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Senator David Snyder picked up the phone on the first ring, just as he had when it had softly rung hours earlier around midnight. Outside, a steady rain drummed against the windows of his Georgetown town house.
Looking carefully to see if the figure next to him showed any signs of stirring, he spoke quietly into the phone. “Yes?”
“Senator, it’s Zuschnitt. I-”
“Zuschnitt? Jesus Christ. Hold on a second. I can’t take this call here.”
Senator Snyder pressed the hold button of the black Sony phone on the oriental nightstand next to his bed. Very carefully, he slid out of bed. He put on a white Turkish bathrobe, a pair of Dunhill slippers, and made sure to close the bedroom door behind him as he left the room.
Snyder tapped the switch of the ornate chandelier that illuminated the gently curving staircase. Heavy clouds and steadily falling rain made the morning darker than it normally would be.
At the bottom of the stairs, he crossed a marble entry hall and opened the front door to retrieve his morning papers. Wrapped in plastic were copies of The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, USA Today, and The International Herald Tribune. Even though his aides would clip any relevant articles for him at the office, he liked to get a jump on the day’s news while he was still at home.
Shuffling into his study, he could make out the headlines on several of the papers through the plastic sleeves. They all said more or less the same thing: “Utah Avalanche. President Missing. Feared Dead.” Snyder turned on the bank of television monitors in his office, which showed studio newscasters in suits speaking to reporters in the field who were garbed in heavy winter parkas with the brightly colored logos of their respective networks prominently displayed. The sets were muted, yet Snyder could tell the reports were coming from the site of the president’s ski vacation and the avalanche. It was the biggest story in the country, if not the world.
He dropped his cord of newspapers on the couch next to the fireplace and pushed the on switch of the Heat-N-Glo remote. The fireplace crackled to life. If D.C. wasn’t wrapped within a damp, bone-chilling cold, it was ninety-five degrees with one hundred percent humidity. There never seemed to be a happy medium in this town, for anything.
Snyder moved around to the back of his desk and lit a cigarette. He didn’t care if he kept Zuschnitt waiting.
Salt Lake City was one of the largest FBI field offices in the country. This was due to the fact that at weapons facilities across Utah, America was honoring its nuclear reduction and disarmament treaties with the former Soviet Union. In the political chess game that had raged between the two countries for decades, neither had yet grown to trust the other, and consequently, the Russians had a large number of their people in Salt Lake monitoring our dismantling-and-disposal progress, just as we had a large number of people in different sites throughout Russia for the same reason.
With all of those Russians ru
“You’re late,” said a gruff Senator Snyder as he picked up the phone and dragged on his cigarette.
“I know, but-”
“Shut up and listen to me first. Where are you calling from?”
“I’m calling from the Salt Lake field office on the phone we use to route communications through from suspected fugitives and felons. It’s the one that records all outgoing and incoming calls…Where the hell do you think I’m calling from? You don’t think I’m smart enough to use a secure line? I’m calling from a pay phone at the resort.”
Controlling his anger at the man’s insolence, Snyder responded, “Where at the resort?”
“Near the medical facility, but don’t worry. There are no other government staff around here. I’m the only one, and in my condition, I fit right in.”
“In your condition? What do you mean?”
“I got sucker punched by a loose ca
“Not only head of the advance team, but he was also a member of the president’s detail. You mean he’s still alive?”
“Yeah, I guess he transferred over to the president’s daughter’s detail yesterday morning before the avalanche.”
“Who else survived?”
“As far as we can tell, only Harvath and the president’s daughter.”
“Any clues as to the whereabouts of the president?”
“At this point, nothing. The Secret Service uncovered the body of a towel head with a machine pistol, put two and three together and got seven, then called us in. The director of the FBI has Gary Lawlor on his way out here. They are treating this as a kidnapping.”
“And the media?”
“For now, they’re being kept back from the scene. They’ve been able to piece together that several agents and civilians were killed in the avalanche and that the president has not been recovered, but other than that, they don’t know anything.”
“Back to your getting sucker punched. What happened?”
“That asshole Harvath wanted to get in and take a look around where the president and his detail went down. The Salt Lake field office had directions to take over the crime scene and secure it until Lawlor arrived. Nobody was to get in, including Secret Service. Shit, you should see how bad they had already trampled it. Anyway, Harvath insisted, and I told him no. When I wasn’t looking, he sucker punched me. That was a real pussy move.”
“Yes, but he managed to get the better of you, didn’t he?” Snyder didn’t expect Zuschnitt to respond. He refiled Scot Harvath’s name in the back of his mind and returned to questioning the FBI man. “Anything further to report?”
“Besides the fact that I took three stitches in my lip, my face is swollen up like a balloon, and I’m lucky he didn’t break my jaw? No, I guess there’s nothing further to report.”
“Then I guess that’s all we have to talk about. I expect your next report to be on time, whether you have managed to get yourself bitch-slapped again or not. Am I understood?”
“Yeah, I hear you.”
“Good.”
“What do you want me to do about the press?”
“Let me think.” For a moment Snyder pondered when the right time would be for Zuschnitt to leak that the president wasn’t buried beneath the snow, but had actually been kidnapped. “You’re still wearing your pager, aren’t you?”
“Of course, all of the agents are.”
“When it’s time for you to share our little story with the press about what has truly befallen the president, I’ll page you and tell you how I want you to handle it. Understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good.” Snyder hung up the phone before the man could say anything else. Simultaneously, the black Sony phone in the master bedroom upstairs was hung up by an extremely intrigued lover who hadn’t been sleeping since the first covert call had come in around midnight.