The Cassandra Conspiracy Read online

  Across the street, the American finished counting and pressed the pushbutton. The remote transmitter sent a coded signal to the steel box hidden in the confines of the reception desk. The receiver’s microprocessor decoded the signal, matched it to the code stored in its memory, and released the solenoid. Once free, the spring‑loaded hammer detonated the primer of the twelve-gauge shotgun shell sending fifteen pieces of buckshot on their deadly journey.

  The girl was about to wish the patrón a good morning when a deafening roar permeated the lobby. First she thought it was a bomb, but she felt no pain and neither smoke nor debris filled the room. Then she knew–it was a gunshot.

  Ortega caught the deadly blast square in the chest. He staggered, clutching his paunch. Blood spurted from several holes, some low, others in his chest. His white dress shirt sprouted crimson flowers as blood seeped through the material.

  As Ortega crumbled to the floor, his bodyguards, unsure of where the shot came from, split off, covering all directions. Those in the lobby pointed their weapons at the receptionist, as she sat in stunned silence. They were sure the shot came from behind the desk, yet the girl sat there apparently too shaken to move. Her hands were empty; the bodyguards held their fire.

  Out on the street, Ortega’s guards searched the rooftops of the surrounding buildings, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one ran down the street, and there were no movements in any of the windows over the Calle San Cristobal. Inside his headquarters, a spreading pool of blood started underneath Ortega’s lifeless body and dribbled across the Italian marble floor.

  The American released his finger from the transmitter, and snatched up his pouch. Quickly, he glanced around the room, making sure that he had not left any trace of his presence. Then he checked the hall. So far Ortega’s henchmen hadn’t put it together, but it wouldn’t be long before they did. He left the room and went down the back stairs, heading for the rear entrance. His phantomlike movements would draw no attention to his departure. He would be well on his way back to the States before a real search for Ortega’s executioner began.

  Ortega had been a careful man. His only mistake had been the acquisition of his ultramodern Steiner Aeronautics security system–and the Committee controlled Steiner Aeronautics.

  . . . .

  September 11

  A few blocks from city hall, he parked the car, and then eased his six‑foot two‑inch frame out from behind the wheel. He had chosen the sedan because of its size. He knew that he’d be putting countless miles on it, and he wanted to be comfortable. He fished a quarter from his pocket and fed the parking meter.

  The nineteen thirties-style two-story building had seen better days, its façade old and cracking. He climbed the crazed concrete steps to the main entrance, where the two leaded glass doors had not yet given way to more contemporary replacements, and went inside.

  This was not his first trip. He had been there a week before, so he knew exactly how to reach his destination. He took the first left past the front corridor and walked down the hall to the Records Office, his footsteps echoed his coming. The local area was famous for its rock quarries, and he wondered if the marble for the floor had come from one of them. He entered the office, and then waited patiently for the young lady behind the counter to take notice of his arrival.

  The wood counter ran from the entrance all the way to the far wall. Three oak benches with ornately carved armrests stood empty along the front wall to his left. Given the size of the town and the surrounding county, he wondered what, if anything, could possibly fill the place with people. Behind the counter, row after row of file cabinets and steel shelving held the birth, marriage, and death records of the county’s inhabitants. From the date chiseled into the cornerstone, there was little doubt that those records dated back to the First World War, and quite possibly to the late eighteen hundreds when the township was first incorporated.

  The bastion guarding the town’s history was a woman who appeared to be in her mid‑twenties. She had meticulously applied her makeup; a light shade of lipstick provided additional color. Her auburn hair was pulled back in a neat bun. She wore a two‑piece professional looking suit with a white silk blouse. Eager to be of service, she rose quickly from her desk. She was exactly as he had expected. He knew that she had taken over the responsibilities of maintaining the town’s records after the spinster, who had held the job for some thirty-odd years had retired less than a month ago. Unconsciously, she smoothed her skirt over her knees then headed toward him.

  He was a good-looking man, with sharp, angular features. His dark hair had been neatly brushed back. From a distance, she thought that he might be a bit overweight. Upon second glance, there didn’t appear to be an ounce of fat on the man.

  “May I help you?” she asked. Other than routine requests from her neighbors, this was her first real customer. She could smell his cologne over her lightly scented perfume. It smelled masculine, arrogant, possibly intoxicating.

  “Good morning. I’d like a copy of my birth certificate,” he said.

  This was her first month in her new position as records clerk. When she took over the job, there was so little time for orientation she found herself constantly referring to the list of procedures developed by her predecessor. Those tasks that she had to do every week or so, like recording a birth, marriage, or death, she had down pat. This, however, was something new, and she wasn’t about to mess it up–not so early in her career.

  As she looked at his face, her eyes locked on to his gaze. Embarrassed, she tried to break the lock between her eyes and his, but she was powerless to do so. His eyes pierced her heart like a dagger. Just before her dilemma became uncomfortable, the stranger smiled profusely. Shaken, she wanted to get back to business.

  Returning his smile, she asked, “Do you have any identification?”

  He reached into his wallet and removed his Virginia driver's license, handing it over. “This is all I've got,” he answered smoothly. She detected a note of concern in his voice. “It’ll be fine, sir. When were you born?”

  “Nineteen fifty‑six, September 22 to be exact.” He flashed his big smile at her again. He needed to put her at ease.

  “I’ll take care of this right now,” she said taking the driver’s license back to the Xerox machine. The scent of his cologne followed her back to her desk. Too bad he wasn’t from the area. The available men in town, some of whom she had dated, were content to live life from one Friday night to the next as long as they had a case of beer in the fridge for the weekend.

  She glanced at the license, John Grant, no middle initial. She removed a large, bound book from the voluminous tomes that filled the floor to ceiling shelves on one side of the room. She paged through it, quickly locating the record of birth. From her desk drawer she took an official birth certificate form, and placed it in her typewriter. She glanced over at the counter, hoping that he wasn’t watching her. The stranger had turned and moved over to near the front window. No longer on edge, her fingers found the appropriate keys. Fortunately, other than filling in routine information such as the date of birth, place of birth, and parents’ names, there really wasn’t much to do. She finished typing, removed the form from the typewriter, got up, and walked back to the counter.

  “Here you go. That’ll be twenty‑five dollars,” she said handing him the certificate and an envelope, conscious of the touch when his hand met hers.

  He removed two ten-dollar bills and a five from his wallet, and then passed them across the counter. “Thanks a lot for the help.”

  Smiling, he left the office and made his way back down the musty corridors of the town hall, and out into the sunshine. He walked up the street to his car, got in, and backed out of the parking space. Once out of town, he followed the road signs directing him back to Interstate 81, entered the highway taking the southbound ramp, and merged back into the stream of obscure cars and equally anonymous souls.

  . . . .

  The church, designed in 1704, was p
atterned after an old Bohemian one. Its well‑pointed brick façade had withstood the ravages of time and the weather, owing to the care the church received from its parishioners. The church spire stood directly over the oval main entrance, and served as a constant reminder to the members of the parish to live their lives in concert with the Lord’s commandments.

  The twin white doors in front opened directly into the nave, where two aisles led through the chancel and up to the sanctuary trisecting the rows of pews. Along the middle of one exterior wall, a brick chimney rose over a fireplace. Long ago abandoned in favor of a modern oil‑fired furnace, the hearth no longer provided heat to those kneeling in prayer.

  On both sides of the church, large, arched windows, framed by black shutters, accentuated the period architecture. During the hot summer months, the windows remained open during Sunday services. Other than the occasional chirp of a bird, only the prayers of the congregation permeated the surrounding hills and valleys.

  On the church’s south side, surrounded by a three-foot-high stonewall, stood the cemetery. Less a bulwark than a symbolic boundary line, the wall delineated the world of the living from that of the dead. Gravestones dating back to the mid‑seventeen hundreds stood in a pattern long ago sacrificed in favor of the best use of the limited space. Some were quite large, commensurate with their owner’s pocketbooks, while others were more modest. Most of the headstones were chiseled from granite brought from local quarries. The names of the dearly departed along with the dates of their passage on earth were etched deeply into the stone–as if the depth of the inscription could somehow reflect the family’s pain.

  On the older stones, the weather and the ravages of time had tried feebly to erase the records of birth and death. Here the inscriptions almost blended into the face of the stone. On the newer stones, the names of the deceased stood in stark contrast to the chalky white face of the stone. Engraved on a highly polished black marble stone was the name “John Grant” followed by the dates “September 22, 1956, to August 31, 1957.”

  Part One

  CHAPTER 1

  September 25

  The chauffeur‑driven Cadillac limousine slowed almost to a stop outside the tall, black wrought-iron gate. A complex steel framework, hidden underground, firmly secured three motorized retractable steel pylons in such a manner that anyone attempting to ram their way through the gate in anything short of a tractor trailer would never make it. After terrorists ran the security gauntlet at the Beirut Marine barracks in a truck laden with explosives, security became an issue in the nation’s capital. To protect against such an attack, large concrete “planters” stood along the entrances to key government installations. The White House Complex was no exception.

  Originally, the Secret Service’s Technical Security Division’s plan for enhanced security had excluded vehicle barriers. But right after the new intrusion detection system went operational, a borderline paranoid schizophrenic, cloaked in a dynamite‑laden vest, crashed through the gates. Luckily, then‑President Ford was not there at the time of the incident. Not faced with an imminent threat to the life of the President, the Secret Service brought in skilled hostage negotiators. As a result, the would‑be assassin lived. He was subsequently arrested and given a lengthy vacation at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, Washington’s leading mental institution. Nonetheless, the need for sophisticated vehicle barriers had become apparent.

  As the Cadillac drew to a stop, two members of the United States Secret Service’s Uniformed Division approached the car. The vehicle and its occupants had reached the first of two concentric circles protecting the President of the United States. The most visible are the men and women of the Uniformed Division; the plainclothes agents who surround the President make up the second, inner circle.

  “Sir, may I see your pass?” the officer requested politely. Looking beyond the driver and into the rear seat, he recognized the distinguished visitor from previous visits. Still, there was no guarantee that the well‑dressed man in the back of the limousine still possessed valid access to the Complex. The passenger pressed the “down” button, lowering his window. Through it, he handed the Uniformed Division officer his White House pass.

  The Complex had recently upgraded its electronic access control system. Until recently, the uniformed security personnel had to match the wearer to the photograph on the ID card, an approach with a few too many holes. There was always the chance that someone could counterfeit a badge or substitute a picture on the genuine article. The old system had been tested by the Secret Service and failed once too often. The new system was based on computer verification, and unlike people, the computers weren’t subject to a bad day.

  The UD officer took the pass and gave it a quick once over, checking the tamper seal. Then he compared the face of the man in rear seat against the computer‑generated color photo on the front of the credential. Same silver gray hair professionally coiffured, dark eyes, and patrician nose, sculptured face, all packaged in what had to be a two thousand dollar suit.

  Satisfied of its apparent authenticity, he inserted the badge into the credential verifier. A computer elsewhere in the Complex compared the credential’s ID number to a list stored in its memory. In milliseconds a match was obtained, and a verification signal was sent to the gatehouse. The man in the back of the limousine had passed the first stage of the screening process.

  The officer handed the passenger a wireless keypad similar to the ones used on telephones. The visitor to the Oval Office punched in several digits, his personal identification number. When he hit the “enter” button, a small transmitter in the base of the unit transmitted the data to a special radio receiver in the gatehouse. From there, the PIN was sent electronically by hardwire to the host computer for comparison. Only after obtaining a match would the computer allow the next stage of the identification process to begin.

  Finally, software operating the Workers and Visitors Enrollment System, WAVES, automatically cross‑checked the President's appointment schedule. The link verified that the visitor was scheduled to meet with the President today. When the automated system finished its three checks, a green light flashed on in the security cubicle. The system then displayed the visitor’s name and agency affiliation–in this case “CIV” for an unaffiliated civilian–on a small computer display in front of the officer at the West Executive Avenue entrance. The whole process took less than ten seconds.

  The security officer glanced at the display and then turned to the President's guest. “Have a good day, Mr. Wingate,” the officer said, handing the pass back to its owner. Nothing was said in response. Charles Wingate didn’t appreciate anything short of instant recognition–not even at the White House.

  Since the driver would also be entering the grounds, the officers checked his driver’s license against the information provided by the Secret Service’s Pass and ID Section. Once they verified the information, the UD officer directed him to park six spaces from the West Wing entrance, on the left side of the road.

  Before he returned to his post, the officer spoke again to the chauffeur. “Please remain with your vehicle. We have to check the car for explosives.” The driver nodded, acknowledging the request. Within minutes, a canine patrol consisting of the dog and his handler would go over the car. At all other entrances to the Complex, packages were checked for concealed weapons and explosives. On West Executive Avenue, where access was limited to high-level staff, members of the Cabinet, and VIPs, the Secret Service relied on canine patrols to screen for hidden explosives.

  A command from the gatehouse lowered the three pylons into the ground. Once they were flush with the road surface, the gates were opened and the limousine allowed to enter. The Cadillac pulled into the Complex past some tourists who peered at the limousine, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever dignitary was in the car.

  Charles Wingate III didn’t wait for his driver to come around to open his door, but got out of the car and made his way quickly under the green awning portico and ov
er to the West Wing’s lower level entrance. Wingate knew his way around the White House. Since his friend Daniel Varrick had been elected to the presidency, he had been there on many occasions, some business, others social.

  At the top of the steps, he encountered two plainclothes Secret Service agents. He knew the closer he got to the hallowed office, the heavier security would be. Wingate walked through a wooden portico that housed special weapon detection equipment, and toward the agents, smiling as the agents’ eyes scrutinized the annunciator panel built into the desk. Everyone, despite position or rank, who sought an audience with the President of the United States, was surreptitiously screened before being allowed to enter the Oval Office.

  “The President will be with you in a minute, sir.” He recognized Wingate-code name “Stockman”-as one of the President's oldest and most trusted friends and advisors. Wingate exuded an aura of power that seemed to equalize, if not dwarf, that of the Oval Office.

  His ego mollified, Wingate smiled. “Thank you.” A few minutes later, the President's secretary came out to escort him into the Oval Office. Wingate followed the woman down the hall. He approached the door to the Oval Office and had started to knock, when it opened. Daniel Varrick stood there, a wide smile on his face.

  At slightly over six feet in height, Varrick wasn’t exceptionally tall. In spite of the Oval Office’s hectic schedule, Varrick had put on a few pounds, most likely the result of too many state dinners. At his first inauguration, Varrick’s hair had been peppered with gray. Now, well into his second term, the gray was winning the battle. The President wore a charcoal-colored Armani suit, pale blue shirt, and dark gray tie accented by light blue stripes.