An Armageddon Duology (38 page)

“
I
didn’t want
to be here,” said the rich baritone. “Usually the last president has to make this important transition, but with that unexpected death, well, I’ll have to do.” He nodded to his reflection in the window. “This way you’ll trust them. They’ve found it smooths things significantly.”

The train sped through the underground tunnel, the absence of Secret Service officers only one of many factors unnerving York. She turned toward the former president, his frame slouched and angled in the plush chairs, his gaze unfocused through the window at the blurred stone walls speeding past.

“Trust who, Barack? What the hell is going on?”

“I think we’re almost there,” said Obama, standing awkwardly as the car swayed. The train decelerated rapidly. He motioned to York. “You’ll get off here.”

She stared through the window as the brakes hissed, the cabin coming to a complete stop. “Here? We aren’t at the terminal point. We’re in the middle of the damn tunnel! How do we get off here?”

Obama smiled wanly. “You’ll see. Come on.”

The doors opened, and she followed him out of the car numbly. A small ledge rose over the tracks, a set of steps rising from it. A metal door gleamed at the top of the stairway.

“This isn’t in the maps.”

“Retinal scan will get you in,” Obama said. “You’re lucky—you should’ve seen the digs they had when I was sworn in. This is Madison Avenue.” Again the weak smile. “It’s going to seem impossible, Elaine,” he said, looking down the length of the train as it curved around the tunnel. “It’s like growing up, except doing it again later in life. You have to give up a lot of childish ideas that aren’t true. Santa Claus. The Tooth Fairy. Of, by, and for the People. You have to accept the adult world and work with what it is, or—well, or you won’t make it in that world.” He put a hand on her shoulder. “The train won’t leave until you go in. Good luck.”

She watched in shock as he turned around and boarded the train, the automatic doors closing behind him. York glanced down the tunnel walls, along the tracks and train cars, and finally back to the doorway before her. She half-believed she was dreaming.

“Maybe it’s a stroke,” she whispered, slowly ascending the stairs to the gray metal door.

A lens with a red light glinted down at her.

“So, Star Chamber—all this and you weren’t prepared for a short woman?”

She rose on her toes and stared into the glass circle in front of her. Seconds later bolts disengaged with clangs and the door swung inward. York stepped forward into a dim chamber that turned pitch as the outer door slammed shut behind her. The locks sealed loudly.

The walls shuddered, she felt her stomach drop, and the floor plunged downward. As she fell, her eyes adjusted to the chamber, noting metallic walls devoid of instrumentation or insignia. Void of information.

Gravity tugged heavily on her as the lift came to a stop. The door behind her hissed, and she spun around to see an opening into a room glowing with blue light.

Straightening her blouse, she exhaled sharply, staring forward with determination.

She walked through the doorway.

“
N
o
!”

Savas lunged forward with all his strength, but the two guards on his right and left held his shoulders down. His arms were tied harshly behind him, lashed to the chair. His feet were bound at the ankles. He could not stop the events in the other room. Forcing him to watch, the men beside him held his chin up to the screen.

Blackness. The screen popped and fell dark. A deep hum dropped through the ship in pitch until it fell out of human detection. Bass notes shook through him.

“What the fuck?” One of the guards beside him cursed, stumbling in the darkness, tripping on a leg of the chair, his body impacting the unseen wall.

“That was the reactor, Burton.”

“Nuclear powered ships don’t lose power, dumbass! And we’ve got rows of batteries. Power’s cut somewhere.”

“Where’s the backup?”

“I don’t know! Shit! Can’t find the damn door. Here!”

A metallic grating screeched and a rush of air entered the room. Savas still could see nothing except the faint afterglow of the monitor. No light entered from the outside corridor. He heard muffled shouts and explosions from above.

“Holy shit! We’re under attack!”

A light leapt forward highlighting the barrel of a gun.

“Burton, mount your weapon-light! It’s all we have!”

The other soldier followed suit and both rushed down the hallway.

Savas closed his eyes and strained to hear. The sounds of fighting intensified. He felt the boat slowing, yawing clockwise as the engines remained quiet. He yanked at the restraints but got nowhere, and slumped in the chair in frustration. Their one chance of escape and he couldn’t take advantage of it!

A thunderous blast shook him. Metal shards flew through the hallway, clanging and slamming against the walls. Acrid smoke spilled into his room, followed by the sound of rushing boots.

A bright light shone into his eyes from the doorway. Completely blinded, Savas turned his face away, squinting.

“They’re here! I’ve got Savas!” cried the voice with the light.

“Found the others!” came a muted voice down the corridor.

The man pulled out a stick and cracked it, and a bright blue light filled the room. He tossed it on the floor in front of Savas and switched off his flashlight.

“What the hell?” asked Savas.

The man dropped to his knee behind the chair. “We’re a rescue team. Seal assault squad. We’re here to get you
out!”
Savas felt a hard tug on his wrists and heard the restraints tear. His hands were loose. The man bent over to his ankles and cut the ties with a large blade, freeing him.

Savas stood up and almost fell, his knees buckling. The man caught him from behind.

“Can you walk?”

“Hell yes.”

He willed himself forward. His muscles screamed, but he forced them to move, the motion and adrenaline quickly loosening the tightness.

Cold metal touched his hand. The soldier had placed a gun there.

“We might be shooting our way out, Agent.”

He stumbled into the hallway. Above, the chaos continued: explosions and the sounds of aircraft and heavy guns firing. Two more soldiers stood in front of them. They were dressing a woman.

“Rebecca!”

Her head turned as he limped forward. They embraced and he wept, holding her tightly to him.

“John, no time,” she said, pulling back, tears in her eyes. “We’ve got to move fast.”

“FBI man,” came the clipped voice of one of the Seals. “Off with the shoes and pull these over you. Now!”

He didn’t have time to think or understand. The man handed him an oversized suit. It felt synthetic. A similar dark material covered Cohen and she held swimming flippers under her arm. The men pushed them forward as she zipped up the suit.

“You’re going to go straight up the ladders. If we still have it secured, it will take you to a lower deck, near water. SDVs are there waiting with drivers. Don’t hesitate. Jump in. We’ve got only minutes.”

Another set of explosions rocked the ship. The soldier speaking to him smiled.

“At least air support is giving them something to chew on.”

They reached the ladders. Cohen climbed above him, racing for the top. Savas followed closely behind.

“Rebecca, the men—”

“Not now, John. Please. They’re dead.”

He heard the strain in her voice. He closed his eyes and climbed.

They stepped onto the deck as salt water sprayed over them. Rough waves battered the hull, the ship no longer under power to steer. Fires flicked above as wounded men screamed over the gunfire.

“My God,” Savas whispered. “It’s an aircraft carrier.”

The enormous expanse of a flight deck loomed several stories above him. A Seal shoved a mask into his hand and helped him fit it over his head, another strapping flippers on his feet. The man shouted through the turmoil.

“Dive in toward the SDV!” he screamed, pointing below at a dark shape. “They’ll hook you up. Do what they say! Stay calm!”

The man pushed Savas forward. He saw Cohen leap into the night air and plunge into the water below. Grinding his teeth, he stepped off the deck. The sounds of battle funneled into a point over his head, and a great, wet maw opened below him, wind and waves drowning out the battle above.

His feet smacked the surface and the cold water enveloped him. Arms pulled him against a black hull and he felt someone grab his head and attach something to the back of the mask. Stale air began to flow into it.

A hand pointed to the hull, and Savas saw an opening to a hollow interior. Brown hair billowed from within as Cohen moved inside, out of his sight. He kicked with the powerful flippers and approached what looked like an oversized torpedo. Seals helped him inside and followed behind him.

He floated to the back of the chamber alongside Cohen. Bubbles erupted from behind her as she breathed, her eyes focused intensely into his. He grasped her outstretched hand.

The door lumbered shut, but the water remained, along with two Navy Seals accompanying them. Not a submarine, the interior remained flooded for the duration, air supplied by the tanks hooked up to their masks. The craft’s acceleration pushed them backward. Cohen leaned her mask against his and closed her eyes.

H
e lost
all track of time and sense of direction in the cramped submersible. But he didn’t care at that moment. Just to be next to Cohen again, to have escaped that hell-hole—he couldn’t process the miracle. He felt grateful. Delivered. They held onto each other.

Part of his mind continued to race. Who had sent these soldiers? Why had they turned on their countrymen? And who had kidnapped them in the first place, whisking them out to sea on an island-sized aircraft carrier?

He had no answers. He began to obsess about pursuit, a panic building that somehow the cold man with the voice would return, strap him down, make him scream. The carrier had seemed badly damaged and incapacitated. Had it remained so? Were small ships sent to hunt them down? He doubted this submersible could stay underwater for prolonged periods of time. Where were they headed? He stumbled from dreamscape to dreamscape.

A soldier in front of him spoke into his mask. The soldier beside him answered silently and looked in their direction, motioning with his hand to the door. Savas glimpsed a communications setup in his suit, but surrendered to fatigue and ignored it. He simply nodded back.

The other Seal engaged the mechanism and the side door opened to blackness. Savas and Cohen followed the two men outside the craft, swimming awkwardly and trying to keep up, beams from their helmet lamps strobing the water. The soldiers often doubled back to help them along.

Above, Savas began to catch a faint glow. A diffuse radiation supplemented the helmet lamps. Perhaps the moon or artificial lights. He couldn’t be sure. He began to make out shapes in the water around him.

A wall
.

In front of the two soldiers, a sheer rock face loomed. The men took no heed and swam straight for it. Savas and Cohen flailed forward, a dark circle growing in the surface before them.

A tunnel
. Broad enough to allow them to swim inside, but too narrow for the submersible. Savas looked behind them. The craft had disappeared. They were on their own and headed into the bowels of a cliff.

As they passed within the opening, Savas saw that it was manmade. Too round, devoid of the growths and imperfections of natural formations, his headlamp revealed telltale evidence of boring machines. Someone had dug these tunnels. For what purpose he could not guess.

The Seals ahead turned in their direction. A flash of light from their headlamps pierced the darkness. The FBI agents had lagged behind, and the soldiers waved them on. A current pushed outward from the tunnel like a tide, dragging like gravity as they tried to continue inward. Their pace was slowing. They were tiring. Savas prayed they did not have far to go.

After some minutes, the soldiers stopped ahead. As Cohen and Savas caught up, he saw that the passage split four-ways. The two men discussed the different tunnels animatedly, gesturing in each direction.
Wonderful.
He saw a blue light flash from each of their helmets and what appeared to be a screen superimposed on the glass.
A frogman’s heads-up display?
He hoped they had a map for these tunnels to reference.
How much oxygen is left?

After several minutes of watching the back and forth, Savas saw them come to an agreement, settling on the rightmost tunnel. Again the soldiers waved them forward. The marathon swim continued, exhaustion beginning to take a severe toll. Cohen struggled, her eyes downcast and unfocused. His own breath filled the inside of his mask like some elephant’s gasping. They couldn’t go on much more.

Ahead, a shaft of light dove into the water. The soldiers aimed right for it, their pace accelerating. Savas felt his heart leap, adrenaline coursing through his veins.
The last push
.

The tunnel opened into a wide chamber, multiple other passageways underwater embedded around them. But the soldiers ignored the other tunnels and began to swim upward, toward the light. Savas grabbed Cohen’s hand. Her face was pale, but her eyes glowed with hope. They kicked upward together, the current gone, the final burst of energy giving them the power to keep pace with the Seals.

The four of them broke through to the surface, artificial light reflecting off the ripples and partially blinding them. An enormous domed roof arched above them. Around the pool of water ran a stone walkway. Doors and passageways opened in different directions away from the chamber.

As his eyes adjusted, he saw figures lining the pool—soldiers, weapons in their hands, aimed in their direction. In the middle of the group of men stood a short woman, her silver hair contrasting with the black body armor she wore.

The Seals urged them forward. They covered the short distance to the water’s edge, and with the help of several soldiers above managed to drag their bodies and equipment out of the water. Feeble and nearly helpless on land, others helped them out of the wetsuits, two female soldiers covering Cohen’s naked form in a robe. Savas stood with trembling legs, his soiled clothes, suit, mask, and air tank at his feet. Soaked and dripping, he shivered in the crisp air.

The gray-haired woman walked forward, her gaze stern as it assessed them. She placed a hand on Cohen’s shoulder as she spoke:

“Agents Savas and Cohen. I’m honored to meet you. I only wish the circumstances had been different.”

“Ms. President,” whispered Savas, his fatigue nearly overwhelming.

Cohen smiled wanly. “Thank you. I thought we were lost. Worse than lost. How did you find us?”

“We’ll explain more soon. Right now let’s get you two looked at and off your feet.” She paused. “Looks like you missed the luxury accommodations.”

Savas stared dumbfounded at the subterranean space, the military men, and the woman before them.
Could I be hallucinating?

“Ms. President, please. Where are we? What is this?”

She smiled from one side of her mouth.

“Welcome to the Presidency in Exile.” Her eyebrows arched. “Seven stories below the streets of New York City.”

“Below New York?” he said, his eyes straying upward to the arching supports of the towering ceiling.

“Welcome to the underworld.”