Line of Succession: A Thriller (24 page)

“
How do we know the Iranians won’t seize the opportunity to invade Pakistan altogether?”

“
We should be so lucky. Their economy can’t handle fighting a two-front war. As long as they keep the Allied Jihad busy for awhile, and give us the desalination technology, I’ll keep our end of the bargain.”

“
You sure about that?”

“
Trust me. We’re going to need the water.”

*

Speers’ stomach was a queasy ball of nerves as he entered the command room at oh-five-thirty on the dot, just as Major Dobbs had suggested. He clinched his last lollipop between his teeth. He had been rationing them.

Dobbs sat on the throne-like chair in the command room. Beside him, his deputy – a young Lieutenant who looked like he had been shaving for a year at most – talked through a list of bunker procedures. When Speers came into view, Dobbs turned to the Lieutenant and interrupted his monologue: “Take my shift, Lieutenant. Wainewright’s sending us offsite.”

The young Lieutenant looked puzzled. “Right now, sir? I wasn’t aware of a change in schedule.”

“
We’re at DEFCON two,” Dobbs reminded him. “Information’s on a need-to-know basis. Get used to it.”

Dobbs led Speers toward the entrance. “Just go along with whatever I say,” Dobbs whispered. “You’ll live longer.”

They came to the cornfield entrance elevators. Two MPs stood before them with rifles held diagonally across their chests. Speers immediately recognized one as the MP who had gunned down the family man. “Authorization?” the MP asked, without even the pretense of respect.

“
See these?” Dobbs said, pointing to the brass clusters on his lapels indicating his rank. “And these?” He pointed to a brass globe on his shirt pocket, adorned with an early model jet aircraft and Olympic-style laurels, signifying him as the CENTAF commander. “These are all the authorization I need.”

The MP smirked with an arrogance that surprised even Speers. “There are at least fifty officers down here with higher rank. And all of you still need a little yellow piece of paper with General Wainewright’s signature on it.”

Dobbs stepped into the MPs face, spitting as he spoke. “Choose your words carefully, Corporal, or I’ll have you court-martialed for insubordination to an officer.”

“
Ulysses has deemed this a combat situation,” the other MP said as he launched into a well-rehearsed response: “During combat situations Ulysses troops are not subject to U.S. military law except those laws that are specifically expressed by the Joint Chiefs or the President. By order of General Wainewright, we are also authorized to enforce martial law upon pain of death, regardless of U.S. military rank.”

Dobbs stayed in the MP’s face, muttering obscenities in a low growl that struck Speers as particularly vile and abusive, even for the military. As Dobbs distracted the MP with his verbal assault, he slowly reached for his sidearm.

Speers cut in before it could devolve into more senseless violence: “I think I have what you need.” He produced the yellow signed authorization he had lifted from the officer on watch’s folder hours earlier. He had simply time-stamped it and filled in CLASSIFIED as the reason. Dobbs’ eyes were big, and his fingers still fondled the pistol-grip of his still-holstered .45. Speers sucked hard on his lollipop as the MP scrutinized the form.

“
Have you arranged transport?” the MP said.

“
It’s already on the pad,” Dobbs snapped.

At that, the MP switched on his radio and spoke into it: “This is two sixty. Can you confirm transport on the cornfield helipad?”

“
Affirmative,” the radio voice chirped back. “The helipad is occupied.”

The MPs grudgingly moved aside so that Dobbs and Speers could enter the elevator. They did not look back as the doors closed behind them. Speers spotted the elevator’s surveillance camera and was careful not to smile or speak. He felt his ears pop as the elevator muscled its way up several hundred feet to the surface. When the doors finally swooshed open, Speers took in the smell of cornfields and felt dizzy with the rush of fresh air. Dobbs grabbed him by the arm and led him toward the clearing, where there was indeed already a helicopter on the pad, its rotors spinning against the yellowing eastern sky.

The pilot wore a bandana around his neck and, although it was only sunrise, sunglasses as well. He grinned and stretched out his hand. “Morning Major,” he said. “General coming with?”

“
Negative,” Dobbs replied, “and you’ll be less familiar with me from now on.”

“
Sir, yes sir.”

He shoved Speers into the passenger seat while he sat behind directly behind the pilot. “Take us due east at eighty miles per hour,” Dobbs said.

“
Sir yes sir. Destination?”

“
More as you need it, Lieutenant.”

“
Sir yes sir.”

The chopper pulled up and away from Rapture Run. Speers kept his eyes on the golden cornstalks and the tiny bunker entrance until they were high enough that he could no longer see it. Convinced that they had completed their escape, he breathed a little easier.

Dobbs apparently did not share his relief. “Get to four thousand feet,” he told the pilot. “And quickly.”

“
Sir yes sir.”

Baltimore

5:39 a.m.

Dawn broke over the city’s buildings, flickering out street lamps. Faces peered out from tenement windows as the two battleship grey U.S. Army Humvees rolled through the desolate city streets. Martial law, which imposed a curfew until six a.m., had, if nothing else, eliminated traffic. Four Ulysses units patrolling in Bradley Fighting Vehicles had made sure of that.

Viper Squad was split into two six-man units. Carver rode in the lead vehicle, his typically smooth face darkened by more than two days without shaving. “We’ll stage two blocks east of the target,” he said into the radio. “Copy that,” Sergeant Hundley reported from the second Humvee.

They passed a young Asian couple that had been shot dead on the sidewalk. They had no doubt been caught out after curfew. “Ulysses got some last night,” Private Scott, Carver’s driver, said. He slowed the vehicle down and gawked at Ulysses’ bloody handiwork. “Heartless, man. Just heartless.”

“
Maintain speed,” Carver told him. “Focus on the mission.”

They rounded a corner and came upon a mob scene. Looters were carrying TVs out of the shattered front window of a large electronics store. Carver counted at least twenty men and women helping themselves to the latest in home theater equipment.

“
Keep driving,” Carver insisted.

But Private Scott braked. “All due respect,” he said, “We’re under martial law. We should get busy on these assholes.”

“
Nobody shoots,” Carver said into his radio. He turned to the private. “Now get this convoy moving before somebody does something dumb.”

Two shots rang out from the second Hummer. Carver flinched and crouched out of instinct. Then he recognized the sound of the M4. Damn. It was one of theirs.

He unfurled and peered out the window. One of the looters was down on the pavement, clutching his leg. Blood pooled all around him.

The other looters dropped their wares and fled on foot up the street. Carver reached into his holster and took out his SIG. He levered a round into the chamber and got out and walked to the second Hummer. Twenty yards behind him, the wounded man screamed in agony. Blood streaked the sidewalk as he pulled himself with his hands up the fractured concrete sidewalk.

Carver kept his attention on the Green Berets inside the vehicle. Viper Squad was a frightfully unified fighting machine. Each assumed an identical posture – assault rifles across their laps at matching angles, eyes locked on Carver, mouths stretched tight and expressionless. Only the plume of bluish rifle smoke lingering alongside the rear driver’s side of the vehicle gave the shooter away.

Sergeant Hundley sat at the rear driver’s side window. Carver leveled his gaze at him. “Sergeant Hundley?” he said. Hundley did not respond. For Carver, that was as good as a confession. “Step out,” Carver said as the wounded man’s screaming echoed throughout the near desolate street. Hundley unfolded himself from the cramped Hummer. Carver snatched the soldier’s M4 and slung it over his shoulder. He pushed his SIG underneath the Sergeant’s chin, stripped his grenade belt away with a quick jerk, and then stepped back to a safe distance. “Empty your clip,” he said. He pointed to the sidearm that Hundley kept in the pocket of his cargo pants.

Hundley obeyed without question. He had seen Agent Carver at work with enemy prisoners in Afghanistan. He had learned then that the ex-CIA agent had a highly quantitative mind that, in fractions of a second, weighed the eventualities of any action and followed the path with the most upside. He would not hesitate to kill one person if he could save two.

“
You gonna shoot me?” Hundley asked.

The looters had gathered about a hundred yards up the street, and the size of the mob had grown. The early morning shadows were still dark enough for Carver’s eyes to play tricks on him, but he thought he saw weapons in their hands – guns, bats, tire irons, bottles.

“
You disobeyed a direct order,” Carver said.

“
Yessir,” Hundley replied. “I don’t like thieves.”

“
I like riots even less. The way I figure this, I can either demonstrate that your actions are not condoned by the United States government, or a lot more people end up dead.”

The mob kept their distance, but they began screaming out for vengeance. It was the first time Carver had ever seen the Sergeant scared. “Sir? What are you going to do?”

“
You once told me you ran a 4.4 fifty yard dash,” Carver said. “For your sake, I hope you were telling the truth.”

He left the Sergeant unarmed on the sidewalk and climbed back into the lead Hummer. Private Scott reluctantly stepped on the gas.

Over West Virginia

5:55 a.m.

The Blackhawk chopper Major Dobbs had appropriated at Rapture Run enjoyed clear morning skies as it clipped along at 2200 feet. With all commercial air travel grounded, they had the skies to themselves. But Dobbs wasn’t aboard to enjoy the view. From his seat behind the pilot, Dobbs eyed the instrument panel and saw that the directional was pointing northeast.

Speers’ knuckles were bone white as he gripped an exposed piece of the chopper’s frame. The Chief of Staff’s only other helicopter flights had been with President Hatch aboard Marine One. It was like going from a luxury cruise ship to a jet ski.

“
Mister Speers,” Major Dobbs said suddenly, “I’m about to give the pilot the details of our itinerary. Please pay close attention.”

Speers looked to Dobbs just in time to see him leveling his .45 automatic at the base of the pilot’s neck.

Speers shouted “No!” at the exact instant that Dobbs pulled the trigger. The bullet entered the pilot’s cerebellum and exited his left eye socket and ricocheted off the chopper’s steel framing. Multi-colored giblets of brain, bone and blood splattered across the front glass.

The old Julian Speers would have hyperventilated or thrown up. Now, after all he had seen in the past two days, his primary instinct was merely to stay alive. He immediately overcame the shock of the Lieutenant’s sudden execution as the pilotless chopper began to pitch slightly. He looked around the cabin in hopes of spotting a parachute.

Dobbs, however, had no plans to bail out. He had started his career thirty years earlier as a helicopter pilot, had flown combat missions in a Huey attack chopper during the invasion of Grenada, and despite moving into an administrative role in CENTAF’s air traffic command, he had still managed to log a few dozen flying hours each year. Now he learned forward from the back seat and took the chopper’s control stick in one hand. Then he half-climbed onto the dead pilot’s lap, unfastened the corpse’s safety harness and pushed the body against the door. The pilot’s dead weight carried itself out. Dobbs resisted the urge to watch the body fall to earth.

He could hardly see out the windscreen. “Gimmie your tie,” Dobbs said. Speers untied his half-Windsor and handed it to the Major, who used it to wipe the pilot’s spatter from the glass.

“
Okay there, Chief?” Dobbs said.

Speers found his voice. “I’d like to know why you’re helping me.”

“
Rapture Run was starting to feel a lot like Jonestown,” Dobbs replied. “And if there’s two things I can’t stomach, it’s murdered congressmen and poisoned Kool-Aid.” Speers couldn’t argue with that. “Our pilot was circling back to Rapture Run,” Dobbs went on. “We’re officially AWOL during martial law, and that makes us targets, Chief. I am prepared to kill any treasonous, Ulysses-loving SOBs that get in our way.”

The Major pushed the stick forward. The chopper descended toward the tree line. Speers drummed his fingers nervously on his legs.

“
Now then,” Dobbs said. “We’ve gone to a lot of trouble so that you could make a phone call. I think it’s time you make it.”