by Ted Bell
Froggy was at the bottom of the tree, waiting for them.
“Froggy,” Hawke said to the little Frenchman, as he and Stoke stepped off the platform.
“Mon ami,” Froggy said to Hawke, bowing from the waist. Hawke smiled and squeezed his old comrade’s shoulder.
“Froggy, get two men up there immediately. Ambrose is badly hurt. Tell your men to be very careful bringing him down. Soon as he’s safely loaded inside the plane, tell Hocking to fly back downriver to Stiletto and get him to sick bay.”
“It is done, Monsieur Hawke,” Froggy said, already on the radio to two of the biggest guys he had.
“Let me borrow that satphone, Froggy,” Hawke said when he signed off, “We might need it.”
The Frenchman handed it over.
“We’ve got ten minutes, Stoke,” Hawke said, “Which one of those trees is the antenna?”
“That one there,” Froggy said, “Come along, mes amis, we’re going to blow it.”
“Timber,” Hawke said with a wry smile, racing toward the fake tree.
85
WASHINGTON, DC
J ack McAtee was ready. The day was cloudy and cold. This was an historic occasion and the president revered history. The Chief Justice was already in place standing beside the George Washington Inaugural Bible. In a few moments, McAtee would place his left hand on it, exactly where Washington had placed his, and be sworn in. It was the moment he most cherished. It was living history, McAtee thought, looking out over the throngs who gathered under the trees.
On April 30, 1789, General George Washington arrived at Federal Hall in lower Manhattan for the very first presidential inauguration. He discovered that there was no bible present. Someone recalled seeing a suitable bible at St. John’s Lodge, a few hundred feet down the road and went in search of it. Returning, he placed the Masonic bible on a red velvet cushion. The book was opened to the pages between Genesis 49 and 50. Washington placed his left hand upon the bible and the first oath of office was administered.
Washington had added the words, “So help me God,” and then bent and kissed the book. Shortly afterward, a silk page was placed inside to mark the precise location where Washington had rested his hand. An engraved portrait of Washington was added, facing the existing one of King George II. And, since the bible was from a fraternal lodge and not one of New York’s twenty-two churches, it was decided the book would be used for all future inaugurations. Washington liked the fact that no specific church was being endorsed.
The two-hundred-year-old Washington Inaugural bible was still used every four years. When not in use, the historic volume was kept under lock and key right where Washington’s men had found it. No one was allowed to touch it without wearing gloves. It sat in an undistinguished room at the back of St. John’s Lodge in lower Manhattan.
THE PRESIDENT was waiting at the top of the Capitol steps. The Chief Justice of the United States, Howard L. Clark, stood at the bottom beside the opened Washington Bible. The First Lady, McAtee’s wife, Lynn, was standing at his side, greeting old friends with a warm smile and trying to hide the fact that she would rather be anywhere else on earth than the Inaugural Platform. Her hands were trembling so badly, she could hardly hold on to the small red leather family bible she always brought along when they flew or on important occasions.
Secret Service agents were everywhere, eyes darting from side to side. Amored vehicles and bomb disposal trucks had tried, unsuccessfully, to park unnoticed at the foot of the podium. She still believed her husband was in imminent danger. She saw Secretary de los Reyes, who smiled at her, knowing she was just as concerned about the events of the day as she was herself.
Even now, she saw with mounting anxiety, there was some kind of skirmish going on over by the Grant Memorial. Protesters were scattering, being moved along by the Secret Service Suburban moving slowly through the crowd. At least, she hoped it was something as benign as unruly protesters. And not the thing she most feared on this gray and threatening day.
“HOW THE HELL did you find this bloody thing?” Hawke asked Froggy, who was busily wiring satchels of Semtex to the base of one of countless and indistinguishable two-hundred-foot-high behemoths. The phony tree was twenty feet in diameter at the base. Cables, disguised as roots, ran underground in every direction. Hawke had to concede that there was a bit of genius about the thing.
“Frogs always see the trees, not the forest, monsieur,” Froggy said.
“Which way will it fall?” Stoke asked.
“Toward the river,” the Frogman said, twisting the timer. “Okay, charges set! One minute! Clear! Clear!”
Everyone ran like hell for the safety of the surrounding trees.
“YOU IDIOT!” Top screamed at the only controller he had not yet shot. He was plainly enraged now. Most of his assets had been compromised by the Secret Service. One of his few remaining options was the explosive-packed Chevrolet War Wagon he’d sent plowing through the crowd toward the Inaugural stand.
But Top watched in disbelief as, at the last minute, a man had leaped aboard the van and blinded the camera lens. Despite the controller’s efforts to shake the man off with violent maneuvers, he was still there.
With the help of a pistol to the temple, he’d just convinced Kahn to at least put his one remaining controllable asset back under manual control. If he could move the Suburban only a thousand yards nearer to the presidential podium, there was still hope. Thousands would die in the intitial blast, even at this distance. But if he could get closer, the government of the United States would cease to exist.
“Just go east,” Khan said quietly, punching in the manual override code. Top pushed the controller aside and grabbed the joy stick.
“I can’t see a thing!” Top cried. Whoever was atop the truck still had the lens covered.
“It doesn’t matter, “Khan said, The further east you can move the asset, the better chance you have of killing the president and everyone on the podium.”
The clock above them continued to roll down inexorably toward noon.
They had less than ten minutes.
“East, you idiot!” Khan screamed in Top’s ear. “Go east!”
Top nudged the joystick and the Suburban started moving again, blind. He had retained a mental image of the truck’s location relative to the podium. Still, it seemed impossible.
But Top was a master at this. He summoned all of his skills, moving the blindfolded asset on instinct alone. There had been human error, but it had not been his. His impossible dream could still come true.
Under my thumb, he thought, power singing in his veins as he moved the joystick.
THE PRESIDENT and Mrs. McAtee were ready to begin their descent of the Capitol steps. At the bottom, Chief Justice Howard Clark was waiting, his long black robes whipping about in the stiff breeze. There was a roar from the crowd as the president turned and waved at the mass of people come to witness this historic event. The Marine Band played the first notes of a stirring martial tune. The president put his arm around his wife. It was almost time. The U.S. Marine band, the President’s Own, in their scarlet jackets, played on, a rousing Sousa tune that McAtee loved.
So far, so good, the president thought.
It looked like he’d made the right decision after all. History would record that Jack McAtee had stood his ground.
86
T he tree rose up from the ground, rising like an Atlas rocket from the pad, majestic, slowly gathering momentum. The blast had lifted it upward, intact, straight up for what felt like a long second, and then it pitched forward, falling in slow motion toward the river and landing with a resounding crash on the jungle floor.
“Allez-oop!” someone shouted joyfully from behind the trees. It had to be Froggy.
Thick, acrid smoke and sharp licks of fire poured forth from the wounded hole in the ground. Hawke and Stokely edged forward to inspect the damage. Exposed cables sizzled and snapped, still carrying electricity. There was a twisted spaghetti of wire and
thick conduit still running from the hollow of the fallen tree and disappearing down inside the four-foot hole left by the blast.
“Shit,” Stoke said, “We flattened their antenna, but I’m guessing they’re still up and running down there.”
Hawke was on the radio, looking down into the hole. He heard shouts and some small arms fire below. At least a few people in the Tomb were still alive.
“Stiletto this is Hawke. I need a PAM missile at my location. Now. You have my GPS coordinates?”
“Aye, sir, uh…” the Fire Control Officer responded nervously. “Uh, you say you want this one at your exact GPS location?”
“Affirmative. I say again, right on top of my bleeding head,” Hawke said, “Fire it now, Dylan!”
“That’s affirmative. Launching PAM now, sir.”
“Get back! On the ground!” Stoke shouted, “Incoming!”
“Fire in the hole!” Froggy shouted, diving for cover.
THE PRESIDENT AND the First Lady, arm in arm, began their slow and careful descent of the steps leading down to the podium. Their smiles were radiant. Cheers and applause erupted from those nearby and from the thousands gathered on the west side of the Capitol. Not a few among them were holding their breath. Everyone pressed forward, hoping for a better view.
THE GROUND SHOOK from the explosion of the PAM missile deep in Top’s underground bunker. After the blinding white flash, Hawke and Stokely again ran toward the hole. It was bigger now, maybe five feet in diameter. Smoke was pouring out, but there was light down there. Electric light.
“Emergency generators,” Hawke said, slinging a machine gun over his shoulder. “Froggy, pick two men and come with us. We’re going down.”
Stoke had secured a line to a nearby tree. He dropped the bitter end into the smoke-filled hole.
“Me first,” Hawke said, and before anyone could say anything, he disappeared, grasping the line. Stokely followed, then Froggy, then the two machine gunners, Bassman and Boomer.
Hawke’s feet hit the floor and he rolled left. He leapt to his feet and secured the room with his eyes. He saw Stoke land and go right. Then Froggy and the two gunners. There were still some tangos alive, getting to their feet amid the smoke and rubble. Froggy and his two gunners dispatched them before they could get a shot off.
The bunker communications room was devastated. Broken bodies lay slumped over what had been control consoles. Small electrical fires were still burning everywhere and there was the familiar roast pork stench of burned flesh in everyone’s nostrils.
A small, bespectacled man in charred robes came out of the smoke, a curved knife raised above his head. Hawke had seen enough pictures to recognize Abu Khan. But the man was headed for Stokely.
Stoke raised his hand to ward off the man’s blow, but the tip of the blade sliced Stoke’s forearm.
“This is sacred ground, infidel,” Khan said, shrinking back but raising his blade again, “We are divine martyrs!”
Stoke looked at him and smiled. “Warm up the virgins,” he said.
Hawke came at Khan from behind, got one arm around his throat, and jammed the muzzle of his weapon to the man’s temple.
“Welcome to paradise, Khan,” Hawke said. “Drop the knife. You have five seconds to tell me what I need to know.”
“I don’t know what you—don’t kill me!”
“Hawke, over there! Stoke shouted. “There’s a monitor still up and running! Washington! Shit, that’s the Inauguration!”
Hawke looked over at the only working monitor. A perfect digital live feed of the ceremony now taking place on the podium. Chief Justice Clark stood waiting for the president.
The president and his wife were descending the steps.
“Tell me Dr. Khan,” Hawke said quietly in the man’s ear, “how terror feels at the wrong end of the gun.”
The man refused to speak.
Hawke stared at the monitor. There was something he wasn’t seeing. Something he was missing. What? What the bloody hell was it? Something Ambrose had said…Swear on the bible…don’t let him.
“Tell me what you did to the bible!” Hawke screamed at Khan, “Or die now!”
Khan moaned, “A paper-thin sheet of high explosive. Heat and pressure sensitive. When he places his left hand on it…”
“Fuck!” Stoke shouted. “Where’s Top? We gotta do something!” Stoke had searched the room for the giant, but he was nowhere to be found. Dead most likely, Stoke thought, buried under all the rubble.
Hawke was already on the sat phone, punching in Conch’s secure number. He kept his left hand around Kahn’s throat, increasing pressure every time the man moved.
“Conch,” he said when he heard her voice. “Don’t let the president touch the bible!”
On the monitor, Alex Hawke could actually see Secretary de los Reyes’s face change as she listened to what he told her. A fleeting look of horror crossed it, and then she was smiling again, talking to the handsome young marine sentry standing right besider her.
The marine moved quickly.
“PLEASE RAISE YOUR right hand and repeat after me…” the Chief Justice said. The president raised his right hand and reached out to place his left hand on the Washington bible.
Suddenly, a young marine appeared at his side, putting a firm white gloved hand on the president’s forearm. It happened very quickly. The marine deftly lifted the old bible from the bookstand and handed it to a burly Secret Service agent standing just behind him. The agent handed the marine another bible, a small red leather one just passed to him by the First Lady, and the marine placed her bible upon the bookstand.
Hawke was so transfixed by the scene on the monitor that he was barely aware of his fingers tightening around Kahn’s scrawny neck. At the edge of the frame, he saw one of the president’s men hand the Inaugural bible to another man waiting beneath the podium. The man was standing atop the roof of a bomb disposal truck…Hawke looked down, surprised to see Kahn dead at his feet.
“Mr. President, are you ready to take the oath?” the Chief Justice asked, as Hawke’s eyes returned to the screen.
“I am,” the president responded.
The president placed his left hand on the small bible, which had now been opened to Genesis, and raised his right hand. He was smiling at his wife, whispering something to her.
“I, John J. McAtee do solemnly swear…” Clark began, leading the president through the oath.
“I, John J. McAtee do solemnly swear…”
The smoke cleared and Hawke was startled to see a man in a perforated bowler hat seated before the only remaining live control monitor. He was maniacally manipulating the joystick. On his screen, the president was visible on the platform. He seemed to be looking off to his right. Something was going on. Agents were moving quickly toward the president. Hawke had dared to breathe a sigh of relief, but now he saw that something was still terribly wrong.
“Top!” Hawke cried, but the man did not turn around. He had his right hand on a joystick, twisting it right and left while he tapped at a keyboard with his left. Below the podium, the crowd parted as if a knife were slicing it in two. Something, Hawke could not see what, was causing a panic; people were running for their lives.
Hawke raced toward the giant, hairless creature who had abused Congreve so viciously. Hawke could still remember the pain the man had inflicted on his own body. But it was nothing compared to the hurt and pain he’d seen in Ambrose Congreve’s eyes. That, he would never forget.
“Top,” Hawke said again, stepping directly behind the terrorist who had tortured them both so mercilessly. He bent and whispered in the man’s ear.
“I’m back.”
“Lord Hawke,” Top said evenly, his eyes riveted on the screen above. The digital clock read 11:57. Three minutes left. “You are just in time to witness America’s death throes. The bible was just an hors d’oeuvre. Take a seat for the main course, Lord Hawke.”
THE PRESIDENT’S WORDS were echoing in the small room, comin
g through the remaining speakers above the control panel.
“That I will faithfully execute the office of president of the United States…and will to the best of my ability…” the president said.
He paused, seeing some movement out of the corner of his eye. The Secret Service agents on the platform were speaking into their sleeves, edging toward him…
HAWKE HEARD CONCH’S tinny voice coming from the satphone. He wanted to say something to her. Anything. But there was no time. And he really had no idea what to tell her.
HAWKE’S LEFT HAND grabbed the lank ponytail and tore the man’s head back. With his right, he put the naked blade of his assault knife up under Top’s chin.
“You know what I think, Muhammad?” Hawke said, piercing the fleshy skin round the neck. “I think you are a coward. I saw it in your eyes that night. You like to inflict pain, but you cannot endure it. Am I right?”
“Two late for this,” Top said through gritted teeth. “The blow for Allah is about to be struck. No one can stop it now.”
“Wrong answer!” Hawke screamed, inserting the point of the blade inside the man’s nostril.
“I have the termination code,” Hawke said, “I want you to enter it now!”
Top laughed out loud.
Hawke tightened his left hand grip feeling the tendons compress and the voice box start to collapse. He added pressure with the knife, and blood started to trickle from the man’s nose.
“I’ve got two whole bloody minutes left,” Hawke said, withdrawing the knife from the nostril. He put the point beside the bridge of the man’s nose, inserting the point into the corner of his right eye. Blood spurted onto the control desk.
“No!” Top screamed, clenching the joystick.
“First the right eye, then the left,” Hawke said, “You won’t even see the second one land in your lap.
