Primary Command

by Jack Mars

  An image came to Gregor of a thick-bodied, short man with an auburn beard. His eyes were dark. The man wrestled Gregor in the burnt-out shell of a building in the Grozny city center. They were alone, and they grunted together like pigs. The man was strong, almost unbelievably strong. There was snow inside the building, blowing through the holes in the blasted out walls.

  Through some dumb luck, he couldn’t remember what, a fluke perhaps, Gregor ended up on top of the man. He choked him with both hands, his fingers pressing like talons deep into the man’s flesh, while the man punched Gregor in the face again and again. Gregor leaned all his weight on the man’s throat.

  The man gurgled and slowly subsided. Gregor kept choking him. The man’s eyes went blank and his face set, his mouth half open. Gregor continued to choke him. He choked him until his own fingers went numb. Finally, when he was sure the man was dead, he rolled off and vomited in the drifting snow.

  Now, in the command center, the colonel smiled. “An excellent record, Gregor.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The colonel went to the corner of the room and came back with a large black leather suitcase. The case was old and battered, the leather itself torn through in a few places, giving a flash of silver steel beneath it.

  “Do you know what this is, Gregor?”

  Gregor thought he did know, but he also found it better not to speak.

  “This is the Cheget,” the colonel said, using the word for the nuclear suitcase. “One of only three in the entire country. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” Gregor said.

  “Give me your wrist,” the colonel said.

  The suitcase had a handcuff attached to it. The colonel reached down and clamped the handcuff tight around Gregor’s thick left wrist. The metal seemed bit into Gregor’s flesh. He was right-handed, so at least he would retain the use of his dominant hand. He would need it in an emergency.

  The colonel handed Gregor the suitcase.

  “The suitcase contains the codes and mechanisms to launch nuclear missile strikes against the West, and especially the United States. You will carry it for the duration of the current crisis. You’ve been chosen for this honor because of your record of courage, level-headedness, and ability to act in the face of mortal danger.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Do you know the defense minister?” He gestured to a man in a military uniform adorned with many medals and ribbons, but which did not indicate a rank. The man had hair so dark it appeared he must rub black shoe polish into it.

  “I know of him, sir. Of course.”

  “You are not to leave his side until the Cheget is once again removed from your wrist. Accommodations will be made for you here at the command center. In the event of war, you will join the defense minister in the deep fallout shelter.”

  The colonel paused. He must have seen the look on Gregor’s face. “Questions?”

  “I have family, sir. My wife and young son. My mother. I have three siblings, and a close uncle…”

  The colonel waved that away. “Of course, your family will be provided for.”

  Gregor didn’t have to ask twice what the colonel meant by that. His family would die in the bombings and the radiation with the rest of the helpless millions.

  The colonel turned back to the table, leaving Gregor standing alone with the infernal death machine strapped to his wrist.

  “Back to business,” the colonel said.

  “An attack,” the fat general said again, picking up right where he left off, as if there had been no interruption at all. “I want a show of resolve, and I want it now. This comes directly from the president. So give me an American piece we can take off the board. It could be a pawn, or it could be the king himself. I don’t care.”

  His stubby finger hit the table three times. Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “Give me something easily within our reach.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  4:10 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time

  The White House Residence

  Washington, DC

  David Barrett had a dog.

  The dog’s name was Mocha, and really she belonged to David’s younger daughter, Caitlynn. But the whole family was at the ranch in Texas, recuperating and taking a long deep breath, just being together and appreciating each other and having fun after the near-disaster with Elizabeth.

  All of them were there except David himself. He was stuck here in Washington with the dog. Mocha. Mocha was okay. A white and brownish little dog, a mixed breed, what people used to call a mutt.

  She wasn’t David’s favorite dog ever, or the best dog in the world, or anything close to that. Caitlynn liked her (Mocha somehow inspired like rather than love), and she had been useful for photo ops. The First Family should have a dog. It wasn’t the law, but it was something pretty close.

  She was about to become even more useful.

  David had taken to walking her on the White House grounds late at night. As time passed, he began to go later and later. There were Secret Service men lurking around this time of night, but not many, and not close.

  As long as the grounds themselves were secure, as long as David stayed close to the house, and as long as he was back in five minutes, what was the worry? He was lulling them to sleep. About ten days ago, he had snapped at a big Secret Service guy he had encountered on his little walk.

  “Can you back the hell up? Please? I don’t mind if you can see me, but I don’t want to see you. Understood? I’m just trying to walk my dog. I need a few minutes in this world to myself, don’t I? Give me at least the illusion of privacy. Can you do that?”

  After that, they had backed off quite a bit. But David didn’t do anything alarming in response. He just quietly walked the dog. He didn’t really extend the time he was gone. Seven minutes one night, eleven the next, nine the next. Nothing to see here. Everything was normal.

  As far as he could tell, they had not the faintest inkling what he was up to. That was the most delicious part of all this. They had no idea what came next.

  “Come on, Mocha. Let’s go!”

  The dog knew. Dogs were smart, much smarter than the scientists who studied animal intelligence gave them credit for. The sound of the leash, the time of night, the intonation of his voice… whatever it was that gave it away, the dog knew they were going to the do THE FUN THING. They were going outside.

  She came running, waiting patiently while he strapped the harness leash on her. They went down the wide central stairs and over to the back door. He swiped the reader with his card and punched in the code.

  At the nighttime guard station, they were now alerted to what he was doing. He had unlocked the security system which until a moment ago had him hermetically sealed inside the Residence, impossible for evildoers to reach.

  He had voluntarily breached that level of security. Now Secret Service agents would converge on him, trying to remain out of his sight so he wouldn’t throw a tantrum and try to get them reassigned. Oh yes. He knew what they thought of him.

  Did he have a quick temper sometimes? Yes, he did. Did he throw tantrums, like a child? No, he did not.

  For the moment, he was still probably the safest man on earth. After all, he was on the White House grounds, surrounded by high spiked fences, snipers in their aeries, and twenty-four-hour real-time video monitoring. Only crazy people ever tried to infiltrate the White House grounds.

  But the security was primarily designed to keep people out. It was less robust in terms of keeping people in. That was his theory, anyway.

  “Come on, Mocha! Let’s run!”

  Mocha loved to run. And she knew exactly what he was talking about when he said the word run . The two of them burst off as one down the gently sloping hillside. To their left was the fountain on the North Lawn, lit up in blue.

  Mocha, as tiny as she was, was fast and stayed with David step for step. It was all very normal. The president ran with his dog every night.

  They ran downhill into a sma
ll, dark copse of trees. Instantly, David stopped. He glanced around. Could they see him in here? He didn’t think so.

  There was a spot he’d had his eye on for some time. It was just ahead. There was a gap between the Northeast Gate and the road called East Executive Park. Just a stretch of tall fence there, nothing important, nothing to look at. On the other side of that fence was the wide pedestrian mall expanse of Pennsylvania Avenue. Directly across the street was the park called Lafayette Square. In fact, the statue of the Marquis de Lafayette was right there. He’d seen all of this on a map.

  He was breathing heavily. So was Mocha. He kneeled down beside her and unfastened her harness. He didn’t want her on the leash if he wasn’t going to be holding it. Dogs got tangled up like that. Terrible things happened sometimes.

  “Okay, girl,” he said when she was free. “Go ahead! Go home!” He gestured up the hill with his arm. Mocha bounced in place and eyed him quizzically.

  That wasn’t going to work. No problem. Mocha could roam the grounds until they found her. She’d be fine.

  David removed the dark blue windbreaker jacket he was wearing. He wrapped it tightly around his left hand and forearm. He looked out of the trees at the tall fence that surrounded the grounds. It was very high. A normal person couldn’t hope to climb that thing. But David was not a normal person.

  They’d forgotten that about him, or they had never known. He was tall, and he kept himself in excellent condition for a man in his mid-fifties. In his high school and college days, he was a competitive high jumper and pole vaulter.

  During his time at Exeter, he had set a school pole vault record that lasted twenty-two years. It had been broken a little over a decade ago, in an era when everything was different. The equipment and the techniques were different, the shoes were different, the training and nutrition programs were different. Everything had been improved, and it still took them more than two decades to break his record. David was proud of that fact.

  Suddenly, without thinking much about it, he ran for the fence.

  He was only going to get one shot at this, and if he botched it, he was going to look like quite the fool.

  Mocha ran at his feet.

  Okay, that was okay. David put on a burst of real speed, dashing out in front of the dog. Then he was blazing, running faster than he had in decades. His body went into a gear he scarcely knew he had. He careened toward the fence like a kamikaze.

  At the last second, he planted his feet and leapt, all the energy in his legs. He bounded high, just as he had imagined he would. Halfway up the fence, he seized the iron bars with his hands, his powerful arms driving his body even further, up, up, up…

  He planted his left hand, thickly wrapped in his jacket, on top of one of the sharp spikes and gave one last frenzied push. He arched the rest of his body, worming his way over the rest of the spikes.

  Then he was clear, coming down the other side and scrabbling madly to grab the fence and slow his fall. He got it and wedged his feet against it, the friction slowing him the tiniest amount. He hit the short grass with a thud and fell backward onto his butt.

  His body rolled and he hit his head. It hurt. It surprised him how much.

  But he was out. The president of the United States had jumped the fence. He gazed up at it from his spot on the ground. It was incredibly tall. No one would guess that a person could jump that thing. But he had guessed. And he had guessed correctly.

  Mocha was on the other side of the fence from now, bouncing and yipping at him.

  “It’s okay, girl. Daddy’s okay. Now go home.”

  He stood. He’d better get a move on. He had no idea if his little act had raised alarms in there, but if it didn’t, it soon would.

  He looked around.

  Pennsylvania Avenue was blocked off from car traffic here. The park was across the street. There were small cardboard shanties lining the edges of the park, with signs erected everywhere. The signs were strident, in hand-painted capital letters.

  NO NUKES!

  MY BODY, MY CHOICE

  IMPEACH BARRETT

  Ha! That one got his attention. Impeach him for what? There were many others, but David Barrett stopped reading them.

  People were living in this park. There were a lot of them. The people were dirty, in shabby clothes. Some were awake. Cigarette ends lit up brightly as smokers inhaled. They were staring at him. Eyes followed David’s progress beneath crazy tangles of hair and above long, dense beards.

  “Aqualung my friend,” David said under his breath. “Don’t you start away uneasy.”

  These people were living right across from the White House. Why didn’t he know this? You’d think someone would have informed him. Talk about a security breach. They didn’t show things like this on maps.

  The street was deserted this time of night. Maybe a hundred yards down from him, to his right, a car was parked. It was just outside the concrete traffic barriers, and its lights were on. The car itself appeared to be yellow, and it had something on the roof. It could be a police car, he supposed, or a pizza delivery car, but he didn’t think so.

  He walked toward the car, almost dizzy with the sensation of being outside the fence, and outside his protective circle. He reminded himself that he could go back inside anytime he wanted.

  He got a vague sense of being an animal who was domesticated, then suddenly released into the wild. Would the animal survive out there?

  Slowly he unwrapped the jacket from his hand and his forearm. Ah! He knew it. His hand was bleeding, pretty badly. The spike at the top of the fence had stabbed right through the jacket and punched a hole in his palm.

  The bloody hole in the middle of his hand looked like an all-seeing eye. Like the stigmata of Christ. The blood from it ran down his arm toward his elbow. It was a mess. He flexed his fingers and shook his head. He was going to have to get that cleaned up somehow. He didn’t want to get an infection. Absently, he held the windbreaker to his hand, hoping that would stanch the blood a bit.

  The sign on top of the car clearly said TAXI.

  He had arrived at the car. It was a taxi, parked along the sidewalk, doing what? Waiting for a fare after four in the morning? He reached for the rear door and pulled the handle. It was locked. He tapped the window a few times.

  The door made the sound of an automatic lock opening. Ca-thunk!

  Suddenly, there came the sound of shoes running on pavement. David looked up and a man was running down the block toward him, coming from the David’s right. He was moving very fast.

  David stepped back, nearly frozen. Instantly, he understood his own foolishness. This was why he had protection. Outside the fence three minutes, and already he was under attack. Had Elizabeth felt this way when she realized…

  “Hey, buddy, I need that cab!” the man said.

  He was breathless, gasping for air. His eyes were wild. He was bearded, and his face was half-covered in blood. His shirt was torn. He grabbed the door and wrenched it open. He was going to take David Barrett’s taxi.

  But he stopped. He stared at David for a moment. His head craned gently to the side, his mouth hanging open. He was missing one of his front teeth. He glanced back the way he had come, apparently looking to see if anyone was in pursuit.

  When he turned back, his eyes had lit up in a strange kind of wonder. He held the door to the taxi wide open.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. President. That was rude. You take the cab. You were here first. I’ll find another one.”

  “Thank you,” David said. “Very kind of you.”

  The man held out his hand and David shook it.

  “It’s an honor to meet you, sir,” the man said.

  David slid into the car. The man closed the door behind him, made sure it was firmly shut, then took off running again.

  The taxi driver turned around and looked at David. He was a young, dark-skinned man with a beard, wearing a green turban. He smiled broadly. They stared at each other for a moment. If anything, the smile stren
gthened. The man was grinning maniacally now. He was positively beaming. David didn’t think he had ever seen a smile quite like it. Was the man insane? He could easily be mistaken for a suicide bomber.

  “Sir!” the man said. “My name is Jahjeet, at your service! You may simply call me Jeet, if you prefer. That is my nickname.”

  “Are you Muslim?” David said.

  The man shook his head. “Sikh. We are a religion of peace, and you have nothing to fear from me. I came here from Punjab, and this is the best moment of my life! I am so proud of this night. Wait until I inform my wife! The American president was in my taxicab. Where may I take you?”

  The man’s enthusiasm was endearing. It would be nice if some of the other people David dealt with demonstrated half this much fire.

  “Well, Jeet,” David said, “just drive. I’ll tell you where we’re going in a minute.”

  What he didn’t want to add was: As soon as I figure it out myself.

  “Of course! We can drive all night, if it pleases you. I will not even turn on the meter. This drive is free of charge.”

  The car lurched out from the curb and moved along the edge of the park. Briefly, David considered having the man drive around to the entrance of the White House grounds and take him back inside. There would be a strange scene at the guard station, but it would probably be the prudent thing to do.

  Of course, he would spend the day trying to explain his escapade to a group of people who might not have his best interests at heart. They had already stripped him of the presidency once. He didn’t relish the idea of defending his actions to the team of psychiatrists Mark Baylor had called in to assess David’s mental stability.

  He took the cell phone out of his pocket. It was a cheap, nondescript unit, a flip phone. It had prepaid minutes already loaded on it, and it had never been used before. Calling from it was a completely anonymous endeavor, as anonymous as anything could be in this age of spy satellites and communications data mining by supercomputer.

  It was the kind of phone that Lawrence Keller used to refer to as a “burner.”