Takedown (7 page)

A
president needed to be able to separate his personal life from his professional, but right now Jack Rutledge couldn’t do it.

He had never made any excuses about being a father first and a president second. Since he had lost his wife to breast cancer several years ago, his daughter, Amanda, was all he had left, and right now he didn’t even know if he had that.

“Anything?” asked the president the minute Carolyn Leonard entered his private suite at the front of the custom Boeing 747.

“Still nothing yet, sir. I’m sorry,” she replied.

“How’s that possible? They were in two cars, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you haven’t been able to reach either of them?”

“No, sir, but Amanda and her friends were riding with Marcy Delacorte and Tim Fiore. I picked them myself as the lead agents for your daughter’s detail. They’re the best. I’m sure we’ll hear something soon.”

The president wanted to ask her
how soon,
but it would have been inappropriate to burden her with his fears. He needed to remain strong. Besides, he knew Carolyn was already doing everything she could. In the end, though, there was only so much that could be done. For the time being, they were both helpless. “Anything from the local authorities?”

“They’ve got the route into Manhattan that the detail was traveling, as well as the last GPS coordinates for their vehicles. We’ll find her, Mr. President. I promise you.”

“Thank you, Carolyn,” replied Rutledge. “Let me know the minute you hear anything.”

“I will, sir,” replied Agent Leonard as she backed out of the suite so she could buckle up for takeoff.

Because this was supposed to be a vacation, the president had left his staff back in DC so they could be with their families over the holiday weekend. That meant that as he tried to focus his attention on New York City, he was going to have to tackle everything via secure video links from his airborne office.

He’d learned early on that the first hurdle in a situation of this magnitude was separating fact from fiction. Much like the hours following the September 11th attacks, rumors were running rampant across the country and emergency action plans were being put into effect left and right. All anyone knew for sure was that America was under attack,
again.

After being briefed over the video link by his chief of staff, Charles Anderson, during the plane’s taxi and takeoff, the president replied, “That’s it? That’s all we know?”

“We’re still trying to gather information, sir.”

“How the hell is that possible, Chuck?”

“The flow is pretty slow coming out of New York.”

“I thought after September eleventh we put procedures in place to change all that.”

“We did,” replied Anderson, “but with any occurrence like this there is a certain amount of event resonance.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning no matter how good our procedures are for transmitting data, human beings have to snap out of their shock, assess the situation, and pass it up the chain of command. It just takes time.”

The president didn’t like that answer, especially when thousands of lives were hanging in the balance, including his daughter’s. “That’s not good enough. We’ve got people injured and dying. They’re trapped on bridges, they’re trapped down in tunnels choked with smoke and fire, and they’re trying to stay afloat in the Hudson and East rivers. If we don’t start communicating properly, those people won’t have a chance, and I can’t have that. The American people won’t stand for it. Not after 9/11.

“I don’t care how many asses you have to kick, put your boots on and start kicking, damn it. We put those response systems in place for a reason. We were supposed to have learned from our mistakes, so let’s start acting like it. Understood?”

“Yes, Mr. President,” replied Anderson.

“Good,” said Rutledge. “Now, when can I talk to the mayor?”

“It could be some time. His emergency command center was targeted in a run-up to the attacks and we’re having trouble locating him.”

The president threw up his hands in disgust. “I don’t believe it. What about the governor?”

“He’s en route from Albany right now, but he knows even less than we do. Do you want me to get him on the line and patch him through?”

“No, I want to talk to Mayor Brown first. I want to hear from him how his people are doing and what they need. I don’t want things being filtered through the governor. That was a big part of the problem with New Orleans.”

“There is a chain of command, sir.”

“Not with something like this. I want you to track down the mayor and put him through to me as soon as possible. Now, so far we have no intelligence that any other cities have been targeted, correct?”

“Yes, sir. That is correct.”

“I guess we can thank God for that,” said Rutledge as he laid his briefing folder onto the table in front of him and massaged his face with both hands. “What about an appearance?”

“I think right now that would be a little premature,” said Anderson.

“Premature?
Chuck, people are panicked,” said a voice from next to the chief of staff. The camera pulled back to show Geoff Mitchell, the president’s press secretary. “They
need
the president to reassure them and it needs to be done sooner rather than later.”

“Reassure them of what? We have no idea what’s going on in New York, we can’t control it, and we have absolutely no idea who’s behind it. I hardly think any of that’s reassuring.”

“You can’t keep the president walled off, Chuck. It doesn’t matter that he doesn’t have all the answers yet. People need to see him. That’s all. They need to hear him say everything is going to be all right. Hell, if we play this right, it might even be okay for him to admit he doesn’t have all the answers yet, but that he’s working very hard to get to the bottom of what’s happened. And then of course he needs to state unequivocally that America’s response to this barbarism will be swift, sure, and severe.”

“We can talk about releasing a videotaped statement once we decide where the president is headed after Mountain Home Air Force Base,” stated the chief of staff.

“We’re not going to Idaho,” replied Rutledge. “We’re on our way back to DC.”

“Mr. President,” began Anderson, “I don’t think that—”

“Chuck, you said it yourself. No other cities have been targeted. My place is in the White House. America needs leadership right now. I’ve already okayed putting the continuity of government plan into action, but other than that, nothing else changes. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, sir.”

The president then addressed his press secretary. “Geoff, I want you to start drafting some remarks. Keep them short. Chuck is right. At this point we don’t know a lot, and the less we say the better. Let the networks know that I’ll be making a live statement as soon as I get back to the White House. I think that about does it. Let’s get to work.”

“Mr. President,” said Robert Hilliman, the president’s secretary of defense, from his secure link at the DOD, “if I could have a moment of your time in private please, sir?”

“Go ahead, Bob,” replied the president once he had gone into private conference mode. “What is it?”

“Well, there are some concerns about an intelligence intercept we had this morning.”

“What about it?”

“Apparently, reference was made to the United States abducting a foreign national and bringing him here against his will in direct violation of international law.”

“This is nothing new, Bob. We hear this stuff all the time, especially since all of the press on our extraordinary rendition policy broke.”

“I know, Mr. President, but this is different.”

“Different how? They could be talking about any one of thousands of people we’ve detained.”

“This conversation made clear that the person in question was a bombmaker who had been brought to New York.”

“Which means…” said the president, trailing off.

“It could only be one of two people.”

“Both of whom we’ve got at the same location.”

“With no effective way to protect or evacuate.”

H
arvath looked at the JTTF duty officer and exclaimed, “What do you mean,
you don’t have him
?”

“We don’t have him,” the young man blasted back. Like many others, he was not dealing well with the stress of the terrorist attacks.

“Maybe he’s already been processed,” offered Herrington, trying to prevent the situation from escalating into an all-out, interagency pissing match. “Did you check with the Federal House of Detention on West Street?”

“What am I, new?” replied the duty officer. “Of course I checked. They haven’t heard of him either.”

Harvath was about to come unglued. They had covered the entire two-and-a-half-mile distance to the JTTF headquarters at the FBI field office in lower Manhattan on foot, and now some rookie was telling him that not only did they not have Sayed Jamal, but that nobody had ever heard of him. “I want you to find Mike Jaffe right now.”

“Who?” said the duty officer.

“What do you have, sand in your ears?
Mike Jaffe.
I transferred the prisoner in question to him and a team of agents from this office this morning.”

The young man was tired of having his valuable time wasted by some DHS knuckle-dragger. “You’ve got your agencies screwed up, Agent Harvath. None of our guys were involved in a prisoner transfer this morning, and we don’t have anyone in this office—JTTF, FBI, or otherwise—named Mike Jaffe.”

It was like banging his head against a brick wall. Harvath’s blood was beginning to boil and he was getting very near his breaking point. He needed to go over this kid’s head and was about to do so, when Bob thanked the duty officer for his help, grabbed Harvath’s arm, and steered him out of the JTTF and into the stairwell.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Harvath.

“Shut up,” replied Herrington.

“The hell I will. I’ve got to find Sayed Jamal, and your getting in my way like that isn’t going to—”

“They don’t have him.”

“Or so says the dumb ass at the front desk. Sometimes you’ve gotta go higher up the food chain to get answers.”

“Well, you are going higher up the food chain, all right, because Mike Jaffe doesn’t work for the Joint Terrorism Task Force,” Herrington replied. “He’s with DIA.”

“The Defense Intelligence Agency?”

Bob nodded his head. “I met him in Afghanistan back in 2001. My unit was assigned to a very high-speed task force going after the top of the al-Qaeda leadership.”

“And Mike Jaffe was a part of that task force?” asked Harvath.

“He was in charge of it.”

“So why the hell would he pose as a JTTF agent?”

“We had a saying that both the Lord and the DIA work in mysterious ways. Obviously, he had a very personal interest in your prisoner.”

“A little too personal,” said Harvath as he began walking down the stairs.

“Where are you going?”

“To make a phone call. Then I’m going to find Mike Jaffe if I have to turn this entire city inside out.”

I
t was the tapping at his window that caused Tim Fiore to snap back into consciousness. His reflexes kicked in, and in a flash he had his SIG Sauer drawn and pointed dead-on at the threat.

“Mister, the bridge is going to collapse. You’ve gotta get the hell out of here,” a stranger yelled from the other side of the glass.

Fiore’s head hurt like hell. It felt like someone had smacked him with a lead pipe. For a moment he didn’t know where he was. Then slowly it started coming back to him. “On the ground!” he yelled at the man. “On the fucking ground—now!”

Terrified, the Good Samaritan fled for his life.

Though he was a seasoned Secret Service agent, nothing could have prepared Fiore for what he saw when he turned and looked over his shoulder.

The entire back half of the armored vehicle they’d been traveling in was gone;
evaporated.
It had taken the sliding gun drawers beneath the cargo area, along with the third row of seats, where Agents Grossi and Swartley had been sitting.

An enormous piece of twisted metal that looked like a pitchfork had pierced the second row of seats, impaling both of Amanda Rutledge’s friends. Amanda was unconscious, but Tim didn’t see any wounds. He reached for her and felt for a pulse; it was weak, but at least she was alive. For how much longer, though, he couldn’t tell.

Fiore looked over at his partner, whose chin was slumped against her chest.

“Marcy?” he said as he felt for her pulse. “Marcy, can you hear me?”

There was no response.

Twisting out of his seatbelt, Fiore kicked his door open and began yelling into his radio. “This is Echo One. We’ve been hit. I repeat,
Echo One has been hit.
All units respond. Over.”

Hopping out of the SUV, Fiore scanned for threats as he came around to the rear passenger door.
Where the hell was the other Secret Service vehicle?
It should have been right behind them. It was then that he began noticing the screams. Screams of terror. Screams of agony. All around, cars were overturned and huge sections of the bridge were missing. Their van had been slammed perpendicularly into the guard rail and, judging from the marks on the roof and hood, had flipped at least three or four times. It was only out of sheer luck they had landed upright and had managed to stay on the bridge at all. This wasn’t the work of just one bomb, there had to have been at least two, probably more. The injured were everywhere, and those who weren’t wounded sat frozen in their cars, wandered aimlessly in shock, or ran for their lives.

Fiore tried to open Amanda’s door, but it wouldn’t budge. With the extensive damage their SUV had sustained, going through the shrapnel-ridden cargo area was also out of the question. He was going to have to go around the other side and pull the president’s daughter over the bodies of her two dead friends.

As he came around the rear of the vehicle, Fiore noticed that along with everything else that had evaporated, so had their medical trauma bag. All that was left was a collapsible litter, and being careful not to gash himself, he climbed inside and grabbed it.

He continued to try to raise the other agents as he raced around to the driver’s side of the SUV. Because they’d been trained on what to do in case of just such an assassination attempt, Fiore was able to react almost without even thinking about it.

Yanking the rear driver’s-side door open, Fiore crawled in as far as he could go. Gently, he unbuckled the first daughter, supported her neck as best he could, and backed out of the SUV, guiding her around the jagged edges of the steel pitchfork that had eviscerated her friends until he could lay her down on the litter.

With two enormous holes behind them and being nearer to the Manhattan side of the bridge, Tim scanned the nearby buildings for a safe haven. His training dictated that he get Amanda to high ground as soon as possible, where he could better control their situation and hold out until their helicopter could arrive. Trying the Secret Service Command Post, he said, “Skybox, this is Echo One. Do you copy? Over.”

“Roger that, Echo One,” came the response from the command post. “What is your status?”

“We’ve been hit. At least two vehicle-borne explosives timed to coincide with our route. Echo Two is gone, we’ve got two agents missing from our vehicle, a third unconscious, and the package has been damaged. Request you initiate Operation Upswing immediately. Over.”

“Negative, Echo One. No can do,” said the command center control agent. “All bridges and tunnels into and out of Manhattan have been hit. We’ve got a report of an NYPD helicopter down, possibly due to hostile fire. Until further notice, NYC airspace is too hot and has been shut down. Is your vehicle operable? Over.”

All the bridges and tunnels? How the hell could that be possible?
As incomprehensible as it was, there was no time to even try to make sense of it now. “Negative,” replied Fiore. “Our vehicle has been totaled. Over.”

“Echo One. Stand by. Over,” said the voice.

Stand by?
Was this guy nuts? They were completely vulnerable out in the open like this, and Fiore wasn’t convinced that they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What if there was a secondary attempt on Amanda’s life in progress right at this moment?

While watching the pandemonium around them, he bent down and checked her pulse again. Though each protective detail had a medical agent as part of the team, they all had gone through extensive medical training. Fiore suspected that if Amanda didn’t get help soon, she wasn’t going to make it.

“Skybox, we need to evac
now!
Over.”

“Stand by, Echo One. Over,” repeated the controller.

Fiore was about to tell the controller what he could do with his
stand by
’s, when he heard someone coming around the front of the vehicle.

Instantly, he moved his body to shield Amanda Rutledge while raising his pistol and applying pressure to the trigger.

The next thing he saw was a gun as it swung around the front bumper. He knew it—a secondary attack.

He was about to pull the trigger the rest of the way, when he heard, “Jesus, Tim. Don’t shoot! It’s me. Marcy.”