Line of Succession: A Thriller (39 page)

“
My turn,” he said as he took Angie’s arm. “We’re getting closer with every step,” he told her. His voice seemed to soothe her. “We need to keep going.”

O’Keefe took the point. She drew her weapon. They kept moving.

The Pentagon

6:35 a.m.

From their private conference room adjacent to the NMCC, Wainewright and Farrell heard a wave of applause, followed by several ear-piercing whistles. The Generals burst into the room to see what good fortune had come their way. They found Dex Jackson standing in the middle of the NMCC, surrounded by Pentagon communications staffers who were lining up to shake his hand.

“
Genius PR,” Farrell whispered into Wainewright’s ear. “Genius!”

During the past seventy-two hours, the Joint Chief’s communications department – under the careful guidance of General Wainewright – had remade Dex from a bully Defense Secretary into a sympathetic hero who had lost his wife in the attacks but managed to save his son. Having been only drip-fed meaningful crisis information, and cut off from any other people-related stories that made for riveting television, the networks had lapped up every morsel of Dex’s fabricated plight for survival in Chesapeake Bay. Dex Jackson was a household name. Wainewright would have what he wanted – a popular President that he could control.

“
Back to your stations,” Wainewright called to the staffers. As the applause petered out, Wainewright put on his best smile and crossed the room to shake Dex’s hand. “You had us worried,” he said.

“
I need to see LeBron,” Dex said. “
Now
.”

Wainewright guided him into the conference room. General Farrell opened a silver titanium briefcase containing a tablet computer. Farrell switched it on. A time-stamped digital photo of LeBron appeared. It had been taken not thirty minutes earlier. The image had all the charm of a jailhouse mug shot, down to the dazed, depressed expression on the boy’s face.

“
He’s waiting for you,” Wainewright said. “Do what you promised, and you’ll see him.”

“
And my wife?”

Wainewright shook his head. “In heaven, Dex. Where else?”

“
I’ve heard different.”

“
You know, Dex, being a bachelor and the leader of the free world at the same time could have its upside. There’s a lot of pretty White House interns who would give it up for a night in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

Dex lunged at Wainewright’s jugular with both hands. Farrell sprung into action, ramming his shoulder hard into Dex, managing to knock the much larger Defense Secretary off balance and into the door. A groundswell of boots pounded the floor outside.

“
We’re okay!” General Wainewright shouted through the door as he slicked his hair back with his hand. “Everyone back to their stations!”

Dex freed himself from Farrell’s grip and retreated to his corner of the room. “All this will come to light,” he said. “You’ll be tried for treason.”

Wainewright touched the photo screen and dragged his finger across it, grossly enlarging LeBron’s face. “I don’t think so. Your first act as Commander-in-Chief will be to direct the National Archives to seal all documents and testimony pertaining to this crisis for fifty years.”

Then General Farrell slid a yellow forty-six-page document in front of him. It was a supply order totaling $272 million in communications and security equipment for Ulysses to use in creating Rapture Run. It had Dex’s signature on it, as well as that of Ulysses CEO Jeff Taylor. Dex remembered signing a document much like it more than a year earlier. He remembered Corporal Hammond bringing it to him personally, telling him that the order was for Raven Rock. He was accustomed to signing entire stacks of multi-million dollar contracts at a time, and he had undoubtedly signed this one after only a quick skim. It was all too easy for Dex to imagine how the Joint Chiefs would use it to prove that Dex had conspired with Ulysses to build the secret operations center without the National Security Council’s permission. He figured it was just one of many smoking guns they would hold to his head if he chose not to cooperate.

Wainewright did not bother to explain what was already understood. “After the inauguration,” he continued, “your security detail people will be staffed by personnel of our choosing. Just to make sure you don’t get too big for your britches.”

The fury in Dex’s eyes turned to resignation. It was obvious that the Joint Chiefs held all the cards.

“
Honestly, Dex,” Farrell added, “once you accept this, you’ll see we’re giving you everything you wanted. We could have chosen anyone. The Number Two, Eva Hudson, even Congressman Bailey. But we chose you because we agreed with all your foreign policy arguments. You wanted a rebuilt military? You’ll get it. You wanted out of Indonesia? Done. You wanted out of the Middle East? Except for the new base in Dubai, you’re getting that too. All you have to do is be a good boy and do as you’re told.”

Abrams pushed the door open. He was scowling even more than usual. “We have a problem,” he said. “My men had the targets cornered at Arlington House. Julian Speers was with them too. They all disappeared inside. Gone without a trace.”

“
Did you say Arlington House?”

“
Yes.”

Wainewright knew immediately where Speers had taken them. “Grab a wing man and some night vision gear,” he told Abrams as he headed for the elevator. There was a tunnel entrance beneath the Pentagon. And he had a code.

Washington D.C.

7:02 a.m.

Agent Rios leaned against a tree near Lafayette Square, just blocks from the White House. He was exhausted. Up the street, a Ulysses patrol loudspeaker called for residents to avoid gathering in large groups. It was an absurd request on any day, much less this one. The city had woken up to the news that President Hatch had been assassinated.

Something cold and wet brushed Rios’ hand. A Schnauzer muzzle. The dog was attached to a woman in her mid-40s with kind eyes and wide ankles. “Excuse me,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”

“
Me?” Rios said.

“
Well I see you work for the government.” She gestured toward Rios’ earpiece and black suit and tie. Rios pulled the transmitter out of his ear. “Can you tell me what’s going on?”

“
Sorry ma’am. I may know less than you do.” It was the truth. He was completely out of the loop. There were a dozen messages on his phone demanding that he appear at Homeland Security headquarters to explain his actions. Suspension from the Secret Service was certain. Dismissal without pension was likely.

“
My sister called from Peru,” the woman added. “She said Israel is being invaded.”

Rios shrugged. He hadn’t seen or heard any international news. His phone buzzed and displayed a headshot of Mary Chung, President Hatch’s longtime executive assistant.

“
Thank God you’re alive,” she said, choking back tears. “Can you talk?”

“
Depends,” Rios said. “Did someone ask you to call me?”

“
Heavens no,” Mary said without hesitation. “I’m just trying to make sense of the Pentagon’s press release.”

“
Haven’t seen it.”

“
They say that Eva Hudson died at Camp David. But I knew that the President had asked you to shadow Eva on Martha’s Vineyard.”

“
Eva wasn’t at Camp David. The President never made it there either. I need you to tell me everything you know.”

“
I was just at the White House. The Uniforms are all gone,” Mary said, using the shorthand for the Secret Service’s Uniformed Division, otherwise known as the White House Police Force.

“
Gone? You mean there’s no security at all?”

“
Oh there’s security,” Mary said. “Just not ours. The mansion is surrounded by Ulysses soldiers.”

Rios wished he was surprised. “Go on.”

“
I went to the staff entrance,” Mary said. “I was told my credentials were no longer valid.” Rios waited as Mary choked up, then regained her composure. “But the strangest thing…”

“
What?”

“
Secretary Jackson’s kid.”

“
LeBron Jackson? You saw him?”

“
Saw him? Hector, they ushered LeBron right past me. He’s in the White House right now.”

The Tunnels

7:28 a.m.

Chris Abrams and Elijah Smith moved slowly and silently through the chest-level water. They had been in the tunnels for forty-five minutes, and all they had seen so far was a water moccasin as big around as a human thigh. They wore night vision goggles and held their M4s across the tops of their shoulders to keep them dry. The tunnel had widened to about twelve feet at its widest point, but seemed to be getting narrower again. The soles of Abrams’ boots were slippery against the mossy tunnel floor. He longed for a pair of waders and the felt-bottomed boots that he wore on occasional river fly-fishing trips back to Idaho.

The two men did not know each other. With Abrams’ crew having been killed in Baltimore, he had been forced to choose a wing man from the few available Ulysses MPs on duty at the Pentagon. None had any covert ops experience to speak of. Abrams knew only that Smith had done three years for Ulysses in Afpak after flunking out of ROTC. Not exactly the rock star he had hoped for, but at least he had actual combat experience, which was more than he could say for the others.

Abrams cursed under his breath as they came to a fork where the tunnels branched off into three directions. They were under instructions to follow the tunnels north until they found the HVTs, or High Value Targets. Wainewright had said nothing about a fork. They didn’t have a map, and they were too far underground for their GPS to work.

Then he heard it – a faint scream. A woman’s scream. Then at least one deeper voice, maybe two. It was impossible to tell how far away. But it was coming from the left fork. Abrams looked at Smith and pointed toward the left tunnel and moved his rifle from the dry carrying position to a dry firing position, with the barrel pointed in the direction they were walking and the stock resting firmly against his shoulder.

Twenty yards further, the water receded to waist-level. Abrams stopped and motioned for Smith to do the same. The voices had stopped, but a faint blue glow appeared in the distance. He pointed Smith to the tunnel’s far side, while he took up a firing position on the opposite wall. Abrams slipped once but managed to get his feet under him without splashing.

The distant light flared strangely through his goggles. He lifted them up to try with his naked eyes. Then the HVTs came into view – four cell phones and five humans, perhaps eighty yards ahead. Abrams licked his busted lower lip and stretched his neck from side to side. He felt a dull pain in his belly and realized it was hunger. It had been a little more than two hours since he had eaten.

“
How much longer?” a woman’s voice echoed. Abrams kept as still as death.

The tunnel curved in a serpentine path, and from Abrams’ perspective the HVTs drifted in and out of view. It was unclear whether there were additional forks in the tunnel.

After the failure in Baltimore, Abrams had vowed never again to engage in a firefight with the esteemed Agent Blake Carver. They would wait until the HVTs were very close. Then they would slaughter them. All of them.

Abrams put his goggles back on and looked at Smith. He held his left hand in front of his face and balled it up into a fist – hold position. He then held his pinkie and thumb out and wobbled them from side to side to signal that they would ambush the targets. Then he flashed the numbers one and five, meaning they would wait until the targets were within fifteen yards to attack.

Abrams’ right index finger danced around the M4s trigger as the HVTs slogged toward them. They were, for the most part, single file, and as they came closer, their cell phones created halos around their bodies. The target walking point was brandishing a handgun.

Abrams found her in his scope, placed gentle pressure on the trigger and tried to regulate his breathing as he waited for the targets to come within range. Ten more yards, and he’d put two rounds into the point target and reset his aim to one foot above the water. Combatants in water instinctively went neck deep when attacked. Rarely did they have the composure to hold their breath and swim underwater.

Then the unthinkable happened – Smith lost his footing and slipped below the surface. The sound of his splashes cut through the tunnel’s silence like the ringing of church bells, spoiling the element of surprise.

“
Lights out!” one of the HVTs shouted. The targets froze twenty five yards out and shut off the backlights of their cell phones. The glow lingered in Abrams’ night vision goggles.

He pulled the trigger and placed two rounds squarely into one of the target’s chest. Then he moved his barrel to the right and fired another burst, but the targets were not where they were supposed to be; they had dispersed to each side of the tunnel and vanished from view.

A lone body floated on the water’s surface.