The Lion's Game (88 page)

“Exactly.”

Her cell phone rang, and she answered it, “Mayfield.” She listened and said, “He can’t come to the phone, Tom. He has both hands on the wheel and his nose against the windshield.” She listened again and said, “That’s correct. We’re heading for the ranch. Okay. Yes, we’ll be careful. See you in the morning. Thanks.”

She hung up and said to me, “Tom says you’re a lunatic.”

“We’ve already established that. What’s up?”

“Well, your special rapport with Mr. Khalil has opened the gates for us. Tom says that the Secret Service will let us into the ranch.” She added, “They assumed you would drive up at dawn, but Tom will call and tell them we’re on the way.”

“See that? Present them with a fait accompli, and they find a way to give you permission for something you’ve already done. But ask for permission, and they’ll find a reason to say no.”

“Is this in your new manual?”

“It will be.”

After another ten minutes, she asked me, “If we’d been turned back, what would you have done? What’s Plan B?”

“Plan B would have been to dismount and find this ranch on foot.”

“I figured. And then we’d be shot on sight.”

“You can’t
see
anyone. Not even with starlight scopes in this fog. I’m good at land navigation. You just walk uphill. Moss grows on the north side of the trees. Water runs downhill. We’d be at the ranch in no time. Over the fence and into the barn or something. No problem.”

“What’s the point? What do you want to accomplish?”

“I just need to
be
here. Here is where it’s at, and here is where I need to be. It’s not that complicated.”

“Right. Like at Kennedy Airport.”

“Exactly.”

“Someday, you’re going to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

“Someday I will. But not today.”

She didn’t reply, but looked out the side window at a rise in the land that towered over the car. She said, “I see what Lisa meant about ambush heaven. No one on this road would stand a chance.”

“Hey, even without an ambush, no one on this road would stand a chance.”

She rubbed her face with her hands, yawned and said, “Is this what life is going to be like with you?”

“No. There’ll be some rough moments.”

She laughed, or cried, or something. I thought maybe I should ask her for her gun.

The road straightened out and the incline leveled off. I had the feeling we were near the end of our journey.

A few minutes later, I noticed that up ahead the land flattened and the vegetation thinned. Then I saw a road going off to the right, but I remembered that the motel clerk had said to go to the left. Before I got to the Y in the road, a guy stepped out of the fog and put his hand up. I stopped and put my hand on my Glock, as did Kate.

The guy walked toward us, and I could see he was wearing the standard dark windbreaker with a shield pinned to it, and a baseball cap that said SECRET SERVICE. I lowered my window, and he came up to the driver’s side and said, “Please step out of the car, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

This was usually my line, and I knew the drill.

Kate and I got out of the car, and the guy said, “I guess I know who you are, but I need to see some identification. Slowly, please.” He added, “We are covered.”

I showed him my ID, which he examined with a flashlight, then looked at Kate’s, then shined the light on the license plate.

Satisfied that we fit the description of a man and a woman in a blue Ford whose names were the same as two Federal agents who were on the way to this location on the most fucked-up road this side of the Himalayas, he said, “Good evening. I’m Fred Potter, Secret Service.”

Kate replied in the brief second before I could think of something sarcastic. She said, “Good evening. I assume you’re expecting us.”

“Well,” said Fred, “I was expecting you’d be at the bottom of a ravine by now with your wheels spinning. But you made it.”

Again, Kate, in a pre-emptive bid to keep my mouth shut, said, “It wasn’t that bad. But I wouldn’t want to try it downhill tonight.”

“No, you wouldn’t. And you don’t have to. I have orders to escort you to the ranch.”

I said, “You mean there’s more of this road?”

“Not much more. You want me to drive?”

“No,” I replied. “This is an FBI-only car.”

“I’ll get in the front.”

We all got into the car, Kate in the back, Fred in the front. Fred said, “Bear left.”

“Bear?
Where?”

“I mean ...
go
left. Over there.”

So, my silliness indulged, I went to the left, noticing two more guys, with rifles, standing near the road. We were indeed covered.

Fred said, “Keep it about thirty. The road is straight, and we need to go another couple hundred yards up Pennsylvania Avenue before we come to a gate.”

“Pennsylvania Avenue? I really got lost.”

Fred didn’t laugh. He said, “This part of Refugio Road is called Pennsylvania Avenue. Renamed in eighty-one.”

“That’s neat. So, how are Ron and Nancy?”

“We don’t discuss that,” Fred informed me.

Fred, I sensed, was not a fun guy.

Within a minute or so, we approached a set of stone pillars between which was a closed iron gate no more than chest high. From either side of the pillars ran a low wire fence. Two men, dressed as Fred was dressed, and carrying rifles, stood behind the pillars. Fred said, “Stop here.”

I stopped, and Fred got out and closed his door. He walked up to the pillars, spoke to the men, and one of them swung open the little gate. Fred waved me on, and I drove up to the pillars and stopped, mostly because the three guys were in my way.

One of them came around to the passenger side, got in, and closed the door. He said, “Proceed.”

So, I proceeded up Pennsylvania Avenue. The guy didn’t say anything, which was okay with me. I mean, I thought the FBI were tightly wound, but this bunch made the FBI look like Comedy Central.

On the other hand, this had to be one of the worst and most stressful jobs on the planet. I wouldn’t want it.

There were trees on both sides of the road, and the fog lay there like snowdrifts. My passenger said, “Slow down. We’re going to turn left.”

I slowed down and saw a split-rail fence, then two tall wooden posts across which was a wooden sign that said RANCHO DEL CIELO. He said, “Turn here.”

I turned and passed through the entranceway. In front of me was this huge, fog-shrouded field, like an Alpine meadow, ringed with rising slopes, so that the meadow was like the bottom of a bowl. The fog hung in a layer just above the ground, and I could see under it and over it. Spooky. I mean, was this an
X-Files
moment or what?

I could see a white adobe house ahead with a single light on. I was fairly sure this was the Reagan house, and I was anxious to meet them, knowing, of course, that they’d be up and waiting to thank me for my efforts to protect them. My passenger, however, directed me to make a left on an intersecting road. “Slow,” he said.

As we drove slowly, I could make out a few other structures here and there through the clumps of trees that dotted the fields.

Within a minute, the guy next to me said, “Stop.”

I stopped.

He said, “Please turn off the car and come with me.”

I shut off the engine and the lights, and we all got out of the car. Kate and I followed the guy up a rising path through some trees.

It was very cool here, not to mention damp. My three bullet wounds were aching, I could barely think straight, I was tired, hungry, thirsty, cold, and I had to take a leak. Other than that, I was fine.

The last time I’d noticed the dashboard clock, it was five-fifteen, meaning eight-fifteen in New York and Washington where I was supposed to be.

Anyway, we approached this big, tacky-looking plywood-sided building that had Government Structure written all over it. Not literally, but I’ve seen enough of them to know what they mean by the contract going to the lowest bidder.

So, in we go and the place looked really run-down and smelled musty. My
X-Files
guide showed us into a big sort of rec room with old furniture, a refrigerator, a kitchen counter, TV set, and all that. He said, “Have a seat,” and disappeared through a doorway.

I remained standing and looked around for a men’s room.

Kate said, “Well, here we are.”

“Here we are,” I agreed. “Where are we?”

“I think this must be the old Secret Service facility.”

I said to her, “Those guys are grim.”

“They don’t mess around. Don’t bug them.”

“I wouldn’t think of it. Hey, do you remember that episode—”

“If you say
X-Files
, I swear to God I’ll pull my gun.”

“I think you’re getting a little cranky.”

“Cranky?
I am falling asleep on my feet, I just had a car ride from hell, I’m tired of your—”

A guy entered the room. He was wearing jeans, a gray sweatshirt, a blue windbreaker, and black running shoes. He was about mid-fifties, ruddy-faced and white-haired. And he was actually smiling. He said, “Welcome to Rancho del Cielo. I’m Gene Barlet, head of the protective detail here.”

We all shook hands, and he said, “So, what brings you out on a night like this?”

The guy seemed human, so I said, “We’ve been chasing Asad Khalil since Saturday, and we think he’s here.”

He could relate to that bloodhound instinct and nodded. “Well, I was briefed about this individual, and the possibility that he has a rifle, and I might agree with you.” He said, “Help yourself to coffee.”

We informed him that we had to use the facilities, which we did. In the men’s room, I splashed cold water on my face, gargled, slapped myself around, and straightened my tie.

Back in the big common room, I made myself a coffee, and Kate joined me at the counter. I noticed she’d reapplied some lip gloss and tried to paint over the dark rings around her eyes.

We sat on some chairs at a round kitchen table, and Gene said to me, “I understand that you’ve established a rapport with this man Khalil.”

I replied, “Well, we’re not exactly buddies, but I’ve established a dialogue with him.” To earn my room and board here, I gave him a nice briefing, and he listened attentively. When I finished, I asked Gene, “Hey, where is everyone?”

He didn’t reply immediately, but then said, “They’re at strategic locations.”

“In other words, you’ve got an understaffing problem here.”

He replied, “The ranch house is secure, and so is the road.”

Kate said, “But anyone could enter the property on foot.”

“Probably.”

Kate asked, “Do you have motion detectors? Listening devices?”

He didn’t reply to that, but looked around the big room. He informed us, “The President used to come in here Sundays to watch football with the off-duty people.”

I didn’t reply.

Gene reminisced a bit, then said, “He got shot once. That’s one time too many.”

“I know the feeling.”

“You get shot?”

“Three times. But all on the same day, so it wasn’t too bad.”

Gene smiled.

Kate pressed her question and asked again, “Do you have electronic devices here?”

Gene stood and said, “Follow me.”

We stood and followed him into a room at the end of the structure. It was a room as wide as the building, and the three outside walls were mostly picture windows looking down the slope, I noticed, at the ranch house. There was a nice pond behind the house that I hadn’t seen when we approached, plus a big barn and a sort of guest house.

Gene said, “This was the nerve center here, where we monitored all the security devices, tracked Rawhide—that’s the President—when he went riding, and where we had communications with the entire world. The nuclear football was also kept here.”

I looked around at the forlorn room and noticed a lot of dangling wires, and a terrain map still mounted on the wall, along with lists of code words, radio call signs, and other faded notes. I was reminded of the Cabinet War Rooms that I had seen in London, the place where Churchill had run the war, frozen in time, a little musty and manned by an army of ghosts whose voices you could hear, if you listened closely.

Gene said, “There’s no electronic security left. In fact, this whole ranch is now owned by a group called the Young America’s Foundation. They bought the ranch from the Reagans and are turning it into a sort of museum and conference center.”

Neither Kate nor I replied.

Gene Barlet went on, “Even when this was the Western White House, it was a security nightmare. But the old man loved the place, and when he wanted to come here, we came here with him and roughed it.”

I said, “You had about a hundred people then.”

“Right. Plus all the electronics and the helicopters, and state-of-the-art everything. But I’ll tell you, the damned motion and listening sensors picked up every jackrabbit and chipmunk that came on the property.” He laughed, then said, “We had false alarms every night. But we had to respond.” He reminisced again and said, “I remember one night—it was a foggy night like this, and next morning the sun came up and burned the fog off, and we see a pup tent pitched in the meadow, not a hundred yards from the ranch house. We go over to investigate and find this young guy asleep. A hiker. We wake him, inform him that he’s on private property, and point him toward a hiking trail. We never told him where he was.” Gene smiled.

I smiled, too, but the story had a serious point.

Gene said, “So, can we guarantee one hundred percent security? Obviously not. Not then, not now. But now at least we can limit the movements of Rawhide and Rainbow—that’s Mrs. Reagan.”

Kate said, “In other words, they’ll stay inside the ranch house until you can get them out.”