock markets, and after that God only knew what else. The possibilities were endless. Such was the power of the office of the president of the United States and accordingly, the person who occupied it, which made it imperative to keep "the need to know" to as few people as possible.
In Madrid and under the order of the Spanish prime minister, the CNI, Centro Nacional de Inteligencia, the Spanish secret intelligence service, was coordinating a top-secret manhunt that included all points of exit from Madrid—airports, railway and bus stations, and major highways, as well as heightened electronic surveillance of communications between known radical political and terrorist organizations operating in Spain, including the Basque separatist group, ETA.
At the Hotel Ritz, Hap Daniels and Secret Service video experts huddled in the Secret Service mobile command post in the building's underground garage examining digital video recordings taken by the scores of surveillance cameras mounted in and around the hotel: the fourth floor presidential suite, the hallways, elevators and staircases nearby, those in the hotel's underground garage, its entryway and public rooms, and those mounted on the roof that gave a 360-degree view of the building's grounds.
On the hotel's fourth floor, Secret Service technical experts were going over the presidential suite itself, treating it as what they believed it was, a crime scene.
On the fourth floor too, and inside the same secure room they had gathered in earlier, National Security Adviser Dr. James Marshall, faced a somber foursome of Jake Lowe, Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon, White House Chief of Staff Tom Curran, and th
e president's close friend, Madrid resident Evan Byrd. What Marshall had to say was something that at one point or other had crossed all of their minds.
"What if the president is not a victim of foul play? What if he's not been kidnapped at all but somehow found a way to beat security and get out on his own? What if that was his answer to our demand that he authorize the assassinations of the president of France and the chancellor of Germany?"
"How could he beat the Secret Service's impossibly complex circles of security?" Tom Curran dismissed the idea, at least out loud, as if somehow the idea of one man doing it alone were impossible. "And even if he did, how could he defeat Spanish security outside?"
"Tom, assume to hell he did." Marshall was angry. "Assume it was his idea and he got out. How doesn't make any difference except to show that he's smart as hell. What we've got here is a potential disaster. He knows what we requested of him. He knows who was there. The question is what is he going to do with that information? Until we bring him down, we're hanging in the wind, all of us."
"I think, Jim—" Jake Lowe crossed to the window, then turned around to face them. "There's nothing he can do."
"What the hell does that mean?" Marshall snapped. "He's the president of the United States, he can damn near do anything he wants."
"Except tell the truth about this," Lowe looked from Marshall to the others. "What's he going to do, burst into a TV station and say, 'Put me on the air I've got an important announcement to make? Every one of my top advisers, including the vice president, the secretary of defense, the national security adviser, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs has demanded I authorize the assassination of the leaders of France and Germany'?
"The first thing they'd do is put him in a room and call a doctor, followed by the Spanish police and the U.S. embassy. They'd think he'd gone off his rocker. Hap Daniels would have him back here in no time. And the more he protested the crazier he would seem.
"More than that, if he has done this on his own, it means he doesn't think he can trust anyone. He's in office because we put him there. Everyone he knows, we know, and then some. He'll be very aware of that. Furthermore, he wouldn't have run if it wasn't a last resort, if he wasn't afraid that if he didn't do what we asked we'd kill him and Vice President Rogers would become president. A president whose first act would be to authorize the assassinations. And he'd be right about that. We would kill him. And we will kill him now as soon as he's brought back to us.
"He may be a conservative, gentlemen, but he's far too independent for us. It's our fault we didn't see it from the beginning. But we didn't and now he's out there, a time bomb if he can find a way to expose us. On the other hand there's not a lot he can do. He can't use electronic communications, because he'll know that all cell-phone, BlackBerry, and 'hardline' traffic, voice or text, is being monitored for electronic intercept by every security agency in our arsenal and Spain's. He tries to call anywhere, his location will be pinpointed before he gets ten seconds into his conversation. That communication will immediately be shut down in the event he's being made to do it against his will, and Spanish intel or our guys will pick him up in minutes if not seconds.
"So with no electronic communication, that means he's on the streets looking for a place to hide until he can figure out what to do. Next to maybe a couple of rock or movie stars, his is the most recognizable face on the planet. Where the hell does he think he can go that someone won't recognize him and shout about it one way or another? When that happens, the police and Spanish intelligence will show up in a heartbeat. They'll get him out of sight fast and call us. Then Hap and Jim and I will go to collect him. No matter what he says, within the hour he'll be back here, with everyone believing the death of his wife, the pressure of the campaign, of the office, of the whole thing here, finally just got to him and he lost it. He'll be examined by the medical staff who will recommend a little R & R, a breather in the countryside before Monday's NATO meeting in Warsaw. That's where he will be taken, and then taken care of. A heart attack or something. A sad and tragic ending to a proud and extremely promising presidency."
"All well and good," President Harris's close friend Evan Byrd said. "But what if this is not his own doing? What if he is a victim of some terrible foul play?"
"Then we hope and pray for the very best, don't we?" Lowe said evenly. "But don't count on it, Evan. If you'd seen him on Air Force One when he turned us down, you'd know what I meant. No, this is his show and he's going to try to crush us. How, I don't know, but he's going to try. We just have to tighten the screws and make sure we get him first."
35
• THE WESTIN PALACE HOTEL, APRIL 7, 11:40 A.M.
"Good morning, Victor."
"I was wondering when you were going to call, Richard."
Victor paced up and down in his underwear, his cell phone to his ear, his room curtains drawn against the brightness of midday. What was left of his room-service breakfast, coffee, cereal, ham and eggs and toast rested on a tray near the door. The TV was on in silence, tuned to a cartoon channel.
"You don't worry about that, do you? I always call when I say I will. Maybe sometimes a little bit later than you'd like, but I always do call, don't I, Victor?"
"Yes, Richard, you do."
"Did you go to the Hotel Ritz last night as I asked?"
"Yes, of course. I ordered a drink in the lounge just as you said and then took the elevator to the second floor with some other guests. Afterward I went up to the third floor, alone. You asked me to try and get to the fourth floor, where the president was staying. The elevator was blocked from going past the third floor, and the stairs to the fourth were controlled by what seemed to be security people. When they asked what I was doing I said I was just walking around while I was waiting for a friend to meet me for a drink. They said I couldn't go upstairs and so I thanked them politely and left. Then I went down and finished my drink as you instructed and went back to my hotel. That's where I am now."
"The security people did see you."
"Oh yes. But there was no trouble about it."
"Good, Victor. Very good." Richard paused. "I have another assignment for you."
"What is it, Richard?"
"I want you to go to France, to a race track outside of Paris."
"Alright."
"Pack now and go down to the desk and check out. When you do an envelope will be waiting. Inside will be an airline ticket to Paris and instructions on what to do when you get there."
"Is the ticket first-class?"
"Of course, Victor."
"And you want me to go now?"
"Yes, Victor. As soon as we hang up."
"Alright, Richard."
"Thank you, Victor."
"No, Richard, thank you."
• 11:45 A.M.
A tall, slim, balding man wearing glasses and dressed in a black sweater, blue jeans, and running shoes sat at a back table in a small café in the center of Madrid's old city, a mile or more from the Hotel Ritz. He sipped strong coffee and watched people begin to filter in for lunch. That he spoke Spanish fluently helped because it made him seem more at ease and less foreign than he was. So far, as had been the case throughout the morning as he had walked the streets trying to get his bearings, not one person had given him as much as a second glance. Hopefully it would remain that way and no one would realize that the lone man sitting among them was John Henry Harris, the president of the United States.
Growing up, Johnny Harris had heard his late father's double-barreled admonition often enough. The first part was, "Always think on your feet and never be afraid to act if the need arises." Part two followed immediately: "And just because things seem comfortable don't think things can't change in a hurry because they not only can, they usually will."
If that constant, often grating homily had helped prepare him to take action against the cruel and sudden turn of events here in Madrid, two other pieces of his education had helped almost as well. First, as a young man he had worked
on farms and ranches in his hometown of Salinas, California, where he learned to speak Spanish to the point where he shifted easily and comfortably between it and English and where he had a hand in almost everything, including the flying of crop dusters, hence his Secret Service code name. Second, as an adjunct to farming, he had been a carpenter and later a building contractor, working primarily in the renovation of older commercial buildings in Salinas and then farther north in San Jose. In result, he was familiar with the nuts and bolts of construction: structural and mechanical requirements; electrical, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning; and the use of space as it applied to function and design. Older buildings took special care, especially when it came to incorporating central heating and air-conditioning systems into the original architecture and fitting them into spaces not initially designed for them. The Ritz Madrid had opened in 1910. Since then it had been renovated any number of times. When the current heating and air-conditioning system had been added he didn't know. What he did know was that the Ritz was a large hotel, which meant the ducting for central heating and air-conditioning would be substantial—the main ducts themselves might well be four to six feet square, with side ducts probably in the neighborhood of two by three feet. The side ducts would be concealed in drop ceilings in the hallways and in certain individual areas of the guest rooms. The main shafts would, or should, have built-in ladders to access the interior of the system from basement to roof.
