Allan Folsom - The Machiavelli Covenant

The president moved to the window next to Marten. Hap came in too, so did Bill Strait. In the distance they could see flame and smoke billowing from the hilltop where the church had been.

"Woody, swing around!" the president yelled.

"Yes, sir."

The Chinook came around hard and flew back toward the billowing fiery inferno where the church had been. In that instant the rest of Foxx's destruction deployed. It was like nothing any of them had ever seen before. The maintenance buildings blew straight up, disintegrating into a million pieces. Then they saw a line of dust run the length of the vineyard as if some great underground snake had shivered. The line continued across a low expanse of foothills and then up into the mountain range where they had been the night before, racing in the direction of the monastery at Montserrat. Now and again giant puffs of flame erupted from cracks and chimneys in the rock.

"Foxx," Marten said and looked at the president. "He blew up the church, the maintenance buildings, the entire monorail tunnel, everything. The monks may even have still been inside."

"The nozzles in the monorail tunnel," the president said. "He planned it all far ahead of time. No one will find a thing. Not a trace of what he did. Nothing at all." Suddenly the president pulled away from the window to look at Marshall. "Is the monastery going up too?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You don't?"

"No, sir."

"It won't get to the monastery," Marten said quietly. "It's what he blew earlier. There's nothing left there. It'll stop at the end of the monorail."

The president looked to Hap, "Have the CNP alert the monastery. At least they'll have some kind of warning if it does go."

"Yes, sir."

The president's eyes shifted to Woody. "Major, are we fully fueled?"

"Yes, sir."

"Our range is what, one thousand two hundred nautical miles?"

"A little more, sir."

"Then take us out of Spanish airspace, Major, and clear airspace to Germany."

"Sir. I have orders to fly you to an airstrip outside Barcelona. Chief of staff has a CIA jet waiting."

Marten and Hap exchanged glances. Then Hap reached into his groundskeeper's shirt and slid out the machine pistol.

"Major, I've canceled that mission," the president said calmly. "I asked for airspace cleared to Germany; please do so. I'll tell you where exactly when we get closer."

"He can't do that, Mr. President," Marshall came toward him. "It's for your safety. It's all been planned out."

"Mr. National Security Adviser, I think you'll understand when I say the plans have changed. Very soon you and the vice president and every other one of my 'friends' will be taken into custody and charged with high treason. I'd suggest you go over there and sit down. Hap will be glad to escort you." The president stared at Marshall for a long moment. Finally he turned away and looked back to Woody.

"Major, change course now. That is a direct order from the commander-in-chief."

Woody looked at Marshall as if trying to decide what to do.

"Major," Marshall said firmly, "you have your orders. The president has been under a terrible strain. He has no idea at all what he is saying. It's our job to protect him. Hap's too. Along with Bill Strait. It's why we're all here."

Woody stared and then turned back to the controls.

"It's no good, Jim, you're done," the president said. "The Covenant is done."

"Covenant?" Marshall stared at him unbelieving.

"We know, Jim, and who was there. We saw it in operation. Hap, Mr. Marten, myself, even José. All of us."

"You're not well, Mr. President. I have no idea what you're talking about." Suddenly he looked to Woody.

"You have your orders, Major. Stay the course. Stay the course."

The president and Marten looked toward the flight deck. Hap started toward it, machine pistol out.

It was all the time Marshall needed. In two steps he had crossed the aircraft's midsection. A second later he had the crew door open. There was a thundering roar and a terrible blast of air.

"Grab him!" the president yelled.

It was too late. They were at two thousand feet. The doorway was empty. Marshall was gone.

• SPANGDAHLEM AIR BASE, GERMANY, 3:15 A.M.

Marten rolled over in a half sleep, edging over gently to avoid putting pressure on the bandages covering the burns on his left arm and neck. He had his own room in the officers' quarters just down the hall from where Hap Daniels and Bill Strait slept in an adjoining room to the president's.

They'd come to the U.S. air base at Spangdahlem unannounced. Normally they would have landed under presidential colors at Ramstein Air Base, but not this time, not under these circumstances. The base commanding officer and several of his general staff knew, but that was all. The doctors accompanying them on the Chinook had cleared the president and sent him to rest, an unrecognized, unnamed VIP under heavy guard.

José, Demi, Marten, and Hap had been taken to the base hospital. As far as Marten knew, José and Demi were still there and would remain there for at least several more days. José's family had been notified, and Miguel and José's father were en route from Barcelona and would arrive soon.

Miguel-Marten smiled as he lay there in the dark. What he'd fallen into as a simple limousine driver. And what a great man and dear friend he had become in so short a time. The boys too, all of them-Amado, Hector, and especially José, the youngster who'd been frightened to death to go farther down in the chimney toward the monorail tunnel because he thought he would be descending straight into hell. Little had he known of the hell he would volunteer to be part of very soon afterward. And what hell Hector and Amado and Miguel had been put through by the Spanish police and U.S. Secret Service, all of it to buy the president time.

The president had pretty much left Marten alone as the Chinook traversed Europe, crossing the Pyrenees into French airspace and then flying north across France to pass over Luxembourg before entering German airspace near Trier and touching down at Spangdahlem very soon afterward. Understandably he had pressing business. First, and most important, the president had spoken personally to the chancellor of Germany and the president of France and then held a three-way conference call with them both. All had agreed that the long-planned NATO meeting set for one o'clock in the afternoon today should go on as scheduled, but, for security reasons, the venue should be changed. What a mighty scrambling of foreign offices it had been, the twenty-six member countries unanimously approving the move from Warsaw to a special site chosen by the president, one that under the circumstances seemed highly appropriate: the former Nazi death camp at Auschwitz in southern Poland. It was there he would give a brief speech explaining, among other things, his abrupt disappearance from Madrid the week before and the sudden change of location from Warsaw to Auschwitz.

Second, the president informed White House Press Secretary Dick Greene, already on the press plane to Warsaw, of the change of venue to Auschwitz, adding that a major cabinet-level shake-up was imminent and that there was to be a total press blackout on anything pertaining to it.

Then, earlier informed by Bill Strait of Jake Lowe's "accidental" death and the vision of Dr. Jim Marshall's shocking suicide plunge from the Chinook still raw in their minds, and remembering too the poison capsule embedded in Merriman Foxx's teeth, the president had Hap call Roley Sandoval, special Secret Service agent in charge of the vice-presidential detail, and tell him without explanation to quietly assign extra agents to the vice president and to his entourage to prevent any attempt at "self-harm."