Camp David, Maryland
Sunshine, drenching the rolling hills, made the bark of the birch trees seem whiter, and dappled through their bare branches over a winding gravel path. Halfway into his three-mile run through the Camp David forest, the president of the United States noted with satisfaction that he was not short of breath as he crested a steep rise. He'd been a confirmed two-pack-a-day man before the last election, when his campaign advisors had convinced him that a non-smoking image would be far more appealing to voters.
The chief executive was a vigorous man. At sixty-five years of age, he looked at least a decade younger. Five-foot-ten, he weighed in at a solidly-built one-eighty. His face was naturally round, but with strong features and striking eyes that were penetrating and direct. The salt and pepper hair was worn military style, unfashionably short. The fact that he was an ex-military officer, not a professional establishment politician, had contributed largely to his being selected as his party's vice presidential candidate. He was not considered attractive or elegant but exuded a straightforward style and grace that the public and the media had taken to. Three months after being sworn in, he had become president when his predecessor succumbed to a debilitating stroke. Upon assuming the post of chief executive, he had made some prompt and drastic changes among his predecessor's staff and cabinet, appointing a close circle of advisors who were not yes-people or inside-the-beltway pros, but seasoned movers and shakers in their own right. He had a well-earned reputation for toughness and fairness, for principled leadership and bi-partisanship. Which did not mean that everything went smoothly all the time. There were far too many conflicting forces at work in an ever-shrinking world and a nation of 250 million for that to ever be the case.
The president concentrated on the regular rhythm of his breathing, trying to make it the primary focus of his awareness. Secret Service agents-two on point, two to the rear and another pair traveling parallel to the jogging path on either side-maintained their position. They weren't breathing hard either. But then, they were twenty years younger than he was, he reminded himself wryly. A pair of golf carts followed, carrying more Secret Service men and a warrant officer. The WO, with a plain black briefcase chained to his wrist, was one of those specially selected custodians of the nuclear codes.
The president had called this unscheduled break in his day to recharge himself, to clear his mind. But it wasn't doing much good. It had been a day spent honing his verbal sparring skills against a hard-nosed, well-primed debater in preparation for what was supposed to be a routine press conference, previously scheduled for the following day. At such press conferences, there were invariably tough, combative, sometimes unexpected sound-bite questions on complex issues. The sparring partner's job was to be even tougher on him, if possible, than the traditionally blood-thirsty White House media corps would be. It had been a grueling session. The day after the press conference, he would be attending the next European Summit. There remained plenty of fences in need of mending, continuing fallout from the Iraqi situation. His information package on the summit was three hundred pages, and he hadn't cracked it yet. He was currently hanging fire at about an even fifty percent approval rating in the polls. The economy continued to take two steps back for every one forward, and ever since the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, and the subsequent military actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, America's involvement in the Mideast had only deepened and expanded. But there was still no light at the end of that tunnel. The Cold War was over, but its chilled dryness had made the world into a tinderbox, ready to ignite anywhere, at any time. Terrorism was on the rise again, and the man who could top a hill without losing his breath seemed unable to do anything about any of it. A weekend at Camp David had seemed just the thing, but it wasn't working out that way.
And now Liberty was missing.
NASA's director of flight operations, who'd called directly from the control room at the Johnson Space Center, where Houston was monitoring the shuttle, had interrupted the debate workout. All the flight director could tell him during that first call was that the mission controllers had reported a major malfunction. "We have no downlink," the flight director had reported in a taut voice. At first ground control thought it was a radio interference problem. Then Liberty was lost from radar. The tracking computer screens were dotted with s's, indicating only static from the shuttle. The Space Defense Command Center in Colorado Springs had also been monitoring the orbiter and immediately scrambled Air Force tactical squadrons into the skies over the emergency landing strips maintained around the world whenever a shuttle was in orbit. The jets were to fly escort and protect the shuttle, but the president's next quarter-hour update, just before leaving for this run, was that there was still no communication with Liberty. The shuttle was missing, and even on a run through a birch forest in the sunshine, it did not seem that things could get much worse.
The agent on point, a young man of Japanese descent named Koyama, the shift leader of the detail, heard something in the miniature earpiece receiver of his short-wave radio that prompted him to give a hand signal for the run to stop. The other agents tightened in, which was their position when a golf cart bearing Wil Fleming, the president's chief of staff, rounded a bend up ahead and braked to a stop.
Fleming was the youngest of the president's advisors and the most dynamic. "Sorry to interrupt you, Mr. President, but we just got word. One of our spy boats in the Sea of Japan picked up a Mayday from Liberty. It looks like they went down."
"Dear God, not another Columbia…"
"We don't think so, sir. The Columbia broke up upon reentry. Liberty, we think, has crash-landed."
"That could be good news or bad news."
"We haven't pinpointed an exact location as yet," said Fleming, "but it looks to be somewhere on the Manchurian border with North Korea."
The president boarded a golf cart. "I want a full linkup with Houston and with Space Defense Command. Then we're heading back to Washington."
Things had just gotten worse.
Trev Galt broke the water's surface fifteen feet beneath the bow of the yacht. The murky waters of the Potomac sparkled in the sunlight like polished dark glass. The 125-foot pleasure craft stood at anchor, her bow pointing upriver, at a point where the river widened to slightly over a mile, one mile south of Mount Vernon. The sweeping banks along here were lined with the trees and shrubs of farms and country homes. There were no other boats in the vicinity. Somewhere overhead a gull cawed, and the mooing of a herd of cows in a nearby pasture drifted across the water. Galt tried to ignore the ache in his muscles from swimming against the current. He wrapped his hands and ankles around the chain of the boat's anchor line and began hoisting himself upward, toward the deck. The faint dripping of water was the only sound he made.
He was a big man, well-proportioned, ruggedly built, with thick, black hair that was just beginning to turn gray at the temples. The slit pockets of his skintight wetsuit carried stilettos and garrotes. A 9mm Beretta rode snugly in a snap-sealed waterproof holster at his left shoulder. A full complement of stun grenades was kept dry in a pouch at his right hip. He moved with grace, with the confidence and economy of movement of a trained athlete, of a professional fighting man. He dropped onto the boat's deck. Twenty feet separated him from a sentry who stood with an automatic assault rifle in front of a companionway that led below deck. Galt sailed in from the side and downed the man with a judo chop almost before the sentry realized he was under attack. Galt turned to the companionway. Another guard emerged from a side hatch in the main cabin. This one's eyes and nostrils flared in alarm and his rifle tracked toward the intruder. Galt's right arm flashed outward and the sentry took a stiletto high in the chest. He collapsed next to the first guard with barely a sound.
Galt stepped over their prone bodies and drew his Beretta. He cocked back his right foot and sent the door to the companionway slamming inward with a powerful kick, entering low and fast, his left hand unhooking one of the stun grenades. The narrow companionway was carpeted and wood paneled.
Three men, each sporting a sidearm and an automatic rifle, stood conversing next to a closed door. Their rifles swung as one in Galt's direction. But he had already pulled the grenade's pin. He tossed the grenade and covered his eyes with his left arm. There was a blinding white flash. The blast was loud, but he wore ear plugs to deal with that. The three men caught the full effect of the flash and were kicked backward against the walls. Galt emotionlessly squeezed off three well-placed rounds, one at each flailing figure. Then he hurried toward the door they'd been guarding.
He executed another kick that sent this door inward off its hinges. He hurled himself through the doorway. He hit the floor with his left shoulder in a fast roll that took him in well below any possible line of fire that might come at him from inside, steadying himself out of the roll and onto one knee, the Beretta held in a two-handed grip, ready to select targets. His deep-set eyes were narrowed, dark and dangerous.
General Clayton Tuttle rose from the armchair where he sat waiting. He clicked off the stopwatch he held.
Tuttle had served in a succession of important military positions, after a key command role in the first Gulf War, before serving as national security advisor for a former president. He was presently a ranking officer in the Pentagon's Covert Operations Command. A man in his late fifties, Tuttle was of short stature, sturdy and compact.
He snorted irritably. "Thirty-four seconds, going up against five of my best men. Damn it, Trey those twelve months behind a desk in the White House haven't slowed you down one damn bit. Son, I sure wish you were still on my team, working in the field where you belong."
Galt straightened, holstering the Beretta. His hard, dangerous look faded, replaced by an easy-going, friendly warming of the eyes and an infectious, almost boyish, smile. "That makes two of us, General. But these training workouts are going to have to be it for awhile."
"Training, hell. I'd call what you just put my guys through an endurance test, not a training exercise."
Galt glanced out at the "sentries," who were sluggishly struggling to their feet in the companionway, tugging loose their earplugs, wiping away the red dye left by the "bullets" fired from the Beretta, waiting for their full vision to return after the flash of the stun grenade. The sentries from outside appeared, one removing the stiletto from his Kevlar protective vest and assisting the man Galt had judo chopped. There was much grumbling among them.
Galt felt a twinge of guilt at the damage he had inflicted, however temporary, upon these men of the Central Intelligence Agency. He said to Tuttle, "You did tell me not to go easy."
"And you didn't. Damn. You're a one-man tornado. I don't think my boys are likely to forget what they've learned here today. But if you'd care to stick around for a debriefing and analysis-"
"Thanks, General, but I think your boys may have had enough of me for one day. And just between you and me, I'm not supposed to be here. I'm playing hooky."
"What?" Tuttle bellowed a hearty laugh and shook his head. "You haven't lost your balls either, have you, son? As a matter of fact, you did fail to mention that you'd be AWOL for this little exercise. In that case, I suggest you haul your ass back to sixteen hundred Pennsylvania Avenue ASAP before you land us both in a sling. And, uh, thanks again, Trev, for teaching my guys just how much they still have to learn."
Galt chuckled ruefully, running his fingers through his wet thatch of hair, and-even armed, even in a dripping combat wetsuit-he gave the impression of a big, amiable bear. "I was testing myself too. I'm afraid I'm getting rusty, sitting behind a desk."
"Not you, son. You'll never lose your edge."
"Hope not. Be seeing you, General. And thanks."
Tuttle watched the best damn field agent and covert ops specialist he'd ever known exit though a separate doorway.
He thought, a military man with the training, experience and sixth sense of a born spy… It rankled him no end that such a man should be yanked from the field and assigned to the White House staff, even if Galt's job for the National Security Council-implementing and overseeing the administration's covert operations around the world-was a vital one. Galt's reputation was legendary across all ranks of the military and the U.S. espionage establishment, even though many of his assignments, certainly the ones Turtle had been responsible for handing him, had never seen the light of day. But what was known about Galt, to those in government service and to the general public as well, was impressive enough.
Trevor Galt III-sole surviving heir to the Galt Electronics fortune, fluent in six languages, with a master's in economics from Yale-had long ago renounced the monied comfort that was his birthright, choosing instead a life of personal challenge, sacrifice and commitment that could be found for him only in the service of his country. This had led to combat experience in Vietnam, Grenada, Panama and the Gulf, before being handed his own Army Ranger unit assigned to black ops, which was when Turtle had first encountered him. Turtle was seven months away from retirement. He'd been a desk jockey for twelve years and he still missed the action. He understood how being trapped in a basement office could fray the nerves of a man of action. The army had been Galt's home for most of his adult life. Now, still in his prime, Trev was faced with the prospect of shuffling papers for the rest of his career. Sure, Turtle understood. And he'd heard the rumors of Trev's drinking, though he also had it on good authority that the drinking in no way interfered with the performance of Galt's duties. And there was Trev's wife, Kate, one of the astronauts aboard the space shuttle Liberty. The media had made quite a deal about Kate Daniels.
Tuttle knew that Galt and his wife were estranged. He was in the habit of keeping tabs on those he cared about.