Deep Six (22 page)

“Most of my information is government classified.”

“I don’t give a damn if it’s stenciled on the inside of the President’s jockey shorts. Either we deal or I pack up and hike.”

“How do you know I won’t lie?”

“My list could be phony.”

“Then we’ll just have to trust each .other,” said Pitt with a loose grin.

“The hell we will,” grunted Casio. “But neither of us has any choice.”

He took a sheet of paper from the folder and handed it to Pitt, who in turn read off the names over the phone to Yaeger.

“Now what?” Casio demanded.

“Now I tell you what happened to the
San Marino.
And by breakfast I may also be able to tell you who killed your daughter.”

25

FIFTEEN MINUTES AFTER SUNRISE
, the photoelectric controllers in all of Washington’s streetlights closed off their circuits. One by one, separated by no more than a few seconds, the yellow and red rays of the high-pressure sodium lamps faded and died, to wait through the daylight hours until fifteen minutes before sunset, when their light-sensitive controllers would boost them to life again.

Beneath the dimming glow of the streetlights, Sam Emmett could hear the vibration from the early-morning traffic as he walked hurriedly through the utility tunnel. There was no Marine Corps or Secret Service escort. He came alone, as did the others. The only person he’d met since leaving his car under the Treasury building was the White House guard stationed at the basement door. At the head of the hallway leading to the Situation Room, Emmett was greeted by Alan Mercier.

“You’re the last,” Mercier informed him.

Emmett checked his watch and noted he was five minutes early. “Everyone?” he questioned.

“Except for Simmons in Egypt and Lucas, who’s giving your speech at Princeton, they’re all present.”

As he entered, Oates motioned him to a chair beside his, while Dan Fawcett, General Metcalf, CIA chief Martin Brogan and Mercier gathered around the conference table.

“I’m sorry for moving the scheduled meeting up by four hours,” Oates began, “but Sam informed me that his investigators have determined how the kidnapping took place.” Without further explanation he nodded to the FBI Director.

Emmett passed out folders to each of the men at the table, then rose, moved to a blackboard and took a piece of chalk. Quickly and to precise scale he drew in the river, the grounds of Mount Vernon and the presidential yacht tied to the dock. Then he filled in the detail and labeled specific areas. The completed drawing had a realism about it that suggested a talent for architectural design.

Satisfied finally that each piece of the scene was in its correct place, he turned and faced his audience. “We’ll walk through the event chronologically,” he explained. “I’ll briefly summarize while you gentlemen study the details shown in the report. Some of what I’m about to describe is based on tact and hard evidence. Some is conjecture. We have to fill in the blanks as best we can.”

Emmett wrote in a time on the upper left corner of the blackboard.

“1825: The
Eagle
arrives at Mount Vernon, where the Secret Service has installed its security network and the surveillance begins.

“2015: The President and his guests sit down to dinner. In the same hour, officers and the crew began their meal in the mess-room. The only men on duty were the chef, one assistant and the dining-room steward. This fact is important because we feel that it was during dinner that the President, his party, and the ship’s crew were drugged.”

“Drugged or poisoned?” Oates said, looking up.

“Nothing so drastic as poison,” Emmett answered. “A mild drug that induced a gradual state of drowsiness was probably administered in their food by either the chef or the steward who served the table.”

“Sounds practical,” said Brogan. “It wouldn’t do to have bodies dropping all over the decks.”

Emmett paused to gather his thoughts. “The Secret Service agent whose post was on board the yacht the hour before midnight reported the President and Vice President Margolin were the last to retire. Time: 2310.”

“That’s too early for the President,” said Dan Fawcett. “I’ve seldom known him to be in bed before two in the morning.”

“0025: A light mist drifts in from the northeast. Followed at 0135 by a heavy fog caused by two Navy surplus fogging generators concealed in the trees one hundred and sixty yards upriver from the
Eagle.”

“They could blanket the entire area?” Oates asked.

“Under the right atmospheric conditions—in this case, no wind—the units left on site by the kidnappers can cover two square acres.”

Fawcett looked lost. “My God, this operation must have taken an army.”

Emmett shook his head. “Our projections figure it took as few as seven and certainly no more than ten men.”

“Surely the Secret Service scouted the woods surrounding Mount Vernon before the President’s arrival,” said Fawcett. “How did they miss the foggers?”

“The units weren’t in place prior to 1700 the night of the abduction,” replied Emmett.

“How could the equipment operators see what they were doing in the dark?” Fawcett pressed. “Why weren’t their movements and the sound of the generators overheard?”

“Infrared night visual gear would answer your first question. And the noise made by the equipment was muffled by the mooing of cattle.”

Brogan gave a thoughtful twist of his head. “Who would have ever thought of that?”

“Somebody did,” said Emmett. “They left the tape recorder and an amplifier behind with the foggers.”

“It says here the only thing the security people noticed was an oily aroma to the fog.”

Emmett nodded. “The fogger heats a deodorized kerosene type of fuel to a high pressure and blows it out a nozzle in very fine droplets, producing the fog.”

“Let’s move on to the next event,” said Oates.

“0150: The small chase boat moors to the dock because of limited visibility. Three minutes later the Coast Guard cutter notifies agent George Blackowl at the Secret Service command post that a high-intensity signal is jamming their radar reception. They also apprised agent Blackowl that before their equipment went blind the only contact on their oscilloscope was a city sanitation tugboat and its trash barges that tied up to the bank to wait out the fog.”

Metcalf looked up. “Tied up how far away?”

“Two hundred yards upriver.”

“Then the tug was above the artificial fog.”

“A crucial point,” Emmett acknowledged, “which we’ll come to later.”

He turned to the blackboard and wrote in another time sequence. The room fell quiet. The men seated around the long table sat in rocklike stillness waiting for Emmett to reveal the final solution to the presidential abduction.

“0200: The agents moved to their new guard posts. Agent Lyle Brock took up station on board the
Eagle
after agent Karl Polaski relieved him on the pier entrance. What is most important is that during this time the
Eagle
was hidden from his sight. He later walked to the boarding gangway of the yacht and talked to someone he thought was Brock. Brock by now was either unconscious or dead. Polaski did not notice anything suspicious except that Brock appeared to have forgotten his next post.”

“Polaski couldn’t tell he was talking with a stranger?” questioned Oates.

“They conversed from at least ten feet away from each other in low tones so they wouldn’t disturb anyone on the yacht. When the 0300 post change came around, Brock simply melted into the fog. Agent Polaski states that he was never able to see more than a vague figure. It wasn’t until 0348 that agent Edward McGrath discovered that Brock was not at his scheduled post. McGrath then notified Blackowl, who met him on the
Eagle
four minutes later. The yacht was searched and found empty, except for Polaski who had moved on board to replace Brock.”

Emmett placed the chalk back in the tray and wiped his hands together. “The rest is cut and dried. Who was alerted and when . . . the results of a fruitless search on the river and around the grounds of Mount Vernon . . . the roadblocks that failed to produce the missing men . . . and so on.”

“What was the disposition of the tugboat and trash barges after the alert?” Metcalf questioned cannily.

“The barges were found moored to the riverbank,” Emmett answered him. “The tug was gone.”

“So much for facts,” said Oates. “The prize question is: How were almost twenty men spirited off the yacht under the noses of an army of Secret Service agents and passed undetected through the most advanced security alarm system that money can buy?”

“Your answer is, Mr. Secretary, they weren’t.”

Oates’s eyebrows raised. “How was it done?”

Emmett noticed a smug expression on Metcalf’s face. “I think the general has figured it out.”

“I wish someone would tell me,” said Fawcett.

Emmett took a deep breath before he spoke. “The yacht that agents Blackowl and McGrath found deserted is not the same yacht that carried the President and his party to Mount Vernon.”

“Son of a bitch!” gasped Mercier.

“That’s hard to swallow,” said Oates skeptically.

Emmett picked up the chalk again and began diagramming. “About fifteen minutes after the fogging generators began laying a dense cloud over the river and Mount Vernon, the abduction team transmitted on the Coast Guard’s radar frequency and knocked it out of commission. Upriver the sanitation tugboat—except in this instance it was not a river tug but a yacht identical in every detail to the
Eagle
—cast off from the barges, which we found to be empty, and slowly cruised downstream. Its radar, of course, was operating on a different frequency from the Coast Guard’s.”

Emmett drew in the path of the approaching yacht, “When it was fifty yards from the Mount Vernon pier and the stern of the
Eagle,
it shut down its engines and drifted with the current, which was running about one knot. Then the abductors—”

“What I’d like to know is how they got on board in the first place,” Mercier interrupted.

Emmett made a shrugging gesture with his hands. “We don’t know. Our best guess at the moment is that they killed the galley crew earlier in the day and took their places, using counterfeit Coast Guard identification and orders.”

“Please continue your findings,” Oates persisted.

“Then the abductors on the yacht,” Emmett repeated, “untied the mooring lines, allowing the
Eagle
to drift silently from the pier to make room for its double. Polaski heard nothing from his post near the bank, because any strange sounds were covered by the hum of the engine-room generators. Then, once the bogus yacht was tied to the pier its crew, probably no more than two men, rowed a small dinghy to the
Eagle
and escaped with the others downriver. One remained, however, to impersonate agent Brock. By the time Polaski conversed with Brock’s impersonator, the switch had already been made. At the next post change, the man calling himself Brock slipped off and joined the men operating the foggers. Together they drove off and swung on the highway toward Alexandria. We know that much by footprints and tire tracks.”

Everyone but Emmett focused his attention on the blackboard, as if trying to visualize the scene. The incredible timing, the ease with which presidential security was breached, the smoothness of the entire operation, staggered everyone.

“I can’t help but admire the execution,” General Metcalf said. “They must have taken a long time to plan this thing.”

“Our estimate is three years,” said Emmett.

“Where could they possibly have found an identical boat?” Fawcett muttered to no one in particular.

“My investigating team considered that. They traced the old boating records and found that the original builder constructed the
Eagle
and a sister ship named the
Samantha
at the same time. The last registered owner of the
Samantha
was a stockbroker in Baltimore. He sold it about three years ago to a guy named Dunn. That’s all he could tell us. It was an under-the-table cash transaction to beat a profit tax. He never saw Dunn or the yacht again. The
Samantha
was never registered or licensed under the new owner. They both dropped from sight.”

“Was it identical in every respect to the
Eagle?”
Brogan asked.

“A creative job of deception. Every stick of furniture, bulkhead decor, paint and equipment is a perfect match.”

Fawcett nervously tapped a pencil on the table. “How did you catch on?”

“Every time you enter and leave a room, you leave particles of your presence behind. Hair, dandruff, lint, fingerprints—they can all be detected. My lab people couldn’t find one tiny hint that the President or the others had ever been on board.”

Oates straightened in his chair. “The Bureau has done a magnificent job, Sam. We’re all grateful.”

Emmett gave a curt nod and sat down.

“The yacht transfer brings up a new angle,” Oates continued. “As gruesome as it sounds, we have to consider the possibility they were all assassinated.”