Line of Succession: A Thriller (20 page)

Corporal Hammond eyed the gut that hung over Speers’ belt. “I’d say we’ve got more to fear from you than him.”

A dozen servicemen stood in the chow line on either side of them, each shuffling along with assembly-line precision. Speers and Hammond first came to a pile of egg salad that looked positively regurgitated. Speers covered his mouth to avoid taking in the odor.

“
Guess you never had to eat in a mess hall,” Corporal Hammond said.

“
Once. I went with the President to Camp Pendleton on a campaign stop. We ate with the Marines.”

Hammond smirked. “Didn’t I see that on TV?”

“
Oh I’m sure every conservative in America saw the President puke on the base commander. In slow-motion, no less.”

Hammond put a double helping of the egg salad on one of the trays. “The General loves this stuff,” he said.

“
So,” Speers said, feeling a bit of camaraderie build between him and the Corporal, “Is the Joint Chief’s office a good career stop?”

“Big time,” Hammond said. “Plus, it beats combat. I like my arms, fingers, legs. I like to keep ‘em attached to my body.”

The first cook looked at Hammond and said, “
Tofurkey or Soy burger
?” Hammond took both and advanced in line. Speers rapped his fist on the aluminum surface and said, “Hit me.”

He caught up with Hammond, who was waiting for sweet potatoes. He edged close to him. “Y’know, I’ve been with the President since he was Governor.”

“
It’s gotta hurt,” Hammond said.

“
General Wainewright seems to be taking it well, don’t you think?”

Hammond kept his gaze on the food in front of him as he neared the salad. “The General can’t afford to get emotional. He’s just doing his job.”

“We both know he’s doing a little more than just his job.”

“
Make time, Corporal
!” the cook scolded. Hammond took two of the little Caesar salads and bolted for the dessert area. Speers kept on his heels, his tie brushing the pair of chevrons on the Corporal’s sleeve.

“
I like you,” Speers lied, “so I’m going to give you a chance to save your ass.”

Hammond turned around and peered up at the Chief. “Look around. I’d say you’re the one in hostile territory.”

The cafeteria was full of armed Ulysses soldiers and yes, they all seemed to be watching. But Speers was undeterred. He leaned in close and whispered into Hammond’s ear. “You all can’t stay down here forever. And when you come up for air, Wainewright won’t be able to save you from the CIA. Fact is, he’ll probably sell you out just to save himself.”

“
They wouldn’t be interested in me.”

“
They’ll be interested in everyone involved in the conspiracy to assassinate the President and commit treason. Both offenses are punishable by death.” Speers grabbed Hammond’s right arm and squeezed it hard. “I don’t think they’ll have trouble finding a vein.”

The Corporal broke free from the Chief’s grip. His hands shook as he lifted the two trays and looked for the exit.

Fort Campbell Intel Lab

1:40 p.m.

Agent Carver stormed into the lab cubicles where Nico sat at a computer wearing headphones as he sifted through mountains of intercepted Muskogee audio files. He was going to shoot the person who had given Nico unsupervised access to a computer. Nico saw him coming. He took his headphones off. “What’s up, Spook?”

“
Hacked into my pension yet?”

“
I’ll make a nice deposit if you can get me a Presidential pardon.”

“
If you’ve gotta use a restroom, do it now,” Carver said. “I’ve requisitioned a plane.” The truth was that he had forged a travel authorization in Eva Hudson’s name. The Treasury Secretary had turned Fort Campbell upside down so quickly that people were willing to believe anything you told them. “We’re going to Norman, Oklahoma.”

“
What for?”

“
Professor Emeritus Hitchiti. The last living Muskogee speaker.”

“
He’s still alive?”

Carver smiled. “Still kicking at ninety-six. He doesn’t teach regular classes anymore, but he had nine private students last semester. All from out of state.”

Baltimore

2:15 p.m.

Angie Jackson sat slumped against the living room wall. Her hands were still duck-taped behind her. One of Elvir’s associates – a thick-bellied goon with low-rise jeans that left half of his rear end showing – sat on the carpet beside her, cradling a 9mm while watching the never-ending crisis coverage on TV. Between commercials, Angie could hear the residents of the apartment next door screaming at each other in Spanish.

The Market Report was on TV. The anchor rested her chin on her thumb and forefinger, gazing into the market analyst’s eyes. “
What advice do you have for people who are afraid? We’re hearing from a lot of people who are of the mind that they should cash out while they still can.
”

The analyst: “
It’s never smart to panic. If you think you’re in for a fall, it’s much better to simply move your money into new opportunities in the market. Historically, you look at World War Two, even 9/11, the people who put their money into high tech, aircraft manufacturers, defense contractors, by and large, they did very well
.”

The anchor was momentarily distracted. Someone was obviously speaking into her earpiece. Her face turned serious as she turned to face the cameras. The animated red/white/blue logo for A Day of Terror: America Mourns swept onscreen. The anchor seemed genuinely stunned as she announced to the country, for the first time, “
Government officials have just confirmed rumors that the Vice President has succumbed to his wounds
.”

A patriotic video montage of the late Vice President began, accompanied by a narration track that had clearly been prepared well in advance. The dead bolt on the living room door began to turn. The goon leaped up and positioned himself behind the door as it opened.

He put the gun down. It was only his boss, Elvir.

Elvir shut the door quickly behind him, opening it one last time to peek down the hallway and make sure he hadn’t been followed.

“
Where’s Ali?” the goon demanded in Muskogee.

“
It was a setup,” Elvir replied in his native Bosnian. He tossed his backpack onto the floor, unholstered a pistol from within his jacket and slumped into the lone armchair in the room.

“
Where’s Ali?” the goon repeated.

Elvir shook his head. “He gave me no choice.”

“
Shit! Shit! Shit!” The goon smacked his forehead repeatedly. He sat, enveloping his little head in his huge hands for a moment. “Listen to me Elvir. I have a friend with a small plane. He can get us to Mexico, and from there, we can get back to Bosnia.”

Elvir shook his head. He switched back to Muskogee. “If we run, we’ll never get our money.”

“
But how can we ever get the money now?”

Elvir looked at Angie and saw dollar signs. “They’ll be very interested in our guest here,” he explained.

Norman, Oklahoma

4:30 p.m. Central

They flew into the University of Oklahoma’s Westheimer Airport under dark, threatening skies. All commercial traffic had been suspended since the attacks, rendering the tiny airport deserted. There were no aircraft controllers in the tower to guide them in, nor were there landing strip personnel to meet the Cessna U-27A as it taxied off the runway.

A hard summer rain fell as Agents Carver and O’Keefe exited the little military turboprop. O’Keefe turned to help Nico out of the aircraft. He was cuffed at the wrists and dressed in street clothes that were a little baggy on his slight frame. They sprinted to the main building where, as expected, the lone rental car counter was unmanned.

Carver jumped the counter and searched behind it until he found a locked cabinet. One hard tug busted the flimsy lock, revealing the keys to twenty Ford economy cars attached to numbered key rings. “Lucky number?” he said to O’Keefe.

“
Eleven.”

He chose the #11 key.

Fifteen minutes later they pulled up Cavalry Street in the blue rental car. “That’s it,” O’Keefe said, pointing to a modest two-bedroom Craftsman with faded blue shingles.

Carver parked the rental car a short distance down the street. He adjusted his rear view mirror and glanced at Nico, who sat in the back seat. He figured they had no reason to fear their white collar prisoner. But Nico was still a flight risk, and if this operation turned into a door-buster, or a shootout, they wouldn’t be able to keep their eyes on him.

Carver climbed into the back seat, flipped out a small blade from his pocketknife and cut into the fabric rooftop until he hit a piece of metal framing. He then cinched Nico’s right cuff around it, effectively locking him in the car. “Where’s the love?” Nico protested. “You can’t do this. It’s against the law to leave me in a car by myself.”

“
Who’s going to stop me? Child Protective Services?”

The two agents cut diagonally across the front yard’s Kentucky Bluegrass lawn. “Door’s ajar,” O’Keefe said.

Carver put his hand on O’Keefe’s shoulder. His touch sent butterflies swarming in her belly. “Let me take point,” he told her.

“
You don’t have to do that. I’m wearing Kevlar.”

Carver thunked his knuckles against something hard under his shirt. “I’m wearing armor. Besides, you have to let me be chivalrous once in a while.”

They drew their pistols and approached the front entry. Carver went in first and regarded the ancient-looking man with long gray hair and eyeglasses in the overstuffed armchair. “Professor Hitchiti?”

The old man didn’t answer. As O’Keefe cleared the other rooms, Carver drew closer and switched on a lamp.

A single bullet hole gaped on the Professor’s forehead. Flies buzzed in and out of the wound.

Fort Campbell

Eva sat in her office studying bond market reports that the Under-Secretary had faxed in from her home in rural Virginia. She had been able to establish contact with a half dozen members of her staff, most of whom were now working from home or coffee shops. The Joint Chiefs had ordered all Federal Agency Internet and VOIP networks shut down, citing security threats. The fact that military bases were conveniently unaffected wasn’t lost on her.

In the desk drawer sat a prescription for Ativan, an anti-depression and anti-anxiety drug that she had taken with some success after her husband’s death. The base pharmacy had graciously sent it over without a prescription. The fact that it was there was comforting. But she tried to think of it as a fire extinguisher, glass only to be broken in the event of an extreme emergency. Important decisions had to be made. Her judgment had to be sound. The question was whether her critical thinking skills were more effective with or without the pills.

Madsen appeared in the doorway. He was red-faced and slightly out of breath. “We just hit targets in Yemen,” he said without preamble.

Eva sat upright and ran both hands through her brunette hair. “We?” she said. “According to whom?”

“
Rapture Run.” He tossed a memo onto the pine desktop. “The U.S.S. John McCain launched cruise missiles against Allied Jihad training camps. There’s an announcement going to the press as well.”

“
Didn’t they get our intel report? We advised them last night that the tape couldn’t be authenticated as Allied Jihad!”

“
They got the report. They just didn’t like what it said.”

Eva stood, paced once around the perimeter of her desk, then leaned over it and rested on her elbows. Despite her official role as Treasury Secretary, she was accustomed to having the President’s ear in every foreign policy situation. The fact that she was so far removed now, when the world was coming unglued, was unbearable. “Let’s get Rapture Run on the line,” she said.

Madsen shook his head. “They’re still not taking our calls. General Wainewright’s little assistant – what’s his name, Hammond? – he said ‘Don’t call us, we’ll call you.’”

Rapture Run

General Wainewright sat behind a collapsible desk in Rapture Run’s Executive Quarters. It wasn’t exactly the Oval Office, but it was roughly three times as large as Dex Jackson’s quarters, complete with a full-size bed and private shower and satellite television feeding into three monitors.

Wainewright sat working on the Presidential Inauguration Speech. Lincoln’s opera glasses sat on the desk beside his computer. He heard footsteps in the corridor and reached instinctively for his sidearm. He never sat with his back to the door, nor did he stray more than an arm’s length from a loaded weapon. During the first Iraq war, after his tank battalion had crushed the Iraqis under the leadership of General Schwarzkopf, he had been celebrating with the officers one night when a psychotic tank commander – who had come unhinged at the sight of several charred Iraqi bodies – tossed a grenade into the tent, killing two of his colleagues. Wainewright had escaped with metal fragments in his thigh.