Line of Succession: A Thriller

by William Tyree

  The blue marlin leapt into the air, shaking its mighty head in hopes of freeing itself from the barbed hook in its mouth. It seemed to drift in mid-air for a moment before falling tail-first back into the Atlantic.

  “You see that?” Dex Jackson said. A toothpick stuck out the corner of his mouth. “He’s fading. Another half hour and he’s dinner.”

  His son, LeBron, didn’t seem so sure of that. The obese 12-year-old was strapped into a game fishing chair on the back of his father’s Predator sports boat. LeBron was no outdoorsman, and the marlin was diving hard, taking up slack, whipping the rod tip around with supernatural force. The reel was actually smoking as the thick line spun out at more than ten feet per second. Dex trickled some bottled water over it to cool it off.

  LeBron’s palms were bleeding. “Dad,” he said, “Can you take it? Please?”

  “This ain’t no video game,” Dex said. “C’mon, boy. You can do this.”

  This summer, the 56-year-old Defense Secretary had vowed to get his youngest child off his soft video-gaming ass and into the great outdoors. LeBron was one hundred percent nerd. He was already on his fourth set of ever more powerful prescription glasses, a fact that Dex attributed to his all-nighters staring at game monitors. It was classic – LeBron had even gotten beaten up by jocks just before the summer break. When Dex asked the school’s Vice Principal why it happened, he showed Dex his notes from the head bully: “We jumped LeBron cuz he’s such a fat pussy.”

  Dex blamed himself. His own childhood had been 180-degrees from LeBron’s, having racked up a 45-3 amateur boxing record prior to entering West Point, from which the structural integrity of his nose cartilage had never recovered. But since going into politics after a stellar military career, he’d let his work take over his life and left LeBron to a life of shopping with his mother and long nights of video gaming. But now he was going to change all that. The kid needed to build some muscle, see a few sunsets and breathe some air that hadn’t been breathed before.

  Angie Jackson was twenty years her husband’s junior and many times more sympathetic. She stroked LeBron’s forehead. “I’ll get you some gloves, baby.”

  Something caught Dex’s eye. A boat in the distance. He grabbed his binoculars.

  It was a powerboat. He saw three men in black wetsuits, but they didn’t look like recreational divers. They sure as hell didn’t look like anglers.

  Angie held the rod for LeBron as he quickly slipped the gloves over his lacerated hands.

  Dex’s phone rang. “ESC,” the Executive Support Center within the Pentagon, came up on the ID. Shit. He’d been on vacation less than two hours, and his staff was already pinging him. He answered. It was General Wainewright’s assistant, Corporal Hammond.

  “We’re evacuating to Site R,” Corporal Hammond said without elaboration. “A Coast Guard vessel is en route to escort you back to shore.”

  “Are they in an unmarked boat?” Dex said, but Hammond had already hung up.

  “Everything okay?” Angie said.

  Dex picked up the binoculars again. The powerboat was coming straight for them. He looked at LeBron. The boy was finally getting into it, getting some leverage over the fish. Dex saw his boy changing before his eyes.

  Then he looked out again at the boat and knew he had to stop thinking so much. That sure as hell didn’t look like any Coast Guard patrol he’d ever seen.

  “Let the fish go,” he said.

  LeBron was incredulous. As much pain as he was in, he wanted the fish. He wanted to prove something.

  “Let it go, boy,” Dex said. “I’m not asking you.”

  Martha’s Vineyard

  11:10 a.m.

  Eva Hudson’s plastic oversized sunglasses covered nearly half her face. She peered into the window of an upscale boutique in Edgartown, a quintessential Martha’s Vineyard village – complete with an old red brick lighthouse – that had remained largely unchanged for more than a century. She walked past the famous Whaling Church, with its white Greek columns and fortress-solid structure that had been crafted by shipbuilders one hundred and fifty some-odd years earlier. After a bit of shopping, she planned to take in the 11:30 a.m. church service. Nothing in the world left her feeling more centered than an hour with a hundred strangers praying in unison.

  She loved Edgartown’s white picket fence sensibility. It was a bit more upscale than Oak Bluff, the island village that former Presidents and several notable rap stars liked to frequent. Last year, she and the President had stolen away from the watchful eyes of his security detail and squeezed into a local tour of the historic homes of long-dead whaling captains. After a couple years of sneaking around the White House, the unsupervised three-hour tour had felt as good as a prison break.

  She lifted her sunglasses and leaned into the storefront glass, getting a good look at her face. Damn. That tanning salon had gotten her way too orange. And the crow’s feet were back. She’d have to make another appointment with the dermatologist. It was well known that Presidents aged visibly – and quickly – during their time in office, but she swore this term had been harder on her than on Hatch.

  As her eye traveled downward, she found that she was much happier about the rest of her. The Treasury Secretary had been running seven miles a day for the past month in hopes of having a bikini-ready bod for her planned weekend sneak-away with the President. Now that the President was going to Camp David instead, Eva was more determined than ever. Her fantasy for this morning was to buy a skimpy swimsuit, have someone take a photo of her in it, and make the President insanely jealous.

  It would never happen. The paparazzi would prevent her from actually wearing it on the beach. Upon her arrival at her private rental two hours earlier, the maid had spotted the tabloid press boats already gathering about one hundred yards off the shoreline.

  All the fuss was a bit stunning. Without advance reservations, Martha’s Vineyard was relatively hard to get to in the summertime. The island’s airport was tiny. Flights were expensive and booked solid from June through September. The ferries were fully booked months in advance. Eva figured the photo bug vermin must have boated in from New York’s Fire Island or maybe Providence. She tried to convince herself that it was just as well the President hadn’t come.

  This was daily life since Vanity Fair had dubbed her the World’s Sexiest Fed. Suddenly, her professional image had seemed to melt away, and she appeared in the same gossip rags as Hollywood actresses. It got worse when one of the President’s nannies had come forward, selling a story to the New York Post that she and the President had a romantic relationship when serving together in the Virginia Governor’s mansion.

  Eva heard a car slow behind her. Fearing paparazzi, she looked up, using the boutique’s storefront glass as a rearview mirror.

  Then she saw him – Special Agent Hector Rios, the President’s personal security chief. He was impossible to miss among the throngs of summery tourists – six-foot-ten and 260 pounds, down from his NFL playing weight of over three hundred, in a regulation black suit, earpiece and sunglasses.

  Eva spun on her Sunday heels and tramped across the street. “Agent Rios!” she fumed as she bored in on him. “What do you think you’re doing here?”

  “Morning, Madam Secretary,” Rios said as politely as he could. “The POTUS asked me to come.”

  “To keep tabs on me?”

  “No ma’am,” Rios said. He wondered where the hostility was coming from. He had never had anything but sunshine from Eva. “For your personal security, of course.”

  “Tell the President that number one, I don’t like to be watched, and number two, his personal security detail is funded by the taxpayers to provide protection for him and his family.”

  “Yes ma’am, but…”

  “I don’t qualify as family, Agent Rios. Period. If Isaac wants to send his personal security detail to Martha’s Vineyard, then he needs to get his presidential ass here. Got it?”

  Agent Rios remained calm behind his sunglasses
. ”Yes ma’am. I’ll be sure to let him know.”

  Eva stormed down the street. Rios waited until she was nearly out of sight. Then he pursued her, keeping his distance.

  Chesapeake Bay

  The powerboat was closing the distance on Dex Jackson’s marlin boat.

  “Cut the line,” Dex growled at LeBron in the same low, insisting tone Dex used on their Rottweiler at home when it misbehaved. LeBron let the Marlin reel line away from the pole’s spindle, undid his seat belts and pried himself from the sweat-soaked chair. The line on the reel soon reached its end. LeBron reached for the wire cutters to snip the line, but it was too late. The pole yanked out of its holder and flew into the boat’s wake.

  “Dex?” Angie said, looking out at the powerboat. Her voice welled up with fear. “What is it?”

  “The anchor!” she cried up to the cockpit, where her husband had already fired up the engines, and was trying to put distance between them and the other boat.

  Dex put the boat in neutral and climbed back down. He shoved LeBron and Angie aside and began craning up the anchor. He had it into the boat in under a minute.

  Angie picked up the binoculars and looked out at the oncoming powerboat, which was now barely two hundred yards out. She spotted two men in black wetsuits with M4s. “Dex,” she said, her voice shaky. “They have guns! Oh my God!”

  He climbed back up to the cockpit and put the engines on full ahead. The boat suddenly jerked forward. Angie wasn’t braced for it. She plunged over the back of the boat and into the drink.

  LeBron called to his father, who had his full attention on maneuvering the new boat that he was only now becoming familiar with. But over the roar of the surging engines, and the distraction of the fast-approaching vessel full of apparent assassins, he didn’t hear.

  LeBron climbed up to the cockpit and threw the boat in neutral. “Mom’s overboard,” he said hysterically. “We have to go back.” By then she had drifted half a football field away.

  Dex shifted the boat down to one-quarter ahead and made a U-Turn with his left hand. With his right, he trained his binoculars on the assassins. He saw a man with a Stinger missile and two others brandishing assault rifles.

  They were so close now. Angie was halfway between the two vessels. Dex looked at the gunmen, and at his wife, and his son. Back and forth.

  LeBron saw his father contemplating the unthinkable.

  “Dad?” he said. “Dad!”

  *

  From the deck of the little power boat, and through the scope of his Stinger Missile launcher, Elvir Divac spotted the woman flailing in the cold Atlantic. She was halfway between them and Defense Secretary Jackson’s weekender. Elvir wiped the stinging salt from his cheeks. The pale Bosnian’s complexion was already sunburned.

  “Hey,” he called up to Ali, his partner, in stilted Muskogee. “Slow down.”

  Ali cut engines altogether. The boat steadied and Elvir took another look in the scope. Who was she? Secretary Jackson’s wife, maybe? Was she hurt? Could she swim?

  He felt Ali’s narrow brown eyes glaring at him. “What are you waiting for?” he demanded. Ali had been increasingly nervous about getting caught for the past two weeks. “Fire the missile!”

  Elvir found the boat in the viewfinder. He wished he had another weapon for this mission. The heat-seeking Stingers were best suited to shooting down aircraft, not watercraft. He switched the launcher to manual and disabled the infrared targeting system. He aimed, took a deep breath, and released the rocket.

  The weapon took flight, zipping about thirty meters behind the vessel’s aft. He took another missile and reloaded the launcher. When he looked up again, an orange buoy shot from the Secretary’s boat, well short of the woman’s position in the water.

  “Hurry!” Ali said.

  He raised the second Stinger to his shoulder and steadied it. The waves were getting bigger now. It took him a few moments to find the horizon, and then the weekender, in the scope. When he did, he was astonished to see Secretary Jackson powering away at full speed away while his wife treaded water. She didn’t appear to be wearing a life vest, and the current was carrying her away from the float tube.

  Ali saw her now too. “Forget her,” he said.

  Elvir again fixed on the target. The message in the scope this time: **WARNING** TARGET OUT OF RANGE**

  He fired anyway, raising the launcher’s nose. The projectile made a gentle arc over the water, falling well short and exploding at the water’s surface. He looked back at the woman. The current carried her toward them. She tried to swim against it, but it was no use.

  Ali raised his rifle and advanced a round into the chamber.

  “No,” Elvir said, putting his hand over the muzzle. “This was not the plan.”

  Martha’s Vineyard

  11:11 a.m.

  Eva stepped into Mocha Mott’s and went to the counter. “Double espresso, dash of maple syrup, no foam.” She swiped her debit card and was quickly distracted – along with the wait staff – by the CNN broadcast on the wall-mounted television. The sound was muted, but a red ticker appeared at the bottom of the screen that read: JUST IN - REPORTS OF A CAR BOMB IN MONROE. HUNDREDS FEARED DEAD.”

  The footage onscreen was an aerial shot, presumably from a helicopter, of what looked like an entire city block in ruins.

  Eva felt someone watching her. She looked outside. Agent Rios stood across the street. Before she could get angry, her phone buzzed. She took it out of her purse. The display read “THREAT LEVEL RED. SECRET SERVICE EN ROUTE.”

  What do you mean en route? Eva thought. I’m looking at him.

  Outside Mocha Mott’s, Agent Rios read the emergency directives sent from the Homeland Security Acting Director Davis on his mobile phone. Rios’ orders were to leave the Vineyard immediately and rejoin the POTUS’ security detail, which was regrouping in Washington D.C.

  This struck Rios as odd. For starters, he’d been told that morning that the POTUS was en route to Camp David, and in the event of an imminent threat, the POTUS was to enter the tunnels there and be transported via underground shuttle to Site R. He would absolutely not return to govern from Washington D.C. at a time like this. That would be contrary to the administration’s emergency plan.

  Secondly, he was standing across the street from Eva Hudson, a sitting cabinet secretary and member of the National Security Council. She was fifth in line to the POTUS, just behind the Veep, Speaker of the House, President pro tempore and Secretary of State. Securing the top five in the line of succession was a well-understood priority during red status.

  Just then, a convertible jeep pulled up to the curb. Two men got out quickly. Among the flocks of well-heeled tourists, they were as out of place as he was – dark suits, buzz cuts, sunglasses. As they neared the entrance of Mocha Mott’s, they reached into their jackets. It looked an awful lot like a weapons draw.

  Rios instinctively reached for his Glock 9mm and shouted across the street. “Freeze! Hands up!”

  Both men spun around firing. Shots ricocheted against the brick wall behind Rios. But the Secret Service agent’s marksmanship was dead accurate. Four shots. Both men took two rounds square in the chest and collapsed on the sidewalk. The entire firefight was over less than two seconds after it started.

  Birds flew. Traffic froze. Pedestrians froze in fear. Then the first rivulet of blood trickled from the bodies on the sidewalk. Now the screaming started, and within seconds the mobs ducked into stores and behind telephone poles.

  Rios dashed across the street to check on Eva. He went inside Mocha Motts with his gun drawn. He found her hiding behind the counter, trying to raise the President on her cell phone.

  Over North Carolina

  11:12 a.m.

  The U.S. Army C-130 cargo plane flew like a winged whale over the verdant North Carolina countryside. Agent Carver, Agent O’Keefe and the esteemed convict Nico Gold sat on a bench that ran along one side of the plane. The federal agents were still in their suits from the nig
ht before. Nico had been allowed to change into the civilian clothes that he had been arrested in – a pair of jeans and a vintage Atari t-shirt that both still fit, although he had not worn them since his first day of incarceration 39 months earlier. A dozen paratroopers sat on the row opposite, talking only amongst themselves.

  Carver hated hitching rides on military transports. The conditions were rarely comfortable, but he could hardly afford to use his scant budget to buy airline tickets when perfectly good military planes were crisscrossing the country 24/7.

  Nico did not wait well. He fidgeted and sighed, wishing for something – anything – to read or do. He had been allowed to take just one personal effect from the Federal Pen– a photo of moon-faced Madge Howland.

  “Pen pal?” O’Keefe asked after seeing him obsess over Madge’s photo.

  “Fiancé,” Nico corrected, shoving the photo back into his jeans pocket.

  O’Keefe eyed Nico’s tattoos – the block letters E-V-A, on each forearm. “Eva,” she read aloud. “That’s her name?”

  Carver, who had fully researched Nico Gold’s past before recruiting him, answered for him: “Eva was his mother’s name.”

  Nico shook his head. “You’re half-right, snoop. Eva’s the name of the woman who put me into the world. It’s also the name of the woman who took me out of it. ”

  O’Keefe squinted in puzzlement. “What? Now I’m confused.”

  “He means Eva Hudson,” Carver explained.

  “As in the Secretary of the Treasury?”

  “Bingo. She was Assistant Director at the IMF when Nico went on his little Robin Hood kick.”

  “I can speak for myself,” Nico said. “The IMF and the World Bank are nothing more than self-serving bureaucracies. I was simply taking what belonged to the world and redistributing it to people that really needed it. There’s a full explanation in my autobiography.”