“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.”
“We’ve got to find the yacht,” Mercier said grimly.
Emmett looked at him. “I’ve already ordered a surface and air search.”
“You won’t find it that way,” Metcalf interjected. “We’re dealing with damned smart people. They’re not about to leave it lying around where it can be found.”
Fawcett poised his pencil in midair. “Are you saying the yacht was destroyed?”
“That may well be the case,” Metcalf said, apprehension forming in his eyes. “If so, we have to be prepared to find corpses.”
Oates leaned on his elbows and rubbed his face with his hands and wished he was anyplace but in that room at that moment. “We’re going to have to spread our trust,” he said finally. “The best man I can think of for an underwater search is Jim Sandecker over at NUMA.”
“I concur,” said Fawcett. “His special project team has just wrapped up a ticklish job off Alaska, where they found the ship responsible for widespread contamination.”