Harry stared at the visual of the missile squared off in a box to one side of the screen. “It’s really big. How far can it fly?”
“Three stages to push it out to seventy-five-hundred miles,” Jenny answered. “It can hit anywhere in the United States.”
“And a lot of other places,” Harry added, as the senior technician picked up the phone and quickly dialed the number she had been told to call immediately if anything was found. It rang on Langley’s seventh floor a second later.
“Pull over. Pull over. Here.”
The Jeep rolled to an illegal stop next to Pershing Square just across Fifteenth Street from the White House. The morning rush was flowing into D.C., filling the street on the east side of the presidential mansion with legions of cars. Chick Hill looked right past those to the South Lawn.
“This is a ticket here,” the wannabe reporter said worriedly, his head looking back, left, and forward for any sign of D.C. cops.
“Stop your whining.” Hill opened his door and stepped out onto the sidewalk, taking a few steps forward for a better vantage point looking over the Jeep’s hood. The expanse of green between the White House and the ellipse was visible through the bare trees; autumn had taken its hold on the nation’s capital.
The driver leaned across the front seat to the open door. “What are you looking for?”
“Anything out of the ordinary.”
“Everything looked fine from the front.” They had first taken a drive past Lafayette Park to survey the north side of the White House.
“That’s the ‘show’ side, kiddo,” Hill explained. “The South Lawn is where things happen.”
Hill scanned the area, looking for that one tidbit that would jump out, but from this distance any tidbits faded to clumps of colors blended in with the fall foliage. “Outside pocket of my bag, hand me the binocs.”
The driver retrieved the compact Bushnells and passed them out. “Why do you carry binoculars?”
Hill pushed his thick glasses atop his head and began scrutinizing the South Lawn through the 7X binoculars. “Kid, when your eyes get this bad, you learn to adapt. The photogs aren’t the only ones who need to see things.”
The back of the mansion looked normal, no obvious extra personnel. He swept left, farther south, the ugly gray of Old Executive in the background. The pad used by Marine One was empty. That caused his hopes for some connection to drop. Why pull Kneecap out and have no way to get the President to it? It was looking like some sort of practice run was under way, Granger and all. He continued left. Well, it had been worth a shot. Now he’d have to just go back to Limp Dick’s denials about Delta. Oh, we—
What is that doing there? Hill instinctively lowered the glasses away and squinted to see with just his eyes, but the streaking blurs of cars convinced him to give it up. He rolled the focus knob, zeroing in on the aircraft. It wasn’t the big one out of Anacostia, he knew. This one was low and sleek, its body a gleaming white with a thin stripe of blue along its side. It had to be from the 89th. He looked for details, of which there were none immediately obvious. There were two people on board, in the pilots’ seats, and a few outside looking very serious. Fully crewed? His hopes began to rise again. What else? This had to be a VH-60, one of those airborne VIP taxis that government honchos had at their beck and call. No. He’d been on one of those, up close enough to see that this one was different. All sorts of bulges and small, dorsal-like antennae protruded from the fuselage, and there was a—refueling probe? — coming out from the nose. Hill’s mind searched the mental files he’d made since joining the Pentagon beat. This was that command-post variant of the VH-60, the one supposed to be used by the President during crises when transiting between a ground station and the location of a more fully equipped airborne command post, such as… Kneecap.
“Black phone book,” Hill told the driver. “Same pocket as the binocs. Look up Congressman Vorhees’s office number.”
“Didn’t you just…never mind.” He flipped to the Vs and read off the number, Hill punching it into his cell.
“Congressman Vorhees’s office.”
Chick set the binoculars on the hood of the Jeep. “Yes, this is Chick Hill from the Post for the congressman. Is he back from Andrews?”
“Yes. I trust you enjoyed your trip with him. One moment.”
The moment stretched into four, but Hill had nowhere to be. His companion, however, was still sweating in anticipation of a hefty parking fine.
“Chick, so soon?”
“You know how much I miss you, Dick. Listen, I wonder if you’d care to comment on some peculiar things going on at Andrews and the White House.”
A playful chuckle came over the phone. “Sure, why not?”
“Kneecap was rolled out at Andrews when we landed; I believe one of your staffers commented on it. That’s what got me to looking. The funny thing was that chairman, Joint Chiefs, was there, running up the steps. Then, I drive by the White House, and what’s here but that fancy command-post chopper from the Eighty-ninth. Crown Helo is what they call it, if I’m not mistaken.”
“You’re not.” The congressman’s tone changed perceptibly.
“Anything to this?” Hill listened to the silence.
“The Pentagon runs the show, Chick. You know the routine. They can run readiness exercises whenever they want.”
“It’s a readiness exercise, then?”
“Must be.” What wasn’t said, said it all.
“Okay, Dick. Thanks.” Hill ended the call, but kept his phone in hand.
“What was that all about?”
“That was nothing, kid. Watch this.” He pressed last-number redial.
“Congressman Vorhees’s office.”
“Hi. Chick Hill again.”
“Well, hello. The congressman is on the phone right now.”
“Oh. He’s still on with the White House,” Hill said innocently, trying to remove any hint of a question from his words.
“Still? He just got on.”
Hill smiled into the phone. “Oh. No problem. I’ll call back later.”
The driver stopped his worrying long enough to admire the devious digging just witnessed. “Tricky, but what does that get you?”
“It gets me a lead,” Hill said after climbing back into the Jeep. “The sudden, unplanned deployment of emergency airborne command posts at the White House and Andrews Air Force Base prompted Congressman Richard Vorhees, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, to contact unnamed White House officials for an explanation of the actions.”
“How can you spin that from the call?” the driver asked incredulously.
“All true, kid.” It occurred to Chick that he didn’t even know the kid’s name. “Just deductive reasoning.”
It sure wasn’t what the driver had learned at Columbia. “I don’t know. What comes after that is weak.”
“Kid, lesson number last: The lead is everything.” Chick watched the White House disappear behind the balding trees. “What comes next is fluff. Anyone can fill in the body. Only a pro can give you a winning lead.”
“Fluff?” the driver asked with more disbelief than before. “What about facts?”
Hill snickered at the traffic ahead. “The best facts are guesses that turn out to be on target.”
Major Sean Graber took the SATCOM radio’s handset from the Pave Hawk’s crew chief. “Graber.”
“Major,” Colonel Cadler drawled. “The spooks found you a target.” He went on to explain the location.
“What’s the aim point?” Sean asked. As in practice, you did not just fire wildly at a target — you chose a specific point on it. “The missile is one thing, sir, but it sounds like the way it’s set up now doesn’t point to someone just standing there and pushing a button.”