The Cassandra Conspiracy (10 page)

They finished their lunch, paid the bill and headed out the door.

As they got back into the Jag, Janet took the map. “I’ll navigate.”

Twenty minutes later they turned into an unpaved driveway marked by a country mailbox, the kind with the little metal flag the mail carrier flips up when he delivers the mail. The fenced
-in part of the farm on both sides of the driveway had to be pasture without any livestock. Payton was concerned that the Jaguar would bottom out on the driveway’s center rise, but the car cleared it without more than an occasional thump.

Near the house, the driveway forked, with one leg running through a stand of trees in the front. The other went straight to the barn, which was situated behind the house and about two hundred feet away. Payton couldn’t figure what protection the barn afforded its occasional inhabitants or the equipment stored inside since he could see right through it. Given the condition of the walls, Payton doubted the roof was in any better shape.

“I don’t know about this,” Payton said as he pulled the car up to the side of the house.

“We’re not buying it, Steve.”

“You might not be so optimistic after the first rain,” Payton retorted.

Janet found the key, and was already up the wide front steps and across the porch, which was at least twelve feet wide. It ran across the front of the house and then down along both sides. On the right side of the house, several wooden chairs had been placed in the middle of the porch. An
old-fashioned two-person swing chair was on the left. They wiped their feet on the welcome mat, and entered the house. The wide front door had three horizontal partitions. The lower one consisted of three panels, while the upper two were glass covered by chintz curtains.

With Payton on her heels, they walked in.

“Whew!” Janet exclaimed. The mustiness assaulted her nostrils.

“I guess we’d better leave the door open,” Payton suggested. “Better yet, I’ll open the windows.”

The living room took up the entire right side of the house. It was decorated with casual, but comfortable furniture. In spite of the worn carpeting, Payton recognized the care Ted’s aunt had put into the room. The dining room was off to their left. Four chairs, two on each side, encircled the maple drop-leaf dining room table. A matching hutch stood against the wall. The main hallway appeared to head toward the rear of the house. Payton could make out the old fashioned wood cabinets with glass fronts that hung in the kitchen surrounding a Formica topped kitchen table.

“What do you think?” Payton asked.

“It’ll be fine.”

The steps led to the second and third floor bedrooms and bathroom. They found two bedrooms and some sort of sewing room on the second floor. The third floor had three bedrooms and a private bath.

“This place has got more nooks and crannies than an English muffin,” Payton said.

“How do you want to work this?” Janet asked.

“I guess we’d better take rooms on the second floor. That’ll leave the living room and dining room to work in. I’ll call Ted and see what kind of a deal I can work out.”

Payton smiled as he watched Janet explore the house. While Payton searched out the telephone, she was out the front door. Like a kid on a camping trip, she couldn’t wait to get settled.

By the time Payton walked back into the living room, Janet had already picked which bedroom she wanted and deposited Payton's duffel bag in the other.

“How did it go with Ted?”

“Better than I thought when I saw the light flash on behind his eyes when he realized that we were at his mercy. Anyway, the place is ours on a weekly basis.” Payton flopped down in one of the two wing-backed chairs.

“I checked out the kitchen while you were on the phone. There’s plenty of silverware, dishes, and glasses, but we need to make a food run before tonight.”

“We can hit that market in Pine Lakes or run up 83 to the nearest major food store.” Payton thought for a moment. “Look, since I need to give Ted the first week’s rent, why don’t we head back into town, see what we can learn from him, and then worry about our shopping?”

“That sounds fine to me,” Janet said. “I’ll be ready in a minute.”

CHAPTER 6

Shortly after takeoff from Los Angeles, the huge Boeing 747 reached cruising altitude. Air traffic control referred to the plane by its official “SAM 28000” designation unless the President was aboard. Then and only then the Boeing became Air Force One.

Since they had boarded the plane, the
President had been sequestered with his aides, rehashing the meetings with the heads of several major industry groups. The President had solicited their comments on his controversial economic plan, and he had gotten them. The closed-door session in the Air Force One conference room had been going strong since takeoff. From the looks of things, no one was going to get a break until they landed at Andrews.

Allen Thiesse checked his watch, and tried to relax. Since Daniel Varrick’s election five years earlier, the Special Agent in Charge, or SAC, of the
Presidential Protection Division (PPD) held the weighty responsibility of protecting the President of the United States. It was his job to ensure that no one, sane or not, could get close enough to harm the man he was sworn to guard–with his very life if the need arose.

Daniel Varrick had been a two
-term governor of his home state, Arizona, when President Nixon tapped him to head the CIA’s Vietnam operation. His stint at the intelligence agency had taken in the end of the war and years of the return to the cold war. With Jimmy Carter’s election, Varrick had returned to private practice, but politics nipped at his heals. The citizens of Arizona elected him to the U. S. Senate. After several terms representing the state, Daniel Varrick sought and received his party’s nomination for President.

The Secret Service had assigned Allen Thiesse to the detail protecting the candidate early in the campaign.
Thiess’s firsthand view led him to respect the man and his goals. The agent liked Varrick's easygoing personality and his sense of humor–one he often shared with the PPD detail. Most of all he liked the President's willingness to cooperate when security dictated changes in his plans.

When the votes were tallied, the man from Arizona became the
President-elect and the Oval Office’s newest occupant. Varrick had immediately requested that Thiesse head his protection detail. The big jump in position had surprised everyone in the Service’s hierarchy. It also portended other changes to come from a President more interested in people who got the job done right than those owed political favors.

Nonetheless, at forty
-six Thiesse sometimes felt that his entire adult life had been spent running alongside limousines or doing “advances” in some godforsaken city before a Presidential or vice Presidential visit. The gray that had started out along his temples had spread to the point where it had just about taken over what used to be wavy black hair.

Thiesse shifted his six-foot four-inch frame to a more comfortable position. He had been carrying a gun for years, but even after all that time, the presence of the Sig
-Sauer P228 under his left armpit was a constant reminder of the danger inherent in his job. Thiesse reached under his jacket and shifted his holster toward his back, moving the semiautomatic out of the way.

For years, the Service had stuck by the Smith & Wesson K
-19. It was only after most of the other federal agencies and countless local and state police departments shifted to the higher capacity nine millimeters that the Secret Service had decided to make a change. Virtually every handgun manufacturer had been after the contract to supply the Secret Service with new handguns. The Service, intent upon getting the best regardless of origin, went into an exhaustive testing program at its Beltsville training facility.

The replacement had to have at least the knockdown power of their old standby, with the capability to carry more rounds and the accuracy to place those shots on target. The result was the selection of the Swiss-designed and German-manufactured Sig
-Sauer nine-millimeter P228 semiautomatic with Siglite night sights, which gave the agents a superior sight picture even in total darkness. Now instead of a mere six rounds, each agent carried thirteen shots in the gun and a spare clip of twelve more.

The changeover to the new guns had been a logistics nightmare. Thiesse and the other agents, who had carried revolvers for decades, found themselves with a semiautomatic that had completely different handling characteristics. But after hours of practice, Thiesse decided he liked the Sig
-Sauer. It was far more accurate than the old Smith & Wesson, and he could bring more firepower to bear if he needed to.

The only problem was the weight. Empty it was lighter than his revolver; fully loaded, it weighed considerably more. Still, the new equipment enhanced his ability to protect the
President, and if carrying another pound or two helped do that, it was well worth the effort.

They had been in the air a little over an hour. Their anticipated flight time to Andrews was six hours, allowing for the tail winds. The
President remained in his meeting, which showed no signs of concluding soon. Thiesse leaned back in his seat, and picked up the inter-phone. He punched the extension for the galley, then asked the steward for a large mug of coffee. Located behind the Presidential staffers’ compartment, the main galley provided food for the President and his top staff and guests. The rest of his team took their meals from the aft galley that also fed the on-board Air Force Security personnel, and the members of the invited press.

Although he wasn’t overweight, Thiesse had been watching the scale creep up every time he stepped on it. If he cut back now, he’d avoid having to start a major diet. A few minutes later, one of the stewards handed Thiesse a steaming mug of coffee. “I held up your order while we brewed a fresh pot,” the man told Thiesse. The fresh coffee smelled good.

“Thanks. It’s been a long day, and it’s not over by a long shot.”

As the steward returned to the galley, Thiesse eased back in the seat. His mind wandered, finally settling on the time he first joined the Secret Service,
twenty-three years ago.

.   .   .   .   .   .

Allen Thiesse had begun his role as a Treasury agent not in the Secret Service, but rather in Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, or ATF. After passing the Treasury Department’s law enforcement exam, he enrolled in the Treasury Law Enforcement School, where for three months he trained in the applicable areas of law enforcement.

When he graduated, he was literate in the art of making arrests, testifying in court, gathering the information at a crime scene, and all the legalities that went with carrying a federal badge. Though ATF’s primary role was making sure the taxes were paid on alcohol and tobacco products,
Thiess’s tenure at ATF’s New York field office was spent pursuing felons who thought that selling automatic weapons was an excellent way to enhance their standard of living.

Married for over a year and a half, Thiesse and his wife were eager for an assignment to a field office in a city where they could begin to put down roots, and New York definitely wasn’t it. Their first major shock occurred when Thiesse realized that the cost of living in New York was higher than they had expected. Unable to find an affordable apartment in the city, the couple ended up moving to Long Island.

Allen commuted to the city each day on the Long Island Expressway, known far and wide as a “parking lot” during both the morning and evening rush hours. With an hour-and-a-half commute each way, Thiess’s days began early and ended late.

His first case involved the sale of automatic weapons. Since the case also involved counterfeiting, however, the Secret Service too was involved. For a change everything went well. With the help of a local confidential informant, or CI, ATF was able to pinpoint the source of the guns. A benevolent judge issued the required search warrants; the resultant raid unearthed the hardware as well as a considerable stash of counterfeit currency.

With the perps in jail, Thiesse had a few drinks with the Secret Service agent who had been working with him. Impressed by his counterpart at ATF, the agent suggested that Thiesse consider a transfer to the agency.

A month later, Allen Thiesse had his first interview. The interviewer went over every job Thiesse had held since he was eighteen, verifying that there were no unexplained gaps.
If Thiesse couldn’t account for a given period, it might mean that he had been in prison, or worse somewhere in the Soviet Union studying the art of espionage. 
He was questioned about his parents, their parents, and the rest of his relatives. Since neither Allen nor his wife had any relatives living behind the Iron Curtain, that part of the session was straightforward.
He then reviewed Thiesse’s education and job history.  Finally, they went over every trip Allen Thiesse had taken outside the continental United States whether on business or vacation.
When it was over, three hours had passed, and the candidate had answered all the questions to the best of his ability.

Thiesse also completed the myriad security clearance forms needed for his background investigation. The Treasury Department handles its security clearances in the same manner as the Department of Defense, with clearance levels ranging from Confidential at the lowest end, to Secret and then Top Secret. He would have to qualify for a Top Secret clearance. Since he could be in close contact with the
President, he also needed to pass a Special Background Investigation or SBI, a microscopic inspection of the applicant’s entire background from birth to the present.

In the civilian sector a Top Secret clearance with Special Background Investigation could easily take a year or more; the Secret Service however, expedites the clearance processing for prospective agents. His Top Secret Special Access clearance in hand, Thiesse reported to the Service’s James J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, a scant three months later.

With the move to the Secret Service, the Thiesses decided to rent an apartment in nearby Laurel on a monthly basis. If Allen’s career was going to be in Protective Operations, they could relocate closer to Washington. Meanwhile, they would be far enough out of the Washington metropolitan area for the higher cost of living not to affect them.

The Beltsville Training Center was located along the Baltimore
-Washington corridor, closer to the Capital than its neighboring city to the north, and not far from Thiess’s new apartment. The Service had named the Training Center after a past director of the Secret Service who had established a formal training program specifically for Secret Service agents. All agents in training spent time initially, and later in their careers for retraining at the Training Center’s sixty-acre facility.

Thiesse already knew there were six primary departments in the Service.  The Office of Protective Operations includes Presidential Protective and Vice Presidential Protective Divisions or PPD and VPPD.  These two groups got the most attention since they represent the public’s image of the Secret Service.  However the Service also has the Office of Protective Research that handles the intelligence collection relating to threats against their “protectees”, Research & Development, and Technical Security.  Research and Development is responsible for the systems development used to support the Secret Service’s missions across the country.  Technical Security handles the investigation of equipment and systems that are commercially available or available through other governmental agencies.  This equipment is used to enhance the overall level of protection for the ‘protectees’ or to foil the counterfeiters so intent upon mastering their art.

The Service’s Office of Investigations is responsible for the sixty-odd field offices located in most major cities, while the Office of  Inspection deals with the internal affairs of the organization. All aspects of the agents’ and uniformed personnel training is handled by the Office of Training.  Finally, a public relations group is responsible for maintaining the Service’s image with the public.  Agents are often moved around from one area to another as their grades increased, or as their supervisors felt there was a need for the agent’s specific talents.  In recent years, the Service had been exposing field agents to the more esoteric technical disciplines in an effort to make the agents more rounded.

Allen Thiesse found the sign pointing to the main entrance of the facility about a quarter mile before he actually got to the center’s road.  Until that point, he had only suspected that he had the right place from the  ‘U. S. Government Property’ signs posted along the fence line next to the public road.  As he approached the main entrance, he slowed down.  As he stopped at the security check point, a plainclothes agent exited  the building to his right and came over to the car.

“Good morning,” the agent said, adjusting his suit jacket over the pancake holster he wore on his right hip.  “Can I see some identification?”

Thiesse presented his gold Secret Service badge and ID card.  As he did so, he noticed the closed circuit television cameras covering the security checkpoint.  He couldn’t see through the security control center’s heavily tinted glass, but he was certain other agents were watching the flow of vehicles into the facility. 

“Can you direct me to the training center?” Thiesse asked politely.  The other agent smiled. He had seen countless ‘newbies’ drive down the same road on their way to adventure and excitement protecting the nation’s leaders.  Most ended up tracking down counterfeiters or following leads in the pursuit of thieves who stole government checks.