Transfer of Power

WASHINGTON, D.C. WAS a city, a federal district, and most notably, the capital of the United States of America. The originally square geographic area was located at the confluence of the Potomac and anacostia Rivers and was bordered by Maryland on three sides and Virginia to the southwest. Founded in 1790 and originally called the Federal City and District of Columbia, after Christopher Columbus, the city was later renamed by Congress for the nation’s first president.

Because the city’s four corners pointed in the four directions of the compass, it was conveniently split up into quadrants.

The southeast quadrant was by far the most economically deprived. The heart of the area was the neighborhood ofanacostia. This violent portion of Washington accounted for more than half of the city’s annual murders and was literally a war zone in the shadow of the nation’s Capitol.

On the top floor of a rat-infested tenement building in the heart ofanacostia, a man with bleached white hair and a fresh set of tattoos worked diligently as the clock approached midnight.

The building was largely deserted, except for some drug addicts who used the lower floors to trade sex, stolen property, and sometimes even cash for their mood-altering chemical of choice. The building had been chosen by the group because the police rarely patrolled the area, out of fear for their own safety.

In the grungy apartment on the fifth floor the windows had been covered with three-quarter-inch plywood-the sturdy boards bolted into the window frames making them impossible to kick in. The door had also been reinforced with two-by-fours and plywood, and a series of new locks had been installed. Inside the room two motion sensors, mounted in opposite corners, had ensured the room’s integrity for almost two weeks.

Rafique Aziz had ordered the white-haired man sitting on the folding chair to find the safe house almost five months ago, but Aziz had been adamant about waiting until the last possible moment to set it up. They did not want to attract too much attention. The man sitting in the dirty apartment was Salim Rusan, the same man who, for the last six months, had been an inconspicuous bellman at the Washington Hotel, the same man who had taken aim with his SVD sniper rifle at the Secret Service just yesterday.

Rusan was no longer an inconspicuous individual. Thanks to the FBI, his employee photo from the hotel had been splashed all over television and every newspaper in the country.

That was why Rusan had not seen daylight since walking into this apartment the morning before last. It had all been predicted by Aziz.

The group’s leader had been explicit about every detail before the raid on the White House, and that is why he had given Rusan only two ten-round magazines. Aziz had other plans for Rusan, and he wanted him far away from the White House when the police and the FBI showed up.

After Rusan had fired all twenty of his rounds, he had left the Soviet-made sniping rifle right there on the balcony overlooking the White House and fled the building by a staircase.

When he made it to the street, he proceeded two blocks to the Metro Center stop at Twelfth and IF Street and caught the first southbound train. Ten minutes later he was walking through the slums of Anacostia, his hotel uniform replaced with a Chicago Bulls hat and a leather jacket. Everything had been waiting for Rusan when he arrived.

The copious amount of rat droppings and cobwebs had been cleaned up, and the apartment was stocked with everything he needed. Most of the supplies had been bought at the REI store in Bailey’s Crossroads, Virginia. It was paid for in cash. The recreational equipment included a cot, a sleeping bag, several folding chairs, two tables, and some cooking equipment, all of it designed for campers. A battery-powered generator purred in the corner and provided juice for a small TV, a radio, a police scanner, and several lights. Two red Coleman coolers contained enough food and water to last him at least five days, but he doubted he would use all of it. Tomorrow morning he would venture back out into public and sow the seeds for a special surprise.

Rusan looked at his watch and then the cot. He had done everything Aziz had told him to do. He had shaved off his entire beard, with the exception of his mustache and goatee.

With a pair of clippers, he had buzzed his hair to within a half inch of his scalp and then bleached it until it was white. Next came the bleaching of the facial hair and eyebrows and then the pierced right ear. That was the difficult part, working backward in the mirror and then trying to stop the blood after he had shoved the needle through the earlobe. The finishing touch was a series of fake tattoos, the most conspicuous, an upside-down pink triangle on his right biceps with the words “Queer Nation” emblazoned underneath. Rusan was not completely comfortable with the disguise. He hated homosexuals, but it had not been his idea; it was Aziz’s. And when Aziz gave an order, it was best to follow it.

Rusan had one task to perform before he left the apartment in the morning. Looking at his watch, he debated whether he should take care of it now or get some sleep first.

As he fingered the blocks of explosive Semtex and the box of detonators sitting on the other side of the table, he decided to wait until morning. He would sleep better knowing the bombs were unarmed.