by Sean Parnell
Goodhill raised one hand sky high, clutching something that looked like a Claymore mine clacker. Steele flipped onto his back to watch the shore, where the Russian AK barrels were spitting those ugly yellow starfish bursts, and then all six of them were gone in a blinding flash as eight kilos of Semtex detonated under their boots.
Steele cranked his head back and looked at Goodhill upside down.
“Nice touch,” he rasped over the roar of the engines.
Goodhill turned from his wheel and grinned.
“I thought you’d like it, kid.”
Chapter 3
Camp David, Maryland
President John Rockford wasn’t much of a shot, but he was certainly sincere.
Golf was supposed to be the preferred game of diplomats, statesmen, and business tycoons, which made sense, since it was nice and quiet and you could have yourself a laid-back conversation about something unremarkable, like nuclear disarmament or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Rockford, when he didn’t feel like talking business, always chose the trap and skeet range at the presidential weekend retreat. You could jam your earplugs in, blast away with a high-priced, over-under, twelve-gauge shotgun, and enjoy the fact that everyone around you was temporarily deaf.
It surprised his staff that he rarely shattered a clay pigeon, since he had such an extensive army record and a chestful of ribbons—“fruit salad” as service members called the rows of medals—and had also once helmed the CIA. But first and foremost, Rockford had been a tank commander, not a rifleman or a sniper. With a rifle he had trouble with a paper target at 25 meters, but with an M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, he could take out a Russian T82 at 4,000 meters while bouncing across the Iraqi dunes at 60 mph.
Thankfully, the shotgun sprayed out lead in a wide cone so he couldn’t completely embarrass himself.
Anyway, he cherished this particular shotgun much more than the sport. It was a Benelli U 828 in beautifully grained satin walnut furniture and a nickel-plated receiver with leafwork engraving. It had been bequeathed to Rockford by his now deceased friend and mentor, former president and commander in chief, Denton Cole. And the thing that made it priceless—in a sentimental rather than bluebook-value sense—were the initials DC carved into the walnut stock, which Cole had done himself with a pocketknife, right there at Camp David.
Six months prior to his death from brain cancer, President Cole had taken his then vice president, John Rockford, for a long walk in the woods around the presidential retreat. He was carrying the Benelli over one shoulder like an old-time minuteman as they strolled, and he’d handed it over to Rockford and grinned wryly as he tapped the deeply furrowed letters.
“You probably think these are my initials, John, but they’re not. They’re a reminder that in Washington, Dee Cee, sometimes you have to shoot a goddamn congressman to get anything done.”
They’d laughed about that, of course, but it wasn’t funny anymore. Cole had died, and Rockford—who’d never dreamed in his life of being vice president of the country he loved, let alone president in a ridiculous twist of mortal fate—had inherited the mantle that no man in his right mind would want. He’d been a career army officer, rising to the rank of full bird colonel, and had been close to pinning on his first general’s star when Cole’s predecessor had ordered him over to Langley as acting director, CIA. After that he’d figured on retiring gracefully from both the army and government, when presidential candidate Denton Cole had called him to ultimate service as VP. If you were a patriot, you just didn’t say no to something like that.
He’d loved working for Denton Cole. The man had been supremely honest and honorable, sort of like Harry Truman. A straight shooter, which was more than Rockford could say about himself out here on the range.
“Pull,” he muttered. The target machine in the dugout thwanged and an orange clay disk went spinning up into the overcast sky like a flying saucer. Rockford did as his sometimes firearms coach had taught him—relax, breathe, lead and squeeze—and the Benelli kicked him in the shoulder and the clay disk shattered into dust.
He heard some light applause. It was the first lady, sitting nearby on a bench, wearing a pair of teal Rosies Workwear coveralls and Foster Grant sunglasses. She grinned at her husband and went back to reading her paperback. She was a former fashion model, yet she had two master’s degrees, spoke five languages, and could look stunning in a burlap sack and clown shoes.
Rockford grunted “pull” again, a clay pigeon flew, he missed it completely, and it went sailing out over the berm at the far side of the skeet range and bounced somewhere in the grass. He cursed, broke the shotgun open, the empty shells popped out, and he started reloading from his belt pouch. He glanced over at one of his Secret Service agents who was standing nearby in a dark blue windbreaker, stone-faced.
“You wanna try it, Jack?”
The agent turned to the president and smiled. “Can I use my sidearm, sir?”
“No. You’ll probably hit it, twice, goddamn show-off.”
The agent grinned more broadly and went back to scanning the perimeter.
The exchange reminded Rockford of another gunman, the one who’d coached him so that at least he could hit something once in a blue moon. Eric Steele. Now there was a shooter, cool as ice, never a wince in his rock-jawed face or a flinch in those weird green eyes. When Rockford was still VP, long before Denton Cole’s death, he’d once asked Steele to take him out to Thorn McHugh’s property in the Virginia boonies, where McHugh had bequeathed a thousand acres to the Program for whatever kind of training the Alphas had in mind.
Steele had instructed Rockford in shotgun basics, with the patience and calm demeanor of a yoga guru, and after an hour he’d managed to knock over a few of the ten steel plates that were mounted on hinges atop a raised horizontal log about twenty-five meters away. When his shoulder had started to ache from the shotgun’s recoil, he’d taken a break and asked Steele to show him what he could do. Steele had drawn his handgun from his waistband and knocked over all ten plates so fast that it sounded like a jackhammer hitting a xylophone.
Thinking about all of that again now made Rockford frown with a shudder of guilt. Eric Steele had saved his life, along with most of his cabinet and nearly every major foreign head of state, while they were all mourning the passing of President Cole at Washington’s National Cathedral. And the really shameful thing was that very few people knew anything about it. But Rockford knew, and shortly after that near conflagration, he’d shut down the Program. He’d had no choice about it really. The highly classified intelligence and special operations unit, which had been successfully kept under wraps since shortly after World War II, was starting to suffer from leaks and cracks in its figurative foundation. But putting a wrecking ball to it had still made him feel like an ungrateful sap.
The Program was the secret lifeblood of so many true patriots, the kind of people he’d served with in combat who’d give their lives and fortunes for you with barely a second thought. Eric Steele was one of those people, and now he’d put that dedicated warrior and all of his Program brothers and sisters out to pasture.
“You sure know how to say thank you, Rockford,” he muttered to himself, then he yelled “pull,” blasted one clay pigeon out of the sky, yelled it again, and shattered the second one before it got ten feet from the dugout. He handed the shotgun to Jack. He knew when to quit.
Rockford turned, gave the first lady a wink and a cock of his chin, and she smiled and got up to join him. They often liked to walk through Camp David’s woods, where they could chat in something like semiprivacy, even though there were always agents with guns close by. It was about half a mile’s stroll of fresh air and lush greenery from the range to Aspen Lodge, the presidential cabin, but Rockford and Lisa could make it last an hour.
They didn’t get very far. A golf cart appeared on the tree-lined roadway, zooming toward them with purpose. At the wheel was Ted Lansky, Rockford’s chief of staff and his former director of clandestine ser
vices over at CIA. Lansky was a husky, big-shouldered man who’d quit smoking his beloved pipe decades ago, but he still clutched an old briar in his teeth like a pacifier and rarely removed it except to stab it at someone like a rapier. Jack, the head of Rockford’s Secret Service detail, got between the president and the braking cart. Lansky hopped out and snapped at him.
“You think I’m gonna run over the boss, Jack?”
“No, sir, but you might have a stroke and lose control of the wheel.”
“You gunslingers are all friggin’ dark,” Lansky said, then blushed a shade and said “sorry, ma’am” to the first lady. She grinned. Fashion models were accustomed to hearing much worse.
“Mr. President,” Lansky said, “’fraid I have to run you back up to the Big House.” He used the sobriquet for the lodge devised by President Eisenhower’s staff. “White House routed a call from China.”
“Just what I need to ruin our weekend,” Rockford growled. “A colloquy with those pirates.”
“It’s not official, sir. Not from Beijing.”
“Oh?”
“Do you want me to come up later, John?” Mrs. Rockford was starting to pull away from where she’d hooked her husband’s elbow.
“No, Lisa.” He patted her hand. “We’ll all ride up there together.” He turned back to Lansky. “What’s it about, Ted? Any idea?”
“Well, fellow claims he’s a party insider. Says he’s on the run, doesn’t have much time, and he’ll talk only to you.”
The president helped Lisa into the back of the cart and climbed in beside her, while Jack went around to the front passenger side and Lansky reclaimed the wheel. A black armored Suburban appeared from the other side of the skeet range, tinted windows rolled down and black M4 barrels jutting discreetly at the sky.
“So why’d they put him through, Ted?” Rockford asked as Lansky started driving back up into the woods. All sorts of crackpots called the White House every week demanding to talk to the president.
“He gave them a Langley asset code, sir,” Lansky said. “And he said if they didn’t let him talk to you, they’d be responsible for starting World War Three.”
Chapter 4
The Big House, Camp David
To the sailors, leathernecks, and Marine One helicopter pilots who served at the presidential weekend retreat, the sprawling patch of remote wooded real estate in northern Maryland was known as Naval Support Facility Thurmont. They didn’t call it Camp David, and it certainly wasn’t Shangri-la, as President Franklin Roosevelt had first named it. It was a land-locked naval base, and one of the most prestigious postings in the seaborne service.
Every one of the sailors, security detachment marines, navy chefs, firemen, Seabees, riflemen, and helicopter crews was hand selected, and after their tour of duty at Thurmont, which almost invariably included at least one handshake with the president, each would receive the Presidential Service Badge. That was something that didn’t go unnoticed by your chain of command and would forever pop up in your 201 file, raise an eyebrow, and cause some lieutenant commander to nod and mutter, “This swabbie’s shipshape. Good to go for my crew.”
Bud Garland had served as a young ensign assigned to NSF Thurmont back when John F. Kennedy was president. Kennedy, a decorated navy hero of World War II who’d commanded a doomed patrol torpedo boat called PT 109, always had a place in his heart for sailors and had spotted young Bud taking out the trash one day behind the Aspen Lodge. The dashing president had stunned the young squid by engaging him in half an hour of banter about poop decks, flag signals, and nuclear submarines while Soviet ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin waited for Kennedy in the Birch Lodge and steamed. Bud Garland had been thunderstruck by that encounter, which inspired him to remain in the navy, where he’d ultimately risen to the rank of admiral.
Admiral Bud Garland’s only daughter, Katie, had in turn been awed by her father’s remarkable record of service and had followed his lead. She’d served multiple tours aboard aircraft carriers and missile boats as a naval officer, had then attained a master’s and Ph.D. from the Harvard Kennedy School, and had been plucked from a think tank to serve as President John Rockford’s national security advisor. She was forty-two, relatively young for such a lofty position, and with her wide, seemingly permanent smile and Jackie Kennedy hairdo, she looked like a housewife from that old politically incorrect TV show Father Knows Best. But she was hard as nails.
The Aspen Lodge, formerly called The Bear’s Den by its first resident, Franklin Roosevelt, is the centerpiece of NSF Thurmont. It’s a modest rustic structure where presidents have been resting their weary heads since 1942, with plenty of raw stone and knotty pine, a big kitchen, great room, four bedrooms, five fireplaces, a swimming pool built by Richard Nixon out front on its three-acre patch, a small three-hole golf course out back, and an underground bomb shelter that’s deep enough so that a suitcase nuke can wipe out the lodge and the president can still pop back out, smoking a cigar.
Outside are two terraces, one lower, one higher, of interlocking flagstone, where barbecues are held and Scrabble played. Inside, the large central great room is decorated with Adirondack-style chairs and sofas upholstered in homely grandma prints, and large picture windows that look out on lush green panoramas in summer and crisp winter whiteness at the back half of the year.
Katie Garland, who despite the informalities at Camp David always wore dark suits that resembled her naval uniforms, was pacing back and forth across the great room, chewing on a pencil and stabbing it down into a notebook at every turn of her carpet track. She believed that if you worked for a president there was no such thing as time off, no matter how long your run lasted. Presidents were like brain surgeons, always on call, even if they were technically “on vacation,” and she thought of herself as the surgeon’s apprentice, which she essentially was.
The front door to the Big House banged open as Rockford pounded into the room like the movie character Shrek, making the crystal coffee cups rattle in their saucers where the navy stewards had set them on the table in front of the long couch, upon hearing the CIC was on his way back from skeet. Lansky followed on his heels, while Mrs. Rockford peeled away like an outside wing woman in a fighter plane formation and headed for the master suite, and Jack pulled the door closed and stayed on guard right outside.
“What’s the skinny, Kate?” Rockford shrugged off his shooting jacket and tossed it onto a worn armchair where Ronald Regan had once liked to sit and kick his cowboy boots up on the coffee table.
“Mr. Lansky briefed you, Mr. President?”
“He did.”
“Then you know as much as I do, sir. He wouldn’t give us a name. Just called himself Casino. Must be an intel handle of some sort, though we don’t yet know who gave it to him.”
Garland pointed to an old-style dial telephone that had been set out for the president on an end table beside the couch. It was fire-engine red, a relic from the Cold War days, and had once served as the emergency line between Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. The telephone’s current residence was actually up at the Laurel Lodge, the building reserved for official meetings and staff functions a thousand feet northwest through the woods, but Garland had had the phone unplugged and brought down to Aspen because it still functioned off of a landline. She didn’t trust cell phones, even if they were encrypted and secured by the NSA.
“How many other leakers are going to be on this call, Kate?” the president asked.
“Just us, sir.”
Rockford smirked. “You two ever leak on me, I’m going to take you down to the skeet range, and you ain’t gonna need your coats.”
Garland smiled, Lansky grunted, and Rockford crashed down on the end of the couch and dropped his big palm on the handset. Garland and Lansky walked across the room to another old wall-mounted telephone—an ugly pink model that had once been called the Trimline—stood shoulder to shoulder, and when Rockford nodded and picked up his handset, they did as well. They shared it between their ears while
Lansky covered up the mouthpiece.
“This is President Rockford.”
There was a long pause and an intake of breath, as if the person on the other end couldn’t believe it. But then a low male voice with a Chinese accent tinted by British boarding school tones thanked the president for his time.
“I am grateful for your compliance, Mr. President.”
“I haven’t complied with anything yet. Who are you?”
“I am known as Casino, sir. I do have a name, but it would not be wise yet to share it.”
Rockford thought the guy sounded shaky, and also like one of those expensive tailors he’d occasionally used in Hong Kong.
“Then state your case, Mr. Casino.” Rockford looked across the room at Garland and Lansky and rolled his eyes.
“Mr. President, I do not have much time, as I was forced to wait for a long period until your underlings could find you.”
Rockford said nothing. Lansky’s face turned a bit red and Katie Garland smirked. She let Lansky hold the Trimline phone by himself and took notes in shorthand with her pencil. The voice carried on.
“Until very recently, Mr. President, I was a full-fledged member of the Chinese Communist Party’s National Congress, as well as the Central Military Commission. I have since fled Beijing, and I am currently in hiding. I did so because I have information of utmost importance that must be acted upon very quickly.”
“Then you’d better spill the beans.”
“Excuse me?”
“Tell me what you know.”
“I know that you have China’s secretary general in a panic, Mr. President. I know that you instituted trade policies that are costing the Party its base of support, as the Chinese people see how flimsy is their alleged utopian government. I know that the chairman’s effort to deprive you of access to the South China Sea has been exposed and that you have warned him unequivocally not to proceed. I know that the CCP has never encountered an American president who cannot be bent to their will, or bribed, or frightened.”
