Captive-in-Chief (12 page)

“My instructions?” asked the president, incredulous.

“Create a federal force to control civil unrest. You suggested FEMA as its home, that’s why we used the FPS as our base. They had the powers they needed as a law enforcement agency and already worked with FEMA.”

“When the hell was this?”

“About a year ago. A special advisor from Bill’s office took us through what you wanted.”

Clay turned to Bill, who looked as confused as he felt.

“I never sent any advisor, nor asked for any of that!” he replied adamantly.

“And you never thought to bring any of this up in the last year?” asked Clay, trying to contain his anger.

“The project was, as per your instruction, kept under wraps and we were not to mention in it in front of others. We were told when the time came we’d roll it out and prove their use before having to justify their existence. We sent monthly updates as requested.”

“What updates?”

“Project Vigilant. We sent you the numbers each month as requested.”

“Project Vigilant? What are you talking about? That was an update on the number of veterans employed across Homeland and the number of non-veteran retirees.”

“No, that’s a different project. It’s the number of operatives we have in FPS and the number of converted MRAPS for civilian action.”

Clay grabbed his smart phone and typed Project Vigilant into the search function. A number of emails appeared, he scrolled back to the first mention of the name. An email from Bill explained the detail behind the project and how he would receive a very brief update each month as to how the numbers were tracking. It had been received just before the summer break, forgotten about when they returned and the numbers were fairly steady each month, a couple of thousand veterans and a few hundred or so retirees. In a department the size of Homeland, and given his edict to all government agencies to increase veteran hiring, it had been pleasing but unremarkable enough to fly under the radar amongst thousands of other far more critical projects.

Bill read it over his shoulder. “I never sent that!” he protested, grabbing his own smart phone, and entered the same search. An email similar to the one sent from himself to the president was there, only it had come from the Secretary to himself.

An equally adamant denial was made by the Homeland Secretary. They had all been fooled.

“Wait a minute,” said Clay, having quickly done the math from the numbers he remembered. “Are you telling me there are over 25,000 officers in the FPS?”

The Homeland Secretary nodded. “Actually, a little under 30,000, and around 4,500 converted MRAPs.”

“MRAPs?” asked Bill.

“Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles. They’re built to withstand IED attacks,” explained the FEMA administrator.

“Exactly what we need on the streets!” exclaimed Clay.

The secretary shifted nervously.

“What?”

“There is something else that we were told to do,” said the secretary, growing increasingly uncomfortable as the nature of the project was unveiled as fraudulent. “It’ll probably break on the news shortly, the final piece of the controlling civil unrest.”

“What is it?” Clay asked impatiently. His cell started to ring, interrupting the secretary’s answer. ‘Unknown caller’ was displayed. The only time that had happened was the text messages from
them
. He excused himself; his daughters’ lives were on the line.

“Yes?” he answered in his private breakout room behind the main Situation Room.

“Now you know the FPS exists, roll out the forces and crush the riots…”

Clay listened as the message continued, his mind racing while the computerized voice droned in his ear. His anger rose as more detail of what had been created by his Homeland department, on his watch and behind his back, was revealed. The call ended with a simple, and in any other circumstance, a very sweet note:
“Your daughter Clara says she loves you!”

Clay’s daughter Clara was in their hands. At some point, they were going to ask him to choose her life over others, and that would be the time he could no longer keep quiet. Until then, he had no choice, he had to comply. He would do everything in his power to keep his daughters and family safe.

He pulled himself up straight and walked back into the Situation Room. He was Commander–in-Chief of the most powerful country in the world. He had to try to convey that power, despite being effectively powerless. The substance of the call filled his thoughts. How could he have been so stupid? How could he have done all this without checking even once? His anger and pent up frustration took over and he swung, catching the secretary perfectly on the chin, sending him crashing to the floor. The FEMA administrator and Bill rushed to his aid.

“Detention camps, are you fucking kidding me!” Clay shouted.

Bill stepped back from assisting the secretary. “What?”

“Genius here never thought to question us personally when told to build detention camps!”

The secretary rubbed his chin and sat up, leaning against the wall.

“We never built anything, only converted a number of old facilities and stockades that were no longer in use.”

The president stepped forward aggressively and the secretary scuttled away. “Don’t be a pedant. A convert, build, it’s all the same result. We have
detention camps
??!!”

“Mr. President, I didn’t think for a second you would inter our citizens,” the FEMA administrator cut in, trying to assist his immediate boss. “The woman who visited us sold it exceptionally well. We had no idea it wasn’t—”

“Neither of you know me well enough to question the construction of detention camps to house US citizens?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t think, we’ll close them down with immediate effect. We might even make it before anyone finds out they exist.”

Clay recalled the rest of the message,
crush the riots and inter the arrested in the detention camps.
He would have dearly liked to close them. The thought of interring US citizens went against everything he stood for. But his daughter’s life was on the line and the National Defense Authorization Act gave him the powers to do it, thanks to the New Black Panthers’ ties to Al Qaeda.

“No,” Clay said, backtracking awkwardly. “We’ll lock up the troublemakers for now. If we let them go, it’ll all kick off again. At least that way, we’ll calm things down.”

“For how long?” asked a thoroughly confused Bill.

“For as long as I say,” Clay lied. The true answer was until the conspirators told him otherwise, as per the phone call. “Can we call on any more teams tonight?”

“We have them stationed within range of where we believed we’d experience the most trouble. We have teams ready in New York, Baltimore, Chicag—”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture. We’ve had governors calling. Call them back and send in the FPS. If you’ve placed assets near cities where the governors haven’t called, call them and offer up assistance. I want these riots dealt with tonight.”

“And if they don’t want FPS help?”

“Tell them you’ll let the media know they refused. Once you’ve done that I want you both back in here and I want to know every detail about this woman, the riot squad, and detention camps that you’ve created on her behalf.”

“Of course, Mr. President.” The secretary and FEMA administrator exited the room, the secretary keeping out of Clay’s reach as he left.

“What the hell is going on, Mr. President? How can this have been done behind our backs and why?”

Before Clay could answer, his cell phone rang again.
Unknown caller.

“Yes?”

“It goes without saying people can’t be aware you didn’t know about FPS. That would lead to very unfortunate results.” The call ended.

Clay rushed from the room and down the corridor towards the Homeland Office where he knew the secretary would have gone to make the calls.

As he turned the corner, he saw two men lying heaped next to each other, a bullet hole in each of their foreheads.

“Shit!” he rushed back to the Situation Room where he had left Bill Miller. Bill was slumped in his chair. Clay had only been gone for a few seconds but it was all the killers had needed to do their job. A bullet hole decorated Bill’s forehead the same as it had the Homeland secretary and FEMA administrator.

Whoever he was up against, their resources and capabilities were astounding. He was in the most secure area in the world and three of his closest advisors had been assassinated around him, the most protected man on the planet.

The Secret Service surged into the room. His cell rang and he answered without looking at it.

“Uncle Cl…sorry, Mr. President, is it a good time to talk?”

Clay was being swept from the room, his legs struggling to keep up with the speed his protectors needed to remove him from the kill zone.

“Yes,” replied Clay, relieved it wasn’t the computerized voice.

Clay hadn’t stopped pacing since he and his family had been deposited in the president’s Emergency Operations Center, a secure bunker under the East Wing, while the hunt for the assassin or assassins was underway. However, the president had never felt more vulnerable. As far as he was aware, any one or many of the agents sworn to protect him could have been the assassin and he was locked in a vault with twenty of them.

He watched the TV reports as he paced the room. The FPS had been unleashed across the country, New York, Chicago, Baltimore, D.C., Houston, the list went on. Without the concrete barriers in place, it wasn’t quite as orchestrated and efficient as the three earlier cities that had benefited from FPS involvement. However, where they lacked preparation, they made up for in brutality. The water cannons and batons were used with an intensity that defeated the out of control rioters wherever they were deployed, breaking the will of the protestors with ease.

News of the detention camps soon surfaced. Former military installations and forts across the country had been reinstated and equipped in order to detain prisoners. Initial numbers suggested over ten thousand had been detained across the country. All were being held under the National Defense Authorization Act and as such, no charges were required for their detention. The Democrats were going crazy at the outrage against the Constitution that the president and the government were perpetrating.

Charles Johnson, National Security Advisor, joined Clay, pacing across the center of the room.

“I thought you weren’t due back for a couple of days?” said Clay, the relief in his voice clear.

“I came back early. The Secretary of Defense and chairman of the Joint Chiefs came too.”

“What about the summit?”

Charles ignored the question. He realized the president was suffering from mild shock, not surprising given the circumstances. Charles Johnson knew the president as well as anyone in his inner circle. A lifelong family friend of Val and her family, he had been with Clay since the beginning of his political life.

“We have the shooters, sir!” said Charles.

“Please tell me they’re not black,” Clay pleaded, unable to take his eyes from the TV screens.

“They weren’t black, Mr. President.”

“Thank God. That was the last thing we needed.”

“I’m not sure it’s going to help things though. We believe they were Mexican.”

“Believe?”

“Killed in a shootout, sir. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to get them alive.”

“How many?”

“Two. From the tattoos we believe Sinaloa Cartel hitmen or as they call them, Sicarios.”

Clay didn’t think for a second they had died in a shootout, nor were they responsible in the first place. A couple of patsies dumped, probably already dead, and a gun battle triggered to cover the deaths.

“So two Mexican hitmen, covered in tattoos, got into the White House, made their way to the Situation Room, killed three of my closest advisors, miraculously missed me, got out, undetected, only to be killed on the grounds in a gun battle?”

“It does sound…” Charles couldn’t even come up with a word to describe how ludicrous it was and gave up trying.

“I assume we have footage of everything as it went down?” Clay asked, fully anticipating a negative response.

“We believe the camera system was hacked. Nobody realized a new upgrade installed recently had not been secured as per the original specification. So no, I’m afraid not.”

“How do we know there were only two?”

“We have one old camera unconnected to the new system that was still running. Believe it or not, an old videotape that is on a loop recording 48 hours before it records over itself, recording a few images a second. The tape is in terrible condition. It’s been running for years without being changed. However, we managed to catch an image that shows two perpetrators exiting the building shortly after the shootings.”

Of course there was.
Clay sighed. Every angle had been covered, all planned in finite detail, and most definitely organized well in advance.

“Thanks, Charles, I’m so thankful you’re back, thanks for coming back early.”

“Not at all, although, Mr. President, we don’t believe it’s their first attempt this evening against the first family.”

Charles had Clay’s full attention.

“Reports coming out of L.A. suggest the fire at the Pomona was as a result of a failed attempt on Tess’ life by the same cartel.”

“I don’t understand,” said Clay. Tess had confessed it was her fault, described in detail exactly what she had done. Tess had confessed to Val that she had been invited back to Zane’s dressing room only for him to leave her to the rioters when the shit hit the fan. While Clay couldn’t blame her for throwing him off the chopper, she had no idea what was going to transpire. In fact, he’d have waited and thrown the little shit out from a thousand feet.

“Images taken by a reporter show the cartel member amongst the crowd, taking aim on Tess, only to miss and start the fire.”

“But...” Clay paused, remembering Charles wasn’t party to Tess’ confession. Bill was, and Bill was dead. He had had enough of his close friends being killed. He needed to be far more careful with his words and expressing himself. “…it was a flare that started the fire?”

“A flare being fired into a helicopter does not have a good ending, sir.”

Clay’s phone buzzed and he glanced at it.
Unknown caller
. “Thanks, Charles,” he said, walking away to answer his phone.

“
Time to destroy the cartels. Call your military commanders and launch an attack immediately,
” the computerized voice instructed.

Clay walked across the room to where his family sat glued to the news channels on one large sofa. His son Jack, a very typical fifteen year old, was transfixed by the new footage of the FPS in action. “They are so cool, Dad,” he had said on seeing them wade through the rioters. It was, Clay knew, a view that was going to be repeated far and wide across the nation. The majority of Americans, those who never felt the need to fight for their rights, abhorred unrest. They wanted the police to crush it, maintain law and order. They wanted to feel safe in their homes and for the majority, the FPS action was ensuring just that. Clay nudged his son over and joined his family on the sofa, wrapping his arms around protectively behind them and pulling them in close. Whatever the conspirators had in their plans, he was powerless. He’d do anything to keep his family safe.

“Hey, Dad, is that Eric?” asked Jack excitedly, pointing to one of the TV screens.

Governor Eric Warner was riding the running board of the first FPS MRAP as it rode into the heart of the Birmingham riots. Birmingham had not been on the list to benefit from the FPS’ intervention. However, given its proximity to Atlanta and the expediency with which the Atlanta riot had been crushed, Clay had requested the FPS in Atlanta divert some forces to Birmingham following Eric’s request for help. It had taken a few hours to relocate the forces. Birmingham was one of the last areas the FPS would be in action that night.

The White House had been attacked and three senior members of the government assassinated during an attempt on the president’s life. The FPS had been unveiled to the nation in its full glory while thousands of US citizens had been detained without charge in secret detention camps. However, every news screen was slowly but surely flipping to the breaking news from Alabama, where the nation’s youngest governor was leading the battle from the front to save his home city from destruction. Rioters hurled bottles and bricks as the FPS charged towards them. The governor didn’t flinch, waving the FPS forces behind him onwards into the heat of the action. Unlike the FPS troops, he wasn’t wearing body armor or even a helmet. He stood proudly on the running board, one hand holding on to the wing mirror, while the other led the charge. A general leading his troops from the front.

“Have you noticed something?” asked Val, five minutes into the footage.

“Other than he’s a chip off the old block?” Clay grinned, rising from the sofa, he had a call to make.

She raised her eyes to the ceiling. Eric was her sister’s son; there wasn’t an ounce of Caldwell in his blood. However, Clay had always had a soft spot for Eric and very much saw him as his protégé.

“No. Well, sort of. They’ve still not mentioned he’s your nephew!”