The Enemy Within (28 page)

“Not so fast, Pete.” Farrell waved him back down. “Don’t give up so easily. I didn’t say I couldn’t do anything at all.”

“No, sir.” “But you will have to compromise,” the general said. “Assign most of your people to research this European neo-Nazi connection the
FBI
is all hot and bothered about. In turn, I’ll pull some strings with the powers-that-be. I should be able to make sure you can keep Rossini and a small team at work on this Bosnia problem. I know that’ll slow you down some, but it’s the best I can do. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough, sir.” In truth, that was more than Thorn had expected.

“Good.” Farrell rocked back in his chair. “Before you go, my wife wanted me to ask you how Helen’s doing. That was one hell of a piece of work she did inside that synagogue. But I understand she had a rough time of it afterward.”

Thorn nodded, remembering the exhaustion and regret he’d heard in Helen’s voice during their first phone conversation after she came off duty. “It was the first time she’d ever shot anyone,” he explained.

Farrell nodded sympathetically. “Killing’s never easy on the conscience.”

“No, sir.” The image of a young Panamanian Defense Force soldier rose in Thorn’s mind. The kid couldn’t have been much more than seventeen years old. He shook off the memory. “But Helen’s tough. She’s recovering pretty well. In fact, I’m supposed to see her this weekend.”

“That’s good.” The general smiled broadly. “I know Louisa would give me holy hell if anything went wrong between you two now. I think she’s already planning your rehearsal dinner.”

Thorn suddenly felt like a deer standing frozen in the headlights of an oncoming truck. And curiously, he wasn’t sure that he really wanted to spring out of the way.

NOVEMBER
5

Washington, D.C.

(D
MINUS
40)

The National Press Club was located in a nondescript, almost seedy, concrete office building on Fourteenth Street, right in the heart of Washington, D.C. Typical drab 1940s architecture, the National Press Office building reflected the age of the organisation, but only hinted at its power.

— Although technically only a professional organisation for journalists, the press club was much more. Its members included the cream of the national and even international media. Their reporting could help make or break political careers, and no self-respecting political figure could pass up the opportunity to bring his or her message before such an influential body.

Since its founding in 1908, presidents had sometimes used the organization’s forum to announce major new policies and programs. Foreign heads of state had argued their sides in international disputes. Interest group leaders of all stripes and persuasions had earnestly proclaimed their manifestos from its dais. In fact, over the years, the list of National Press Club guests had become so august that simply being invited to speak there was now a newsworthy event in and of itself.

The Reverend Walter Steele had addressed the National Press Club twice before. His first appearance, eleven years before, had come shortly after his election as the leader of one of the nation’s leading black civil rights organisations. His speech, labeled “visionary” by those in attendance and endlessly replayed on the nation’s television screens and over the radio airwaves, had firmly established him as a major player on the American political scene. His second oration, six years later, had been sharply critical of the then administration’s civil rights record further cementing his reputation as spellbinding firebrand, one with political ambitions of his own.

Since then, he had appeared on news programs, talk shows, and campaign platforms across the country, eloquently pushing a range of programs and proposals for everything from urban renewal to radical shifts in American foreign policy. He was a man of influence. A man who inspired blind devotion in some and blind hatred in others.

And now Walter Steele had asked to be “invited” to speak at a National Press Club luncheon. The rumors sweeping the capital’s cocktail circuit said he planned to announce a bid for his party’s presidential nomination and failing that, he would announce backup plans to run as a third-party candidate. Political observers ranked him as a viable contender one capable of siphoning away several million votes from an administration that had only narrowly squeaked into office.

Preparations for the Reverend Steele’s visit began that morning.

At ten o’clock Sefer Halovic crossed Fourteenth Street with the light and ambled into the National Press Office building. He was dressed casually in jeans and a longsleeved flannel shirt, with only a bright green, reversible windbreaker as protection against the cold, blustery autumn day. He listed slightly under the weight of his equipment a full load of cabling and electronics gear. Black lettering spelled out “ECNS” across the back of the jacket. The same logo was repeated in smaller letters across the windbreaker’s upper right front, with the name “Krieger” printed underneath. The name matched the one on the press pass clipped to his shirt pocket.

Obtaining the pass had been child’s play. With the explosion in cable channels both in the United States and overseas, hundreds of reporters and television and radio technicians flooded the Washington, D.C., area especially right before any scheduled event that might generate headlines and airtime. And, politically correct or not, journalism was still a hard-drinking profession. Halovic smiled inside. Last night, it had taken Yassine only seconds to separate a beer-laden cameraman from his pass inside the noisy, jam-packed confines of a hotel bar. The young Palestinian scout’s fingers were deft the by-product of a boyhood spent living hand to-mouth in southern Lebanon refugee camps.

There should also be little risk in using the stolen pass. The cameraman might have reported his credential missing, but that would scarcely raise a serious official stir. Too many IDs were already adrift in this city of badges and cards for the police to zero in on one more among the missing. In any event, the pass now bore little resemblance to its original appearance thanks to a skilled forger on his special action team. It had been carefully doctored to show his new alias. A Polaroid photo displayed his new appearance. Barring close scrutiny by unusually suspicious security personnel, the alteration should not be noticed.

To change his looks, Halovic had dyed his blond hair a light brown and let his mustache grow out for a few days. He also wore a pair of tinted, blackframe glasses that hid his eyes.

Still, the Bosnian didn’t believe in taking unnecessary chances. That was why he had waited so long to enter the press club building and ride its small elevator up to the third floor. With less than two hours to go before the day’s luncheon, the corridors should be comfortably crowded. He followed several other technicians out of the elevator. Like him, they were draped in coils of cable and weighed down by tripods and other equipment.

As he had hoped, the building’s third floor looked even busier than usual. This was Halovic’s second visit to the press club. The first had come more than three weeks before, shortly after he and his team received General Taleh’s go code and began making the final scouting trips laid out in his operational plan.

The Bosnian joined the bustling crowds moving slowly through the lobby across a floor of heavily veined, polished tan marble. To his left was the Members Bar, dark-paneled and comfortable, with windows that overlooked the street. Even at this hour it was smoke-filled and noisy, already packed with reporters swapping drinks and stories.

He drifted right, heading for the entrance to the dining room.

A table blocked most of the entrance and a man in a suit sat behind it, checking badges. Suppressing a moment’s nervousness, Halovic joined the short line waiting to pass through the barrier. Intellectually, he knew that the odds were in his favor. Since the Reverend Steele was not yet an announced presidential candidate of any sort, the hard-faced men of the U.S. Secret Service were not here in great numbers. Certainly, the man behind the table seemed more a functionary than a watchdog.

He shuffled forward and, without unclipping it from his shirt, turned his press pass to face the checker. He was careful not to make eye contact. The man glanced up, focused on the picture for barely a second, then waved him through with a bored nod.

Hiding his sudden surge of relief, Halovic shouldered his gear and trudged down a short hallway into the main dining room. He had crossed the wire without tripping any alarms.

The dining hall itself was not as large as he had expected. While it was not shabby, it had a low ceiling and wasn’t nearly as ornate as the cavernous meeting rooms maintained by the area’s better hotels. Speakers appearing before the National Press Club were interested in exposure, not in decor. And the members themselves preferred to invest their limited resources in items closer to their hearts than fine furnishings, china, and silverware. Apparently, they reserved most of their funds for keeping the club bar well stocked.

Halovic briefly paused in the doorway to get his bearings. Toward the rear of the room, technicians swarmed over a tangle of cameras, video monitors, and boxes full of electronics gear. Waiters moved briskly among the round tables arrayed before a long head table, laying out white linen tablecloths and place settings. Everyone in view seemed busy. By 11:30 the room had to be ready for two hundred of Washington’s movers and shakers: working reporters, congressmen, administration officials, and influential lawyers and lobbyists.

He checked his own watch: 10:17 A.M. More than enough time. Sidling through the crowd in the rear, he studied the room layout with greater care. As expected, television cameras lined the back wall, stationed on an elevated platform so they had a clear shot of the head table and speaker’s podium. The floor underneath the platform was littered with dark-colored cables and brightly colored boxes that were labeled “CBS,” “CNN,” and a host of other networks, both large and - -~small. Behind the camera platform was a ten-foot-wide area where technicians crouched over video recorders and miniature TV monitors. Wearing headphones and mikes, they spoke constantly to their opposite numbers in other cities, fiddling with the connections and praying their satellite uplinks wouldn’t fritz just before they went live.

Halovic wended his way through the muttering crowds to a relatively clear spot and brought out his own gear. The
VCR
came first, and he found a power strip with an open socket. He was rewarded with a bright green power light. Next came several grey metal junction boxes and black cabling. Hooking one end of a cable to the
VCR
, he carefully screwed the jack in, then payed the cable out, walking toward the aisle in the center of the room.

Out of consideration for the luncheon guests and their feet, all of the electrical cables to the podium were being kept to one side of the center aisle, and Halovic fitted his own into the midst of the thick bundle. Almost immediately, he came to the end of the first twenty-foot segment. Most video cable came in longer lengths, but the Bosnian was ready with a junction box. The size and shape of a small shoe box, it was labeled “European Cable News Service” in neat white letters. There were jacks on all four sides. He connected the first piece of cable to one of the narrow ends and then unwound a second length before hooking it into the other side. He was careful to look for another green power light before continuing.

The next twenty feet of cable brought him halfway up the room. He stopped and attached a second junction box, identical to the first. He could feel his nerves twitching, sending out warning signals. Although he knew the room was swarming with technicians, he felt certain every eye was on him. He surreptitiously scanned the room, determined to bury his irrational fears. No one was watching. There was even another network engineer coming up behind him laying more wire.

When he reached the open-backed speaker’s podium with its nest of microphones, Halovic strung his cable around the edge and inside it. After a short pause to consider his options, he placed a third junction box inside the podium itself Two more segments led out from there to two more junction boxes one under each of the head table sections closest to the podium. More green power lights glowed.

In all of the confusion as technicians from more than a dozen competing news organisations worked frantically to set up their own equipment, nobody thought to ask Halovic why
ECNS
needed to wire up so much of the room.

Moving methodically now and with greater confidence, the Bosnian returned to the media area at the rear of the dining room, inspecting all the connections on the way. The boxes were in series, but he felt compelled to check and double-check his work. He would not get a second chance at this if something went wrong.

He scrambled onto the far end of the platform and began setting up a video camera on a collapsible tripod. It was a smaller camera and not as sophisticated as those of the other networks, but
ECNS
was supposed to be a new service one based in Eastern Europe. They’d only recently established themselves in the United States and funds were still short. Nobody asked for an explanation, but Halovic wanted his cover story ready if anyone did.

Another length of cable connected the camera to the
VCR
. He checked the power light again. He didn’t bother checking the picture.

By the time Halovic finished, it was close to eleven o’clock. He stepped out into the lobby and stood in an out-of the-way corner, watching people come and go through narrowed eyes while he pretended to flip through a newspaper he’d bought at the nearest Metro station. He felt alone and increasingly secure. The point of maximum danger was behind him. His greatest fear during the setup had not been discovery by the minimal security forces present, but a simple encounter with another technician. He had studied the television equipment and media jargon as much as possible, but a professional would have spotted him as a phony in a heartbeat.