02 Avalanche Pass (12 page)

“Now perhaps it’s time we told someone what’s happening up here,” Kormann said. There was a note of satisfaction in his voice that woke a dark instinct within the pleasant-featured young manager. In that moment, he wanted to see the terrorist leader dead.

P
resident Lowell C. Gorton looked around at the serious faces that surrounded the coffee table.

“Hostages?” he said, the disbelief clear in his voice. “In Utah?”

Morris Tildeman, director of the National Security Agency, nodded confirmation. “I’m afraid that’s right, Mr. President,” he said. At least, Gorton thought, he had the grace to look concerned about the whole thing. He didn’t like the NSA head and he knew the feeling was reciprocated. That was the problem when you inherited a job like the presidency. You had to accept the functionaries and assistants chosen by your predecessor—at least for the first six months or so. Then you could begin to make changes—slowly and deliberately. Tildeman would be the first of his. But that watershed moment was still two months away.

Gorton had inherited the office when its previous incumbent had been stopped dead, three-quarters of a mile into his regular two-mile morning swim in the White House pool. There had been no warning. President Adam Lindsay Couch had been as fit as a bull—a relatively young man at forty-six, an athlete, a former Green Beret and a fitness fanatic.

Unfortunately, his fitness regime did nothing to protect him against the thin-walled artery that suddenly burst in his brain. By the time his shocked Secret Service guards, floundering fully dressed in the chest deep water of the pool, had reached him, he was dead, his eyes staring in horror at the last thing he had seen—the tiled pattern on the bottom.

And so Gorton had acceded to the presidency. It was a pity that the very qualities that had made him an ideal Number Two for Couch now were so inappropriate for the Number One position in the world. Gorton gave the appearance of being mature and thoughtful, a man who would consider his options before speaking or acting intemperately. This had given the Couch–Gorton ticket, or, as some unkind wits called it, the Couch–Potato ticket, the necessary balance in a political campaign.

In fact, while Gorton appeared to be mature, thoughtful and analytical, he was in reality elderly, querulous and indecisive. As vice president, those failings hadn’t really mattered too much. After all, about the only thing a VP was required to do these days was turn up on election day and raise the winning president’s fist in victory. As president, it was all too often necessary to do something. To make a decision. To take a stand. And none of these were things that Gorton did well. Now he was faced with the first real crisis of his Administration and he didn’t even have the first inkling about how to assess it, let alone what steps should be taken to resolve it.

A more intelligent man might have realized that the Emergency Council established by his predecessor, and now seated around the conference table, could give him invaluable support and advice in situations like these. Couch had selected a group of intelligent, experienced professionals to make up his inner circle. Consisting of the directors of the NSA, FBI, CIA and the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs, they were men, and one woman, who were not afraid to speak their minds and call a spade a spade. His own White House chief of staff and, of course, the head of Homeland Security, made up the numbers. In recent years, the Homeland Security Department maintained an overview on any security-related matter.

A confident and secure person, President Couch had selected a group who were willing to argue and make suggestions. For Gorton, however, their independence and candor were a challenge to his already shaky authority. He regarded them with suspicion and dislike, seeing conspiracy where there was none and regarding discussion as dissent and disrespect.

“They’ve sealed off the access to the resort, Mr. President.” Tildeman
was speaking again. “And they say they’ve placed explosive charges in the mountain overlooking the hotel. Any attempt to rescue the hostages will result in their bringing the mountain down on the whole resort.”

Gorton’s lip curled slightly at the pedantic NSA chief’s carefully correct grammar. Any other person in the room would have said “will result in them bringing the mountain down,” but not Tildeman. He interrupted.

“Can they do that?” Gorton asked.

Tildeman hesitated. General Sam Barrett, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and an air force four-star, nodded gravely. “I’d say it wouldn’t be too hard, Mr. President,” he said. “Some time back, one of our hotshot pilots came too low over that area and the sonic boom buried the hotel up to the fourth floor.” Gorton looked at the military man and shook his head slowly, as if in disbelief that anyone could be so goddamn stupid.

“So I guess we’re looking at Al Qaeda here, is that right?” Gorton directed the question at Bennington Traill, director of Homeland Security—a former two-star general who had spent his career in the military justice system. Traill hesitated before he replied.

“We’re not leaping to that conclusion straightaway, Mr. President. We’ve had no indication of any potential Al Qaeda operations in the northwest,” he replied.

Gorton snorted derisively. “We had no indication of 9/11 either,” he said.

But Traill shook his head. “We had warning, sir. We didn’t act on it.”

The CIA and FBI chiefs shifted uncomfortably. While neither of them had been the incumbents at the time of 9/11, they still suffered from the fact that their respective agencies had been unwilling to share information—with disastrous results. Traill glanced at them with a hint of apology. He had no wish to rake over past mistakes.

“The point is, Mr. President,” Traill continued, “this situation bears none of the hallmarks of an Al Qaeda operation. Or any of the other major Middle Eastern groups.”

Gorton gestured impatiently. “How many hallmarks do you want, Mr. Traill?” he asked. “They’ve taken a group of Americans hostage. That’s typical Al Qaeda behavior as far as I’m concerned.”

He looked around the group of faces, expecting to see agreement in their expressions. Instead, he saw a few heads shaking.

Linus Benjamin, director of the FBI, decided it was time to take some of the presidential heat off Traill.

“That’s just the point, Mr. President. They’ve taken hostages. And there’s been mention of ransom.” Gorton frowned, not understanding, and the Homeland Security director resumed the explanation.

“Those people don’t give a damn about money. They’re getting billions from their Saudi supporters. And they aren’t interested in taking hostages. All they want to do is kill Americans in large numbers. If it were them, my guess is that the people in Utah would be dead already.”

“That’s crap!” Gorton said angrily. “I’ve seen hostage videotapes. Sometimes it seems those bastards at Al Jazeera are running them back to back.”

Traill nodded. “Admittedly. But they’re usually the work of fringe groups and they’ve all occurred in places like Afghanistan or Iraq. This is a major operation, not an ad hoc event where a fringe group of insurgents just happened to get lucky at a roadblock.”

“Well if it isn’t Al Qaeda, or any of the other Middle Eastern groups, who’s holding ’em—the goddamn Mormons?” Gorton asked.

“The hostage takers haven’t been identified so far Mr. President,” Benjamin told him, although he knew the president was aware of the fact. He was aware of all the facts. A briefing sheet had been distributed before the emergency meeting was called. “We’re assuming for the moment that they’re a new group.”

“After all, new groups are springing up all the time,” Gorton said, acid dripping from his tone.

Benjamin thought it was time for the discussion to move on to more fruitful areas, rather than continuing to wrangle over what they didn’t know.

“We have a plan of the resort here, Mr. President,” he said. He moved now to an easel where a rough plan of the area was set up.

“As you can see, Mr. President, there’s just the one road in, which the kidnappers have successfully blocked with an avalanche. There’s nearly a quarter mile of the road covered by rock, snow and ice. It’ll take weeks to clear it.”

“Then why don’t we go in the back door?” the president asked. “Isn’t that what we’ve got choppers for?”

Benjamin frowned uncomfortably. “There is no ‘back door’ as you put it, sir,” he said. “The resort is in a huge U-shaped valley. Over the back, there are steep cliffs and heavily wooded slopes. We couldn’t move troops up there if we tried. And if we use choppers, odds are the kidnappers will hear or see them coming and start killing hostages.” He swept his hand around the horseshoe-shaped ridge that rose above the hotel. “They’ve said they have men on watch at the top of this ridge here. We’ve got no reason to disbelieve them.”

The president stared fixedly at the diagram. The position was virtually impregnable, he could see—particularly if the kidnappers were willing to sacrifice themselves with their victims. And that was a possibility that couldn’t be discounted these days.

“What about the hostages?” he asked. “Where are they?”

The FBI director nodded to his opposite number to take over and then sat down again.

Tildeman resumed the briefing, turning the page on the easel to reveal a plan of the hotel itself: “The hostages are on the third floor,” he said. “There’s a gymnasium there and the walls are floor to ceiling glass. If the mountain did come down on them, they’d be buried alive in there.”

“Jesus Christ,” the president said petulantly. “Why would anyone design a building with glass walls?”

There was a brief silence around the room and a few of those present exchanged glances. The question typified the Gorton way of facing a problem, by asking irrelevant questions. “I guess they didn’t plan on someone planting explosives in the cliff wall,” Janet Haddenrich answered softly. She was the director of the CIA and, like her or not, Gorton knew he could never get rid of her. After a few months in the job, he knew that he wanted the second term in
his own right. He also knew that if he fired the first woman ever to head up the CIA, his chances of being reelected would be diddly shit.

Gorton glanced sourly at her and she remained impassive, her face a deadpan mask. With a loud exhalation of breath to mark his displeasure, he turned back to Tildeman.

“How many hostages?” he asked, “and who are they? Is there anyone well-known?”

That, of course, was another clue to the Gorton approach. If the hostages were nonentities, there would be far less pressure upon him to react to the situation. Tildeman shrugged.

“We don’t have a list of names yet,” he said. “The terrorists haven’t indicated that they’re holding any prominent people.”

“So we can assume they’re not,” Gorton said. It was half a question, half a statement. He was actually looking for someone to make the decision for him and put it into words.

Linus Benjamin chipped in with an alternative. “Or we can assume that they may be and they aren’t necessarily aware of the fact.”

Gorton grunted his displeasure. “What’s the name of this hotel again?” he asked.

Tildeman checked the notes in front of him, although he knew the name of the resort. “Canyon Lodge, Mr. President. It’s in the Wasatches.”

“Well at least we know that much.” Gorton replied. “We may not know anything too useful but we know the name of the hotel. I guess that’s something.”

That was the problem, as Gorton saw it. Nobody seemed to know anything concrete. Yet sooner or later, they’d be asking him what actions they should take. He looked around the faces at the table: Homeland, FBI, CIA, NSA, the Joint Chiefs representative and a crew-cut marine light colonel who had accompanied him to the meeting and been introduced as the commander of the RRTF—the Rapid Response Tactical Force.

As far as Gorton knew, this sort of situation was what the RRTF had been formed for. He nodded at the marine now.

“So what are your people doing about this, Colonel… ?” He let the sentence trail off. He’d been introduced to the soldier but he didn’t see any reason why he should remember the name of anyone as lowly as a light colonel.

“Maloney,” General Barrett interceded, thin-lipped. Maloney hesitated, not sure if the president was going to correct his mistake. Gorton waved one hand in an impatient circular motion, telling the marine to get on with it.

“Ah… sir, at this stage, we don’t have enough facts to formulate any sort of rescue plan,” he said.

The president snorted derisively. “Then what’s the point of having the RRTF in the first place?” he asked.

Maloney hesitated again and once more, Barrett answered: “Mr. President, Colonel Maloney is here to observe only. It’s not his role to set policy or initiate plans. He’ll do whatever we tell him.”

Tildeman leaned forward to re-enter the conversation. “In the meantime, Mr. President, we’ve got forces on the ground there: local police, state police, the sheriff’s office and a ranger unit from the Utah National Guard.” He glanced at Benjamin. “I assume your people are there by now?”

The director of the FBI nodded. “The local agent-in-charge from Salt Lake City was headed up there as soon as the news broke. We’ll reinforce him with whatever he needs as soon as he’s assessed the situation.”

The president grunted, the sound carrying a weight of disdain behind it.

“Sounds like a jurisdiction nightmare,” he said. “Are they at the hotel itself?”

“No, Mr. President,” Tildeman answered. “The road is blocked around five miles from the hotel. We’ve got choppers on site, of course, but the terrorists have warned us that they’ve got missiles and triple-A set up.”

“And we believe them?” Gorton asked sarcastically.

Tildeman shrugged. “No reason why we shouldn’t at this stage,” he said. “We don’t want to risk lives testing their word. Not yet
anyway. As for jurisdiction, we’ve agreed that it’ll be an FBI show, with support from the military if it’s needed. Linus has one of his senior negotiators already on the way from Washington.”