Power Down (20 page)

“Which one?” asked Jessica.

“He wouldn’t say.”

“Great. We get to play guessing games with the White House.”

“Chill out. All in good time. Let’s get back to our work.”

“Before we begin, I want Terry Savoy and his deputy Paul Spinale in here on this one,” said Jessica. “We need his help finding Andreas.”

“I don’t like it,” said McCarthy. “He’s a hothead. We need thinkers.”

“Bullshit,” said Jessica. “He’s not a hothead and he’s as smart as anyone else around here. Look, we’re talking about a highly decorated former U.S. Army Ranger. Run his background if you want, but I want him with me.”

“You got him,” said Chiles, looking at Jessica. He turned to McCarthy. “Go.”

“First, we have manifests of all employees at nuclear power plants, LNG facilities, and oil refineries in the U.S.,” said McCarthy. “We’re looking at nationalities, travel patterns, you name it.”

“When will we have that list?”

“By noon. I suggest we reconvene interagency then.”

“I don’t have time for another session like that,” said Jessica. “Just give me the list as soon as you have it.”

“I’ll give you the list as soon as we have it, but I disagree about interagency. We need the meeting.”

“I agree,” said Chiles. “We don’t know anything yet. We need to make sure we’re getting access to as much information as we can. We also need to make sure we’re sharing whatever we have.”

“Understood,” said Jessica.

“If I may continue,” said McCarthy. “Dewey Andreas. I have information.”

“So do I,” said Jessica.

“Let me go first,” said McCarthy. “It confirms some negative thoughts.”

“Go,” said Chiles.

“Andreas’s American,” said McCarthy. “He’s from Castine, Maine, on the coast. This was taken the day he enlisted in the army.” He pulled out a black-and-white photograph and put it down on the table. It showed a younger Dewey, handsome, with long hair and a tough, smiling face. “He served this country with distinction. Went to Boston College, then joined the army. He became a Ranger, then was asked to try out for Delta. By all measures, he was good, very good. Multiple meritorious achievement medals, two Purple Hearts. Tough as nails. He was in Panama, also on the team that took out Khomeini’s brother in Indonesia.”

“How the hell did he end up on an oil derrick in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?” asked Chiles.

“That’s where it gets interesting. He had a wife who he grew up with. High school sweetheart sort of thing. They had a son who died of leukemia when he was six. One day not too long after that, Andreas came
home and found his wife dead. Someone shot her in the head.” The room went silent for a few moments. “It happened off base. The local D.A. tried him.”

“A jury found him innocent,” said Jessica.

“He left the U.S. after that. Nobody saw him again, until now. This was thirteen years ago.”

“What do you have?” asked Chiles, looking at Jessica.

“Savoy remembers the case,” said Jessica, looking at Chiles, then at McCarthy. “He didn’t know Andreas personally, but it was a big story in all the papers, local TV, that sort of thing. The district attorney tried his hardest to convict him and still didn’t convince the jury.”

“She was killed with a round from a .45-caliber Colt,” said McCarthy. “Specifically, Andreas’s handgun.”

“Are you suggesting you can prove he killed his wife after reading a few articles on Nexis?” said Jessica. “And that this wife-killing ex-Delta’s suddenly turned into a terrorist? This is not only not productive, it’s ludicrous. We have a larger threat here. Andreas is not our problem. A group of terrorists is our problem. And Andreas may have information critical to solving that problem.”

Jessica stood up and left the suite.

“Wait, Jess,” said Chiles. “The next interagency—”

“I’ll look at the transcripts,” she said, and closed the door.

At one thirty, Savoy returned to Jessica’s office, and she set him up in a conference room, next door to her office.

“You likey?” she asked.

“Me likey. Where’s the couch?”

Jessica rolled her eyes and proceeded to brief him on the latest information from the Capitana survivors about the events during the days leading up to the explosion.

“We need a list of who was on that rig,” she said. “You’re probably equipped to get it soonest from Anson.”

Savoy nodded. “I’ll get it.”

“How are the Savage Island survivors?” she asked.

“They landed in Halifax a couple of hours ago. They’re all at the Marriott. Have your people talk to Spin. He’ll arrange access for interviews, that sort of thing.”

“Thanks. By the way, I got you and Spin clearance.”

A low chime rang out from a cell phone on the conference table, interrupting their conversation. Jessica reached out and flipped it open.

“Tanzer.”

Jessica listened in silence, then put the phone down.

“What is it?” asked Savoy.

“That was one of my agents in Denver. Marks’s ski house is on fire.”

MARKS’S SKI HOUSE

Somewhere inside Marks’s head, he heard a voice.

“Get up,”
it whispered. “
This is not how it ends.
”

His own voice, telling him not to give up.

“
Get up,
” the voice said. “
This is not your time to die.
”

He smelled smoke and felt the intense warmth of the inferno around him. How long had he been unconscious? Opening his eyes, he saw chaos. The room was enveloped in smoke and flames.

For the first time, he suddenly registered the intense pain coming from his shoulder, where he’d been shot, and his head. He lifted his right hand and saw nothing but the dark, terrifying color of blood, coursing from his body. As he held his hand up in front of his face, he saw charred flesh from where he’d gripped the pistol from the fireplace.

Marks slowly arched his head around, rotating to see his legs. The flames were almost at his ankles as the oriental rug became overtaken with the spreading fire. He felt a sudden burst of heat as flames leapt to his jeans. He shook the leg and batted the flame out. His legs still worked, a good thing.

“
Start moving,
” the voice urged. “
It will soon get beyond your control.
”

Marks rolled onto his stomach, shouting at the stroke of pain in his shoulder. He looked for a way out. Everywhere, smoke clogged the
room. The flames created columns of violent red and orange. The sound was incredibly loud, wood, fabric, and synthetic materials crackling as they burned.

To the left snow blew through a broken window, vaporizing instantly in the heat. The window the assassin had come through was Marks’s closest exit point. But to reach it he’d have to cross the heart of the growing house fire.

More flames struck his jeans and he tried to shake them, but the flames clung to the material. Grunting in pain, he managed to put out the flames once again, but they would be back.

Beyond the sofa and the bodies of the Ansons lay another way out, the doorway to the mudroom—and an exit to the backyard. It was his only hope of survival.

He registered the sight and memorized the path to the doorway, then closed his eyes, for he knew he would have one opportunity and that if he was to ever see again he needed to protect his eyes from the searing flames and the smoke. He took one last breath.

Marks placed his blistered right palm against the ground and pushed as hard as he could. He pulled his right knee along the ground beneath him, then the left, so that he was now on his knees. Then, slowly, he moved to his feet and stood.

Above the din of the smoldering house, he heard a penetrating sound, a structural creaking noise, and felt the earth move slightly. He knew that the whole house would soon be destroyed, and the cracking was the sound of the ceiling timbers, weakening as they burned. Another crack, slower and more ominous. He kept his eyes closed, listening, and moved quickly to his right. From above, a roof timber crashed inches from where he now stood, its impact on the floor nearly toppling him.

“
Run!
” the voice yelled. “
Run, goddamnit, run!
”

He ran then, wildly, cutting through the flame wall with eyes still closed, knowing that if he hit a wall or tripped on some other obstruction he would die then and there.

As in a dream, all thoughts were now blurred. Marks felt only the intense pain of the flames against his shirt, his bleeding shoulder, and his
scorched palm. The bright light of the fire beckoned him to open his eyes and destroy his sight forever.

And the voice, that was still there too.

“
Run!
” it yelled. “
Run, Teddy, run!
”

He sprinted through the wall of flames and entered the mudroom at the back of the big house. Marks kept his eyes closed, running blindly into yet more heat with a faith and a belief that something cooler, safer, lay beyond the intense heat. Suddenly, he came to the large oak door. He grabbed the searing-hot doorknob. The door swung out and icy air blew past him, jolted him, almost as painful as the flames. He opened his eyes. He saw the back of the house and its yard now covered in snow. The blizzard created a near whiteout. He ran now, his clothing almost completely in flames, and leapt into the snowbank.

A night crewman aboard the Sno-Cat at Snowmass called in the fire. Despite the blizzard conditions, he was able to see the flames from more than a mile away.

The first truck from the Aspen fire department arrived less than six minutes later. It took the first responders the better part of half an hour to notice Marks outside the burning chalet. He looked like a blackened snow angel in a deep drift, his sooty outline already being obscured by rapidly falling snow.

“Do we know who it is?” asked an Aspen police officer as he trailed the EMTs.

The EMTs didn’t answer, but put Marks’s body on a gurney and moved him to their truck, an oxygen mask to the face. “He’s alive,” said one of the medics, a woman who held her small hand at the side of the neck. “His pulse is weak, but he’s alive.”

The other EMT dusted off snow from Marks’s body, and inspected the scorched clothing.

“Damage isn’t too bad, except the hand,” he said. “Christ, the clothing . . . he was on fire; snow probably saved his life.”

The Aspen cop suddenly noticed the growing pool of red on Marks’s snow-covered shoulder. Violating protocol, he reached down
and brushed away the bloody slush. “Look. There’s blood pouring out of his shoulder.”

The EMT removed the rest of the snow, revealing bare skin and a purplish, raw red wound from which blood poured unabated.

“That’s a bullet wound,” said the EMT, applying pressure to the shoulder. “He was shot.”

“We need to get him to Presbyterian,” said his partner.

“We’ll stabilize him on the way to Aspen Valley,” she told the cop. “Can you make sure they prep the Trauma Hawk?”

“Absolutely. How long until you’re there?”

“We’ll be there in ten minutes. Make sure it’s ready to lift when we get there.”

The helicopter ride from Aspen Valley Hospital to Presbyterian/St. Luke’s Medical Center in Denver took an hour, and was treacherous. Visibility was horrible due to the blizzard, and wind tossed the Sikorsky S76-C+ about wildly. But it touched down safely almost exactly one hour after the ambulance left the driveway of Marks’s ski house.

Two medics greeted the helicopter as it landed and ran the stretcher to the open doors of the roof elevator. Six floors below, they unstrapped Marks’s body atop an operating room table, then methodically peeled the burned shreds of clothing from the body.

Across Marks’s chest, a jagged purple scar, two inches wide, ran like a ribbon from the left armpit down across his nipple to just above the belly button. On the biceps of his right arm, a small Navy blue tattoo was visible: an eagle clawing a trident, pistol, and an anchor.

Two doctors and four nurses were gathered about the body.

“Navy SEAL,” said one of the doctors, pointing at the tattoo.

“How do you know?” asked a nurse.

“That’s a SEAL trident on the shoulder,” said the doctor as he ran his fingers across the scar. “Look at that stitch work. That’s a war scar. MASH work. This guy’s seen some serious shit.”

As a precaution, they immersed Marks’s body in a tub filled with a thick agarlike burn salve called Peroxidol, though his body didn’t appear
to have suffered any serious burns beyond his palm. He’d gotten out in time. The bullet wound, however, had cost him more than two quarts of blood. They also found several large contusions on his back, neck, and one to the side of the head.

The surgery took several hours. They repaired the shoulder and bandaged Marks’s hand. After it was complete, the surgeon turned to one of the nurses.

“I want a brain scan on this guy,” said one of the doctors after they had removed the shrapnel and were suturing up the shoulder. “That contusion on his skull looks serious.”

“We ought to let the police know about him, too,” added the other surgeon. “Someone needs to figure out who he is. There was obviously some kind of struggle here.”