The waters were now sufficiently chummed.

“Sound, this is Birdhouse. Do you copy? Over. Norseman, this is Birdhouse, do you copy? Over.”

Secret Service agent Tom Hollenbeck, head of the command center for the president’s ski trip, had been trying to reach both details for the last seven minutes.

Communications had been sporadic throughout most of the day. The mountainous terrain, the secluded location of the command center just outside the home the president was staying in, and the terrible on-again, off-again weather, made things extremely difficult.

Hollenbeck called out to his assistant, Chris Longo. “Hey, Longo. Can’t we do anything at all to pump this up?”

“For Chrissake, Tom. What do you think I’ve been doing for the last five minutes?”

“All right, all right. No need to get pissy. Just fix it.”

“Hollenbeck, if I knew what was wrong, I would have fixed it already.”

“Hold on a second. We’ve got the Deer Valley radios. Have we tried those?”

“Yes. I already thought of that.”

“And?”

“They’ve also been having trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Same as us. The radios just aren’t working.”

“Is that normal?”

“It happens, but not often.”

“Damn it. How about the Smocks, then? They transmit on a different frequency than our radios, don’t they?”

The Smock, or Doc Smock, as it was officially known, was a new piece of technology made for monitoring soldiers in battle. It was a skintight vest with sensors, worn under the clothes, that transmitted the wearer’s vital signs, via a small unit in a fanny pack. It could also indicate if the vest had been breached.

Even though the technology was still experimental, two duty agents on each detail were wearing one.

“Yeah,” said Longo, “the Smocks are on a different frequency.”

“Well, see if you can punch them up.”

“See if I can punch them up? Do you want me to work on boosting our Motorolas or do you want me working on the Smock signals?”

“No, you work on the radios and reaching the teams. Who’s watching the Smocks now?”

“Palmer is.”

“Fine. Palmer!” yelled Hollenbeck as Longo went back to trying to raise the two details.

“Yes, sir?” responded an attractive, young female agent from a corner of the Secret Service command center.

“Can you give me a full sit rep on all four Smocks?”

“Not really.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve been off and on all day.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean sometimes they seem to transmit and sometimes they don’t.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Could be the weather. Could be some sort of interference. For all I know it could be that the Nintendo in the break room is messing with them. This is still experimental technology.”

“How were they operating yesterday?”

“Clear as a bell. I’ve even got the printouts of vitals broken down over fifteen-minute intervals. Do you want to see them?”

No, Agent Tom Hollenbeck did not want to see them. What he wanted to see was the president, his daughter, and the rest of the detail agents skiing up to the front door joking about who had eaten the most snow today.

“What’s the longest amount of time you have been without a Smock signal?”

Agent Palmer looked down at her watch. “Up till now the longest interval without a signal was just about three minutes. Now we’re going on eight.”

The same amount of time the radios had been out of commission.

“Palmer, how would you say the weather was yesterday compared to today?”

“A little better, but not much.”

“Longo!” yelled Hollenbeck.

“What now?” asked Longo.

“Do we have any rovers with a visual?”

Rovers were the teams of snowmobiles and Sno-Cats that followed the two details as closely as possible. They were loaded with what the Secret Service referred to as CATs, or Counter Assault Teams. The CATs were heavily armed and armored agents whose sole job was to lend the protective details fire support.

“The last rover report came in as the teams split for their final run from the last-lap rendezvous position, right before the radios went down. Goldilocks took the low road, and Hat Trick opted for the high road,” replied Longo.

“Which high road?” asked Hollenbeck.

“Death Chute.”

“It would have to be that one, wouldn’t it? What’s the next potential rover or JAR visual contact for Hat Trick?”

“There’s a JAR unit among the trees in the middle of Death Chute.”

“I know about that one. I haven’t been able to raise them. What about the next rover?”

“There’s no access for a rover team until about half a mile down from the treed plateau on Death Chute.”

Hollenbeck didn’t need to confirm where the next visual was for Amanda’s detail. She had taken the same route home every day. There was normally a pretty good line of sight directly from the command center, but today wasn’t normal. The snow was blowing harder, reducing visibility to next to nothing, and Birdhouse had lost all radio contact with any agents more than one hundred yards from the command center.

“So,” began Hollenbeck, “we have had no visual, nor radio contact with the details for the last eight minutes?”

“That’s right, boss,” answered Longo.

“Okay, that settles it.”

Hollenbeck stood up from his chair and called for everyone’s attention. He slung his lip mike back over his head and toggled the transmit switch to get the attention of the agents on patrol outside the command center. For some reason, transmissions close to the command center were not interrupted.

All eyes in the room, and ears outside, were now trained on Hollenbeck.

“Everybody, listen up. We have a potential hostile situation.”

Miner gave rapid orders to Anton Schebel when he arrived with the toboggan. “Crack the blanket and help me lean him forward to get this sweater the rest of the way off.”

Schebel did as he was told. In quick succession, he pounded the pockets of hot packs lining the toboggan’s body bag with the butt of his semiautomatic. Before he had finished with the hot packs, Dryer rejoined Miner and was taking over.

“Useff?” inquired Miner as they removed the president’s sweater, careful not disturb the IV.

“He left early. Cocktails with Allah. Everything is on schedule,” said Dryer as they worked the president’s turtleneck off.

“Good. Get the bag over here and lay it next to him.”

Dryer laid the body bag out lengthwise next to the president.

“Everything else off now. Pants, socks, boots, ring, watch, even the underwear.” Miner wasn’t leaving anything to chance. He knew the president wore at least one homing device and that it was cleverly hidden. The fact that he might be surgically implanted with another one was unlikely, but Miner had brought the special body bag along just in case. If the president was surgically implanted with any additional homing devices, the signal would never breach Miner’s clever Kevlar-like design. The bag had been constructed so that as they zipped it shut, the IV could be hung on a special rail at the rear of the toboggan and the tube would still be feeding through the bag into the president’s arm.

Dryer and Schebel placed him in the warmed bag and loaded him into the toboggan. With the lining of hot pockets, at least he wouldn’t freeze. Miner’s plan certainly didn’t entail dressing the president in new clothes. At least not yet.

When the bag was belted to the toboggan, Miner spoke into his lip mike. “Two minutes.”

Gerhard Miner, Klaus Dryer, Anton Schebel, and the other team members clicked into their hybrid cross-country, downhill telemark skis. The incredibly strong men quickly began powering their precious cargo into the trees.