Transfer of Power

AZIZ PLACED HIS hand on the doorknob and nodded to Bengazi. Bengazi took up a position opposite Aziz and signaled that he was ready. When Aziz opened the door, Bengazi swung his rifle and half of his body into the now open space. Bengazi looked down at the expansive room from a slightly elevated position. A small grated metal landing was just on the other side of the door, and three steps led from the landing down to the stark concrete floor of the boiler room. One dim light off to the left provided minimal lighting. After Bengazi looked from one side of the room to the other, he checked on both sides of the doorframe for more light switches. After coming up empty, he spotted a group of four switches at the bottom of the grated steps. Bengazi moved down the steps and slapped all four switches up with the palm of his hand. The room lit up with powerful overhead lamps.

Aziz stepped onto the landing and surveyed the room, his MP-5 gripped in both hands. He nodded for Bengazi to move out ahead while he slowly came down the steps. Neither man spoke. Bengazi had known Aziz long enough to recognize when he was spooked.

Aziz did not know exactly what he was looking for. As he peered around the room, he wondered if he wasn’t being overly paranoid. There had been very little time for sleep over the last week, and his nerves were getting raw. The truth, however, was that it is impossible to be too paranoid when dealing with the CIA. He should have thought of this possibility earlier, but so much had changed from the original plan. It was a grave oversight on his part. He had been thinking of too many things and spreading himself too thin, but he was focused now.

Nothing mattered more than getting his hands on the president, and if that meant sacrificing some of his assets to secure this area of the basement, it was a gamble that was well worth it.

As Aziz moved across the room, a good ten paces behind Bengazi, his eyes searched the floor for any type of drain, grate, or pipe. While he looked, he wondered how big the sewer pipe must have been in Amsterdam.

Not any pipe would do; it would have to be big, and he doubted that anything big enough to support a human would be running into the “White House.

Aziz was looking under one of the large boilers when he heard a soft whistle from Bengazi. Standing up straight, he looked over to his man, who was standing with one finger over his lips and the barrel of his rifle pointing up.

Aziz stood with his neck craned upward, watching the metal duct that ran from the wall diagonally across the room to some large piece of equipment. Listening intently, he focused everything on the duct. After a short while he thought he saw something, a glimmer off the lights, a buckle in the metal.

Aziz’s brow furrowed. Again he saw something, some type of movement.

Aziz stepped from his cover to get a closer look.

Some twenty feet away Bengazi shook his head at him and tried to wave him back. Aziz ignored him and continued to approach the duct. Finally, when he was directly under the structure, he heard the noise. It sounded like a rat moving behind the walls of an old building. Something was definitely in the duct.

Aziz looked behind him and took several steps back, putting himself in direct line with the length of the duct.

Then, raising his MP-5, he sighted in on part of the duct that protruded from the wall. With the butt of the rifle squeezed tightly between his right shoulder and cheek, he depressed the trigger and unleashed a volley of automatic fire, the heavy rounds slicing through the thin metal with ease.

Nine rounds were fired in total, the noise from the shots careening off the concrete floors and walls, leaving the ears of Aziz and Bengazi ringing. The smell of spent rounds filled the air, and a cluster of shell casings rolled aimlessly about the floor near Aziz’s feet.

Aziz did not move. He stood his ground with his rifle still pointed at the duct, his eyes fixed on the straight line of bullet holes he had just laced into the thin metal. At first there was nothing, no movement and no noise other than the ringing of the shots that had been fired, and then, out of one of the holes, something dark beaded into a droplet and after an eternity it broke free. Both Aziz and Bengazi watched it fall to the ground. The drop hit the gray concrete floor and splashed into a spidered crimson pattern. Without hesitation, both Aziz and Bengazi stepped back and opened up on the duct with a relentless hail of bullets.