Deception Point Read online

  expected. Delta-Two maneuvered the microbot away from the conversation and flew it back to its hiding place. He parked the tiny device undetected near the cylinder of an electric generator. The PH2's power cells immediately began recharging for the next mission.

  6

  Rachel Sexton's thoughts were lost in the morning's bizarre developments as her PaveHawk transport tore across the morning sky, and it was not until the helicopter rocketed out across Chesapeake Bay that she realized they were heading in entirely the wrong direction. The initial flash of confusion instantly gave way to trepidation.

  "Hey!" she yelled to the pilot. "What are you doing?" Her voice was barely audible over the rotors. "You're supposed to be taking me to the White House!"

  The pilot shook his head. "Sorry, ma'am. The President is not at the White House this morning."

  Rachel tried to remember if Pickering had specifically mentioned the White House or whether she had simply assumed. "So where is the President?"

  "Your meeting with him is elsewhere."

  No shit. "Where elsewhere?"

  "Not far now."

  "That's not what I asked."

  "Sixteen more miles."

  Rachel scowled at him. This guy should be a politician. "Do you dodge bullets as well as you dodge questions?"

  The pilot did not answer.

  It took less than seven minutes for the chopper to cross the Chesapeake. When land was in sight again, the pilot banked north and skirted a narrow peninsula, where Rachel saw a series of runways and military-looking buildings. The pilot dropped down toward them, and Rachel then realized what this place was. The six launchpads and charred rocket towers were a good clue, but if that was not enough, the roof of one of the buildings had been painted with two enormous words: WALLOPS ISLAND.

  Wallops Island was one of NASA's oldest launch sites. Still used today for satellite launches and testing of experimental aircraft, Wallops was NASA's base away from the spotlight.

  The President is at Wallops Island? It made no sense.

  The chopper pilot aligned his trajectory with a series of three runways that ran the length of the narrow peninsula. They seemed to be heading for the far end of the center runway.

  The pilot began to slow. "You will be meeting the President in his office."

  Rachel turned, wondering if the guy was joking. "The President of the United States has an office on Wallops Island?"

  The pilot looked dead serious. "The President of the United States has an office wherever he likes, ma'am."

  He pointed toward the end of the runway. Rachel saw the mammoth shape glistening in the distance, and her heart almost stopped. Even at three hundred yards, she recognized the light blue hull of the modified 747.

  "I'm meeting him aboard the… "

  "Yes, ma'am. His home away from home."

  Rachel stared out at the massive aircraft. The military's cryptic designation for this prestigious plane was VC-25-A, although the rest of the world knew it by another name: Air Force One.

  "Looks like you're in the new one this morning," the pilot said, motioning to the numbers on the plane's tail fin.

  Rachel nodded blankly. Few Americans knew that there were actually two Air Force Ones in service — a pair of identical, specially configured 747-200-Bs, one with the tail number 28000 and the other 29000. Both planes had cruising speeds of 600 mph and had been modified for in-flight refueling, giving them virtually unlimited range.

  As the PaveHawk settled onto the runway beside the President's plane, Rachel now understood the references to Air Force One being the commander-in-chief's "portable home court advantage." The machine was an intimidating sight.

  When the President flew to other countries to meet heads of state, he often requested — for security purposes — that the meeting take place on the runway aboard his jet. Although some of the motives were security, certainly another incentive was to gain a negotiating edge through raw intimidation. A visit to Air Force One was far more intimidating than any trip to the White House. The six-foot-high letters along the fuselage trumpeted "UNITED STATES OF AMERICA." A female English cabinet member had once accused President Nixon of "waving his manhood in her face" when he asked her to join him aboard Air Force One. Later the crew jokingly nicknamed the plane "Big Dick."

  "Ms. Sexton?" A blazer-clad Secret Serviceman materialized outside the chopper and opened the door for her. "The President is waiting for you."

  Rachel got out of the chopper and gazed up the steep gangway at the bulging hull. Into the flying phallus. She had once heard the flying "Oval Office" had over four thousand square feet of interior floor space, including four separate private sleeping quarters, berths for a twenty-six-member flight crew, and two galleys capable of providing food for fifty people.

  Climbing the stairway, Rachel felt the Secret Serviceman on her heels, urging her upward. High above, the cabin door stood open like a tiny puncture wound on the side of a gargantuan silver whale. She moved toward the darkened entryway and felt her confidence starting to ebb.

  Easy, Rachel. It's just a plane.

  On the landing, the Secret Serviceman politely took her arm and guided her into a surprisingly narrow corridor. They turned right, walked a short distance, and emerged into a luxurious and spacious cabin. Rachel immediately recognized it from photographs.

  "Wait here," the serviceman said, and he disappeared.

  Rachel stood alone in Air Force One's famous wood-paneled fore cabin. This was the room used for meetings, entertaining dignitaries, and, apparently, for scaring the hell out of first-time passengers. The room spanned the entire width of the plane, as did its thick tan carpeting. The furnishings were impeccable — cordovan leather armchairs around a bird's-eye maple meeting table, burnished brass floor lamps beside a continental sofa, and hand-etched crystal glassware on a mahogany wet bar.

  Supposedly, Boeing designers had carefully laid out this fore cabin to provide passengers with "a sense of order mixed with tranquility." Tranquility, however, was the last thing Rachel Sexton was feeling at the moment. The only thing she could think of was the number of world leaders who had sat in this very room and made decisions that shaped the world.

  Everything about this room said power, from the faint aroma of fine pipe tobacco to the ubiquitous presidential seal. The eagle clasping the arrows and olive branches was embroidered on throw pillows, carved into the ice bucket, and even printed on the cork coasters on the bar. Rachel picked up a coaster and examined it.

  "Stealing souvenirs already?" a deep voice asked behind her.

  Startled, Rachel wheeled, dropping the coaster on the floor. She knelt awkwardly to retrieve it. As she grasped the coaster, she turned to see the President of the United States gazing down at her with an amused grin.

  "I'm not royalty, Ms. Sexton. There's really no need to kneel."

  7

  Senator Sedgewick Sexton savored the privacy of his Lincoln stretch limousine as it snaked through Washington's morning traffic toward his office. Across from him, Gabrielle Ashe, his twenty-four-year-old personal assistant, read him his daily schedule. Sexton was barely listening.

  I love Washington, he thought, admiring the assistant's perfect shape beneath her cashmere sweater. Power is the greatest aphrodisiac of all… and it brings women like this to D.C. in droves.

  Gabrielle was a New York Ivy Leaguer with dreams of being a senator herself one day. She'll make it too, Sexton thought. She was incredible-looking and sharp as a whip. Above all, she understood the rules of the game.

  Gabrielle Ashe was black, but her tawny coloring was more of a deep cinnamon or mahogany, the kind of comfortable in-between that Sexton knew bleeding heart "whites" could endorse without feeling like they were giving away the farm. Sexton described Gabrielle to his cronies as Halle Berry's looks with Hillary Clinton's brains and ambition, although sometimes he thought even that was an understatement.

  Gabrielle had been a tremendous asset to his campaign since he'd promot
ed her to his personal campaign assistant three months ago. And to top it all off, she was working for free. Her compensation for a sixteen-hour workday was learning the ropes in the trenches with a seasoned politician.

  Of course, Sexton gloated, I've persuaded her to do a bit more than just work. After promoting Gabrielle, Sexton had invited her to a late night "orientation session" in his private office. As expected, his young assistant arrived starstruck and eager to please. With a slow-moving patience mastered over decades, Sexton worked his magic… building up Gabrielle's trust, carefully stripping away her inhibitions, exhibiting tantalizing control, and finally seducing her right there in his office.

  Sexton had little doubt the encounter had been one of the most sexually gratifying experiences of the young woman's life, and yet, in the light of the day, Gabrielle clearly regretted the indiscretion. Embarrassed, she offered to resign. Sexton refused. Gabrielle stayed on, but she made her intentions very clear. The relationship had been strictly business ever since.

  Gabrielle's pouty lips were still moving. "… don't want you to be lackadaisical going into this CNN debate this afternoon. We still don't know who the White House is sending as opposition. You'll want to peruse these notes I typed." She handed him a folder.

  Sexton took the folder, savoring the scent of her perfume mixed with the plush leather seats.

  "You aren't listening," she said.

  "Certainly am." He grinned. "Forget about this CNN debate. Worst case scenario, the White House snubs me by sending some low-level campaign intern. Best case scenario, they send a bigwig, and I eat him for lunch."

  Gabrielle frowned. "Fine. I've included a list of the most probable hostile topics in your notes."

  "The usual suspects no doubt."

  "With one new entry. I think you might face some hostile backlash from the gay community for your comments last night on Larry King."

  Sexton shrugged, barely listening. "Right. The same-sex marriage thing."

  Gabrielle gave him a disapproving look. "You did come out against it pretty strongly."

  Same-sex marriages, Sexton thought in disgust. If it were up to me, the faggots wouldn't even have the right to vote. "Okay, I'll turn it down a notch."

  "Good. You've been pushing the envelope a bit on some of these hot topics lately. Don't get cocky. The public can turn in an instant. You're gaining now, and you have momentum. Just ride it out. There's no need to hit the ball out of the park today. Just keep it in play."

  "Any news from the White House?"

  Gabrielle looked pleasantly baffled. "Continued silence. It's official; your opponent has become the 'Invisible Man.'"

  Sexton could barely believe his good fortune lately. For months, the President had been working hard on the campaign trail. Then suddenly, a week ago, he had locked himself in the Oval Office, and nobody had seen or heard from him since. It was as if the President simply could not face Sexton's groundswell of voter support.

  Gabrielle ran a hand through her straightened black hair. "I hear the White House campaign staff is as confused as we are. The President is offering no explanation for his vanishing act, and everyone over there is furious."

  "Any theories?" Sexton asked.

  Gabrielle gazed at him over her scholarly glasses. "As it turns out, I got some interesting data this morning from a contact of mine in the White House."

  Sexton recognized the look in her eyes. Gabrielle Ashe had scored some insider information again. Sexton wondered if she were giving some presidential aide backseat blow jobs in exchange for campaign secrets. Sexton didn't care… so long as the information kept coming.

  "Rumor has it," his assistant said, lowering her voice, "the President's strange behavior all started last week after an emergency private briefing with the administrator of NASA. Apparently the President emerged from the meeting looking dazed. He immediately cleared his schedule, and he's been in close contact with NASA ever since."

  Sexton certainly liked the sound of that. "You think maybe NASA delivered some more bad news?"

  "Seems a logical explanation," she said hopefully. "Although it would have to be pretty critical to make the President drop everything."

  Sexton considered it. Obviously, whatever was going on with NASA had to be bad news. Otherwise the President would throw it in my face. Sexton had been pounding the President pretty hard on NASA funding lately. The space agency's recent string of failed missions and gargantuan budget overruns had earned NASA the dubious honor of becoming Sexton's unofficial poster child against big government overspending and inefficiency. Admittedly, attacking NASA — one of the most prominent symbols of American pride — was not the way most politicians would think of winning votes, but Sexton had a weapon few other politicians had — Gabrielle Ashe. And her impeccable instincts.

  The savvy young woman had come to Sexton's attention several months ago when she was working as a coordinator in Sexton's Washington campaign office. With Sexton trailing badly in the primary polls and his message of government overspending falling on deaf ears, Gabrielle Ashe wrote him a note suggesting a radical new campaign angle. She told the senator he should attack NASA's huge budget overruns and continued White House bailouts as the quintessential example of President Herney's careless overspending.

  "NASA is costing Americans a fortune," Gabrielle wrote, including a list of financial figures, failures, and bailouts. "Voters have no idea. They would be horrified. I think you should make NASA a political issue."

  Sexton groaned at her naivete. "Yeah, and while I'm at it, I'll rail against singing the national anthem at baseball games."

  In the weeks that followed, Gabrielle continued to send information about NASA across the senator's desk. The more Sexton read, the more he realized this young Gabrielle Ashe had a point. Even by government agency standards, NASA was an astounding money pit — expensive, inefficient, and, in recent years, grossly incompetent.

  One afternoon Sexton was doing an on-air interview about education. The host was pressing Sexton about where he would find funding for his promised overhaul of public schools. In response, Sexton decided to test Gabrielle's NASA theory with a half-joking response. "Money for education?" he said. "Well, maybe I'll cut the space program in half. I figure if NASA can spend fifteen billion a year in space, I should be able to spend seven and a half billion on the kids here on earth."

  In the transmission booth, Sexton's campaign managers gasped in horror at the careless remark. After all, entire campaigns had been sunk by far less than taking a potshot at NASA. Instantly, the phone lines at the radio station lit up. Sexton's campaign managers cringed; the space patriots were circling for the kill.

  Then something unexpected happened.

  "Fifteen billion a year?" the first caller said, sounding shocked. "With a B? Are you telling me that my son's math class is overcrowded because schools can't afford enough teachers, and NASA is spending fifteen billion dollars a year taking pictures of space dust?"

  "Um… that's right," Sexton said warily.

  "Absurd! Does the President have the power to do something about that?"

  "Absolutely," Sexton replied, gaining confidence. "A President can veto the budget request of any agency he or she deems overfunded."

  "Then you have my vote, Senator Sexton. Fifteen billion for space research, and our kids don't have teachers. It's outrageous! Good luck, sir. I hope you go all the way."

  The next caller came on the line. "Senator, I just read that NASA's International Space Station is way overbudget and the President is thinking of giving NASA emergency funding to keep the project going. Is that true?"

  Sexton jumped at this one. "True!" He explained that the space station was originally proposed as a joint venture, with twelve countries sharing the costs. But after construction began, the station's budget spiraled wildly out of control, and many countries dropped out in disgust. Rather than scrapping the project, the President decided to cover everyone's expenses. "Our cost for the ISS project," Sexton a
nnounced, "has risen from the proposed eight billion to a staggering one hundred billion dollars!"

  The caller sounded furious. "Why the hell doesn't the President pull the plug!"

  Sexton could have kissed the guy. "Damn good question. Unfortunately, one third of the building supplies are already in orbit, and the President spent your tax dollars putting them there, so pulling the plug would be admitting he made a multibillion-dollar blunder with your money."

  The calls kept coming. For the first time, it seemed Americans were waking up to the idea that NASA was an option — not a national fixture.

  When the show was over, with the exception of a few NASA diehards calling in with poignant overtures about man's eternal quest for knowledge, the consensus was in: Sexton's campaign had stumbled onto the holy grail of campaigning — a new "hot button" — a yet untapped controversial issue that struck a nerve with voters.

  In the weeks that followed, Sexton trounced his opponents in five crucial primaries. He announced Gabrielle Ashe as his new personal campaign assistant, praising her for her work in bringing the NASA issue to the voters. With the wave of a hand, Sexton had made a young African-American woman a rising political star, and the issue of his racist and sexist voting record disappeared overnight.

  Now, as they sat together in the limousine, Sexton knew Gabrielle had yet again proven her worth. Her new information about last week's secret meeting between the NASA administrator and the President certainly suggested more NASA troubles were brewing — perhaps another country pulling funding from the space station.

  As the limousine passed the Washington Monument, Senator Sexton could not help but feel he had been anointed by destiny.

  8

  Despite having ascended to the most powerful political office in the world, President Zachary Herney was average in height, with a slender build and narrow shoulders. He had a freckled face, bifocals, and thinning black hair. His unimposing physique, however, stood in stark contrast to the almost princely love the man commanded from those who knew him. It was said that if you met Zach Herney once, you would walk to the ends of the earth for him.

  "So glad you could make it," President Herney said, reaching out to shake Rachel's hand. His grasp was warm and sincere.

  Rachel fought the frog in her throat. "Of… course, Mr. President. An honor to meet you."

  The President gave her a comforting grin, and Rachel sensed firsthand the legendary Herney affability. The man possessed an easygoing countenance political cartoonists loved because no matter how skewed a rendition they drew, no one ever mistook the man's effortless warmth and amiable smile. His eyes mirrored sincerity and dignity at all times.

  "If you follow me," he said in a cheery voice, "I've got a cup of coffee with your name on it."

  "Thank you, sir."

  The President pressed the intercom and called for some coffee in his office.

  As Rachel followed the President through the plane, she could not help but notice that he looked extremely happy and well-rested for a man who was down in the polls. He was also very casually dressed — blue jeans, a polo shirt, and L.L. Bean hiking boots.

  Rachel tried to make conversation. "Doing… some hiking, Mr. President?"

  "Not at all. My campaign advisers have decided this should be my new look. What do you think?"

  Rachel hoped for his sake that he wasn't serious. "It's very… um… manly, sir."

  Herney was deadpan. "Good. We're thinking it will help me win back some of the women's vote from your father." After a beat, the President broke into a broad smile. "Ms. Sexton, that was a joke. I think we both know I'll need more than a polo shirt and blue jeans to win this election."

  The President's openness and good humor were quickly evaporating any tension Rachel felt about being there. What this President lacked in physical brawn, he more than made up for in diplomatic rapport. Diplomacy was about people skills, and Zach Herney had the gift.

  Rachel followed the President toward the back of the plane. The deeper they went, the less the interior resembled a plane — curved hallways, wallpapered walls, even an exercise room complete with StairMaster and rowing machine. Oddly, the plane seemed almost entirely deserted.

  "Traveling alone, Mr. President?"

  He shook his head. "Just landed, actually."

  Rachel was surprised. Landed from where? Her intel briefs this week had included nothing about presidential travel plans. Apparently he was using Wallops Island to travel quietly.