Текст книги "Gideon's War / Hard Target"

Автор книги: Howard Gordon

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Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 38 страниц)

“And the security system. A place like this, they’ll have outcall through a buried cable and possibly even a radio backup.”

“That’s all been taken care of.” He pointed to the side of the house. “The cable box there is a dummy. We’ve already planted a device that will cut the signal to the cable.”

He reached into the pocket of a nylon gym bag sitting on the center console, pulled out a small black box with a button on the side. He pressed the button. “There. Done.”

“What about cell phones?”

“It’s all in the bag. There’s a cell phone jam se inmer. Now stop worrying and follow me,” Verhoven said, pushing out of the car. Tillman had no choice except to follow him.

Tillman was prepared to abort the mission the moment it meant killing innocent civilians, even though he knew it would trash his ability to find out what was going on. Although he still felt okay about taking this operation to the next level, he suspected his brother might not be as willing to take that chance. He glanced around, half-expecting Gideon to pull up at any moment.

Verhoven walked up to the front door and pressed the doorbell on an industrial quality intercom system with a built-in keypad.

After a moment a sleepy and anxious-sounding man said, “Yes?”

Tillman knew that the man who answered was looking at them through a camera. What he saw was a man wearing black tactical clothing and body armor. His first instinct would not be to open the door.

“Good morning, sir,” Verhoven said, holding up to the camera some fake identification. Verhoven was banking on the camera’s resolution to be insufficient for the man to make out anything other than an official-looking piece of plastic. “Greg Gillis, PW Emergency Services. I’m sure you heard the commotion. A chemical truck has overturned one block away. We need everyone to evacuate the area immediately.”

“Uh . . . I need to confirm this with somebody.”

“Sir, I am your confirmation. You need to exit this house now. There’s no time to waste.”

From the man’s silence, it was clear that he had some kind of security protocol that he wanted to go through. Most likely he wanted to call the police department and verify that Verhoven was who he claimed to be.

“Now, sir!”

“Give me a second.”

A few moments later an apprehensive-looking man, hair sticking up in all directions, opened the door about three inches. The door was still held in place by a security bar like the ones used in hotel rooms. Only this one looked much bigger and stronger.

“Please let me see your ID again, officer,” the man said.

Knowing full well that his ID wouldn’t pass scrutiny at this distance, Verhoven raised his shotgun. The man’s eyes widened, but before he could slam the door closed or Verhoven could shoot, Tillman inserted the toe of his boot into the door. The man slammed his weight frantically against the door. Realizing that he was wasting his time battling over the door, the man retreated. Tillman could hear his footsteps pounding up the stairs.

Tillman hesitated for a fraction of a second. This was it: go or no-go. Point of no return.

He raised his boot and kicked the door just below the dead bolt, splintering the doorjamb as the steel security bar tore through the reinforced wood frame.

36

WASHINGTON, DC

The front desk woke Wilmot at five o’clock. Collier was already busy at his compu thhhhhhhhize="ter.

Wilmot made himself some coffee, then sat down next to Collier and watched as he keyed in a series of commands.

“How long before the heat shuts down?” he asked.

“I was just about to do it,” Collier said. “Do you want to hit the button?”

He knew Collier was trying to win him over after being snubbed last night. Wilmot leaned over and asked, “What do I do?”

Collier pointed at the keyboard and said, “Just hit enter.”

Wilmot studied the screen. NATIONAL HEAT & AIR REMOTE DIAGNOSTIC SYSTEM appeared at the top of the screen. There was a bunch of gibberish code that meant nothing to him. Collier had explained that by remotely uploading a bug script into the air handler’s controller, the fans would fail to come on when the gas next cycled on. With no air moving, the thermocouple in the temp sensor would eventually overheat, shutting off the gas. Then the whole system would shut down, and the Capitol would get very cold.

“All right then,” said Wilmot. “Let’s see if it works.”

“It’ll work,” Collier said. “Trust me.”

Wilmot stabbed the key. Nothing dramatic happened, but he imagined the signals sending their disruptive messages to the main circuit panel, finally putting in motion the plan they had spent so long preparing.

“I’m taking a shower,” Wilmot said and walked toward the bathroom.

He came back out of the bathroom twenty minutes later, combing his wet hair, wearing white coveralls with a yellow patch on the left side of his chest that read DALE. A large printed logo on the back read: NATIONAL HEAT & AIR. WARMING HEARTS AND HEARTHS SINCE 1947. Below that, in tiny letters: A DIVISION OF WILMOT INDUSTRIES.

He sat down on the couch and put his feet up. Collier wore an identical pair of coveralls, with a patch on the chest that said JOHN.

Collier closed the computer and said, “Okay, then. Now we wait for them to call us.”

At 5:33 AM, the phone connected through Collier’s computer rang.

Collier let it ring once, twice, answering on the third ring. “Good morning, National Heat and Air, this is Ralph speaking. How may I help you?”

A voice on the other end said, “Hey, ah, yeah, this is Alfred Teasely, federal facilities manager at the Capitol. We’ve got a problem with the heating system at the Capitol.”

National Heat & Air had bid for and won the contract to service the Capitol. And since Wilmot owned National Heat & Air, it had not been much of a problem for Collier to reroute their emergency phone system so that any calls coming in to the dispatch line from the 202 area code were automatically shunted to his computer.

“Do you have a contract number, sir?” Collier said.

“I’m at the United States Capitol. How many United States Capitols are there?”

“Yes, sir. I just need a contract number so that I can access your account.”

The man groaned. “Hold on.” There was some brief scrabbling around. “Okay. Eight oh one one five dash three.”

“One moment, sir.” Collier clattered randomly on the keys of the computer. “I show that that is a level-three secure facility. May I have your security code?”

“Nine six four dash Alpha Charlie Seven.”

“Excellent. What seems to be the problem, sir?”

“Well, the whole damn HVAC system just locked up. It’s shut down, and we can’t access the controller. I’m just getting a blue screen.”

“Have you installed the three-point-one-point-two update?” Collier was grinning at Wilmot. He loved all this techie mumbo jumbo.

“I’m checking the upgrade history now,” the facilities manager said. “I’m not seeing anything. I’ve got the damn State of the Union address in twelve hours.”

“Normally we update the software over the Internet. But it looks like . . . yes, sir . . . there seems to be something wrong with the broadband connection. What we’ll need to do is dispatch a team to update that software and get you back online.”

“I just need the damn thing to work.”

“Not a problem, sir. We have two technicians on standby. Let me check the schedule . . . Okay, here we go. I’ve got two of our top guys on call. They’ve been precleared. I’ll dispatch them right away.”

“How fast can they get here?”

“Less than thirty minutes.”

“Give me their names.”

“Right. John Collier and Dale Wilmot. You have a great day now.”

Three minutes later Collier and Wilmot were down in the lowest level parking deck, loading the steel cart containing two canisters of hydrogen cyanide into the back of a slightly battered white panel van that read NATIONAL HEAT & AIR on the side. He’d requisitioned it from the National Heat & Air motor pool, with legitimate plates, VIN number, and registration. Collier had seen to it all.

37

TYSONS CORNER, VIRGINIA

Gideon had lost them.

He didn’t have a tracking device, only the small earpiece that fed him the static-filled audio from the radio Tillman had pocketed.

He still didn’t know which house they were going to, or who was the target. He had followed Verhoven cautiously. Now it was five-thirty in the morning, and the greatest danger was that Verhoven would notice him following them. There were few other cars on the road in the suburban streets on which they were driving. By turning off his lights and trying to stay back at least a couple of city blo3emmmmmmmmdiv> cks, he seemed to have managed to escape detection. The price he’d paid was that at the last minute, he’d gotten separated. He knew that Verhoven had stopped, that the operation was a go, and that Tillman couldn’t be more than a few blocks away.

But the neighborhood was a maze of winding roads lined by nearly identical houses. Now he was blundering around, hoping to stumble on the battered old Honda. He knew that by process of elimination, he’d eventually locate the car. But if Tillman ran into trouble before then, there was no guarantee he’d be able to reach him in time to help.

It had been a clear night when the sun went down, but an hour before dawn the moon was covered by low heavy clouds. The temperature hovered around thirty-five, rain threatened, and outside of the few puddles of light beneath the occasional street lamp, the world was painted slightly different shades of black. Gideon’s mood, too, had gone dark. He hadn’t slept in a very long time. And it seemed like they’d gone deeper and deeper into this thing without really learning anything new.

He stopped at a stop sign and let his engine idle. Left or right? He looked in each direction. There were cars parked on the street both ways, none of them clear enough to identify by make and model. He waited for audio from Tillman, but all he could hear was quiet breathing. Dammit, Tillman, why didn’t you say what street you’d turned onto?

Gideon knew the answer, of course. Tillman had mentioned a few street names as they were driving. But he couldn’t exactly carry on a constant monologue of directions without tipping his hand to Verhoven.

Gideon turned left, driving slowly because his headlights were extinguished, and in the darkness he risked running into something. Eventually he hit a dead end without seeing the Honda. He turned around, drove back until he came to the same stop sign, drove down the next street, hit a dead end, no Honda, came back and stopped at the stop sign again.

As he was idling at the stop sign, trying to figure out where he was, he saw headlights tearing rapidly down the street behind him.

He edged forward and eased into a space next to the curb, then slumped down in the car. His heart rate picked up, and he could feel himself sweating, despite the cold. He put his hand on the butt of his Glock. He could see the headlights slowing. He didn’t move.

Suddenly blue lights began flashing.

He sat up and smoothed his coat, covering the pistol on his hip, and rolled down the window, only to see the car speed right past him.

This can’t be good.

He took off in pursuit.

“Tillman, you need to answer me.” He was practically shouting into the radio. “There’s a cop coming down the street, and he may be headed right for you.”

But the only response Gideon heard was static.

Tillman entered the house and sprinted for the stairs, bounding up them two at a time. Verhoven followed him inside, carrying the guns, while Lorene hobbled in and secured the door behind them.

By the time Tillman reached the second floor, he saw Dr. Klotz at the far end of the hallway, carrying two small children into another bedroom.

The handle was locked. Tillman calmly inserted the pry bar in the door. It was a high-quality wooden door, but nothing special. He pried it off its hinges in three hard strokes, jerked the door open, and charged inside.

He found himself in the master bedroom. The bedcovers were disheveled. On the far wall, another door slammed shut. He studied it carefully. There was no handle, only a very thin crack around the perimeter of the door, which was painted the same flat ecru as the rest of the room. If he hadn’t seen the door slam shut, he would barely have noticed it.

It was a safe room, a panic room, whatever you wanted to call it.

Tillman looked at his watch. 5:34 AM. There was no reason to rush now. Verhoven had cut the phone and jammed the cell phone frequencies. There would be no 911 call.

He placed the radio back in his ear and heard Gideon’s desperate voice.

“Tillman, do you copy?”

“Gideon?”

“Where the hell have you been?”

“I’ve been busy.”

“There’s a cop outside. He’s walking up to the front door.”

Tillman told Gideon to stand down. He hustled back downstairs, where Verhoven was tending to Lorene on the couch. She was wincing and holding her side.

“Where are they?” Verhoven said.

“They got into the safe room. But we’ve got a bigger problem.”

Officer Leyland Millwood Jr., Prince William County Police badge number 3071, saw the aging black Honda parked on the street. It was the same car a neighbor had phoned in, complaining that it had been circling the block in the early morning hours. It looked out of place in a neighborhood where most of the cars were garaged, and most were new Audis, Volvos, and Acuras. Plus, there had been several break-ins reported over the last couple of months.

He parked his patrol car, climbed out, and put his hand on the hood of the Honda. It was warm. In this weather a car hood wouldn’t stay warm two minutes after you turned it off.

He surveyed the area with his flashlight. There were no lights on in the street, no signs of anything odd going on.

He considered what to do. He didn’t really want to scare some family by waking them up for nothing. But if a B and E was happening on his watch, he was damn well going to stop it. Leyland Millwood was a three-year veteran of the PW County force. He’d been driving around in the middle of the night rounding up drunks and giving speeding tickets to teenagers and stopping disabled veterans who’d forgotten to turn their lights on. He was ready to move on to something more exciting—possibly Special Investigations. A few good collars would get him noticed, and he would redeem them for a ticket out of this wilderness of boredom.

He approached the front door of the house and banged on it with the butt of his flashlight.

Verhoven’s eyes widened when he heard the banging on the front door. He turned and strode toward the front of the house, his AR-15 at loe wd gw ready. He looked a little panicky, like maybe he was itching to shoot somebody.

“Wait!” Tillman whispered sharply. “Just . . . wait. Don’t do anything.”

Tillman bounded to the door, pulled out his utility knife, and stabbed the wall. Behind the Sheetrock he found the back of the intercom unit that faced the outside of the building. Beneath it was a piece of armored conduit running down through the wall. He yanked the conduit free of the connector in the base of the intercom, then severed the wire inside it with one swift stroke of the knife. Then he looked through the window. A very young, pugnacious-looking cop stood on the front porch, looking warily at the front door.

“Another two seconds, that man up in the safe room would have been talking to the cop out there,” Tillman whispered.

“Who is it?” Verhoven said softly. His gun was now pointed directly at the door.

Tillman ignored his question, instead whispering, “Get Lorene’s clothes off. Everything but her bra and panties.”

“Why? What are you doing?”

“Just do what I tell you to do.”

Verhoven stood there, as if deciding what to do. He clearly didn’t like taking orders.

“Focus on her clothes. Let me call this play, okay?” Tillman tried to compress all the urgency he felt into his whispered voice. He couldn’t let Verhoven open the door. He’d have to stop him, effectively ending the operation he and Gideon had already put themselves on the line for.

Verhoven glared at him for a moment, before he finally relented. Verhoven was mostly bluff—and in his heart he probably knew it. They were deep into the weeds now, and Verhoven was smart enough to recognize that Tillman was better equipped to get them through this.

Tillman sprinted up the stairs two at a time, running to the bedroom, then dumping clothes from the chest of drawers onto the floor until he found a cotton nightgown. He bounded back down the stairs to find a drawn-looking and nearly naked Lorene Verhoven standing unsteadily in the middle of the room.

“Arms up,” he said.

She put her arms in the air, wincing at the pain in her side. As though he were dressing a child, he slid the nightgown down her arms and over her head. There was a small amount of blood weeping from the dressing on her flank.

There was more banging at the door.

“Perfect,” he said, mussing her hair so she looked as though she’d been roused from bed. “The guy out there is a cop. Go to the door, tell him you’re fine. Whatever you do, don’t let him in the house.”

She nodded, walked stiffly to the door. Tillman motioned to Verhoven to hide out of sight in the dining room. Verhoven retreated, his AR-15 aimed at the door.

“Be cool,” Tillman mouthed as Lorene neared the door.

She opened the door, looked out. “Yes?” she said.

“Officer Millwood, PW County, ma’am. Is everything okay?Rt="nd 21;

“Excuse me?”

“Is everything okay? A neighbor said there was a car circling the street, and now it’s parked outside your house.”

“Oh. Yeah.” Lorene scratched her head. “My husband went out to get some coffee. He knows I can’t be without it when I wake up.”

“You’re sure?”

“Look, I appreciate you’re doing your job. But my shift at the hospital starts in an hour, and I’d really like to enjoy that coffee and get myself ready.”

Officer Millwood stood there but made no move to leave. “I’m sorry if this sounds out of place, ma’am, but you don’t look well.”

“I’m just a little under the weather. But thank you for asking. Stay safe out there.” She closed the door and sagged against the wall, breathing hard. There was a bloody spot on her side about the size of a tangerine, seeping into the white cotton fabric of the nightgown.

Verhoven dropped his weapon and propped her up. “You did great, baby,” he said.

He kissed her forehead, but her eyes seemed to lose focus.

“Baby, I need to lie down now,” she mumbled.

“Of course you do.” He carried her across the living room, set her on the couch. Her face was misted with perspiration and her complexion had gone gray again.

“She needs fluids,” Tillman said.

Verhoven looked down at her bleakly, his eyes unfocused. His body sagged, like a marionette with its strings cut. Tillman had seen it happen many times before. A soldier during combat would run on adrenaline for hours, performing just fine—and then suddenly they’d just fall off a mental cliff.

“Jim,” Tillman said. “You with me? We’re making history here. Nothing this big every comes easily. Operations like this always get bad before they get good again.”

After a moment, Verhoven nodded.

The thing Tillman didn’t say is that sometimes things got bad before they got worse. And then everything fell apart and people died for nothing. In combat you never knew which one it was going to be. And now it was up to him to make sure this wasn’t the kind of op where the good guys ended up facedown in a ditch.

Tillman walked up the stairs, found the intercom on the wall next to the safe room, and pressed the button.

“Hi there, sir,” he said. “My name is Bob and I’m here to make sure that you and your two beautiful daughters walk out of that room entirely safe and unharmed.”

A man’s voice came back immediately. “This is a fortified safe room, you son of a bitch,” the man said. “I don’t know if that means anything to you. But we’ve got food, water, Class III air filtration, weapons, and ammunition in here. The walls are made of solid reinforced concrete and the door is inch-thick steel plate. Take whatever you want from the house and leave. You’ll never get us out of here.”

“Sir, I apologize for the stress we’re putting you through, but the fact is, we will get in there. And we’ll do it in approximately five minutes.”

“Not unless you have—” The man stopped himself abruptly.

“You were going to say ‘Not unless you have plastic explosives.’” Tillman dangled the roll of ribbon charges in front of the camera. “This is a C4 breaching charge. You’ll notice it has a curved anterior surface formed from a thin wafer of copper. This curve concentrates the blast wave into a one-centimeter-wide area, simultaneously converting the copper to a superheated plasma jet that will cut through one-inch plate like a knife through butter. In order to improve the blast strength, I’ll hang about twenty Ziploc bags full of water on the back side of the ribbon charges. This will provide inertia, which will increase the energy of the blast tenfold. It will also dampen the noise of the blast so that your neighbors are none the wiser.”

He began sticking the ribbon charge to the big steel door, running a band of it all the way around the outside of the door.

“Okay, now before I blow the door,” Tillman said, “our legal department requires that we disclose to you the effect of the blast. Since you are in an enclosed room, the overpressure will have no way to dissipate, causing a fairly substantial shock wave to propagate through the safe room. This will burst your eardrums along with those of your lovely daughters. What I’m going to recommend that you do prior to detonation is open your mouths and stick your fingers in your ears. This will at least give your daughters a fighting chance to avoid becoming profoundly deaf for the rest of their lives. The downside, though, is that there’s also a substantial chance of causing pulmonary hemorrhaging. That could cause you and your daughters to drown in blood produced by your own lungs. I’ve seen that happen and I can tell you, it’s a fairly horrible way to die.” He pressed a detonator into the end of the ribbon charge. Then he walked back and stood in front of the camera. “Or you could come out and we could have a civilized conversation.”

There was a long pause. “You’re using us to get to my wife.”

Tillman didn’t know what he was talking about. But there was no percentage in confessing his ignorance at this point, and he understood that the answer he was looking for involved the man’s wife. “I’m sure your wife would not want you to sacrifice your children for her. And all I can do is give you my word that I’ll do my level best to keep you and your girls alive. But unless you open the door, I’ll have to blow it. And if that happens . . .” Tillman looked into the camera, allowing the unarticulated threat to linger for a moment. “One way or another, you and the girls are in this thing, and you’re not holding any cards.” He spread his hands. “Right now your only play is to open the door.”

Tillman waited for a moment. Nothing happened.

“Oh, and before you come out with that gun in your hand and start shooting,” Tillman said, “just understand that I shoot better than you do. And so do the people downstairs. Shooting your way out is not going to work either.”

After a moment, there was a soft click. Then the door opened. A soft-looking man with thinning hair looked tentatively out into the all I room, squinting slightly.

Tillman nodded. “Smart move,” he said. “Now bring the girls and sit on the bed.”

The man emerged, his trembling hands draped protectively around the shoulders of his two little girls.

The older of the two girls was crying, and it was the younger one who said, “You’re a bad man.” She glared at him with coffee-brown eyes.

“I am,” Tillman said, winking at her. “But not as bad as you think.” He clapped his hands. “Okay, everybody on the bed. We’re gonna play a game.”

As the frightened family complied, Tillman felt his legs go weak, and his skin moisten with cold perspiration. Would he have breached the door? When he searched his heart, he wasn’t sure. He might have. And if he had, God only knew what all that C4 would have done to those little girls.

Officer Millwood returned to his patrol car and drove down the street. But something about his encounter bothered him. The woman had not seemed right—the strange color of her eyes, the paleness of her face, her eagerness to get him out of there. He pulled over to the curb and called up dispatch on his radio. He had written down the Honda’s plates and wanted to run a vehicle check.

He was waiting for dispatch to respond when he felt the distinctive metal end of a gun barrel against his neck.

“Tell her you were just checking in and put the radio down,” said Gideon from the backseat. “Otherwise, I will shoot you.”

Millwood did as he was told.

“Good. Now slide over on the seat, and keep your hands where I can see them.”

The officer followed Gideon’s directions.

“You may as well get comfortable,” Gideon said. “You and I may be here for a while.”

38

WASHINGTON, DC

Dale Wilmot drove the white van to the service entrance of the Richard B. Russell Senate Office Building on the southern side of the mall, showed his ID to the Capitol Police officer, then waited for a second officer, who made a careful check of the vehicle’s underside with a mirror fixed to a long pole.

When the check was finished, Wilmot pulled into the grim fluorescence of the lot and parked in the numbered space the officer had assigned him. Wilmot considered the irony of being assigned a spot in an otherwise empty parking lot, until he saw the three-man security detail waiting for him there. The team included a pair of Secret Service agents and a third man in tactical gear with a German shepherd on a leash.

There were no weapons in the van. Wilmot knew that to move forward, his and Collier’s credentials needed to be clean. And they were. Their IDs came directly from the human resources department of the Arlington office of National Heat & Air, the company Wilmot controlled. It had been explained eight months earlier to the secretary that Mr. Wilmot might be doing a surprise inspection of some of his facilities, and siniiiiiiiiof tho he and his executive assistant needed corporate IDs and the appropriate government clearances. Any calls to the company to check the validity of the information presented to the Secret Service would be verified.

Wilmot and Collier both carried Virginia driver’s licenses, which led back to property owned in their names, all taxes and fees paid legitimately, credit card bills received and paid on time for a great many months. Every tool and manual and material in the truck was 100 percent legitimate, purchased by the company, serial numbers verifiable and matching and traceable.

Wilmot and Collier had both attended HVAC school in Coeur d’Alene almost a year ago so that if anybody asked them any questions about heating and air-conditioning systems, they would be able to talk just like pros. They had also studied at length the system they were about to sabotage and knew its workings inside and out.

“Sir, please step out of the vehicle,” one of the Secret Service agents said. Both agents were intensely clean-cut and looked like they might have been scholarship athletes in college, and both wore blue rubber gloves. While the canine guy kept an eye on Collier, Wilmot was thoroughly frisked. Collier came next. There were no we’re-just-doing-our-job pleasantries, no banter or discussions of the weather. The Secret Service didn’t believe in that shit.

Wilmot appreciated the kind of commitment they displayed. Their job was to protect the president and Congress, not to make you feel good. Wilmot felt like he was floating above himself, looking down. He made no attempt to control his emotions.

Notwithstanding the fact that he appreciated the professionalism of the agents, they pissed him off. He didn’t like being searched, didn’t like being told what to do. And he saw no reason to pretend he did. You didn’t want to arouse suspicions, but you didn’t want to come off like you were pretending either.

Once the frisking was done, the K9 guy asked Collier to open the rear of the truck. Wilmot felt a pleasurable pressure in his temples. Now they’d see whether Collier was as smart as he said he was. He claimed that the cleaning process he’d used on the “refrigerant” tanks would make it entirely impossible for the dogs to smell the cyanide.

“Bring out whatever tool you’ll need,” the dog handler said.

Collier rolled the steel tool caddy to the rear of the van, and then together he and Wilmot lowered it to the pavement. Wilmot noticed that Collier’s fingers were shaking a little. There was nothing that could be done about that. Collier was who he was.

“You’re planning on taking that whole thing?” the dog handler said.

“Yep,” Wilmot said.

The dog handler looked at the senior agent, who shook his head. “Then we’ve got a problem. Pressurized tanks aren’t permitted.”

Collier swallowed, face stiffening. Wilmot knew he needed to talk before Collier got all twitchy and said something stupid. What the Secret Service agents would be looking for right now was fear.

So Wilmot knew that he had to display a complete lack of fear.

“We’ve been asked to fix the heat,” Wilmot said in a conversational tone, his eye1; s. s pinned on the Secret Service agent’s face. “See that? In them two tanks there? That’s R410A refrigerant. The HVAC unit at the Capitol is a combo heat exchanger and gas unit. What happens when the two-point-three-point-one controller software update has not been properly downloaded by the bureaucrats in the logistics office is the refrigerant overflow lines do an emergency bleed, the whole system loses priming, and you can’t restart the system until they’re reprimed.” He gave the agent a broad smile. “How that’s done, is you put fresh R410A in the fucking bleed lines. Now unless you plan to be the guy handing the earmuffs and the mittens to the president of the United States this evening, then I suggest you get on the phone to somebody capable of making a reasoned decision and get this sorted out, how we’re gonna bring this stuff over to the Capitol. ’Cause I could give a shit. My grandson’s got a wrestling match at his high school tonight, and I’d much rather be watching a bunch of sweaty teenage boys roll around on the floor than babysitting an HVAC unit. Which gives you a sense just how high my enthusiasm is riding for this job at this point in time. Sir.”