Her stomach growling, Morgan rubbed her temples with both hands and massaged her forehead. She tugged on the edge of her beige skirt, which had ridden up her right leg after sitting down in the booth.
Just then, a tall male server carrying a large tray of breakfast specialties brushed by her shoulder, sending the salty smell of bacon mixed with sweet vanilla and cinnamon pancakes up her nose. She cast an eager glance toward the kitchen to see if their orders were sitting on the service counter, waiting to be picked up. But they were nowhere in sight.
Morgan reached for her ice water and leaned forward to drink from the paper straw, but all she got was air. She frowned. When she looked down at the glass, the straw was gone. Furrowing her brow, she searched the table and the floor for the lost straw. Then she looked up to find Luis grinning at her with the straw hanging limply out of the corner of his mouth like a cigarette. Leaning forward, he blew air through it. The straw lifted with the force of his breath, and a few drops of water landed on her face.
“Hey, that’s not funny,” she said, unable to hide her smirk.
“Well, I beg to differ,” Luis said. He gave her a triumphant smile, showing his full set of teeth, and then glanced back down at his tablet.
A slight shiver cascaded down her back. The Marine Corps green and khaki uniform made his chiseled face look even more dreamy than usual. The colors highlighted his coffee brown eyes and dark olive skin he’d inherited from the Cuban side of his family. Sometimes, she still wanted to pinch herself that she’d gotten so lucky—he was smart, successful, and handsome.
Though they’d only been dating a few months, Morgan and Luis were already one of D.C.’s most notable power couples. While she worked defense issues at the White House and reported to the president, Luis served as executive assistant to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But in the wake of the president’s death, their success felt empty to her.
A deep pang of guilt made her cringe when she thought about it. Truthfully, she was more upset over the disruption caused by the tragedy of Monroe’s death than over the loss of the man himself.
Am I a bad person?
She suppressed the thought.
“I think she’s going to fire me,” Morgan said again, this time with a bit more oomph.
“Who, President Tolley?” Luis asked, eyes still glued to his tablet.
“It’s only a matter of time,” she added grimly and took a long sip of coffee.
Luis peered over the tablet, his forehead wrinkling. “Why would you say that?”
Morgan shrugged. “She kicked Uncle Jack to the curb the same day she was sworn into office over the weekend. I bet I’m next on her list.”
“That was different,” Luis said with a frown. “Jack was Harrison’s chief of staff. It makes perfect sense she’d want her own people in her inner circle. But I don’t think she’d clean house on the National Security Council staff. Not this soon after the president’s death. And she’d definitely not ax her most talented nuclear weapons expert in the middle of a crisis with China.” He offered a supportive smile.
Morgan grimaced, her cheeks flushing. “Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure she’d agree about my talent. Last week, Tolley and I butted heads in the Oval Office on my interpretation of China’s forward deployment of its nuclear-armed submarines. There I am trying to explain my views to the president and warn him about something ominous being afoot, and Vice President Tolley asks me how I could possibly know anything about what China intends to do with their nuclear weapons.” Her tone went deadpan, and she narrowed her eyes. “Since I’m not a China expert.”
Luis smirked. “I take it she disagreed with your assessment?”
Morgan nodded. “Oh yeah. She’s close friends with the Chinese ambassador. I guess they attended grad school together or something. That’s been useful for negotiating the clean energy deal, but now Tolley thinks her insider connections make her the expert on all things China. But I worry she’s wearing blinders when it comes to national security issues. China has been making some aggressive moves to gain advantages over the U.S. since the start of the Monroe administration. Meanwhile, Tolley’s barely paid attention over the past six months to any of Harrison’s preferred strategies for managing China’s escalation. I’d respect her knowledge on climate change or environmental issues any day, but it was like my expertise on nuclear weapons issues didn’t matter to her.”
“But do you really think she’d fire you over a little disagreement?” Luis asked.
Morgan bit her lip. “Harrison sided with me, and Tolley wasn’t happy about it. Now that he’s gone, she might see an opportunity to get rid of me.”
“Well, if your instincts are right, you’ll probably find out soon enough.”
My thoughts exactly.
4
Prowling Tiger
SUSAN
0515
Situation Room
The White House
Her mind still hazy from sleep deprivation, Susan rested her arms on the smooth mahogany conference table. She folded her hands in a desperate attempt to keep herself from fidgeting with her pen. A strong gust blew from the air conditioner overhead, causing goosebumps to form on her bare arms.
From behind her, it felt as if the Presidential Seal on the wall bored a hole in her back. She’d glimpsed it on the way into the Situation Room and experienced another round of fluttering butterflies in her stomach. The responsibility to protect the U.S. and its allies against emerging threats weighed heavily upon her chest.
She wondered if President Monroe had also experienced a serious bout of nerves when he first took the highest office in the land and sat at the head of that table. It didn’t seem to faze Harrison; or at least, he never let on that it did. Harrison appeared eerily confident from day one.
Another thing I should have asked him about.
Susan studied the people in the room, counting twelve in total, attending in person or remotely from various locations. Several intelligence analysts from different agencies sat along the table, each one huddled over their classified laptops, reviewing their notes. Elise hovered somewhere behind Susan, ready to whisper in her ear if necessary. Although they were both in their mid-forties, the woman displayed boundless energy and preferred to stand whenever possible.
Aside from the director of national intelligence, Susan hadn’t invited any other cabinet members to the meeting. She wanted a chance to get her bearings before having to fend off the SecDef’s militant views while she made up her mind.
Surrounded by people in the room and on video screen, Susan was keenly aware of her unwashed hair whipped up into a messy bun. She shifted her weight in the plush chair, trying to ignore her sense of unease. She’d only taken enough time to throw on a clean pair of jeans and a short-sleeve shirt and grab a hair tie—even though her chief of staff insisted everyone could certainly wait for a few minutes on the President of the United States. As the second female president in U.S. history, the last thing she wanted to be accused of was primping in the middle of a national security crisis.
Now that she was in the limelight, Susan desperately wished she’d covered up her bare face with a bit of color. But what she regretted most about her haste was failing to grab a cup of coffee from the White House kitchen. The smell of roasted hazelnut coffee wafting up from a mug several seats down tickled her nose.
At least I’m not wearing my pajamas.
“Madam President, we’ve been following a series of tweets coming from the China Xinhua News handle starting around midnight our time,” a female senior analyst at the National Security Agency (NSA) spoke over the secure video conferencing screen on the opposite beige wall. “The first few posts warned of a military response by China if the U.S. attempts to help the protesters in any way. A few hours later, the content of the posts escalated, threatening the use of nuclear weapons if we did anything to interfere with their economic and political control of Hong Kong.”
Susan flinched, her face blanching.
China threatened the use of nuclear weapons? Over social media?
“I know China is in the process of revising its nuclear doctrine, but this doesn’t make any sense,” Susan said. “Even if China may be backing away from its nuclear policy of no-first-use, the threats seem a bit extreme.” She scratched her temple, searching for an answer. “The blustery posts sound more like they came from North Korea. Are we certain of their origin?”
Before the NSA analyst could respond, William Grayson, her director of national intelligence, chimed in from where he sat to the analyst’s left. “Ma’am, I have my guys at our Cyberthreat Intelligence Integration Center analyzing the source of the tweets. From the geolocation data, we’ve traced the IP address for the posts to a smartphone used somewhere near the city of Harbin, China. We’re still trying to ascertain the identity of the specific user and verify if they have a legitimate affiliation with the Chinese government.”
Dressed in a broken-in black suit and blue, dotted foulard tie, Grayson looked fondly at her with his smoky-gray eyes through thin, wire-framed glasses. She smiled back at him. Even as VP, Susan had taken a quick liking to the older man. He was wise, competent, and politically savvy, but most strikingly, he behaved kindly to everyone—from the janitor to the White House scheduling assistant to the president. Rank and title didn’t seem to matter to him. He also happened to be one of Monroe’s closest confidantes and often treated Susan like a daughter. To most people, he went by “Grayson,” but she alone was allowed to call him Bill.
Grayson was also the most senior intelligence official in the U.S. government. Every day, his team pulled together the Top Secret Presidential Daily Brief, gathering the most important pieces of intelligence from the CIA, NSA, FBI, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and many others. There were at least sixteen different agencies within the U.S. intelligence community, and Susan could barely keep track of who did what, when, and under what authority. Thankfully, it was Grayson’s job to coordinate across all agencies and deliver the latest intelligence to the president each morning.
Susan frowned, thinking about her last official trip to China. “Wait a minute. Harbin? That city is located in the northernmost province of China, but the headquarters of China’s state news agency is located in Beijing.” She turned to look at Grayson, her eyebrow raised. “Bill, if they were legitimate, wouldn’t these posts be coming directly from a computer owned by the Chinese central government or at the very least by the state news agency in Beijing?”
“Ma’am, China Xinhua News does operate a bureau in Harbin, so it’s not beyond the realm of possibility,” he said. “But yes, it’s a bit odd that the Chinese government would release important news from a smartphone near a remote outpost.”
A bit odd? Try incredibly odd.
“How do we even know the tweets originated in Harbin?” Susan asked. She hadn’t wanted to ask the amateur question, but it just slipped out.
“Ma’am, if I may,” the NSA analyst on the video screen interjected. “Whenever someone posts a tweet, other information is captured in the metadata on Twitter’s programming interface, which is made available to the public. This includes information about the user’s profile, the type of device the post was sent from, and location data such as latitude and longitude.”
“Can we figure out who uploaded the posts?” Susan asked.
“Yes, ma’am,” the NSA analyst continued. “We can use Twitter’s geocode parameters to search for all posts within a certain radius of a set of coordinates. By comparing the metadata, we may be able to determine if the posts came from someone affiliated with China Xinhua News or not. We’re still trying to cross-reference the tweets with other posts to identify the user.”
“In other words, it’s possible that someone hacked the Twitter account of China’s state news agency and posted the tweets in an attempt to escalate a conflict between China and the U.S.,” Susan said, tucking a loose hair behind her ear. “And I assume you’re working to confirm the source of the tweets to exclude that scenario.”
Grayson cleared his throat. “Indeed, we are, ma’am. However, even without final confirmation, we believe the tweets could represent official communication from the Chinese government based on other data. The latest tweet tracks with our intelligence on Prowling Tiger, China’s war game scheduled to take place tomorrow. There’s no way an outsider could have known the specific details that were revealed in the posts.”
Susan moved toward the edge of her seat to get a better grip with her feet on the floor. “What sort of details?”
“One of the posts specifically mentions a flotilla of Chinese submarines headed for the Chukchi Sea in the Northwest Passage. It also states that two of the submarines are armed with submarine-launched ballistic missiles that carry nuclear weapons, which we’ve known since we started tracking them,” Grayson said. “But no one else could know this without insider knowledge or our submarine tracking capabilities.”
“The tweets match our intelligence reports?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’ve been tracking the flotilla since it left the South China Sea and traveled toward the Northern Sea Route to participate in Prowling Tiger. It took about nine days for them to reach the Bering Strait located between Alaska and Russia.”
Susan furrowed her brow. “This is part of Prowling Tiger?”
“Yes, ma’am, we believe this is defensive maneuvering related to the war game as we suggested last week during the briefing with President Monroe.” Grayson lowered his head, and he stopped speaking for a moment.
At the mention of the president’s name, something caught in Susan’s throat, and she had to catch her breath. Swallowing hard, she suppressed the tears welling in her eyes.
Susan squished her eyebrows together to mask the moisture and deflected her emotion with a question. “Didn’t China announce to the entire world two weeks ago that it planned to send a flotilla of submarines to the Northern Sea Route as part of its war game?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Grayson said.
Susan lowered her head and pinched the bridge of her nose. “But then I don’t understand what is so urgent about these tweets. I mean, if we expect them to travel this route.”
“Ma’am, we lost track of China’s nuclear-armed submarines,” Grayson said.
Susan jerked her head up and looked him squarely in the eyes. “You lost track of two of China’s submarines near our coastal waters?”
He nodded grimly.
“Well, shit…”
5
Last Words
MORGAN
0530
Bob and Edith’s Diner
Crystal City, Virginia
Morgan took a sip of her coffee, hoping it would soothe her empty stomach, which sizzled angrily in anticipation of her hard day at work. The news media would be in a tizzy all day, rehashing the details of President Monroe’s death over the weekend. The talking heads would attempt to discern the outcome of President Tolley’s decision concerning the new bill on the morning talk shows.
“Do you think Tolley will sign the autonomous weapons legislation?” Luis asked, peering at her over the top of his tablet.
“No idea,” Morgan said. “No one has any clue about Tolley’s views on fully autonomous weapons. But then, she was never supposed to be the one to make this decision. Harrison added her to the ticket as the VP candidate to mollify moderate Republicans and win over Independents. When the majority of conservative U.S. businesses finally got on board with the economic implications of the climate crisis, the Republican party had to fall in line. Harrison chose the perfect running mate to rob the Democrats of the Independent vote. And now she’s the president.”
Luis gave her a pained expression. “Well, I’m sure it helped that President Madison resigned from office when information about her corruption surfaced, leaving Harrison as the only viable candidate.”
His tone was loaded with sarcasm, and Morgan didn’t need to decipher what it meant. Luis referred to a series of unf
ortunate events that had led to the previous president’s resignation, which many of her immediate family members had a hand in. Only a small circle of people knew what had really occurred behind the scenes, and Luis was one of them.
Morgan pinched her lips. “Yeah, Madison’s VP had no shot against Harrison that late in the game,” she said quickly.
Luis nodded solemnly, avoiding eye contact. “Didn’t Tolley just secure a historical clean energy agreement with China to reduce the use of fossil fuels by both countries?”
He always changes the subject whenever Nightfall comes up.
Any talk about the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil and her family’s intimate knowledge of how it came about was a non-starter with Luis. She didn’t like talking about it either, but if they constantly avoided the topic, they would never discover the whole truth. Maybe she didn’t want to know.
“Yeah, Tolley spent the past six months working on that. Since President Monroe took the lead on national security issues, Tolley pretty much ignored the issue of fully autonomous weapons,” Morgan said, bringing the conversation back full circle. “Now that President Tolley will make the final decision, I’m not exactly sure what will happen. But I’ll have to spend the day fielding inquiries from the media.” Morgan frowned. “I really don’t like feeling my way around in the dark.”
She snuck a peek at her work phone and gulped when she saw two missed calls and a text from her boss asking her to stop by as soon as she arrived at work. Instead of responding to the text, she glanced at her watch to check the time.
Geez. They’re all in super early today. Did I miss something?
The previous night, Morgan had worried it was a bad day for their weekly breakfast date. But Luis had insisted on going as an attempt to distract her from her dismal thoughts about the president’s sudden death and remind her that life must go on.
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