Empire

by Brandt Legg

  After checking with their commanding officer, who was using Aspen Lodge—formerly the president’s private residence—as his headquarters, approval was obtained. The soldiers spent an additional twenty minutes searching and securing Holly Cabin before moving the eleven-member presidential party into their new lodgings.

  The president waited by the window, watching to make sure the soldiers weren’t coming back inside. Schueller and Melissa joined him after a few minutes.

  “Are you sure we can get there from here?” Melissa asked in a hushed tone.

  “I was told about the entrance, but I never saw it,” Hudson whispered. “And I haven’t been in the passageway. It’s possible it could be blocked, but allegedly it’s connected to the safe room.”

  Built during the first year of the Kennedy administration, directly under the president’s residence, Aspen Lodge, was a secret safe room where the president and his family could escape to in the event of danger or attack. The existence of the room was highly classified, with only a few people other than the president knowing about it. While it could not withstand a direct nuclear strike, it had been designed to keep the president safe in the event of a nuclear attack on Washington, DC, some sixty-two miles away.

  The president had thought of the safe room, but upon learning that the occupying military unit had assumed Aspen Lodge as their headquarters, he knew getting there would be impossible. He’d forgotten about the existence of an old underground passageway from Holly Cabin, which used to be the main meeting facility until the newer Laurel Lodge was built, to the safe room.

  “Even if we find the entrance, and the passageway isn’t blocked,” Schueller whispered, “they must know about the safe room.”

  “Maybe not,” Hudson said quietly, still watching the soldiers out the window. “As you know, Camp David isn’t just the presidential country retreat. It’s actually a military installation officially known as Naval Support Facility Thurmont. The Commanding Officer is the only one, outside of the head of a handful of the Secret Service, who knows about the safe room. I doubt he’s given that information to these traitors. He’s a career officer, a ringing patriot, and the thought of a coup destroying nearly two hundred fifty years of democracy will sicken him.”

  “Then we have a chance,” Schueller said.

  The president went over their plan again with Fitz and 007, the only other two who would go with the first family, while the others stayed behind and made sure to be seen regularly moving about the cabin.

  Trying to hide his anguish over abandoning them, Hudson thanked each of them personally, knowing he or any of them could be dead in minutes. He didn’t want to leave them behind, but the safe room only held four people. They were already pushing it with five; they didn’t know how long they would be forced to remain inside the bunker.

  Hudson and Schueller went into a large storage closet and checked his memory.

  “Look here,” the president said. “If we pull this lever, this whole shelf will move to one side.”

  “What lever?” Schueller asked, straining to see anything mechanical that could open a door.

  His father pointed up to a piece of painted wood molding that seemed to have been there for a hundred years. “Impressively concealed, isn’t it?”

  Schueller nodded, still not believing the molding would move or open anything. “What about all the stuff on the shelf?” Schueller pointed to the shelves full of plates, glassware, table linens, serving platters, candlesticks, and other banquet related items.

  “It’s all with hydraulics or something,” the president said. “We open it slowly and none of it moves or falls off.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  The vice president grew increasingly impatient while waiting for the package from Booker. She sat in a corner of the empty office reviewing every detail of her plan. If the package doesn’t arrive in the next seven minutes, I’ll miss the window, she thought. Then what will I do? I can’t go back to face execution.

  Just then, the phone rang.

  “It should be there in ten minutes,” Booker said after she’d answered. “The security and check points in and around DC have proved more difficult than I’d hoped, and, of course, there’s no non-military air traffic allowed.”

  “I don’t have that much time.”

  “Then get out of the building with the messenger. He’ll be able to move you to a hidden location inside the city.”

  “I’d be recognized.”

  “It’ll be dark. I can protect you.”

  “No,” the vice president said. “I’m not going to let Imperia get away with this.”

  “Think about it. I’ll call back when he arrives.”

  The package arrived six minutes later. The man gave her a few brief instructions and a secure cell phone. As she headed back into the tunnel. Booker called a minute later as she was breathlessly running back to the White House.

  “You have to be careful,” Booker said.

  “Too late for that,” she said, panting.

  “I mean it,” Booker insisted. “You dead doesn’t advance the cause, understand?”

  “The messenger told me what to do,” she said. “He offered to go instead.”

  “I told him to.”

  “I told him not to!”

  “One day we’ll laugh about this.”

  “I doubt that,” she said. “Either way . . . get the truth out.”

  “I will. Talk to you soon.”

  “Booker, one more thing,” she said, dashing through the dimly lit corridor.

  “Yeah?”

  “Just in case, tell my husband I love him.”

  Vice President Celia Brown hurried down the winding tunnel under the White House, being careful not to trip in the faint light. The package in her hand could save the country and restore democracy, although, at that moment, she didn’t know if it would be her or Hudson who would be president—or neither—because she didn’t know if he was still alive. However, if she delivered the package and accomplished her task, the vice president felt sure that the generals could be toppled.

  For that to happen, though, much still had to be done, and she was almost out of time.

  General Imperia will not leave the White House, she thought. Then she went over the brief instructions the messenger had given her. “Simple and deadly dangerous,” he had warned.

  The vice president entered the passcode with trembling fingers and climbed the creaking wooden steps with less than two minutes to spare. She emerged from the tunnel entrance as the president’s aide paced nearby.

  “I didn’t think you were coming back,” he said, exhaling deeply.

  “Get to your office, hide under your desk,” she said. “Go now!”

  Vice President Celia Brown ran into her own office.

  General Imperia, accompanied by four military aides, arrived nine minutes late. The five uniformed men entered her office without knocking.

  “Ms. Brown,” the general said. “You have officially been relieved of your duties.”

  “By whose authority?”

  “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs will be sworn in as president in the morning,” Imperia said.

  “What about President Pound?” she demanded.

  “He is no longer,” Imperia said with a sly smile.

  Her wide-eyed expression made him laugh.

  “No longer president, I should say.” He looked to his subordinates. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “How do you plan to sell this military takeover to the American people?” she asked, hoping his answer would lead her closer to her goal.

  “The American people, in case you haven’t noticed, aren’t really interested in details,” he said. “This is all NorthBridge’s doing.”

  “Then you’ll be happy to know that we’ve identified the leadership of NorthBridge,” the vice president said.

  “Really? I don’t think so.”

  “I have the proof.�
�

  “Show it to me.”

  “It’s in Fitz’s office. I can get it.”

  Imperia narrowed his eyes. He needed that information. “Fine.” He turned to one of the aides. “Go with her.”

  The vice president pressed a hidden button under her desk, got up, and led the man toward the door. But before she could get out of the room, General Imperia got up and walked around to the other side of her desk.

  “Ms. Brown, wait.”

  For a split second she considered running from the room, but for some reason she turned and calmly answered, “Yes?”

  “When did you obtain this information?” He sat in her chair, putting his feet up on her desk. “And why would the Chief of Staff keep it in his office?”

  “The source came through Fitz,” she said. “He got it last night. The president, Fitz, and some others are deliberating this weekend at Camp David, deciding on the best strategy to use the data and what course of action to take.”

  “I don’t think so,” the general said.

  “It’s the truth,” the vice president insisted.

  “Tell me the names,” Imperia said.

  “I don’t recall them at the moment, but it’s all in Fitz’s office.”

  “Yes, I’m sure there’s something in there, but not the names of NorthBridge’s leaders, because Colonel Dranick, the Director of National Intelligence, was at Camp David with the president, and I was speaking with the Colonel on my way to meet you,” Imperia said, a suspicious, sinister tone in his voice. “Don’t you think that Colonel Dranick would have mentioned this piece of vital information to me?”

  “Perhaps Colonel Dranick is loyal to the president you just overthrew,” the vice president said calmly.

  “Perhaps he is not,” the general said emphatically.

  “Whatever,” the vice president said. “Decide for yourself after you see the report.” She slowly walked out the door. The aide hesitated a second, looking back to Imperia for guidance.

  BOOM! BOOOOOOOM!

  The massive explosion shook the entire building.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  The president asked Melissa, Schueller, Fitz, and Agent Bond to wait while he went back one more time to check that the guards were still outside and not suspicious. After a quick final ‘thank you’ to his aides and the other Secret Service agents who were being left behind, Hudson joined the others at the now open entrance to the passageway.

  They estimated it might take ten minutes for them to get from the tunnel at Holly Cabin to the safe room door under Aspen Lodge. The steps down were wider than Hudson had expected. As soon as they reached the passageway, lights embedded in the smooth tiled walls came on automatically.

  “Let’s hope they don’t know about the safe room,” the president said, estimating there was only about five feet of earth above the ceiling of the tunnel, “or this will be a short walk.”

  They hurried at a steady jog.

  “We don’t know how many soldiers are with them,” Fitz said. “They just pulled off a coup. What are they telling the American people? If they got your pal Dranick to go along, they could have the entire military.”

  “The REMies may have produced a video with me agreeing to give Alaska back to the Russians, for all I know,” Hudson said. “I’m sure they did something to make me look like a traitor.”

  “The American people will believe whatever the government tells them,” Schueller said. “Especially if it’s on TV.”

  They rounded a sharp curve and noticed the passageway started climbing gently. A minute later, Hudson, still in the lead, stopped at a fork.

  “I didn’t know about this,” he said.

  “Which way?” Fitz asked urgently.

  “Left,” Melissa said.

  “We’re probably under the main pathway,” Agent Bond speculated, “so it would be my guess that the right passage would go off to the Barracks or Hickory.”

  “Then left it is,” Hudson said. The five fugitives resumed their jog.

  “What are we going to do in the safe room?” Fitz asked.

  “There’s a satellite phone, computer, communications link . . . ” the president said.

  “What if it doesn’t work?”

  “It’ll work.”

  A few minutes later, they came to another fork.

  “Now which way?” the president asked.

  “It looks like the left one goes in a wide sweep,” Agent Bond said after checking it out. “Visualizing the layout of the area, the right passage is more likely to go to Aspen. In fact, we should be close.”

  “Where does the left one go, 007?” Schueller asked.

  “Probably to the helipad,” Agent Bond replied.

  “Helipad? Why don’t we go there?” Schueller asked.

  “Why?” Hudson said. “Do you have a helicopter waiting for us?”

  “Marine One might still be there.”

  “He’s got a point,” Melissa said.

  Fitz scoffed. “It’s unlikely that they overlooked an obvious detail like that.”

  “They overlooked the safe room,” Schueller said. “And these passageways.”

  “Let’s hope they did,” Fitz said.

  “We could split up,” Melissa suggested.

  “Too risky,” Hudson replied. “We’re going to the safe room.” He entered the right passageway. Melissa, Schueller, and Fitz followed, with Agent Bond bringing up the rear. Soon they saw a door up ahead.

  “That doesn’t look like the safe room,” Hudson said as they approached it. “Hopefully it’s on the other side.”

  When they reached the door, Hudson found it was secured with a double biometric security feature. A palm print was required at the same time as an iris scanner did a retinal read.

  “I sure hope that’s up-to-date,” Schueller whispered. “It may be set for George Bush, for all we know.”

  Hudson moved his hand and positioned his eye, ready to try it, when they suddenly heard running feet coming from the passage behind them.

  “Don’t move!” a man shouted. “Stay where you are!”

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  As the gray, Washington, DC winter sky faded into that uncertain shade prior to nightfall, the White House complex appeared as if a missile had hit. A gaping, smoldering crater had torn through the West Wing after the southwest section of the building erupted into a fireball of flames. Acrid smoke billowed into a choking cloud of dust and debris. Twisting shrapnel and chunks of brick, stone, and mortar rained down in a lethal mix with shards of glass, splintered wood, and burning tar. The White House itself was on fire. Sirens, screams, and hundreds of soldiers converged almost instantly onto the chaotic scene.

  Below it all, caught in a tangle of broken boards, hot metal, and thick, smoky air, Vice President Celia Brown coughed out dust and blood. “Thank God,” she wheezed. “I’m alive.”

  She’d darted from her office to the hall and into the closet with the secret tunnel entrance a second before the bomb went off. As the blast reverberated outward from her desk, the vice president dove onto the old wooden staircase, which collapsed beneath her.

  It worked, she thought. General Imperia is dead. No one could survive that hell.

  As the vice president crawled out of the pile of rubble surrounding her, she whispered, “You screwed with the wrong vice president, Imperia, because I’m AKA Adams.”

  The package she’d asked Booker to get, which the messenger had delivered to her at the Treasury Building, contained Gruell-75, the top-secret military grade explosive made by SkyNok, a Booker-owned company which used a patented and classified manufacturing technique, combined with tactically engineered components, to produce the advanced, lightweight, and extremely pliable material which packed eighty-seven times more force than any prior forms of compound-explosives. There was enough Gruell-75 to blow half the building, which it did quite efficiently.

  She stumbled to her feet and staggered down the tunnel, hoping to reach the Treasury B
uilding before she collapsed. Her phone vibrated, which up until that moment she had forgotten she had. It took great effort to maneuver it from her pocket, and then she saw it was Booker. As soon as she answered it, she realized she couldn’t hear.

  “I’m deaf,” she said as she kept pushing forward.

  Seconds later, Booker texted her. How bad are you hurt? Where are you?

  “I have some blood,” she said, unable to hear her own words. “Going to Treasury.”

  I’ll have the messenger meet you there, Booker typed.

  “NorthBridge strikes again!” she said.

  We’ll certainly get blamed, Booker typed. Especially when they find Gruell-75 residue. Fonda will have to do another piece about how suspicious it is that my hi-tech explosive keeps showing up in the damnedest places.

  “Imperia’s dead.”

  So are you, for the time being, Booker typed. We still have a lot of work to do, and we don’t have any good information on if the president is alive. But once we have you safe, we’ll get you on the air, the internet, across the cell networks, the radio, everywhere. You can denounce the coup and tell the world the truth.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  The biometric reader authenticated Hudson’s identity and the lock released. The door opened automatically. He pushed Melissa through the opening and then grabbed Schueller’s arm.

  “You first, Dad,” Schueller protested. “You’re the important one.”

  “Not nearly as important as you,” the president said, yanking Schueller through the door with him. They found themselves in a small foyer. Another door on the left wall most likely lead to the stairs up to Aspen Lodge, and across from them was the vault-like door to the safe room.

  As shots ricocheted against the walls of the passageway, Fitz dove into the foyer. Another shot bounced off the floor near the door.

  “I’m hit!” Fitz yelped.