in a thirty-eight-million-buck plane. Be grateful.’
With no book to read, he feigned sleep during the flight from Nairobi west across Africa. Wondered why the guy who had grabbed him was so hostile. It seemed a lot more than just keeping Thorne down, but he couldn’t worry about that now.
After the fueling stop in Dakar, he sat upright during the crossing of the Atlantic to D.C. He had just killed two men; he knew from bitter experience that if he slept his nightmare of seven years before would return. Just as well. Something truly rotten was brewing. He had to prepare his refusals for it.
It was sometime in the wee hours when the jet landed on a secluded corner of Reagan National across the Potomac from D.C. An icy rain was falling as they left the jet for the waiting unmarked government van. Where were the cherry blossoms?
Thorne was dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved shirt of fabric as thin as his blood after his years in the tropics. But as they crossed the Key Bridge, he was damned if he would shiver, or let his teeth chatter, or ask for a coat.
—
At the northeast guard booth, he caught just a glimpse of spot-lit lawns and the unmistakable white, pillared building just beyond. The uniformed officer inside the booth activated a switch to raise the car-blocking iron beams in front of the van, and lower them behind. Around behind the White House, they went down a narrow ramp with high concrete walls on either side. The van stopped, they got out into the drizzle.
A steel-armored door opened, a guard in uniform, one of the fifty-man detachment of Secret Service agents who worked three eight-hour shifts 24/7, checked their credentials. He kept his light in Thorne’s eyes the whole time because Thorne didn’t have any credentials.
Hatfield and yet another uniform took Thorne down a long basement corridor to a chamber with another steel door. They went in, Hatfield shut the door in the Secret Service agent’s face. It was a carpeted, windowless room with doors in all four walls, a conference table and eight chairs and a portable sideboard. There was the low hum of hidden air-conditioners.
Three men were staring at Thorne as if he were a bug on a pin. Two of them were young – twenty-five, twenty-six, one darkly good-looking, like Montgomery Clift before the bad times, the second chubby, friendly-looking, nondescript. The third man was burly, chomping an expensive cigar, exuding power. Small hard eyes dominated a meaty face Thorne recognized from BBC telecasts in Kenya.
‘Any trouble, Terrill?’ the cigar-chomper asked.
Hatfield sneered at Thorne. ‘From this hunk of shit?’
‘Okay, okay, we all know you’re a tough guy.’ Without offering to shake hands he said to Thorne, ‘My name is—’
‘Kurt Jaeger. President Wallberg’s Chief of Staff.’
Jaeger shot a quick, hard, angry look at Hatfield, whoput his hands up in the universal palms out not-me gesture.
‘We can cut across, then.’ Jaeger gestured at the handsome one. ‘Hastings Crandall, Presidential Press Secretary.’ At the chubby blond one. ‘Peter Quarles, Presidential Aide.’ At Thorne’s captor, ‘Terrill Hatfield is—’
‘A Feeb,’ said Thorne.
Jaeger chuckled. ‘He’s good, Terrill. Yes, Mr. Hatfield’s FBI Hostage Rescue/Sniper Team is on special assignment to me.’
So the suits on the Gulfstream would be part of Hatfield’s hand-picked team of ball-busters, thinking of themselves as the saviors of the non-Muslim world.
‘Okay, that tells me who. Now one of you tell me why.’
Nondescript, round-faced Peter Quarles spoke up.
‘Chief-of-Staff Jaeger tasked us with a computer search. The computer picked you from several hundred possibles.’
‘Picked me to do what?’
Jaeger said smoothly, almost soothingly, ‘To figure out a foolproof way to assassinate Gustave Wallberg, the President of the United States.’
4
‘Fuck you and the whore you rode in on,’ snapped Thorne, shaken. He’d known it
With no book to read, he feigned sleep during the flight from Nairobi west across Africa. Wondered why the guy who had grabbed him was so hostile. It seemed a lot more than just keeping Thorne down, but he couldn’t worry about that now.
After the fueling stop in Dakar, he sat upright during the crossing of the Atlantic to D.C. He had just killed two men; he knew from bitter experience that if he slept his nightmare of seven years before would return. Just as well. Something truly rotten was brewing. He had to prepare his refusals for it.
It was sometime in the wee hours when the jet landed on a secluded corner of Reagan National across the Potomac from D.C. An icy rain was falling as they left the jet for the waiting unmarked government van. Where were the cherry blossoms?
Thorne was dressed in khaki pants and a short-sleeved shirt of fabric as thin as his blood after his years in the tropics. But as they crossed the Key Bridge, he was damned if he would shiver, or let his teeth chatter, or ask for a coat.
—
At the northeast guard booth, he caught just a glimpse of spot-lit lawns and the unmistakable white, pillared building just beyond. The uniformed officer inside the booth activated a switch to raise the car-blocking iron beams in front of the van, and lower them behind. Around behind the White House, they went down a narrow ramp with high concrete walls on either side. The van stopped, they got out into the drizzle.
A steel-armored door opened, a guard in uniform, one of the fifty-man detachment of Secret Service agents who worked three eight-hour shifts 24/7, checked their credentials. He kept his light in Thorne’s eyes the whole time because Thorne didn’t have any credentials.
Hatfield and yet another uniform took Thorne down a long basement corridor to a chamber with another steel door. They went in, Hatfield shut the door in the Secret Service agent’s face. It was a carpeted, windowless room with doors in all four walls, a conference table and eight chairs and a portable sideboard. There was the low hum of hidden air-conditioners.
Three men were staring at Thorne as if he were a bug on a pin. Two of them were young – twenty-five, twenty-six, one darkly good-looking, like Montgomery Clift before the bad times, the second chubby, friendly-looking, nondescript. The third man was burly, chomping an expensive cigar, exuding power. Small hard eyes dominated a meaty face Thorne recognized from BBC telecasts in Kenya.
‘Any trouble, Terrill?’ the cigar-chomper asked.
Hatfield sneered at Thorne. ‘From this hunk of shit?’
‘Okay, okay, we all know you’re a tough guy.’ Without offering to shake hands he said to Thorne, ‘My name is—’
‘Kurt Jaeger. President Wallberg’s Chief of Staff.’
Jaeger shot a quick, hard, angry look at Hatfield, whoput his hands up in the universal palms out not-me gesture.
‘We can cut across, then.’ Jaeger gestured at the handsome one. ‘Hastings Crandall, Presidential Press Secretary.’ At the chubby blond one. ‘Peter Quarles, Presidential Aide.’ At Thorne’s captor, ‘Terrill Hatfield is—’
‘A Feeb,’ said Thorne.
Jaeger chuckled. ‘He’s good, Terrill. Yes, Mr. Hatfield’s FBI Hostage Rescue/Sniper Team is on special assignment to me.’
So the suits on the Gulfstream would be part of Hatfield’s hand-picked team of ball-busters, thinking of themselves as the saviors of the non-Muslim world.
‘Okay, that tells me who. Now one of you tell me why.’
Nondescript, round-faced Peter Quarles spoke up.
‘Chief-of-Staff Jaeger tasked us with a computer search. The computer picked you from several hundred possibles.’
‘Picked me to do what?’
Jaeger said smoothly, almost soothingly, ‘To figure out a foolproof way to assassinate Gustave Wallberg, the President of the United States.’
4
‘Fuck you and the whore you rode in on,’ snapped Thorne, shaken. He’d known it
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