of Alexandria. As he crossed the Potomac, reflections from the river below scattered shards of
sunlight over the polished curves of the motorcycle.
I-95 was, for the most part, a seemingly endless stretch of empty road bordered on both sides
by towering stands of pine. He had been tempted to open the throttle, to get some fun out of
the ride, but the desire was tempered by an unusually heavy police presence and the Virginia
State Police Cessna 182s that drifted far overhead. Still, the open air was a huge relief from the
confines of the barn, where the locked door and the threat of the realtor seemed to bring the
walls closer each day.
He made the turn onto US Route 50, also known as New York Avenue. Vanderveen left Prince
George’s County at the same time he crossed the Anacostia, pushing west into the southeastern
edge of the District. As the Washington Convention Center loomed large in front of him, he
turned left onto 7th Street, the Honda’s big engine ripping through the calm air and bringing
some of the more complacent tourists to life. He grinned at their startled expressions as he
crossed Independence going south, turning his head ever so slightly to look down the length of
the road.
The sight failed to stir any emotion. The debris had long since been cleared, the burnt-out hulks
of the vehicles currently resting in a disused airplane hangar at Dulles, where teams from the
FBI’s Forensic Unit and the National Transportation Safety Board continued to scrape at the
scorched surfaces in vain search of evidence.
Vanderveen’s interest was nothing more than that of a curious motorist turning to peer at a
roadside wreck. He turned from the scene even before the open space gave way to an endless
procession of parked cars and building fronts.
The Gangplank Marina stretches from the Francis Case Memorial Bridge to the end of Water
Street. Across the channel lies the close-clipped grass and brightly colored flags of the East
Potomac Golf Club. The 310-slip marina, which is almost always full, is shadowed, as is the club,
by the towering presence of the Washington Monument to the west.
There are boats of all descriptions docked at the marina: 29' Boston Whalers, a diesel-powered
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Catalina, smaller catamarans, sailboats, and a sleek, 58' fiberglass Fairline Squadron — one of
the largest motorboats at the port.
One yacht stands out from the crowd, however, and it was this craft that held Vanderveen’s
attention as he perused the walkway next to the marina, skirting small groups of tourists while
keeping his distance from the slips themselves. The USS Sequoia was slightly more than 100'
long, with most of the main deck, including the pilothouse, enclosed by teak-and-glass paneling.
It was his first look at the boat, but Vanderveen knew its history. He knew that Nixon sailed
down the Potomac eighty-eight times on the presidential yacht, and that it was the setting for
Eisenhower’s meetings with Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery on the eve of World War
II. Vanderveen had also learned that the Sequoia was sold into private hands by President Carter
in 1977, after which it deteriorated for several years in a shipyard until restoration began in 1984.
Now owned by the Sequoia Presidential Yacht Group, LLC, it is available for charter, but use of
the boat by the president or the vice president takes precedence over arrangements made by
private citizens.
Will Vanderveen knew all of this, just as he knew that President Brenneman had already
reserved, through the White House Office of Public Affairs, use of the Sequoia on the 26th day
of November.
At first, he knew far less about Brenneman than he did about the yacht, and was confused as to
why the president would want to sail the frigid waters so late in the year. It was not until later
that he discovered, by browsing microfiche at the Richmond County Library, that Brenneman
was an avid sailor and the proud owner of a Thomason ketch, which is docked at his home in
Boston Harbor.
Vanderveen guessed that Italian and French leaders would find the cold wind whipping over the
Potomac far less enjoyable. He smiled at the mental image that accompanied this thought and
studied the Sequoia through a pair of Ray-Bans, his face partially hidden beneath a faded
baseball cap. At one point he had considered an attack on the presidential yacht itself. The
assassinations could have easily been carried out with a single underwater mine such as the
Swedish Rockan; he had seen the same device used effectively in the Strait of Hormuz and other
places. He knew that the Secret Service had no protocol in place for dealing with such a threat,
and that by close-tethering the Rockan’s steel case to the Sequoia’s anchor, he could further
reduce its acoustic signature and impede their obsolete countermine equipment.
At the same time, he was leery of the mine’s sensitive electronic components, not trusting a
remote device to function correctly unless he had devised it by his own hand. The principle, that
he was taught so long ago and lived by still, was “simplicity equals success.” By limiting the
number of components, by testing the firing system over and over again, only then could he be
sure of his work.
The waterfront made him nervous, too. The few roads leading away from the area would be
manned by dozens of Secret Service agents, ready to instantly seal off the perimeter in the event
of an attack. He couldn’t abide the thought of being trapped in a tightening noose of Federal
agents, even for the chance to see the Sequoia sink to the bottom of the Potomac. Supposing, of
course, that he survived the encounter, the ensuing years spent rotting away in a Federal
penitentiary would not be worth a few rapturous weeks of national anguish.
No, he much preferred to live through the event. With 3,000 pounds of SEMTEX H
strategically placed on the motorcade’s route, survival would be a definite possibility, and
success all but guaranteed.
Walking back to the Honda, Vanderveen swung onto the leather saddle and turned the key in the
ignition. Kicking the bike into gear, he gunned the engine and sped off down 7th, heading north
toward Pennsylvania Avenue. There was still a lot to see and do before leaving the city.
“I can’t fucking believe you, Ryan. Andrews came down on me like a ton of shit for your little
escapade in Alexandria. You know what he called it? Untenable. He used that word at least a
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dozen times. Did you hear me tell you not to leave a mark on him? Did you?”
Once again, Ryan found himself seated across from Jonathan Harper, and once again, the
conversation had taken a turn for the worse.
He decided to go on the offensive. There wasn’t a lot to lose either way. “I’ll go willingly, John. I
already told you I wanted out, but I’m your—”
“What?” A grim smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You’re my what? Best shot at getting
Vanderveen? Is that what you were going to say? Because the director doesn’t believe that
anymore, and I’m not so sure of it myself.”
“Nobody else has managed anything—”
“And nobody else has shot dead a well-known businessman on foreign soil, Kealey. Nobody
else has assaulted a prisoner in Federal custody. Every time that I tell you to keep things quiet,
you turn what should be a simple operation into a fucking spectacle.”
Ryan thought that he had taken it too far this time because Harper was using his last name. It was
a rare occurrence. Against his better judgment, he pressed on: “And ninety-two dead on
Connecticut Avenue, John? Eight Secret Service agents and a U.S. senator dead? What do you
call that?”
“It’s because we don’t play by their rules, Ryan, that we’re better than them—”
“It’s because we don’t play by their rules that we’re fucking losing.” The words were spit out,
along with the last of his self-restraint.
A long silence ensued as they stared each other down over Harper’s desk, each waiting for the
anger to dissipate in the other.
“You don’t make my job any easier, Ryan.” It was the last jab, and right that it should belong to
the deputy director. “Undoubtedly, you’re wondering why word of your late-night visit hasn’t
reached the front page of the Washington Post.”
“The thought had crossed my mind.”
“We cut a deal with Elgin. Full immunity, straight from the top.”
Ryan flared, but Harper’s hand was up to stop him. “You don’t get a say in it, because it was
your doing. The A.G. sent the offer directly to Elgin, because the attorney… You’ve met her?”
A brief, angry shake of the head. “Well, the attorney is a high flier. She would have taken the
publicity of a scandal over a deal for her client, but Elgin, dumb as he is, knew better. He said he
would fire her if she broke the terms, and that would have looked worse for Harris than having
her client walk away free and clear.
“In other words, Ryan, we got pretty damn lucky. Harris was the easy part — we’re still trying to
convince the watch commander that it would be better for all concerned if he just dropped the
matter. He doesn’t want the publicity either, so that might help us out a little bit. Only — and I
want you to pay special attention to this,” he said, jamming his index finger into the top of his
desk to make the point clear — “only because we had something on Elgin are you still sitting
across from me. Without that card to play, you would have been done, without question. You’re
making it hard, if not impossible, for me to watch your back. You have a name, fair enough. The
name is different from the passport used in Valencia. Once again, fair enough. But you had
better hope that this information turns out to be golden.
“Believe me,” Harper said with a scowl, “nothing should be more important to you right now,
my friend.”
Naomi Kharmai leaned against the back of the third black Suburban, shivering hard despite the
pale sun overhead and the thick woolen peacoat that was pulled tight around her. She was
extremely pissed off, a fact that had been made abundantly clear to the SAC in the staging area.
She had asked Harper if it could be kept in the Agency, had almost resorted to begging him, but
he had mumbled something about “pressure for cooperation,” and now she was essentially out
of the loop. Despite being one of the first people on the scene, she had been told, in no
uncertain terms, that she was now included only as a professional courtesy.
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She listened to the banal conversations of the agents around her and the clatter of automatic
weapons as the HRT operators pulled gear out of their trucks and shrugged into heavy
bulletproof vests.
She was startled by the loud roar of a motorcycle racing down the road next to the parking lot.
Turning toward the sound, she was almost blinded by the light reflecting from the bike’s chrome
pipes and bright blue paintwork. Squinting into the scene, she jumped again when a hand
clamped down on her shoulder.
“Should be less than twenty minutes,” the man said.
She turned to face Bill Green, the Washington field office replacement for Luke Hendricks.
“What, exactly, are you waiting on?”
“Search warrant to come through,” he replied. “I just got off the phone with one of my people
at the courthouse. Evidently, the judge wasn’t too happy about how you dug up the information.
She had a long talk with Alex Harris, and that helped out a little bit—”
“You think she’s dragging it out on purpose?”
“That would be my guess. We don’t really have a choice either way, so we wait here until we get
the word.”
“Hey, boss.” They both turned as another agent approached. It was one of Green’s fawning
aides, a tall, well-dressed prep-school type. He handed the SAC a thin manila folder. “This just
came back from the courthouse.”
Naomi waited impatiently as Green perused the contents. “Well?”
He glanced up and flashed her a smile full of straight white teeth. “It’s a go.” Before she could
respond, he was running toward the lead vehicle, shouting orders at the HRT commander, and
then back at her over his shoulder: “Pick out a vehicle. You can wait on the sideline, Kharmai,
but the teams are full. You stay off the field, understood?”
He didn’t wait for an answer. She glared at his back as he climbed into the passenger seat of the
first vehicle, which pulled fast out of the parking lot.
She found what passed for room in the last vehicle, smashed in between two sweaty operators
and their piles of gear. The Suburban swung from 7th onto D Street, racing east as the
retractable stock of an MP-5A3 banged painfully into her knee for the third time. She gritted her
teeth and, as she had done so many times in the past few weeks, silently cursed Ryan Kealey for
putting her into this situation.
The apartment building on D Street was less than impressive. The outside looked respectable
enough, with a four-story brick facade and worn stone steps leading up to a solid door of
weathered oak. As soon as she stepped inside, however, the smell hit her like a slap to the face.
The stench was a putrid combination of various cooking smells, which wafted up from beneath
closed doors and permeated the filthy walls, and the lingering scent of spilled beer and what
might have been the contents of a baby’s diaper. She almost retched until she started breathing
through her mouth, and then saw that the others were doing the same thing.
Above it all, the piercing cries of a child and screamed obscenities from a Korean couple at the
top of the stairwell.
Naomi lingered behind as Green and the HRT operators moved rapidly up the first flight of
stairs. She had been given a flat 9mm pistol, which hung loose from her hip.
“How are they going in?” she asked Green when she finally caught up with him.
“It depends on what they hear. If there’s activity inside, then it’s entry rounds. If it’s quiet, they’ll
go with the ram.” She nodded and started forward, but he reached out to grab her arm. “Hold
on, let them get into position.”
The SAC listened to something over his earpiece, then turned back toward Naomi. “Okay, we’re
moving up. Stay behind me.”
Inside the cramped apartment on the fifth floor, Abdullah Aziz al-Maroub watched intently as
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the last two agents went up the stairs. If it had to happen on his shift, he was glad it happened
early, before the monotony of the work set in. In another hour, his back would have been sore
