“Waahhhh,” Patrick cried. A second captor dragged the little boy in by his pajama collar.
“Especially this one. Little bastard hasn’t shut up from the time we woke him up.”
The carpenter pushed the child toward his mother, but there was no need for coaxing. Patrick ran to his mom and fell upon her. Christopher, who had stood inside the door almost transfixed with fear, slowly followed his brother and knelt down, still trembling wildly.
“It’s OK, sweetheart,” Caroline reassured him. She tried to wipe the blood off her face with the back of her hand so her appearance wouldn’t scare them. Her nose was probably broken; one blow had cut her above the left eye.
Goddamn the FBI. Caroline seethed beneath the surface. She fought futilely at the restraints and swore to herself that the children would not see her cry. It was bad enough that they had taken her husband. Now they had allowed these animals to take her family, too.
100 INDEPENDENCE AVENUE.
How perfectly ironic, Jeremy decided as he shifted up through the sixteen-gear transmission, slowly gaining speed with his load of fertilizer and number-two heating oil. His destination was the big, walled-off construction project obvious to anyone passing the Capitol’s East Lawn. It had been under way for more than a year already: a secret project that hadn’t stayed secret long. Sky-high cranes, excavators, and hard hats were just too hard to hide.
The Washington Post uncovered the $40 million congressional bunker first, but there had been little controversy outside the Beltway. In times like these, who could blame the nation’s legislature for building a place to hide?
Twelve minutes, Jeremy reminded himself. It was just thirteen blocks from the body shop where he’d picked up the truck to the Capitol. Ellis’s instructions had been concise and specific.
Enter through the security checkpoint at the East Gate, he had said. They are running a thousand-yard pour tonight, meaning every concrete truck in the city has dropped off at least one load.
How could the Bureau have overlooked it? Jeremy wondered, downshifting already for a stoplight. They knew terrorists sought symbolic targets and that there was no bigger target than that great domed People’s House up there on the Hill.
Detonator, conduit, charge.
Jeremy let out the clutch and pulled into traffic, reminding himself of the simple, inalterable construction of any improvised explosive device. In this case, Ellis’s men had rigged some kind of remote trigger. The detonator would fire a conduit—probably shock tube—which would deliver a lightning-fast spark to more than five tons of ANFO. Anyone who had seen Timothy McVeigh’s handiwork in Oklahoma City would know what that could do.
Got to find some way to break the detonator-charge interface, Jeremy thought. And he had to do it in a way that would make a failure look plausible.
Honk!
Someone cut Jeremy off, causing him to lurch sideways, almost striking a bicycle courier.
“Watch where you’re going!” Jeremy yelled back, understanding for the first time that people behind the wheels of big trucks had a very difficult job.
The man in the car flipped him the finger and raced off, leaving Jeremy’s face flushed with anger.
Sonofabitch! he thought. If this idiot only knew what lay in the back of his truck. If they only knew that the safety of my family and a city full of innocent citizens could be jeopardized because they were late for a hair appointment.
Then he began to smile. He had an idea.
Jeremy stomped on the gas and shifted up. They’d be following him, of course; Ellis or one of his Phineas priests. He couldn’t see any obvious tail in his rearview mirror, but they’d be smart enough to stay out of sight.
“So much for expectation,” Jeremy said, believing he still might have a chance. His plan wasn’t exactly genius, but the best plans seldom were.
SIRAD DIDN’T NEED to understand the Nguyen cornerstone or stochastic wave generation theory or Camus algorithms. All she needed to understand was that Ravi had found a way through White House Communications Agency firewalls without showing himself.
News of that came just after ten o’clock. Hammer Time had actually taken a shower, and I Can’t Dunk had brewed a new pot of coffee.
“My God,” Sirad remarked as her computer screen flickered twice, then filled with prose in standard English. “This looks like a Web page.”
“It is,” Ravi bragged. “The WHCA’s Sippernet interface with DISN’s DSNET3.”
“Ravi.”
“Sorry. The Defense Information Systems Network has four packet-switching networks to handle military communications in-house and with other agencies. DSNET3—referred to as the ‘Y’ side—is the most secure: Top Secret/ SCI. It uses packet-switching nodes that work off international standard Disnet-three protocols.”
“And this provides secure communications between the Pentagon and the WHCA?” she asked.
“It allows what they believe to be secure information transfer from POTUS on down. Eyes-only access to the Y side.”
“Brilliant, isn’t he?” Ravi asked.
“What?” Sirad asked. “Who?”
“God.”
“G-g-god?” Hammer Time jumped in. “What’s God got to d-d-do with this?”
“Complexity. We just play at codes,” Ravi said. “God dangles clues out in front of us, but when it comes right down to it, we can’t even come up with decent questions.”
“Come on, man,” I Can’t Dunk said. “How come you gotta get all misty every time we break into something?”
“God is the only great intelligence,” Ravi responded. His words sounded reverent, prayerful. “The poet mechanic.”
“Can we save the hallelujahs for a minute, fellas?” Sirad asked. “’Cause I’ve got a question.”
She leaned into the computer screen and pointed to a line of text.
“If these intrusions really originated with WHCA, what’s that?”
Hammer Time leaned in over her shoulder, trying to see where she was pointing. He felt more confident now that he smelled of Ivory soap and Head and Shoulders.
“‘CAPSTONE3,’” he read aloud. “A d-d-dog-ear, maybe? A remote-access entry c-c-code.”
“For what?” Sirad asked. She moved the mouse and double-clicked on something that looked particularly troubling.
“Let’s say you wanted to read your own e-mails from somebody else’s computer without knowing about it,” Ravi explained. “Normally, you would sign in under your own name. But that leaves a trail. The better way would be to break in, clone your host’s access protocols, and dog-ear your place so you could quickly move in and out. Hard to do, but it’s a safer way to play hide-and-seek.”
“A g-g-good way to fart and p-p-point your finger,” Hammer Time stuttered.
“But this intruder thinks he’s completely transparent,” I Can’t Dunk said. “Why would he need to cover himself with another layer of camouflage?”
“Because the downside in getting caught is too much to risk on a single backstop,” Ravi suggested. “Because he is so high up, he can’t take a chance that we will discover him.”
“Who’s that high up?” I Can’t Dunk asked. “The president?”
Sirad said nothing, but her silence confirmed what they all had suspected.
“You can’t be serious,” I Can’t Dunk argued. “Venable isn’t smart enough to pull this off by himself. He’d need help from the NSA or DISA, and even then, he’d be vulnerable to time signature.”
“Unless POTUS is just the dog-ear for CAPSTONE3,” Sirad thought out loud. “What if someone knew the president was out of the loop? What if they used his signature, knowing he was too busy to pay attention?”
“Son of a bitch.” Ravi nodded. “They wanted us to discover this all along.”
“What are our limitations to on-site discovery?” Sirad asked, suddenly infused with energy. She scrolled up and down the screen, looking for something only she would recognize.
“There are none,”
I Can’t Dunk assured her. “If it’s in the WHCA or DISN system, we can access it.”
“Incoming, outgoing communications?” Sirad asked.
“Yes. We have access to everything they do, say, and know.”
“Domestic and international?”
“Yes.”
“Civilian and military?”
“Yes, of course,” Ravi answered. “We have free rein of every communication and conduit. What is it you want?”
“I want to access the fail-safe codes,” she blurted out.
All three men stared at her.
“You m-m-mean the f-f-fucking football?”
“That’s exactly what I mean,” Sirad demanded. She reached for her coat and checked to make sure she had her keys. “Can you get them for me?”
“You bet we can,” Ravi told her.
He leaned back and crossed his arms. All of a sudden, he understood, too.
THE PRESIDENT HAD showered and shaved, and now donned a traditional uniform of white shirt, red tie, and blue two-button suit by the time his cabinet arrived. They met in the Cabinet Room as usual, despite concern from the Secret Service, which had tried to keep him in PEOC.
“Good evening,” he said, striding into the crowded space ahead of Andrea Chase and his press secretary. “I want to deal with the issue of my absence these last twenty-four hours.”
No one else said a word. Some looked up at him, some stared into their briefing packages.
“I imagine there have been rumors, but I don’t have time to deal with them right now. Whatever you have heard, I’m back in the Oval Office and well focused on the fact that we may not yet have seen the worst of this crisis.”
Chase found a seat at the table. The press secretary stood along the east wall. Venable stood, as usual, behind his chair.
“Why don’t we start with an investigative update,” the president continued. He nodded to his attorney general then reached down for his glass of ice water.
“Should I, uh . . . shouldn’t I wait for the vice president?” the empty suit asked.
“At the suggestion of FEMA, I have sent her to the Mountain,” Venable said. His voice sounded firm and strong. “I would conference her in, but she’s in a Marine Corps helicopter as we speak. Go ahead with your briefing.”
The attorney general shuffled through briefing papers the FBI and DHS had prepared for him. Law enforcement had never been his thing, really. He was a jurist, an academic devoted to the letter of the law more than its application. Cops struck him as little more than a poorly educated, blue-collar cleanup crew assigned to the gutters of society. They were an occupational hazard.
“Where should I, uh . . . where should I start, sir?” he asked.
“Start with what I need to know,” Venable answered. He had regretted this appointment since their first meeting, but it was too late to do anything now. “Have we learned anything more about the Saudis?”
The attorney general thumbed through his briefing package until he found a folder earmarked Saudi Arabia.
“Yes . . . ah, FBI investigation continues. Director Alred assures me that . . . the Saudis—yes—the Saudis . . .”
“Matthew, could you help us out, here,” Venable said. As national security advisor, Havelock served as a one-stop-shopping update on everything that happened since Monday. Most thought the director of central intelligence or the new intelligence czar were America’s top spooks, but in reality, the national security advisor had long been the president’s chief intelligence officer.
“Three developments with the Saudis.” Havelock jumped in with a confidence Venable hadn’t seen in their first meetings. “NSA has picked up big increases in signals traffic with the Chinese. Most of these communications have involved Quantis phones so we can’t listen in, but they parallel wire transfers out of several U.S. financial corporations. Real money. The FBI puts the number at a little under five hundred billion.”
“Impact on markets?” the president asked.
“We anticipate a move on the dollar and sharp spikes in precious metals as soon as the news hits,” Havelock told him. “I’m hearing speculation of a ten-percent hit on the Dow once it opens again . . . maybe more.”
“What do the Chinese have to say?” Venable asked his secretary of state.
“They deny everything. It’s oil, of course. We know that, but there’s nothing we can do. The Saudis have cut production to pre-1976 levels, opened their southern quarter to every exploration company in the world but ours. Crude just topped seventy dollars a barrel. Our strategic reserves have dipped to their lowest levels since we started stockpiling.”
“Why? How did we let our reserves run so low?”
“The previous administration,” Havelock answered. “American oil companies reported record profits in the two years since Saddam Hussein was toppled. We’re talking about a Texas oil family with very close ties to the House of Saud. You can draw your own conclusions.”
“What’s the bottom line?” Venable asked. He was an insurance man. He understood actuarials and stop-loss quotients.
“We have a legitimate national security exposure here, Mr. President,” the chairman of the joint chiefs said. “Five-dollar-a-gallon gas may cause indigestion in Des Moines, but I’ve got jet aircraft and tanks that don’t run well on diplomatic hot air. If we don’t take hard, definitive action, and soon, we’re not going to care much about a few thugs with pipe bombs.”
The president tapped the back of his chair—that old nervous habit.
“You said three things,” he reminded Havelock. “What else?”
The national security advisor folded his hands in front of himself and turned to the secretary of energy.
“Our Capitol region NEST team believes they have found the radioactive materials stolen from Kentucky,” the energy secretary said. “Not all of it, but enough to initiate full-court surveillance.”
“I was going to tell you that, Mr. President,” the attorney general jumped in. He seemed thrilled with himself for having something to offer.
“We have coordinated with the FBI and DHS to maintain a safe standoff, but it is a hard perimeter,” the energy secretary continued. “The good thing about radioactive isotopes is that they are hard to move without leaving a trail.”
“They’re here in Washington?” Venable asked. He had assumed they’d come, but not this quickly. “You’re sure of that?”
“Yes, sir. CIA analysts say the best bet is several RDDs around the city. Remember, these terrorists want symbolic impact. We have to assume that this building will be a target.”
“What else . . . locusts and plague?” Venable asked. If he’d known things were this bad, he might not have gotten up from his nap.
“There’s a little good news, actually, depending on how you look at it,” Havelock said. “That HRT raid on the group in Columbus? Well, it may have been a black hole in terms of terrorism, but hard drive exploitation turned up access codes for some of Prince Abdullah’s close-hold accounts. The FBI and Treasury investigators may be able to freeze some of his assets. That could buy time.”
“Abdullah would scream bloody murder,” Venable rebuffed him.
“In private, maybe.” Havelock nodded. “But not publicly. Remember, he’s making a power play against his own family—trying to hoard enough of the royals’ money to establish a power base once the Crown Prince dies. He doesn’t want to see this story on Aljazeera.”
“Excuse me,” a uniformed marine interrupted. “Mr. President, the SITROOM has flash traffic for you, sir. A CRITIC message. Urgent.”
“What the hell now?” he grumbled. Venable started toward the door. “Matthew and Andrea, I need you in on this. Richard, I want State’s opinion on UN reaction to a military strike against Saudi Arabia. General Oshinski, I want a war plan on my desk by dinnertime.”
“All options?” the chairman asked.
“All options.”
Venable led his chief of staff and national security advisor o
ut of the room, leaving the rest of his cabinet to ponder a grave possibility. “All options” was no code. In very open terms it meant that President David Venable had begun to consider launching the first proactive nuclear strike in more than sixty years.
JEREMY WATCHED THE light turn yellow ahead of him. A crowd of late-night barhoppers waited on the sidewalk to cross; taxis weaved back and forth, looking for fares.
This is gonna hurt, he decided, stomping down on the gas. The big diesel belched a cloud of black smoke and lurched ahead. The sparkly white Mercedes station wagon in front of him slowed for the light, but Jeremy kept his foot on the pedal, plowing into the back of it, pushing the car toward the crowded sidewalk.
Brakes screeched, horns honked, people screamed. The giant yellow concrete truck climbed up the back of the expensive German car like a car crusher at some redneck rodeo. Cars swerved in every direction, knocking into each other, dimpling, buckling, smashing—all burning rubber and broken glass.
By the time Jeremy realized no one had been seriously hurt, a DC Metro unit had raced up beside him, lights flashing. Capitol Hill was thick with marked units.
“License and registration,” the first cop said, walking up to the driver’s door.
Jeremy studied his mirror and the streets around him, trying to spot his tail. Had Ellis seen the accident himself? How long before he found out?
“Fuck you, asshole,” Jeremy said. He spoke softly, from behind a humble, I’m-so-sorry-officer smile.
“What did you say?” the patrolman asked. He was thin, African American. A pencil-thin mustache adorned his upper lip.
“I said, fuck you.” Jeremy smiled. He tried to look the model, obedient citizen. “I bet you like picking on white boys, don’t you, you tar-colored stoop nigger.”
The officer stood back and cocked his head, unable to believe what he was hearing. Sirens rose in the distance. Angry motorists were climbing out to assess the damage.
“Get out of the truck, sir,” the officer said. Jeremy could hardly believe the man’s resolute professionalism.
White: A Novel Page 31
