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Transfer of Power
Author: Vince Flynn
Copyright: 1999
Copyright: 1999
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Espionage, Political Life, Presidents
Excerpt: A fine mist fell from the darkening spring sky as the black limousine turned off of E Street. The armor-plated car wove through the concrete-and-steel barricades at a speed suggesting urgency. As the limousine turned onto West Executive Drive, it slowed briefly for the heavy black gate to open, and then sped forward. After splashing through several puddles, the limo came to an abrupt stop in front of the ground-floor entrance to the West Wing of the White House. Excerpt Page Number: 1
Address:
1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20500
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Corruption, Political Life
Excerpt: The tan, well-kept man was shown into the oak-paneled office of the chairman of the Democratic National Committee. The rotund and jovial Russ Piper stood from behind his desk and walked over to greet his wealthy visitor. Extending his hand, Piper said, "Prince Kalib, it is a pleasure to finally meet you." Excerpt Page Number: 66
Address:
430 South Capitol St SE #3 20003
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Political Life
Excerpt: The taxicab continued south down Pennsylvania Avenue and crossed the intersection at Seventeenth Street. The driver pulled in between two large, circular concrete planters, turned to the left, and stopped. Only a block away from the White House, the road ahead was closed to all motor traffic. Anna Rielly sat in the backseat and looked out at the barricades the Secret Service had constructed in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing. A row of concrete planters extended from each curb and stopped, leaving just enough room for a guard booth and a huge steel barricade with the word "STOP" emblazoned in white against a red background. The steel barricade was hydraulic and could be lowered to allow authorized vehicles to proceed to the next checkpoint. Excerpt Page Number: 71
Address:
1673 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20503
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Espionage
Excerpt: One block east of the White House a slight man in a white jacket and black pants was vacuuming the hallway on the top floor of the Washington Hotel. The man paused for a moment and looked out the French doors that led to the rooftop patio. Across the street he could see the roof of the Treasury Department and then just beyond that the White House. From this elevated position he could clearly see the guard standing watch on the roof of the Executive Mansion, less than two hundred yards away. The guard was wearing blue coveralls and a matching baseball cap. A pair of binoculars were slung around his neck, and from time to time he used them to scan different areas. On the far side of the roof was a small white guard booth. Excerpt Page Number: 77
Address:
601 15th St NW 20005
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Espionage, Political Life
Excerpt: The White Knight linen truck eased its way down the long cobblestone ramp and into the parking garage of the Treasury Building. The truck turned to the right and pulled into the loading area. Abu Hasan put the truck in park and let it idle. He looked out the front window and then checked the side mirrors. No one was in sight, but he knew from his previous visits that three security cameras monitored this area of the garage. Hasan fumbled with his clipboard and tried to look busy until the signal was given.
Hasan looked in his rearview mirror at a nondescript gray metal door. The door marked the entrance of the Treasury tunnel, which led into the basement of the White House. Hasan had learned on his late-night visit to the White House that the door was referred to as the Marilyn Monroe door. The name derived from a certain president that used it to sneak women in and out of the Executive Mansion. Excerpt Page Number: 80
Address:
1500 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20220
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Espionage, Political Life
Excerpt: The Critical Incident Response Group's crisis management unit had set up their command post on the fourth floor of the Executive Office Building in a conference room that overlooked the West Wing of the White House. The large wood conference table had been pushed against the inner wall and was covered with a half dozen phones, two radio-charger trays, and several laptops. Excerpt Page Number: 195
Address:
1650 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20502
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Political Life
Excerpt: Two miles northwest of the White House sat the Naval Observatory, the official residence of the vice president of the United States. The large circular estate was located off Massachusetts Avenue on Embassy Row, atop a hill. Its many gardens and rolling wooded lawn provided a serenity and seclusion that was quite absent at the Executive Mansion. Excerpt Page Number: 252
Address:
3450 Massachusetts Ave NW 20392
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Espionage
Excerpt: Approaching the White House from the east, they pulled through the last checkpoint at Pennsylvania Avenue and Fifteenth Street. Reavers, the large linebacker type that had been along on the mission to grab Harut, drove the Suburban onto Hamilton Place and continued past the southern edge of the Treasury Building. The White House was now in sight, ahead and to the right, the top floor of the mansion visible above the trees. On the right was the entrance to the underground parking garage that the terrorists had used just yesterday to assault and take the White House. A white Suburban was now parked at the top of the ramp, blocking its use. Straight ahead was a closed gate that led onto the south grounds of the White House. Reavers extinguished the headlights and turned left onto East Executive Avenue. Continuing south for another fifty feet, Reavers took a hard right at the direction of Milt Adams and pulled up on the curb, the front grille of the truck stopping inches from the heavy black fence. Excerpt Page Number: 261
Address:
535 East Executive Ave NW 20229
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Nightlife
Excerpt: Four blocks north of the observatory, and out of sight of the main gate, he yanked the car back into second gear and turned hard to the right, the wide tires of the BMW squealing into a one-hundred-degree turn onto Garfield. King floored it through the residential neighborhood at speeds approaching seventy miles per hour. At Twenty-ninth Street he took a hard right turn, and one block later at Calvert, he slowed to about ten miles per hour, paid no heed to the stop sign before him, and shot out in front of an approaching cab. The wild maneuver solicited both the horn and the finger from the cabbie. King ignored both as he raced through the light at Connecticut and crossed over into the Adams-Morgan neighborhood. He was late, and the woman he was meeting would not be happy. King took another hard turn at Eighteenth Street and slowed his speed as he entered one of the most congested areas in town. Two blocks later he pulled up in front of Stone’s, a posh, hot new bar. Excerpt Page Number: 283
Address:
Duke Ellington Memorial Bridge 20008
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Political Life, Presidents
Excerpt: In 1948 President Harry Truman had grown concerned over the structural integrity of the 148-year-old White House. Engineers were brought in to investigate, and they found that the mansion was in danger of collapsing. The less-than-sound renovation of 1902 and the enlargement of the third story in 1927 had weakened the structure severely. It was recommended that the president and his wife vacate the house immediately, and they moved across the street to Blair House to allow a massive four-year renovation to ensue. Excerpt Page Number: 296
Address:
1651 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20503
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Urban Decay
Excerpt: Founded in 1790 and originally called the Federal City and District of Columbia, after Christopher Columbus, the city was later renamed by Congress for the nation’s first president. Because the city’s four corners pointed in the four directions of the compass, it was conveniently split up into quadrants. The southeast quadrant was by far the most economically deprived. The heart of the area was the neighborhood of Anacostia. This violent portion of Washington accounted for more than half of the city’s annual murders and was literally a war zone in the shadow of the nation’s Capitol. On the top floor of a rat-infested tenement building in the heart of Anacostia, a man with bleached white hair and a fresh set of tattoos worked diligently as the clock approached midnight. Excerpt Page Number: 320
Address:
Anacostia, Washington 20020
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Espionage
Excerpt: After Rusan had fired all twenty of his rounds, he had left the Soviet-made sniping rifle right there on the balcony overlooking the White House and fled the building by a staircase. When he made it to the street, he proceeded two blocks to the Metro Center stop at Twelfth and F Street and caught the first southbound train. Ten minutes later he was walking through the slums of Anacostia, his hotel uniform replaced with a Chicago Bulls hat and a leather jacket. Excerpt Page Number: 323
Address:
598 12th St NW 20005
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Espionage
Excerpt: The driver of the ambulance inched forward on Pennsylvania Avenue. In his side mirror he could see the large dome of the Capitol, and in front of him, a sea of cars locked in gridlock trying to make their way into the heart of the business district and around the White House. Salim Rusan was surprisingly calm. Part of this was due to his faith in Aziz’s plan, and part of it was due to the fact that he would much rather be stuck in traffic than stuck in the White House. The ambulance was the last car to make it through the stoplight at Ninth Street. The monolithic Hoover Building appeared on his right—the famed FBI headquarters. Excerpt Page Number: 426
Address:
935 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20535
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Architecture, Espionage
Excerpt: The three SEALs reached the top without so much as breaking a sweat. Wicker climbed up the ladder that was bolted to the wall, and with one hand he pushed open the hatch that led to the bell tower. Pulling himself up and through, he spun around on his butt and stood. Harris was next and then Reavers. All three men stood side by side, looking west out the large aperture. The bell tower atop the Old Post Office had the second most commanding view of all Washington after the one from the Washington Monument. From this eagle’s nest they looked straight down Pennsylvania Avenue past Freedom Plaza and Pershing Park, over the southwest corner of the Treasury Building, and there, perfectly bathed in the bright afternoon light, was the White House. Excerpt Page Number: 458
Address:
1100 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20004
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Espionage
Excerpt: Returning to the scene of the crime couldn’t have been a more accurate description. Salim Rusan had found a spot for his ambulance at the end of a line that ran almost a block long. Immediately to his right was the Willard Hotel, the Washington, D.C., landmark that boasted it had served cocktails to the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Mark Twain, Buffalo Bill, and countless others. In the middle of the block was the Willard Office Building, and next to that, on the corner, was Rusan’s former place of employment, the Washington Hotel. Excerpt Page Number: 488
Address:
1401 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20004
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Crime, Espionage
Excerpt: Across the street to his left was Pershing Park, named after General “Black Jack” Pershing, the commander of the American Expeditionary Force in Europe during World War I. The park was lined on two of its four sides with fire trucks. The firemen that were assigned to the trucks lounged about on the green grass of the park, some of them playing catch with a football, others with a bright orange Frisbee. A sandwich truck kept the firemen and ambulance drivers filled with coffee, soda pop, and a variety of sandwiches, soups, and microwavable dishes. Four D.C. police squads blocked the intersection barely thirty feet behind Rusan’s ambulance at the corner of Pennsylvania and Fourteenth Street. Excerpt Page Number: 488
Address:
1423 Pennsylvania Ave NW 20004
Setting Year:
Setting Decade: 1990s
Main Themes: Espionage
Excerpt: The helicopters approached the group of bridges just to the south of the George Mason Memorial Bridge, skimming the windswept waters of the Potomac. Instead of climbing to fly over the bridges, the pilots of the 160th continued to hug the deck. Under the four bridges they went, working their way north and closer to the White House. They were to stay out of sight until given the green light. The choppers closed on the Arlington Memorial Bridge and began to slow. When they reached it, the three choppers pulled in under the bridge and hovered. This was where they were to wait. Excerpt Page Number: 595