Paramour (41 page)

At the end of the hallway they stopped by a glass window. A middle-aged man was seated behind the window in a small office. Porkolab motioned to him. The man leaned close to a speaking port in the glass and said something which, though unintelligible, Powers construed as being an objection to opening the door because Powers was an inmate.

"He's being released on a writ," Porkolab said.

"He's a White House case."

"Are you disputing my authority?" Porkolab said.

The man picked up the phone receiver and dialed a number. "I have to get authorization," the man said sheepishly.

"Please don't hurt me," Porkolab whispered. "It's not my fault if he won't open the door."

Powers studied the edge of the glass window separating him from the man on the phone. It wasn't bulletproof.

Powers pulled the gun from his pocket and shoved the barrel through the glass. Eyes wide with fear, the guard raised his hands. Using his free hand, Powers reached inside and pulled the guard's gun from its holster.

"Open the gate!" Powers shouted.

The guard stood frozen.

Porkolab reached through the broken window and hit the switch. The tall metal gate, creaking loudly, began to recede.

Powers grabbed Susan by the arm and ran with her through the reception area and out the front door.

There was a blue Volkswagen in the lot. They jumped in and Powers was thrust back in the seat as Susan accelerated out of the parking lot and into the street.

"How did you find me?" Powers asked.

"I went to the Ramada and the desk clerk told me agents had been there to search your room. Then I just made some calls."

"Every agent and every cop in DC will be looking for us."

"What are we going to do?" she said.

"Talk to the President."

****

TWENTY-EIGHT

At the Decatur Hotel, Powers and Susan hurried across the lobby to the elevator to avoid contact with the desk clerk.

In their room, Powers opened the dresser drawer and took out a pencil and some hotel stationery. He asked Susan to write a one-page statement detailing her being sent to impersonate Marilyn Kasindorf.

"What are you going to do with this?"

"I'm going to need something to show the President."

Susan gave him a puzzled look but then began to write.

Sitting down on the bed with writing materials, Powers began sketching: first, a box representing Camp David; then, inside the box, a circle for the Camp David presidential residence itself. Outside and above the box he drew two curving lines representing the Cavetown River, an outlet of Maryland's Blue Ridge Lake touching the easternmost edge of the Camp David grounds: the river the President fished whenever he was in residence there.

Having participated in the last security inspection, Powers knew Camp David was as secure as any military facility in the world. Getting inside, into the President's quarters, would be a risky, perhaps suicidal task. He also knew it was his only chance to get to speak to the President in person. Sneaking into the White House was, for all intents and purposes, an impossibility. At least at Camp David he'd have a chance. The river would allow him an opportunity to get past the two security fences, and if he could make it to the inner perimeter he believed his insider's knowledge of the compound's maze of alarm systems and guard posts would give him a chance to get into the President's quarters.

Like any Secret Service agent who'd spent time at the Camp, Powers knew its entire layout by heart. From the hundreds of working shifts he'd spent standing outside and inside the presidential quarters there, he knew he could find his way around the place blindfolded.

The first line of security at Camp David was made up of a contingent of U.S. Marines, armed with M-16 rifles, posted at the outside perimeter. As with all other places the U.S. President lived, the inside or "close in" security was left to Secret Service agents of the White House Detail. Armed with submachine guns, they would be stationed both inside and outside the front and rear doors of the President's house.

Powers considered trying to trick some young Marine posted at the perimeter into believing he was, for instance, an agent coming on duty from DC. He might be able to convince him he'd inadvertently left his identification pin inside the camp during the last shift of duty. But by now he assumed Capizzi must have notified everyone that Powers was wanted and had probably even distributed his photograph to every post.

Recalling his knowledge of the construction blueprints of the ranch-style house where the President stayed at the Camp, Powers drew a heavy line from a point about two hundred yards along the riverside, representing the path of a storm drain leading from the northern edge of the conference facility construction site to the edge of the river.

As explained to Powers by members of the navy construction team, the drain had been installed after a heavy rain had flooded the northern edge of the compound. The mouth of the drain had been installed at a low point on the property at the rear of a storage shed-about fifty yards from the presidential quarters.

The Secret Service, using its theory of studying security systems from the point of view of an intruder, had considered the drain a security problem and neutralized it by having a Secret Service portable motion detection alarm installed inside the drain.

"What are you sketching?" Susan asked.

"Camp David."

"What are you going to do?"

"I have to get in there to tell the President about all this."

Susan sat down next to him. "It's too dangerous," she said, her voice cracking.

"I think I can get inside."

"You'll never make it," she cried.

"There's no other way."

"You can talk to someone else in the administration, the Attorney General or the Secretary of State-"

"Someone has put my name on the threat list. No one in the administration will talk to me. Look, Ken Landry is dead and someone is trying to destroy the President. The only way to get to the bottom of all this is to tell him."

"You were a Secret Service agent. You, better than anyone, should realize you can't get through presidential security. They'll kill you," she said angrily.

"I wrote the last security report for Camp David," Powers said quietly. "I know I can get inside."

Susan sat next to him on the bed. She put her head on his shoulder.

"I have to do it," Powers said. With his rough sketch of the area completed to refresh his memory, he had decided how he'd attempt to breach the security and gain entry. He made a list of equipment he would need for the operation. It read as follows:

1. SCUBA gear

2. BB gun

3. Bolt cutters

4. Screwdriver

5. Wire cutters

After some telephone calls to determine where to purchase

SCUBA gear, he and Susan spent the day shopping at sporting goods and hardware stores. Powers used his credit card to purchase the needed gear.

With the equipment he'd purchased in the trunk of his car, he drove to Fort McNair, a nearby DC army post. As Susan waited in the car, Powers entered the post recreation office carrying the SCUBA gear and informed the sergeant on duty that the post commander had made arrangements for him to test some SCUBA equipment in the post's swimming pool. At first, the sergeant questioned him, but when Powers bluffed and suggested he call the post commander, the sergeant considered it too much trouble and relented, as Powers had hoped.

In the dressing room, Powers changed into the black wet suit he'd purchased and carried the equipment into the pool area. He strapped the air tank onto the back plate and hooked up the valve, console, and harness straps.

With the backpack in place, he stepped into the shallow end of the pool and moved slowly toward the deep water. Having tested the regulator mouthpiece and the purge valve, he pulled the facemask into place and submerged. Underwater, he tightened his mask and adjusted his weight belt. Satisfied that the equipment was in working order, he climbed out of the pool and doffed the gear. He was ready.

Darkness fell as Powers drove north on Highway 279 out of DC. He was consumed by his thoughts-his plan. Neither he nor Susan had spoken much since leaving the hotel. Because of heavy traffic, it took nearly two hours to reach the Catoctin Mountains. By the time they arrived, darkness had fallen. On the wooded Highway 15 near Thurmont, Maryland, Powers pointed out Camp David as they cruised past. A security light illuminated two fully armed uniformed Marines standing at the front gate. The interior as well as an exterior security fence was well lighted, each lined on top with a curl of razor-sharp concertina wire.

Camp David was a U.S. Navy installation complete with military barracks used by a permanently assigned contingent of U.S. Marines and sailors and the White House Detail Secret Service agents when the President was in residence.

At Camp David, the President stayed in a rambling California ranch-style house in the middle of the compound. Out of sight of the military barracks, the building was situated toward the rear of the compound near guest cottages used for foreign leaders and other presidential guests. The guard booths and posts in and around the camp were situated so that if an intruder was able to shoot his way past any one sentinel, he would, as if entering a flytrap, be in the fire zone of two more.

A mile or so down the road, Powers swerved off the highway and followed a dirt road along the bank of the winding Cavetown River into the forest.

Though he'd been lucky enough to survive Vietnam and two presidential assassination attempts while in the Secret Service, he knew breaking into Camp David would be the most dangerous thing he'd ever done. The White House Detail agents posted in and around the Palace, as the President's house was called, believing he was a threat to the President, would shoot him on sight.

At a spot where the dirt road jogged right, Powers pulled over. He made a U-turn and pulled the car behind some trees at the edge of the river to park. When he turned off the headlights they were immersed in blackness. The only sound was the
whiz-hum
of cars careening past on the highway.

Powers opened his door and climbed out of the car. He opened the rear door and pulled the tank and the other SCUBA gear from the back seat. Susan got out and came to his side.

"Return to the Decatur," he said. "You should still be safe there. If something happens to me, get in touch with David Broder at the
Washington Post.
Tell him everything. Once you're on record with him you'll be safe. No matter what is going on in the White House, no one will risk coming under the spotlight by harming you. Tell Broder everything."

"Do I know everything, Jack?"

"Everything except the fact that Marilyn Kasindorf was having an affair with the President. That's why I was asked to conduct a discreet investigation rather than turn the matter over to the FBI. I was protecting the President from embarrassment."

"Now I understand."

"I'm asking you to keep that secret forever-unless you find yourself still in danger. But it's something you should know. It could provide a valuable piece of the puzzle later."

"I don't want you to do this," she said, her voice cracking. "Please. I love you, Jack."

"I love you too, Susan. And I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But I have to go through with this."