Most Presidents were creatures of habit, ran tight schedules and rigidly adhered to them. Clocks could be set by Nixon’s comings and goings. Reagan and Carter seldom deviated from fixed plans. Not the new man in the Oval Office. He looked upon the Secret Service detail as a nuisance, and what was worse, he was unpredictable as hell.
To Lucas and his deputy agents it was a twenty-four-hour game trying to keep one step ahead of the “Man,” guessing where he might suddenly decide to go and when, and what visitors he might invite without providing time for proper security measures. It was a game Lucas often lost.
In less than a minute he was down the stairs and in the West Wing confronting the second most powerful man in the executive branch, Chief of Staff Daniel Fawcett.
“Good morning, Oscar,” Fawcett said, smiling benignly. “I thought you’d come charging in about now.”
“There appears to be a new excursion in the schedule,” Lucas said, his tone businesslike.
“Sorry about that. But a big vote is coming up on aid to the Eastern bloc countries and the President wants to work his charms on Senator Larimer and Speaker of the House Moran to swing their support for his program.”
“So he’s taking them for a boat ride.”
“Why not? Every President since Herbert Hoover has used the presidential yacht for high-level conferences.”
“I’m not arguing the reason,” Lucas replied firmly. “I’m protesting the timing.”
Fawcett gave him an innocent look. “What’s wrong with Friday evening?”
“You know damn well what’s wrong. That’s only two days away.”
“So?”
“For a cruise down the Potomac with an overnight layover at Mount Vernon my advance team needs five days to plan security. A complete system of communications and alarms has to be installed on the grounds. The boat must be swept for explosives and listening devices, the shores checked out — and the Coast Guard requires lead time to provide a cutter on the river as an escort. We can’t do a decent job in two days.”
Fawcett was a feisty, eager individual with a sharp nose, a square red face and intense eyes; he always looked like a demolition expert eyeing a deserted building.
“Don’t you think you’re making this into an overkill, Oscar? Assassinations take place on crowded streets, or in theaters. Who ever heard of a head of state being attacked on a boat?”
“It can happen anywhere, anytime,” Lucas said with an uncompromising look. “Have you forgotten the guy we stopped who was attempting to hijack a plane he intended to crash into Air Force One? The fact is, most assassination attempts take place when the President is away from his customary haunts.”
“The President is firm on the date,” Fawcett said. “As long as you work for the President you’ll do as you’re ordered, same as me. If he wants to row a dinghy alone to Miami, that’s his choice.”
Fawcett had struck the wrong nerve. Lucas’s face turned rigid and he moved until he was standing toe to toe with the White House Chief of Staff.
“First off, by order of Congress, I don’t work for the President. I work for the Treasury Department. So he can’t tell me to bug off and go his own way. My duty is to provide him with the best security with the least inconvenience to his private life. When he takes the elevator to his living quarters upstairs, my men and I remain below. But from the time he steps out on the first floor until he goes back up again, his ass belongs to the Secret Service.”
Fawcett was perceptive about the personalities of the men who worked around the President. He realized he’d overstepped with Lucas and was wise enough to call off the war. He knew Lucas was dedicated to his job and loyal beyond any question to the man in the Oval Office. But there was no way they could be close friends — professional associates perhaps, reserved, but watchful of each other. Since they were not rivals for power, they would never be enemies.
“No need to get upset, Oscar. I stand reprimanded. I’ll inform the President of your concern. But I doubt if he’ll change his mind.”
Lucas sighed. “We’ll do our best with the time left. But he must be made to understand that it’s imperative for him to cooperate with his security people.”
“What can I say? You know better than I do that all politicians think they’re immortal. To them power is more than an aphrodisiac — it’s a drug high and alcoholic haze combined. Nothing excites them or inflates their ego like a mob of people cheering and clamoring to shake their hand. That’s why they’re all vulnerable to a killer standing in the right place at the! right time.”
“Tell me about it,” said Lucas. “I’ve baby-sat four Presidents.”
“And you haven’t lost a one,” Fawcett added.
“I came close twice with Ford, once with Reagan.”
“You can’t predict behavior patterns accurately.”
“Maybe not. But after all these years in the protection racket you develop a gut reaction. That’s why I feel uneasy about this boat cruise.”
Fawcett stiffened. “You think someone is out to kill him?”
“Someone is always out to kill him. We investigate twenty possible crazies a day and carry an active caseload of two thousand persons we consider dangerous or capable of assassination.”
Fawcett put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, Oscar. Friday’s excursion won’t be given to the press until the last minute. I promise you that much.”
“I appreciate that, Dan.”
“Besides, what can happen out on the Potomac?”
“Maybe nothing. Maybe the unexpected,” Lucas answered, a strange vacancy in his voice. “It’s the unexpected that gives me nightmares.”
Megan Blair, the President’s secretary, noticed Dan Fawcett standing in the doorway of her cubbyhole office and nodded at him over her typewriter. “Hi, Dan. I didn’t see you.”
“How’s the Chief this morning?” he asked, his daily ritual of testing the water before entering the Oval Office.
“Tired,” she answered. “The reception honoring the movie industry ran past one A.M.”
Megan was a handsome woman in her early forties, with a bright small-town friendliness. She wore her black hair cropped short and was ten pounds on the skinny side. She was a dynamo who loved her job and her boss like nothing else in her life. She arrived early, left late and worked weekends. Unmarried, with only two casual affairs behind her, she relished her independent single life. Fawcett was always amazed that she could carry on a conversation and type at the same time.
“I’ll tread lightly, and keep his appointments to a minimum so he can take it easy.”
“You’re too late. He’s already in conference with Admiral Sandecker.”
“Who?”
“Admiral James Sandecker. Director of the National Underwater and Marine Agency.”
A look of annoyance crossed Fawcett’s face. He look his role as the guardian of the President’s time seriously and resented any intrusion on his territory. Any penetration of his protective ring was a threat to his power base. How in hell had Sandecker sneaked around him? he wondered.
Megan read his mood. “The President sent for the admiral,” she explained. “I think he’s expecting you to sit in on the meeting.”
Pacified to a small degree, Fawcett nodded and walked into the Oval Office. The President was seated on a sofa studying several papers strewn on a large coffee table. A short, thin man with red hair and a matching Vandyke beard sat across from him.
The President looked up. “Dan, I’m glad you’re here. You know Admiral Sandecker?”
“Yes.”
Sandecker rose and shook his hand. The admiral’s grip was firm and brief. He nodded wordlessly to Fawcett, curtly acknowledging his presence. It was not rudeness on Sandecker’s part. He came across as a man who played straight ball, encasing himself in a cold, tensile shell, bowing to no one. He was hated and envied in Washington, but universally respected because he never chose sides and always delivered what was asked of him.
/>
The President motioned Fawcett to the sofa, patting a cushion next to him. “Sit down, Dan. I’ve asked the admiral to brief me on a crisis that’s developed in the waters off Alaska.”
“I haven’t heard of it.”
“I’m not surprised,” said the President. “The report only came to my attention an hour ago.” He paused and pointed the tip of a pencil at an area circled in red on a large nautical chart. “Here, a hundred and eighty miles southwest of Anchorage in the Cook Inlet region, an undetermined poison is killing everything in the sea.”
“Sounds like you’re talking oil spill?”
“Far worse,” replied Sandecker, leaning back on the couch. “What we have here is an unknown agent that causes death in humans and sea life less than one minute after contact.”
“How is that possible?”
“Most poisonous compounds gain access to the body by ingestion or inhalation,” Sandecker explained. “The stuff we’re dealing with kills by skin absorption.”
“It must be highly concentrated in a small area to be so potent.”
“If you call a thousand square miles of open water small.”
The President looked puzzled. “I can’t imagine a substance with such awesome potency.”
Fawcett looked at the admiral. “What kind of statistics are we facing?”
“A Coast Guard cutter found a Kodiak fishing boat drifting with the crew dead. Two investigators and a doctor were sent on board and died too. A team of geophysicists on an island thirty miles away were found dead by a bush pilot flying in supplies. He died while sending out a distress signal. A few hours later a Japanese fishing trawler reported seeing a school of nearly a hundred gray whales suddenly turn belly up. The trawler then disappeared. No trace was found. Crab beds, seal colonies — wiped out. That’s only the beginning. There may be many more fatalities that we don’t have word on yet.”
“If the spread continues unchecked, what’s the worst we can expect?”
“The virtual extinction of all marine life in the Gulf of Alaska. And if it enters the Japan Current and is carried south, it could poison every man, fish, animal and bird it touched along the West Coast as far south as Mexico. The human death toll could conceivably reach into the hundreds of thousands. Fishermen, swimmers, anyone who walked along a contaminated shoreline, anybody who ate contaminated fish — it’s like a chain reaction. I don’t even want to think what might happen if it evaporates into the atmosphere and falls with the rain over the inland states!”
Fawcett found it almost impossible to grasp the enormity of it. “Christ, what in hell is it?”
“Too early to tell,” Sandecker replied. “The Environmental Protection Agency has a computerized mass data storage and retrieval system that contains detailed information on two hundred relevant characteristics of some eleven hundred chemical compounds. Within a few seconds they can determine the effects a hazardous substance can have when spilled, its trade name, formula, major producers, mode of transportation and threat to the environment. The Alaskan contamination doesn’t fit any of the data in their computer files.”
“Surely they must have some idea?”
“No, sir. They don’t. There is one slim possibility— but without autopsy reports it’s strictly conjecture.”
“I’d like to hear it,” the President said.
Sandecker took a deep breath. “The three worst poisonous substances known to man are plutonium, Dioxin and a chemical warfare system. The first two don’t fit the pattern. The third — at least in my mind—1 is a prime suspect.”
The President stared at Sandecker, realization and shock on his face. “Nerve Agent S?” he said slowly.
Sandecker nodded silently.
“That’s why the EPA wouldn’t have a handle on it,”! the President mused. “The formula is ultrasecret.”
Fawcett turned to the President. “I’m afraid I’m not familiar…”
“Nerve Agent S was an ungodly compound the scientists at the Rocky Mountain Arsenal developed about twenty years ago,” the President explained. “I’ve read the report on the tests. It could kill within a few seconds of touching the skin. It seemed the ideal answer In an enemy wearing gas masks or protective gear. It clung to everything it touched. But its properties were loo unstable — as dangerous to the troops dispersing it as to those on the receiving end. The Army gave up on it and buried it in the Nevada desert.”
“I fail to see a connection between Nevada and Alaska,” Fawcett said.
“During shipment by railroad from the arsenal outside Denver,” Sandecker enlightened him, “a boxcar containing nearly a thousand gallons of Nerve Agent S vanished. It is still missing and unaccounted for.”
“If the spill is indeed this nerve agent, once it’s found, what is the process for eliminating it?”
Sandecker shrugged. “Unfortunately, the present state of the art in containment and cleanup technology and the physical-chemical characteristics of Nerve Agent S are such that once it enters the water very little can be done to ameliorate the penetration. Our only hope is to cut off the source before it releases enough poison to turn the ocean into a cesspool devoid of all life.”
“Any lead on where it originates?” asked the President.
“In all probability a ship sunk between Kodiak Island and the Alaskan mainland,” replied Sandecker. “Our next step is to backtrace the currents and draw up a search grid.”
The President leaned over the coffee table and studied the red circle on the chart for a few moments. Then he gave Sandecker an appraising stare. “As director of NUMA, Admiral, you’ll have the dirty job of neutralizing this thing. You have my authority to tap any agency or department of the government with the necessary expertise — the National Science Board, the Army and Coast Guard, the EPA, whoever.” He paused thoughtfully, then asked, “Exactly how potent is Nerve Agent S in seawater?”
Sandecker looked tired, his face drawn. “One teaspoon will kill every living organism in four million gallons of seawater.”
“Then we better find it,” said the President, a touch of desperation in his voice. “And damned quick!”
3
Deep beneath the murky waters of the James River, off the shoreline of Newport News, Virginia, a pair of divers struggled against the current as they burrowed their way through the muck packed against the rotting hull of the shipwreck.
There was no sense of direction in the black dimensionless liquid. Visibility was measured in inches as they grimly clutched the pipe of an airlift that sucked up the thick ooze and spit it onto a barge seventy feet above in the sunlight. They labored almost by Braille, their only illumination coming from the feeble glimmer of underwater lights mounted on the edge of the crater they’d slowly excavated over the past several days. All they could see clearly were particles suspended in the water that drifted past their face masks like windswept rain.
It was hard for them to believe there was a world above, sky and clouds and trees bending in a summer breeze. In the nightmare of swirling mud and perpetual darkness it hardly seemed possible that five hundred yards away people and cars moved on the sidewalks and streets of the small city.
There are some people who say you can’t sweat underwater, but you can. The divers could feel the sweat forcing its way through the pores of their skin against the protective constriction of their dry suits. They were beginning to experience the creeping grasp of weariness, yet they had only been on the bottom for eight minutes.
Inch by inch they worked their way into a gaping hole on the starboard bow of the hulk. The planking that framed the cavernlike opening was shattered and twisted as though a giant fist had rammed into the ship. They began to uncover artifacts: a shoe, the hinge from an old chest, brass calipers, tools, even a piece of cloth. It was an eerie sensation to touch man-made objects that no one had seen in 127 years.
One of the men paused to check their air gauges. He calculated they could work another ten minutes and still have a safe supply of br
eathable air to reach the surface.
They turned off the valve on the airlift, stopping the suction, while they waited for the river current to carry away the cloud of disturbed silt. Except for the exhaust of their breathing regulators, it became very still. A little more of the wreck became visible. The deck timbers were crushed and broken inward. Coils of rope trailed into the murk like mud-encrusted snakes. The interior of the hull seemed bleak and forbidding. They could almost sense the restless ghosts of the men who had gone down with the ship.
Suddenly they heard a strange humming — not the sound made by the outboard motor of a small boat, but heavier, like the distant drone of an aircraft engine. There was no way of telling its direction. They listened for a few moments as the sound grew louder, magnified by the density of the water. It was a surface sound and did not concern them, so they reactivated the airlift and turned back to their work.
No more than a minute later the end of the suction pipe struck something hard. Quickly they closed off the air valve again and excitedly brushed away the mud with their hands. Soon they realized they were touching, not wood, but an object that was harder, much harder, and covered with rust.
To the support crew on the barge over the wreck site time seemed to have reversed itself. They stood spellbound as an ancient PBY Catalina flying boat made a sweeping bank from the west, lined up on the river and kissed the water with the ungainly finesse of an inebriated goose. The sun glinted on the aquamarine paint covering the aluminum hull, and the letters NUMA grew larger as the lumbering seaplane taxied toward the barge. The engines shut down; the co-pilot emerged from a side hatch and threw a mooring line to one of the men on the barge.
Then a woman appeared and jumped lightly onto the battered wooden deck. She was slim, her elegant body covered by a narrow-falling tan overshirt, worn long and loose, held low on the hip by a thin sash, over tapering pants in green cotton. She wore moccasin-style boater shoes on her feet. In her mid-forties, she was about five foot seven; her hair was the color of aspen gold and her skin a copper tan. Her face was handsome, with high cheekbones, the face of a woman who fits no mold but her own.
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