Reavers climbed the short ladder and looked at the edges of the square hatch that led to the flat roof. After he was sure there were no booby traps, he opened the hatch and climbed onto the roof.
Harris, in the meantime, opened the back door just in time to greet his two men who were climbing the rickety stairs from the alley. Pointing to the front and back stairways Harris said, “Booby-trap both of ’em.” Then he spun and went back toward the bedroom saying, “Bravo Six, this is Whiskey Five. We are ready for pickup. What’s your ETA? Over.”
The reply from the helicopters came back. “We are seven two seconds out. I repeat, seven two seconds out. Over.”
Harris checked his watch. They were within fifteen seconds of their planned extraction time. “Slick, what’s going on outside?”
Down the street, Wicker rubbed the trigger guard of his rifle while he scanned the dark street with his night-vision scope. “Everything is quiet so far.”
Back in the bedroom, Rapp had turned his attention to cuffing and gagging Harut. Harris came through the doorway as he was finishing up.
“Mitch, let’s go. The chopper is on its way in.”
“Roger.” Rapp stuck a sheaf of documents in his waistband and threw Harut over his shoulder. He bounced the old man twice until he had him in the right position. Then he started for the ladder. As Rapp started to climb, he heard the first sign of trouble come over his earpiece.
4
Bandar Abbas, Iran
FROM ATOP HIS perch down the street, Wicker was keeping a careful eye on the street and humming a Bob Marley tune to himself. Peering through his optic-green night-vision scope, he kept his breathing shallow and smooth. Suddenly, the door from the downstairs apartment opened, and a man wearing a pair of underwear appeared with an AK-47 gripped in his hands.
“Harry,” the sniper spoke into his mike, “you’ve got company. The guy from the downstairs apartment just came outside.” Wicker watched through his scope as the man walked over to the slumped guard and shook his shoulder. The dead guard rolled from the chair to the ground, and the man stepped back quickly, bringing his AK-47 up to the firing position.
Wicker didn’t have to think—from the moment the man had stepped outside, his head had never left the crosshairs of the scope. The SEAL squeezed the trigger of his riffle, the suppressor at the end of the barrel hissed with the expulsion of gasses, and the bullet was away.
The heavy round hit the man in the side of the head and propelled him to the ground, his body tensing as it was thrown and his index finger compressing on the trigger of the AK-47. A two-round burst of the loud rifle broke the predawn silence.
“Tango down,” stated a calm Wicker as he began a sweep for other targets.
HARRIS WAS STANDING under Rapp, making sure he got up the ladder, when he heard what he instantly knew to be the distinctive sound of an AK-47 firing. There was a split-second pause, and then everybody kicked it into high gear. Harris stepped away from the ladder and listened as Wicker gave him an update. When he had heard enough, he yelled at Jordan and Tony, “Are you two almost done?”
Without looking up, Tony, the smaller of the two, said, “We’ll be right with you.”
Harris pulled the mike back down. “Reavers, any sign of our bird?”
Reavers had crawled to the edge of the roof to see what was happening on the street. He was looking down at the two dead bodies beneath him when his boss asked about the choppers. He looked up and scanned the horizon. The helicopters were nowhere in sight. “That’s a negative, Harry,” replied Reavers.
“Is the strobe up and running?” asked Harris. The strobe Harris was referring to was an infrared strobe light that was invisible to the naked eye but glaringly visible to anyone wearing night-vision goggles.
From his perch down the block Wicker did a quick check with his night-vision scope and noted the flashing light atop the house. “The strobe is active.”
Harris looked at his watch and turned back to his two men boobytrapping the stairs. “That’s it, everyone on the roof. Let’s go!”
The two men connected one last grenade and then scooted up the ladder. Harris followed them up and rolled onto the dirty flat roof. With his MP-10 in one hand, he closed the hatch. Spinning to check where his men were, the commander grabbed his night-vision binoculars and looked to the northwest, scanning the sky for the choppers. As he searched the horizon, he heard Wicker call, “More Tangos on the move.”
Wicker peered through his scope as two men, and then a third, appeared from the house across the street. All three were armed. Wicker maneuvered the scope and said, “Everyone stay down. I can handle it.” As the first man approached the bodies of the dead men on the street, Wicker centered in on the side of his head and squeezed off a round. He slid the Galil to the left just a touch and framed up the second man, who was now standing in shock while he watched the man in front of him crumple to the ground. Wicker squeezed the trigger again and moved on. The third man was backpedaling for the door, waving his arms and screaming. He never made it.
Harris dropped to his belly and quickly crawled to the edge of the flat roof. With his MP-10 up and ready, he looked over the edge at the bodies in the street. The SEALs were already deployed around the perimeter of the roof. Two covering the alley, and two covering the front. Rapp kneeled over the unconscious body of Harut and searched the sky for the helicopters.
“Boys,” barked Harris, “shoot anything that moves.”
THE COPILOT OF the Pave Low spotted the strobes when they were about a mile from the beach and alerted the rest of the crew. They had been directed to hit the northern strobe first. The Pave Low alerted the pilots of the Pave Hawk, which was flying in formation at just under one hundred fifty miles per hour and hugging the deck.
Simultaneously the two helicopters broke formation. The larger Pave Low banked to the left and began to slow, while the agile Pave Hawk broke to the right and began a full-speed run to the south.
RIGHT ABOUT THE time Harris detected the noise of the incoming helicopters, the night sky blew open. A sustained burst of machine gun fire erupted from the building across the street. All but two of the twentysome rounds flew wildly over their heads. The two that hit the lip at the edge of the roof sent chunks of clay flying.
Lying on his side, Harris said, “Bravo Six, this is Whiskey Five. We are under fire! I repeat, under fire! The LZ is hot!”
“Roger that, Whiskey Five,” came the reply from the Pave Low. “Where is the fire coming from?”
“Directly across the street to our west.”
“Roger, Whiskey Five. We have your position marked and will be on top of you in about twenty seconds.”
Harris stayed flat on the roof. Another burst of machine gun fire rang out with more of the rounds crashing into the side of the roof, and then a second and a third gun joined in. “Slick,” the commander called out over the radio, “can you get these guys off my ass?”
“That’s a negative, Harry. The angle is wrong.”
Harris rolled onto his back as shouts were heard from below and a another volley of bullets rang out. “Reavers!” yelled Harris. “I’ll draw their fire, and you bag ’em.”
While lying on his back, Harris held his MP-10 over the edge and squeezed off four bursts at the house across the street. A second later Reavers popped up, saw a muzzle flash in the second-story window, and zipped the target with three shots to the chest. Reavers quickly ducked back down as a flurry of return fire rang out.
Wicker chimed in from his spot down the street. “I think we stuck our hands in the hornet’s nest.” More targets appeared, and Wicker went to work.
THE PAVE LOW came in much slower than a Hollywood director would have liked, but these big flying buses didn’t stop on a dime. The roar of its powerful 3,900-horsepower turbine engines and churning rotors was deafening. As soon as he had targets in sight, the starboard gunner opened up with his 7.62-millimeter minigun—hosing down the building across the street. The Pave Low s
topped just on the other side of the strobe, but did not touch down. Within seconds of coming to a stop, the smaller Pave Hawk appeared from the south and passed directly overhead, her guns blazing.
Rapp grabbed Harut, threw him over his shoulder, and ran up the ramp of the Pave Low. Harris crouched at the foot of the ramp and picked up the strobe. He counted each of his men by slapping them on the ass as they ran up the ramp. When they were all in, Harris bounded into the chopper and gave the tail gunner a thumbs-up. One second later the helicopter rose ten feet and began lumbering above the rooftops, all three gunners laying down suppressive fire as they moved out.
Wicker continued to search for targets right up to the last second, but there were none to be found. The miniguns from the helicopters had cleared the street. As the Pave Low neared his position, the sniper saw the escort come screaming down the street for another pass. Wicker grabbed his gear, and as the ramp of the Pave Low neared, he jumped up and into the back of the cargo area.
The second the pilots heard the last man was onboard, they twisted the throttles to the stops and headed for sea. Twenty excruciating seconds later they were feet-wet hugging the water of the gulf, the Pave Hawk back in formation, heading for home.
Washington, D.C., Midnight
THE PLUSH ROOM was located on the southwest corner of the tenth floor. It was one of the Washington Hotel’s finest rooms. A faint gray light from the street below spilled through the windows and reflected off the white ceiling and walls. The sole occupant stood in front of an ornate mirror and stared at his reflection, his fingers gently probing the tender areas around his eyes and then his jaw. He was a handsome man, strikingly so. Even more so since the surgical changes had been made. The more rugged features had been smoothed and refined. He had been looking at this new face for almost a month and had yet to grow accustomed to it. Pulling the cigarette from his mouth, he turned his head to the right and studied his profile. The red scar tissue had healed but was still sensitive in the areas where the skin was thin. The cheeks were more sallow, partially from the surgery but also because he had lost twenty pounds. He was pleased with the results. They were not perfect, but they would be good enough.
Exhaling a cloud of smoke, he stepped away from the mirror and turned. Through the haze of smoke he looked out the large window at the city before him. His posture was erect; his dark skin and short black hair stood out starkly against the handmade white dress shirt he was wearing.
To his left, the stoic Washington Monument jutted into the night sky, marking the center of the National Mall. Beyond that, the curved dome of the Jefferson Memorial shone just above the trees, while further to the west, marking the end of the mall, were the beautiful alabaster pillars of the Lincoln Memorial, and directly across the street lay the expansive Treasury Department. None of this, however, interested him. What did, sat just on the other side of the Treasury Department.
He inhaled and then extracted the cigarette with a slow, even motion, letting his hand and the cigarette come to a rest at his side. As the darkeyed man took in the historic landscape, the corners of his mouth turned upward ever so slightly. It was an ominous smile. Rafique Aziz hated everything before him with more passion than any American could ever understand. The monuments and buildings before him were all symbols of America’s imperialism, greed, corruption, and arrogance. The very things that had corrupted his homeland and pitted brother against brother. There were even those who were talking about peace with Israel, the Zionists who, with the aid of the mighty America, had plunged his Beirut into a hell on earth. It was time again, time for another revolution. It was time to ignite the jihad.
5
Washington, D.C., 6:55 A.M.
THE MAJORITY OF the United States Secret Service’s five thousand plus agents were assigned to field offices around the country and focused their attention on catching counterfeiters. But the better known role of the agency was that of protecting politicians and, more specifically, the president of the United States. The Secret Service’s presidential detail carried a roster of approximately two hundred special agents at any given time, and their positions were arguably the most competitive and soughtafter jobs in all of law enforcement.
Secret Service agent Ellen Morton was one of the lucky few. Morton walked through the Executive Mansion and stopped at the detail’s down room located on the ground floor of the White House. The tiny cramped room was officially designated Staircase; the name derived from the room’s location, which was underneath the stairs that led to the First Family’s private residence on the second and third floors of the mansion.
Morton poked her head through the open doorway. “Morning, Ted. How’d the night go?”
The agent leaned back and clasped his hands behind his head. With a yawn he gave his one word answer, “Quiet.”
In order to give the First Family a certain amount of privacy, the Secret-Service did not venture up to the second and third floors of the mansion unless called. They instead relied on a series of pressure pads installed in various areas beneath the carpet to track the president’s whereabouts on the floors above.
“Is he up?” asked Morton.
“Yep. The steward phoned down and said he’s putting on a suit.”
On most mornings President Hayes went straight over to the West Wing at seven, but there were times, usually after he had been traveling, when he liked to work out in his private gym on the third floor and then walk over to the office at around eight. The agents on the detail usually had no idea what to expect until the Navy steward called down to tell them the president was wearing either workout clothes or a suit.
The security panel on the wall of Staircase beeped and a red light blinked, announcing that the president’s elevator was moving. Morton nodded to the other agent and raised her hand mike to her mouth. “Horsepower, from Morton. Woody is on his way down.” Horsepower was the designation for the presidential detail’s command post located under the Oval Office.
The presidential detail’s chief concern and focus was the president, while the actual security of the White House compound was handled by the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division. There was a second command post located on the fifth floor of the Executive Office Building, across the street from the White House, that coordinated and monitored the two group’s activities. It was called the Joint Operations Center, or JOC, and was built in the wake of an unauthorized attempted landing on the South Lawn by a single-engine airplane in 1994. JOC monitored the movements of both the uniformed officers and the special agents.
The doors to elevator opened, and President Hayes emerged wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and paisley tie. The president looked at the familiar face before him and said, “Good morning, Ellen.”
“Good morning, sir.” Morton moved out ahead of the president, walking down the long hall that led to the Palm Room. As shift leader, or whip, of the day detail, it was her responsibility to coordinate the movement of the president from the mansion to the West Wing. They entered the Palm Room, and Morton spoke into her hand mike. “Horsepower, from Morton. Woody is approaching the Colonnade.” As Morton reached the double glass doors, she nodded to the agent on the other side and watched him move out ahead. Morton held the door for President Hayes, and then the two of them stepped out onto the fieldstone walkway of the Colonnade.
The president stopped and took in the bright spring morning. Feeling the warm morning sun on his face for the first time in weeks, he closed his eyes and smiled. After a long moment, he drew in a deep breath. Then opening his eyes, he looked out at the mist-covered grass of the South Lawn. Ellen Morton stood silently behind him, her hands clasped in front of her. Without turning, President Hayes said, “Beautiful morning, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is, sir.” Morton grinned to herself. She was still not used to Hayes’s private persona. With all of the security and pomp and circumstance, it was easy to forget that he was a real person—a husband, a father, and a grandfather.
“It makes me wi
sh I was on the golf course.” Hayes shook his head. “Well, it’s off to the daily grind.” With that he started down the stone walkway. Morton followed a step behind as they headed past Jefferson’s pillars. When they reached the doors that led to the West Wing by the White House pressroom, they took a left, continuing past the French doors of the Cabinet Room and then around to the right. As they rounded the corner, Morton looked ahead at the agent by the Oval Office. He was getting ready to insert a key into the door. Over her earpiece Morton heard the agent say, “Horsepower, from Cowley. Authorized break on the Oval Colonnade door.” The agent then stuck the key in the door and opened it, holding it for the president and Morton.
The president took a final look at the blooming flowers in the Rose Garden as he walked, and then greeted the agent holding the door. “Good morning, Pat.”
“Good morning, sir.”
President Hayes walked into the Oval Office first and Morton second. The president continued straight ahead, passing his desk and then going through the short hallway that led to his private study, bathroom, and dining room. Morton turned to the right and opened the door that led to the secretary’s office. She closed it behind her and said into her mike, “Horsepower, from Morton. Woody is in the Oval.”
On the other side of the Oval Office, in the main hallway, two Secret Service agents from the presidential detail relieved two uniformed officers and took up posts outside the door to the president’s dining room and the main door to the Oval Office.
Inside the president’s private dining room, Hayes took off his suit coat and handed it to a small Filipino man dressed in a white waistcoat and black pants. “Good morning, Carl.”