by Bobby Akart
“I want to thank everyone for braving this unusually cold day before Thanksgiving. The sun is out, the snow is melting, and our friend Lenny, this beautiful turkey from West Virginia, has come all the way to the White House to seek a pardon from me. Now, before I get started, let me mention this unknown fact. Lenny stayed in the Watergate Hotel last night.”
The crowd began laughing, certain that Sarge was pulling their leg.
“Please, don’t doubt me on this,” he continued as Lenny’s handlers laughed and nodded their heads in unison. “Yesterday afternoon, at two hundred twenty-nine dollars per night, Lenny was afforded luxury accommodations within the Watergate Hotel. I’m told they positioned two six-foot folding tables to create a containment area for Lenny. They used cardboard to keep him from pecking holes in the sheetrock walls. You never know, there are probably a lot of unusual wires running through the walls of the Watergate.”
Everyone laughed again at Sarge’s not-so-subtle reference to the Watergate scandal during the Nixon years.
“I’m told by Mr. Willard, standing to my right, that the floor was lined with heavy brown paper and taped into place. They tell me it was lined with pine shavings from Lenny’s home near Beckley, which made the task of, you know, scoopin’ the poop much easier.”
Sarge was on a roll. The attendees would have no idea the enormous pressure he was under. Julia knew and stood within Sarge’s field of vision. She beamed with pride and provided him an occasional wink of encouragement.
“You know, this is the eighth and last time I’ll be providing a pardon of the turkey. I must say that something just dawned on me this morning. Lenny hasn’t been accused of nor committed any crimes that require a pardon. I spoke with the attorney general about this and asked her to provide me a legal opinion on the whole process. She basically opined that I don’t have any judicial jurisdiction over Lenny.”
A few in the crowd chuckled while a few more gasped at the prospect of abandoning the tradition. Sarge, however, did not disappoint.
“So, this morning, in a separate ceremony, I drafted Lenny into the Air Force, although I’m told he doesn’t fly very well because he’s too stuffed. I’m going to pardon him and deploy him to the Washington Zoo to stand guard over our country’s finest critters.”
A smattering of applause was provided by the guests. Out of the corner of his eye, Sarge saw Donald emerge from the West Wing onto the Colonnade. His trusted friend wouldn’t come looking for him if it wasn’t important.
“Without further ado, I, Henry Winthrop Sargent the Fourth, President of the United States, pursuant to the pardon power conferred upon me by Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, hereby grant a full pardon to Lenny the Turkey from Beckley, West Virginia.”
As if prompted to do so, Lenny stood on his legs and flapped his wings, creating quite a ruckus in appreciation. Sarge, after taking a moment to kiss his wife and hug his children, joined Donald to deal with another kind of ruckus.
Chapter 52
12:30 p.m.
Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC
Gardner made his way to Capitol Hill to have a personal conversation with his final vote—his ace in the hole, a senator who owed his family a favor from many years ago. The woman didn’t have skeletons in the closet. She wasn’t in financial trouble although everyone needs more money. No, this was personal, much more so than every form of pressure Gardner had ever exerted on a member of Congress. The conversation would be brief, it needed to occur at the last minute before the senator entered the Senate Chamber for deliberations, and the senator’s response would have to be unequivocal.
He was scrolling through the news of the day on the Drudge Report app when he received a text message from Mr. West.
W: Veep returned. On the hill now.
G.L.: Specific meetings?
W: No. Retail politicking.
G.L.: Stand by.
Gardner considered this information for a moment. He wasn’t surprised that Sarge would pull out all the stops after yesterday’s fiasco. Reportedly, the president was involved in a national security matter that hadn’t been revealed to the media, or Gardner’s sources. The only international news at the moment was the unrest in Taiwan, but that hardly qualified as a matter of utmost importance to distract Sarge from the vote.
If Sarge was distracted, he didn’t show it. He was still making phone calls to key senators to firm up the vote. Gardner’s newest conquest, the great senator from Colorado, had reported the context of her phone call with Sarge an hour ago. She did not tell him how she planned on voting, although a reasonable person could surmise that she was a vote against passage. Technically, she explained to her new lover, it was a lie of omission. In Washington, lies of omission were passed around as casually as a good morning.
Gardner’s original intention was to camp out in the hallway near the Senate Chamber entrance, grab the attention of his target senator, and make his play. The presence of Abbie on the Hill wouldn’t deter him, in fact, it encouraged him to set the tone for what would happen after the vote.
He decided to make a bold move to expedite the passing of the torch. It was a subtle maneuver, but someone as astute as the president would figure it out soon enough. Gardner returned to his phone.
G.P.: VP location?
W: Russell. 4th floor
Gardner chuckled to himself. Naturally, starting at the top and working her way down.
G.P.: Shadow her. I’m headed your way.
“Driver,” he instructed using the limousine’s intercom button above his head, “change of plans. Take me to the Russell Senate Office Building.”
The Russell Building was the oldest of the three office buildings housing the U.S. senators and their staffs. It occupied a site north of the Capitol. The building was an ornate structure combining marble and stained glass to provide a smaller compliment to the Capitol itself. Like other buildings that provided offices for Congress, the Russell Building was connected to the Capitol by underground passages.
The limousine arrived and Gardner jumped out of the back without waiting for the driver to open his door. “Don’t go far,” he instructed. What he planned on doing was simple—be seen.
He sent a text to Mr. West as he was waiting to go through security.
G.P.: Location?
W: Third floor. LaRocco—Wyoming.
Senator LaRocco! No! Gardner was shouting in his head as he unconsciously pressed against a woman in line before him. She gave him a nasty look before proceeding through the security scanner.
Senator Louise LaRocco, junior senator from Wyoming, had been an attorney in Boston many years ago. She was new to politics at the time and was starting her first run for statewide office when her young daughter became ill with a rare disease.
Constance Lowell heard of the family’s plight and reached out to LaRocco to offer financial assistance—no strings attached, which was a rare gesture from the Lowell family but not unusual for Mrs. Lowell decades ago.
The Lowells provided the child the finest in medical care and their efforts were widely praised as an unselfish gesture that saved the child’s life.
For a while, Louise LaRocco and Constance remained in touch, especially as the young child grew up to have a normal life. But her husband took an executive position with an oil company in Wyoming, and Senator LaRocco, a Republican, decided to pursue her political career in a state more accepting of her conservative leanings.
It had been years since Gardner’s mother had spoken to Senator LaRocco, although the generous donations to her campaign war chest were always recognized with a handwritten thank-you.
On this day, Gardner planned on calling in a marker. A chit that was never agreed upon but, in his mind, one that was owed by Senator LaRocco nonetheless. Of course, he’d sweeten the pot with promises of funding, positions of power within the new Congress, and all of that. But his primary tack was to tug on the heartstrings, an emotional ploy used against a mothe
r far more effective than money and power.
The first thing Gardner had to do was get Abbie out of her office. He passed through security and entered the center rotunda of the building. Surrounded by eighteen Corinthian columns, he took in the beauty of the design. He decided to skip the elevator and chose one of the twin marble staircases leading to the upper floors. Running up the stairs two at a time, he reached the landing of the third floor slightly out of breath.
Standing against the wall, he searched through the busy hallway for his political operative dressed like an undertaker. Staffers scurried about in preparation for the vote. A smattering of reporters would stop a high-ranking senior official from time-to-time for an anonymous quote.
“Hello, sir,” said Mr. West from behind Gardner, startling the younger man.
“Dammit, West.”
“Sorry, sir. It’s best you not turn around at this moment. The veep just emerged from Senator LaRocco’s office. Her next stop is Hoeven from North Dakota, but she is signing autographs outside his office door.”
“Autographs?”
“She’s a rock star on the Hill, sir. Highly respected and, I might add, influential.”
Gardner bristled at the comment. “Let me tell you something about influence. You want to know something? I can walk up and down this hallway for fifteen minutes. I won’t smile or shake hands or sign any damn autographs. I won’t even be recognized by ninety-five percent of these people. But you know what? I can influence every one of these senators, not just the ones I make idle chitchat with.”
“She went into Hoeven’s office, sir.”
“Good, now I plan on giving her something to chat about. Help me find Senator Lee’s office.”
“Will he switch his vote?”
Gardner chuckled. “No, it’s not about that. I want the vice president to get the impression that I’m working on it. I plan on milling about until she sees me, and then feign a look of guilt as I disappear into a senator’s office.”
“You want her to bust you up here?”
“Indeed, I do. And I hope it sends shock waves all the way to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.”
Chapter 53
1:00 p.m. ET
800 Miles Southeast of Hawaii
The Pacific Ocean
The Aegis team rested and were now going over the latest intelligence reports received from the Pentagon and the CIA. With respect to the overall mission, they were impressed with the repositioning of the two carrier strike groups ordered by the president. Aerial photos showed the Chinese Coast Guard being duped, leaving the Petersen’s strike group safe passage on its way to Okinawa. Thus far, the Ronald Reagan had not drawn the attention of the military presence on the newly created islands in the South China Sea.
The conversation turned to their potential adversaries, although none of the intel reports indicated direct involvement by them in the uprising in Taipei.
“Anybody have direct experience with the Flying Dragons?” asked Drew as the men passed around the satellite imagery.
“Nah, but Pete knows those flying pink elephants pretty good,” bellowed King.
“Yeah, buddy. Those were the good old days. Good drugs. Good whiskey. Good women.” Peter Parker, whose name was the same as the character in the Spiderman comic series, was a tall, lanky operative from East Texas. Despite the obvious correlation, Parker’s nickname was Spidey for his ability to scale walls, climb trees, and his borderline-suicidal lack of fear of heights.
Chris St. Nicholas, nicknamed Santa, a former SEAL who trained with Drew, added some serious context. “They’re the best of the best within the PLA. Their military treats them like royalty. They’re also a proud bunch. When a Chinese street gang took up their name as part of their criminal operations in New York’s Chinatown, several of the Flying Dragon’s operatives veered off the reservation a decade ago and began murdering the gangbangers. Their success was so great that the Flying Dragons gang in Hong Kong, the FDS, was almost eradicated by the military operatives’ assassinations.”
“Well, doesn’t that make them a bunch of vigilante good guys,” said King.
“It did in China,” replied Santa, a valuable member of the team because he was fluent in Modern Standard Arabic, or fusha; Korean; and Mandarin Chinese, which is spoken in Beijing.
Turning back to the satellite photos, Drew set a side-by-side comparison of the AIT facility this evening next to the image from the night before.
“The crowd surrounding AIT has doubled since last night,” said Drew. “But, according to the reports, none of the protestors have made a move on our facility.”
“What are the gun laws in Taiwan?” asked Spidey.
King, a vocal proponent of the Second Amendment, was always researching the correlation between violence and a nation’s gun laws. “They’re allowed shotguns, rifles, and handguns, but not assault rifles.”
“You mean like the mighty AR-15,” said Spidey, drawing laughter from the group.
“No, you dope,” said King jokingly. He grabbed an M-16 off the weapons rack behind him. “This is an assault rifle. An AR-15 packs less punch than most hunting rifles. It just looks all badass to make the preppers think they’re warriors and to put the fear of God in the snowflakes.”
Drew spoke up. “Spidey’s question raises an interesting point. Based upon what I’ve read, there haven’t been any shots fired during these protests other than the rubber bullets used at the Chinese Ministry.”
“Yeah, well, this ain’t Beirut or Fallujah or Helmand Province, where they shoot their weapons in the air to celebrate Ramadan or some such,” added King.
“I get that, but I wonder if that’s part of the overall plan by the PLA. They’re creating this unrest, which naturally draws a police response in the form of crowd control.”
Santa began nodding his head and finished Drew’s thought. “But they’re keeping the streets from flowing with blood in order to prevent a military escalation. It’s like a low-key coup d’etat.”
“More like a roper dope,” Spidey chimed in.
“You mean rope-a-dope, dopey,” said King with a laugh. “It was Muhammad Ali’s famed boxing style, which lured his opponent in under the false impression he was winning the skirmish. Then, BOOM, the Greatest would knock the other fighter out.”
“Whatever,” said Drew dryly, wishing the guys would focus. He had no doubt they would once on the ground, but they were certainly loose beforehand. “Let’s turn to the missing ambo.”
“We need to study this video footage, Slash,” Santa said to Drew. The operative brought up the .mp4 video file on the MacBook and mirrored it on a monitor adjacent to the cockpit. “They’ve done a great job of isolating the ambo’s vehicle and following it through Taipei. Watch what happens at the three-minute mark on the footage.”
The operatives watched the video, periodically pointing at the vehicle travelling at a high rate of speed through Taipei City.
“Why the hell-fire emergency?” asked King.
Drew summarized what was shown on the video. “They left the Presidential Palace without a sense of urgency. Then, within a mile of the AIT complex, they turned toward the south on this freeway and took off.”
“Yeah, that’s when it gets weird,” interrupted Santa. “Watch this maneuver.”
The vehicle, marked with a circle by the NSA analysts, jammed on the brakes in the fast lane of the busy freeway and darted between two concrete barriers into the oncoming traffic. As the approaching vehicles slid to a stop to allow the ambassador’s vehicle to correct itself, several cars crashed into each other in the process.
“The ambo’s vehicle was on the move again,” said King.
“Clearly, it’s an evasion maneuver,” said Santa. “I have to tell ya, I’ve watched the tape six times and I don’t see anything that looks like a tail.”
“Skittish driver, maybe?” asked Drew.
“Maybe, but then how do you explain this?” asked Santa.
The vehicle continue
d to carry the ambassador on the freeway until it exited into a residential neighborhood, where it pulled into a walled residence with two four-car garages. The vehicle drove under an overhang of trees and entered the garage.
“I’m confused,” started Spidey. “Maybe this is one of the CIA’s safe houses? The driver knew exactly where he was going.”
“Who cares if it’s CIA? We know where the ambo is, why haven’t we sent a team on station to fetch him out of there?”
“There are two reasons,” replied Santa. “Remember, this is not drone footage, so there is a time delay in it being relayed to DC. Secondly, watch the end of this footage.”
All eyes returned to the monitor. Santa approached the screen and pointed to the location of the two garages. Everything was still until suddenly, from underneath the canopy of trees obscuring the view of the garage, six white delivery vans poured out of the garages and through the compound’s iron gate. They turned in different directions on the street and then made additional haphazard turns, resulting in the six vans seeking different parts of Taipei City.
“Now, doesn’t this look like a Jason Bourne movie,” said King. “These guys don’t mess around. Whadya think?”
“Well planned and perfectly orchestrated,” replied Drew. “Whoever pulled this off knew our satellites would be watching. In fact, they probably expect that we’ll find the ambassador at some point. They just want to make it difficult and time-consuming for us.”
“Why? Ransom?” asked Spidey.
“No,” replied Drew. “I think politics are behind this. All of these events are connected. The intel shows Chinese nationals are behind the escalation of the protests. Now, the CIA tells us the Flying Dragons have tripled their personnel along the coast across from Taiwan. But in the end, it doesn’t matter. We’ve got a job to do and that’s find Ambassador McBride.”
