Day of Wrath

He nodded. “Yeah. But there’s no way we can shave much off that. We need at least a day to find as much gear as we can. And it’ll take us the better part of another day to prep and come up with a workable plan. The way I see it that takes us all the way up to late on the twentieth or very, very early on the twenty-first.”

Farrell arched an eyebrow. “You actually want equipment and time to prep?” He snorted. “Hell, Pete, I was sure you and Helen were going to try to do this armed with a couple of Swiss Army knives, a flashlight, and a baseball bat. You must be getting soft.”

Thorn smiled wryly at his old boss. That was more like the Sam Farrell he knew. “We’re also going to need another rental car. There’s no way we can get all the gear we’ve got to buy in one pass. I’m afraid your credit cards are going to take another beating, Sam.”

“At this point, money’s the least of my problems,” Farrell muttered.

“I still don’t see how we’re going to get through that perimeter fence without tripping every alarm they’ve got,” Helen said quietly, staying focused on the matter at hand. “And if they see us coming, we’re screwed.”’ “True. Getting through the fence is our first big problem.”

Thorn lifted the binoculars again. He studied the fence for a moment longer, then shifted his focus — intently studying the tall oak and pine trees that had been left standing outside the compound to preserve something of the area’s once-rural feel. “So maybe we don’t go through the fence …”

_{The White House (H MINUS 47)}

Richard Garrett tracked his chosen prey to a table in the White House mess.

He’d used his pass to get by the Secret Service guards at the main entrance. The White House pass, left over from his days in the administration and never revoked, was one of his prized possessions.

His ability to hobnob at will with top executive branch officials had added hundreds of thousands of dollars to his annual income during his days as a lobbyist-for-hire. Now that he represented Caraco’s interests full-time, it generated hundreds of thousands of dollars more in annual bonuses from Prince Ibrahim al Saud.

Garrett took the empty chair across from John Preston, the President’s Chief of Staff. “John, you’ve got a problem. A big problem.”

Caught off guard, Preston nearly choked on a mouthful of soup and hurriedly daubed at his mouth with a napkin. “Jesus, Dick, I’m eating my lunch here! Can’t this wait until later in the day?”

“No, it can’t.”

Preston sighed. “I assume this is about the dead guy out in the woods.

Hans Wolf or something like that?”

“Heinrich Wolf,” Garrett corrected icily. “Who just happens to have been one of the topranking executives of the corporation I represent.”

“Sorry.” Preston set the crumpled cloth napkin to one side. “I suppose you know they’ve identified the other body as a topranking FBI administrator.”

Garrett nodded. Ibrahim had briefed him on that development before asking him to go to the White House. He assumed the Saudi prince had sources inside the FBI or the Loudoun County sheriff’s department.

“Then frankly, Dick, I’m not sure what more I can tell you,” Preston said. He arched an eyebrow. “Fact is, I hear the FBI wants to find out just what on earth your man was doing with Mcdowell — before they both got shot, I mean.”

Garrett nodded. “That’s understandable. And I plan to talk to them.”

He leaned forward. “It’s like this, John. Right after that Bureau fuck-up down in Galveston, I got a pretty strange call from a General Samuel B. Farrell.”

“Farrell?” Preston looked vague. “Don’t know him.”

“Used to head the Joint Special Operations Command,” Garrett explained.

“He retired a year or so ago. Before your time.”

Preston nodded. After a short stint as a Cabinet deputy secretary during the administration’s first term, he’d gone home to Kentucky to tend the family business. He’d only surfaced as the new White House Chief of Staff after several of the other contenders tore each other to ribbons fighting over the job — mostly by leaking damaging revelations about their rivals to the press.

His chief qualification for the post seemed to be that no one had thought enough of him to regard him as a serious contender.

Most Washington observers thought he’d be chewed up, spit out, and sent packing in short order.

Garrett suspected they were wrong. He’d known Preston and his family for a long time. He’d also seen the other man ride out the President’s frequent temper tantrums unfazed. Never underestimate the staying power of a good punching bag, he thought.

“Anyway,” the Caraco lobbyist continued, “this retired general came to us with a really bizarre claim …” He rapidly sketched Farrell’s allegations that Caraco employees were involved in a deadly smuggling ring.

When he was through, Preston commented, “That sounds exactly like the story that got the FBI all hot and bothered down in Galveston.”