The Machiavelli Covenant

166

• SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, GERMANY, 3:15 A.M.

Marten rolled over in a half sleep, edging over gently to avoid putting pressure on the bandages covering the burns on his left arm and neck. He had his own room in the officers' quarters just down the hall from where Hap Daniels and Bill Strait slept in an adjoining room to the president's.

They'd come to the U.S. air base at Spangdahlem unannounced. Normally they would have landed under presidential colors at Ramstein Air Base, but not this time, not under these circumstances. The base commanding officer and several of his general staff knew, but that was all. The doctors accompanying them on the Chinook had cleared the president and sent him to rest, an unrecognized, unnamed VIP under heavy guard.

José, Demi, Marten, and Hap had been taken to the base hospital. As far as Marten knew, José and Demi were still there and would remain there for at least several more days. José's family had been notified, and Miguel and José's father were en route from Barcelona and would arrive soon.

Miguel-Marten smiled as he lay there in the dark. What he'd fallen into as a simple limousine driver. And what a great man and dear friend he had become in so short a time. The boys too, all of them-Amado, Hector, and especially José, the youngster who'd been frightened to death to go farther down in the chimney toward the monorail tunnel because he thought he would be descending straight into hell. Little had he known of the hell he would volunteer to be part of very soon afterward. And what hell Hector and Amado and Miguel had been put through by the Spanish police and U.S. Secret Service, all of it to buy the president time.

The president had pretty much left Marten alone as the Chinook traversed Europe, crossing the Pyrenees into French airspace and then flying north across France to pass over Luxembourg before entering German airspace near Trier and touching down at Spangdahlem very soon afterward. Understandably he had pressing business. First, and most important, the president had spoken personally to the chancellor of Germany and the president of France and then held a three-way conference call with them both. All had agreed that the long-planned NATO meeting set for one o'clock in the afternoon today should go on as scheduled, but, for security reasons, the venue should be changed. What a mighty scrambling of foreign offices it had been, the twenty-six member countries unanimously approving the move from Warsaw to a special site chosen by the president, one that under the circumstances seemed highly appropriate: the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland. It was there he would give a brief speech explaining, among other things, his abrupt disappearance from Madrid the week before and the sudden change of location from Warsaw to Auschwitz.

Second, the president informed White House Press Secretary Dick Greene, already on the press plane to Warsaw, of the change of venue to Auschwitz, adding that a major cabinet-level shake-up was imminent and that there was to be a total press blackout on anything pertaining to it.

Then, earlier informed by Bill Strait of Jake Lowe's "accidental" death and the vision of Dr. Jim Marshall's shocking suicide plunge from the Chinook still raw in their minds, and remembering too the poison capsule embedded in Merriman Foxx's teeth, the president had Hap call Roley Sandoval, special Secret Service agent in charge of the vice-presidential detail, and tell him without explanation to quietly assign extra agents to the vice president and to his entourage to prevent any attempt at "self-harm."

Immediately afterward he placed calls to Vice President Hamilton Rogers, Secretary of State David Chaplin, Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chester Keaton, and Presidential Chief of Staff Tom Curran. The conversations had been terse and exceedingly brief. In them he demanded that each man present his resignation to the speaker of the house by fax within the hour. Failing that, he would be fired immediately. Further, he demanded they present themselves at the U.S. embassy in London no later than noon tomorrow to be taken into custody and charged with high treason against the government and people of the United States. Last, he called the director of the FBI in Washington to inform him of what had happened and direct him to take United States Congresswoman Jane Dee Baker, who was traveling with the vice president in Europe, and expatriate U.S. citizen Evan Byrd, residing in Madrid, quietly into custody and charge them with the same crime, urging precaution against suicide.

After that he had walked the length of the Chinook to confer with the doctors on the condition of both José and Demi, then spent a few moments with them both and come back to share a cup of coffee with Hap and Marten before moving off to a bunk, a medical litter really, to sleep. As he left he touched briefly on the speech he would give at Auschwitz. What he would say, what it would entail, he hadn't yet decided but it was something he hoped would be as fitting to what had happened and to what they had uncovered, as the hallowed ground on which he had chosen to deliver it. He had retired to his room to work on the speech almost immediately after their arrival at Spangdahlem.

Marten rolled over again. In the distance he could hear the roar and rumble of fighter jets taking off, which he gathered was an on-going situation that one got used to. Spangdahlem was the home of the 52nd Fighter Wing, which oversaw twenty-four-hour deployments of U.S. fighter aircraft around the world.

Demi.

She had come to him little more than an hour into their flight in the Chinook. The doctors had treated her burns and mildly sedated her, then put her in a hospital gown and suggested she sleep. Instead she had asked to sit with him and the doctors had let her. For a long time she had simply stared off at nothing. Her crying had stopped but her eyes were still filled with tears. Tears, he felt, that were no longer born out of fear and horror but rather out of sheer relief, maybe even disbelief, that it was over.

Why she had wanted to sit with him he didn't know, nor did she say. His sense was that she wanted to talk to him but didn't quite know what to say or how to put it, or that maybe at this point the physical effort itself was too great. Finally she turned and her eyes locked on his.

"It was my mother, not my sister. She disappeared from the streets of Paris when I was eight years old and my father died very soon afterward," she said in a voice barely above a whisper. "I have been trying to find out what happened to her ever since. Now I know I loved her very much and I know… she… loved… me…" The tears welled up and ran down her cheeks. He started to say something but she stopped him. "Are you alright?"

"Yes."

She tried to smile. "I'm very sorry for what I did to you. To you and to the president."

He put a hand to her face and gently wiped the tears away. "It's alright," he whispered, "it's alright. We're okay now. We're all okay."

At that moment she reached up and took his hand in hers and held it. Still holding it she leaned back, and he saw exhaustion overtake her. A moment later she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

Marten watched her for a moment and then turned away, certain that if he didn't he would start weeping himself. The feeling was not just a release of emotion from what they had been through but for something else.

Over cava and lunch at the Four Cats in Barcelona Demi had asked him about Caroline and why he had followed Foxx, first to Malta and then to Spain. When he'd told her she'd half smiled and said, "Then you are here because of love."

Now he realized she had been talking as much about herself and her mother as she was referring to himself and Caroline. They had both done what they had because of love.

That was the thing here as she slept beside him, physically and emotionally wounded, dressed in a hospital gown and holding his hand. The closeness, the intimacy, was an all-but-unbearable reminder of Caroline at the hospital in Washington as she slept with her hand in his during the last hours of her life.

Demi he had known for little more than a week. Caroline he had loved most all of his life.

And still did.

167

• 6:10 A.M.

A knock on Marten's door woke him from deep sleep. A second knock brought him around.

"Yes," he said with no idea where he was.

The door opened and the president came in alone and closed the door behind him. "Sorry to wake you," he said quietly.

"What is it?" Marten got up on an elbow. "Cousin Jack" was still without his hairpiece and still wore the nonprescription eyeglasses he'd bought in Madrid to help change his appearance. To this moment no one, unless they had been alerted and were looking, would recognize him as John Henry Harris, president of the United States. That he wore a pair of borrowed, ill-fitting light blue pajamas wouldn't have done much to clue them in either.

"We're leaving for the NATO meeting at Auschwitz in an hour. Taking the Chinook."

Marten threw back the covers and got out of bed. "Then this is it, the formal good-bye."

"Not good-bye at all. I want you to come with me, to be there when I give my speech."

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Mr. President, that's your stage not mine. I was planning to go home to Manchester. I've got a lot of work to catch up on. That is, if I haven't been fired."

The president smiled. "I'll write you a note. 'Nicholas Marten couldn't come to work last week because he was saving the world.'"

"Mr. President, I…" He hesitated, uncomfortable with what he had to say and unsure not only how to put it, but how it would be taken. "I can't be seen with you in public. There will be too many people, too many cameras. It's not just me. I have a sister living in Switzerland, I can't risk putting her in… danger…" his voice trailed off.

The president studied him. "Someone's trying to find you."

"Yes."

"What Foxx said about you once being a policeman. Were you?"

Marten hesitated; almost no one knew who he really was, but if he couldn't trust this man now, there was no one anywhere he could trust. "Yes," he said finally, "Los Angeles Police Department. I was a homicide investigator. I was involved in a situation where most of my squad were killed."

"Why?"

"I was asked to kill a prisoner in custody. I refused. It went against the credo of the squad. A few veteran detectives wanted to even the score. I changed my name, my identity and the name and identity of my sister. I wanted nothing more to do with law enforcement or violence. We left the U.S. and started another life."

"This would have been about six years ago."

Marten was amazed. "How would you know that?"

"The time frame fits. Red McClatchy."

"What?" Marten suddenly perked.

"Commander of the legendary 5-2 Squad. Half the population of California knew what it was and who he was. I met him once when I was a senator. The mayor invited me to his funeral."

"I was his partner when he was killed."

"The detectives blame you."

"For that and the rest of it. The 5-2 was disbanded afterward."

"So at this point none of them know your name or where you live or what you do."

"They keep trying to find me on the Internet. They have their own Web site for cops around the world. At least once a month they put out a query asking if anyone's seen me, playing it as if I were a lost friend and they want to know where I can be found. Nobody knows what they're really up to except me and them. It's bad enough for me but I don't want them going after my sister."

"You said she's in Switzerland."

"Her name is Rebecca, she works as governess to the children of a wealthy family in a town near Geneva," Marten half-smiled. "Someday I'll tell you her story. It's something else."

The president studied him for a long moment. "Come to Auschwitz. I'll keep you out of camera range. I promise. Afterward you can go home."

"I-" Marten was hesitant.

"Cousin, you were there step by step. You saw everything that I did. If I start to falter or have doubts about what I'm saying I'll look at you and remember the truth."

"I don't understand."

"I'm going to say some things that diplomatically might be better left unsaid, all the while knowing the reaction around the world might and probably will be ugly. But I'm going to say them anyway because I think we've reached a point in time where the people elected to serve need to tell the truth to the people who elected them, whether they like what they hear or not. None of us anywhere can afford to go on with politics as usual," the president paused. "I'm not one man alone, Nicholas. Come with me, please. I want-I need-your presence, your moral support."

"It's that important."

"Yes, it's that important."

Marten smiled, "And you'll write me the note saying I missed work because I was saving the world."

"You can frame it."

"And then I can go home?"

"And then we can all go home."

168

• HOTEL VICTORIA WARSAW. WARSAW, POLAND. 6:20 A.M.

"Hello, Victor. Did you sleep well? Have you had breakfast?"

Victor turned off the television, then took his cell phone and began to pace the room in his boxer shorts. "Yes, Richard, at five thirty. I didn't sleep at all. You didn't call last night as you promised. I didn't know what had happened. I was afraid something had gone wrong."

"I'm sorry, Victor, I apologize. Things have been a little hectic. That's why I was delayed in getting to you. There's been a change in our agenda."

"What change? What's going on?" The paranoia that had been working on Victor for hours shot through him. Suddenly they had reservations, he knew it. At the last minute they were concerned about his ability and decided to bring in someone else. Richard was going to fire him just like that. Tell him to go home. Then what? He had no money; they had paid for everything. He didn't even have plane fare back to the States.

"Victor, are you still there?"

"Yes, Richard, I am. What is this-this," he paused, terrified to say it, "change of agenda? You want me to leave Warsaw, don't you?"

"Yes."

"Why? I can do it. You know I can do it. I did the man in Washington. I did the jockeys, didn't I? Who else can shoot like that? Who else, Richard, tell me! No, let me tell you. No one, that's who. No one is as good as I am."

"Victor, Victor. Calm down. I have all the faith in the world in you. Yes I want you to leave Warsaw, but it's for the change of plan I was talking about. You don't need to worry. Everything is in order. When you get there, everything will be ready for you as always."

Victor let out a breath, then suddenly stood straighter, prouder. He felt better. "Where am I going?"

"It's a short train ride, less than three hours."

"First class?"

"Of course. Train number 13412 for Krakow. You will depart at 8:05 this morning and arrive at 10:54. Go directly to the taxi area and look for cab number 7121. The driver will have further instructions and take you the rest of the way, about a forty-minute ride."

"Forty-minute ride to where?"

"Auschwitz."

169

• AUSCHWITZ, POLAND, 11:40 P.M.

Surrounded by security and followed all the way by a dozen camera crews, the tall, somber, and distinguished president of Poland, Roman Janicki, led the twenty-six heads of NATO member countries through the grim corridors of the former World War II Nazi death camp.

Outside under a gray sky they had passed beneath Auschwitz's infamous welcoming gates and its wrought-iron sign emblazoned with the motto Arbeit Macht Frei, Work Shall Make You Free. Afterward Janicki had taken them past the weed-covered, rusting tracks arriving trains had used to deposit the estimated one and a half to four million Jews who were exterminated here and at nearby camps, most notably Auschwitz II and Birkenau. Moments later they walked in silence past the stilled gas chambers and the crematory, with its furnaces and iron body carts. Past the remains of the wooden barracks that housed prisoners overseen by the camp's horrific Nazi guards, the dreaded Schutzstaffel, the SS.

Toupee on, cosmetic glasses removed, dressed in a dark blue suit, and with Hap Daniels at his side, fully recognizable as president of the United States, John Henry Harris walked side by side with the chancellor of Germany, Anna Bohlen, and French president, Jacques Géroux, his thoughts on the speech he would make while standing on a hastily constructed platform outside what remained of the rows of former prisoners' barracks.

• 11:50 P.M.

A taxi drove past a fenced-in area containing a sea of media satellite trucks and up to the press gate. The door opened and a middle-aged man wearing a suit and tie got out, then the taxi pulled away.

Immediately he went to the highly secured press gate, where a dozen heavily armed Polish army commandos waited with members of the Polish and U.S. Secret Services.

"Victor Young, Associated Press. My name is on your list," Victor said calmly and produced an AP identification card and his United States passport.

A USSS special agent examined both IDs and handed them to a uniformed woman in a bulletproof glass enclosure. She took them, matched them against a list, then pressed a button and took his picture.

"Alright," she nodded and handed the IDs back along with the appropriate security press tag which Victor put around his neck.

"Hands over your head, please?" another special agent said and Victor complied. Another moment and he had been patted down for weapons.

"Go ahead, sir."

"Thank you," Victor said and unmolested went inside.

In a way he amazed himself. How terribly nervous and upset he always was when he waited for Richard to call, and how calm and easygoing he was when he was face-to-face with the enemy. Of course they knew that; along with his excellent marksmanship, it was the reason they had recruited him and stayed with him.

• 11:52 P.M.

Nicholas Marten stood back watching as the hour drew closer to one o'clock, the scheduled time of the president's speech. Everywhere were representatives of the world press. Equally impressive was the number of invited guests who jostled with security details for space in front of the long platformlike dais where world leaders would gather to hear the president speak.

His speech, as White House Press Secretary Dick Greene had informed the press corps earlier, would be, among other things, an explanation of the last minute shift of venue from Warsaw to Auschwitz and an elaboration on the "terrorist threat" that had seen him removed from his hotel in Madrid by the Secret Service in the middle of the night and taken to the "undisclosed location" where he had been until earlier today.

The fact that his speech would be carried live worldwide by all of the major broadcast organizations, coupled with the promise of getting the facts on the past days from the president himself, both intrigued and frightened, and put an already anxious world further on edge. In addition, something else made the moment even more immediate and compelling. Earlier that morning the president had called for "a special session of Congress" to be convened at 7:00 A.M. Washington time, where a live telecast of the Auschwitz proceedings would be shown on a large-screen television. The special session, the early hour, and the fact that what the president would say couldn't wait until he returned to Washington added a level of urgency to everything.

• 11:55 P.M.

Marten, like the president, was dressed in a hastily found but well-enough-fitting dark blue suit with white shirt and dark tie. Like everyone else he had been issued a security clearance badge that hung around his neck. To protect his image from the public and from accidental pickup by the hordes of media cameras, he had been given a Secret Service buzz haircut and the accompanying requisite Secret Service sunglasses, giving him the appearance, if not the authority, of a USSS special agent.

Marten crossed toward the podium, watching the final pieces being put into place. All around he could feel the intensity growing as the clock ticked down and people waited for the president and the other NATO dignitaries to arrive and take their place. He stopped near the back of the twenty or so rows of folding chairs set up in front of the podium to watch the media crews inspecting camera equipment and making sound checks on the microphones at the podium. A hundred yards away he could see the press gates and the area beyond it, where the media's satellite trucks were parked. Here and there Polish security teams patrolled with dogs.

Marten shaded his eyes from the glare of the high overcast and looked up. Nearby were several old two-story buildings. On the roof of each were two two-man sniper teams, Polish or U.S. Secret Service or maybe NATO, he couldn't tell. Security everywhere was immense.

He turned back and walked on. As he did, a troubling thought passed over him. From what he could see the dais was set up in three distinct levels: the first, the podium where the president of Poland would introduce President Harris; the second, a raised level immediately behind it where the president, the chancellor of Germany, and the president of France would stand, and then a third level behind that, where the rest of the NATO representatives would stand before a sea of waving flags of the twenty-six member nations.

All to the good, except for one thing. There would be a short period of time when the president of Poland made his opening remarks and then introduced President Harris. Harris, the chancellor of Germany, and the president of France would be standing shoulder to shoulder in a perfect line behind him. That perfect line was what troubled him because it brought to mind the single-shot killings of the two jockeys at the Chantilly race track outside Paris just days before.

The president had told him the Covenant had planned to assassinate the chancellor of Germany and the president of France at the NATO meeting. More chillingly, he remembered the president's harsh words after Foxx's death-His plan isn't dead. Neither is theirs!

The president had survived everything to stand here today. He also knew everything. The heavy security aside, if a sharpshooter could hide in the woods and kill two jockeys on running horses from a hundred yards with one shot why couldn't he do the same here? Only instead of taking out two people he could take out three, especially if they were standing shoulder to shoulder in a line for the two or three minutes it would take for the president of Poland to make his introduction.

Marten looked quickly around. They were surrounded by old buildings and trees. And beyond those trees, more trees, like the forest bordering the Chantilly race track. Suddenly he remembered the weapon that had been used was an M14, the same type of gun used to kill the man at Union Station in Washington; both times the weapon had been left behind. The M14 was not only powerful and extremely accurate from even four hundred yards, it was probably one of the easiest weapons in the world for anyone to get hold of. Marten looked at his watch. It was 11:54.

"Jesus God," he breathed. He needed to find Hap and right now!

170

• 11:56 P.M.

Marten entered the Secret Service command post and alerted Bill Strait to his fears. In seconds Strait had contacted Hap, who was with the president.

Two minutes later, Hap, Marten, and Bill Strait were deep in the Secret Service command post, surrounded by a dozen agents and tech specialists and three commanders of the Polish Secret Service. They had no idea if Marten was right or, if he was, whom they might be looking for-man, woman, young, middle-aged, old-and how that person might have been able to smuggle an M14 or other rifle past the heavy security and onto the grounds. One thing was certain: whoever that person was, if they existed at all, had to have security clearance. No one else was inside the compound. Of that they were doubly certain.

• 12:00 NOON

Collecting the M14 was easy. Brought onto the grounds inside a television satellite truck and hidden among literally tons of broadcast equipment inside a long black tubular case used to carry camera tripods, it had been left in a pile of other camera equipment outside the truck. Victor's AP press pass gave him easy access to the media area and to the huge gaggle of satellite vans. The tripod case holding the rifle was to the left and near the bottom of the pile and marked with a singular piece of light blue masking tape. All Victor had to do was pick up the case and retreat to the cover of nearby trees as had been explained in the instruction packet the driver of taxicab #7121 had given him when he'd picked him up from the Warsaw train in Krakow.

• 12:10 P.M.

Inside the Secret Service command post Marten, Hap, and Bill Strait sat in front of computer screens, scanning the photo IDs of everyone who had been given security clearance and photographed upon entry-all six hundred and seventy-two of them-and that included the heads of state themselves, their families and entourages, other invited guests, every member of the security force, every member of the media.

Marten was there because Hap had asked him to be-because he had been with the president all the way from Barcelona and in that time he might have glimpsed a face in passing he would recognize here. Maybe one of Foxx's people from Montserrat or someone he had seen with Foxx or Beck or Demi in Malta or even on the television monitors inside the church at Aragon. It was a reach at best but it was better than nothing.

"Damn it," Hap snapped as the photos whirred by, "we have no idea who the hell we're looking for."

"I hope I'm wrong about the whole thing," Marten said. "I hope nothing comes up."

"Hap," Bill Strait said suddenly. "Everyone admitted to the grounds will have had a background check, otherwise they wouldn't have been given security credentials. Ninety percent were invited to the original summit in Warsaw which means the security checks on them would have been extensive. The remaining ten percent are here mainly because of the last minute change of location. Background checks on them would be less thorough simply because of the time factor."

"You're right. Let's isolate those sixty, seventy-odd people. Go over them in particular."

• 12:20 P.M.

Victor moved readily past a row of old stone buildings and toward a stand of budding trees that partially concealed a long run of what looked like original death camp concrete-post-and-barbed-wire security fence.

• 12:30 P.M.

Photograph after photograph whirred past Hap, Marten, and Bill Strait. So far they had seen no one who would give them pause, no one at all who seemed questionable or whom they might have seen before. Still, they had no choice but to keep on. In thirty minutes the president would step to the podium. If someone was out there, they had to find him.

• 12:35 P.M.

Victor moved through high grass toward a small pond twenty yards away.

"Testing. One, two. Testing. One, two."

In the distance he could hear the voice of a technical engineer testing the podium's sound system.

"Testing. One, two. Testing. One, two."

Victor smiled as he reached the edge of the pond and skirted around behind it. For some reason he had felt no emotion until now. He'd been calm all the way from Warsaw. Calm through the security check. Calm as he'd walked past the satellite trucks on the way to retrieve the tripod case with the M14 inside. Calm, even when he'd been challenged by a guard dog team; readily showing his ID, even patting one of the dogs on the head. Calm as he picked up the tripod moments later and walked away with it toward the woods. It was only now as he heard them testing the sound system that he felt his adrenaline come up. It was why he had smiled. This was not only dangerous, it was fun.

171

• UNITED STATES EMBASSY, LONDON, 11:45 A.M.

(12.45 P.M. in AUSCHWITZ)

Three large black SUVs, their windows tinted, turned off Park Lane onto Grosvenor Street and a moment later turned onto the embassy grounds on Grosvenor Square.

Immediately they were surrounded by an armed squad of United States Marines in dress uniform. A moment later the doors to the lead and tail cars opened and a half dozen special agents of the United States Secret Service stepped out. In a heartbeat they opened the doors to the third SUV. Special Agent Roland Sandoval stepped out first, followed immediately and in silence by Vice President Hamilton Rogers; Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon; Secretary of State David Chaplin; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Chester Keaton; and lastly by presidential Chief of Staff Tom Curran.

Surrounded by Marines and Secret Service agents the group entered the embassy building, the doors closed behind them and the SUVs drove off. The entire operation took less than a minute, beginning to end.

• AUSCHWITZ, U.S. SECRET SERVICE COMMAND POST. 12:47 P.M.

"This man here," Bill Strait suddenly snapped out loud.

Both Hap and Marten turned to look at Strait's computer screen. On it he had the photograph and AP Press credentials of VICTOR YOUNG. "He was in the Ritz in Madrid the night the president vanished," Strait said. "He tried to get up to the fourth floor. It seemed to be a mistake, he said he was just a tourist waiting for friends. We had him on security cameras and studied him later and decided he was no risk."

"You sure it's him?" Hap said.

"Not exactly but pretty damn close."

"I've seen him too," Marten was staring at the screen. "He passed me in a car in Washington the night Dr. Stephenson shot herself."

"You sure?"

"Yes, I'm sure."

"Get this photo to every security team!" Hap snapped at a special agent standing behind him. "We're going out, now!"

• 12:48 P.M.

Unnoticed by the invited guests or the media, two hundred Secret Service agents from Poland, the U.S., Germany, and France fanned out as unobtrusively as possible searching for one Victor Young, a possible phantom sniper carrying an M14.

• 12:50 P.M.

President Harris, German Chancellor Bohlen, French President Géroux and Polish President Roman Janicki huddled with the leaders of the other twenty-three NATO countries in the large tent from which they would make their public entrance in less than seven minutes.

"Mr. President," Hap came in fast, "May I see you for a moment please?"

The president excused himself and stepped away.

"Mr. President, we have a security breach. A lone man. We think he's a sniper. I want to postpone the event."

"Sniper?"

"Yes, sir."

"But you're not sure."

"A hundred percent, no."

"Hap, we've got the world watching on television. We have the Congress in special session waiting for us. We've already changed venue because of security concerns. We postpone this now, we show the entire world how vulnerable we are even under a security blanket as tight as this. Hap, we can't do it. I'll have to trust that you'll find your man or you'll find you've made a mistake and there's no one at all." The president looked at his watch. "We go out in four minutes, Hap."

"Mr. President, let me ask you for a compromise. Live television coverage has already begun. At 12:55 let me put out the word there has been an equipment problem and there will be a short delay until it's fixed. In the meantime the TV anchors can ad-lib or play video of your earlier tour through the camp. Give us a little time, please."

"Then you do think this person is out there."

"Yes, sir, I do."

"You have your compromise."

• 12:55 P.M.

Victor moved on his stomach to edge up through the high grass at the edge of the pond, then lifted the rifle and sighted down it. Four hundred yards away through trees he saw the podium. Just as his instructions had said he would.

From them he knew too that the president of Poland would speak for three minutes and that during that time the chancellor of Germany, the president of the United States, and the president of France would line up shoulder to shoulder behind him-and in that order, which was fortunate because the chancellor was shorter than the men. From his ground angle his shot would be elevated and would strike Anna Bohlen in the lower jaw before hitting President Harris just below his right ear, and then carry through his skull and into that of the president of France.

He inched forward to make his view a little clearer, then waited. It was only minutes now-seconds, really-before they came out and took their places. One shot and he was done. Afterward he would simply leave the weapon and walk away, then rejoin the press corps in the chaos. He would linger there in the crowd, then slip out through the media gate and walk down the road past a long line of parked cars to where the taxi would be waiting.

Dogs. Why did he hear dogs?

172

• 12:57 P.M.

His heart pounding, Victor slid back in the grass. The dogs were barking, coming in his direction from the far side of the pond. Over the loudspeakers he heard someone speak in English and then Polish:

"There is a short delay because of technical problems. Please bear with us for a few moments."

Technical problems? Oh Lord! He'd been found out!

Panicked, he looked behind him. All he saw was the old security fencing and the trees behind it. The barking got louder. In front of him was the pond; to his right, more fencing that melded into the trees and seemed to go on forever. To his left was the old crematorium. In between was a hundred yards of open land. He had no option but to go to his right. Then he remembered a secondary plan that had been in the instructions the taxi driver had given him. A quarter mile beyond the high grass on the far side of the pond were the ruins of old barracks that were now little more than a graveyard of concrete foundations and still-standing chimneys. Among those was a dilapidated stone-and-wood building where the Nazis had stored wagons to haul the dead to the crematory. Hidden in a back corner under some old planking would be food and water, a cell phone, and an automatic pistol. If all things failed, that was where he had been directed to hide and where he would be contacted.

The barking was louder and more intense-the dogs were closing. Somewhere off he heard the sound of a helicopter starting up.

"Leave the rifle. Get rid of your scent. Get rid of your clothes," he said out loud, and in a burst stood up and ran low through tall grass for the cover of the pond.

Then he was at the water's edge. A pudgy, white middle-aged man, pulling off his shoes and socks and throwing off the rest of his clothes. His AP identification and security passes went with them. In seconds he was in the water swimming for the far bank. Where was Richard? Who was Richard? It made no difference. This was the end, he knew it. He didn't have a chance.

• 1:03 P.M.

"We've got the weapon and his clothes," a special agent's voice crackled simultaneously over Secret Service headsets.

Marten was running with the other agents, a 9mm Sig Sauer that Hap had tossed him as they left the command post in his hand. Ahead they saw the pond and the barking, howling dogs stopped at the edge of it. Bill Strait was in front of him gripping a machine pistol and running flat out. Suddenly he cut right toward the far side of the pond and what looked like the ruins of old barracks some distance behind it.

Marten veered right, following Strait and away from the agents running in front of him. Strait was alone. If he got into trouble he was by himself.

Fifty yards ahead Strait jumped a small stream and kept on. Lungs on fire, Marten followed. In seconds he was at the stream and over it. For a moment he lost Strait. Didn't know where he had gone. Then he saw him, charging down an overgrown gravel path toward the ruined barracks.

Strait glanced back, then said something into his headset, and ran on with a renewed burst of speed.

Marten hit the gravel pathway still fifty yards behind him. As he did, his feet slid out from under him and he went down. As quickly he recovered and was up and running. Closing now, forty yards, thirty.

Ahead he saw Strait stop at a dilapidated stone-and-wood building. Then, machine pistol up, carefully move to a partially open door.

"Bill, wait!" Marten yelled.

Strait either didn't hear him or ignored him, because in the next instant he slipped through the door and disappeared from sight.

Two seconds, three, and Marten was there, right outside. There was an abrupt, very brief exchange of voices inside, then came the dull, sharp spit of machine-pistol fire.

"Christ," Marten breathed. Sig Sauer up, he ducked low and went in through the door.

Strait swung the machine pistol in reaction as he came in.

"Don't shoot!" Marten yelled.

Sweating, breathing hard, Strait stared at him for the longest moment, then lowered the gun and nodded toward the rear of the building. The body of a naked middle-aged man lay against the old stone foundation. A.45 automatic was in one hand, the rest of him a bullet-riddled composite of flesh, blood, and bone.

"Victor Young," Strait said. "He the man you saw in Washington?"

Marten walked over and knelt down just as a half dozen special agents came through the door. Marten studied him for a moment, then stood and looked at Strait.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it's him."

Strait nodded, then made an adjustment on his headset. "Hap, it's Bill," he said into it. "We got him. I think it's safe to let the show go on."

173

Marten handed the Sig Sauer to Bill Strait, then moved past the other agents and went back outside. Sun had broken through the clouds here and there, painting the land and buildings with an extraordinary soft white light. It seemed a terrible thing to use the word "beautiful" to describe a place like this, but for the moment it was, and Marten had the sense that despite what had just happened, with the gathering of so many divergent people here that perhaps, and once and for all, a healing had begun.

In the distance he heard the voice of the Polish president resonate through the loudspeakers as he began his welcoming speech and then introduced President Harris.

Abruptly he pushed past a wave of Polish and U.S. Secret Service agents and walked toward the seating area in front of the podium. The president had wanted him there and close by where he could see him. He picked up his pace. Crossing near the pond, he was suddenly aware of the miles of still-standing barbed-wire fence that despite the beauty of the day seemed as ominous now as it must have been seventy years earlier. Maybe he was wrong, maybe the healing had not begun at all.

"President Janicki, Madam Chancellor, Mr. President," President Harris's amplified voice floated across the land, "my fellow NATO representatives, honored guests and members of the United States Congress in Washington, and those watching on television around the world. I have come here today as one of you, a citizen of this planet, and as such feel it my duty as both that citizen and president of the United States to share with you some facts that have come to light in the last few days and hours.

"As you know, this convening of the leaders of NATO member countries was to have taken place in Warsaw. Because of a raised security threat it was suggested the meeting be postponed entirely. After discussion with the member countries it was decided we would meet as planned. The change of location was my idea, and after further dialogue the membership concurred. The choice of Auschwitz was not made at random. It is where millions of people were brought against their will and summarily slaughtered by one of the most heinous, genocidal terrorist organizations in modern history."

Marten turned a corner to walk between aging stone buildings. Ahead he could see the president at the podium, while the NATO leaders stood on the platform behind him, the flags of their twenty-six countries fluttering in the breeze. The sniper teams were still clearly in view on the rooftops. Polish commandos wearing flak jackets and carrying automatic weapons stood guarding the area's perimeter, while inside it hundreds of plainclothes Secret Service agents circulated and watched the crowd.

"In the past week," the president continued, his voice exceedingly clear through the banks of loudspeakers, "the existence of another terrorist organization, as heinous and genocidal as the one under Adolf Hitler, has been exposed and its leadership crushed."

Marten reached the gathering and moved to stand under a tree near the front. As he did he saw the president pause and glance his way and nod ever so slightly. Marten nodded back.

"This group, which we have temporarily and simply called 'The Covenant' represents no single nation, or religion, or race, except its own. It has a membership of highly privileged criminals embedded in political, military, and economic institutions around the world, and, if allegations prove true, have been for centuries. This may sound impossible, something out of fantasy, even absurd. I assure you it is not. In the past days I have personally witnessed their terror firsthand. I have seen the results of their human experiments. I have seen bodies and body parts hidden away in secret laboratories in old mining tunnels in Spain. I have seen them take a people's deepest religious beliefs and manipulate them to serve their own ideals in the form of heinous rituals where human beings are burned alive like witches at the stake in an elaborate ceremony that is the highlight of their so-called 'annual meeting.'

"Last week I was thought to have been spirited out of a hotel in Madrid and taken to an 'undisclosed location' for my own safety because of a 'very credible terrorist threat.' In a way that is true, it was a terrorist threat, but it came from members of my own inner circle. People atthe highest levels of power in the American government, people I have known as my best friends and advisers for years. These people demanded I break the laws of the United States and the oath of office of the presidency. I refused to do so. I was not taken to an undisclosed location, I fled those people. I fled them not only because they threatened my life, but because they and their cohorts in Europe and elsewhere around the world were preparing to unleash a massive genocide against the Middle Eastern states, the scope of which has never before been seen in history.

"Yesterday I asked for and received the resignations of the following: Vice President of the United States Hamilton Rogers; Secretary of State David Chaplin; Secretary of Defense Terrence Langdon; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, United States Air Force General Chester Keaton; White House Chief of Staff Tom Curran. I have been informed that in the past hour they all have been taken into federal custody at the United States embassy in London. They have been charged with suspicion of membership in a terrorist organization and with high treason against the people and government of the United States.

"Concurrently I have been informed that similar arrests are underway in Germany and France. It is too early in our investigations to say more except that we anticipate that the detention of prominent persons in other countries will follow.

"To all of us this has been a thunderclap of surprise, horror, and revulsion. For myself and for the chancellor of Germany and the president of France it is also a personal and deeply felt wound of betrayal by close and long-trusted friends.

"Bad news does not travel well. Truth of this nature isboth painful and ugly, but the same truth hidden away is far worse. In the coming days and weeks we will know more, and you will be kept informed. In the meantime we can only thank providence that we were fortunate enough to have found the beast and killed it before it began its slaughter.

"We need only look around us here at Auschwitz to be reminded of the terrible, harrowing price of fanaticism. We owe it to those who perished here, to ourselves, to our children and theirs, to make this cancer a disease of the past. It is something that together we can do.

"Thank you and good afternoon."

The president stared out at the audience for several seconds before turning to take the handshakes of Anna Bohlen of Germany and Jacques Géroux of France and then of the president of Poland, Roman Janicki. And then of the leaders of the NATO countries who came down one by one to greet him and say a few words and to solemnly take his hand.

For the longest moment Marten, like nearly everyone else-the guests, the security personnel, the media-stood silent. The president's speech had been no self-serving discourse, no political glad hand; he had spoken the truth as he had promised Marten he would. How and when and where the fallout would come-a firestorm of protest and outrage in the Middle East and in Muslim enclaves around the world, charges the president was mentally unbalanced and incapable of serving, furious denials and counterattacks by those arrested or revealed as they rallied their people behind them-was impossible to say. But it would come as the president had known it would from the beginning.

"I'm going to say some things that diplomatically might be better left unsaid," he had told Marten, "all the while knowing the reaction around the world might and probably will be ugly. But I'm going to say them anyway because I think we've reached a point in time where the people elected to serve need to tell the truth to the people who elected them, whether they like what they hear or not. None of us anywhere can afford to go on with politics as usual."

The president had asked Marten to come to supply moral support, but he hadn't needed it. He had his own clear vision of who he was and of the grave responsibility of his office. His "friends" had made him president because he had never made an enemy of anyone. It made them think he was soft and they could mold him any way they wished. The trouble was, they'd misjudged him greatly.

Marten took one last glance at the president and the leaders surrounding him. That was his world, where he belonged. It was time Marten got back to his. He was turning, starting to walk away, when he heard a familiar voice call his name. He looked up and saw Hap Daniels coming toward him.

"We're leaving. Marine One, wheels up from here in ten minutes," he said. "Air Force One, wheels up from Krakow in fifty. The president asked us to file a flight plan through Manchester. Drop you off there," he smiled, "kind of like a personal shuttle."

Marten grinned. "I've already booked a commercial flight, Hap. Tell the president thanks but I don't need the publicity. He'll know what I'm talking about. Tell him maybe sometime we can all sit down someplace for a steak and a beer. You and him and me and Miguel. The boys too, José especially."

"Be careful, he just might do it."

Marten smiled, then extended his hand. "I'll be waiting."

They shook hands and then Hap was called away. Marten watched him go, then turned and headed for the gate. A minute later he passed between the columns and looked back at the ancient wrought-iron sign above it.

Arbeit Macht Frei, Work Shall Make You Free.

The slogan had been the Nazis' idea of graveyard humor, yet aside from them, no one who saw it smiled much. But in his exhausted state the words crept through and touched Marten in an entirely unintended way, making him smile inwardly and shake his head at the irony of it.

It made him wonder if he still had a job.