Murder in Foggy Bottom - Margaret Truman [19]
“Mike, the president wants you,” an aide said after answering a phone.
“Keep things moving,” McQuaid said.
He was ushered into the Oval Office, where Anthony Cammanati paced.
“Everyone in the loop?” Cammanati asked. National Security Advisor Cammanati was a squarely built man with heavy black eyebrows and a permanently creased, broad forehead. His physical appearance, including his navy-blue suit, white shirt, and tie, set him apart from the fair-skinned, redheaded, slender, casually dressed McQuaid.
“In the works,” McQuaid replied.
Both men straightened as Lawrence Ashmead, president of the United States, entered the room. The door was closed behind him and he went directly to his desk. As usual, he was in shirtsleeves, wide, red suspenders, and a nondescript blue tie. Ashmead was known as a hands-on president, less statesmanlike and presidential than his predecessor. To a fault, some on his staff felt: He’d been governor of Missouri before capturing the White House, and ran things too much like a governor, micromanaging rather than viewing the proverbial larger picture. But he was liked and respected by most; those who’d ended up on the receiving end of a sizable temper were the exception.
He looked at McQuaid and Cammanati with probing eyes. “So, tell me,” he said.
McQuaid brought him up to speed on the three aviation accidents, using half-formed sentences, the bulleted approach he knew Ashmead preferred.
“… spoken with all the involved agencies, Mr. President. Vice Chairman Poe at NTSB confirms two eyewitness claims—missiles hitting the planes, California and New York—but no tangible evidence. The lead investigator…” he consulted his notes “… Peter Mullin— they found metal fragments at the New York scene that could have come from a missile—on their way to the Pentagon for analysis. FBI agents on the scene in New York confirm the eyewitness account.”
“Confirm it! It was a missile?”
“No, sir, sorry. They confirm that the New York eyewitness claims he saw a missile hit the aircraft.”
“What about Idaho?”
“No eyewitnesses there, sir.”
“What’s the possible link between them?” Ashmead asked, more of himself than the others. “If those three planes were shot down by missiles, there has to be a reason. Who was on them?”
“We don’t have passenger lists yet, sir,” McQuaid said. “They’re being officially withheld until next of kin are notified. We’re working with the airlines.”
“Government officials on the planes? Businessmen from the same industry? Scientists? Mobsters in witness protection? Somebody with a new insurance policy for a couple of million? Christ, people don’t target three planes in three different parts of the country—and on the same day—unless there’s some common denominator.”
“We’ll know more when we have passenger names and backgrounds, Mr. President.”
“How much of the missile theory has gotten out?”
“The press? The FBI and NTSB are keeping a lid on the eyewitnesses, but it’s already been leaked.”
“How? Where?”
“CNN. They went with the rumor story ten minutes ago.”
“How’d they get it?”
Shrugs from McQuaid and Cammanati.
Ashmead punched a button on his phone: “Send Chris in here.”
A minute later Ashmead’s press secretary, Chris Targa, entered.
“What’s being reported on the aviation accidents?” the president asked.
“It’s the lead story, Mr. President. No surprise, with three commercial planes down the same morning. Got to be a first.”
Cammanati started to ask something of Targa but stopped.
“The missile theory,” Ashmead filled in, not prone to keeping things from his press secretary as were other