In the darkness, the leader heard the solemn sounds along the side of the road.
Ziiipppp. Ziiippp…
He walked down the row of dead soldiers, each one stuffed into a forest-green body bag and zipped closed.
Except one. One of the ghost troopers looked up as the leader approached.
“He’s not dead yet, sir.”
The leader leaned over and fired a single shot into the dying man’s forehead.
“Zip it up,” he snapped.
Three Jeeps rounded the south corner of the pass and collected the ghost troopers. The leader was the last to jump into a Jeep. He checked his watch.
Four minutes. Perfect. He took a small radio transmitter from his pocket, pressed the Ready button, and then pressed Fire.
Behind him, high up on the cliffside, half a pound of C-4 ripped out the side of the cliff. The snow above it cascaded down, carrying trees and rocks. Rumbling in the darkness, the small avalanche swept down on the north side of the pass and engulfed the road.
The last Jeep wheeled through the south end of the pass. The leader set off a second charge. It was twice as loud as the first, starting landslides on both sides of the road.
The leader checked the luminous dial of his watch again.
Five minutes.
The hijacked semi vanished into the swirling snow.
CHAPTER 6
JANUARY 13, 4:35 A.M., EST
Marge Castaigne was wide-awake the minute the phone rang. Her night table was carefully arranged: night lamp with the press switch at the base, easy to reach and turn on; a digital clock so she could immediately tell the time; a safe, portable, hotline phone that connected with the White House. The first ring was not complete when she snatched it off the stand, looking at the green clock as she answered: 4:36 a.m. Not good.
“This is Castaigne.”
“General Castaigne, this is Claude Hooker. The President would like a meeting as soon as possible. How quickly can you be here?”
“Twenty minutes. What’s up, Claude?”
“Don’t know, but he’s agitated. He had that look in his eye.”
“Uh-oh.”
“Your limo’s on the way.”
“Thanks.”
Castaigne was passionately well-organized. Everything was prepared before she went to sleep, just in case the red phone rang, as it often did. Her clothes were laid out, briefcase repacked, coffeemaker ready to go. She threw on a robe, hurried to the kitchen, turned on the coffeemaker, then took a quick shower.
It could be anything. Somebody died. A cabinet member, maybe. Or a Supreme Court judge. No. That wouldn’t agitate him. He was pissed, so it was some kind of crisis. The hell with it, she’d know soon enough.
She dressed quickly, sloshed a spoonful of sugar in a plastic cup of coffee, took a sip, then went to the bedroom, took her 9mm Glock from the holster attached under the night-table top, and put it in her purse.
Showered, dressed, and out the door in nine minutes. The limo was waiting. Ten minutes to the White House.
Buffeted by the wind, the chopper roared down the Bitterroot Valley a hundred feet above the river, harsh beams of two searchlights leading the way. The chopper pilot leaned forward, squinting through the windscreen. He was a gruff man, husky, with rough hands and a heavy beard.
“You got big balls, Mr. Hardistan,” he said. “Whatever happened down at Lost Trail ain’t gonna go away, least until this weather shapes up.”
William Hardistan, Deputy Director of the FBI and the second most important man in the Bureau, huddled in an arctic jacket loaned to him by one of the agents in Butte and didn’t say anything. His eyes were focused straight ahead, watching the river race by below them.
The pilot suddenly pulled the chopper up, rising a couple of hundred feet. They lost sight of the river in the swirling snow, and the searchlights were swallowed up in the darkness. Hardistan stiffened and shifted uneasily in his seat.
“Don’t get nervous, we’re passing over Sula. It’s just a crossroads, but they got a church. Hate for you to end up hanging on the steeple.”
“I appreciate that,” Hardistan said in a low gravelly voice without a hint of nerves.
“You do this kinda thing often?”
“Not if I can help it. How about you?”
The pilot laughed. “Only when there’s nothin’ better t’do.”
Hardistan watched the little village slide below them. There were a few lights on in houses, otherwise the town was dark.
“Another ten minutes we’ll be there.”
“That’s good news, not that I fault your flying, Sid.” Hardistan didn’t know the pilot’s last name. He was introduced as Sid and that ended the introduction. The pilot was unaware that his passenger was the number two man in the FBI, a veteran who had kept out of the limelight and managed to weather the Hoover regime, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, and the FBI lab scandals, and had risen continuously through it all.
Ahead of them, Hardistan thought he saw lights reflecting off the snow. “What’s that?” he asked.
“Your people got some searchlights down there?”
“Probably. They brought a service van down from Missoula. Has everything in it but a sauna.”
“Ah, a sauna, now there’s a happy thought.” A moment later the pilot said, “Yeah, looks like they got a coupla ten-thousand-watters set up. This’ll be easy.”
He guided the helicopter over the lights and checked for wires, then lowered the chopper down between the light poles. It settled gently on the frozen ground. Fifty feet away in the hazy, snow-speckled light, rocks, trees, dirt, and debris clogged the entrance to Lost Trail Pass.
“What happened, they have a landslide?” Sid asked as Hardistan unbuckled.
“Looks like it.”
“FBI investigatin’ avalanches now?” the pilot asked with a grin.
Hardistan smiled wanly. “Looks like it. Thanks, Sid. If I ever need a good chopper pilot again, I’ll call you.”
“Praise from Caesar,” the pilot said, and shook Hardistan’s hand. The FBI Deputy Director jumped out of the chopper and ran, stooped over, out of the windy circle whipped up by the rotors.
Geoff Isaac met Hardistan as he left the chopper. Isaac was agent in charge of the Missoula office, and at twenty-nine was the youngest agent in charge in the Bureau.
“Mr. Hardistan,” he said, shaking the older man’s gloved hand.
“Hey, Geoff. I can’t believe you drove the van down here in this weather.”
“I can’t believe you flew down here in a chopper,” Isaac yelled over the clatter of the chopper as it lifted off. “Let’s get in the RV, it’s a little warmer than it is out here.”
The RV was a mobile laboratory, equipped with an array of electronic equipment, a satellite dish for visual reporting, two cots, and a kitchen. A heavy-duty generator roared outside. The wind buffeted the big land cruiser, sneaked in around windows and doors, and strained the heater.
Isaac had spread two maps out on a table. He quickly explained to Hardistan where they were and the hazards posed by the weather.
Then he gave Hardistan a quick report on the ambush itself, while the Deputy Director took copious notes in shorthand.
“Brilliantly planned, sir. Trapped the convoy here, in the pass, wasted the front and rear guard vehicles, killed all ten men in the convoy, set off explosions at both ends of the pass, and caused landslides that have us blocked on both ends. In the dark, in a blizzard, in and out in five minutes.”
“How do you know that?” Hardistan asked.
Isaac walked to a tape recorder. “Listen to this. This guy’s name is Norman Shields. He’s a hunter, fisherman, and ham radio operator, lives somewhere up there…” He waved toward the mountains. “… and heard the attack. All the phones hereabouts are down, so he raised a radio buddy of his in—get this—Maine. His buddy puts him on the speaker phone, calls Missoula, and they patch through to us.”
“Miracle of modern communic
ation.”
Isaac turned on the tape and Hardistan listened intently to the exchange.
“Mr. Shields, this is Geoff Isaac, agent in charge of the Missoula bureau.”
“Yes sir, this is Norman Shields.”
“I understand you heard a disturbance tonight.”
“Disturbance is right. I hit the sack about ten, got no phone or electricity up here, they been out since about seven, and I wake up when I hear these explosions. First thing I do, I check the clock, and it’s 10:27 on the button. First off, there’s two explosions almost on top a each other, bam-bam, like that. Then what sounds like a lotta firecrackers, then boom! A big one, and about thirty seconds after that two more booms, even louder. That’s it. It was all over at 10:32.”
“Did you hear any heavy vehicles after the second big explosion?”
“Didn’t hear nothin’ but what I just told ya. The wind was about to blow me off the mountain, I was lucky to hear anything. I judged it came from the northwest, probably two or three miles. I mean, it wasn’t like it was in the backyard or anything. I got up and opened the window to get a better listen.”
“You’re sure about the time?”
“I reset the clock every Sunday using the Greenwich signal on public radio.”
Isaac snapped off the recorder.
“We got an ear witness,” Hardistan said.
“Pinpoints the time. Five minutes, sir. We’re talking real pros here.”
Hardistan nodded.
“I’ve got five men with me,” Isaac said. “We’ve been out in the crime zone shooting video and Polaroids, but the equipment freezes up and you can’t stay outside too long at a time. In another two hours the whole place will be under four or five inches of snow.”
“There goes whatever physical evidence there is.”
“I’m afraid so. We’re trying to catalogue what there is. No tracks worth a damn. A lot of shell casings. What’s left of the two Humvees.” Isaac went to the door. “I want to show you something out there. You’re not going to believe it.”
The Secret Service uniformed guard at the White House gate saluted when he looked into the rear seat of the limo.
“Morning, General,” he said, waving the limo through.
“Morning, Chet.”
The limo drove to the west wing entrance of the White House, and the FBI agent jumped out and opened the door. The Attorney General leaned out, poured the remaining coffee from the cup, snapped a Kleenex from a box in the back, stuffed it in the cup, and put the cup on the floor in the rear of the limousine. The guard watched her now-familiar ritual with the coffee and kept his eyes on her as she approached him. She was a handsome woman, five-five or so, with dark brown hair and hazel eyes, dressed smartly in a gray wool suit with a dark blue scarf around her neck. No coat. He snapped to attention as she neared his post.
“Good morning, ma’am,” he said.
“Morning, Ed,” she said, waving her ID holder at him. “Who’s here so far?”
“You’re the first,” he answered, opening the door for her.
“Good,” she said, and winked as she entered the elevator to the first floor, where Hooker was waiting, unsmiling and stern-faced as always. The National Security Adviser never smiled. He was dressed in a dark blue suit, white shirt, and wine tie. As usual, he looked like he’d been up for hours.
“Coffee and pastries,” he said, ushering her into the Oval Office. “He should be down in a minute.”
“Can’t you tell me Anything?” she asked.
“Let’s not spoil it for the President.”
“Who else is coming to the party?”
“The usual.”
Good old Claude, Mister Know-it-all-don’t-say-nothin’.
“You’re just a fountain of information this morning.” She went to the silver service, poured a cup of coffee, opted for an apricot Danish, and sat down on the couch.
Lawrence Pennington burst through the door a minute later. He was a tall, deeply tanned, burly man with short-cropped graying hair over a hawk face and brown eyes. The slender seam of a scar from just above his right eyebrow to his jaw added a menacing touch to his rugged good looks. Every schoolkid and adult in the country knew he had earned the crease in a hand-to-hand fight with a Vietcong guerrilla in Vietnam, a fight that had earned him a Silver Star and a Purple Heart. They also knew that Pennington had graduated with honors from West Point, was a war hero in Korea and Vietnam, had been commanding general in Desert Storm, became the military’s top gun, and retired his five stars to run for Chief Executive. The perfect President: a good-looking war hero. Now all they had to do was keep him in office. Pennington had been elected by an overpowering landslide, but a jealous Congress, dominated by his political enemies, had riddled his programs and made fun of his inexperience in dealing with the Hill. Now, two years into his tenure, he was more embattled than he had ever been on the battlefield.
He was dressed in a gray jogging outfit and white sneakers, his jaw set, his expression grim.
Uh-oh, this ain’t a happy President, Castaigne thought as she stood to greet him. “Morning, Mr. President,” she said.
“General.” He nodded. “Sorry to get you up at this hour. And pardon my informality, I’m hoping to get a run in after our meeting.”
He took a can of Diet Coke from a large, sterling ice bucket, snapped off the tab, and took a swig. She knew better than to ask the big question. He’d tell her when he was ready.
“The house staff isn’t up yet,” he said gruffly. “I’m sure we can manage. Harry, Wayne, and Wendell will be here in a minute.”
Hooker, Simmons, Brodsky, and Harrison, she said to herself. National Security, FBI, Department of Interior, the ATF, and the Attorney General. Now there’s a mix.
“How’s Emilio doing?” the President asked, forcing a smile.
“Great, thank you. Finishes in June. Top ten percent. I can’t complain.”
“Hell, I should think not,” he said, nodding sharply. “Top ten at Harvard Law. You must be dancing in your shoes.”
“I am that,” she said.
There was a knock at the door, and Hooker ushered in Harry Simmons, Director of the FBI; Wayne Brodsky, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; and Wendell Greer, Secretary of the Interior. Her mind played games. What could possibly have happened to get the Attorney General, these four men, and the President together at five in the morning? They said their good mornings and went to the coffee urn.
They all looked like they were supposed to look, Castaigne thought. Simmons was tall, had a health club physique, a pugnacious face, and a widow’s peak of black hair that gave him a satanic look. He had served as police chief in Detroit and New York before taking over from Robert Lewis, whose administration had been riddled with scandal. Brodsky was bald and beefy and walked with a strut. He had worked his way up through the ranks to become top man at ATF, which was now fighting for its life to keep from being conscripted into the FBI. They had one appearance in common—intense, arrogant eyes—Simmons’s deeply set, Brodsky’s hooded by fleshy eyelids. Wen Greer had nothing in common with either of them. He was a slender stalk of a man, with a pleasant smile, passionate eyes, and blond hair. The hair gave him the look of a surfer, which in fact he had been in his early years before joining the Forest Service and serving for twelve years in the Rocky Mountains. His maternal grandmother was a Cherokee Indian. Greer was the first person with Native American blood to serve as Secretary of the Interior, an ironic fact considering that Native Americans once owned all of the interior of the United States.
Hooker, tall, stoic, ex-Marine, ex-CIA, embraced paranoia as others would a lover, his eyes permanently narrowed into slits from years of suspicion about everything. An emotionless man whose lips hardly moved when he spoke, he was the perfect National Security Adviser. Hooker was an enigma. Rumors of dark deeds in ’Nam and Nicaragua swarmed about him like bees. He had the President’s ear, a fact that he subtly lorded over the others. Hooker served the President w
ell and discreetly, and Pennington had learned years ago as an Army officer that he didn’t have to like someone to respect him and exploit his talent.
The President genuinely liked Margaret Castaigne, the first Puerto Rican Attorney General in history, a tough former federal prosecutor and later federal judge of the south Florida district. She was generally conceded by the media to be not only the most effective member of Pennington’s formidable cabinet but, in terms of her position, its most powerful and feared member. She had been on the job only six months but quickly learned that her power rested in part on her alliances. Hooker played it safe and could not always be counted on for support. Simmons was not an ally. He was a political animal whose job was to protect the FBI and repair an image tarnished at Ruby Ridge, Waco, and in its own laboratories. The man who really ran the Bureau was in an RV in the middle of a blizzard in the mountains of Montana. Castaigne was also keenly aware that Simmons resented her as his boss and secretly lobbied friends on the Hill to have his position elevated to cabinet status.
They sat on twin sofas, facing each other across a coffee table. The President sat at one end of the table in a rocking chair, nursing his soda. Hooker sat apart from the rest in a chair near the door with a laptop computer on an end table beside him, drumming his fingers lightly on his knee.
“I have some disturbing news,” the President said gravely. “There’s been a terrorist attack on an Army convoy in Montana. Ten men are dead and an eighteen-wheeler crammed with weapons and ammunition has been hijacked.”
The reaction was shock and a sudden babble from everyone in the room. Questions started battering him. He held up his hand.
“The attack apparently occurred at about 2230 hours yesterday, Rocky Mountain Time.” He looked at his watch. “Roughly five hours ago. That’s pretty much all we know for now. We do have one break. Billy Hardistan was in Butte for a presentation. He took a chopper through extremely hazardous weather and is on the scene now. I expect to hear from him momentarily.”
There was a moment of silence as the cabinet members digested what they had just heard.
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