Abuse of Power - Michael Savage [132]
“All right,” Jack said, checking his watch. “We don’t have much time. Tony, meet me in that corridor in three minutes.”
“Will do,” Tony acknowledged.
Jack turned to head back toward the rotunda. As he did, a voice sang out behind him.
“Well, well, if it isn’t the illustrious Mr. Hatfield.”
Jack turned to find Special Agent Carl Forsyth approaching him from the courtyard—the agent who had tried very hard to humiliate him at that FBI press conference several days ago.
Forsyth gestured to the courtyard behind him. “The President’s this way, Jack. Aren’t you headed in the wrong direction?”
Jack hesitated. “Bathroom break.”
Forsyth smiled. “Come on now, hotshot, we both know that isn’t true. You know what I think? I think you’re here to stir up trouble.”
Forsyth’s smile faded as two more special agents stepped up behind him, reaching into their jackets.
They didn’t look like they were there for the wine.
38
Even with the map it took Doc Matson a while to find the entry point.
Doc’s friend had only been able to give them a vague location and a couple of signposts. He’d told Doc that the real expert on the bunker was a woman named Tally Griffin, but she’d been out with a new boyfriend the last couple days and no one had seen or heard from her.
That didn’t sound good to Doc. A hunch told him the bad guys had found out about Tally, used her to get in, and didn’t want anyone to know.
So Doc did his best, using what little information he had, to lead Abernathy and Goldman down the cliff toward the water, and around an outcropping of rocks. The full moon helped, but finding the precise tree with the precise grouping of stones had not been easy, and Doc cursed the thought that this entire half-baked enterprise might be derailed by a tree that some piss-sniffing dog could find.
Now that he had time to think, he was probably crazy doing this in the first place. They all were. But Doc and Tony Antiniori went back a long way, and if you couldn’t count on your friends when your back was against the wall, who could you rely on? Besides, it had been a while since Doc had gotten an adrenaline shot like the last twenty-four hours, and a guy his age needed as much excitement as he could find.
They were a ragtag crew, the three of them, no question about it, and Doc kinda felt as if he were a refugee from some Sylvester Stallone movie. Only this was real life, and if they were right about what was going on in those tunnels they wouldn’t be facing Hollywood special effects but real, honest-to-God Muslim fanatics, with real, honest-to-God firepower.
But Doc had lived a long, fruitful life and had fought many wars in the defense of his country. If today was the day he finally gave his life for that cause, so be it. His only real family was Tony and these two guys, so he couldn’t think of better company to do it in.
After further exploration they found the tree with the three stones in front of it. The largest stone had already been moved, and there, under the beam of Doc’s Mini Maglite, was a crevice in the ground that left no doubt that they’d found what they were looking for.
Time to get to it.
They had decided to travel light for easy maneuverability, so they each carried only handguns—Abernathy with his SIG 9 mil, Goldman sporting a Smith & Wesson .45, and Doc carrying his usual Beretta 92FS Semi-Auto 9mm.
Doc shimmied in through the crevice first, taking a short drop into the darkness and landing on a cement floor. He stood there for a moment, listening for any sounds, but the place was as silent as a tomb. Flashing his light toward the opening, he waited as Abernathy and Goldman shimmied through and dropped, then shone his beam toward the rebar ladder that led down a shaft to their right.
Goldman took the lead this time, hopping onto the ladder and working his way down, and a moment later they were all standing in one of the massive corridors that Doc had called home as a naïve, eager eighteen-year-old, for the first six months of his military career. Except