Line of Succession: A Thriller (41 page)

The others were still waiting in the tunnel. Eva Hudson and Angie Jackson had both been reported as dead. So long as Carver could keep them alive, they alone were proof of a conspiracy to deceive the public and overthrow the government.

Carver waited until his eyes adjusted to the lighting and then proceeded to secure the room. He walked slowly to the end of the row, stopping every so often to peer through gaps in the containers. The sound of the radio grew louder as he approached the doorway.
“If memory serves, this moment has some indirect precedent. I’m referring to the time when President Ronald Reagan was shot in the 1980s and Defense Secretary Alexander Haig declared himself in charge.”

He stepped through the doorway and felt the cold metal of a Smith & Wesson .38 revolver press into his right cheek. “Drop to the ground,” a voice said. “Don’t do nothin’ stupid.”

If the timber of the old security guard’s voice hadn’t given away his age, then the choice of weapon would have. The .38 was an old-timer’s weapon. A police sidearm in an era before steroids, genetically modified food and seven-foot-tall athletes made bigger criminals that required bigger weapons. Pawn shops across America were full of them.

“
I’m a federal agent,” Carver said. “ID’s in my pocket. Go ahead. Take a look.”

The rent-a-cop seemed even less comfortable with the situation than Carver was. “If you was a federal agent,” he said nervously, “then you wouldn’t need to be creepin’ around my archive room, now wouldja?”

Carver didn’t have time for this. He had tried it the easy way. “I surrender,” Carver said. “Don’t shoot. I’m going to put my wrists behind my back so you can cuff me.”

As the old timer stepped back to give his subject some room, Carver used his superior hand speed to strike him on the forearm, knocking the revolver out of his grip and onto the floor. The old man came at him, swinging with a series of roundhouse punches. Carver kicked his overmatched opponent in the solar plexus – just hard enough to knock the wind out of him. He casually picked up the revolver, opened the magazine and emptied the shells into his pocket.

“
I don’t want to hurt you,” Carver said. “I really am a federal agent. You all alone here?” The guard nodded. “Come on. I need some help.”

Carver ushered the old-timer back through the archive room, where Speers, Eva and Angie Jackson were waiting at the tunnel entrance with the cold, stiff corpses of Meagan O’Keefe and Chris Abrams at their feet. To Carver’s horror, O’Keefe’s body was contorted with rigor mortis, bent at the elbows and the waist. Hardly the picture of eternal peace.

The old-timer went pale at the sight of the ladies. “You’re supposed to be dead,” he stammered as he pointed a bony finger at them.

The Pentagon

10:49 a.m.

On any other day, Haley Ellis would not have had to make excuses for leaving the NMCC. Her job allowed her to come and go freely from the most sensitive security areas in the federal government. But today was unlike any other day. If Wainewright had authorized deadly force on civilians violating curfew on the streets of Washington, he wouldn’t hesitate to shoot dissenters within the Pentagon.

She grimaced and groaned, just loud enough to be noticed by the communications staffer at the next workstation. She held her stomach for several moments, resumed working briefly, then hunched over again. “Maybe something I ate,” she explained as she rose from her workstation and headed for the exit en route to the ladies’ room. She left her attaché as proof that she was coming back.

Ellis took the elevators to the DC Metro level and sprinted as fast as she could in designer flats. She arrived at the platform just as the Orange Line whisked into the station. She stepped on board, nearly out of breath, peering out the windows to make sure she wasn’t followed. Ellis took a good look as the subway pulled away from the station, knowing it could be the last time.

She stood for the eight-and-a-half minutes until they reached Farragut West Station. The platform was nearly empty. A lone Ulysses MP with a German Shepherd stood near the ticket booth. He seemed to be paying more attention to two young girls in hot pants than anything else. Ellis stepped on the escalator and dialed the NIC Director as she ascended toward the street. “Please answer,” she said aloud. “Answer, answer, answer.”

“
It’s Hummel,” the Director said into the line. “Hold on.”

“
This can’t wait,” she blurted out.

It was a five-minute walk from Farragut West to the Eisenhower Building on 17th Street NW, where she had been assigned a small office for the past year. It was said that the building represented a symbolic – if not geographical – halfway point between the White House and the Pentagon. In truth, the location was a strategic move by the White House to keep NIC observers close and minimize the risk that they might be compromised or influenced by the Pentagon brass.

On a street that was crawling with Ulysses troops, two gum-chewing MPs were posted squarely in front of the building’s front entrance. To Ellis’ eye, they were in their late teens or early twenties. Something in their eyes – she had learned to recognize it, but had yet to name it – told her that they had never been in combat.

She held out her credentials. “Senior Pentagon Liaison. Third floor.”

The MPs shook their heads. “Lady, nobody’s been in this building since Sunday,” the taller one said.

“
You’re wrong,” Haley said. “There was a security breach last night at seven thirty-five p.m. Check the logs if you don’t believe me.” Ellis had already seen the incident log describing how a Ulysses unit had been sent into the building to pursue Julian Speers.

The shorter MP stopped chewing his gum. “How’d you know that?”

“
It’s my job. I need access to my office. It’s a matter of national security.”

The shorter MP turned his body sideways to let Ellis pass.

The building was completely empty, just as the MPs said it would be.

Ellis did not in fact go to her office. She instead pushed the second floor button, where the Secret Service had a small satellite presence, and swiped her badge to get onto the secured floor. In ten more paces, she came to another set of doors where she swiped her badge again.

Agent Rios’ cramped, windowless office was sandwiched between two kitchens in a room that had once held the building’s network servers. Ellis slipped her fingers under Rios’ middle desk drawer, groping for the hidden key that Rios kept to the Secret Service weapons locker. The locker was located just outside Rios’ office, and had been established some decades earlier to give the Secret Service an area to rearm in the unthinkable event that the White House was overrun by invaders.

The unthinkable was happening. Ellis opened the locker and took an M4 carbine and some ammunition from the rack. The last time she had held an M4, a car bomb exploded in a Ramadi market. It was 2006, her last day in Iraq. When the medics found her, a piece of the car’s fractured radiator was lodged in her hip. Thanks to Director Hummel and a convincing doctor at Walter Reed, she never returned to combat duty.

Until today. She reached back into the weapons locker and took a rifle scope, a pair of binoculars and a satellite radio. She gathered them in her arms and headed for the roof. The high ground, she remembered. Always take the high ground.

The Lincoln Memorial

11:14 a.m.

A Methodist minister – a portly, pink-faced man with a Mississippi drawl – stepped up to the Inaugural Podium. Behind him, Chief Justice Dillinger stood alongside Dex Jackson, General Farrell and an entire row of Ulysses executives. Thousands of citizens huddled on the National Mall, peering into tiny phones carrying the broadcast. Thousands more stood along Constitution Avenue alongside legions of Ulysses soldiers.

“
Let us pray,” the Minister began in a loud, booming voice that echoed over the public address system as if he himself was a deity. His message was uncharacteristically succinct for an inaugural prayer. He asked the Almighty for guidance and wisdom. He asked that Dexter Adams Jackson be blessed in his endeavor to lead the country. And he asked that God begin an era of healing.
Amen
.

As tentative applause rose up the crowd, Chief Justice Dillinger took his place at the podium. It was time. General Farrell leaned into Dex’s ear and spoke just low enough not to be heard by the VIPs around him. “Fifteen minutes from now you’ll be with your son. Don’t blow it.”

“Secretary Jackson,” Dillinger said into the microphone, “Come forth and place your hand upon the Bible.”

Dex approached the podium as if it were a gallows. He lifted his right hand into the air, flattened it, and slowly, slowly, lowered it. The SECDEF found that difficult. He had been a member of the Church of God in Christ throughout his entire life. Until college, he had believed that the entire Bible was the literal word of God, and even now he believed that much of it had been channeled through Jesus.
Forgive me
, he thought as his hand slowly came into contact with the leather dust jacket.

The crowd let out a long gasp that slowly mushroomed into scattered applause. Justice Dillinger’s white eyebrows arched into boomerang shapes. Dex turned to look behind him. He could not believe his eyes.

Eva Hudson – her clothes shockingly muddied and wet – walked barefoot in front of the DOD brass. As the cameras zoomed in on her, it was evident that the World’s Sexiest Fed wore no makeup and her hair was pulled back into a ponytail. Agent Carver walked slightly in front of her, clearing a path.

Just behind them, Speers and the old timer accompanied Angie Jackson toward the front. Her eyes were fixed on some faraway point and she was mumbling.

They moved quickly by design. By the time General Farrell caught a glimpse of Eva through the crowd and moved to block their path, there were only 10 feet between Eva and the podium. Carver opened his jacket to reveal his SIG. Farrell backed off. The Ulysses MPs were both too far away and too confused to intervene. Dex stepped off the podium and gazed stupidly at his wife.

To Dillinger’s horror, Eva leaned toward the microphone and began speaking into it for the thousands in attendance to hear.

“
Your Honor,” she started in a shaky voice that grew more confident, “CENTCOM has confirmed that the President, the Vice President, the Speaker of the House and the Senate President Pro Tem are all deceased, God rest their souls. The Secretary of State, who I presume to be still alive, is foreign-born and therefore ineligible for the office of Chief Executive. Therefore, under the terms of the Succession Act, I respectfully request that you swear me in as the next President of the United States.”

PART V

The Pentagon

11:19 a.m.

General Wainewright had never given much thought to what it would be like to come down on the wrong side of history. But as he stood in the NMCC and watched his carefully laid plans unravel on live television, he realized that there was something even worse than tactical failure: letting the left-wing historians demonize him as an enemy of the state.

The room monitors displayed a life-size Eva Hudson standing in Dex’s place at the inauguration. None of the Ulysses MPs lifted a finger to stop her. Wainewright’s bloodshot eyes turned to the communications staff. “The HVTs are on camera! Take them out!” he shouted at nobody in particular. All activity in the room stopped. Every head turned. “What part of conspiracy to assassinate the President don’t you people understand?”

“
Sir,” one of the senior staffers said quietly. The man stood up. He had a face like a pancake and two protruding glossy orbs for eyes. “The Ulysses field commander has refused the order.”

“
Then tell him who’s giving it.”

“
I’ve done that, sir. He has responded by saying, and I quote, he needs to hear it from the CEO.” The staffer stepped back, as if fearing that Wainewright’s reddening face might explode.

“
Get me Jeff Taylor,” he demanded. If the Ulysses troops wouldn’t take a direct order, then he would get the company’s CEO to intervene.

“
I’m afraid I can’t do that,” the staffer stammered. “NIC Director Hummel and Deputy Homeland Security Director Davis are entering the Pentagon as we speak. They would like to assess the situation before any further orders are taken.”

“
Like hell they are! I’m in charge here! Somebody get Jeff Taylor on the phone!”

Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Wainewright felt suddenly naked in front of the men. He wiped a layer of perspiration from his forehead, unfastened his holster, drew his .45 automatic and switched the weapon off safety.

“
Hit the deck!” someone shouted. The staff dove under desks and workstations. Except for the senior staffer, who closed his eyes and awaited the inevitable. But Wainewright did not shoot him. With the gun in one hand and Lincoln’s opera glasses in the other, the General opened the blast doors and exited to the waiting elevator.