“You’re the last,” Mercier informed him.
Emmett checked his watch and noted he was five minutes early. “Everyone?” he questioned.
“Except for Simmons in Egypt and Lucas, who’s giving your speech at Princeton, they’re all present.”
As he entered, Oates motioned him to a chair beside his, while Dan Fawcett, General Metcalf, CIA chief Martin Brogan and Mercier gathered around the conference table.
“I’m sorry for moving the scheduled meeting up by four hours,” Oates began, “but Sam informed me that his investigators have determined how the kidnapping took place.” Without further explanation he nodded to the FBI Director.
Emmett passed out folders to each of the men at the table, then rose, moved to a blackboard and took a piece of chalk. Quickly and to precise scale he drew in the river, the grounds of Mount Vernon and the presidential yacht tied to the dock. Then he filled in the detail and labeled specific areas. The completed drawing had a realism about it that suggested a talent for architectural design.
Satisfied finally that each piece of the scene was in its correct place, he turned and faced his audience. “We’ll walk through the event chronologically,” he explained. “I’ll briefly summarize while you gentlemen study the details shown in the report. Some of what I’m about to describe is based on tact and hard evidence. Some is conjecture. We have to fill in the blanks as best we can.”
Emmett wrote in a time on the upper left corner of the blackboard.
“1825: The Eagle arrives at Mount Vernon, where the Secret Service has installed its security network and the surveillance begins.
“2015: The President and his guests sit down to dinner. In the same hour, officers and the crew began their meal in the mess-room. The only men on duty were the chef, one assistant and the dining-room steward. This fact is important because we feel that it was during dinner that the President, his party, and the ship’s crew were drugged.”
“Drugged or poisoned?” Oates said, looking up.
“Nothing so drastic as poison,” Emmett answered. “A mild drug that induced a gradual state of drowsiness was probably administered in their food by either the chef or the steward who served the table.”
“Sounds practical,” said Brogan. “It wouldn’t do to have bodies dropping all over the decks.”
Emmett paused to gather his thoughts. “The Secret Service agent whose post was on board the yacht the hour before midnight reported the President and Vice President Margolin were the last to retire. Time: 2310.”
“That’s too early for the President,” said Dan Fawcett. “I’ve seldom known him to be in bed before two in the morning.”
“0025: A light mist drifts in from the northeast. Followed at 0135 by a heavy fog caused by two Navy surplus fogging generators concealed in the trees one hundred and sixty yards upriver from the Eagle.”
“They could blanket the entire area?” Oates asked.
“Under the right atmospheric conditions — in this case, no wind — the units left on site by the kidnappers can cover two square acres.”
Fawcett looked lost. “My God, this operation must have taken an army.”
Emmett shook his head. “Our projections figure it took as few as seven and certainly no more than ten men.”
“Surely the Secret Service scouted the woods surrounding Mount Vernon before the President’s arrival,” said Fawcett. “How did they miss the foggers?”
“The units weren’t in place prior to 1700 the night of the abduction,” replied Emmett.
“How could the equipment operators see what they were doing in the dark?” Fawcett pressed. “Why weren’t their movements and the sound of the generators overheard?”
“Infrared night visual gear would answer your first question. And the noise made by the equipment was muffled by the mooing of cattle.”
Brogan gave a thoughtful twist of his head. “Who would have ever thought of that?”
“Somebody did,” said Emmett. “They left the tape recorder and an amplifier behind with the foggers.”
“It says here the only thing the security people noticed was an oily aroma to the fog.”
Emmett nodded. “The fogger heats a deodorized kerosene type of fuel to a high pressure and blows it out a nozzle in very fine droplets, producing the fog.”
“Let’s move on to the next event,” said Oates.
“0150: The small chase boat moors to the dock because of limited visibility. Three minutes later the Coast Guard cutter notifies agent George Blackowl at the Secret Service command post that a high-intensity signal is jamming their radar reception. They also apprised agent Blackowl that before their equipment went blind the only contact on their oscilloscope was a city sanitation tugboat and its trash barges that tied up to the bank to wait out the fog.”
Metcalf looked up. “Tied up how far away?”
“Two hundred yards upriver.”
“Then the tug was above the artificial fog.”
“A crucial point,” Emmett acknowledged, “which we’ll come to later.”
He turned to the blackboard and wrote in another time sequence. The room fell quiet. The men seated around the long table sat in rocklike stillness waiting for Emmett to reveal the final solution to the presidential abduction.
“0200: The agents moved to their new guard posts. Agent Lyle Brock took up station on board the Eagle after agent Karl Polaski relieved him on the pier entrance. What is most important is that during this time the Eagle was hidden from his sight. He later walked to the boarding gangway of the yacht and talked to someone he thought was Brock. Brock by now was either unconscious or dead. Polaski did not notice anything suspicious except that Brock appeared to have forgotten his next post.”
“Polaski couldn’t tell he was talking with a stranger?” questioned Oates.
“They conversed from at least ten feet away from each other in low tones so they wouldn’t disturb anyone on the yacht. When the 0300 post change came around, Brock simply melted into the fog. Agent Polaski states that he was never able to see more than a vague figure. It wasn’t until 0348 that agent Edward McGrath discovered that Brock was not at his scheduled post. McGrath then notified Blackowl, who met him on the Eagle four minutes later. The yacht was searched and found empty, except for Polaski who had moved on board to replace Brock.”
Emmett placed the chalk back in the tray and wiped his hands together. “The rest is cut and dried. Who was alerted and when… the results of a fruitless search on the river and around the grounds of Mount Vernon… the roadblocks that failed to produce the missing men… and so on.”
“What was the disposition of the tugboat and trash barges after the alert?” Metcalf questioned cannily.
“The barges were found moored to the riverbank,” Emmett answered him. “The tug was gone.”
“So much for facts,” said Oates. “The prize question is: How were almost twenty men spirited off the yacht under the noses of an army of Secret Service agents and passed undetected through the most advanced security alarm system that money can buy?”
“Your answer is, Mr. Secretary, they weren’t.”
Oates’s eyebrows raised. “How was it done?”
Emmett noticed a smug expression on Metcalf’s face. “I think the general has figured it out.”
“I wish someone would tell me,” said Fawcett.
Emmett took a deep breath before he spoke. “The yacht that agents Blackowl and McGrath found deserted is not the same yacht that carried the President and his party to Mount Vernon.”
“Son of a bitch!” gasped Mercier.
“That’s hard to swallow,” said Oates skeptically.
Emmett picked up the chalk again and began diagramming. “About fifteen minutes after the fogging generators began laying a dense cloud over the river and Mount Vernon, the abduction team transmitted on the Coast Guard’s radar frequency and knocked it out of commission. Upriver the sanitation tugboat — except in this instance it was not a river tug bu
t a yacht identical in every detail to the Eagle—cast off from the barges, which we found to be empty, and slowly cruised downstream. Its radar, of course, was operating on a different frequency from the Coast Guard’s.”
Emmett drew in the path of the approaching yacht, “When it was fifty yards from the Mount Vernon pier and the stern of the Eagle, it shut down its engines and drifted with the current, which was running about one knot. Then the abductors—”
“What I’d like to know is how they got on board in the first place,” Mercier interrupted.
Emmett made a shrugging gesture with his hands. “We don’t know. Our best guess at the moment is that they killed the galley crew earlier in the day and took their places, using counterfeit Coast Guard identification and orders.”
“Please continue your findings,” Oates persisted.
“Then the abductors on the yacht,” Emmett repeated, “untied the mooring lines, allowing the Eagle to drift silently from the pier to make room for its double. Polaski heard nothing from his post near the bank, because any strange sounds were covered by the hum of the engine-room generators. Then, once the bogus yacht was tied to the pier its crew, probably no more than two men, rowed a small dinghy to the Eagle and escaped with the others downriver. One remained, however, to impersonate agent Brock. By the time Polaski conversed with Brock’s impersonator, the switch had already been made. At the next post change, the man calling himself Brock slipped off and joined the men operating the foggers. Together they drove off and swung on the highway toward Alexandria. We know that much by footprints and tire tracks.”
Everyone but Emmett focused his attention on the blackboard, as if trying to visualize the scene. The incredible timing, the ease with which presidential security was breached, the smoothness of the entire operation, staggered everyone.
“I can’t help but admire the execution,” General Metcalf said. “They must have taken a long time to plan this thing.”
“Our estimate is three years,” said Emmett.
“Where could they possibly have found an identical boat?” Fawcett muttered to no one in particular.
“My investigating team considered that. They traced the old boating records and found that the original builder constructed the Eagle and a sister ship named the Samantha at the same time. The last registered owner of the Samantha was a stockbroker in Baltimore. He sold it about three years ago to a guy named Dunn. That’s all he could tell us. It was an under-the-table cash transaction to beat a profit tax. He never saw Dunn or the yacht again. The Samantha was never registered or licensed under the new owner. They both dropped from sight.”
“Was it identical in every respect to the Eagle?” Brogan asked.
“A creative job of deception. Every stick of furniture, bulkhead decor, paint and equipment is a perfect match.”
Fawcett nervously tapped a pencil on the table. “How did you catch on?”
“Every time you enter and leave a room, you leave particles of your presence behind. Hair, dandruff, lint, fingerprints — they can all be detected. My lab people couldn’t find one tiny hint that the President or the others had ever been on board.”
Oates straightened in his chair. “The Bureau has done a magnificent job, Sam. We’re all grateful.”
Emmett gave a curt nod and sat down.
“The yacht transfer brings up a new angle,” Oates continued. “As gruesome as it sounds, we have to consider the possibility they were all assassinated.”
“We’ve got to find the yacht,” Mercier said grimly.
Emmett looked at him. “I’ve already ordered a surface and air search.”
“You won’t find it that way,” Metcalf interjected. “We’re dealing with damned smart people. They’re not about to leave it lying around where it can be found.”
Fawcett poised his pencil in midair. “Are you saying the yacht was destroyed?”
“That may well be the case,” Metcalf said, apprehension forming in his eyes. “If so, we have to be prepared to find corpses.”
Oates leaned on his elbows and rubbed his face with his hands and wished he was anyplace but in that room at that moment. “We’re going to have to spread our trust,” he said finally. “The best man I can think of for an underwater search is Jim Sandecker over at NUMA.”
“I concur,” said Fawcett. “His special project team has just wrapped up a ticklish job off Alaska, where they found the ship responsible for widespread contamination.”
“Will you brief him, Sam?” Oates asked Emmett.
“I’ll go directly from here to his office.”
“Well, I guess that’s it for now,’ Oates said, exhaustion creeping into his voice. “Good or bad, we have a lead. Only God knows what we’ll have after we find the Eagle.” He hesitated, staring up at the blackboard. Then he said, “I don’t envy the first man who steps inside.”
26
Every morning, including Saturdays and Sundays, Admiral Sandecker jogged the six miles from his Watergate apartment to the NUMA headquarters building. He had just stepped out of the bathroom shower adjoining his office when his secretary’s voice came over a speaker above the sink: “Admiral, Mr. Emmett is here to see you.”
Sandecker was vigorously toweling his hair and he was not sure he heard the name right. “Sam Emmett, as in FBI?”
“Yes, sir. He asked to see you immediately. He says it’s extremely urgent.”
Sandecker saw his face turn incredulous in the mirror. The esteemed Director of the FBI did not make office calls at eight in the morning. The Washington bureaucratic game had rules. Everyone from the President on down abided by them. Emmett’s unannounced visit could only mean a dire emergency.
“Send him right in.”
He barely had time to throw on a terry-cloth robe, his skin still dripping, when Emmett strode through the door.
“Jim, we’ve got a hell of a problem.” Emmett didn’t bother with a preliminary handshake. He quickly laid his briefcase on Sandecker’s desk, opened it and handed the admiral a folder. “Sit down and look this over, and then we’ll discuss it.”
Sandecker was not a man to be shoved and ordered around, but he could read the tension in Emmett’s eyes, and he did as he was asked without comment.
Sandecker studied the contents of the folder for nearly ten minutes without speaking. Emmett sat on the other side of the desk and looked for an expression of shock or anger. There was none. Sandecker remained enigmatic. At last he closed the folder and said simply, “How can I help?”
“Find the Eagle.”
“You think they sank her?”
“An air and surface search has turned up nothing.”
“All right, I’ll get my best people on it.” Sandecker made a movement toward his intercom. Emmett raised his hand in a negative gesture.
“I don’t have to describe the chaos if this leaks out.”
“I’ve never lied to my staff before.”
“You’ll have to keep them in the dark on this one.”
Sandecker gave a curt nod and spoke into the intercom. “Sylvia, please get Pitt on the phone.”
“Pitt?” Emmett inquired in an official tone.
“My special projects director. He’ll head up the search.”
“You’ll tell him only what’s necessary?” It was more an order than a request.
A yellow caution light glimmered in Sandecker’s eyes. “That will be at my discretion.”
Emmett started to say something but was interrupted by the intercom.
“Admiral?”
“Yes, Sylvia.”
“Mr. Pitt’s line is busy.”
“Keep trying until he answers,” Sandecker said gruffly. “Better yet, call the operator and cut in on his line. Tell her this is a government priority.”
“Will you be able to mount a full-scale search operation by evening?” asked Emmett.
Sandecker’s lips parted in an all-devouring grin. “If I know Pitt, he’ll have a crew scanning the depths of the Potomac Ri
ver before lunch.”
Pitt was speaking to Hiram Yaeger when the operator broke in. He cut the conversation short and then dialed the admiral’s private line. After listening without doing any talking for several moments, he replaced the receiver in its cradle.
“Well,” asked Casio expectantly.
“The money was exchanged, never deposited,” Pitt said, looking miserably down at the floor. “That’s all. That’s all there is. No thread left to pick up.”
There was only a flicker of disappointment in Casio’s face. He’d been there before. He let out a long sigh and stared at his watch. He struck Pitt as a man drained of emotional display.
“I appreciate your help,” he said quietly. He snapped his briefcase shut and stood up. “I’d better go now. If I don’t lag, I can catch the next flight back to L.A.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t provide an answer.”
Casio shook Pitt’s hand in a tight grip. “Nobody scores one hundred percent every time. Those responsible for the death of my daughter and your friend have made a mistake. Somewhere, sometime, they overlooked a detail. I’m glad to have you on my side, Mr. Pitt. It’s been a lonely job until now.”
Pitt was genuinely moved. “I’ll keep digging from my end.”
“I couldn’t ask for more.” Casio nodded and then walked down the stairs. Pitt watched him shuffle across the hangar floor, a proud, hardened old man, battling his own private windmill.
27
The President sat upright in a black leather-cushioned chrome chair, his body held firmly in place by nylon belts. His eyes stared off in the distance, unfocused and vacant. Wireless sensor scans were taped onto his chest and forehead, transmitting the physical signatures of eight different life functions to a computer network.
The operating room was small, no more than a hundred square feet, and crammed with electronic monitoring equipment. Lugovoy and four members of his surgical team were quietly and efficiently preparing for the delicate operation. Paul Suvorov stood in the only empty corner, looking uncomfortable in a green sterile gown. He watched as one of Lugovoy’s technicians, a woman, pressed a small needle into one side of the President’s neck and then the other.
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