When Hernandez pressed, Shahzad just looked at him, gave him a deprecating, humble smile, and said it was not in his power to tell the General anything about his mission, but he and his country were extremely thankful for the efficient handling of their immediate needs. In his mind, behind his obsequious smile, Shahzad thought, For these lazy Latin losers to get anything right itself is a minor miracle.
General Hernandez finally got the message and took on the manner of someone who wished he hadn’t gotten up so early to meet these commandos from halfway around the world. He thought, I could be having a nice café con leche right now instead of begging for information from this arrogant prick!
Once aboard the somewhat sad-looking frigate, Colonel Shahzad was curious to see the rest of the fleet making up this grand “armada.”
In any case, leaving a fuming Hernandez standing stoically on the quay below, they sailed within the hour on the General Soublette, the navigator having been told by one of Shahzad’s commandos to set his course east by northeast. Shahzad wasn’t even going to tell the Venezuelans what island they were bound for until they were well out to sea. There would be no leaks.
Shahzad had sent other plainclothes units ahead on commercial flights to Princess Juliana International Airport over in St. Martin. Here, they chartered a couple of fishing boats and sailed out to pre-arranged coordinates where they met the General Soublette.
Shahzad and his team disembarked and boarded the fishing boats and headed under cover of darkness to one of the lesser populated areas of St. Barts, an area east of Grande Saline.
He already had a couple of other operatives on the ground in St. Barts, sent there to prepare for the full unit’s arrival. They were able to give coordinates for Shahzad and his team to follow for the secret landing.
The team left the fishing boats behind. They would remain offshore until called in to pick up the team.
After the mission, the SASAK unit would rejoin the General Soublette and be returned to Caracas, and thence to Tehran by the same plane that brought them. The plane would wait for them until they returned—or return without them if Shahzad’s unit all died in the assault.
The commando unit came ashore in Zodiacs at 2 A.M. just to the east of Grande Saline along a very rocky coastline, which had the advantage of being sparsely populated because it was so rocky, but also made for a rough landing. So rough that, in the high tide, one of their Zodiacs crashed onto a jagged rock, breaking one of his commando’s legs.
They rendezvoused with their agents on land and immediately reorganized, got the injured man into the other Zodiac, deflated the damaged Zodiac and loaded it into the other craft, which then returned to the fishing boats out at sea.
Shahzad and his team then moved further ashore where they were taken to safe houses rented by the operatives already there, and after a few hours rest, by morning they changed into clothes that made them look like tourists and set out to reconnoiter the island to arrange final plans for the attack on Dumaine, whose party was due to arrive the following day on a U.S. Government jet.
* * *
CHAPTER 48
Jack Houston St. Clair came bounding into his dad’s private cabin on Air Force One carrying some papers.
“Strap yourself in, Dad. We’re on approach to MIA.”
“What’s that you got there, Jack? Papers for me?”
“No, just a fax from my pal Tony. He needs some help.”
President St. Clair shook his head.
“I don’t know why you befriend that incompetent jerk. He always needs something from you.”
“Tony Florio is not incompetent, Dad,” said Jack. “He’s—well, he’s—” Jack frowned.
St. Clair smiled, fixing his seat belt and looking out the window as Air Force One made final approach to Miami International Airport.
Once they were on the ground in a remote section of the airport, they left Air Force One and boarded Marine One for the short hop to St. Clair Island, where St. Clair had saved the taxpayers money because he already had a helipad. (The Army Corps of Engineers and the Secret Service had upgraded it, so now he had three helipads in his backyard overlooking Biscayne Bay.)
As the chopper landed, President St. Clair said, “I’m gonna have to dig up those two extra helipads when I’m an ex-president and plant grass again.”
“I think the Government will pay for that. You get to keep the improvements you want and they’ll pay to remove the ones you don’t want.”
The chopper (as well as the backup chopper that always followed the President) came to a gentle landing and a Navy steward opened the door, coming to attention as the President left.
A Marine at the base of the gangway saluted smartly, and St. Clair raised his hand in a casual acknowledgement. He’d never quite got used to saluting all these soldiers every time he went anywhere, but it was bad form to ignore them. Made it look like he didn’t “care.” Or that he was too superior to return a salute. He was Commander-in-Chief, after all.
They walked across the lawn to St. Clair’s huge 55-room mansion built in 1902 by Henry Flagler as one of his winter residences (in what Jack always called the “Spanish-Mediterranean-Italian-Robber-Baron-Can’t-Make-Up-My-Mind” style) by John Carrère and Thomas Hastings, the same architects who designed the New York Public Library. Actually, for all Jack’s kidding, Flagler Hall was considered by architectural historians one of America’s masterpieces of Beaux Arts architecture.
“Home sweet home,” said the President.
“Yep,” said Jack, glancing to his right to see his own somewhat smaller house, originally one of the outbuildings of the Flagler estate, about fifty yards from Flagler Hall across the 16th green. His dad had the better view, of course. His house was built on the southwest side of St. Clair Island, so it had a glorious view of downtown Miami across the Bay. Jack’s house faced more southerly, and while he had a great view, too, part of it was blocked by Miami Beach, where North Bay Road stuck out a little.
“It was really nice of you to invite Mowbray and Gloria down for a few days of R and R,” said Jack.
“Well, he’s not a bad guy. I actually agree with him on most things. And he’s not so young. He can use a few days of relaxation here in Miami before he takes over. And I’ve got plenty of room.”
Jack looked up at the pile of a house with its fifteen major guest bedrooms (with about twenty more bedrooms for servants, now empty except for two).
“Yep, Dad, I’d certainly say you have plenty of room.”
* * *
CHAPTER 49
Up in Wellfleet at Hawk’s Landing, Dumaine was in the bright, sunshine-filled breakfast room overlooking Loagy Bay where he had just finished a meeting with some Transition officials who were heading back to Washington.
Agent Rodriguez was next up to go over details of the St. Barts trip.
“Tim, grab me another cup of coffee, will you?”
“Sure thing.” Tim went over to the table in the corner where the coffee pot stood next to a stack of cups.
“What’ve we got, Agent Rodriguez? Want some coffee?”
“Thank you, but I’ve already had half a pot, Mr. Vice President-elect.”
“That’s a really awkward phrase,” Dumaine laughed. “Mr. Vice President-elect. Ugh.”
“You’re right. What sounds better is Mr. President-elect,” said Tim. Dumaine laughed. Even Agent Rodriguez smiled.
“Make yourself a cup, Tim,” said Dumaine, then nodded to Agent Rodriguez. “Okay, let’s get started.”
Tim came over and sat down next to Dumaine while Agent Rodriguez went over about a dozen different topics before he got to the part about St. Barts.
“The Secret Service has an advance detail down in St. Barts preparing for your arrival. Everything’s in order. The survey on the security system we will want on a long-term basis here at Hawk’s Landing is continuing. And the FBI is coordinating background checks on all staffers in the campaign taking positions in the new Administration.�
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“Good, good,” said Dumaine, without really paying much attention. He was busy looking over some paperwork left by the Transition people.
Agent Rodriguez shuffled through his notes.
“There’s one other thing.”
“Yeah?” said Dumaine, looking up.
“We have a signal from London that comes from a low level CIA operative in Tehran who sends us information through the British Embassy there. He reports a high level plot to assassinate either you or President-elect Mowbray, it wasn’t very clear who.”
Dumaine looked over to Tim, then back to Agent Rodriguez.
“When you say ‘high level’—?”
“This says the originating source in Tehran was the Foreign Ministry or the Air Ministry. But any attempt would have to be coordinated through MISIRI. All this says is that our initial information came from outside MISIRI.”
“What’s MISIRI?” asked Tim before he realized he shouldn’t have spoken up.
“I’m on the Foreign Relations Committee, so I know exactly what MISIRI is,” said Dumaine. “It’s the Iranian Secret Police. Officially, it’s the Ministry of Intelligence and National Security. The muscle behind the regime.”
“That sounds pretty serious,” said Tim. “It sounds like some unit out of a James Bond movie.”
“Yeah,” laughed Dumaine. “MISIRI. It sounds really scary, right? Like SPECTRE in the James Bond movies.”
“He’s really big on the James bond books,” Tim said to Agent Rodriguez.
“I am. I love the older ones written by Ian Fleming.” He turned to Agent Rodriguez. “You’re in the Secret Service: do you know what SPECTRE stands for?”
“I never read those books, sir,” said Agent Rodriguez. “I’m only thirty-two.”
“Well, Tim’s twenty-eight and he’s read them. It stands for Special Executive for Counter-Intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion. Isn’t that great.”
“Sweet,” said Tim.
“MISIRI is just as scary, let me tell you,” said Dumaine.
Agent Rodriguez cleared his throat, bringing the “boys” back from their James Bond tangent.
“If this is correct, it means simply that they’re going to try to hit you. But not necessarily. They’re such fanatics over there, and we have little on-the-scene verification personnel, that it’s tough to decipher these signals. Our analytical people are so far removed. But we’ll take the normal precautions. This signal was routed through State to CIA, but will go over to FBI and Homeland Security and the TSA, so all Iranians coming into the country in all the international airports will get tighter scrutiny.”
“Like the guys at MISIRI would be stupid enough to carry Iranian passports to begin with,” said Dumaine. “So much of our so-called ‘security’ is just a bunch of crap.”
“Still, they have to take precautions,” said Tim.
Dumaine realized he shouldn’t be thinking aloud in front of Agent Rodriguez.
“Right. Well, of course they have to. Certainly.”
“If there’s nothing else,” said Agent Rodriguez.
“Wait a minute,” said Dumaine. “You’re from Miami, aren’t you? I think I read that when they set my team up with Secret Service.”
“Yes, sir. Miami. I’m the real thing: a Cuban from Little Havana.”
“Being from Miami, you’d have to know the St. Clairs, yeah? Big prominent family like that?”
“Yes, sir. They’re a very prominent family.”
“How well do you know them?”
“Oh, so-so. I’ve never served on the President’s detail, full-time anyway, but I’ve served part-time. I know both his sons, Jack Houston and Rafael.”
Dumaine turned to Tim.
“Jack has a half-brother, Rafael St. Clair. He’s a Coast Guard captain in Miami.”
“Rafael?” said Tim.
Dumaine raised his eyebrows.
“Listen, old man St. Clair has had quite a life. After Jack’s mother died, he married a Cuban woman and had Rafael. There’s a little friction between the brothers, they say.”
Dumaine looked back to Agent Rodriguez.
“Still, politics aside, they all seem like pretty nice guys.”
“They are, sir.”
“Well, thanks for your report, Agent Rodriguez.”
Rodriguez nodded and left. He glanced back into the room as he turned to close the door behind him and saw both of the men looking straight at him. He could tell they couldn’t wait for him to close the door so they could steal a few precious minutes alone.
He wondered if there might have been anything behind the St. Clair questions. It was obvious Dumaine had read up on the bios of the Secret Service staff assigned to his team. He didn’t miss a lot, that Dumaine.
Agent Rodriguez wondered if Dumaine was so smart he knew that he’d been feeding highly sensitive private information about Dumaine and Tim Harcourt to Jack Houston St. Clair, in violation of his sworn oath to maintain the privacy and secrecy of his charges.
He’d had no indication that Dumaine suspected anything, though he was aware Harcourt watched him like a hawk. In fact, Harcourt watched anybody who was close to Dumaine.
Like a jealous lover.
Which, of course, he was.
* * *
CHAPTER 50
Shahzad’s people already knew that the Dumaine party would be staying at a rented compound a little to the south of the capital of Gustavia, between Shell Beach and Gouverneur. It was a compound of three buildings, anchored by a large villa in the center flanked by two fine houses on either side, with a couple of outbuildings that would be used by the Secret Service security detail accompanying the Vice President-elect.
Shahzad sent part of his team out on a charter fishing boat (they paid extra to bareback the boat so the captain wouldn’t be aboard to see that they weren’t fishing for anything but information) that trolled back and forth in front of the compound, getting closer and closer with each pass. They pretended to fish. But up on the flying bridge, his men were taking pictures with a Canon DSLR with a special Sigma 200-550mm APresident EX DG Ultra-Telephoto Zoom Lens attached.
Shahzad himself hired a Donzi 35 ZR speed boat and they made several passes—very close to shore—only slowing for a few seconds as they came directly in front of the compound.
From his briefing papers, Shahzad knew that the French Navy only had a token force in the area to “protect and defend” its meager Caribbean holdings left over from Colonial days, and this force was based at Fort St. Louis in Fort de France over in Martinique. This paltry squadron consisted of a substantial frigate, the Ventôse, the BATRAL Francis Garnier (a ferryboat, basically, and a craft that could land troops, but usually was employed as a transport for things like pâté de fois gras imported from France), and a single P685 class patrol vessel or gunboat, the Fougueuse.
Shahzad’s operatives had reported earlier that both the Ventôse and the Fougueuse had been sent over from Fort St. Louis to take up station in St. Barts in order to beef up security and “show the flag” to the Americans.
And, just as Shahzad suspected would happen, the Fougueuse was making wide passes up and down the coast in front of the Dumaine compound. Shahzad was able to make five passes very close to the shoreline in his Donzi when the Fougueuse was heading in the other direction, but the lumbering charter fishing boat—much slower—was actually approached by the Fougueuse when it got too close to shore and told to bear off.
Shahzad also noticed helicopter patrols above the compound.
Well, he thought, we have a few days. Another two or three to look around, plan carefully, and then we move.
* * *
CHAPTER 51
Bianca settled down by herself in a window seat of the Air Force Boeing C-32 that carried the Dumaine party to St. Barts. Well, to St. Martin, really. They had to fly into Princess Juliana International Airport on St. Martin, then board small turboprops for the hop over to the scary and very short runway on St. Bart
s.
She’d never been on a C-32 before, though Bill had been on the plane several times when he made trips abroad as a VIP involved with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The plane was quite lavish. This was the kind of plane she and Bill would use as Air Force Two, after he took office. Cabinet officials on foreign trips and other high-ranking Government officials used these planes. Before takeoff, the co-pilot explained that the C-32 had the same body as a Boeing 757-200, but after that, all similarities ended.
The chief steward had given her a tour before they took off. The front section of the plane housed the galley, communications center and ten business class seats.
The second section offered the primary passenger, in this case, Dumaine, a fully enclosed stateroom, including an area to change clothes, private toilet, an entertainment system, first-class swivel seats and a divan that converts into a bed. (There was also a separate stateroom for her.)
The third section housed the conference room and had eight business class seats.
The rear section of the plane had thirty-two business-class seats, toilets, storage.
Everything was beautifully appointed.
Still, now that she was on the plane, she didn’t give a damn about it one way or the other.
The Running Mate (A Jack Houston St. Clair Thriller) Page 18
